Explore. Experiment. Discover
Copyright Š 2017 Student document publication meant for private circulation only. All rights reserved. Master of Design, Product Design, 2014-17 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India No parts of this document will be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, xerography, photography and videography recording without written permission from the publisher, Mayur Bhalavi and National Institute of Design. All illustrations and photographs in this document are Copyright Š 2017 by respective people/organisations. Edited and designed byMayur Bhalavi mayurb2708@gmail.com Processed atNational Institute of Design (NID) Paldi, Ahmedabad - 380007 Gujarat, India www.nid.edu Printed digitally in Ahmedabad, India October, 2017
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and it contains no full or substantial copy of previously published material, or it does not even contain substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or final graduation of any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in this graduation project. Moreover I also declare that none of the concepts are borrowed or copied without due acknowledgement. I further declare that the intellectual content of this graduation project is the product of my own words, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. This graduation project (or a part of it) was not and will not be submitted as assessed work i any other academic course. Student Name : MAYUR SHIVRAM BHALAVI Signature : Date :
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT I hereby grant the National Institute of Design the right to archive and to make available my graduation project/thesis/dissertation in whole or in part in the Institute’s Knowledge Management Centre in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provision of the Copyright Act. I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my document or I have obtained permission to use copyright material. Student Name : MAYUR SHIVRAM BHALAVI Signature : Date :
SYNOPSIS
In the context of Industrial Design, for a long period of time since its inceptions, the emphasis has been on the physical shape of the devices, the forms and shapes, their function, the materials and the manufacturing processes to be followed. These all are important, to be sure, but today the focus is shifting from objects to the experiences that result from interacting with them. Sadly, the concept of experience is misunderstood and is being associated with user’s comfort levels and their utilitarian satisfaction. To understand ‘experience’ we need to go beyond these product attributes of function and form, even beyond simple ergonomics. The products we (humans) create for ourselves are there to serve us some purpose. And to use them, we need to interact with them and the various attributes of a product guide us in this process. Without denying the fact that the way people interact with them is clearly product-dependent, they always use their senses to perceive it. They use their motor skills and their knowledge to operate or communicate with it, and during the interaction they process the information they perceive, they may experience one or more ‘emotions’, and they are likely to form an affective evaluation of the product. This project is my personal attempt at breaking free from the conventional approach for designing products which till now, in my academic learning, involved looking at products as solutions to the user problems and which should be designed by using a set of analytical research (tools to break down the problem) and coming up with concepts (that solves the most of it). The project starts with a realisation that products are experiences, capable of evoking emotions, and not merely objects-of-purpose. This realisation is luckily followed by stumbling upon a concept (newspaper furniture) that was capable of evoking emotional experience in the people. To actualise that and translate the concept into objects, my process has involved spontaneous and intuitive ‘experimentation’, both with material (newspaper) and the thinkingprocess. With the sole objective being to explore the material, I have focused more on ‘making’ and less on ‘thinking’, keeping the concept intact. Finally, I have tried to give a commercial and socially meaningful turn to the project by working with a social enterprise for women empowerment which designs and sells handcrafted newspaper products (in Auroville). Although this part of project did not go as expected, I am happy to be able to materialise my inspiration. I have thoroughly enjoyed the meticulousness of the making process and also arriving at unexpected results at times. I am also happy with the learnings and increased selfawareness happened during the course of the project while simultaneously discovering my love for paper and experimental design. Hence the title, ‘Expaprimentation’.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to everyone who has been a part of this project as well as my life during the project. I express my special gratitude to the invisible forces which have taken me to unanticipated places and people for they have a major role in directing me ahead through the process. I am thankful to my mentor and guide at NID, Professor Rama Krishna Rao for his guidance and more importantly, maintaining a good balance between pushing me to broaden the scope of the project and trusting me for being intuitive with my process. I am thankful to my good friends in Germany, Nicole, Greg and Sunny who took us on a trip to Bauhaus (Dessau) which has led to the inception of this project. I am thankful to Prof. Adrian Peach and Mr. Gerald Hanke from HTW Berlin (my Exchange University) for the exposure and their guidance during my early work on the subject of newspaper furniture. I am thankful to Prof. Suresh Sethi for introducing me to the topics of ‘Storytelling through Self-expression in Product Design’. I am thankful to Professor Praveen Nahar and my senior at NID, Sahil Thappa for helping me get me the clarity about Making. I am thankful to all the Akkas (craftswomen) of Auroville for sharing their knowledge about newspaper craft and for their humble help with everything there. Their warmth, enthusiasm and strength will forever be in my memory. I thank Danny and the entire Wellpaper team for their trust and support. I am thankful to the members of my home-away-fromhome, my friends Neela, Prasam, Bharat, Amritha and Zeel for being their with their encouragement, fun, criticism and help. I thank Bharat for recommending Auroville to me. I am thankful to all my teacher at NID and HTW Berlin for their teachings and the NID staff for their support esp. KMC for the resources and the old newspapers they donated me. I am thankful to the anime ‘Naruto’ for cheering me up and making my days when things were a mess. Finally I thank all the people around the world making beautiful objects out of paper for being an inspiration.
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CONTENTS NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN
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THE JOURNEY
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IT BEGINS WITH A ‘CONCERN’
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1. Real Experiences
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2. That Happy Accident
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EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
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3. Expaperimentation
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SWIMMING UPSTREAM
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4. Stretching the comfort-zone
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5. I walk alone. Again.
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6. Keep on keeping on
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7. Confrontation
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SUMMARY
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CONCLUSIONS
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WHAT LIES AHEAD?
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REFERENCES
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ANNEXURE
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NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN The establishment of NID was a result of several forces, both global and local. The late 1950s saw a confluence of these forces, and this time would be a significant one for Indian culture and education. This was a time of reappraisal and reconstruction in a newly independent India. A young nation was confronted with the mammoth task of nation building, of balancing age old traditions with modern technology and ideas. The Modern Movement, the philosophy of Machine Aesthetics, and revolutionary experimentation in the arts, architecture and design were all taking place at the same time. There was a search for the Indian identity across all aspects of life. Th e 1 9 5 0 s w e r e a d e c a d e o f r a p i d industrialisation in India and clearly, the need for such an institute grew stronger. In 1957 the Government of India requested the Ford Foundation to invite Charles and Ray Eames to visit India. Charles and Ray Eames travelled to all parts of the country, meeting and talking to writers, craftspeople, architects, scientists, industrialists, educators and philosophers.
On April 7, 1958, the Eameses presented the India Report to the Government of India. The Eames Report defined the underlying spirit that would lead to the founding of NID and beginning of design education in India. The Report recommended a problem-solving design consciousness that linked learning with actual experience and suggested that the designer could be a bridge between tradition and modernity. The Report called upon future designers to re-examine the alternatives of growth available to the country at that time. The philosophy of the Bauhaus design movement which was learning by doing was revived and made a part of the academic foundation. This unique curriculum and revolutionary educational philosophy remain part of NID to the present day. Today the National Institute of Design is internationally acclaimed as one of the finest educational and research institutions know for its interdisciplinary learning environment and its holistic approach towards design thinking.
(Source: www.nid.edu) 5 Expaperimentation | Degree Project


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PRODUCT DESIGN AT NID Product design is concerned primarily with the relationship between products, systems and those who use them. The product design programme at NID inculcates user-centric approach and processes. Responsibility and concern towards the social, physical and ecological environments is emphasised in the process of developing innovative ideas. The product design programme assimilates inputs in diverse domains such as human factors, cognitive ergonomics, form studies, studio skills, advanced CAD, research methods, design management, materials & manufacturing processes & social sciences. Emphasis is on process centric approach which shapes a student’s education through participation and teamwork. Design projects form the core of a product designer’s education, with gradual increase in level of complexity and cover broad areas that product designers are likely to encounter in their professional careers. The teaching approach starts with understanding products in their own physical boundary and concluding with understanding them as part of the entire system. This is done through the three major design projects- Simple Products, Technically Complex Products and Systems Thinking.
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DEGREE PROJECT The end of the student’s academic time at the National Institute of Design is marked by the culmination of a substantial investigation in the field of design on a topic closely allied to the discipline of their study. It is through the degree project and the subsequent documentation of the same that this investigation takes place. The degree project is an opportunity for the students to demonstrate their expertise as independent practitioners of design. The project must be done with academic rigour incorporating systemic inquiry and informed design decisions. The phrase ‘systemic enquire’ implies the presence of structure and method by which a student must carry out his/her project. The degree project reflects the ideology of individual manifested through creativity and innovation. The project leads to new knowledge and experience creation and should be for the greater good. This project aim to widen the personal understanding of the discipline of product design by exploring other aspects of product interaction and designing products based on the concepts of multi-sensory experience and storytelling.
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PREFACE Design, as I have been learning and practising in my academics, has been a process that involves identifying the concerns of people in a given context and creating solutions which resolve their existing unfavourable conditions and bring about a pleasurable experience. With this project, I want to take a step back and reflect upon myself to identify my personal concerns as a designer. I want, before anything else, to address these concerns of mine that have been lying unattended in some corners of my mind and which at times surface up spurring anxiety and restlessness, causing creative blocks leading to poorly designed products and eventually a dissatisfaction with work. The actualisation of the project actually begins with me stumbling upon a concept which according to my gutfeeling had a potential to help me address my concern. For this, my approach here is based on the ground of experimental design (ED) wherein the primary objective of the designer is explore, experiment and discover. ED is primarily motivated by curiosity and is defined more by its process that the outcome. Through a series of experiments, I have explored newspaper and magazines as fabrication materials for making furniture. During this process I have come to study the core topics relevant to the topic of newspaper furniture. These include multi-sensory product experience, designing for emotions using sensory incongruity and also socially meaningful design. The final outcome is a newspaper coee table as a materialised representation of my inspiration, curiosity and process and a series of newspaper concepts ready to be translated into design opportunities, especially for handicrafts.
THE JOURNEY
IT BEGINS WITH A ‘CONCERN’ Live everybody else, my academic learning at NID started with a question asked to me. “What is Design?”. Based on my understanding about Design at that point, I defined it as creating something that meets the needs of people in a pleasurable and universal way. My definition of Design was primarily influenced by its comparison with the concurrent discipline of Art (non-commercial) which is also an act of creation but is identified as selfish and elite. I still stand by this definition because the object we create are born out of human necessities and are there to meet a purpose. I am concerned about the approach towards Design I have been leaning and practising in my design academics. This approach which focuses on thoroughly understanding the concerns of users in a given context and then expects the designer to creatively generate ideas that solves the most of them, has been really stressful for me. I have often found myself generate ideas which individually solve theses problems and then trying to analytically combine them to create the one which solves the most of them. I found the process logic-driven/rational and very mathematical and could not find room for adding Creativity. Creativity as I used to lay-manly define back then was a feeling you get when you see a good idea/concept/design and wonder ‘why am I never able to come up with something like that?’. In short, ‘Creative’ meant interesting, fascinating and novelty to me. My design process always landed me with products, which looked like an attempt at solving the user’s ‘problems’ and not a reflection of my creative sagacity as a Designer which I actually was looking for. This awareness was, to a great extent, a result of the subconscious comparison between my work and the good works by Designer around and online. Although fuzzy, I had a far-sighted personal goal to make myself capable of delivering products which reflect my Creativity, and generate interest and fascination in the people. This desire to pursue the goal became stronger when I actually stepped outside NID and had firsthand experience of Creativity. The next chapter is a collection of things/ideas which I have come across in person and experienced fascination out of. The ingenious handling of material, process, metaphors, form and story in the domain of products and architecture in these examples is of my particular interest. The reason behind the origin of this concern is the fact that no one around me in my design school seriously discussed about Creativity and the ways to systematically incorporate that in our designs. Everyone was concerned about solving the problem and not about the feeling Design is capable of evoking. Furthermore, Creativity was treated either as an inherent talent or a fluke and not as a skill which can be taught. With such misconceptions and ignorance about Creativity, I neither had the hope nor the know-how for achieving my goal.
(Image source Pg.14: Forms with a Smile(2008), www.frontdesign.se, www.kickstarter.com, www.fullgrown.co.uk, www.behance.net, www.dyson.in, www.adrianmartinus.com)
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SUGAR CUBE “BATEAU ]]” by m3h Design
TAPE DISPENSER by J-ME
ILLUSION Acrylic Table by RAFA
POLYGONS Measuring Spoon by RAHUL AGARWAL
SUGAR BAGs by CHRISTIAN HÖGNER
NUT BITER by INOX
FRONT PAGE by FRONT DESIGN
DINING CHAIR by FULL GROWN
DYSON COOL AM06
HANG by STEFANO SELETTI
LUMIO Lamp by HELLO LUMIO
UNMADE Beds by FRONT DESIGN
XY COFFEE TABLE - Up-cycled Skateboards by ADRIAN MARTINUS
Creativity: The feeling “Why do I never come up with ideas like these?”
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REAL EXPERIENCES Becoming aware of the concerns
It was during my Student Exchange in Berlin when I luckily got a chance to step out and explore new places, people and things, and observe them from a fresh and unbiased perspective that I began to get clarity about my concerns. Wandering in a completely new place with no expectations and assumptions, I could observe things better and notice a lot more things within them. Living in our own country and being aware about a lot of things, we take new encounters for granted and make assumption about them by extrapolating our existing awareness. We fail to observe things past their surface and miss out on the inspiration they are capable of giving. This chapter is a brief description of some experiences from my travelling and wandering in Europe and back in India which have fascinated me with their Creativity. They have left me with a desire to replicate the same in the designs I create.
1. FRAUENKIRCHE, Dresden (Germany) I was on a tour with my German friends around the time of Christmas when we visited this church in Dresden. The church remained as a war memorial in the form of ruins till 50 years after the destruction during World War II before it was considered for reconstruction. Interestingly, some parts from the debris ware used in the reconstruction in addition to fresh construction material. The idea was to create a visual and symbolic icon which reminds people that something tragic like the WWII should be avoided by all possible means. At a first glance, it may looks like many other European churches but with some dark pixels scattered among the light ones. It’s only when one becomes aware of the story behind the making and the symbolic meaning it represents that they find it special and memorable. 2. PLATOON KUNSTHALLE, Berlin It is an exhibition cum event space. What made this geometrically simple building special to me is the fact that it is build using only shipping containers which we are used to seeing in harbours, making it an unusual sight to find in the middle of the city. The hall serves as a venue for various art exhibitions, food festivals, performances etc. 3. HTW CAMPUS, Berlin The HTW Berlin’s Wilheminenhof campus is where I did my exchange semester in 2015. The huge red cablelike structures going in and coming out of the ground look like an abstract sculptural element in the campus’s landscape to fresh eyes till they figure out its connection with the history. The iconic yellow brick buildings of what presently is the university’s campus was previously a home to the KWO Cable Factory (1897-1995). It was one of the largest factories of its time and these cable sculptures hence celebrate the company’s importance during the Industrial Revolution and subtly maintains the connection of the present with its glorious past.
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(Image source: en.wikipedia.org, www.platoon.org www.alamy.com, www.tutored.me, www.htw-berlin.de)
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(Image source: in.pinterest.com (5)) 19 Expaperimentation | Degree Project
4. BAUHAUS CHESS SET, Berlin I found this on sale at the Bauhaus Design Museum in Berlin. It is nothing like a regular chess set when you simply look at it. With the clean lines typical of the timeless Bauhaus style, designer Josef Hartwig not only presented a novelty in form but also demonstrated an impressive intelligence. The form of the pieces is a symbolic representation of the way they are supposed to be manoeuvred during the game. Interesting, right? 5. FEMME VOILÉE, Paris
I was in The Louvre (Paris) around the end of 2015 where I got to see a marble sculpture which I found astoundingly breathtaking. Its sculptor, Antonio Corradini’s has beautifully captured the softness of a drapery on marble. I found the contrast between the perceived properties of stone and cloth particularly intriguing. 6. Street Bench, Pisa (Italy)
I was attracted to this bench because of the apparent sense of impracticality associated with it which is a result of the strategic concealing of the specific components of the design most crucial for its feasibility. The visual was so alluring that awareness of the actual working of the design didn’t stop me from feeling happy looking at it. I like these egg cups designed by Maren Witopil for the same reason as for the bench. In this case, the magnet responsible for holding the spoon are hidden inside the concrete body. Another example in this category is the Dyson’s blameless fan.
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7. Berlin T-Shirts, Berlin What can be more that just a regular printed t-shirt? Maybe a t-shirt using a printing process one is sure to find quirky. This guy who I came across during one of my weekend-strolls near Berlin's city centre was completely zoned-in with one such unique process. The images on Berlin's sewer lids make them iconic to the city and using that as a stamp to print on the tshirts makes the them special. This unfamiliar process adds a little story to the product which makes it memorable. 8. AUROVILLE DIRT SHIRT, Auroville Similar is the Auroville Dirt Shirt by Gecko. One of the many peculiar things you will notice if you visit Auroville in Pondicherry is the red soil particularly visible on the dirt roads and open grounds. People at Gecko in Auroville use this soil to dye their t-shirts. Things like these keep intact the memory of a place special to us, alive even when we are not there and hence forms an emotional relationship with us. 9. Simple Things It was also interesting to find simple object getting transformed in dierent ways and finding new and surprising uses. Sometimes the transformation is meticulously crafted and artistically beautiful like this door-mat crocheted out of old sarees and sometimes it is a demonstration of the creators smartness and the unimaginable possibilities of a material. Like this display fixture for shaving cream made out of paper or the Barbell made by forest guard living deep inside forest using concrete pebbles and a metal pipe. The ingenious ways of making things is the source of fascination in these cases. 10. Driverless Train (Copenhagen) and Perpetual Elevator (HTW Campus, Berlin) A driver-less metro train in which you can go to the front end and enjoy the view through the clear glass shield or an elevator which goes around in a loop without stoping and people are expected to board it while its moving. Thing like this break the familiar notion we have about an existing product and hence become memorable.
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(Image source: www.auroville.com (8))
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(Image source: www.femmeactuelle.fr, www.expedia.co.in, rachelays.blogspot.in)
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11. ATOMIUM, Brussels and ‘NEEDLE, THREAD and KNOT’, Milan Apart from the amazing chocolate, Tintin art and the city history I enjoyed in Belgium, I particularly was fascinated by a building which was in the shape of a unit cell of Iron crystal magnified 165 billion times known as the Atomium. The atoms serve as exhibition halls and restaurants and the bonds have escalators inside for people to go from one hall to another. A similar exaggeration of scale done relevantly and quirkily which I had encountered unexpectedly was in the middle of a road junction in Milan, on of the the Fashion capitals of the world. Being known as the Needle, Thread and Knot and designed by Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen, the thread around the needle also paraphrases the city emblem of a snake coiled around a sword as well as connects itself to the city’s definition as a Fashion Capital of the world. The astonishing exaggeration of scale and the story behind the form is what I find interesting in these case. Experiencing things in person, I have come to realise that virtual interactions through pictures and videos are incomplete and hence incapable of giving the same experience as the real ones. All these thing have been refreshing experiences and I have had different emotions and feelings evoked in me during the interaction with them. The interactions have been full of surprise, excitement, fascination and admiration. I now remember them in the form of the stories and the feelings they gave. These were also the first things which came to my mind when I would share my Exchange experience with others. This realisations help me better relate to the words of Dieter Rams about Design.
“Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful” - Dieter Rams
The nest step now was to figure out how I was going to achieve that. Thanks to a lucky incident, I stumbled upon an idea which gave me a direction for designing something creative and memorable.
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THAT HAPPY ACCIDENT Stumbling upon the concept of this project
The Autumn of 2015 was the time I was in Berlin for my exchange semester at HTW Berlin. At HTW, in addition to taking product design courses, I took the liberty to enrol myself for additional elective courses of my interest like art and architecture, German language, figure drawing and furniture-making. It was during the design process in one of these courses where I discovered an inspiration for the design which was in sync with my goal. I saw in it, the potential to be converted into something creative and memorable. Although I was not completely successful in translating the inspiration into functional objects/concepts during the course’s duration, I was hopeful and hence wanted to take it to completion in future which I have actually attempted to with this project.
BURDEN OF INSECURITIES Being good at academics as well as extra-curricular activities since childhood, I have become someone who defines himself and derives his identity from his scholastic achievements. I saw failure as a source of embarrassment and not as an opportunity for learning. Over time, this has led to develop a serious fear of rejections and criticism in me. These sort of insecurities make me under confident, nervous and self-conscious when it is time to perform in any situation, academic or outside. With the regular product design courses, I have always felt under-pressure and have found the stakes to be very high. “What if my design failed and the failure made me look like I have done no work at all? What if my mentor doesn’t approve the concepts which I wanted to take forward but was under confident about due to the uncertainty of their feasibility?” etc. used to be my perpetual concerns. This pressure plus analytical thinking which was a result of my engineering background hindered me from designing something creative. In the contrary case of the elective courses, since the outcome was not going to define how good I am as a Product Designer, there was absolutely no performance pressure on me. I was thinking and working with the least amount of inhibitions. I believe that there are a lot of things around us which can inspire us, and it needs an open, relaxed and happy mind to observe them in a deeper way and discover that inspiration. It was precisely this relaxed state of mind during these electives because of which I was able to be a better at observing and discover for myself, an inspiration for the design brief of one of the electives called Prop-Up-2D to 3D. The course was about furniture-making and was taken by Prof. Adrain Peach. FIRST FURNITURE PROJECT The brief for Prop-up- 2D to 3D was to make a seating using a 2D material. Even after a lot of exploration with different flat materials, I couldn’t arrive at a convincing concept. Meanwhile, I happened to travel around outside Berlin and that took me to the Bauhaus Museum. I was inside its souvenir shop when I found this artwork ’N’ (next page) in a book inside the souvenir shop of the Bauhaus Museum, Dessau. I was immediately captivated by the visual of it (my emotional response). I was appreciating how the visual (printed images) on the magazine pages can be used to create a new style of visuals. I looked it as a new medium of drawing (or of visual representation, in a generic sense). After this instantaneous emotional response to the visual, a story started taking shape in my head. I
started to recall a fable from my childhood. It is the one where a father teaches his sons the importance of unity through a simple demonstration with sticks. Working in collaboration and utilising each others strength are likely to give faster, better and bigger results. The fable was based on this life lesson. The father used to be stressed-out over his three sons always fighting with each other over simple matters. In order to establish a peaceful relationship among his sons, he makes them to participate in an activity. He gives each one of them a stick and asks them to break it. As ones guesses, each of them could easily do what they were asked to. Next, the father gives the a bundle of sticks and asks them to do the same. This time, none of the sons could break them. This way they learn the lesson that strength lies in unity. What happened after that can be summarised with this equation: “Quest + a Hint = Answers” Since I was actively looking for a ‘creative’ way to achieve strength using a 2D material for my seating, this image of ’N’ acted as a hint and got me an idea. This idea was about using tubes rolled out of magazine pages and stuck together in the form of a bundle. This bundle would then serve as a structural unit for the seating. This way, I could incorporate the visual aesthetics of the magazine artwork as well as express the fable. I went ahead with the concept and designed a stool which I named Christiania. CHRISTIANIA I used a very familiar form of a stool for the design so that the material used stays the highlight. During research later on, I came to know about the concept of balancing familiarity and novelty in a design to create something intriguing. The joints, where the tubes are bent, were not stiff enough because of the tubes getting flat and losing their strength and hence caused the top to wiggle when someone sat on it. Just like my other project, this too didn’t finish within the course duration. There was still some more work to be done. But I was happy with the process. The emotional experience I have received from the inspirations and stories during the process was very refreshing and fulfilling and I strongly wanted to deliver the same to the people who will interact with these furnitures. This strong desire pushed me to take this concept to completion. I decided to take this up as my Graduation Project. For the next step, I started exploring more with the material for which the concept of Experimental Design helped me better articulate my objective for the next stage of the process. 27 Expaperimentation | Degree Project
Trip to Bauhaus Dessau
Christiania, made out of rolled magazine sheets
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The Inspiration inside the Bauhaus Museum souvenir shop. Book: Wir Leben Papier
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Experimental Design constitutes a fairly narrow swath within the broad field of design, and its primary intention is to explore, experiment, and discover. Experimental Design is defined perhaps more by its process than its outcome. In its purest form it is not driven by an overly specific end-goal of application, but instead is motivated by a curiosity—an inquiry into, for example: a technology, a manufacturing technique, a material, a concept, or an aesthetic issue. Much of the work at MIT's Media Lab is fairly typical of this kind of design: technological investigations that are often only obtusely practicable and relevant to the immediate and everyday. Just as with Responsible Design, a marketable object may eventually result from an experimental project, especially after refinement and after it is directed at a specific market. But the primary intent of Experimental Design is to explore possibilities with less regard for serving the market. Popular Swedish design group, Front Design, created their Animals Project as a way of exploring the possibilities of a non-humanly-mediated production process: "We asked animals to help us [design products]. 'Sure we'll help you out,' they answered. 'Make something nice,' we told them. And so they did.” What resulted were everyday objects: a wallpaper made by a rat(1), a lamp cast from a rabbit's burrow(2), a lampshade created after recording a fly's path around a light bulb(3), a vase created by casting the impression of a dog's leg in deep snow(4), wall hooks that were formed by constricting snakes(5), and a table who's top is patterned by the paths of wood consuming beetles(6). None of these everyday products were commercialized; they were not intended to be viable products, but instead the product-form was the means through which they investigated ideas of randomness and mediation within the context of mass-production and everyday objects. The primary (though not only) driver of the Experimental Design is to explore. In the context of this project, I too was not driven by the end result but by the opportunity to create something interesting by using a unconventional material for mainstream objects. I simply wanted to experiment with the material and stretch its limits till I reach a satisfactory working concept. I didn’t want to bother myself with the technical question of execution, feasibility, sustainability etc.
(Source: www.core77.com)
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(Image source: www.frontdesign.se) 30 Mayur Bhalavi | Product Design | M. Des | NID | 2017
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EXPAPERIMENTATION No looking, no thinking, only making
There is a quote by Shikamaru, a shinobi/ninja from the anime Naruto which I firmly believe. It goes like, “Figuring out by yourself is the essential part of the training” It is not to be interpreted as “reinventing the wheel” which is usually considered not-so-smart and a waste of time. Newspaper being a completely new material for making newspaper to me, it needed firsthand engagement to get thorough understanding of the material and its properties. To immerse the self in the process and become one with the material was also the purpose of this stage, so that the ideas emerge naturally and effortlessly.
Stools and side tables are a good thing to start as they are comparatively small and hence quicker to build. Hence for the exploration, I went ahead and built them keeping the focus on achieving strength and stability. Variety of paper craft techniques from internet, TV shows (Art Attack by Gaurav Juyal, NID graduate) and books were the reference to start with. The ones that spontaneously created picture of a stool in my mind were taken forward and executed. Not much time was spent on thinking and figuring out but on making the stuff hands-on. E1- A STOOL The first experiment E1 involved using tubes rolled out of magazine pages was the structural unit and the building technique used was gluing them together in two different ways. A unit tube has a very meagre yet significant strength- both tensile and compressive, in the longitudinal direction (along the length). When used together in multiple numbers, a bigger structural unit of considerable strength is achievable. (1) A sheet of tubes is made by laying them parallel and close to each other on a flat surface and spreading white PVA glue on top of them with a flat brush. (2) Once the glue is dry, the uneven edges of the sheet were trimmed off upto a desired width of 400 mm. (3) Two such sheets were glued together in the form of concentric cylinders with the inner sheet of lesser height that the outer. (4) For the top, slightly bigger and loosely rolled tubes were flattened and spirally glued together(coiling technique) till a diameter of YY mm. (5) Two such sheets were glued together in
the form of concentric cylinders with the inner sheet of lesser height that the outer. (6) For the top, slightly bigger and loosely rolled tubes were flattened and spirally glued together (coiling technique) till a diameter of 300 mm. (7) The circular top is then placed over the cylindrical base and the stool is ready. TESTING AND IMPROVISATION (a) The cylindrical base turned out to be strong enough to hold 90 kgs of weight without any distortion along the length of the tubes. (b) The top on the other hand sank in to a certain extent resulting in a curved surface. (c) The bottom edge of the cylinder lacked rigidity and gets distorted with impact from the feet or while dragging the stool. (d) To give extra support to the top in order to not sinkin, strips if the tube sheet were pasted on the inside of the cylinder, near the top edge(image 6). CONCLUSIONS It requires additional strength in the radial direction which can be achieved by using more of the tubesheets or by combining it with other supporting material like a metal or plastic ring to be achieve a fully functional stool with substantial factor of safety. Since it is substantially strong in the vertical direction, it can be readily used as a side-table with an option of glass top.
E1
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E1- PROCESS
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E1- IN USE
Stool
34 Mayur Bhalavi | Product Design | M. Des | NID | 2017
E2- A STOOL The strip-mache technique as demonstrated in my favourite tv show from childhood- Art Attack, was the inspiration for this stool. By layering strips of newspaper with glue over-and-over over a mould, any form and size of volume is achievable. My personal vision in this experiment was of a cuboidal stool with four legs and newspaper yarn woven for the top. (1) The process start with making the structure consisting of four legs and top from using inflated tubular balloons. (2) Layers of newspaper strips are pasted over the balloon structure using white PVA glue before letting it dry completely (14-16 layers or upto 6mm thickness). (3,4) Once dry, jute rope is woven on the top frame to create a surface to sit in order to test the strength of the structure. (5,6) After testing, the jute rope is removed and the structure is covered with sheet made of small bits of newspaper cut out of the 2 cm strip at the bottom every page. (7) For the yarn, few sheets of newspaper are crumbled and opened flat before cutting them into strips. (8) All these strips are then pasted end to end and wound around a stick to make a ball. (9,10,11) This is followed by spinning, twisting and coating it with white PVA glue. (12) For the end step, this prepared yarn is woven on the top frame of the structure.
TESTING AND IMPROVISATION Although the stool’s legs and joint are strong enough for a max. of 100 kg person siting on it, it needs additional factor of safety to be able to handle the kind of abuse a stool usually goes through. For instance, someone standing on it, esp. at the centre or someone rocking it while sitting which will put tremendous stress at the joints. Thicker yarn can me used to increase the strength of the top. CONCLUSIONS Manually gluing the sheets and pasting them layer after layer is a tiring time intensive process. Some of automation can be devised to reduce the efforts needed and fasten up the process. Although the strength and rigidity achieved is insufficient to make fully functional seating, it can be readily used to make centre- or side-tables. It is my personal favourite as the sight of a yarn made put of newspaper is fascinating to me. Also, I appreciate it for its purity and simplicity as it only an only newspaper for giving strength and visual aesthetics to the furniture.
E2
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E2- PROCESS
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E2- IN USE
Stool
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E3- A SIDE TABLE Honeycomb is one of the most utilised design element adopted by humans from the nature, for a plethora of applications. When used in paper, it gives lightweight, collapsible and yet strong structures. Based of the type of collapsibility, these honeycomb structures can be categorised into two types- linear and radial structures. For E3, the radial type was used. The process of making it is repetitive but extremely simple. (1) It start with cutting rectangular sheets of newspaper with a width equal to the radius of the final cylindrical form and a length equal to it height. (2) Assume that the rectangle sheets are divided by a set of parallel lines with an increasing distance between them. (3) Take first sheet and apply lines of glue on the odd numbered lines from the set of parallel lines. (4) Paste the second sheet of newspaper on top of the first. (5) Now, on this second sheet, apply lines of glue on the even numbered lines. (6) Paste the third sheet on top of the second. (7) Repeat step 3 & 4 for every odd numbered sheet and step 5 & 6 for even numbered sheet up till 200 sheets. (8) Cover the final book with a mount-board and hinge it wilt an elastic. (9) Let it dry and then open it.
CONCLUSIONS This concept will work well in case of static and moderate loading like coee- or side-table. Since it is collapsible, it will be an extremely convenient and space saving display pedestals for temporary exhibitions. Since there is no protective coating applied, it will be vulnerable to water and fire. It can also be used as a portable laptop table.
TESTING AND IMPROVISATION The stool can bear an evenly distributed and static vertical load of a 100 kgs person. The top was observed to crumble up but to a max. depth of 1cm when sat on a flat surface placed on top. When sat directly, the wearing-away takes the shape of the contour of the person’s butt. Any kind of uneven pressure on the top is sure to deform the stool.
E3
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E3- IN USE
Pedestal
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Side Table
Miscellaneous (E4- PORTABLE LOW-TABLE)
E4
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SWIMMING UPSTREAM Intuition vs Rationale: Challenges faced
Blindly following the intuition and not having actual clarity about the ‘why’, ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the process has landed me in stressful situations at times. Especially, when explaining about my process which was completely driven by intuition. Me simply wanting to explore newspaper for furniture-making was not a reason enough for people to digest. They would just ask me ‘how sustainable is the idea’, ‘will it be durable?’, ‘will it be strong enough?’ etc. One such instance was when I approached a professor at NID for officially starting the project under his guidance. After almost three months of experimentation, I began to get a little confidence over newspaper. I was hopeful that the idea can be executed into real working products. It was then time to officially register the project for which I approached one of my teachers at NID. After presenting my explorations, he tossed some questions on at me. “Do you think using paper is sustainable?” “There’s already so much work on the subject of paper furniture? What is new about your idea?” “How durable it is going to be?” “Considering the large about time and effort involved in the process. how viable is this idea from a business standpoint?” “What are the properties of paper?” The fascination for the concept of newspaper furniture and the refreshing experience I have gone through when I had first encountered it were my driving forces for the project. And I wanted to give the same experience/feeling to the people who use or see my paper furniture. I considered this reason enough for me to pursue this goal and hence never bothered myself with the technical, social, ecological and business-y concerns. Hence, I had no answers to the above questions. While I was getting all-nervous about my blankness at that situation, he threw at me another question: “Why do you even want to do this(make paper furniture)?”
Even though I had an answer to this, I didn’t have the confidence to say it. I thought that my intuitive gut-feelings for an experimental and process-oriented project will find no place in an rational academic setup like here (esp. in PD) where projects start with a problem and not inspirations and where focus is given to research, function, usability and ergonomics and not on the resulting emotional experience. I kept the answer to myself. We moved on without getting any answers from me. I just took a leave from his cabin. I realised that he was not wrong in making me aware of my lack of clarity. But with the tremendous amount of stress at that moment, instead of deciding to work on it to seek the clarity, my immediate reaction was to conclude that a self-sponsored/selfinitiated Graduation Project will be difficult to handle, for it demands in-depth reasoning for every design decision taken during the process. I was not in a state to invest my time and bother myself with a lot of thinking and planning. My singular aim was to dive into making and experimenting until I arrive at a fully functional prototype of a seating or table. More importantly, I didn’t want to rationally evaluate the concept with respect to sustainability, business, durability, feasibility etc because if in any case the evaluation led me to conclude that the concept has more negative than positive consequences, I would be back to zero. All the efforts of months experimenting would be in vain and thinking about a new concept for the project would be a difficult task, especially with a distressed mind. Furthermore, because of my dissatisfaction with my academic projects, I had no work to make a Portfolio out of. This ruled out the option of applying for a project with a studio or firm. To dwell in the oblivion was the best choice for me at that moment. I assumed that none of the other teachers would agree to such terms and conditions of mine. I didn’t make further attempts at approaching them and pitching my idea. I started pitching my idea to firms working with newspaper products.
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“I was stuck. It felt like I was going crazy”
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STRETCHING THE COMFORT- ZONE Working with a social enterprise
Wellpaper in Auroville (Pondicherry) was one of the firms I had written to pitching the concept of newspaper furniture who were enthusiastic about the idea and oered me to work with them. WELL stand for women empowerment through local livelihood. It is a social enterprise which sells handcrafted newspaper products which it sources from selfhelp groups formed by local Tamil craftswomen from nearby villages. I saw working with them as an opportunity to combine my interest in newspaper with a socially meaningful work. It was a pro bono work but that did not stop me from accepting their oer. Working there, I realised that people running a business are more concerned about the outcome and less about the process. Since my intent was to explore upto my satisfaction before I could say that the concept of newspaper furniture is feasible or not. These contrasting attitudes/goals played a crucial role in the outcome of my work with them.
WELLPAPER, AUROVILLE business. And that is how the first self-help unit called Sri Mother came into being in the same year 2005. Over time, similar trainings took place and 3 more units, namely Sri Aurobindo, Jayam and Sri Ester came into being.
It was started in 2005 after the tragic tsunami that hit the eastern coast of India. The disaster left the coastal people with a huge loss of life, resources and work. To help them recover as quickly as possible, Danny and his wife Orly (from Israel) who happened to be in Auroville since three months before the disaster decided to use their combined expertise of marketing and art respectively to create work opportunities for the affected locals. They started with the initiative with the women from the nearby villages surrounding Auroville. Hence the name Women Empowerment through Local Livelihood.
THE WELLPAPER TEAM The Wellpaper Office team currently comprises of Danny Mergui (Co-founder), Saranya Akka (Accountancy and Sales), Murudu Akka (Quality Control and Inventory), Zeevic (Design and Volunteer Co-ordinator, Israeli Artist). While the craftswomen’s job is to make product as per clients requirements and simultaneously come up with new ideas, Wellpaper serves as a link between these units and the clientele and ensures sustained demands for their products. They also manage the online shopping and social media publicity. While the units earn according to the sales done every month (unit’s earning per month/no. of ladies), the Wallpaper team has a fixed monthly salary.
The project started with a training in repairing old and broken furniture. The first batch of ladies spent three months learning to repair broken chairs and stools using the strip-maché technique (gluing layers of newspaper strips over and over). With the growing passion and confidence, the ladies requested Orly to train them for another 3 months and teach more craft techniques as well as the skills to run an independent social enterprise so that they can start their own
Auroville’s ‘Matrimandir’
Wellpaper Founders, Danny and Orly with the SHG Craftswomen
(Source: en.wikipedia.org, guestservice.auroville.org, www.wellpaper.org)
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THE 4 SHGs FOR WELLPAPER SRI MOTHER (ROUND BASKETS)
This unit makes products using the weaving technique. All of its products are either round or oval, like baskets, magazine holders, laundry bags, jewellery, tea coasters, penholders. Managai aka, Chitra Akka, Purani aka and Padma akaa constitute this unit. SRI AUROBINDO ( RECTANGULAR BASKETS)
This units also makes woven products but are only confined to square and rectangular ones. Baskets of dierent sizes and form are its predominant products. Usha aka is the sole member constituting this unit currently. JAYAM (COILING)
Jayam unit specialises in the coiling technique and make their products using the same. Coiling technique basically involves dampening the newspaper rolls with water and some glue and
flattening them before finally winding them in spiral fashion flat or around a moulds. Dining mats, tableware (bowls), tea coasters, Easter eggs, Christmas decorations, women accessories, jewellery, lampshades are its current products. Rani akka, Sudha akka, Selvi akka and Devi akka together form this unit. Their products are comparatively small but more meticulous and hence time-consuming. SRI ESTER (PAPER MACHÉ)
Sri Ester unit makes their product with the Paper ache technique. There product include toys(handheld rattlers), decorated boxes and bowls, figures (dolls, animals), bead-necklaces. the structure of most of their products like toys and downs is made up of discarded cardboard and plastic bottles. Saraswati akka, Mala aka Sandhya akka and Jayanti aka are the member of this unit.
(Image source: www.wellpaper.org)
Sri Mother Unit
Sri Aurobindo Unit
Jayam Unit
Sri Ester Unit
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SALES PRODUCTS Currently, the 4 self-help group make products for their own shop as well as for customer-orders. Wellpaper serves as a link between these SHGs and the clients (and buyers), ensuring a steady demand for the items. The items are bought by Wellpaper from these units at a wholesale price and sold to the customers and clients at a retail price. Wellpaper also helps these units maintain an online presence through their Website and also through social media like Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Their products include baskets, Christmas decorations, stationary holders, figurines, accessories, tablewares, jewellery, toys, wall clock etc.
Products (above)
CRAFT WORKSHOPS Apart from products, another source of revenue for the ladies is through conducting workshops. The Wellpaper conducts weekly workshops for guests and general people visiting Auroville wherein the ladies teach them their techniques to make the products. With a duration of 3 hours per workshop (9:30am to 12:30pm), each of the three techniques has a dedicated day in a week for the workshop- Tuesday (paper machĂŠ). Wednesday (Coiling bowls) and Thursday (Basket Weaving). The participants may take their work made during the session with them if they wish to. The charges of the workshop are Rs. 500 per guest out of which Rs. 150 goes to the respective unit.
Padma Akka teaching basket weaving to the participants of the workshop (below)
(Image source: www.wellpaper.org, www.facebook.com/wellpaper.org)
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VOLUNTEERING AND APPRENTICESHIP Like the majority of workplaces (enterprises and studios) in Auroville, Wellpaper also practises the volunteer system for people interested in working with them. Anyone who wishes to work with them may write to them with their relevant work portfolio and resume. Volunteers are supposed to provide assistance with the ongoing work, either to the craftswomen at their units or to the office staff with accountancy, marketing and sales, quality control, packaging and labelling, store-handling or content writing. It is a pro-bono work and involves no stipend for the volunteers. The level of commitment is flexible and it is upto the volunteer to decide how many days he/she
Volunteers at work at one of the units
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would like to work per week. If a volunteer commits to work for a minimum of 3 days a week, he/she is entitled to get their lunch sponsored by the office. Unlike Volunteers, Apprentices join Wellpaper with a pre-set objective in mind. The have a task to accomplish by the end of their apprenticeship and they work towards achieving that. This too is a probono work and its upto the apprentice to decide the work they would like to do, either at the office or at the units. For example, an art/design student can work with any of the units as an apprentice and come up with new products or a management student can volunteer at the office and work on the business framework to improve the sales etc.
‘Anushiri’, a coiled-bowl designed by Anushri during her apprenticeship
MY WORK AT WELLPAPER VOLUNTEERING WEEK 1 & 2 I spend the first two weeks at Wellpaper as a volunteer. The intent was to understand the spirit of the place and the work and be one with everyone and everything there. My work involved helping the units with their work i.e. making and finishing the client orders. I divided my time equally between the 4 units and thereby got to work with each one of the craftswomen personally. The work involved painting the woven baskets red(for FabIndia), painting the coiled ester eggs white and attaching strings to the Christmas decorations (for Gabi, Germany), cutting newspapers for making tubes, doing brushwork on the paper maché bangles etc. newspapers for making tubes, doing brushwork on the paper maché bangles etc. VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE Working closely with the ladies at the units, I got to observe the technique and the process closely. I was getting a basic understanding about the making process which, at that point, was sufficient for me to be able to make the objects by myself. And in cases of queries, the ladies were comfortable enough to answer them and even explain me hands-on. The work environment at the units is sincere yet casual. Everyone would be working and having a conversation at the same time. This gave me some room to have informal interactions with them and get to understand them as peoples and not just craftswomen. Apart from learning the technicalities, I was also gathering insights about their style of work, what are they confident about, what do they find stressful, how working has changed their life and personality etc. These insights helped me formulate opportunities for possible design intervention which I would address in the later weeks. It was very important for the project to build a trust between me and the ladies as they were the ones I would be, for the most part, working with in the weeks to come. Giving my best at assisting them with their work and listening to their and sharing my own stories, in some way, proved helpful in building the necessary trust and comfort. With this, I moved on to the next step i.e. the process of designing furniture. I could notice the trust building through the various
gesturers between me and the ladies. They would share their lunch with me, invite me to their home on festivals, offer me help in finding an accommodation and also ask for design related suggestions at work. This made me happy and more enthusiastic about the project. COMMENCING FURNITURE-MAKING WEEK 3 The good balance between sturdiness and aesthetics in, as well as, the relatively small scale of stools make them a good choice for enquiring the feasibility of any new material for designing furniture. Hence, I began ideating concepts for a stool. I took a very unconstrained approach of taking inspiration from the local culture, without bothering myself with the practical things like the amount of material used, making-time, ease-of-making weight of the final stool etc. My sole focus was to achieve a strong and stable structure first. But before I start with this process, I did something Zeevic had suggested me and which really turned out to be helpful. I gave them a presentation on the basic information about furniture, just to see how much are they aware about it. Next, I shared examples of newspaper furnitures done by designers and makers around the world for some inspiration. And finally, I shared my own work of newspaper and magazine seating and side-tables. I saw this an as opportunity to make them curious as well as convey my interest and seriousness towards the subject so that they reciprocate with the same when we work together for this project. The session unanticipatedly led to interactive discussions about the making-process of the furniture example shown in the presentation and it turned out to be creative exercise. Also, the ladies requested that I take another session where I would demonstrate how to make the honeycomb table that I have shown them. Overall, the objective of igniting curiosity was surely achieved to some extent and I was happy about that. After this session, I commenced with executing the first stool concept. Since this was my fifth exploration of the entire project, I called it E5.
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Painting the woven baskets with the Sri Mother Unit as a volunteer
Presentation on Furniture Design and newspaper furniture with the Akkas (craftswomen)
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E5 Inspiration: Woven Penholders, the foundation of E5
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E5 Evolution: From Inspiration to Concept
E5- PROCESS
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STOOL E5 Few of the ladies who have quit the work at the unit work from home and supply the units with pre-rolled tubes of newspaper needed for the weaving (Rs.8 per 100 tubes). So I ordered 200 of them, got my glue and tools ready and began building E5. INSPIRATION
E5 was going to be a woven stool and the decision of selecting weaving as the technique for this exploration was a result of a surprising encounters. During my volunteering weeks, I happened to explore the Wellpaper store during which I came across their woven penholders. I observed them and grabbed one of them to see how it feels. To my surprise, I found them to be really hard, like a PVC pipe or bamboo. The surprise was particularly strong because my perception about them was contrastingly different from their actual properties. I have never before given a thought about their strength as I was busy appreciating the material(newspaper) for its versatility to be transformed into so many types of products. Hence, the newly discovered property of hardness of the woven objects was the inspiration for E5. EVOLUTION
While ideating, I thought of using four cylindrical woven tubes as the legs for the stool. For the top, I wanted to expand these tubes from bottom to top and connect them together which will automatically give me a surface for the sitting. I conducted a session with everyone where I presented them E5 and did its testing them and there. I asked for their feedback on how to possibly make it better. In addition to this, I had one more mission to accomplish with this testing and feedback session. Before describing the results of the testing, let me take you through this ‘mission’.
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MISSION-“The important tool called Sketching” I have repeatedly noticed, during the Wednesday design meetings, some sort of miscommunication between the craftswomen and the Wellpaper team when it came to explaining the client’s requirement or the design changes to be done in their products. These discussions and briefing are predominantly verbal and text-based with almost no visuals. This would lead to a difference in what was asked to do by the team and what the ladies would actually make. This resulted in waste of time, and also frustration. Also, when ideating about a new product concepts, the ladies would explore directly with the material and make 1:1 scale mock ups. Ideation would become really stressful in cases when they would sit as a group and had to convey their ideas to others. It will be lot more easier if they are able to visualise and represent their ideas as a sketch. This led me to formulate another intervention in their design process- to introduce the practise of sketching as a visualisation and communication tool. I wanted to initiate this change starting with exposing them to sketching and making them realise its benefits for communication and visualisation. To achieve this, I used the testing and feedback session of E5 as the set-up. After 4 days of work, I completed building E5 and invited all the ladies for the testing session. I started by explaining them the inspiration and conceptualisation of E5 in the form of a visual narrative (a series of sketches showing the evolution of E5)
At the end of the session, I got to see some positive result of my strategic efforts. After the discussion, Chitra Akka asked me to hand over the sketch to her. She along with few other take a thorough look at them, at the end of which she said that the drawings are good. I knew for sure that I have been successful in making them notice the sketches and, to some extent, acknowledge the convenience sketching provided me for conveying my idea and process. I decided upon to repeat this process of indirectly/ covertly inspiring them about sketching a few more times before eventually starting sketching sessions with them.
E5 TESTING RESULTS For testing E5, I invited ladies from all the units. I made them sit on it after which they gave their feedback. The stool was successfully able to take a load of 95 kgs. On the other hand, the joint between the legs was not rigid enough. So, any shearing load on the top surface would distort the entire stool. Also, it turned out to be comparatively heavy for a stool. To further increase the strength of the stool, the ladies suggested me to use thicker tubes of the vertical members(warps). Improving the rigidity of the joints can only be figured out with further iteration with better weaving or making some changes in the design.
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E5 Testing with Padma Akka
Explaining E5 using narrative sketches (MISSI0N)
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TURNING POINT-‘QUIT’
Week 4
The testing and feedback session marked the end of my 3 week of working at Wellpaper. The fourth week was for discussion with a client of Wellpaper who were interested in the concept of newspaper furniture. It is called the Leafiness. The plan was to have a word with them and together formulate a design brief based on their requirement. Upon writing a mail to them for the same, I came to know that they were busy with some other commitments and will only get back to me after 3 weeks from them. Till then, I decided to continue working on the woven stools and table until a full-proof version of concept is achieved so that convincing the client about the feasibility becomes easy. For this, I planned to ideate and build the concepts together with the ladies. This time, Wellpaper was expecting me to pay for the material and the hourly labour cost to the ladies. Since I was not getting any stipend and was already paying a big sum on my food, living, and daily travel (which were higher than usual because of the tourist season in Auroville), I was not in a position to sponsor these work-expenses. This is when I had to make a crucial decision for the nest step. Instead to looking for a sponsor at that point of time (which would take further more weeks with the outcome still being uncertain), I decided to return to my hometown Nagpur. Staying at home with all the mundane chores being taken care of, I planned to give my full attention to generating concepts for woven tables and seatings, now that I had a hang of the weaving technique. Once I would arrive at a series of concepts, I planned to prepare an estimate for material and labour cost and return back to Auroville and get the sampling done. Once the samples were be done, we would together pitch them to the clients and get started with the production. With this planof-action, I was back to home (Nagpur) by mid of March 2017 and continued the project there.
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I WALK ALONE. AGAIN. Continuing the ‘self’-sponsored dip
In my opinion, in a sponsored project, one can easily defend his/her design decisions under the tag of ‘client-requirement’. Since I wanted to follow my intuition and not seek rational clarity until my intuition is materialised, this project which started as a self-sponsored one became stressful. The way things ended with Wellpaper, my plan to work with a firm/client in order to escape the clarity-of-thoughts typically demanded in a self-sponsored project failed and I was back to continuing my project by myself. I am thankful to the craftswomen for sharing their knowledge of newspaper crafts esp. weaving. That knowledge was sufficient for me to start generating concepts and later build prototypes. My next intent was to continue the exploration further till I reach at a satisfactory proof-ofconcept which I would pitch again to Wellpaper and go forward with design development and production together with the craftswomen. Prof. Rama was positive about my curiosity for the concept and gave me the freedom for intuitive exploration and I finally registered the project under his guidance (11 months behind the scheduled date for registration).
SELF-EXPLORING WEAVING Stool E6 With E5, I struggled to achieve rigidity at the joints and hence the final structure was wobbly. Hence this time I decided to make the four cylindrical legs first and figure out the joinery later. Once these four legs were ready, I tried different ways to connect them to make a stool. I could not get myself to get satisfied by any of the joinery combination and hence decided to move on an keep this concept for later. The cylindrical unit I had woven for E6 was individually strong enough for me (~100kgs) to be able to sit firmly. This cylindrical structure gave way to the next exploration, E7 Stool E7 I moved to the next concept I had sketched before while exploring E5. I wanted to retain the strength of the cylindrical structure but in a different form. Hence, the conical bottom. For the top, I needed a bigger surface and hence the top-to-down converging frustum for the sitting surface. Upon testing, the structure performed well under a static and symmetrical vertical load. Unfortunately, it failed to provide a rigid top surface and would get pushed down if the person sitting bends or leans. This concept too didn’t fit well for a seating but its structure surely paved way for the next concept, a coffee table.
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E6
E7
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GEMINI I (E8) With some modifications in the structure, I sketched coee table concepts inspired by E7. This time, it is a singular unit, bigger in scale and with a glass tabletop. I finalised on one of them an went ahead to build it. It took me 10 days, from rolling tubes to finally coating it with varnish, to complete it. It involved use of 4 Kgs of newspaper (Rs.50), approx. 2 kgs of glue (Rs.40) and 700ml of varnish (Rs.150). Man hours used were 90 for which the labour cost @ Rs. 15/hour (as per Wallpaper rates) will be Rs.1350. The overall cost price of the table come out to be Rs. 1590 (excluding the glass).
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E8 STRENGTH TESTING
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GEMINI I
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GEMINI I
DONE MAKING STUFF. MAKE SENSE NOW. Upon testing, the table was found out to be capable of bearing well a load of at least 90 kgs which is more than enough for a coee table with a glass top. At this point, I could say that I had arrived at a proof-ofconcept for my idea of newspaper furniture. My artistic need to translate my inspiration into a tangible object/ artefact was fulfilled. It was now time to make sense out of this to the problems of the real world. To start stepping in that direction, I sketched out a fairly simple plan. It was to design a range of newspaper furniture for the market which will be made in Auroville, by the ladies at Wellpaper. In this way, they will get a new product range in their portfolio and consequentially an added revenue. Furthermore, compared to baskets, I anticipate higher profits from furniture as they belongs to a higher price category, especially the luxury ones. With this plan, I started pitching the furniture concept to potential clients.
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CLIENT HUNT While planning this commercial turn to the project, a theme automatically started to emerge. The theme was titled “Bringing back to the roots”. It was about bringing an object, after it has met its purpose, back to its starting point with a surprisingly beautiful and meaningful transformation. To execute this, I wanted to design furnitures for newspaper publishers’ office space using their own newspapers. The intent was to add another layer of story to the already existing story of sensory conflict. With this idea, I wrote to the editors and also the chairpersons of newspapers like The Hindu (Mr. N. Ram, Chennai), The Hitvada (Nagpur) and Lokmat (Nagpur). Some amount of efforts went in to making the proposal and some amount of time went into waiting for their response, all in vain. There was no positive response from any of them. In my proposal, I presented them Gemini I and offered customisable furniture designs compatible to their office space as an opportunity to add a story to their brand as well as to contribute to a social initiative. I also mailed the design and the proposal to Wellpaper, asking them to pitch to potential clients from their side. They were happy with the design and promised to get back whenever they find a client. The fact that I haven’t heard from them yet possibly means that they are yet to find any. At that point (Mid of July), with just a month and a half left before submission of the project document, it was not a good idea to invest more time in looking for client to give a practical and commercial turn to the experimental and social project. I decided to let the project be of an experimental/exploratory kind. Hence, I kept on going with the explorations and simultaneously began worked on the documentation of the project.
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“Bringing back to the roots” themed Newspaper Furniture for Newspaper Publishers’ Office Space
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6
KEEP ON KEEPING ON Continuing explorations and generating product concepts
After getting no response during the client hunt, I speculated that pitching the clients the proposal with just one example of newspaper furniture (Gemini I) was not suďŹƒcient enough to attract them. If I had approached them with a range of products presented well in the form of a website/portfolio, it would have been more likely to get a positive response from them. Hence I continued with the process of generating more ideas for furniture and other products using the dierent techniques I have explored and discovered during the project.
DIRECTIONS These are few of the directions which I have arrived at during the experimentation. Its is a work in progress and I have started to sketch lots of product concepts and simultaneously refine the ones I would like to prototype. These include coee tables, stools, purses, folders, wall murals, typography posters, surface embellishment, lamps, vases, pedestals, postcards, bags etc.
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IDEATION
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REFINEMENT
Honeycomb Coffee Tables
Honeycomb Display Pedestals
Bent-Woven Coffee Tables
… in progress
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7
CONFRONTATION Seeking rational explanation behind Creativity
Up till now, I have been simply following my intuition which was driven by Creativity, and the fascination which results out of it. I had been so far reluctant to find out rational explanation behind the concept and evaluate it with existing studies on Creativity to confirm whether it will be perceived as creative or not. I was afraid that the research would lead me to conclude that the fascination for the concept was exclusively my personal and that others may not necessarily find it creative. With the satisfactory execution of Gemini I, I was happy to be able to materialise my inspiration into objects which replicated the same fascination to others as the way my inspiration did to me. This assured me that I will more likely be able to find factual insights to support my intuitive argument about the concept of ‘newspaper furniture’ being creative. I finally went ahead and started reading about Creativity. I had never anticipated that my curiosity about Creativity will lead to to one of the core topics in Product Design which is applicable in all the products that we design.
CONNECTING THE DOTS Travel and personal encounter with objects/places I have mentioned in there earlier chapters has been enough for me to conclude that the things we design are not mere objects-or-purpose but the overall experience which results out of to our interaction with them. To get past the definition of Design as ‘problem-solving’, one needs to broaden his/her definition of Product Interaction and not limit it to just ‘using the product’. Product Interaction in a broader sense encompasses perceiving through senses ( see, touch, listen, taste and smell), buying, owning, selling, thinking about, reading/hearing about, making etc (sub-interactions). The outcome of a design process will be complete if all of these interactions are considered during the process and the resulting experience is designed accordingly. Creativity is related newness, not absolute novelty but a good balance between novelty and familiarity. This newness evokes a Surprise in the user’s mind during the interaction and thus forms an affective/ emotional relationship with the user. More is the number of the constituent product sub-interactions resulting into an emotional response, more enriching/pleasurable the overall product experience becomes. ________________________________________ In case of newspaper furniture, the emotional response of surprise is a result of two of such subinteractions. Firstly, when one thinks about or reads about or even listens about the concept of newspaper furniture from someone, he/she is most likely to find it surprising because of the unusualness. With newspaper being perceived as a material of meagre strength, it is not an easily acceptable thought to imaging furniture being made using it which is basically perceived as something strong and sturdy. Secondly, when one physically interacts with the furniture with the senses of touch and sight, the difference in the anticipation and actuality leads to sensory incongruity. One usually has a tendency to underestimate the strength of a newspaper furniture only on the basis of visual perception. Its only when one actually touches it and find it to be as hard as PVC or bamboo that the perception is changed and a surprise is evoked. ________________________________________ For more information on Sensory Incongruity and Surprise refer Annexure (Pg. 91).
(Source: Product Experience (2007)) 79 Expaperimentation | Degree Project
Understanding the relation between Newspaper Furnitures and Creativity
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SUMMARY This project has essentially been a journey from ‘making stuff’ to an attempt in ‘making sense’ to the problems of the real world. During the initial stage, I have learned and practised the process of experimental design and strived towards fulfilling my need to explore newspaper for making furnitures. I found this process intuitive and spontaneous, very similar to the process artists practise for creating their artwork. I was able to build stories out of my inspiration and then express them through the objects I made. Experimentation has resulted in unanticipated emerging of ideas for products other than furniture. This kind of idea generation process has happened without my control and for the future, I want to understand its working and then formulate a framework to help designers with the ideation. During the course of the project, I have been pushed to think of ways I could convert my interest in newspaper furniture into a meaningful work. And I have mixed feeling about this. On one hand, I an happy because the search of ways to create meaningfulness out of my work led me to learn about socially sustainable project models like Wellpaper and a lot others around the world. On the other hand, this has kept me distracted me from my personal vision of exploring newspaper and led to a delay in arriving at working-tangibles of the concept. I kept juggling between ‘what I wanted to do’ and ‘what I am supposed to do as a responsible designer’. I ended up wasting a lot of my time dwelling in this conflict. It took a lot of time for me to understand that since I was interested in exploring a concept and doing something different out of it, I should have solely focused on working and making it into feasible objects/artefacts first and then worked on the next step of executing it as meaningful products, services or systems. Working with a social enterprise has changed my outlook on product design. I have learned to take a step back and look at product, not as individual entities but as a part of the system. This makes me aware of the all the things related to a product, like material and its sourcing, the manufacturing process, the social impact it creates or is capable of creating, its environmental consequences and the business models.
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CONCLUSION I have come to realise that the notion I have been having about the approach for Design followed at NID being incorrect is faulty. It is just incomplete. The definition of product interaction which we have accepted here is very narrow, confined only to the ‘usage’ of the product. There is simply a need to widen this definition and incorporate other types of interaction one can have with a product and design accordingly to evoke a pleasurable experience out of all them. Secondly, students need to be encouraged to reflect upon their personality and solve their individual concerns before trying to address other people’s concern. I am sure that not all the students are looking for the same thing as a Designer. Some are more business oriented, others are more socially sensitive; some are more strategic and rational and some are artistic or experimental or hands-on in nature. Notwithstanding the fact that Design is ultimately about making sense to the real world and doing meaningful work but the approach to achieve this objective can vary from individual to individual. Since designs are becoming more like an experience rather that objects-of-purpose, it needs more and more real experiences with the products for a design student to realise that. It is only when a student has had a lot of firsthand experience with the products himself/herself that he/she will be able to intuitively reproduce that in his/her design. Visit to design fairs/exhibitions, markets and stores should be done more often and should be followed by a critical discussion or review session with the peers in order to understand the product thoroughly. I have personally faced a lot of pressure (fear of jury, grades and of judgement by faculty and peers) during my design projects and I am sure there are lots of other like me. Failure is seen as a sign of embarrassment and not as a sign of learning and this put a lot of pressure on a Student. Students need to get rid of there fear of rejection or failure for them to think clearly and creatively. For this, the emphasis should be on being sincere towards the process and not on trying hard to make the end-product work successfully.
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WHAT LIES AHEAD? MORE EXPERIMENTATION I want to make prototypes of the furniture and product ideas which I have sketched but haven’t managed to make during the time-frame of this project (The ones mentioned in the previous chapter). This will help me formulate a library of newspaper products which can be documented in the form of a DIY Book to be made commercially available. It can also become a personal collection which I can use in my future design works as a designer or an entrepreneur starting a handicraftbased product brand. PRACTICAL CREATIVITY A majority of these ideas which have emerged automatically during the hand-on working with the material. I hypothesise that the meditative and therapeutic nature of the meticulous hand-on work resulted in a related state of mind which is responsible for spontaneous emerging of ideas. This was my personal discovery about Experimentation and I want to practise it more and eventually see if this method of Idea Generation can be structured or systematised. MATERIAL RESEARCH The project needs a thorough research about the materials used, not just for the designs to be further strong, durable, non-toxic and eco-friendly but also safer for the Makers who will be working with them during the production process. The primary materials used in all the products so far are glue, paper and over-print varnish and. I prohibit the use of epoxy resin which despite making the product stronger and more durable, make it impossible to recycle the products back into paper. It has been over a year for the stools (E1, E2, E3 and E4) and 4 months for the Gemini I and they have so far been doing well against moisture and termites which are the typical enemies of paper. Still some protection from these biological factors can be used, just to be sure. CONTEXT SPECIFIC DESIGN After completing a substantial amount of well researched experimentation, I want to carry out the user-centric approach to Design and design products for users and their needs in specific contexts. This will involve market study, defining target group, persona building, opportunity mapping, conceptualisations and production. The outcome of this will be a well-designed collection of newspaper products ready to enter the market.
SUSTAINABILITY CHECK There are certain myths and contrasting opinions about using newspaper for crafts it the project needs a proper investigation to take a stand and decide the further course of the project. On one side, papermaking is said to have heavy impact on the environment because it uses a lot of water and also releases untreated water with toxic effluents into the water bodies. Paper making also demands cutting down trees which although renewable, takes a long time to grow into a usable size. On the other hand, newspaper act as an extremely easy-to-access and cheap raw material for anyone trying to run a craft business using it, especially small scale enterprises. A right balance between environmental, social and commercial concerns is expected to result out of this investigation. COLLABORATION Books like Design for the Real World and Thinking Design has exposed me and made me curious about the concept of “Designing for the 90%”. I want to take a Systemic approach for the project observe my products not a individual objects but as a part of the System. I want to focus on every stakeholder in the life of a newspaper from creation to disposal and design interventions that can be be beneficial to the most of them. On of the possible way to execute this is by collaborating with or initiating a social enterprise which creates employment opportunities for neglected/unattended groups of the society using a handicraft business catering either local communities or international market (Like Wellpaper, Prison Industries). There can also be a DIY newspaper ideas made Open Source for people can to make them as per their needs. For example, people living in villages can make their own furniture like study table for kids or stools with bare minimum investment. STARTING UP My ideal vision for my career is similar to that of an Artist where I am practising Design as an independent Designers and doing commissioned or collaborative works for and with different people or organisations. I have repeatedly failed to survive in a firm during my internships and starting-up something of my own seems a comfortable but extremely challenging career choice. Only time shall reveal what shape this project finally takes.
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REFERENCES
BOOKS Wir Lieben Papier, Collection of craft ideas with Paper (No Author), Frech Verlag GmbH Product Experience, Paul Hekkert and Hendrik N.J. Schierstein, Elsilver Science 2007 Emotional Design: why we love (or hate) everyday things, Donald A. Norman, Basic Books 2004 Sensory incongruity and surprise in product design, Geke D. S. Ludden, Delft University of Technology 2008 Forms with a Smile, Moniek E. Bucquoye and Dieter Van Den Strom, Page One Publishing Pvt. Ltd 2008 Design for the real world: Human Ecology and Social Change, Victor Papanek, Academy Chicago Publishers 1985 Thinking Design, S Balaram, Sage Publications 2011 Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, Eric Wahl, Crown Business 2013 ekprayog: Design Democracy and Tinkering, Sahil Thappa, NID 2016 Repositioning Traditional, Burhan Ud Din, NID 2015
WEB ARTICLES AND LINKS http://www.nid.edu https://www.wikipedia.org http://strictlypaper.com/blog/tag/recycled/ http://www.core77.com/posts/12232/the-4-fields-of-industrial-design-no-not-furniture-trans-consumer-electronicstoys-by-bruce-m-tharp-and-stephanie-m-tharp-12232 http://www.frontdesign.se https://www.instagram.com https://fullgrown.co.uk/about/ https://wellpaper.org https://dornob.com/shredded-documents-molded-resin-fossilized-furniture/ https://inhabitat.com/inhabitots/recycled-egg-carton-pulp-tamago-furniture/tamago-by-merci-design-top http://www.artnest.it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30&t=54s https://inhabitat.com/modern-paper-pulp-furniture-looks-like-giant-egg-cartons/ https://inhabitat.com/designer-woojai-lee-recycles-newspaper-into-marbled-furniture/ https://antiquewarehouse.ca/2015/06/recycle-your-newspapers-or-build-and-furnish-a-house/ http://www.atelierakifumi.altervista.org https://www.facebook.com/wellpaper.org/ http://kissanime.ru/Anime/Naruto-Shippuuden-Dub
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INSTAGRAM Mayur Bhalavi
https://www.instagram.com/ mayurbhalavi/ Expaperiments https://www.instagram.com/ expaperiments/
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क्यों सोचना है जाना कहाँ, जाए वहीं ले जाये जहां बेसिब्रयां. क्यों ढूंढना पैरों के िनशां, जाए वहीं ले जाए जहाँ बेसिब्रयां. बेसिब्रयां……
Why think about where you are heading to? Why look for footsteps to follow? Let yourself free and go wherever your restlessness takes you!
ANNEXURE
GEMINI I (E8) Table
All Dimensions in Inches
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WARPS AND WEFTS
Wefts
Warps
NEWSPAPER
Start rolling here
Warp
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NEWSPAPER
Start rolling here
Weft
GEMINI I- MATERIALS USED NEWSPAPER
While using newspapers, they tend to lose their ink which gets transferred into the hands of the maker. This is the case with a lot of different newspapers esp. local publishers, with the exception of The Hindu. The Hindi uses their unique hot printing technique which prevents the ink from leaking. Also, The Hindu use more dense paper than other local publishers which gives more strength to the final products. GLUE
The glue used in the process of rolling paper tubes is called Binder’s Paste. It is an organic glue and is prepared using rice powder (also wheat and refined flour or ‘maida’). It an inexpensive glue and cost Rs. 22/kg. One can typically find this glue being used in govt. post offices and also by people for sticking posters and notices on public walls. It comes in a concentrated form, like a paste which needs to be diluted with water before using. VARNISH
The varnish used is called Overprint Varnish. It is used to protect the furniture from the moisture in the air as well as accidental spillage of fluid. It also provides a smooth surface finish and makes the furniture resistant to abrasion. A wet piece of cloth can be used to clean dust settling on the furniture over time. Overprint Varnish is one of the inexpensive alternatives for a gloss/semi-glossy/matt finish used in magazine making. It is non-toxic in nature and doesn’t have a sharp odour. It is a water based varnish and can be diluted using water. Unfortunately, this doesn't give UV protection and hence the furniture may turn yellow over time with the exposure to natural light.
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SECONDARY RESEARCH CREATIVITY and NEWNESS
We differentiate the things around us based on our affective response towards them. They can be either the ones we like or dislike. There are also the things which we find irrelevant and are neutral towards. Even with the things we like, our liking towards them diminishes over time as a result of which we grow bored or neutral towards them. To overcome this, we seek for change and wish for some novelty or newness in them. Innovative businesses have long been utilising this human need for newness to enter, survive and grow in the market. Creativity revolves around this phenomenon and as defined differently by different people but with a common underlying meaning. “Creativity occurs when new relationships between existing things occur or/when new elements are brought in” “Serendipitous collision of elements typically not associated with one another” “Making the familiar unfamiliar” “Almost never ‘the creation of something absolutely new’” Quoting MMO Designer Raph Koster form his lecture on Practical Creativity, “Creativity is what happens when you take oil and water and actually try to mix them”. This helps me understand better the examples in the first chapter which I had considered creative. For example, the marble Femme Violée in which the sculptor has presented transparency and thin-ness of a drape using a contrasting material like stone which is completely unusual for that purpose/application. The unfamiliar shapes of the pieces in the Bauhaus chess set or the unfamiliar sight of not having a driver’s cabin in a driverless metro train from Copenhagen were perceived as creative for newness they bring. I also found the Flipkart advertisement creative as they show small kids acting super-convincingly like elders (with correct make-up, dressing and voice-over). ________________________________________ The same definitions explains the concept of newspaper furnitures. Newspaper being an unusual material for making furnitures, newspaper furnitures concepts are perceived as new and hence creative and innovative. This interplay between familiarity and unfamiliarity also leads to the creation of emotion we call Surprise. Surprise plays an important role in Design, both for the designer and the user. An understanding of ‘Surprise’ is important for designers as the products that offer new experiences are appreciated more. ________________________________________
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SURPRISE
A surprise reaction to a product can be beneficial to both a designer and a user. The designer benefits from a surprise reaction because it can capture attention to the product, leading to increased product recall and recognition, and increased wordof-mouth (Derbaix & Vanhamme 2003, Lindgreen & Vanhamme 2003). Or, as Jennifer Hudson (2004) puts it, the surprise element “elevates a piece beyond the banal”. A surprise reaction has its origin in encountering an unexpected event. The product user benefits from the surprise, because it makes the product more interesting to interact with. In addition, it requires updating, extending or revising the knowledge the expectation was based on. This implies that a user can learn something new about a product or product aspect. In addition to evoking Surprise through Newness, there are other design strategies which Designers have been employing to evoke the same. This involves introducing a Sensory Conflict/Incongruity which is in contrast to the concept of Sensory Branding but they lie in the domain of multi-sensory experience. SENSORY CONFLICT
BRANDING
AND
SENSORY
We use our senses to explore and perceive the world around us. While using a product, we perform actions on that product and our senses provide us with continuos feedback regarding how the product, to the environment, reacts to those actions. Studies suggest that the greater the number of sensory modalities that are stimulated at any one time, the richer our experience becomes. This is fundamental to the concept of Sensory Branding and a lot of brands are making use of this to make a connect to their customers at an deeper emotional level and create memorable associations in their customer with the brand, thereby ensuring a loyal consumer base. E.g. Characteristic ambient aroma of fresh ground coffee is Starbuck’s way of sensory branding in addition to the cozy interiors and tasty food they serve. Carefully tuning the car engines that give away a characteristic sound is a strategy employed by various automobile brands like Ford to build their association in the customers. However, there exists another approach of handling these sensory modalities which designer’s have used to evoke a certain experience with the product- an approach in which all the senses do not necessarily communicate the same message. This involves the designer evoking surprise by introducing Sensory
Discrepancies. Examples of such sensory discrepancies or incongruity include a chair made out of rope making an onlooker wonder if it is stable enough to sit on or a cup that seems to be made of metal but is actually made of plastic, and thus is much lighter that expected. The challenge in these cases seems to be combining originality and familiarity within the same design. Even while trying to evoke surprise, a designer will generally ensure that the majority of the product attributes communicate the same message, while only one particular aspect is responsible for the element of surprise. An exact same thought went behind my first paper furniture, Christiania. I used a vary familiar form of a four-legged stool with a circular top. The intent was to direct the entire focus of the user on the aesthetic novelty as a result of the material used and not on the shape of it by using an unfamiliar form for stools. DESIGN STRATEGIES TO EVOKE SURPRISE
Designers seem to create products in the HN and VN type by making use of several different design strategies. Studies have identified six different design strategies (DS): ‘new material with unknown characteristics’, ‘new material that looks like familiar material’, ‘new appearance for known product or material, ‘combination with transparent material’, ‘hidden material characteristics’, and ‘visual illusion’. In all six strategies, a combination of two opposites is used: something new is used (‘Newness’) and a reference to something familiar is made (‘Familiarity’). The combination of new and familiar elements is likely to result in surprise. The familiar element of the product forms the basis for an expectation about other elements. Subsequently, the new element will disconfirm this expectation. New and/or familiar elements can be used in the visual domain in the appearance of the product (e.g., in shape, material, or type of product), and/or in the tactual domain in the material properties of the product (e.g., in weight, flexibility, or balance). ________________________________________ In the context of the newspaper furniture in this project, the strategy at work is DS3 which is ‘new appearance for known product or material’. Since newspaper is visible in the furniture, one approaches or attempts to interacts with them with certain expectation based on their knowledge and experience. One expect newspaper to be a delicate item which can be easily torn apart with lands or made to slack by making it wet. There experience also tells them that newspaper in general, apart from printing, is used for light weight applications like envelops, small bags and that the idea of using it for furniture is difficult to readily accept. ________________________________________
Eventually when they interact with the furniture through touch (hold or sit), they will find out that they are actually strong, hard and sturdy. This new insight disconfirms the person’s expectation and thus creates a surprise. Also, since newspaper is visible in the products, they fall under the category of Visible Novelty (VN). This may partly explain why people typically experience VN products as more interesting than HN products. People prefer products with an optimal combination of typicality and novelty. and hence these two elements are the main components present in each design strategy. Furthermore, the design strategies can result in the two different types of surprising products discussed. Four strategies can lead to a product in the VN type. One of these strategies can also lead to a product in the HN type and the two other strategies can only lead to a product in the HN type. The ‘Visible Novelty’ (VN) types of surprise consists of product that seem unfamiliar to the perceiver. Consequently, only uncertain expectations can be be formed on the basis of association with the product category, overall shape, or material used. Although the consumer’s surprise reaction is most likely to be limited, because they are unsure of the product’s exact properties and purpose, the product may be interesting and intriguing because of the ambiguity it creates in the mind. E.g. The “Shrunken Furniture” by Bertjan Pot is made of polystyrene, covered in knitted cloth and then vacuumed and hardened wax. The combination of materials with the new shape results in a bench that looks like it is made out of familiar soft material, like foam rubber. In reality, the bench feels hard. In addition, because the material is lighter that the that the materials that are commonly used in the construction of benches (such as wood), this bench is much lighter that one would expect. On the other hand, products belonging to the ‘Hidden Novelty’ (HN) surprise type seem very familiar to the perceiver, and thus lead to a stronger reaction of surprise, because the tactual properties are very different from those that are expected. For example, the vase looks like a familiar, traditional vase made from glass or crystal. In actual fact, it is made from plastic and, consequently, a consumer will experience it as being surprisingly light when he/ she picks it up. The study suggests that the surprise ratings were higher and facial expressions typically associated with surprise occurred more often for HN than for VN products. People tended to used more vocal expressions while interacting with HN product, and more exploratory behaviour while interacting with VN product. It is possible that people enjoyed 93 Expaperimentation | Degree Project
exploring VN products more than HN products. Alternatively, however, they may have needed more time ignored to interact with the VN products, because they wanted to figure out what exactly it was that had triggered their surprise reaction. On the other hand, it seemed that he surprise experienced by consumers upon touching the HN products was understood immediately, and that further exploration or cognitive effort was unnecessary. This may partly explain why people typically experience VN products as more interesting than HN products. FUNCTIONS OF EMOTIONS
As Darwin proposed, the best way to understand emotions is by considering their evolutionary history and contribution to the survival of the species and the individual. Understanding the “functional requirements” created by environments in which all animal live give the insights as to why we have emotions, and with their particular characteristics. ‘All organisms, in order to survive and maintain their populations, must find and ingest food, avoid injury, and reproduce their kind’ (Plutchik, 1984, p. 201). In order to survive, it is not sufficient for an organism to simply understand its situations; it has to be motivated to do something about it, and that is precisely what emotions do: They physically prepare and motivate the individual to contend with the adaptational implications of the eliciting situation. Fear comes with a tendency to flee, anger with the tendency to attack, fascination with a tendency to explore. Frijda(1986) argues that the action tendencies, or states of readiness to respond, should be thought of as adaptive response to events that have been important to us as a species in our evolutionary past, as well as in present environment. The important advantage of action tendencies over rigid reflexes and fixed action patterns is that they enable flexibility, both in event interpretation and in response choice. Emotions ‘decouple’ from the perception of the stimulus so that reconsideration is possible. Fear creates a tendency to flee, but depending on the particular situation an aggressive attitude to intimidate the attacker might be a better alternative. Emotions are functional because they establish our position vis-à-vis our environment, pulling us towards certain product, people, actions, ideas, and pushing us away from other (Frijda, 1986).This basic principle applies to all emotions: the intense emotions that we may experience in survivalthreatening situations, and the subtle emotions that we may experience in response to seeing or using a product.
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SOURCE The research work in this section has been reproduced here from the book ‘Product Experience’ by Hekkert and. Schifferstein (2007)