DESIGN TALKS 2 WRITING ABOUT DESIGN
The faculty Dr Qassim Saad
Professor Sven Anwar Bibi
Introduction
Future academics need intercultural experience
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n this second issue of ‘Design Talks’ we are committed to developing the project further in order to achieve the following objectives: 1) To present the culture of teaching design in the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Arts (FASA) through a series of publications which are designed to expose the nature of design based research as a teaching method in our faculty. 2)Introduce a new generation of professional Egyptian designers through their design projects and to support their engagements with professional practice in design on both a local and international level. 3) Support the culture of writing and publishing about design thinking specifically in Egypt. These selected articles from our graduating designers in 2013 continue to address scopes for interacting with design thinking through wider topics and applications by targeting the development of socio-cultural practices through design. Designing experiences represents the context of our teaching practices across the three disciplines we offer (graphic design, media design, and product design) and where the human is the centre of our design process. Furthermore, this teaching environment is strongly motivating to encompass interdisciplinary connections with a wider range of fields; from broad social sciences to technology and production of new material and immaterial designed objects. For the first time, this issue of ‘Design Talks’ publishes articles submitted by our students who studied during Winter & Spring semesters in the GUC Berlin campus. Our campus in Berlin presents a great opportunity for our students to interact, conduct and study abroad. Therefore, FASA in Berlin is a new milestone that aims to support our strong cooperations with German design institutions and industry, for the benefit of further developing the culture of teaching and research practices in the faculty. The successful stories and achievements of our students, as well as, our teaching staff during the academic year of 2012-2013 that were presented on both national and international levels, demonstrate clear evidence of strengthening the nature of our design-based research practices. ‘Design Talks’ is the base for a creative medium to narrate these achievements to wider audiences. This base will continue to develop and support the many creative ideas we are planning to conduct in the near future.
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ounding a satellite branch in Berlin, the German University in Cairo created a platform for intercultural exchange and cooperation on an academic level. This was a visionary decision, since global thinking competences are becoming increasingly relevant and students need to be sensibilized to think critically and understand dependencies of systems on a global level. In addition, a consensus on essential common norms and values, which is a fundamental aim of modern societies and focuses on human dignity, can only be reached through knowledge about the diversity of cultures (cf. Fischer, V. 2006: 111ff.). The creation of knowledge within academic and university contexts is based on language, utilizing specific forms and discourse methods. Thus, traditional academic knowledge is hardly ever based on practical experience. Design-knowledge has always been closely linked to practical experiences and evaluation methods, including a user, recipient, and system. Visualising techniques, critical thinking proficiancy in theory and practice, prototyping and reassessing, differentiate design from traditional sciences and research. Within a design process, language is an equal form of articulation amongst multiple others. Yet its role within intercultural cooperations, projects and teaching environments is crucial, as it functions as the main tool for communication. Taking this fact into consideration, specifically language barriers, often found in intercultural cooperations, need to be negotiated in order to avoid frustration, misunderstanding, disobeying cultural conventions or even culture shock. Aside of language, factors like time and space play an important
Dr Qassim Saad is Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts, German University in Cairo
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Nourhan Khaled Hegazy
role for a successful execution of intercultural cooperations. The creation and definition of a specific space, which can be considered a 'dynamic space', geographically dependent, yet flexible content-wise, is vital. Design uses the idea of an extended space, that exceeds the architectural one and includes society, business and everyday culture and thus automatically merges with a new environment. In addition, time, regardles of its actual extend, has to be segmented into phases, each following a specific routine; starting with excitement and hypothetical knowledge, passing through a phase of frustration and disbelieve and ending with reflection and revision of knowledge. As we will deal with increasingly complex environments of needs within large scale social, economic and industrial frames, intercultural experiences are crucial factors defining future academic and practitioner profiles, where places like the GUC Berlin Campus will function as accelerators and inevitable intercultural hubs.
Design talks louder
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o talk about design, I feel, is quite difficult. To verbally represent a rather complex sequence of events, to transform an imaginative thinking process into a series of sentences might seem like a daunting task; yet a task that is crucial. Through the process of reading the following articles, I find the term 'design' in constant transformation, fluctuating from an adjective to a noun to a verb; reflecting the adaptation of a term as dynamic as its usage. In a way, these verbal constructs about design are not only a voice for design thinking, but also a representation of design practice; whether it's talk based on design action, or action based on design talk. Design in Egypt is becoming a significant field, establishing its way into the market and more importantly into the daily lives of Egyptians. Therefore, it is important for designers to openly communicate the skills of synthesis; a task often times overlooked as during the process of design, the intellectual leap from research to insight lacks documentation and public exposure (Polaine, 2010). Accordingly, this publication aims to take a moment to reflect on our present mode of design: Where can we see design today? How do we document it? and what can we do to communicate it? Graduating students were given the space to make a conscious choice of what he/she would like to talk about. This choice can be seen as an expression of what design issues they care about most and where their design experiences, at the faculty, have led them. Each page reveals a compressed articulation of our faculty's emerging designers; a collective direction for design, in which each individual played a role in the making. The following publication becomes an open invitation for discourse on design. An invitation to continue using design not only to think and to transform our world today, but also and invitation to think how we can transform design itself.
Bad TÜlz, September 2013 Š Prof. Sven-Anwar Bibi, Professor for Product Design, Academic Director of the GUC Berlin Campus (from 2012-2013)
Nourhan Khaled Hegazy is a teaching assistant for Product design at the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts, German University in Cairo
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The speakers Manar Morsi (Founder, Studio Meem)
in Cairo. I view the challenges as an opportunity and as a possible realm where we have to exercise the most creativity to design solutions that allow us to continue to practice. Further, at this moment of revolt in Egypt, I believe it is the perfect opportunity to bring to light different voices and viewpoints through the mediums of art and design. I hope that students will continue to challenge the status quo through their work, to search for creative ways to continue to practice, and that armed with design skills, they will find ways to begin to tackle the multitude of problems that exist here in our city.
Supernatural design: rituals & myths
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y work spans the fields of architecture, art and product design. In my research and design practice, I have been interested in the role and attributes of what I call the “supernatural” through three specific, yet parallel and simultaneous strands: The first one explores the supernatural as the everyday, the relentlessly ordinary - but also as what comes more naturally and instinctively. Deriving inspiration from this supernatural, it becomes the protagonist of a work that is unpolished, unfinished, wabi-sabi in its imperfection, and which employs in its vocabulary materials from the everyday. The second one addresses the effect of supernatural climatic phenomena. It uses as its stimulus real or imagined extreme moments of nature and responds to them through design. The third one considers the role of the supernatural - the fantastic, utopic and imaginary - and layers these fictions in the design work. Together, these strands have led me to develop a practice that transcends the traditional boundaries of architecture and design, embracing artistic practice, but also following the latest in a variety of disciplines from literature, sociology, philosophy and anthropology. While my architectural interests are rooted in the urban context, my academic and creative work also presents the argument that supernatural can be understood at a variety of scales, from object (as in my work on the forthcoming publication 1001 Street Chairs in Cairo), to buildings (as I have examined in writing as well as in a recently built house I designed in Kuwait), to problems at the scale of the urban and landscape ecology (as I have explored most recently in my work on environmental issues in a playfully hyperbolic and imaginary context of an inundated post-Tsunami Tokyo.) Practices of re-appropriation, of addressing the urgent challenges of climate change through design, are rightly on the minds of others in this ecologically vulnerable society in which we live. My work attempts to address these issues in addition to addressing urban problems in the context of which I operate – which offers a wide field for designers to leap into. While developing a rigorous research-based design practice is a challenge, due to the difficulty of a context where very little is done in terms of research, and where little support exists for these kinds of endeavors, I am still excited by the potentials of working here
Amr Abdel Kawi (CEO Rhimal Consultancy)
Becoming a designer in Egypt
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esign . our . future? our future design, design our future, future of our design, our design of the future. These three words contain multiple important dimensions through their multiple compositions. I particularly think that today they present a most relevant combination not only to our local context in this region, but to the broader global context as well; particularly as we problematize them with the question mark at the end. As we dissect the words we encounter important meanings. In ‘design’ the verbs change and forecasting, and also the nouns intentionality and meaning are embedded. In ‘our’ we see self, community, time and place. In ‘future’ we face past, present, and uncertainty. These are all important dimensions for the young emergent designer who is facing today a world that is clearly in flux. It appears that a new world is in the making and the indicators are many, some political, many technological, and of course economic. In our part of the world that fluidity is ever more evident, forcing emergent designers to face a new question about their role in this process of change. Can they afford for it to remain a complacent role catering mostly to the political and economic ‘influentials’ like it has been for the better part of the past five decades? Or is it time to adopt another more proactive, even provocative role? The future at this time in history is clearly uncertain and design is an art used to address needs forecasted in the future due to lag time in development and application. The new parameters brought about by revolutionary shifts turn the tables on our traditional formula on how designers should design the future and for the future. More importantly is the question, for whom are they designing? For no longer are designers protected by the air of neutrality that seemed to colour their social role in the past three decades. The fluidity of the present setting problematizes this role and its apparent neutrality.
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What are the relevant questions that should be posed by design under the circumstances? How engaged should the designer become? And how much leadership should design acquire in the formula for influencing the future? Who are our main clients? Are we to continue supporting the forces of commercialization simply because it is convenient for our personal livelihood and careers? And how can the state of fluidity actually become a source for renewed energy for change as opposed to sources of uncertainty and inhibition. It is time to reflect seriously and critically.
social and national reservoirs of fuel ignited the idea within Gropius’s bosom. The influence of this group of professors' ideas and dedication to the ‘Design field’ as one way of bettering our lives is not refutable. Wars or turmoil have always ignited this sincere energy within some human beings to direct the enhancement of our material cultures. Le Corbusier once said: “c’est l’architecture ou la revolution”; well the revolution that Le Corbusier was scared of, did happen recently in my country Egypt. Since the inception of the Bauhaus and continuous influence, there have been forces that hijacked design in all its forms to serve not the public, but the mad spree of everything wild, weird and wonderful; the three ‘w’s. The planet proved not to sustain this further, man also lost his sense of orientation. From where has he originated and where the hell is he going? A total phantasmagoria prevails within current architecture, interior, product & furniture design, not to mention fashion and media arts. Our duty in Egypt as responsible educators for the minds of generations to come; is to enforce the original reasoning behind the invention of the ‘design fields'. Hence instilling a wisdom of deliberate choice to the process of decision taking, that may aid us in staying the furthest away from this mad ‘Lakhbatation’; a term from the colloquial Arabic ‘lakhbata’ that I invented to accentuate the hybrid mix of everything at any time at any place; a world where anything goes, but goes where? That’s the problem.
Dr. Amr Abdel Kawi is CEO Rhimal Design Management. Editor in Chief of Magaz Magazine, and Professor of Architecture at AUC.
Ahmad Hamid (Ahmad hamid Architects)
The story of a font
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Creating a font is a matter that requires an extreme, intense, ocular graphic vision of image, message, and meaningful communication. The letters are characters on their own. They are all personas. The problem is that they belong to one family, genetically and physiognomically. They are bound by commonalities but not reproductions of one another. Each one is a unity in its own sense, one is fat, the other is thin, one is humorous, and the other is sober. The third is elegantly static, the fourth meagerly slim. The designer here has to transform all these characters and more into graphic vehicles that contain these semiotic and sonorous meanings. As an architect, modulation, proportionality, aesthetic sharpening and extreme editing; were all tools to accomplish a font I created back in 1980 at one shot of 3 days work. After thirty years, we digitized it at an enormous cost and effort but what a pleasure; The font 'Heavenly Light' was born and only in caps, it was enough." (Cairo, February 2013.) This was my brief description of the lecture I was invited to give at the German university Cairo, on Thursday the 11th of April at GUC, titled ‘The story of a font’. I have had an admiration of this university since it started with the products and designs of students within the applied arts department. I found it engaging, contextual and market driven without the loss of developing students skills in general with some ideological background to where, why and how to do things. A more or less rounded up curriculum and more so grounded in realities, compared particularly to other multinational universities in Egypt with far richer budgets as to where I was teaching back then. Education and social responsibility within academies has not yet been quantified by ISO nor quality control formatted sheets. It is still a matter within the bosom of the professor, away from asthenia. Germany’s crisis post-World War I, led to the Bauhaus’ inception;
Deena Shaaban
Boundary-less Design
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he beauty of design is the infinite possibilities that exist within the world and that, if tapped into with depth, can create a world of endless intertwining possibilities. Within design, there lies an infinite number of possibilities and the only determining factor of what those possibilities can be is our knowledge. The world we live in is all intertwining and overlapping, nothing is separate from one another and everything is linked to each other. You must put on your horseblinds and design what you believe you need to design. Often times when designers are first starting out, it becomes easy to look around at other designer’s work and continuously compare our work and path to their’s; leaving very little room for any real design to be done. The most important thing, when a designer is about to embark on their path is to put on your horseblinds and continue on your own journey in your own way. Everyone has their own path and an individual course their life must take and if we continuously look around us then it leaves very little room for work to be done.
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With any type of truly good design, it must always have a purpose. One must always ask themselves, why is it that they are designing? What purpose are my designs supposed to serve? Once that very vital question is answered, then one has a solid base from which to begin, from which all design can then stem. Once the base is solidly set, then anything can be. The mark of any good designer is for people to be able to spot a design and know that it belongs to that designer and the only way for such a thing to take place is to have a purpose. In reality, the world of design has no boundaries. There are an infinite number of possibilities to what can be created in the realm of design, be it fashion, product design, interior design or others. Nothing in this world is separate, and the more knowledge we arm ourselves within the world around us, the more profound our capacity for creation will be. The key nowadays is being able to merge all the aspects of the world together into one type of design, in a way no one else has. Needless to say, the only way possible of doing so is to understand as much as we are able to about all the realms of design and then as much about the world around us as we possibly can. In doing so, our ability to create and design will become so unique in ways that only we can offer to the world. Only then, will anything be truly possible.
city, however, is mainly shaped by the people who live there. It is the citizens with their unique life courses and stories who form this image. Even more, they are the ones who turn a city into what it is. There is no city for which this statement could be more accurate than for Berlin, the “City of Change”, as it calls itself. Many decisive moments of historic change of the 20th and 21st century took place in this city. These historical milestones had a strong influence on the citizens’ biographies. When we defined the content and design of Berlin’s brand in 2008, we decided to focus brand communication on the stories of its residents. The core of the Berlin brand is storytelling. The centrepiece is a stage on which people tell their stories, symbolised by a red rectangular speech bubble. It is the stage for personal stories, in form of anecdotes and tales, full of emotions and contradictions – like the city itself. “Be Berlin”, the slogan we created, is the perfect ambiguous tagline for this concept.
Katrin Androschin
Fabian Baumann (Founder of Formfjord)
Branding Cities
What's next?
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he power and influence of brands is rising continuously. For example, the sheer brand value of Coca Cola is 77.84 billion US dollars*. This is why the understanding how brands work is important. And not only consumer products are brands but also countries, regions and cities. The question whether cities “need” brands or not is obsolete because a city itself IS a brand. A city is more than a conglomeration of buildings and traffic routes, it is a projection of emotions and ways of life that residents and visitors associate with it. The image of a city is highly complex, it comprises many aspects that are characteristic for this particular place. City brands bundle these various aspects. They make it possible to communicate with one concise message. Just like consumer goods in saturated markets, cities find themselves competing against each other. It is a competition for achieving the highest revenues in the tourism sector and for attracting the best companies and the smartest brains. Richard Florida, author of the ground-‐ breaking book “The Rise of the Creative Class” predicted: "Increasingly, the most competitive global contests are for bright, innovative and entrepreneurial people." ** Therefore, it is vital for a city to deal with its brand intensively. The image people have of a city is made of its history, geographical factors, architecture and much more. The image of a
*Brand valuation according to Interbrand, Best Global Brands 2012 ** Richard Florida, Who’s Your City? New York, 2008 Caption: Katrin Androschin: With her agency Embassy, she created the brand “Be Berlin” and other destination brands. Katrin Androschin, Alte Leipziger Straße 8, 10117 Berlin, Germany Tel. +49 30-‐695 795-‐660 E-‐Mail: androschin@embassyexperts.com
founded Formfjord in 2006 together with his partner Sönke Hoof. As a team of designers and engineers, we use our different perspectives to develop innovative solutions for everday products in commission of internationally renowned clients. I would like to call on future designers to understand design not as an artisitic discipline but as a tool to create new options for the future and thus to change the world. However, in order to have an impact, it is crucial to cooperate with the right people. Only through a broad knowledge base can we convince people of our capability by asking the right questions. The ability of the designer to hop into a new field, to observe from a fresh perspective and to extract the essence of a problem is the key to new and better solutions. A few years back, I was asked in an interview to answer a simple question: "What's next?" The more I thought about this question, the more interesting it turned out to be: In the short term, one might consult a to-do-list or question how to pay the bills next month. Strategically, it is a question about where you see yourself in five years time: Who to partner with or how to invest your time and money. With large parts of our careers still ahead of us, I believe we should interpret this question in a much wider and more philosophical sense: What is our role as a designer? What
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is it we really want from life? What can we contribute to create the future? A time has come, where innovative, more sustainable solutions are needed in order to save the planet and our own futures. Who could be better at helping out than a well trained, inspiring designer. My advice to you as design students is to go out there and help create a better future. As a visionary you can predict a positive future and make it happen. Translate science-fiction into reality and imagine applications for new technologies that make sense; create new options and make them sexy so they reach people. Tell a story - People really like good stories and they like to share them. Get inspired – learn from others, keep your mind open. Inspire others through your ideas. Never run in circles. And be responsible: The world is in your hands.
of this treasure into collages. I work swiftly, not too much fussing and rearranging, just careful selection, a bit of editing, and that’s it. I put together a room to work in with mostly print-making materials: ink, stencils, stamps. Lately, I have added bits of silkscreen from type I photographed, or found left on an old screen in the print workshop. The process seems to be four or five years of collecting, a month or two of assembling to make a collection.
Mariam Rashid, Nour Amr Elsherif & Nada Attallah
Pheel
Rhinower Str. 3 10437 Berlin www.formfjord.com
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he time has come where you’re thrown to the world faced with the scary thought of finding what you want to do in life and how you’re going to do it. As fresh graduates about to face the real world, we had a firm belief that “No, we want to do our thing, we’re not going to surrender to companies, people with bosses are always complaining, we want to be happy!” So with all the passion in the world we started working on starting our own thing. Each one of us was already working on a product or had a specific skill so we combined everything we had, and created 'Pheel': an experimental design studio where we create conceptual product collections that are inspired from the beautiful things we see and experience. But surprise surprise, it’s never that easy. Doing your own thing, especially something design related in Egypt, has its ups and downs. You will find those who don’t understand what you’re doing and don’t really appreciate your work, but also those who are hungry for something new. You might find yourself broke and having to get a side job to support yourself, but it’s fine, you need this phase to help you see that stripped from necessities - which let’s face it, money is a big one - this is what you want to do in life. Creating a bubble of your own where you’re safe is not realistic; you need to be out there exploring the scene, meeting people, seeing what they want and understanding their needs, because the opportunities are all waiting for you outside that comfortable bubble. And the trick is to just keep moving forward. If you have something you want to do and you believe in it completely, then stop talking about it and just do it! Gather as much knowledge as you can from everything and everyone around you. Work for a big corporation! If you like it, then continue, if you don’t, than make the most of the opportunity and quit. See things for yourself rather than what you presume, and appreciate your experiences whether they may be good or bad. The most important thing is to enjoy the process. Enjoy coming up with a name for your new business, enjoy bringing a lunchbox with your mum’s food because you’re broke, enjoy that moment of releasing a new product, enjoy the compliments… and criticisms; but most importantly, do what you love.
Nick Pride
Typographic Collages
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make typographic collages that are made almost entirely of pieces of printed type and ‘found objects’ that I come across as I live my everyday life. Recently I have been able to travel and work for periods of time in Iran, Italy and America. I collect these things wherever I go, and seek out old printing houses, stationery shops, sign-writers and rubberstamp makers, where -after a faltering introduction with little language- I am often made welcome. Frequently my enthusiasm leads to an old drawer, a store down the street, or the room out the back where treasures are to be discovered. I particularly value small local printers, one-man outfits such as you still find in Italy and the Middle East, often with an eclectic and improvised collection of old type languishing in a corner. And really only still in business out of habit rather than commercial gain. Sometimes there is a rare find: a box opened in a flea market in Bruxelles full of old zinc stencils – at other times mere good luck, a brand new ticket lying in my path in the street, waiting for me to pick it up. Occasionally, I need the cunning of a trapper; a left luggage receipt could not be retained after collecting my bag – the attendant suspicious of some ruse to claim someone else’s bag – so I found an empty box, placed a stone inside, handed it in and received the ticket I desired. As far as I know the box is still there. Therefore, a large part of making this work is by travelling and collecting; a kind of typographic hunting. I fill boxes and boxes with the stuff I gather – as precious to me as flowers; my collection goes back perhaps fifteen years. Then, every now and again when time allows, I have a period of time in a studio, in England or Venice or Tehran, assembling some
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Tom Bieling (Design Research Lab, Berlin University of the Arts)
Design in(g) Society
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esign is deeply entangled into our everyday life, and therefore always connected to the social sphere. We might think of design as being related to social change (Joost/Bieling 2012). How can design enable this change to happen? In December 2012, a group of 120 graphic, media and product design students at the German University in Cairo participated in the project “DESIGN IN(G) SOCIETY”*, which focused on the designer’s role in terms of understanding, influencing and creating social sustainable processes in an urban context. The aim of the course was to investigate the effects design has on everyday life and vice versa. The guiding questions were: what role does the design of urban environment and public spaces play in terms of enabling or hindering social interaction? What role do “objects” play in this context? In this, a special focus was laid out on social Interaction between sections of the population with “conflict potential” (e.g. old – young, man – woman, rich – poor, different cultural or religious backgrounds, state – people, etc). Final goal of the course was, to find (designerly) ways of solving these social problems, that were discovered by the participants, using the broad range of design-relevant issues and skillz (e.g. product, service, information, interaction, event, communication design). Design’s role in shaping the future of our society has been discussed and described manifold (e.g. Papanek 1972; Manzini 2007; Bieling/Joost/Sametinger 2013). Kees Doorst argues that the “larger processes of societal change are often seen as inevitable, almost as natural processes that beset humanity. And it is true that these processes are difficult to start, stop or steer. They are also much too complicated to design directly. They involve complex technical, social and cultural issues over long periods of time. Yet, these large scale processes can be molded”. (Doorst 2011, 25) This also requires the participation of the stakeholders as active contributors to the design process (see also Ehn 2009; Sanders 2002). However to come up with successful approaches to socio-cultural phenomena, requires taking into account sociological and ethical questions. The challenge of the designer is not only to meet certain functional or aesthetic requisites for certain products, but also to clarify an enhanced and reflected understanding of social dynamics - thus to holistically understand design as a process that has an impact on these situations. Obviously design does not always solve problems, but can also be major part of the problem itself. Nevertheless, society and culture are man-made things, and the social impact of design is evident on
all levels. Thus (creating and infrastructuring a valuable) society can also be seen as a design project. One central aspect of infrastructuring design in the social field is to create or imagine platforms that allow or support emancipated action by the people concerned. In terms of designing coexistence, two aspects shall be highlighted: The first aspect relates to the phenomenon that wherever people from different, e.g. cultural or social backgrounds come and live together, different problems and challenges seem to evolve (Heitmeyer 1998; Esser 2000). In the project we observed many
of them. Based on these observations, we focused on concepts to encounter and avoid such problems, meaning that we aimed at “designing coexistence” (Bieling/Joost/Mueller 2010). The second aspect relates to bundling competences. By bringing together designers, researchers and experts-of-everyday-life revealing experiential and implicit knowledge in a participatory process, a “designing coexistence” (composed of these different actors) can emerge. Thus in this research field “designing coexistence” has a double meaning, in terms of both bringing together people in an inter or trans-cultural (Welsch 1999), as well as in a design-oriented sense. A social inclusion of “disadvantaged” or marginalized people can not least be supported by their active inclusion into the design/research-process. One central aspect became pretty clear in this project: Design research is particularly well located where it can have a real impact: In Society! In June 2013, three of the team-works developed in this project, were exhibited in the "Arab Revolution Exhibition – ART AS RESITANCE", curated by the Middle Eastern Society in Edinburgh, UK. The exhibition aimed at discovering different positions and perspectives from Art, Design and Media, related to the Arab Spring. Interestingly all three oft he chosen projects share the overall topic of gender inequality in Egypt. The Exhibition has been perceived well so far, and the curators plan to move on with it in two more places (London, Manchester). * The course was related to its partner semester-project at GUC Berlin Campus (Winter Semster 2012/2013). Further information can be found on the blog: http://designingsociety.wordpress.com/ References: See page 126
The students
14. Aahd Wafaa El Din
52. Lana Mohamed
92. Perihane Ayman
16. Alexandra Bechir
54. Madeleine Diab
94. Rama El Tohamy
15. Ahmad Gaafar 17. Ali Ismail
18. Alyaa El Gharby 19. Amira Khaled
20. Amira Mashnour 21. Amr Kandil
22. Aya El-Shawarby 23. Aya Ezz
24. Aya Fathy
25. Aynour Tatanaki
26. Christopher Mankarious 27. Dina Hany
28. Dina Kamal
29. Doaa Alaa El Din 30. Doha Salah
31. Eman Elsokkary
32. Esmerelda Mahmoud 33. Esraa Thabet
34. Farah Ahmed 35. Farah Galal
36. GUC Berlin end of year exhibition 41. Farida Ashraf
42. Farida Hassan Bassiouni 43. Farida Khater
44. Fayza El-Shabrawy 45. Hazem Mahmoud
46. Heba Mohsen Mohammed 47. Hend Awad
48. Hiba Hazim
49. Hussein El Badry 50. Kholoud Anwar
51. Kholoud Essawy
53. Lina Mostafa
55. Mahitab Ayoub 56. Mai Mohamed 57. Malak Hassan
58. Mariam El Nahas 59. Mariam El Tonsy 60. Mariam Tawfik
61. Marina Emad Tawfiq 62. Marina Rizkalla 63. Menna Ashraf
64. Menna Mostafa
65. Mennah Elatroush 66. Mirna Alfred
67. Mohamed Sherif Aggag 68. Mona Abdel Aziz 69. Nada Genena
70. Nada Hesham
71. Nadeen Khaled 72. Nadia Wernli 73. Nadine Amr 74. Naguib Risk
75. Natalie El Assiouty 76. Nathalie Goubran
77. Nehal Mohamed Ezz 78. Nehal Reda
79. Noha Ayoub
80. Noha Mansour 81. Norhan Omar
82. GUC New Cairo end of year exhibition 86. Noura Tarek
87. Nourhane El Rashidy 88. Olfat Helmy
89. Oliver Morcos
90. Omar El Demery 91. Omar Fakhry
93. Radwa El Farra
95. Randa El Husseiny 96. Rania Rafie
97. Ranin Ahmed
98. Reem Hashem 99. Reem Salama 100. Reem Samy
101. Roby Zekry
102. Rowaynah El Naggar 103. Salma Baki
104. Salma El Far
105. Salma El Mahdy 106. Salma Hesham 107. Salma Roshdy 108. Sama Ahmed
109. Samar Khazbak
110. Sandra Nagy Iskander 111. Sara Anwar 112. Sara Sallam
113. Sarah El Karabigy 114. Shahd Galal
115. Shaymaa Ezzo
116. Shaymaa Hossam Ezzeldin 117. Sohaila Mosbeh
118. Wessam Abd El Rahman 119. Yacoub Yassin 120. Yara Labib
121. Yara Yassin
122. Yasmeen Badr
123. Yasmine Ahmed Helmy 124. Youssef Ali Araby 125. Youssef Edward
Aahd Wafaa El Din
Designing through culture حتى يتمكن املصمم من توصيل فكرة التصميم باعتبارها تجربة ابداعية موجهة هذا املحتوى الثقايف يرتبط. يجب ان يكون هنالك محتوى ثقايف لتلك الفكرة،للمستخدم وهذا ما يجعل بعض التصاميم،بشكل طبيعي باملصمم القائم عىل ابداع تلك الفكرة .محبذة و مرغوبة يف بيئة ما عمن سواها وهو اداة لها،يرتبط استخدام "السواك" كمنتج مادي طبيعي بالثقافة االسالمية و السواك هو جذر.ارتباط مبارش بسلوك املسلم الشخيص وطريقة تنظيفه للفم واالسنان او ساق لنبات معني ينمو يف بعض الدول االفريقية مثل تنزانيا واثيوبيا وكذلك هو ينمو .يف الهند والباكستان ان التصميم الذي اقدمه هنا هو محاولة لعكس وجهة نظري التحليلية باعتباري وبنفس الوقت،مصممة مسلمة آومن بالتطور الحايل للعديد من املنتجات املحيطة بنا هديف.احاول تطوير تصاميم قامئة عل بعد حضاري مرتبط بجذوري العربية االسالمية ،الرئييس من هذه املحاولة مل يكن فقط احياء عادة قدمية مرتبطة باستخدام هذا املنتج وامنا لتقديم هذا املنتج وفق رؤية معارصة مقارنة بفرشاة االسنان التي نستخدمها يوميا هذه الرؤية التصميمية تقدم هذا.باعتبارها منتج اسايس من منتجات العناية الصحية لنا .املنتج الطبيعي بشكل جديد ميكن تقبله حتى من قبل غري املسلمني عبارة عن مقبض: االوىل.الوصف الشكيل للمنتج املصمم يقدم فكرتني مختلفتني مع تركيب يستوعب قطعة صغرية من مادة السواك والتي بدورها،ملسك السواك باليد اما الجزء الثاين فهو عبارة عن تركيب يساعد يف تجهيز قطع السواك،ستالمس االسنان يضمن التصميم الجديد امكانية مرنة وسلسة.بعد تقشريها من القطعة الرئيسية كذلك يوفر التصميم. كذلك امكانية اضفاء الوان حسب الطلب للمنتج النهايئ،لالستخدام .امكانية رؤية قطعة السواك من خالل الجزء الشفاف املصمم الحتواء تلك القطعة
P
roducts are now starting to lose their special “aura”, as they are no longer related to their “time and space” (Walter, 1935). While designing through culture, outsourcing design concepts hardly send true messages to intended users. Therefore, one may infer that neither the realization of the design problem nor its solution can be recognized by foreigners. When designers are required to design products based on nothing but their creativity, personal influence of the designer is reflected in the product, which varies according to his/her background (Gagliardi, 2001). One of the forgotten Islamic cultural traditions is using 'sewak' for oral hygiene. Sewak are chewing sticks made of the roots and stems of certain plants that grow in Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, India and Pakistan. The following design work revives this tradition to be part of our modern life while solving its primitive appearance. Despite being a Muslim designer, my concept was not only aiming to address using sewak as a religious tradition but also practically comparing it to a regular toothbrush from both a functional and hygienic perspective. It also integrated trends like “going back to nature,” widening the range of targeted users. The following images show two different approaches; the first one is an ergonomic design with playful colors, that can enclose a small piece of sewak. The second is a more mature design with a metal peeler for the sewak end. To maintain full functionality, the holder includes a stopper inside so that it can allow the stick to move only in one direction when needed. Furthermore, the color green adds a natural component, the transparent part reveals the real appearance of the chewing stick, and a container for spare Sewak pieces accompanies both designs. This represents one approach for designing through culture, meanwhile there are a variety of cultural traditions and beliefs that can act as a stimulus for design, enhancing the creativity of a product designer. I want to acknowledge Dr. Ahmed Wahby for initiating this research interest and supporting me throughout this project.
Aahd Wafaa El Din's design encourages contemporary use of organic natural toothbrushes (siwaak) with ergonomic and functional design.
References: Almas, Khalid. “Miswak (Chewing Sticks): A Cultural and Scientific Heritage.” The Saudi Dental Journal. 11.2 (1999): 80-87.Print.| Benjamin, Walter. (1935).The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. | Gagliardi, Mario. “Alchemy of cultures: from adaptation to transcendence in design and branding.” Design management journal.. (2001): 32-39.Print.
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Ahmed Gaafar
What is design?
D
esign has many definitions, books have been written and movies have been made to define what design is all about. Yet its definition changes from designer to author to director. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “design” (lat. designate: to call, to denote) as: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan. But is it really all that easy? Doesn't the world change by time and as much does the definition of design? Can´t “design” be defined as something with no rules or specific style? Obeying a style is obeying boundaries, and theoretical approaches in design often fail due to the proof of their practical applicability. It's the eyes, the brain and the heart that decide, not a common taste. There is a huge variety of design fields such as graphic and web design, media design, product design, industrial design, and many more. As a designer educated within a multidisciplinary academic environment, one would not like to be labeled as a “Web, Product, Media or Graphic Designer” solely, because these titles derive from static definitions. To put a definition is to put a limit.
On the other hand design is different from art. Art induces emotions reflecting back to its originator, but design does not only induce emotion but it also induces a reaction. Design is asking questions and solving problems that can’t be solved by mere numbers or equations. It is the ultimate form of “science of understanding”. Every culture has its own way of defining and executing design. Egyptian design is rather conservative and limited in its ways of expression and visual metaphors. One can't produce a campaign or ad using overly sexy images to sell a product or persuade customers to engage with a certain brand. Western cultures are more liberal and design agencies are free to produce ads in any possible way as long as they are not offensive. In other words, design, aside of being a titanic subject, is limited by cultural conventions and rules. You can't delete them but extend the range of action of design by time and define the profession according to the context of application. Design is a never-ending circle of change.
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Alexandra Bechir
Influencing the identity of products
A bathroom sink is always messy so why not integrate them sink through imprinting forms?
E
ach living being on earth is unique, special and one of a kind. Factors that lead to this individuality can be considered both internal and external. The internal one represents a biological factor; the existence of DNA that makes it impossible for two people to be alike. While the external can be viewed as the circumstances and environment that are a part of every individual. Among the visual characteristics of the unique identity of each individual is the finger imprint. When analyzing these imprints, one finds that they form a pattern of gaps on the skin of human beings; it’s not possible to find two individuals who have the same pattern of gaps. When relating this to products, one realizes that products also have identities that are caused by internal and external factors. The internal factor is the design itself; the material used, the shape, the function. While the external factor is the user as well as the environment and artifacts surrounding the product. For example, if we placed food utensils and plates on a table it will be a dinning table, but if instead we placed some books and a laptop, it will turn into a desk. My vision is to influence the identity of different products by using the concept of gaps to give each product its own imprint. This was done through experimenting on different scenarios in our daily lives. For instance, a bathroom sink is always messy filled with other products that differ from one home to the other (tooth brush, tooth paste, soap etc). So if these products are always placed there, why not integrate them in the bathroom sink through imprinting forms? The following image is an example of this approach. The gaps and imprints aim to influence the identity of different products, highlighting its purpose and function.
كل كائن حى عىل األرض هو فريد و مميز و ليس له مثيل؛ هناك عامالن يسببان هذا العامل الداخىل هو العامل البيولوجى؛ فوجود. عامل داخىل و عامل خارجي،التميز أما.) يجعل وجود شخصان مثامثالن بالكامل شيئا مستحيالDNA( الحمض النووى .العامل الخارجي فهو متعلق بالظروف والبيئة التى يعيش فيها كل شخص و يتفاعل معها عند تحليل هذه،أكرث دليل ملموس و مرىئ عىل هذا التميز أن لكل فرد بصمة أصبع من.البصامت نجد أنها عبارة عن منط من الخطوط الفراغية املحفورة عىل جلد األنسان .)املستحيل أن نجد شخصان عندهام نفس منط تلك الخطوط الفراغية (البصمة ماذا يحدث لو عكسنا هذا املوضوع عىل تصاميم املنتجات؟ من خربتنا نحن نعرف هذه الهوية تتشكل من العديد من العوامل،أن املنتجات هي اشياء مادية مرتبطة بهوية العامل الداخىل يوجد ىف التصميم نفسه؛ الخامة املستخدمه يف.الداخلية و الخارجية بينام العامل الخارجى فهو. الوظيفة التي يؤديها، الشكل الفيزيايئ له،تشكيل املنتج لو وضعنا أواىن: مثال.املستخدم و أيضا املنتجات األخرى التى تستخدم مع هذا املنتج لكن أذا و ضعنا بدل منها كتب و،طعام عىل منضدة سوف تصبح منضدة للطعام .كومبيوتر ستتحول املنضدة اىل مكتب ما احاول توضيحه هنا يتعلق بروئيتى حول تاكيد هوية املنتج بااالعتامد عىل فكرة من خالل محاولة تجربة هذا.التكوين الفراغي املرتبط بشكل املنتج وبصمته الخاصه حوض الحامم دامئا: عىل سبيل املثال،املفهوم عىل مشاهد مختلفة من حياتنا اليوميه و بعض املنتجات التى، الصابون، املعجون،غري مرتب و مىلء باملنتجات (فرشة األسنان ملاذا ال ندمجها مع الحوض، مبا أن هذه املنتجات دامئا هناك،)تختلف من بيت اىل آخر عن طريق طبع أشكالها عىل الحوض؟ التصميم ثالىث األبعاد ىف الصورة،خالل تصميمه ، هذه الفراغات و البصامت بالتأكيد ستثبت هوية املنتجات املختلفة.هو مثال لهذا النهج لهذا له هذا الشكل و، أن هذا املنتج يستخدم لهذه الوظيفة املحددة:ألنها تصدر بيانا .عليه هذه البصامت 16
Ali Ismail
Transportation is key
T
he key to solving most of the problems we face in Egypt nowadays lies in the hands of designers. Our target as Egyptian designers should only be to help our society and improve it. One of the biggest issues we have in our country is transportation. Transportation is always connected to other problems and through it, a designer can solve several problems at the same time. The main issue is traffic jams and their affect on an individual. The cycle would start by an individual starting his day full of energy heading to work. Here he faces his first obstacle which is driving through traffic. This leads to physical and psychological damage; physical due to fumes caused by the vehicles. And the psychological ache lies in the frustration and excessive stress, which will later turn into road rage and cause social problems. Also, repetitive
acceleration and braking of a vehicle cause it to consume more fuel or to break down more often, which causes financial problems to the individual and pollution. When a person eventually reaches his work, his mental state will be very low, affecting his creativity and productivity, and that will have a great effect on the economy later on. After work, he would face an even longer traffic jam which will have a greater negative effect, and once he gets home he is not able to have a good social and family life. The cycle goes on with ongoing social, economical and medical problems. Designers should try to work on solving all these aspects together, particularly in Egypt as priority. A creative designer has the ability to adapt to the economical and cultural environment surrounding him and get the best out of it. Cairo's traffic problems are the cause for more than just a headache. The economy and creativity suffer.
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