Turn The Page #61

COVERSTORY Open to Change FEATURE Mobsters of Greenwashing

61 | July 2017

CONTENTS

1 4

4

EDITORIAL

Study association i.d

5

2 0

B.A.B.E.

FOOD MAKING SENSE

8

2 3

C O V E R S T O RY

CHALLENGE

HOLI-DIY CARD

OPEN TO CHANGE

2 5

MOBSTERS OF G R E E N WA S H I N G 1 2

DESIGN E V E RY W H E R E

2 8

O U R FA L L I B L E CONSCIOUSNESS 2

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3 0

CONTENTS

S T O RY B E H I N D

COMIC SANS

4 0

SHOP

PHOT

4 2

3 2

INSPIRING

CONNECTING TO STRANGERS

ALUMNI

JESSE BEEM

4 5 3 3

WHY CHAIR DESIGNERS CAN DESIGN WEBSITES

THE TRAGEDY OF THE HIPSTER

4 6

INTERVIEW

BOTTOM

UP E D U C AT I O N

3 6

INTERVIEW

RUUD BALKENENDE

3 8

JONGENS VAN DE TEKENINGEN turn the page | july 2017

4 8

PA S S E N G E R S AT THE CENTRE

5 0

GADGETS 3

EDITORIAL

Eva Oosterlaken Chairwoman

Casper van Alfen Treasurer

Fay de Grefte Publicity

Joost Tielken Acquisition

Sita de Kruijf Editor in chief

Nils Westhoff Qualitate Qua

Abe Minnema Layout

Renske de Jong Secretary

EDITORIAL Things are not always what they seem.

That is one thing that we have learned from the media this year. Not only news outlets practice such deceitful behaviour, however; designers are often just as guilty.

“If good design tells the truth,” Robert Grudin writes in his book on ethics Design and Truth, “then poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related to the getting or abusing of power.” In the 61st edition of Turn The Page, we explore what this means.

On page 25, “Mobsters of Greenwashing” argues that many companies are often not as sustainable as they claim through their marketing campaigns. Likewise, “The Tragedy of the Hipster” (page 45) explains how hipster culture tricks consumers into believing that they are trendy and

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unique, while in reality they are all alike.

Consumers are easy to fool. “Our Fallible Unconsciousness” (page 30) explains why.

So should designers always tell the truth about the contents? Or could good design actually be untruthful? Photoshop (page 40) is everywhere. Consumers blindly accept its presence and therefore designers could actually use it as a tool to make their designs fit in. Our coverstory “Open to Change” expands on this idea, by exploring how we as designers can package our innovations in order to be more easily accepted by society, in order to propel positive change.

This Turn The Page is one of illusion and deception, but also one of surprise and

wonder! I would like to encourage you to read the different points of view in this edition and make up your own mind about how much of the truth designers should tell.

Eva Oosterlaken Chairwoman

In our previous magazine we used a picture of Bep Broodje by Joy Tengker (page 27).

This picture is not ours but it belongs to Nachtbrakers. We would like to apologize for this. Find the picture and the rest of the editorial at www.nachtbrakers.nl

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B.A.B.E.

BOOKS APPS BLOGS EVENTS

by Renske de Jong

James Dyson Award Do you happen to be working on a design that is worth to be seen by James Dyson? The James Dyson Foundation wants to encourage more young people to become design engineers. That is why they organised this competition; they are looking for designers who think differently to create products that work better, have a significant and practical purpose and are commercially viable, while keeping sustainability in mind.

The competition is open to all recent and current product design, industrial design and engineering university students. The broad brief of the competition is to design something that solves a problem. The international winner is chosen by James Dyson and will be awarded with US$40,000. However, there are a lot more winners in this competition; a panel of local judges will select a national winner in each region and form the top 5. Each winner will receive a James Dyson award certificate, but only the top 20 entries - the international runners up - will also be awarded with US$6,000. The man who knows all about the struggle with lifting inventions off the ground, James Dyson himself, said: “this award rewards those who have the persistence and tenacity to develop their ideas.”

VSCO

Visual Supply Company, better known as VSCO (pronounced vis-co), is a small company that is - as they state themselves - “passionate about creating beautiful and efficient digital tools for the modern creative.” They are driven by the idea of digitally archiving analog film. Their mobile application ‘VSCO’ has presets (pre-programmed settings) you can use to edit photos and achieve a specific look in an Instagram-kind-of-way. However, these presets are not just filters like you know from Instagram. A few are actually based on classic analog films, such as Kodak Portra and Ilford HP5 - you know, where they used to shoot pictures on, using analog cameras. Give it a shot: this application is perfect for editing your summer holiday photographs!

No time to doubt, the entries close on 20 July.

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B.A.B.E.

Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship 2017 PhD candidate Deborah Sumter is one of the 18 selected students to join the Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship! For the application, she was asked to address two questions on the circular economy in a 90 seconds audio visual presentation.

Deborah was awarded with a bursary and a participation in the world’s only circular economy fellowship programme where the students can develop their own Innovation Project as a part of their study. This 12 months programme is for postgraduate students of design, engineering and business studies from a network of fourteen partner universities around the world. The PhD candidate also just participated in a summer school programme on circular economy in the UK together with her academic mentor, Ruud Balkenende.

Genius Academy Award-winning actor Geoffrey Rush is Albert Einstein in the first season of the documentary series Genius. The actor - who is also known as Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean - stars in the series together with Emily Watson, impersonating Einstein’s second wife, and newcomer Johnny Flynn as young Einstein. This first season of Genius is based on the book Einstein: His life and universe, which is written by Walter Isaacson and is about Einstein’s youth and his later years as physicist and Nobel Prize winner.

The National Geographic documentary started in April 2017 and is their first scripted anthology series, which means every episode has its own story. The plans for the second season are already released: it will air in 2018 and will be all about Pablo Picasso.

Headspace “Headspace is your personal meditation guide to just about everything.”

This app is one of the most popular of its kind and has just completely updated their design. Headspace is known for its no-nonsense, approachable take on meditation and mindfulness with many possibilities. Do you have a busy schedule? That is no issue according to this app; they offer super-short exercises of 1 to 3 minutes you can do anytime. The app is based on your personal preferences as you can choose from many packages that offer meditation techniques that fit you. You can pick packages for anxiety, restlessness and stress, but also for patience, creativity and motivation. You can try some sessions and tutorials for free, but for more the app asks for a monthly fee. We recommend this app for all the busy, stressed-out students out there that would like to try out mindfulness in an easy and fun way.

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july 2017 | turn the page

B.A.B.E.

fetching_tigerss This young photographer is only 17 years old and is already conquering people’s hearts with her surrealistic photographs. Annegien Schilling recently won the Social Award for best Instagrammer with her account ‘fetching_tigerss’. She makes her photos using just two things: her imagination and her phone - all editing is done using apps. The inspiring and eye-opening self-portraits have resulted in no less than 865k followers since she first started on Instagram at the age of 13. Make sure to take a look at her Instagram account and if you are really inspired, you can see how she makes the pieces of art on her Youtube-channel as well!

“Create the next generation of package delivery design”, that is the brief of the Logistic Design Competition that is launched by Toyota Material Handling Europe Design Center. They are looking for university design students and recent graduates to revolutionise the future of package handling and the logistics process.

We are moving into a future where everything is connected. Each day, around 25 million packages need to be delivered in Europe and the delivery times should decrease, but how can we improve in a world where traffic paths are already blocked? The logistics process is in need of a revolution! Convince the jury that your package delivery concept exceeds the traditional supply chain. The concept should tackle the last mile the packages travel to the end customer. Send your idea in before the deadline of 22 October. The best solution will be awarded with €5,000!

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Meetup Inclusive Design & Accessibility Thursday July 20th 18:30 doors open, 19:00 first speaker UNITiD Office Rotterdam Schiedamsedijk 40a Join this meetup to hear and talk about inclusive design and accessibility. Be it UX design, UI design, EU lawchanges, web accessibility, product design or user research. Entrance is free.

More info and RSVP at www.meetup.com/Inclusive-Design-Accessibility

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We, as designers, are capable of seeing little gaps or opportunities in our world that we want to improve. What is it in change that we think is valuable and why should consumers of our designs think so too?

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COVERSTORY

If someone would ask me what the purpose of design is, it would be that design is the artificial way of creating a change for the better in our lives. Designers should think of their addition to this and this can be very broad: do you want to make products more beautiful or more durable? Do you want to create a change in society by putting a message into your design? All of this is a great opportunity for us, but how can you make sure that your design will actually change something. That is what this article is about.

by Abe Minnema

Designing a product that carries out a new message is never the easy way to go, but when you believe that yours is worth it to send out to the world then that should never be an obstacle.

How can you get people to follow your message or create awareness? Because you know that even though what you are trying to change might be good or even proven to be good, that is absolutely no guarantee for success. It all depends on your consumers being open to that change.

For designers change might be natural, change is necessary for progress. Why is it then that we, as human beings, often fear change? On the other hand how is it possible that the world in the past 100 years has been changing faster than ever before? It is evident that this is great for designers, but why is it that some changes are still not accepted?

We, as human beings and even as designers, naturally are animals looking for some kind of steadiness in our lives. We look for something that we can fall back on, a certain continuity in our life to make sure we are safe. Even though most people would agree to this, they would all try to distinguish ourselves from the herd if they get the opportunity.

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This makes sense because you want to be part of a group, but if you get the opportunity you would want to be the special one. So this already leads to two things you can include in your design: - We want to be part of a group, that we feel safe in.

- Within this group we want to distinguish ourselves.

So it makes sense to take a look at the values of that crowd and use those to strengthen your design. Now imagine there is a need to bring a product to this group, and that product does not meet the values of this group; or imagine you want to change the behaviour of a certain group, how can you design something that will still attract them?

Imagine wanting to create awareness in a group about environmental change, but this group has not shown any interest in this subject.

How can you design something that makes them interested?

Changing the way your design makes an impression will have a big impact on the realisation of your change. Changing this 1

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impression can go in many different ways.

It can simply mean that you can bring in your design in a different context or shape, this might lower the threshold for the specific change you are trying to achieve. So if you want to sell electric cars, why would you not first start selling electric drones? You can show that your change is used already in different product fields and that might lower the threshold for new users to start trying out your new design.

Emphasising the change can also be very effective.

Electric cars do not only look different because of the technological differences, but also because of the fact that the car wants to make clear that it is environmentally friendly. So depending on the message of your change, it is important to play with the appearance.

Sometimes comparing the new situation to the old situation can create awareness of why this change is worth it. Doing this will lead to a confrontation which will make the observer think. Confrontation is definitely a situation that involves risk, since most people try avoiding this. Depending on your target group, though, this also might work out for you, because a lot of people are actually searching for

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a change they can make in this world. How great would it be if that change would be in your design?

There are a lot of good ideas for change everyday, but only very few actually make a real impact.

When is an idea good enough to make a change?

It seems that the good idea itself is not good enough, it needs to have a good backstory and respond to a need that is relevant at that moment.

There are also tricks to make people like something that they have never seen before. If you like this layout, for example, that is probably because it is designed with the golden ratio, which has been scientifically proven to be attractive.

This trick might be nice and maybe it did not even work for you, but as you can imagine these kind of tricks might also be misleading. There is a thin line between misleading someone and amplifying some of the benefits of your change. Making a great first impression can never do any harm, but showing a realistic image of what your design will change may just set you apart from the rest. In the impression of your design, it is very important to be aware of these ethical challenges. In the end it is all about your design being accepted, so that the consumers feel that the change that your design is making has a good impact.

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COVERSTORY

Designing the way you want to make a change is interesting and, with the perspective that you are able to create a change, makes you so much more than someone that draws beautiful products; seeing possibilities that nobody else does; knowing what you want to change is one of the best starting points for a new design.

For me, design has always been the tool to make a difference and to have an impact by actually helping to improve our world.

This article is made up of a lot of questions, that do not have one perfect answer. So it is a good thing if you do

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not agree on everything being written, as long as you are open to change. I believe that making a change is the starting point for every design and I hope that when you start your next project, you can make that change. 3

“It seems that the good idea itself is not good enough, it needs to have a good backstory.�

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DESIGN EVERYWHERE

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DESIGN EVERYWHERE

A P O I NT O F V I E W

by Renske de Jong | artwork by Paul van Sommeren “What is this supposed to be?” you might be wondering after you turned to this page. Let your own imagination run free. However, do not let this mysterious picture fool you and start looking from another perspective: there is more behind it.

Augmented reality Do you want to see the story behind this picture using augmented reality?

1. Download the free ‘Augment’ app from Google Play or the App Store.

2. Scan the QR-code on this page.

3. Scroll the bottom bar until you find the option ‘create tracker’ and use that to keep the model in place and pin it to reality. You can use this option on any page you like - for example this one or the front page.

4. Pinch the model and slide on it to zoom and turn.

5. Use your device to explore and try to find the message that is inside the model.

Disclaimer: you will need to change your point of view. 3

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Study association i.d

Tea Tea Party To celebrate Turn The Page’s 60th issue, we decided to do something special. To remember older TTP issues we dived in the archive to retrieve some of our previous publications. The committee set up a comfortable lounge area, with big sofas and free tea for everyone to enjoy while scrolling a vintage TTP.

Committee Trip The third and last committee trip this year was one to never forget. The evening started with a BBQ at Study association i.d where you could grill your own meat. Thereafter we enjoyed a hamburger and a sausage with a cold drink in our other hand. Fortunately, that was not the end for the evening. The evening really only started after the long bicycle tour to Schiedam, where we had an entire swimming pool to ourselves. A fun mix of swimming, music, beer, a waterslide and hot tubs; this was definitely fun for everyone.

i.day On 15 May, Study association i.d organised another i.day, to recruit potential committee members by rewarding them with free ice cream. Because the ice cream stall was located just outside of the faculty during lunch break, it attracted a lot of students’ attention who decided to have lunch outside due to the terrific weather that day.

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Study association i.d

Summercue After a short hiatus due to the remodeling of i.d-Kafee, Summercue has returned.

The participants enjoyed an afternoon full of nostalgic games like spijkerpoepen while eating poffertjes or candyfloss as they were listening to music by K3 and Ch!pz. The favourable weather allowed the participants to enjoy the assault course and conclusive barbecue o the fullest.

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Study association i.d

Pluim Awards Every year, i.d-Education announces IDE students’ favourite teachers and employees at Pluim Kafee. This year we’re happy to congratulate Carlo Buhrer Tavanier, Anna Pohlmeyer, Peter Vink, Giulia Calabretta, Alex Visser and Roald Piera with their wins.

Presentation Moment 6 Kicking off with a presentation, including a video filled with practical effects, the Lustrum Committee presented their theme for the upcoming year: ‘Contrast’. The Freshmen Weekend Committee presented their theme ‘Fantastic Hipsters and Where To Find Them’ as well, with another well crafted video to excite the viewers. Finally, it was up to Candidate Board 45 to respond to an intense interrogation by ex board members, which they did full of enthusiasm while wearing their matching T-shirts, even though they might have been a size or two too small.

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Study association i.d

IO Festival After months of anticipation by the IO Festival Committee, Board 44 and students around Delft alike, IO Festival 2017: Under the Surface finally took place on 2 June. Having heard all kinds of positive responses about the colourful decorations, varied line-up and overall great ambiance, we could not have hoped for it to go any better. Seeing a lot of happy people leave the festival at the end of the night brought a smile to our faces which made us forget the tiresome and stressful week prior.

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Study association i.d

IDE Alumni Event On 9 June, Study association i.d organised an Alumni event in collaboration with Communication IO and master communities Futury, Studio 360 and Infuse. Each of the master tracks were represented by three alumni, talking about their experience as an Industrial Designer in the real world. The event was concluded with a buffet in i.d-Kafee with accompanying drinks.

Freshmen Party The Freshmen Committee had one last surprise for our freshmen this year, a party for Architecture as well as Industrial Design Engineering freshmen; SmĂĽland!

The freshmen got together at Proteus, after applying their creative skills to come up with the best IKEA themed outfits. Whether the students were dancing, eating ice cream or taking pictures at the fotobooth, they were obviously enjoying the party.

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Study association i.d

JUL 13th

FlightCase: Shanghai This summer, 28 Master students and 2 professors will visit Shanghai to explore their culture and solve cases at local companies.

Weekend AUG Freshmen A new year means new freshers. Study association i.d will welcome with a spectacular Freshmen Weekend: Fantastic Hipsters 18th them and Where to Find Them.

SEP 18th

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Verplicht College Already looking forward to next year? You should! We’ll start off the new academic year with the usual Verplicht College.

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FEATURE

Food making

sense

What does cooking have in common with design? I can tell you: a lot. It is about creating things, testing the limits, telling a story and making something attractive. That last thing is what I am going to tell you about in this article. Plating food - presenting a dish nicely on the plate - has become at least as important as the taste. “You eat with your eyes first.” It is not said for nothing - but it goes further than this.

We do not only eat with our eyes first, but with our ears, nose and sense of touch.

All of our senses influence what we experience while eating a dish.

by Sita de Kruijf

The great chefs of our time have created their own identity in this. They have a vision. One will leave the food as natural and simple as possible, while the other will serve it on a cushion that diffuses the smell of nutmeg. The astonishing creations that can be made out of food intrigue me. That is why I will share with you an exploration of different visions and approaches. What makes a good chef? The answer to that question has changed over time. According to Matt Preston, one of the most well-known food critics, “a chef these days has got to be so much more than a cook. They’ve got to use colour, language, images, emotion, in order to animate what’s on the plate.” That is what makes or breaks the chef; it is all about the experience he or she creates.

You could compare that with how design has changed. We do not care for the pure function of a physical product as much; we want access, services, interaction and thus, experience. Just like that, the best restaurants of the world have content and tell a story. They play to your emotions.

If you were wondering - yes, there is a scientific explanation of the relationship between the classic definition of taste and taste experience. Each of the human senses has a specific influence on the perception of flavour. To begin with, there is the most evident one: sight. You can imagine that a beautiful golden brown steak, surrounded by vibrant green vegetables will whet your

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appetite more successfully than a black-burnt piece of whateverit-is. Nevertheless, all of this is due to past experiences and the expectations based upon them. If you have tasted the bitterness of a burnt piece of food in the past, you probably have a bad association with the appearance of a burnt steak.

Then there is smell. Of course, everyone can imagine that smell and taste are closely related, but what you probably did not know, is that smell is necessary for 90% of the taste. Without your nose, you would only perceive 10% of the flavour you do now - which is understandable if you know that humans can only distinguish between five different flavours, but over 700 different smells.

Aroma does more than just facilitate flavour, though. The scent of your favourite dish can trigger at least as much of your emotions as the actual taste. It is strongly connected to nostalgia and can bring back a childhood memory in a split second. More and more chefs use this in their dishes, in the form of strong aromas or scented smoke that accompany the food.

Even the two remaining senses, sound and touch, have their influence on the experience of taste. This influence partly lies in weird, investigated facts. For instance: when a person is exposed to a certain amount of decibels, sweet and salty flavours will taste less strong. Also, it is evolutionarily determined that crunchiness in food is appealing. Concerning texture, there is a theory that the

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FEATURE

“food can be expressive and therefore food can be art.”

- Grant Achatz human brain associates the structure of a surface with a certain taste. That sounds weird, but maybe you can imagine that a soft, smooth surface is linked to a sweet taste and a rough surface would rather be salty, or bitter.

All of the above-mentioned information has been proved by research and science. Just like that, there are certain rules when it comes to plating food. The colours should be both natural and vibrant, symmetric plating is preferred over asymmetric plating and odd numbers are more appealing than even numbers. Now what do we do with all this information?

They do not want to satisfy your brain, they do not want to make you feel comfortable. They want to surprise the guests, play with their senses and perhaps even make them feel uncomfortable.

One of those chefs is the 43-year-old American Grant Achatz.

His restaurant Alinea has reached the place of 9th restaurant of the world on the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants List with three Michelin stars. Grant Achatz is known for being extremely futuristic with food and testing the limits. Sometimes these limits can be interpreted literally, like when Grant decided to plate a dish on a tablecloth, because “it frustrated me that as chefs, we were limited to a scale that was determined by plate manufacturers.” Surprising guests and giving them the dining experience of their lives, that is what Alinea does. According to the master himself, “food can be expressive and therefore food can be art.”

On the other side of the spectrum, there are the cooks with “less is more” as their motto in life. The chefs who are inspired by their grandmother’s amazing cookery and want food to just be comforting. The ones who do not cook to a recipe, but with their heart. As one of them, the legendary Marco Pierre White, says: “cooking is a philosophy not a recipe.” At an impressive age of 1

All the ‘rules’ in plating a dish are aimed at satisfying human expectations and thus making a person feel comfortable. Now there are certain chefs who take their work to another level.

a dessert from achatz’ restaurant alinea

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FEATURE

33, this chef was the first in the UK to receive three Michelin stars, and the youngest ever. He taught two of the best chefs of today, Gordon Ramsey and Heston Blumenthal. Nevertheless, he quit his job as a chef at 38 because he felt he was living a lie and had to return to his family. This decision suited him as a cook. Marco Pierre White is convinced that your dishes should reflect where you come from. “A tree without roots is just a piece of wood,” he says. Cannot argue with that, can you?

“Cooking is a philosophy not a recipe.”

- Marco pierre white

Although their styles might seem to be miles apart, Marco Pierre White and Grant Achatz somehow have the same philosophy.

They tell a story, they play to your emotions and they are full of creativity - and these are just two of the many, many chefs who each have a different vision. They know that cooking is more than just taste and they use that insight. Does it sound familiar to you? It could be, because a great part of what these cooks do, is comparable to what we do in industrial design: surprising, creating, storytelling, visualising, experiencing… But most importantly, doing it in your own way. 3

Grant Achatz’ aromatic and modern moqueca

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CHALLENGE

. 26 . 27

. 24

. 25

1 ..28

. 23

.2

.6

.20

. 21

. 22

. 19 .7

.5

.3

. 18 .8

. 17

. 12

.9

. 11

. 10

.4

. 16

. 15

. 13 . 14

. 120

. 65 . 66 . 64 . 67 . 72 . 68 . 71 . 63 . 69 . 70 . 73

. 119 . 158 . 151 . 159

. 118 . 117 . 116

. 40

. 126 . 147

. 80 . 49 . 79 . 83

. 18 . 41

. 19 . 148

. 149. 125. 39

. 150

. 157

. 152

. 84 . 111 . 110 . 114

. 17

. 43

. 15

. 16

. 42

. 46

.1 . 48

. 47..27

. 44 . 45 .8

.9

. 94 . 93 . 62 . 104 . 105 . 74 . 56 . 95 . 55 . 92 . 61 . 57 . 54 . 103 . 75 . 60 . 106 . 59 . 58 . 96 . 53 . 90 . 102 .

101 . 91 . 76 . 77 . 97 . 89 . 51 . 98 . 100 . 52 . 99 . 78. 81 . 82. 50 . 107 . 87 . 26 27 .

88. 29..28 . 30 . 25 . 130 . 24 .

131 . 86 . 32 . 108 . 113 . 142 . 31. 133 . 33 . 34 . 109 . 141 . 132 . 112 ..85 . 134 143 . 140 . 129 . 135 . 35 . 23 . 144 .

139 .

138. 137 . 136 . 145 . 128 . 124 . 36 . 127 . 123 .

22 .

37 . 38 . 146. 21 . 14 . 20 . 13 . 122 . 121

. 156

. 153 . 154 . 155

. 160 . 115

Cut and send to your best friend!

. 12

. 10

.6 .3 .4 .5

. 11

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CHALLENGE

design by Fay de Grefte 24

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FEATURE

Mobsters of G eenwashing Sustainability… What has not been said about it? Although the consumer society is still increasing, many individuals feel the need to re-use and recycle old products. Even upcycling (using broken or old products for new purposes) is a hype these days. Our society is more aware of climate change and environmental pollution than ever before. It would be obvious then that we know what a sustainable product is and what is environmentally irresponsible. At the front end, a lot of companies seem to be sustainable, but if we take a quick peek inside, their labeling and their marketing, it is a little more complex than green or not green.

by Joost Tielken Greenwashing finds it roots back in the sixties, where “green” was fashion (known by the term “ecopornography”). It was only till 1985 when this kind of advertising got out of hand. A company called Chevron Corporation made a commercial campaign that told a story of employees that protected the local wildlife. For you who are not familiar with this party, Chevron Corporation is an oil company.

Although this campaign got a lot of slack, their sales went up by ten per cent and the consumer saw Chevron as the most eco friendly company, which is quite arguably a company with a green input.

How and why is this possible, you ask?

It is simple; sustainability is not an

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exact science. A product is not just “8 sustainable”. Whether, for instance, a mixer is sustainable depends on countless aspects. What is the origin of the used materials, what kind of materials is it made of, what kind of electronics does it contain, where is the factory located, how much energy does it use, et cetera.

All these questions emphasise the difficulty to determine whether products suffice for the term sustainable. The vagueness of the entirety is a great way for associations to pretend that they are made out of flowers and love, while they could be tearing down an entire rainforest. Why would they risk the future of our planet? The answer is unfortunately dead simple: money. 1

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FEATURE

Nowadays, green and sustainable is trending, leading to a leap in sales. In a research from 2015, it showed that especially young people feel the urge to consume green products. They are even willing to spend up to 50% more on a similar product. While the consumers are trying their best to be environmentally aware, companies use this as an opportunity to earn some extra cash on “eco” products.

We use eco lighting!

The research Sins of Greenwashing conducted in 2011 looked at different products from different brands in a timespan of three years. The results were shocking to say the least. In 2008 only 1% of the products was as green as the producers claimed it to be. In 2009 this was 2% and in 2010 this number increased to 4.5%. There clearly is a positive trend, but we have to admit that 4.5% (although it is seven years ago) is an astoundingly low number for something that should save the world in the future.

95.5% of the sustainable branded products in 2010 was considered false because of various reasons. The use of fake labels, having no proof or plain vagueness are only a few of the major sins. Fake labelling, or misleading labelling, is done on all sorts of products. It ranges from bottled water to houses. Companies that are guilty of this sin often use words or phrases that are not stated by law. For example: “Organic” is a word that you are not allowed to use unless it meets demands that are made by the local government. “all natural”-labels are not bonded to these laws, meaning that a company can use this label without any consequences. The terms and their regulations differ per country and could be interesting for consumers to know.

I drive a GREEN CAR!

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FEATURE

The big question is, is it harmful to pretend to be sustainable even if this is not completely true? Let us say windmills, for instance. Governments and environmentalists consider them to be the future of eco-friendly and renewable energy; their research says that a single windmill will reclaim the energy it costs to be produced within six to eight months.

However, other sources state that windmills do more harm than good. These authors claim that making these giants creates more pollution than they eventually prevent. The research they support tells us that a windmill is not made back in the 20 years that it should serve its purpose.

The same goes for hybrid cars. It is not a secret that batteries are polluting products; they are made of rare materials that origin from China, these materials are known to origin from be the most polluting mines in the world. Also for this affair, there are two sides that both state different results. One side claims that the Toyota Prius is more

polluting than driving a Hummer, based on the production and recycling process of the batteries of a Toyota Prius, which, by the way, have to be replaced every eight years.

Meanwhile the other side is confident that electric cars are the zero-emission future.

They show statistics that tell you a Tesla could drive 135 miles per gallon and this party pleas that the usage of a car causes by far the biggest amount of pollution and not the production process.

If even experts and researchers cannot agree on statistics and “facts”, how should the potential buyer know what is the fine line between right and wrong?

Can we even talk about a line? Is it not more like a grey area that is covered with uncertainties?

The bottom line is that although some companies are trying their best to be sustainable, others use it as a marketing technique. For consumers it is the big forest called “sustainability” in which we do not know if a sheep is a wolf or the other way around. The mess some companies create, makes it near impossible for the consumer to decide whether a given product is green or not.

This article is not written to convince consumers that green is bad, it is the opposite. We support people to make sustainable choices, but individuals should be aware of the wolf among the sheep, or in this case the sheep among the pack of wolves. 3

We ship biologically produced food!

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FEATURE

O U R FA L L I B L E UNCONSCIOUSNESS A N D H O W B R A N D I N G T A K E S A D VA N T A G E O F T H A T Wow, the idea that a middle-aged white rapper had me realise I was completely brainwashed by Nike was a bit confusing. I really paid €140 for a pair of shoes. Or did I pay that amount for the endless brand positioning Nike did? All these questions scared me and had me thinking, is that air bubble really going to make me fly?

by Fay de Grefte

Now, forget the product. Do not think about the shoe but see the swoosh and hear Michael Jordan jumping. Some brands are always on top of your mind.

Not because they sell great products or are incredibly cheap, but because they have settled themselves in your unconsciousness.

Some A-brands are made in the exact same factories as their cheaper alternative with a slight difference in recipe, but why can they triple the price? Why do we know these brands better? Why do we perceive them to be of more quality or buy them more easily?

A first ‘trick’ - as you may call it - is repetition. Frequently saying or showing the same thing will lead to more people believing you, because familiarity cannot easily be separated from truth. A part of this is recognition. Studies and various experiments have shown that when people see something once very brief, they will

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perceive this to be more reliable than something they have not seen at all. So if you subconsciously read the name ‘OREO’ on a billboard somewhere, or if the colours of the brand flashed by on the highway, you are more likely to buy OREO cookies instead of another brand that you have not seen before.

Positioning a brand is one of the most difficult jobs of a designer. You have to make thousands of people trust you and believe you. Even though they have never met you, everything you say must be heard as the truth. It takes up a lot of time, budget and thinking, but by addressing the unconscious part of the brain, settling your brand is a piece of cake!

Making things easy for people to process is essential to have your idea accepted. If you use hard words or names that are difficult to read, your entire brain needs to be

activated and analyse the whole thing. This attaches negative emotions because this system is relatively lazy and would rather not be addressed. If the brand name is easy to read like Nike or Apple, your ‘fast’ brain can subconsciously process it and it is directly filed into your library.

When implying something it should be simple. When people have to think about the information they are getting, it is more often perceived as invalid. The threshold for understanding should be so low, it is addressed as the truth. In commercials and advertisements information is never obviously feign. Marketeers also rearrange numbers so that they can be easily processed. People will remember better a statement such as ‘80% of the users approving a product, not 3623 out of 4539 Bulgarian women loving it. Also using easy sentence constructions and basic vocabulary will encourage people to

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FEATURE

believe it. In the article ‘Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly’, Danny Oppenheimer proved that sharing known ideas in a pretentious packaging is conceived as a sign of less intelligence and credibility. So information should not include bullshit but no needless fancy wrapping either.

Hitler died on 20 April 1945 Hitler died on 30 March 1945 When do you think Hitler died? Most people will say that the first one is true, although they are both incorrect. Why do we think that? An experiment shows that the primal colours red and blue are more likely to be perceived as true. Using a bold font also seems more reliable than using italic or handwriting. These things are easy to do but work tremendously well.

Is Samuel nice?

Is Jonathan mean?

Unless you know people that are associated with this name your judgement will be blurred by the way I asked you this question. There is no reason for you to believe that either one of them is nicer than the other. Still your unconscious brain will remember Samuel more positively than Jonathan. The same is done in

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branding. By suggesting greatness of a product, people will feel more positively towards it without consciously believing what they are saying. That is why slogans often exaggerate this intention, for example: Gilette, the best a man can get.

That is probably not true because a man would rather go out on a date with Selena Gomez, but it still gives you a positive feeling towards their shaving knives.

So we are not plain stupid if we buy €140 shoes. The thing is, we only use the fast part of our brain if we shell out our cash.

The fast part that is satisfied with the easy recognition of the swoosh or the triple stripes. It is because we have the ability to think fast that we classify things with a simple system that will not always be correct. Surprisingly, the same capability to think fast allows us to run from danger (on our new Nikes!) and love others. Branding is exploiting this fast part of our thinking.

So is branding bad? I do not know. What I do know is that it is important to realise we can be easily fooled. But that does not mean we are fools. 3

“THEY TOLD ME TO JUST DO IT. I LISTENED TO WHAT THAT SWOOSH SAID”MACKLEMORE 29

STORY BEHIND

The most hated font

EVER

One font is so popular, yet hated at the same time that it arguably has become one of the most notorious fonts of all time. Infamous for his childlike style, there is no designer who has never had an opinion about him: Comic Sans. Without people knowing, the typeface has a truly interesting ‘story behind’. How did one of the most loved and used fonts turn into a miserable joke?

by Casper van Alfen As more often around that time, Mister Bill Gates stood at the beginning of a successful development. In 1995, he asked Vincent Connare, a French designer working for Microsoft, to create a suitable font for a Microsoft comic game for kids called Bob. Till then, Times New Roman was used for almost every Microsoftpurpose, yet it remained a font oddly unsuited to the comic context. Connare had always been a big graphic novel fanatic (especially Batman The Dark Knight Returns), which later became his biggest inspiration to create Comic Sans.

The handwritten style, often used in these comics, gave the playful touch that suited the ‘unserious’ style of these kids games.

In the end Comic Sans was not used in

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Bob but the end result became more successful than Connare would ever have thought.

Glory days Comic Sans is not the prettiest font around but sometimes, you have to look further than just the outside to find true beauty.

Take its functionalty. Sometimes a font is much more than just decoration. It is said that Comic Sans helps people with dyslexia read more easily. Because of its asymmetrical style, the letters are much easier to distinguish.

Believe it or not, Comic Sans once was the most popular font in the world. It started of quite smooth, when it was used for informal purposes like comics, birthday cards or video games. With its rising popularity, people started to use it for practically everything, from their grandma’s tombstone to huge commercial banners. It was crazy. The reason for this was because it just had the nonchalant, comic edge everyone was looking for.

Besides that, Comic Sans was one of the

july 2017 | turn the page

STORY BEHIND few free fonts on Microsoft. Most people around that time had a boring office job and wanted to mix things up. They were looking for some kind of distraction from the serious world, so they used Comic Sans for their emails and reports. It seemed like Connare succeeded in making a ‘not so serious’ font - but that is where the big, scary ‘Misunderstanding’ came in and everything went downhill very, very quickly...

Misuse Obviously, there were some aesthetic issues why Comic Sans became more hated than Justin Bieber. It breaks literally every typographical rule. Before that, every font was either geometrical, like Arial or Helvetica or a curly handwritten font. Comic Sans looked like he turned up at a black-tie party in a clown’s costume between all other fonts. It fell deep into the ‘Uncanny Valley’, which is an actual term in robotics. When something is not convincingly human nor artificial, people tend to despise it (for example, a humanlike robot or furbee). This is exactly what happened to Comic Sans, even though it was here to make people happy. It just did not feel right.

Still, that is only a small reason causing the hatred. Comic Sans is perfect for primary school reports and birthday cards, but for some unbelievable reason, people started to use it for very serious occasions like doctor’s prescriptions and funeral cards. It was never intended to be used so often or in such inappropriate situations.

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“ PE OPLE WHO D ON’T LI KE C OMIC S A NS, D ON’T KNOW A NY TH I NG A B O UT D E SI GN” - V I N C E N T C O N N A RE With the rise of ‘internet memeing’ it completely went downhill, since it now is the symbol for an international ‘unserious’ font.

So the fault seems to lay with us; the typers.

Comic Sans does not disappoint people, people disappoint people.

We, as designers, might be the most critical creatures on earth. When something is against our taste, we suddenly turn into judgemental beasts all with their own cup of tea. Friendships are made but also ruined when it comes to your preference for mobile phones, chairs and fonts. Comic Sans seems to be the biggest cliché used when an example is given of something ‘ugly’. That is a shame, because it deserves more credits for all the work it has done. Its creator once quoted: “If

you love it, you don’t know much about typography. If you hate it, you don’t know much about design and you should get another hobby.” A finer description of the problem is not possible. We, as designers, should for once look beyond aesthetics, because yes, Comic Sans is not the prettiest font out there. As a designer, it is far too easy to fall into the trap of valuing form over function. Look beyond that. Look for the source and find the natural beauty of this typeface. So please stop using it the wrong way, in divorce papers or obituaries.

Write a Comic Sans email or essay when it is not of big importance and give it back its credibility. The right way. 3

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INSPIRING

Connecting to strangers

We live on a planet with 7 billion people and that number is growing faster than ever before, imagine that you only know a few of them. That old lady sitting next to you on the train and the young man walking by might be really nice people.

Just by asking how their day is going or saying “hi, how it is going?” and they might make yours too. So here are five tips for connecting to strangers:

125 text by Abe Minnema | layout by Casper van Alfen

A stranger does not have to be someone you see for the first time, you can start a conversation with your neighbour as well. How well do you really know them and how nice would it be to have a good connection with someone that lives next door?

Ask for advice when shopping, this can be for anything. Asking which kind of bread fits best with your peanut butter jelly will very likely lead to a smile, and asking a stranger in the bookstore what his favourite writer might lead to the best book you have ever read.

Just say “hi” to the person walking the opposite direction to you on the sidewalk, most people will be pleasantly surprised and it might even be a start of a conversation.

3 4 Sometimes you see someone and a compliment pops up in your head, why not use that compliment? Giving strange compliments to the cashiers at the Albert Heijn is probably not a good idea, but saying something nice about an old man’s hat can never do any harm.

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Let someone know that you appreciate them, it can mean so much to someone. Asking someone from the cleaning staff how their day is, is so much nicer than being annoyed that you have to walk to another toilet. Also thank your bus driver when you leave the bus, a little appreciation never hurt somebody.

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VERSUS

Design as a process WHY DESIGNING A CHAIR IS THE SAME THING AS DESIGNING A WEBSITE Back in the summer of 2016, I was a naïve student looking for an internship in the United States for my minor. During that time, I realised something important: if I want a job I first need to figure out what kind of job I want. There were so many kinds of job titles: industrial designer, interaction designer, UX/UI designer, product designer et cetera. Although I thought I was an industrial designer, like we are taught in Delft, I suddenly was not so sure.

apparently a front-end developer (!?!?). I struggled to understand the labels used by employers and especially, to find a label for myself. Since I was neither an expert in development, nor in AutoCAD, I became discouraged. I thought perhaps that, good at a lot of things meant, well, good at nothing.

by Eva Oosterlaken

A couple of months later I finally found a UX design and visual design internship at Rightpoint, a digital consultancy in Chicago, Illinois. When I explained to coworkers there that I study Industrial Design Engineering, most people said: “Wow! That’s so different.” Turns out, it is actually not. In this article, I want to compare Industrial design (a chair) and digital design (a website) to argue that the two are less like distant cousins and more like close siblings.

I discovered that labels could differ significantly in meaning across cultures or even across the country. At the TU Delft, ‘Industrial Designer’ is this sort of all-encompassing term. In the US, it seemed to more specifically mean “someone really good at AutoCAD” and in Silicon Valley a product designer was

The design process I have simplified the Industrial Design (top) and Digital Design (bottom) processes in the graphic below. Looking from a process standpoint, it is easy to spot that there are many areas of overlap.

In fact, the first five steps in the process are exactly the same.

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VERSUS

Not surprisingly, the roads seem to diverge when it comes to the execution phase, which requires the most technical expertise.

The graph shows that at a high level the two fields overlap quite a bit, but let us also look at what is happening specifically within some of these phases. To do this I will show how a chair designer and a website designer employ the same principles to their designs. Although there are many areas of overlap, I have picked out three important ones below.

Principle one: design is user centric There are three levels of user-centric design that both the chairand the website designer consider when designing a product that is truly relevant to its users: 1. Physically meeting the user’s needs: A chair designer might ask: “How large should the sitting surface be so that 95% of users can comfortably use this chair?”

Website designer: “Is this text legible to at least 95% of the user base?”

2. Intellectually meeting the user’s needs Chair designer: “What is the first place a user would look to adjust the chair height?”

Website designer: “What is the first place a user would look to change language settings?”

3. Emotionally meeting the user’s needs Chair designer: “How can I make a user feel ‘empowered’ in this chair? How can I design a chair that enhances a conversation at the dinner table?”

Website designer: “Does this form experience make a user feel ‘secure’ and ‘respected’ when filling out personal information?”

Because user-centric design means gathering all this knowledge about a user, the tools that industrial designers and digital designers use to gather this information are very similar. Some tools are conducting user research, creating personas and customer journeys, gathering data about accessibility and ergonomics and conducting user tests, which brings me to my next point.

Principle two: prototyping (and testing!) is essential For both the chair designer and the website designer prototyping is essential. Prototyping is a great way to answer questions about your design, especially questions related to your user.

Although the tools industrial designers and digital designers use to prototype differ, the principle is the same: quick low-cost prototypes are the best way to iterate efficiently and get feedback from users before the product launch.

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VERSUS

certain components are inconsistent across browsers or create performance issues.

However, as much as designers feel like they always need to push engineers, technology can also push design to new frontiers. A good designer knows how to think like an engineer. That is why it is as important for the web designer to know a basic level of code as it is for an industrial designer to understand material properties and the basics of physics. Being able to collaborate with engineers, especially earlier in the process, enables innovative work.

Both digital and industrial designers prototype for two reasons: 1. To present work to a client or team in a way that more closely resembles the final product’s interactions 2. To test work – often with real users – in order to validate the work and/or find out more about the work’s shortcomings For example, the chair designer might 3D print a 1:1 model of the chair armrests, and then test those armrests for size and comfort with actual users. The website designer, in a similar vein, might make an Axure prototype of the home page and then analyse a user’s ability to use the main navigation.

Principle three: technology is often a limiting factor but can also inspire innovative concepts Once both designers are happy with their respective work, the struggle begins: the execution phase. During this phase both the chair- and website designer must work with engineers to realise their concepts, which often leads to pain points. The chair designer may have to make design concessions to make production cheaper and more environmentally friendly, whereas the website designer may have to make concessions because

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My experience at Rightpoint has shown me that much of my industrial design education can be applied to digital design - or any design form for that matter - and vice versa! Design is a process. The labels ‘industrial’, ‘digital’, ‘product’, ‘interaction’ et cetera simply indicate a medium. Much like artists, designers can have a favourite medium, but are apt to create work in any discipline they choose. To me this poses exciting possibilities.

Knowing that experience in any design field will overall make me a better designer, makes me unafraid to pursue projects or career opportunities that stray from what I was taught in school or what I assumed to be the best field for me.

I am confident that being a multidisciplinary designer helps me in my work today and will continue to do so in the future. My message to other students trying to figure out what internship or career choice is right for them: do not worry about it too much and follow your gut. Your talents are a lot more versatile than you think. 3

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INTERVIEW

Explained by

Ruud

Balkenende

How do you keep a product that has minimum impact on the environment but high economic value in circulation for as long as possible? For that, you have to look beyond just the design and start looking at value drivers and business models. After working at Philips for 25 years, Ruud Balkenende has now been professor of circular product design since 2015. text by Agaath Diemel | layout by Casper van Alfen | photo by Hans Stakelbeek

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INTERVIEW

Originally a chemist, Ruud Balkenende worked at Philips for years on materials, the aim of which was to make sure that products functioned as effectively as possible. It was around 2008 that reports started to come out about the imminent scarcity of materials such as silver, indium and rare earths. “That is when I started looking into ways of designing products that make them easier to recycle.” But there are conflicting demands to consider.

“An electronics manufacturer, for example, will want his product to be as sturdy as possible, but a recycler wants everything to be easy to separate.” For that, you need the right context information, according to Balkenende. “If you are designing for recycling, it is important to know exactly what a recycler does.”

Circular product design goes much further than designing strategies for optimal recycling. “You want to keep the components and materials that you are using in circulation for as long as possible. That means trying to minimise the impact on the environment and retain the economic value as long as possible. So it is best to reuse a product, even if you have to adapt it or give it an upgrade,” Balkenende explains. “If that is no longer possible, then you should at least repair it and give it a second life.”

He thinks Fairphone, a Dutch company that produces modular telephones, is a good example. “You can not even open most smartphones to replace their battery anymore, but Fairphones are built so that all of their parts are easy to access and repair.”

Sustainable business models An interesting circular business model is the delivery of products as services, such as Light as a Service (LaaS). Customers pay for the light they use, but the supplier remains the owner of the fixtures and bulbs. “As a result, producers remain responsible for the product, and so suddenly it is in their best interest for a product to last longer, because it extends the time that they can generate income from the same product.” Suppliers will also try to limit and simplify repairs and

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maintenance by integrating vulnerable parts into the product in such a way that they are easy to access. Balkenende believes that without these kinds of sustainable business models, there will be little impetus for manufacturers to really change something in the design.

Users have to change their mentality too. “It is easy to explain these business models to companies, because they are more inclined to think in terms of “total cost of ownership”, or what a product will cost throughout its entire lifetime.”

Entrepreneurs will obviously realise that there is profit in a more expensive bulb. Consumers, on the other hand, are more inclined to look at the cost of purchase, and companies are not exactly keen to do something about that. “Most consumer products are sold according to the principle “sell more, sell faster”.

In other words, sell as many products as you can, the quality of which is just about acceptable, so that customers keep coming back. It is a race to the bottom.” How to involve consumers in the circular economy is an important research area.

“Most consumer products are sold according to the principle sell more, sell faster” A political game It is often difficult for consumers to know whether a company is producing its products sustainably. That makes it hard for them to choose one that does. At the same time, there is little impetus for manufacturers to change anything. At Philips, Balkenende worked on a bulb that could be fully recycled. “For now, the disposal charge for that kind of bulb is high because recycling is still the collective responsibility of the manufacturers. So anyone making that extra effort is not being rewarded for it.” This is a task policymakers need to address, according to Balkenende.

“We are trying to explain to policymakers in The Hague and Brussels how to

effectively influence product design. Think, for example, of producer responsibility and transparency about the materials that are being used. As far as I am concerned, we should be making bolder decisions in that respect.”

In the meantime, developments are carrying on. “We have a good idea of what it is going to take to make the economy more circular. We have to work more on the details of the related design methods and make a clear link between design methodologies and business models.”

Emerging technologies are important as well. “Take 3D printing. That is an additive method in which you only use as much material as you need. Because it is digital, you can adapt your design to the user’s wishes and produce locally. Those are potential sustainability benefits. We should not only use these printers at home to print out junk that we don not need.”

Internet of Things New technologies also create new challenges. “More and more electronics are being integrated into products. Think of the Internet of Things. All kinds of products are becoming ‘smart’, which essentially means they will end up as electronic waste.” Then there is the emergence of ‘embedded electronics’, in which electronics are immediately printed into textile, for example. “That is a development you can’t stop. But how do you design products in such a way that you can repair the electronics if need be and remove them at the end of their lifetime? That is not a problem that a single person can solve. But we can work towards solving it if we pool all of the knowledge at Industrial Design Engineering and at other faculties.” 3

Ruud Balkenende will deliver his inaugural address on 10 November.

This will also be the closing key note of the PLATE conference on Product Lifetimes and the Environment, given at TU Delft from 8 till 10 November.

For more info see: www.plateconference.org

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FEATURE

DRAWING AS A

SUPERPOWER “Back in the days, I was the kid that was drawing in the back of the class. At first I had to stop drawing so I could listen to the teacher. After a while, I learned to listen and draw at the same time. That is pretty much what I do as a job now: listening and drawing.” When you see him, it is not hard to imagine Willem to have been the dreamy, creative boy of the class. With contagious enthusiasm, he and Nathan show us around and tell us all about their jobs at Jongens van de Tekeningen. text by Sita de Kruijf | illustration by Tomas Pasma

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Following the question if they can describe their typical day at the office, Willem and Nathan laugh and let me know that for them, there is no such thing as the typical working day. What is clear, is that the employees of this company do a lot more than just drawing. It ranges from meeting people at their own office next to Rotterdam Central Station, to visiting a company on the other side of the country, to detailing a drawing. However, many people still conceive Jongens van de Tekeningen as people who just draw. The opposite is true. The company facilitates processes, clarifies complexities and asks the questions the client does not dare to ask. All this happens with drawing as a tool, not so much as a final goal. To bring this across to their clients, Jongens van de Tekeningen decided to renew their brand to Flatland, aiming to go more international and to focus even more on the strategic side of the job. “We don’t want any more

phone calls of companies asking if we can make them a Christmas card.”

If we have to believe Nathan and Willem, their job is super rewarding. “When we start a session or workshop, people mostly say: “I can’t draw”. Basically, what they are saying is that they don’t dare to draw. But in the end, people are full of enthusiasm and energy. Months later, a lot of clients still communicate through drawing.”

At first sight, their office looks just like any other. Now when you take a better look, the 22-inch Wacoms on the desks and the drawings on the walls catch the eye. “Drawing is a superpower,” Willem says, “when I’m in a room with a bunch of serious men, I just pick up my marker and start drawing. From that point, I have their attention.” The company is growing rapidly; since they started, the number of employees has doubled each year.

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FEATURE

This year they celebrated their five year anniversary with a team trip to Slovenia. “‘Great food for thought’ has been a strategic theme for many years. Our team trips went to farmers that use drones to analyse their land to exclusive restaurants to experience their hospitality. Our promise to the team was to visit a world class restaurant when meeting our goals. That is why we went to Hisa Franko in Slovenia.

It was a time to celebrate, reflect and look forward,” Nathan says.

“It marked a turning point in many ways for our team – we’re only at the beginning of what we’re aiming to do with the company, in terms of how our services are delivered, expanding our capabilities and making an impact across the globe with our new brand, Flatland.”

Over time however, their ambition and idealism has certainly not vanished. “In the ideal situation, our company would not have to exist anymore,” Nathan says as I ask for his ultimate goal, “we want drawing to be an essential means of communication, just like writing and speaking.” 3

Flatland is taking off as our new international label and main platform to grow the coming years.

Our aim is to make visual thinking and design methodology an essential part of how people work together and make decisions. Having the knowledge and skills of a designer is a great power to help people and teams move forward; cutting through complexity, forming strategies and activating change.

In our projects we help them to tap into this resource and with our academy we take our responsibility to empower people to make use of it themselves.

Same team, same values, different brand.

Follow us on blog.flatland.agency.

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FEATURE

Ps I love you Get real here for a second, those legs are not standard legs for a 30 year old woman. I even wonder if they ever existed. So often we see things that are unearthly resized to epic standards. Naturally, we react in disbelief, the discussion gets heated and criticism gets thrown around like candy on Christmas. Have you ever realised how it really works, and whether the hard words of your comments are not completely hypocrite as a designer?

by Fay de Grefte Photoshop seems relatively new. The truth is that only the use of edited photos has changed dramatically over the past few years. When the software was written by Thomas and John Knoll (yes, they were brothers) in 1987, it was used to show grayscale images on a monochrome display. In 1988 the distribution license was sold to Adobe Systems Incorporated and in the years after it was completely updated to the killing machine it is now.

It is all around us; stuck to the train window, packed in your bag but foremost deeply imbedded in our heads. Take a good look at the pictures in the editorial.

They seem natural, right? What if I told you half of them is made significantly more beautiful? I can do this because your visual perception of people had adapted itself to the things you see the most. And let it be clear, you see a lot of photoshopped faces and bodies in magazines! It might be the first time we edited the writers of the Turn the Page but on a daily bases you see about 300 unnatural photos.

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This is not just the case with human beings.

Imagine the last picture you have seen of a forest, do the leafs not look more green and lively than those outside your window?

Or the hamburger on your menu, does that not trigger a watery mouth whereas the one on your plate is, honestly, a bit disappointing? Even on the house market certain tricks like structure augmentation, warm glows and sunny outsides are used.

Now let me explain how, even though everyone knows that Photoshop can fake almost everything you see, you still fall for those sneaky bastards’ lies.

You might not like hearing this, but your brain is crazy lazy. Just like you when you are watching Netflix, it is way easier to just be idle. When you are, you accept the things that seem natural or make you feel comfortable. The film with the happy ending leaves you way more satisfied than the one where the main character dies for no reason. This is a twitch that your unconsciousness developed out of sheer laziness. The same goes for photoshop; it

“That is why we unknowingly rather accept weirdly beautiful bodies than ugly or even normal ones”

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FEATURE

is not challenging for your brain to process beauty. It addresses positive feelings, leaving your brain not to have to digest anything. Just like green forests, yummy food and sunny houses, pretty faces give you a good vibe which makes things easier to accept. That is why we unknowingly rather accept weirdly beautiful bodies than ugly or even normal ones. Really, when we unconsciously start accepting photoshopped foods, places and people, it is only a matter of time before we perceive that to be the standard to which our visual anticipation of the world is aimed at.

make use of this unique advantage, because we now know that good marketing is not just making everything as juicy or boney with photoshop as possible.

On the other hand, when giving people a positive feeling that is easy to process, you are making it easier for them to accept.

This is extremely useful when you try to place an innovation in this chaotic world.

If you surround the product with positivity and things that are not hard the accept at all, the product itself will be embedded in people’s unconsciousness as positive and normal.

I just told you that it is out of your control.

You are doomed to pay more for a good photoshopped hamburger on a menu than a good taste on your plate. But now what do we do? We can not change the fact that your brain would rather be lazy than overused, but what we can do is think twice before we make an important decision based on visual perception. Although the first impression will be positively adjusted to the hoax you saw in the picture, thinking deeper and using more than one sense will help you in deciding more accordingly.

On the other hand, designers should

What I am not trying to do is justify the over-photoshopped marketing world, but what is important is for you is to understand how it works and not to neglect it. Remember this article the next time you wished you had Taylor Swift’s legs but also remember it when you struggle to implement your genius idea into the normal world. Oh and one more thing: do not abuse this information because although you are now ten times as smart as before you read this article, a lot of people do not realise the complication of fake visual perception. 3

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ALUMNI

It took IDE alumnus Jesse Beem some time to get used to being the only Delft engineer among the doctors and medical researchers at VU University Medical Centre Amsterdam (VUmc). He designs and modifies special meeting rooms in which doctors from various medical specialisms can consult with each other as efficiently as possible before deciding on a patient’s diagnosis and treatment. text by Maarten Muns | layout by Renske de Jong | photo by Hans Stakelbeek

“ A M E D I C A L C O N S U L TAT I O N SHOULD BE LIKE A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA” Every week in the VUmc, neurologists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, pathologists and other specialist health professionals meet to discuss patients with brain tumours. This is called the multidisciplinary team meeting (MDM) and is the ultimate moment when these patients’ diagnoses and treatment plans are agreed. Effectiveness and a team spirit are therefore essential. The VUmc was interested in discovering how design and technology can help create conditions in which the various medical specialists can make optimum use of the multidisciplinary aspect of an MDM.

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The hospital put in a request to the IDE Medisign coordinator, Marijke Melles.

Would a technically-trained designer be able to take a look at this? This is how Jesse Beem embarked on his graduation project in February 2016. Since his graduation Jesse is working full-time at the hospital. “The doctors’ focus is completely on the patients. They had given very little thought to these issues,” says Jesse in his office. “The conference rooms had not been set-up as specialist MDM rooms. There was a lot of potential for improvements.”

That improvement process started with a literature review. “Not much research had been conducted in this area,” explains Jesse. “The literature that does explore participants’ experiences of MDMs tends to be based on questionnaires completed afterwards. But what people say is not always what they do. This is why I attended more than twenty MDMs myself. The aim was to see what actually happens and map the entire context.”

In his participatory design process, Jesse had five different models for his

july 2017 | turn the page

ALUMNI

observations and used these to create visualisations of what happens during an MDM. “In the current set up of an MDM, there are three monitors on which brain scans are displayed. The chairperson sits on the left, he or she is the only person turned slightly towards his colleagues in order to look at them. The other doctors sit in a theatre arrangement and continue to look at the monitors while talking. Anyone entering later doesn’t want to walk in front of the monitors but chooses to sit in the blind spot behind the chairperson instead.

This is far from ideal. Another factor is that all of these people are leading specialists in their own fields, each with their own contribution to make. All of this influences the discussion.”

In order to optimise the actual design of the space and the technological tools for the meeting – and primarily the collegial aspect of it – Jesse often uses the metaphor of a symphony orchestra. “Everyone has their own medical professional specialism, but when they all come together at an MDM, they need to become a greater whole, in the same way as happens in a symphony orchestra giving a concert.”

Jesse’s graduation project resulted in the design of a room, a blueprint, based on a list of eleven different requirements that every MDM should ideally meet. “One requirement is that the key specialists must be able to see each other without having to turn around, for example. Or the positioning of the door and monitors to enable everyone to walk in and out without disrupting the meeting. If it meets these requirements, a room not only facilitates the exchange of information between specialists, but also enhances interaction between the doctors. The VUmc was delighted with this list, because it can be compared with existing MDM rooms or used as a schedule of requirements when building new rooms.”

focus on various aspects. Jesse believes it would help if the various specialisms could clearly indicate the areas on which they are focusing. “The VisCom app enables the doctors to explain their communication visually. They can do this by drawing onto a tablet. The drawing appears on the central monitors, with each doctor having their own individual colour. This means that participants understand what each doctor is trying to explain more quickly and gain a greater understanding of each other’s expertise, as a result of which everyone’s knowledge is enhanced.”

Jesse was awarded an innovation prize for his graduation research: a financial award from the VU innovation fund to develop his ideas further. This enables him to develop his concepts further into real physical rooms in the coming next year. “My aim is to create an approach that is as universal as possible, although each specialism obviously has its own habits and needs. I am also trying to gain as much knowledge as possible about changing technology and innovations in the field of MDMs and communication between professionals. Next to the VUmc, work is also being carried out for the new VU Imaging Center Amsterdam.

This is where the latest medical imaging techniques will come together. Assessing the scans in a multidisciplinary setting is becoming increasingly important. I will also be collaborating with them to apply my knowledge at this new centre. As you can see, there is plenty of work to do here.” 3

“What people say is not always what they do.”

Jesse’s design of an MDM.

Jesse shows an app that he calls VisCom. It stands for Visual Communication.

Many different specialists meet at an MDM. When assessing brain scans, they

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43

FEATURE

Annuleren

Voltooien

Annuleren

Voltooien

Als je kleurenblind bent, kan het nog best lastig zijn om je zorgkosten te declareren.

Voor onze ultieme gebruikerservaring hebben we jouw skills hard nodig.

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What are the articles in this magazine all about?

What i.d-Feature launched 20 June?

Why would your brain rather accept weirdly beautiful bodies?

What is hidden in the cover story? The Golden...

What makes a good chef according to Matt Preston?

Who created the font Comic Sans?

Which master course was founded by three students?

The first 10 people that send an email to turnthepage-svid@tudelft.nl with the right answer will receive a pair of socks!

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A B E ’ S FAV O U R I T E T O Y:

april 2017 | turn the page

COLUMN

by Eva Oosterlaken I am absolutely sick of them. You know, those ‘cute’, ‘hip’, ‘local’ coffee shops popping up everywhere you go? The ones with reclaimed wood, industrial lamps, exposed brick walls, trying to sell a variation of a cappuccino for five Euros? I am sick of their bearded baristas, their bicycle decor and their fern plants; their sans-serif logos monospaced in black-bordered boxes.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot escape them. No matter how far I travel, every city in the world seems to be infected by the plague of hipster shops. Even quaint, historic Delft is not immune. Just walk down the Voldersgracht (north of the Grote Markt), where stores like Friet District, De Centrale, and Roast Chicken Bar Delft have taken over the streetscape.

It is quite confusing: why are there so many of them?

All of these businesses are ‘independent’ in the sense that they are not all owned by one corporation, yet they all share the same aesthetic. No matter its cause (arguably Pinterest), if all business owners are adopting the same global style, there is a loss of aesthetic and cultural diversity. Diversity is created when style is inspired locally - not globally - and it can be argued that cultural diversity stimulates thought, new ideas and progress.

Hipster culture is not just problematic for its lack of diversity, though. Much more than just a style, hipster shops share a false promise: they give their customers a fictitious feeling of authenticity. That is, you feel like you are in a trendy and unique store, while in reality you are surrounded by more of the same. Pascal Monfort, fashion and design teacher at Paris’ HEC business school, notes: “hipster culture created a lifestyle that produces the exact opposite of what it

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promises: the search for global uniformity instead of local authenticity.” The hipster coffee shop then is a kind of illusion. It promises culture but instead it is the antidote of culture. It is fake.

So who even designed this crap? The copper and wire furniture? The logos with slashes? The endless-scroll websites that all look the same? Designers, are we not creative enough to think of something else?

That set me thinking. Did I not just buy a pair of glasses from Ace & Tate and eat avocado toast for breakfast? Is the Moscow Mule not my new favourite drink (if you have not tried it, it is really good)?

Even worse, did I not just design a sans-serif blackbordered-box logo for a client? Oh god, I am that designer. Here I am, pretending that I am better than this hipster tragedy - but for every time I walked by and made fun of a hipster shop, I probably walked into another and bought something useless. I am just pretending that I am not pretentious - which is arguably the fatal flaw of hipsterdom. We all think we are unique.

Right now, I am sitting in the Coffee Company in Delft and the ferny plant sitting across from me is mocking me silently. I am thinking about going on a hipster diet, quitting Pinterest and Behance, so that hopefully I can design something original again.

Perhaps if every designer asked him- or herself the question “am I helping or hurting cultural diversity with my design?”, we together can save the world from the hipster epidemic.

Hipsters anonymous anyone? 3

45

INTERVIEW

Bottom-up education

by Fay de Grefte | photo by Hugo Onink

What is So cial Venturi ng?

Social Ventur ing (ID5567 ) is a brand new ID E master elec tive that started as a student in iti ative.

Social ventur es have seen a remarkable growth: Tony ’s Chocolonely , Tesla Moto rs and Swapfiets are some great in spiring examples. Th ey show the p o tential of what is to come of the ne w sector. This type of ventur es are set to play a criti cal role in a d dressing societal pro blems, from cl im ate change to so cial welfare to th e problems of mass consum p tio n.

Traditionally , social desig n a nd commercial design often seem to be treated as opposites.

This course is inte grating both in practice, crea ting a minim um profitable b usiness with the aim to make the wo rld a little bit better.

We are proud to announce that this elective is already fu ll for next academic ye ar!

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On the 22nd of may we did an interview with three lovely students, Jozine Bouma, Steven Burger, and Sara Arntz that set up Social Venturing as a course in your master. This outstanding idea and realisation deserves to be noticed! Not only did they put a lot of energy and time in it, they overstepped their own boundaries, reset their own limits and yes, even pushed the faculty of IDE to a higher level.

How did you develop Social Venturing as a course?

Steven: “Throughout my entire Bachelor I had this feeling that something was missing. It was not offered in the Masters, I just could not seem to find it anywhere.

Not really being able to define what I missed, I tried to write it down. This message was posted on Facebook and I instantly got a lot of reactions, two of them being Sara and Jozine. From then on, we were in it together. Just before the summer of 2016, we started doing workshops and feedback sessions with other interested

students to define what exactly the need was that we had to fulfill. After a few productive lunches and evenings we came to decide that this was not something we could just do in our breaks. We needed more than our free time to fully develop what it was we were looking for. We ended up going to the research elective, which is a Master course where you can submit your own plan for the course. We quickly got approval but the exact content was still not defined. Jozine, Sara, myself, and two others started in September that year.”

Sara: “We even made a course manual!

However, we quickly made alterations and the manual was not the leading guide anymore. It was important for us to keep testing, experimenting and adjusting the course as we went.”

What should you do when you have an idea about your education?

Sara: “The most important thing when you have an idea as a designer is to talk to people. Knowing how other people see the same situation makes your idea more holistic and above all, talking to people makes everyone enthusiastic. To create something entirely new, you need a lot of energy. Take initiative and go ahead with it.

The more input, the better the output!”

july 2017 | turn the page

INTERVIEW

Steven Burger

Jozine Bouma

Sara arntz

Is this a cry for the democratisation of our education?

Jozine: “We are not suggesting that everyone should go ahead and DIY their education. The quality of our faculty is still treasured by those who have been in this branch for a long time and their qualities and wisdom.”

Steven: “It is however so important to stay aware of what you are learning. Is this what I want to know? By keeping up with what you are learning and what you want to learn you can give accurate feedback.

Sara: “This ‘bottom-up’ approach of studying could support faster innovation and provision of our educational needs.

Because who can predict the future better than the designers of the future?”

Should IDE students be an example in designing education? Do you think we can teach people something?

Jozine: “To be very honest with you, we never really looked into pedagogy. How people learn new things has not been our priority when we set up this course.”

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Sara: “From the beginning on, we had some amazing coaches that helped us with that stuff and now that we are putting the course up for the Master electives, there are some education coordinators and coaches that will completely take it over.”

Steven: “So no, we are not supporters of IDE’ers designing education. What we do think is that the faculty could emphasise a design thinking approach. So creating education together with its end users: students. Just as we create products and services through user-centered design. This is a peculiar contradiction and would be easy and valuable to straighten.”

obligations to attend to. Therefore it all relies on who sees the need and feels the urge to fulfill it. After defining that need a good collaboration with the faculty is key, whether you are a student or a professor.”

Does this leave you flabbergasted? Are you completely blown of your feet? Either way, it is important to realise this seems like an undoable, Guinness book idea but the people who made this happen are students just like you. They have ideas, just like every single one of us. So if one day you think “Nah, this is not possible”, please just think about these three heroes. 3

Is there an added value to students setting up a course instead of professors?

Jozine: “No, it is not necessarily better that this course was founded by students. But seeing a need and acting on it requires a lot of energy and time. Students have the energy but are often preoccupied with their curriculum or social matters.

Professors have priorities and other

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FEATURE

Passengers at the centre for enhancing flight experience Summer has started, and so has the holiday season. The further away the better, seems to be the motto nowadays. As a result, increasingly more people are choosing to go on holiday by air, often resulting in long queues, delays and annoyed passengers. Although we must guard against the fallacy that science can solve all problems with overcrowded airports, researchers from the faculty of IDE are certainly doing their bit. text by Maarten Muns | layout by Sita de Kruijf | photos by Hans Stakelbeek

Katinka Bergema

Suzanne Hiemstra-van Mas

trigt

Christine De Lille

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Rebecca Price

july 2017 | turn the page

FEATURE

The faculty of IDE is coordinating a major European project known as PASSME. In PASSME, twelve partners, both from academia as from industry, are pooling their expertise to try and knock a full hour off the time it takes people to travel by air within Europe. At the same time, the aim is to make journeys more relaxed and less stressful for passengers. To accomplish this, the focus of PASSME is on the ‘extra leeway’ built into current procedures at the average European airport.

“It is the passenger who is actually travelling from A to B,” says IDE post-doc Katinka Bergema, who is working as a researcher in PASSME. “Our strength as designers is to think from the perspective of the passenger and their entire journey. This journey doesn’t begin at the airport, but at the passenger’s home,” “The passenger has to undergo all these procedures,” Katinka continues. “If we put passengers at the centre, we can talk to all the parties involved and try to find ways of making things more efficient. We analyse what passengers go through, where the stress builds up, and how we can address this. In the end, relaxed passengers will find it easier to go through all these procedures.”

Katinka’s own role within the PASSME project is to study luggagefree travel. Lugging suitcases from home to a check-in desk at the airport is unlikely to enhance passengers’ travel experience and often causes delays. “If we could find a way of picking up passenger luggage at home and dropping it off at the hotel rather than asking passengers to take it to the airport, their experience would improve and this may result in a win-win situation for the other parties concerned too.”

Fellow-post-doc Suzanne Hiemstra-van Mastrigt is focusing on improving the boarding experience, another factor responsible for waiting time and stress. “We have observed large groups of passengers, both at the gates and as they boarded the plane,” explains Suzanne. “We noticed that lots of people go and stand in the queue long before it is time to board because they want to be sure there will be room for their hand luggage in the cabin.

Once inside the plane, they look for their seat and then search for somewhere to store their carry-on bags. Then, without any hurry, they unpack the items they need during the flight from their carryons. All in all, this causes unrest and congestion in the narrow aisle between the seats.”

“We use our own Boeing airplane fuselage on the campus to experiment with different solutions. For example, think of a system in the luggage bins that tells you exactly where to store your bag while you are boarding the aircraft. With this system, passengers could scan their luggage at home by taking a photo with a sheet of A4 paper next to the bag as a reference, so the app can calculate its dimensions. An algorithm then uses the dimensions and seat number to determine the optimal position for each particular piece of luggage and immediately tells the passenger if the luggage can be taken on board or not. Knowing

this beforehand gives passengers assurance and thus more peace of mind.”

Other researchers from the faculty of IDE are also working on improving the travel experience of passengers. Take ‘Design Doing’, for example, the long-term collaboration between TU Delft and KLM that was officially launched in February. Project leader is assistant professor Christine De Lille: “In Design Doing, students are working within the actual operation of KLM. They come up with all kinds of ideas to improve the flight experience of passengers, so that airlines can actually keep the promises they make to their passengers.”

“The aviation industry needs designers to make sure that technological solutions are actually solving real problems.”

“The unique thing about this collaboration is that we can test the ideas directly, using actual passengers, gates and airplanes. We call this the X-approach. Special gates known as X-gates have been set up at Schiphol for this purpose. We want to find out as quickly as possible whether an idea actually works, and by doing so, we create a culture that allows for swift changes.”

Post-doc Rebecca Price is a new addition to the PASSME team.

Rebecca brings industry experience from Australia, having worked for the Brisbane Airport Corporation during her PhD. Rebecca is interested in developing frameworks that translate technologies into meaningful and valuable solutions for everyone involved.

“The aviation industry often views technology as a holy grail solution to rather complex problems,” she explains. “But they need designers to make sure that technological solutions are actually solving real problems. We’d like to know, particularly with the near horizon developments of Internet of Things and machine learning, how can we apply design during digital inndovation. All in the best interest of the passengers of course.” 3 io.tudelft.nl/aviationdesign

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GADGETS

Makey Makey While you are studying hard in the hope of becoming an inventor, the Makey Makey makes it possible for everybody to be one. It is in the name: with the Makey Makey people can make what they want with endless possibilities. All you have to do is to connect the plugs to a banana, a piece of clay, a wall, your cat... And the object in question instantly turns into a keyboard or a mouse.

Makey Makey is now available on their website for $49.95 www.shop.makeymakey.com

text by Joost Tielken & Sita de Kruijf | layout by Fay de Grefte & Eva Oosterlaken

Fuse 1 You might have heard of the technology of selective laser sintering, but a device that turns nylon powder into whatever shape you want - on your desktop? Fuse 1 represents the next generation of 3D printers. Believe us, it will take your prototypes to a higher level. Forget your standard 3D printing material, because the Fuse 1 produces parts that are bendable, resist heat and need no support. Bigger, lighter and stronger‌ Need we say more?

You can reserve a complete Fuse 1 on the website of formlabs for 24198.79â‚Ź www.formlabs.com

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july 2017 | turn the page

GADGETS

Colophon Official body of Study association i.d Volume 18 / Issue 60 April 2017 Turn The Page is issued four times a year.

Contact Study association i.d Landbergstraat 15 2628 CE Delft +31 (0)15 2783012 www.id.tudelft.nl

Nintendo classic mini Are you a gamer and looking for the ultimate co-op experience? With this console you are able to do just that. It is the same like the old days, with your best friend on the couch pulling an all nighter.

The Nintendo classic mini is available in toy shops in America or on the website for $59.99. www.nintendo.nl

Comments, questions, compliments and remarks can be sent to: turnthepage-svid@tudelft.nl Issues 7500 Copies Press Quantes - Rijswijk TTP thanks Sterre de Grefte Steven Burger Jozine Bouma Sara Arntz Jongens van de Tekeningen Subscribe/ad Members of Study association i.d receive Turn The Page free of charge. A yearly subscription costs â‚Ź9,50 (4 issues)

Elbow

Let us be honest, vinyl is out of fashion (again). The new way to go is the compact cassette. But the same as vinyl a few years back, you need to look cool doing it. That is why a small lithuanian company made the Elbow. A cassette player that is smaller than the cassette itself. Grab a shovel and start digging in that storage room to find some smashing tracks. With this device you will be the coolest person at the beach.

Want a subscription or publish an advert? Send an email to turnthepage-svid@tudelft.nl Copyright The committee has strived to own the copyrights of the included texts and images. However, if you believe you own the rights to a piece that has been used, we request you to contact us.

Nothing from this issue can be reproduced. The committee claims the right to shorten, alter or refuse submitted pieces.

The Communication department of the IDE faculty and the Alumni Association have contributed to this Turn The Page.

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Reality is wrong.

Dreams are for real.