COVER STORY The Wonderful World of Prop Design INTERVIEW Farming (With) Data FEATURE Invented by Accident 72 | April 2020
Writing this in quarantine, almost not allowed to go outside to get some high value toilet paper, washing my hands like 13 times a day and Netflix sending me messages like: “dude, stop watching”, I hope the corona virus pandemic has passed a little when you find this incredible new edition of the Turn The Page online. For now, sadly, ID is closed, which has completely changed our lives as boardmembers but also for all of us as members of ID in general. I can’t wait to sit on the soft couches again and get some hot tea from the quooker. This issue of T TP luckily marks the star t of sunny days, enjoying a drink outside at ID Kafee and receiving enough vitamin D from the sun again. I think we deser ve it after the grey, rainy and ‘virusy’ winter days. While this is happening, our commissioner of external affairs is car twheeling on a trampoline... Martijn Nieuwenhuijse Chairman of ID
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S 06
RECURRING BABE+
21
INTERVIEW FARMING (WITH) DATA
10
COVERSTORY THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PROP DESIGN
24
FEATURE MENTAL HEALTH
16
FEATURE THE MERITS OF MEDITATION
28
FEATURE INVENTED BY ACCIDENT
18
ID PAGES BURGER ONLINE
30
ID PAGES UPCOMING EVENTS
20
COLUMN BEAN THERE, DONE THAT
32
RECURRING HUTSPOT
April 2020 | turn the page
EDITORIAL
Jorn Rigter Treasurer
Imara Stemvers Publicity
Maartje Roggeveen External Affairs
G�s Rempt Layout
Susanna Osinga Secretary
Stein van Veggel Chairman Renee Brants Acquisition
Juwe van Vliet Qualitate Qua
Zach Cobut Editor in Chief
EDITORIAL One of my fellow Turn The Page members recently told me that eating fresh, steamed ar tichokes can make water taste sweeter. My first thought after hearing this was of course: “How can I possibly write a decent editorial about ar tichokes if I hadn’t tried this myself? ”. So I went out to search for the prettiest looking ar tichoke I could find and steamed it for about thir ty minutes. After finishing a bite, I drank a sip of water and experienced a strange kind of sweetness. Strange, because I could sense that it wasn’t the water itself that tasted sweet. I tried eating some other types of food as well : dark chocolate, peanut butter, mangoes. I even stole some of my roommate’s milk. It was quite fascinating. After a bit of googling, I found out that the effect is caused by a substance called ‘cynarin’, which inhibits our sweet-perceiving tasting buds. When you drink water or eat something afterwards, the cynarin is washed away and we perceive this contrast as a sudden ‘rush of sweetness’.
turn the page | April 2020
The ar tichoke I ate is just one of the many examples of how our perception can be fooled. That is what this edition of the Turn The Page is about: senses. We discuss agricultural sensors and inter faces with UX Designer Puck Siemering and the benefits of temporarily shutting off your senses are explored in an ar ticle about the meditation technique ‘ Vipassana’. First up, ‘The Wonder ful World of Prop Design’, in which prop designers Pierre Bohanna and Merlijn van de Sande tell us all about how they create the most convincing props for films and commercials. We’ve collaborated loads of different people to create this edition of Turn The Page. It’s a real pleasure to work with individuals who are so passionate about what they do. It gave us lots of energy and inspiration and it taught us many new things. Get inspired and enjoy!
5
BABE+
by Gijs Rempt
MEDIUM With a wide range of topics and ar ticles, Medium offers just about ever y thing you could possibly be interested in reading. A mix of amateur and professional writers share their viewpoints about design, tech, politics and many more topics. From little stories that brighten your day, to manifestos that change the world, there’s something here for ever ybody. www.medium.com
6
ALONE TOGETHER In this book Sherr y Turkle, MIT professor and exper t on the psychology of human relationships with technology, paints a worr ying picture of our changing relationship with technology and each other. From the impact of using robots to take care of our elderly to the way our online social interactions lead to increasingly shallow relationships, Turkle leaves no stone unturned. Using fifteen years wor th of research and inter views, she creates a vivid depiction of where our dependence on technology might take us.
April 2020 | turn the page
BABE+
PRISONERS OF GEOGRAPHY The leaders of the world are all constrained by the hand dealt to their countries in the form of mountains, rivers and seas. Tim Marshall provides an interesting look at how the past, present and future of world politics are shaped by the unshapeable geography of nations, explaining why Russia had no choice but to annex Crimea and its warm water por t Sevastopol and why China was always bound to overwhelm Tibet.
TAT S U YA TA N A K A Tatsuya Tanaka has been uploading a picture ever y day since 2011 as a par t of his MINIATURE CALENDAR project. The dioramastyle figures are full of creativity and humour, as if his mother never told him to stop playing with his food. The Japanese ar t-director creates fun little scenes using ever yday objects and miniature figures, from a band in concer t with Lego blocks as speakers to a BMX rider jumping off a block of cheese. www.instagram.com/tanaka_tatsuya
Reply All is a podcast hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman. The show features wellresearched stories about how people change the internet and how the internet changes people. One episode tells the stor y of how Goldman booked a flight to Delhi after getting a scam call to track down the caller and hear him out. Another tells the stor y of a 17-yearold who created a Facebook group to role-play a fake company, which spirals out of control when someone brings in a swarm of imaginar y iguanas. Yes that actually happened. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all
R E P LY A L L turn the page | April 2020
7
BABE+
I AM SUN MU A documentar y film about Sun Mu, a former propaganda ar tist for the Nor th Korean regime who fled to South Korea to create satirical ar t parodying the propaganda he was once tasked with creating. The film follows him as he prepares for a solo exhibition in China. Undercover, mind you, as China is Nor th Korea’s greatest ally. As the ar tist is afraid of repercussions against his family, his face remains a myster y.
Sydney-based design studio Garbett Design works together with clients in the ar t, design and cultural sectors to create play ful and bold packaging, illustrations, posters and branding. Their diverse style will surely brighten up your day and inspire you to create, so go ahead and drop them a like and a follow. www.instagram.com/garbettdesign
GARBETT DESIGN 99% INVISIBLE 99% Invisible is a podcast created by Roman Mars that tells the stor y behind often unseen or overlooked par ts of design and architecture. Each episode focuses on a different topic, from the origin of the for tune cookie to the feud between two business-par tners-turned-bitterrivals about who could build the biggest skyscraper in New York. Mars is often joined by designers and architects who help him tell the stories you’d never hear otherwise. www.99percentinvisible.com
8
April 2020 | turn the page
BABE+
A three-par t documentar y series about Microsoft found Bill Gates and the way he thinks about the world’s biggest problems. Despite the director’s reluctance to dive into the darker aspects of Gates’ way of doing business, the documentar y still provides an interesting look at his life after Microsoft.
INSIDE B I L L’ S B R A I N
It might surprise you to learn that the Chinese added sticky rice to the mor tar of the Great Wall, or that the Taj Mahal is held together par tly by a mixture of shells, fruit juice and egg whites. In Built, Roma Agrawal looks at how our built environment has evolved from the ancient huts of our ancestors to towering steel behemoths reaching into the sky. Through color ful stories from her own life, hand-drawn illustration and interesting facts, construction becomes accessible and engaging to people other than just Civil Engineers.
B U I LT turn the page | April 2020
Smar t technology is rapidly changing the way we interact with products. From smar t thermostats and air purifiers to emergency cell phones and whiteboards, Smar t Product Design looks at almost 100 smar t products, explaining the choices made throughout the design process through concept sketches and inter views with lead designers.
SMART PRODUCT DESIGN 9
COVERSTORY
The Wonderful World of Prop Design And… Action! It’s midnight. In the far distance, the skyline of New York shimmers, a city the ghostbusters have to defend. The monster they face today is a Gozer with red, gleaming eyes and womanly shapes. She crawls towards them on hands and feet in a wisp of white smoke. She hisses and unfurls her teeth. The ghostbusters hold their proton guns with determined faces and steady hands. “Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown,” Peter screams, “Strike!” Pure, crackling, bright power shoots from their proton guns, hitting the yowling Gozer with such great force she shoots into the sky. by Susanna Osinga and Stein van Veggel | special thanks to Merlijn van de Sande and Pierre Bohanna
When you watch this scene, you don’t focus on the proton guns our four heroes hold, not really. You will look at the Gozer or the sweat pearling on Winston’s forehead. The actors, the sets, the costumes or the special effects are not easy to overlook. However, props are often the unsung heroes of movies. GUNS AND UMBRELL AS Props. They come in ever y shape and size. Weapons, instruments, slightly lopsided bir thday cakes, jeweller y, books. Sometimes, props are so impor tant that they even show up in the movie title: Lord of the Rings; Raiders of the Lost Ark. Props can become iconic and irreversibly connected to characters: the umbrella from Mar y Poppins; the necklace from Titanic. And, in some cases, props tell just as much as words could: the spinning top from Inception; the origami unicorn from Blade Runner. In a way, it’s great that almost no one wonders how these props were made, because they are there to provide subtle subtext. However, as designers, it might be time to take a closer look at the wonder ful world of prop design. To do this, we approached two
10
prop designers, both working in an entirely different par t of the business. BRINGING THE MAGIC TO LIFE The first prop designer that we reached out to was Pierre Bohanna. Even if you don’t know his name, you probably are familiar with some of his work. He runned depar tments designing and manufacturing props, models and special costumes for movies like The Dark Knight, Star Wars and Harr y Potter. Bohanna star ted out in the business of engineering and boat building. According to him, there isn’t really a difference between designing props and designing objects for regular use. “All things come from a requirement of form and function. What you do have to do as a prop maker, is consider what the requirements are for the piece in question, in the sense of how the stor y tellers want to use the object in telling their stor y. For example, a bottle of wine is standing on a table and is featured as a scene plays out. The film is set in the 1700s and the place is in a French Chateau, so it has to match the style of the period and be in keeping. Then, it is smashed over the head of the lead character. Now, it has to be 1
April 2020 | turn the page
COVERSTORY
Ghost busters
turn the page | April 2020
, 1984
11
COVERSTORY
The Force Awakens
12
, 2015
April 2020 | turn the page
COVERSTORY
made of a material that will break convincingly, but not do any harm to the ‘ver y precious, delicate and highly insured’ lead actor who’s not too keen on the idea.” He explains that the main challenge as a prop designer is discovering what’s going on in the mind of the production managers, directors and other involved creatives. “The star ting point of a movie prop is mostly a bunch of vague words in a script. Often, this leads to ‘Concept Designs’, which are rendered sketches that allow the debate of the object to be discussed and developed. This will be altered many times in the process of that development, but it is also the time when we tr y to influence the design to steer it in a convincing direction. We use and research many manufacturing processes to allow us to make things as genuine and as imaginative as we can.
“The starting point of a movie prop is mostly a bunch of vague words in a script.” Once ever yone is happy, a more formal technical drawing will be done to buckle down all the formal details required to manufacture the object. Classically, this would have been a pencil drawing. Now, however, it is most likely to be a CAD drawing. So, basically, the inspiration and quality comes from development and hard work, lots of hard work.” THE STORMTROOPERS Take the Stormtrooper suits Bohanna designed. His team produced over one hundred of them for Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The production process of these suits was in many ways
turn the page | April 2020
similar to the production process for regular-use objects. The designers star ted rendering the concept designs early on in 3D models. These models were created by scanning bodies, so the design would always be grounded in reality. This step was vital: “I have so often received designs that look cool in a posed position, but could either never exist in reality, or would never work as moving body panels. So, to be able to control that was ver y impor tant.” Once they had the design signed off, they were able to use all the digital designs and information to manufacture production patterns and moulds. They could get on ver y quickly with making them. Bohanna decided to vacuum cast all hundred-thir ty par ts in pre-coloured resins to get ever y thing looking exactly the way he wanted. A DIFFERENT APPROACH However, not all props are created in the relatively technical way that Pierre explained. There are also many prop designers that choose to make props by hand, like Merlijn van de Sande. Merlijn is a special prop maker for several Dutch and Belgian movies, as well as series such as Rundfunk and the new feature film of Gust van den Berghe, which is still in post production. She graduated at the Dutch Film Academy in 2014 and currently works as a freelance prop designer in her studio in Amsterdam, under the name ‘Merlign Design’. She shows us around and tells us about her work. Reading and interpreting the movie script forms the star ting point for most of Merlijn’s projects. “When you, for example, have to design a scribble book for a character, you have to make sure it seamlessly corresponds with the rest of the stor y. Does it belong to a messy character? What kind of handwriting does this character have? Does the book get carried 1
13
COVERSTORY
around all day or is it properly stored in a drawer? At what point in time does the movie take place? Those kinds of questions.” She adds that it is impor tant to know what the prop in question will be used for. Depending on the scene, testing the props forms a big par t of the process. “I am currently making rocks that will be used to stone someone. So on the one hand I have to make sure that they will be light and soft enough to not hur t the actor, but, on the other hand, I have to find out how to make them look like actual rocks when flying through the air or when hitting the actor’s face. I am currently experimenting with several materials to get the right look and feel.” She explains, with a big grin, that this process of experimenting can take some interesting turns. “At some point, I had to simulate a crow flying right into an electric fan. My colleagues crossed me in the hallway throwing black boas between the blades.” CRE ATING AN ILLUSION Merlijn has a special interest in making miniatures. “Often, there simply isn’t enough time or budget to make an entire street or landscape for a movie and making a miniature version of the set will do just fine.” In contrast to Hollywood movies, movies with a smaller budget often need props on a ver y shor t term that will only be used in one par ticular shot. “Ever y thing, literally ever y thing, is fake. Sometimes, I don’t even make the backside of an object because you won’t see it in the shot anyway.” Merlijn describes prop design as ‘creating an illusion’. She illustrates this by showing us a foamcast flat iron that had to be thrown at someone’s head in a par ticular scene. “If the prop is handled this aggressively, I often make a few more in case it
14
breaks.” We also get to see a rusty looking metal bar, which, in reality, is a painted silicon object because the actor’s task was to bend it with his bare hands. “The prop becomes significant when it belongs to a character or setting with a background stor y; it becomes par t of the narrative. That is why a prop, on its own, might seem meaningless. The context defines its meaning.”
“The prop becomes significant when it belongs to a character or setting with a background story.” AND… CUT! Like a magnet being pulled to the sur face, Gozer lands on her feet. “We’re gonna go full speed,” Peter mumbles. The ghostbusters load their proton guns and shoot again. When the lights fade, it appears Gozer has vanished without a trace. The four heroes are left confused but proud. That’s a wrap! Whether you’re going to the cinema or watching Netflix from under a blanket, you might look a little more curiously at the flickering lights or the winding wires on the ghostbuster’s proton packs that have to convince you this weapon kills ghosts. You might tr y to envision in which ways prop makers have fooled you into believing brick is brick and metal is metal. You might even decide that instead of designing toasters, you want to create the next golden snitch or proton blasters. Or a toaster, but without a backside, because who needs backsides on the silver screen? 3
April 2020 | turn the page
COVERSTORY
The Shining
turn the page | April 2020
, 1980
15
FEATURE
merits of meditation Last summer, I took a ten-day Vipassana course, meditating ten hours per day. Vipassana is all about observing reality as objectively as possible. It brought me countless benefits. Imagine you could buy a pill at your local pharmacy which would increase your mental well-being and attention span, reduce your stress levels and anxiety, and improve your sleep quantity and quality. Meditation turns out to be that imaginary pill, though getting to all those benefits requires hard work and some discipline. by Jorn Rigter | illustrations by Vinodha Suresh
WHAT IS MEDITATION? In its essence, meditation is about achieving what is called enlightenment: the state of nonduality where the concepts of ‘you’ and ‘ the rest of the world’ cease to exist and you’re fully aware of the objective reality as it is in ever y moment in time. In the West, however, people have been using the positive effects of meditation in their daily lives, without the goal of achieving a state of enlightenment, often referred to as mindfulness. By focusing the mind on a specific task, like the focus on the incoming and outgoing breath, you train the mind to become
16
sharper and less distracted by the constant thoughts that arise in your consciousness. There is a plurality of different meditation techniques out there. The meditation tech-nique that was discovered by the first Buddha (which literally means ‘Enlightened one’) is called Vipassana. THE VIPASSANA TECHNIQUE In Vipassana, the goal is to obser ve reality as it is. You do this by doing a so-called ‘body scan’, where you scan the skin of your body, inch by inch. You get your conscious mind to speak to the unconscious
mind and become equanimous (balanced and calm) with any thing that happens to you. While we call it the ‘unconscious mind’, it is actually constantly conscious of ever y thing that happens to us: it communicates through the bodily senses. For example, when you get angr y, your hear tbeat rises, your palms star t to sweat and your body gets warmer. We only star t to notice these sensor y experiences when they’ve already happened. That’s when the conscious mind becomes aware of the unconscious mind. It turns out we can communicate back as well.
April 2020 | turn the page
FEATURE
COMMUNICATING WITH THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND When we have a negative sensation, for example an itching sensation in the neck, the conscious mind can remain balanced. Also, when we have a positive sensation, for example a beam of sunlight hitting the skin, the conscious mind can remain equanimous. The unconscious mind has a habit of constantly reacting with craving to positive sensations and reacting with aversion to negative sensations. If the conscious mind remains equanimous in these situations, it conveys this message to the unconscious mind, telling it that whatever happens, it doesn’t have to instantly react. What happens then, I can tell from experience, is nothing shor t of real-world magic. HE ALING YOURSELF I like to compare it to burning a candle under a glass bell. The candle needs a constant supply of oxygen to burn. When you cut the supply, the remaining oxygen in the bell will star t burning. The same happens in the mind. When the constant supply of cravings or aversions from the conscious mind is cut off, the remaining supply star ts burning. You notice this by a sudden new sensation appearing somewhere on your body. For example, during the course there were moments where I experienced ver y subtle, pulsating vibrations all over my body. It’s like tiny par ts of my skin vibrated at a ver y rapid pace. Then, suddenly, a ver y solidified, intensified sensation appeared somewhere on my back or shoulder. At another time, my left hand was suddenly getting extremely cold. It felt like there was cold energy leaving my
turn the page | April 2020
left arm, through the left hand, in a pulsating motion. At another time, this same cold energy was leaving through the upper back. If you manage to remain balanced with these new sensations, you will star t to burn the old supply coming from the unconscious mind, since you’re telling the unconscious mind that it is okay to have this sensation as well. Sensations like these often originate from childhood, where something might have happened which you might not even consciously remember anymore, but which is vividly stored in the unconscious mind. The unconscious created a reaction pattern, which results in an emotional reaction that appears as a sensation somewhere on the body. When the conscious mind doesn’t respond, you’re now telling the unconscious mind to remain
calm as well. You’re now healing this thing that (unconsciously) had a big impact on your life. THE BENEFITS Personally, I noticed a big difference in the way I responded to cer tain situations after the course. Situations where I would have reacted strongly in the past, didn’t get to me personally anymore. I was ver y self-aware and had a peaceful state of mind. I was also getting lots of things done in a shor t amount of time. Now of course benefits differ per person, but in general it increases focus, reduces anxiety and stress, increases emotional health and enhances self-awareness, making you more able to reflect on yourself and listen to feedback. In shor t, meditation might seriously be wor th considering, both for yourself as a human being as well as to you as a designer. 3
17
R E G R BU LINE ON
MENU
MENU
at sure th m a ke ’. to e t n n li er On ID wa g d ‘Burg ciation star tin o te d s a s n re a A c y dy facult iscord S o, w e e as Stu r. ID th e e e w g re th , e ca r leavin ke place on rantin r yo u r ok and in qua ared fo eful fo t will ta site, Facebo e prep ing us b you are l th v e il e e il w m h e en b o u h e g up s W o T w in y o . , p d h t e ID n tc e n still ck the ’ in Du n g eve and ‘K e r ’ lo h e a c k rg yo u c a m n e u e to e u! e in n, or ‘B t w o -w urse m n d yo u rger C civilia omme wo - c o In this ts: ‘Bu a t c r s a g re a p in e o w w ur life tails, w e follo ts of t off yo ore de it in th consis Fo r m about nline’ ll O a r e d ser ver. a urg re ts ram. ‘B ou can e Bran ers’. Y Instag d Rene design gel an e th an Veg v in with te S
M E N I C R B U R G E 24 APRIL ut by
e | layo
nHuijs
ieuwe
N Martijn text by
20 APRIL -
M
............ onday
a Tuesd Wed
y..
......Min
imalis
....Th ............
y........ nesda
Thursd
ay....
m
tiv e C re a
...LEGO
e Brain
House
te he Sep ...........T
mber
A
a ’, C in e m u rg e r m e d ‘B ti o n o f e th , le c eek ly y a se fi rs t w la ti v e e te d b In th e o u t re b e g re ns ab d . We l o rl il ti o a w w d you men s ig n n tre c o m c o n te th e d e r ts o f m o v ie r on a on pa nd g e th e a m to y m s t o r Pa unc e fi lm e t fl ix e r v e r! a tc h th li k e N c o rd s w il l w la t fo rm o n th e ID is p g n s h a ri s ig h ts o u r in s h a re
Issue
R E N G I S E D E H T H T I W P 1 MAY KEEP U 27 APRIL ............ Friday
..........O
bjectif
ied
e li v e s h t in th d a y, in in s ig a y r g e l v il w .E n fi e ld re e e k , we e ig th s w e in d is e er Th ey d e s ig n ts in th r th t e n h p re ic x wh of e d if fe n in ig n , in ig uss a s s c e e is d D d , to we e r p a th r q u e s ti o n s e ro a d h re T a : c s we th e ir p a r ts ey an rr e n t a b o u th h ic h th g in g th e c u te ll u s e , in w a you n n a ti h n m ic h re w Q u a ra th e y a io n , in s ns! w s o o e ti h s s t e abou e Q& A in g q u a n d th ll y o u r b u rn c ri s is , a m s k th e can a 2019 turn th
18
e| e pag
Novem
S
1
ber
April 2020 | turn the page
ID PAGES
turn the page | April 2020
19
COLUMN
b e an ther e , done th at A popular urban myth is that the average Dutch person is the biggest coffee consumer on the planet. Actually, this title is held by the Fins, who drink 5.2 cups a day compared to the 3.2 cups of the Dutch. The beloved black gold had a rich history before it found its way to Europe and finally the United States. Let’s roast some facts. by Jorn Rigter | information by Neef Rob, Coffee Tea & Chocolate
The Arabica bean, responsible for seventy percent of the world’s coffee consumption, finds its roots in Ethiopia. The stor y goes that shepherds in Ethiopia noticed their sheep were acting more energetic after eating berries from cer tain bushes. From European explorers, we know the Ethiopian people used to chew on raw coffee beans to consume their por tion of caffeine. From Ethiopia, coffee beans travelled to Arabia somewhere between 575 and 850 AC, where they were used as a medicine to tr y and cure diseases like kidney stones, chickenpox and measles. Around the beginning of the sixteenth centur y, coffee reached the holy city of Mecca. From here, it rapidly spread across the entire muslim world. By the end of the sixteenth centur y, Venice tried to bring coffee to Europe, but the Arabs soon realized its market potential and effectively monopolized the coffee
20
expor t for about one hundred years. It was only at the end of the seventeenth centur y that the Dutch stole a coffee plant in Yemen, and star ted growing it in Java, Indonesia, taking possession of a big share of the coffee market. In 1760, the Dutch shipped the first coffee to the city now known as New York. At the same time, the French and Dutch star ted bringing coffee to Middle and South America, where it wasn’t long before Brazil (then a Por tuguese colony) star ted to grow its own coffee as well. From then onwards, coffee star ted to be ingrained into societal habits all over the world, to become the most popular drink on the planet as of today. Next time you drink a cup of your favorite espresso, cappuccino or americano with a friend, you’ll have an amazing origin stor y to tell. 3
April 2020 | turn the page
INTERVIE CHECKLIST W
F( WAI TRH ) M I N G DATA turn the page | April 2020
21
CHECKLIST INTERVIE W
Data is the new gold. It turns out this saying is now finding its way into horticulture (the agriculture of plants) as well. The company 30MHz is helping growers with ‘data-driven agriculture’: farming with data. Growers of cucumbers, capsicums and other greenhouse yield are using the data visualisation platform to improve their harvest. 30MHz provides them with sensors and a platform to create visualisations of the data the sensors gather. interview with Puck Siemerink text by Jorn Rigter and Imara Stemvers | layout by Juwe van Vliet
This is where Puck Siemerink comes into play, 30MHz’s user experience and inter face designer. User experience (UX) and user inter face (UI) design often go hand in hand, but in bigger companies the two have their own depar tments. We inter viewed Puck about her role at 30MHz and her experience in UX design. “As an industrial designer, you become the user’s voice.” DESIGNING THE USER E XPERIENCE The ser vice of 30MHz consists out of physical sensors and a digital platform, that categorises and displays the data of those sensors to the growers. Users can decide which data they need and utilise that to increase their productivity. It’s a bit like Google Analy tics for farming, one of the platforms Puck sometimes uses as an inspirational source. “In the future, we’d like to become the digital greenhouse on the grower’s phone,” Puck explains. The challenge is to enable growers to use the platform independently. “Right now, they are still calling regularly with small issues they have.” To improve that, Puck began by understanding the growers.
“In the world of software, objectoriented programming is a form of writing code according to objects.”
22
April 2020 | turn the page
INTERVIE CHECKLIST W
Her approach is ver y simple. Based on the feedback she receives, she makes a design for new features to improve the user experience. Since it’s still a relatively small company (a head count of 28), and Puck is the only UX designer in the team, she has to take quick decisions. If the change is small enough, she simply makes the change based on experience and update the software for all users. They don’t do A /B testing yet, in which two inter faces are compared by testing each type individually. “When there is something wrong with the update, we will hear it from our users, but this rarely happens.” If it’s a new feature they are implementing, she will invariably do a user test. USER TESTING “I always set clear testing goals and think about which assumptions I made while designing. Based on that, I devise tasks users can per form during the test.” She makes a prototype, that grants her valuable usage insights of possible improvements to the product. The standard for user tests is to stop when no new user insights are coming up. Normally, this happens at about five to eight test par ticipants. However, at 30MHz, Puck has a lot of things to take care of. That’s why she does it slightly differently. “I am basically designing ever y thing from unpacking the sensors and setting them up, to where to place which button within the platform.” That is why she generally does a maximum of three tests, which proved to be sufficient for their aims. The nice thing about user testing, Puck explains, is that you run into things you didn’t notice yourself. The test is about learning, therefore it’s okay to make mistakes. You tr y something out by simply making a decision and if that decision turns out to be the wrong one, you do it differently. Making a prototype and realising it should work differently is a valuable lesson, thus Puck star ts creating prototypes early on. WORK ING WITH DE VELOPERS Most people at 30MHz are developers. “It’s really nice to work closely together with developers, since your designs can become reality fairly quickly.” Puck does mention that it’s beneficial to know a bit about coding, so that communication becomes easier. At
turn the page | April 2020
times, Puck employs a method called Object-oriented UX. In the world of software, object-oriented programming is a form of writing code according to objects. She used the technique to, for example, restructure the navigation of the platform. The nice thing about this method is that it’s easy for the developers to understand; it facilitates the conversation ver y well. Puck did learn that clear communication to different stakeholders involved is crucial. When she made sketches for a new inter face of the platform and showed them to management, they were ver y excited. Never theless, you cannot display them to developers in the same way. “ You should communicate clearly that these are simply sketches, otherwise they might star t to think you wish to redesign the entire platform, which will take them months.” Formulating it appropriately makes a big difference in getting the right message across.
“As an industrial designer, you become the user’s voice.” A tip from Puck to remember? At the Industrial Design faculty, nobody is surprised or impressed when you make a quick digital model or sketch. When still at the faculty, designers often don’t realize the usefulness and uniqueness of this skill. “A real added value of an industrial designer is the ability to quickly visualise things.” COMBINING UX AND UI When asked about the separation between UI and UX design in most companies, Puck comments that she agrees it can be wor thwhile to separate them. It’s nice when someone takes care of the visual design (UI) and is aware of all the ins and outs of the company’s style. Although she also mentions that naturally, UI and UX designers should always work closely together. The two are strongly inter twined. What she likes about working at 30MHz is that she gets to do both things, at the same time. 3
23
FEATURE
M E N TA L H E A LT H : F R O M D ISOR D ERS TO I N T E R A CT I O N P R O B L E M Endless waiting lists, treatments that come to an abrupt end, clinic closure. Our mental healthcare system needs help. How can a design approach help deliver better care? Nynke Tromp is examining the future of our mental healthcare system from within the Redesigning Psychiatry programme.
“Firstly, people are assigned a DSM label based on questionnaires asking them about their symptoms”, Tromp explains, DSM standing for the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’. “Although there’s some scientific basis for these diagnoses, you can’t use a diagnosis obtained in this way to determine how to treat someone and what their chances of recover y are.”
text by Marc de Kool layout by Imara Stemvers
“Our current system works like this: you’re ill, you get a diagnosis, you receive treatment and then you should get better. The DSM label is largely responsible for determining the treatment options open to patients, and a fixed number of minutes is allotted to each treatment”, continues Tromp. This leads to the over-treatment of people with less serious conditions and huge waiting lists for people with complex problems, who have
24
great difficulty finding somewhere that will treat them, or who keep being given courses of treatment that are too shor t. Add in factors such as increasing demand for help because of an ageing, growing population, and it’s not hard to see that the current system is under considerable strain and simply not sustainable. So what would work? VISION FOR THE FUTURE In the Redesigning Psychiatr y programme, designers, philosophers, mental healthcare professionals and seasoned exper ts work together to create a desirable vision for the future of the mental healthcare system in 2030, and to initiate steps towards this future. How? With the Vision in Product Design method, devised by Professor Paul Hekker t and Matthijs van Dijk, which focuses on the possibilities for the future. Tromp: “We carr y out research into
April 2020 | turn the page
FEATURE
whether such a method is of value when you want to change a whole system, like the GGZ. Designers are good at imagining what things could be like and translating this into something tangible for the outside world. The question then is how you should deliver care in a future world. We work with philosophers and develop a framework so that we can design for the right values. And translate this into concrete products and ser vices: human-centred design is our strength.” REFR AMING STIGMA “To bring about fundamental changes, you have to be prepared to let go of the status quo and provide a new target ever yone can aim for. This can be tricky, because ever yone in the mental healthcare system encounters urgent problems. But using shor tterm fire-fighting will not enable
turn the page | April 2020
you to radically change the system”, claims Tromp. “So many par ties in the sector took par t: mental healthcare organisations, patient associations, organisations assisted living. Even though nobody knew how it would turn out, ever yone felt the need and had faith in the process. You also see that designers, being somewhat neutral in a field which consists mainly of psychiatrists and psychologists, are able to keep ever yone on board.” “We joined together to find ways of defining mental wellbeing and mental suffering, and explored how these new definitions could change the way we provide care”, explains Tromp. “How could we reframe our medical model? To put it simply, in the current situation, people are told that they have a disorder in their brain or their personality. And words like schizophrenia or
borderline personality disorder hardly encourage you to open up to others about your inner struggles. People are stigmatised by those around them, or they stigmatise themselves, and withdraw from society. The healthcare system often unintentionally causes the negative impact.” Redesigning Psychiatr y, on the other hand, sees mental health problems as interaction problems: “Obviously people have cer tain vulnerabilities. Cer tainly neurological and biological factors play a role, but whether a vulnerable person will be adversely affected by these factors also depends on the way they interact with their environment. Ever yone has problems, feels down or irritable at times. You only need help when it becomes a pattern that you and the people around you cannot break ”, Tromp 1
25
FEATURE
explains. An impor tant concept in this regard is the ‘problemmaintaining interaction pattern’, or pmip. “Take ADHD, for instance, a true phenomenon of our times. Of course there are internal processes that affect behaviour. But do we really consider someone who struggles with this to be sick? Or do we expect too much of primar y school children these days, and that we judge cer tain behaviour to be ‘problem behaviour’ and label it abnormal? ”, Tromp wonders. “If you see something like this as an interaction problem, it casts a different light on treatment. You’re not so much treated for it, which is passive, but instead you look for strategies to help you alter cer tain types of interaction or break through it. The entire social system plays a role in this process.” ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE Resilience is key in the vision. “Traditionally, resilience refers to your dealing with setbacks as an individual in. But we view it in an ecological perspective. It’s not just about you as a person, but about
26
your interaction with your physical and social environment and with yourself. How can you make that ecosystem resilient? ” It’s not about restoring the equilibrium, but about adapting in order to thrive in a new context, in the same way as after a natural disaster. “We call this adapting or transforming, and this is different from stabilising. To achieve this you might even need to actively disrupt a system that makes you unhappy, rather like breaking off a bad relationship.” CORE TASKS Based on this concept of interaction patterns, Redesigning Psychiatr y has defined three core tasks for the care system in 2030. “The first task is help people to develop the skills they need to see for themselves where they are stuck in patterns that are harmful or that don’t make them happy, and then work together to develop other patterns to replace them”, explains Tromp. “The second is help people during transitions in their lives: moving into your own home, having a child, losing your job. Events like these put your ecosystem under pressure.”
“It’s not just about you as a person, but about your interaction with your physical and social environment and with yourself.” These first two core tasks revolve around prevention, in which the ambition is to help society as a whole to become more resilient. The third core task is actively help people to break out of patterns. “Sometimes the hear t of the problem is that they can’t see how to do this, par ticularly if they are facing complex problems. You need exper ts who have the necessar y knowledge about effective first steps”, says Tromp. “However, we can’t construct a care system in which ever yone can continuously receive specialist help. The ‘pmip’ model can help to differentiate when allocating care.” One of the next steps is to test whether this model can also actually solve the problems in the current system. “Care based on a ‘pmip’
April 2020 | turn the page
FEATURE
model results in ver y different conversations with clients, and ver y different courses of treatment, with a greater focus on the social environment. We are already star ting up some experiments on transitions.” In addition, they’re working on resources that can help with the transition. “As a designer, you can also help highlight the concept within a mental health organisation. For example, we’ve developed a resilience field guide to help steer innovation, a manifesto that shows where we want to counteract developments in society. There’s also a typology of organisational forms that helps you explore how you could develop hybrid forms of care provision – from self-care, via peer-to-peer, to specialist care. You can download all these resources free of charge
turn the page | April 2020
via www.redesigningpsychiatr y. org/, because we do ever y thing open source”, she explains. “And if par ties want to build or innovate something based on our vision, we will help them. By developing products and ser vices which motivate changes in behaviour, you can already take steps in the right direction. We’re operating at the intersection of design, behaviour change and transition management. CONVINCING VISION The ultimate aim of the programme is to bring about a transition. “We’ve noticed that the vision we’ve developed is inspiring and convincing enough to persuade various par ties to commit to the programme. From the transition management angle, this is one of most impor tant steps for setting a transition in motion,” says Tromp.
“But a transition of this magnitude takes time. Some organisations are in financial difficulty and can’t afford to think as far ahead as 2030.” We also need to get the healthcare insurance companies on board. “This is research through design, researching by actually doing something”, she explains. “I’m tr ying to understand this role, specifically the added value of design in complex transition issues. I’ll be looking into the food system next, to see if there are ways of wasting less food on the one hand, and replacing animal-based proteins with plant-based proteins on the other. When it comes down to it, I’m interested in any sector that needs a fundamental transition, whether it’s people I can help, or animals or the planet.” 3
27
FEATURE
INVENTED BY ACC DENT In 1853, chef George Crum from Saratoga Springs, New York, USA, was fed up with a customer who continuously complained about his French fries, saying they lacked crunch. Crum sliced the potatoes as thin as possible, fried them in hot grease and sprinkled them with salt. The customer loved them and, incidentally, the first potato chips were born. by Imara Stemvers
In 1943, naval engineer Richard T. James invented the classical “Slinky” Toy while developing a spring that would stabilise sensitive equipment on ships. When he accidentally knocked a prototype off a shelf, it uncoiled itself and stepped down onto a pile of books, onto the tabletop and onto the floor. In 1905, elevenyear-old Frank Epperson left a container of powdered soda and water, with the mixing stick inside, outside on his porch. He ‘invented’ the popsicle overnight. In 1973, Ar t Fr y realised that a cer tain super-weak adhesive, discovered by a colleague, could be applied to paper, so that it impermanently glued to a sur face: the Post-It Note. An ‘invention’ is often characterised as systematic problem solving, a process of research or design that has been planned out and tested, with predicted outcomes. Prototypes that do not work as intended, need a little improvement. However, there is an ambiguous nature to invention. It’s not just a correct hypothesis, yet the creative use
28
of whatever the outcome is. It’s not bad to put a failed prototype away on a shelf, but it should not be forgotten, and have the oppor tunity to fall down. The only reason we know about these ‘accidents’ today, is that their inventors considered they were fit for commercialisation. OPPORTUNIT Y OR OBSTACLE? ‘Invention by accident’ is a rather obscure type of design. Designers are taught to be deliberate: to rationalise their process and to have reasons for their motives. On the other hand, ‘invention by accident’ is dependent upon what was not intended. It lies in the unforeseen ‘accidents’ that at first seemed obstacles to the process. Frank Epperson could have been upset having to defrost his sodawater concoction, yet instead began branding his creation and distributing it throughout the USA. If Ar t Fr y hadn’t persistently believed in the saleability of his product, the Post-It Note would have never found its way into the workspace of so many industrial designers.
In 2018, a study was conducted by the Academy of Management on accidental innovations, in which the process of ‘innovation by accident’ was referred to as exaptation: using a structure for purposes it wasn’t initially intended for. It concluded that openness of the designer and his or her environment was indeed relevant. A diverse team, composed of people from a variety of backgrounds, who looked beyond their work field, was most likely to think of novel uses for a technology. Also, in organisations where inter-depar tmental communication was frequent, serendipity would most often occur, like how Ar t Fr y’s Post-It Note was based on the originally useless technology of a colleague. THE DOWNSIDE Yet there is danger in this method of design. Accidental innovations are often ‘ failed’ ideas, not having been run through the same rigorous process of repetitive prototyping and improvement as ‘regular’ design. To invest in them is risky, as they have no
April 2020 | turn the page
FEATURE
defined chance of success. Still, serendipity grants innovation, like said in the study: “...[happy accidents] could eventually give you a completely different way of competing, a completely new product or a completely new solution to a problem someone has already encountered.” Whether it’s a children’s toy like the Slinky, or an office item like the Post-It Note, both were innovative approaches to their respective problems, filling gaps of demand that nobody knew were there. The usefulness of accidental innovation is determined by the flexibility of the designers’ mind, whether they have the ability to turn an unforeseen situation into profit. If we, ourselves, are open to re-interpretation, and the environment around us allows us to turn a screw-up into the next big oppor tunity, ‘invention by accident’ can make any design process more productive. Not to learn from our failures, but to take advantage of them. 3
turn the page | April 2020
29
UPCOMING EVENTS Due to COVID-19, ID’s planning has been turned upside down. Unfor tunately, a lot of hard work in the preparation phase of our events cannot be rewarded with the actual events themself. But there is some good news as well: new initiatives are poppping up! Keep up with ever y thing ID is doing during the quarantine by keeping an eye on:
30
-
our our our our
website at http://svid.nl/ Instagram account and Facebook page Flickr page Vimeo page
April 2020 | turn the page
UPCOMING E VENTS
turn the page | April 2020
31
HUTSPOT Maybe you are familiar with the concept of the ‘tote bag’. It initially started with the idea of banning single-use plastic bags and replace them with reusable fabric bags. Companies and brands are popping up like mushrooms all over the world to take this challenge to the next level by rethinking materials and their usage. How can we make suitable materials to replace textile and plastic? Which existing materials can we give new purpose? This Hutspot represents a small selection of cool initiatives that are taken to eliminate the waste of bags.
MUSHROOMS Mylo is a leather made from Mushrooms. They have a root structure, like a network of threaded cells called mycelium. These cells grow for 10 days on beds of agricultural waste and byproducts to form an interconnected 3D network that can be used as a biodegradable and non-toxic alternative for leather.
by Renee Brants
MANGO’S Fruitleather Rotterdam is an animalfriendly company that tries to tackle the problem of food and har vest waste. They collect the waste of fruits and mash, cook and dr y them to develop fruit leather. Ninety percent of this bag was made out of discarded mango’s.
FIRE HOSE Elvis and Kresse is a brand that star ted with the goal to avoid decommissioned fire hoses from ending up in landfills. Additionally, they donate fifty percent of their profits to the Fire Fighters Charity.
32
April 2020 | turn the page
COLOFON
Of ficial body of ID Volume 18 / Issue 72 April 2020 Turn The page is issued four times a year. Contact ID study association Landbergstraat 15 2628 CE Delf t +31 (0)15 2783012 www.studieverenigingid.nl
TRUCK TARPAULIN & TIRES Freitag is a Swiss brand that upcycles different materials into designer bags. They combine broken bicycle tires, truck tarpaulin, old seat belts and PET bottles and turn them into colour ful, high quality designs.
Comments, questions, compliments and remarks can be sent to: turnthepage-svid@tudelf t.nl
T TP Thanks Marc de Kool Henk Jan Oudenampsen Merijn van Sande Pierre Bohanna Puck Siemerink Vinodha Suresh Neef Rob Subscribe/ad Members of ID receive Turn The Page free of charge. A yearly subscription costs â‚Ź9,50 (4 issues) Want a subscription or publish an advert? Please contact 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
FISH Fifty million tonnes of fish is wasted ever y year. MarinaTex, a James Dyson award-winning invention turns this waste into a biodegradable material stronger than LDPE. The material structure consists of chitin, a natural polymer found in fish skin and scales combined with agar, a gelatinous substance obtained from cell walls of red algae.
turn the page | April 2020
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.
33
Expect the unexpected Paul Bear Bryant
