So Friday brought with it another Design Studies lecture, but this week we got talks from 2 people instead of 1. Firstly Lisa Cresswell spoke to us about what she studied as a student and how she got to where she is today. She is now involved in the project Design against terrorism, which could be considered surprising since she actually graduated with a masters degree in illustration. This project involves government bodies, transport organisations as well as many other stakeholders which when you first think about it have hardly any connection to illustration. However what was clear was how her creative thinking, and different thoughts on what design is has made a large contribution to this project.
Even though the information about the project iteself was interesting what I really picked up on is that as graphic design student I may never work in the area of graphic design! As designers we have to be flexible, we have to be able to adapt to different types of work. But most importantly we have to be able to work with other people. These people may know nothing about design, and we may know nothing about their field, but we have to learn to communicate. Lisa mentioned that when she first started working on this project everyone spoke a 'different language'. And in order to work effectively they had to learn how to understand one and other.
Fraser Bruce then went onto give us two interesting talks, one highlighting his work on a project called Rip+Mix. He spoke about students being allocated a few hours to come up with unusual designs. They were given the freedom to work on concepts which would be unfeasable to produce in reality. However having no restrictions allowed for some creative products including a radio which would tell you when the bus is arriving, so that we don't have to get up until the last minute! A newspaper based on the old etch a sketch, where by the user can shake it up and the next page would appear.
Again what struck me though, was the number of people from different fields that came together to work on one project. Individually, they would have their own tasks and jobs to carry out but they were part of a bigger picture. They had to adapt to working alongside each other, build up communication and relationships in order for the project to work. Fraser highlighted a project he had worked on where he produced a diagram showing the lines of communication within a company. It was clear that the communication did not flow effectively and in actual fact if certain key members of the company were to leave then communication would stop altogether.
It is clear from both the speakers that in order to succeed we must be able to work with others and form good communication with them!
Even though the information about the project iteself was interesting what I really picked up on is that as graphic design student I may never work in the area of graphic design! As designers we have to be flexible, we have to be able to adapt to different types of work. But most importantly we have to be able to work with other people. These people may know nothing about design, and we may know nothing about their field, but we have to learn to communicate. Lisa mentioned that when she first started working on this project everyone spoke a 'different language'. And in order to work effectively they had to learn how to understand one and other.
Fraser Bruce then went onto give us two interesting talks, one highlighting his work on a project called Rip+Mix. He spoke about students being allocated a few hours to come up with unusual designs. They were given the freedom to work on concepts which would be unfeasable to produce in reality. However having no restrictions allowed for some creative products including a radio which would tell you when the bus is arriving, so that we don't have to get up until the last minute! A newspaper based on the old etch a sketch, where by the user can shake it up and the next page would appear.
Again what struck me though, was the number of people from different fields that came together to work on one project. Individually, they would have their own tasks and jobs to carry out but they were part of a bigger picture. They had to adapt to working alongside each other, build up communication and relationships in order for the project to work. Fraser highlighted a project he had worked on where he produced a diagram showing the lines of communication within a company. It was clear that the communication did not flow effectively and in actual fact if certain key members of the company were to leave then communication would stop altogether.
It is clear from both the speakers that in order to succeed we must be able to work with others and form good communication with them!
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