Week 5: Thoughts on ideas.
Intro
This week’s lecture focussed on different processes of thought. It was an interesting topic as it allowed me to understand how designers can interpret their own thoughts into a brief using a variety of approaches and models.
Until watching this lecture, I had never thought of there being a specific process for generating ideas, however, it is understandable that in design, there needs to be a sense of purpose of why a process has been followed in a specific way.
The exploration of the design process began to be taken seriously by the Bauhaus in the 1920’s and attitudes to design were radically changing, this is particularly so for industrial design. It revolutionized many successful companies and their products. These companies then began to follow through on future projects through the use of the Bauhaus theory making use of the diagrams they produced.
The first diagram, based on design process methods, is a circular diagram that overlaps showcasing different materials and tools. A diagram like this would still be relevant today for designers specialising in several disciplines.
The second diagram produced by Bruce Archer, is a model of the design research process. Archer played a key role in the design methods movement. This model was published by Archer in 1963 as part of a series of articles for Design Magazine.
“Over the last 40 years, businesses have actively sought to adopt a methodology that acknowledges other competing factors within business”. (Edwards, S. 2022)
The aim of the final diagram was to break the traditions of a linear design process. The linear process was criticised as it suggested that a problem could be solved with one approach.
On reflection, I would question whether the above two diagrams are now outdated. In today’s design practice, do we as designers still adopt these methods of the design process? A lot of design produced today is with clients or businesses leading at the forefront, not necessarily with the influence of a designer.
What type of thinker am I?
After taking in the week’s, lecture it made me question what type of thinker am I? How do I approach a certain project brief?
I researched this further using the website Brain Manager which conducted a simple three stage assessment to find out how my personality influences my behaviour.
After taking the personality test, I was quite surprised by the findings. Although I believe this is slightly true, this brief description in my opinion is exaggerated.
The results of the personality test gave me a further curiosity to figure out the type of thinker I am. I took a test online at Causeit.org which offered 5 questions related to what processes I would take in order to solve a task.
The results came back with following:
Weekly Challenge
This weekly challenge was fun as it allowed me to experiment with different styles of illustrating. The one issue I struggled with however, was settling on an idea for my final piece.
Thought process
Before I began any creative work, I researched different modes of thinking. Needless to say, there were a lot, from abstract to lateral, critical to creative.
As a creative thinker, I decided to go with this process of thought and utilise it in some way for my final piece. Whenever I design for a brief I always like to think outside of the box, this statement then stuck in my head and I wanted to create a fun illustration playing on this term.
The initial idea was to create a continuous script style illustration where the words and drawing of a box would highlight the term “Thinking outside the box”.
I wanted to animate this piece to reveal its meaning. After sketching the idea onto a pad, I then traced this out on Illustrator creating a vector path that a could then animate in After Effects.
Animation
On reflection, I wasn’t particularly pleased with the outcome and was quite dissapointed. I decided to take a break and revisit the following week.
Prior to re-looking at this piece of work, I was inspired by the illustrations or line drawing made by musician Bono from his memoir Surrender. I wanted to recreate this style in my final piece.
10 Cedarwood Road, Bono
Experimental Sketch
Final Piece
References:
Edwards, S. (2022) To access this site, you must enable JavaScript., Log in to canvas. Available at: https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/1165/pages/week-5-lecture?module_item_id=63407 (Accessed: March 11, 2023).
