2-3

2.

I will combine the information of the second and third lectures as I don't have so excessive notes from the second one since I left a little earlier to catch a train to Tokyo where I went to learn about design in the form of visiting several design exhibitions during at the design tide and design 100% venues.

Until the point when I left the lecture mr. Yamazaki had reminded us of the importance of Paul Rand's design method of
Form <-> Content/context.

We had a small practical portion in the lecture in which we were asked to think about this method in more detail. The task consisted of fast sketching around the idea of enjoying a flower at home and in before that sketching the most beautiful flower vase you have seen. These two tasks where preceded by converting the Rand's design ideologies two key terms, form and content to product and human. This way were were given a new perspective to the ideology and the abstract idea became self explanatory in my opinion.

When the abstract terms are replaced with more concrete examples the words product and human raise a lot of questions.

Product: what kind of form? what material? which color? and which size should it be?

Human: who are we designing for? where does he/she use the product? why does he/she need it? how can he/she enjoy it? and finally when he/she can enjoy it?


3.

On the third lecture we concentarted more on the experience side of design. The topics and examples dealt pretty much the same of which D.A. Norman explains throughly in his book Emotional Design as well as what the duo B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore exhibit in their infamous book The Experience Economy.
Of course the examples are not the exact same as some time has already passed since these "bibles" of experience design came out, but the red line was the same in my opinion.



The experience design is in the end composed of the same building materials as what the IBM design strategy explained in previous post revolved around. For example one of the best examples was of course Kakaku.com the website which basically tells you where to find the product you want to buy the cheapest. It however doesn't stop there since the community plays a big role with this website as they can review the products as well as the shops which gives the other possible customers important first hand information. Thus the consumer customs are changed and the blind belief in commercials starts to diminish.

What is design then?
To put it in a very very simple product oriented way, it is basically composing color and form. If given more thought and by bringing another view point (human centered one) its all about customer satisfaction, exactly the thing that for example Kakaku.com strives for. Its about learning and understanding the customers through excessive testing and prototyping.



This lead us to study slightly about the Kano's user satisfaction model which dates back to the 1980's but is widely used even to day in which satisfaction and effort go hand in hand, but in order to produce a true success story a strong vision is needed. The product needs to be special in some way, which means that some risks are needed in as well as designing it also in marketing.

What needs to be done then in order to achieve this kind of success stories?
Smile design as Mr). Yamazaki explained it to us is a combination of three key concepts: 1) designer's sense, 2) finding out logic by evaluating good examples and a more logical one 3) engineering kind of an approach.



Designers sense is in a nutshell what Paul Rand also stated, that in the future art can become design as well as design can become art. Giving old functions and behaviours new meanings can give birth to completely new kind of thinking and products. What if something that you do every day in your life would suddenly remind you of something new, how would you react? As a an example I would like to bring forward the Naoto Fukasawa's cd-player designed for Muji, it looks and feels like the old Japanese fans in kitchens, but it has a completely new and different function. These kind of innovations ad ideas are the ones that produce the kind of effective outcome that Rand was talking about.

Design however should always follow the unwritten rules and words that they are surrounded with. May those be the language of the design itself, natural language or even an artficial one. The design should always fit in its surroundings. One probably cannot design a ping flower and glitter decorated small object in the factory environment. In fact one probably shouldn't design that kind of product at all, but once you bring it to Shibuya, Tokyo and put it in a correct kind of a shop's show window I guarantee you some teenager will buy it.





As an example this time mr. Yamazaki told us about Masahito Satou, the inventor of Pythagora switch, a children's TV-show in which children are educated in an interesting and fun way. Satou is known for becoming a designer without any kind of education of the field. He used to be a marketing specialist, but later on got really interested in the world of media and graphic design. He is a good example of a person who has built a very strong and unique method of designing.

For a long time he studied by himself his favorite designs and tried to find some connection points between them. The most important element in his early works was a frame that he used everywhere, which probably was somehow learned from his favorite designers' works. In his design method the two key wors are rules and tones. The tones are difficult to notice without studying the example cases for a long time, but rules can be found rather quickly. The reason why so many of the efforts to try and copy his works have been unsuccessful seems to be because of the people's inability to understand and recognize the nuances or tones of the designs.

Satou's design works are very contemporary and conceptual, he wants to always find and try something new, like "writing" a novel which he spoke out as the assistants wrote his story down. Not surprisingly the book didn't sell well, but atleast he tried doing something that hasn't been done too often or maybe even ever before.
The kind of work that every designer should try to strive for.

1

First of all, I am sorry I start writing this blog a little late. I will try to make it as chronological as possible, and keep the presentation true to the original one held by professor Yamazaki.

The first lecture of this lecture series about "Information Design" consisted of explaining us the schedule and the aims of this course as well as scratching the surface of this field of design.



As Mr. Yamazaki used to be an employee of IBM we were explained about the theory of Information design using IBM as an example case study. IBM is a corporation in which certain kind of design methods are strongly visible. The two major ideologies are the following:

1) Logical, technical approach which is naturally taken care of by the company's own researchers and engineers. The way they work is notable however, most of the design and engineering work is done keeping human centeredness in mind.

2) The second approach that is widely used in this company is the experiental or experience based one. This way of desigining is taught and brought into the company by outside advisors and consultant experts.




The latter design approach was implemented to IBM by the famous duo of Paul Rand and Richard Sapper who are probably the most important people behind IBM's success story in terms of design. Paul Rand was the infamous graphic designer who is behind the logo of IBM, probably one of the best known and most frequently imitated logos in the world.
His way of designing revolved around the concepts of Form and Content. Of which both have an essential role in making good design.

Form: colors, shapes and layout. These are the three key aspects when evaluating a successful design's form. Paul Rand spent a lot of time in trying to crack the the key of successful designs by studying several famous examples.

Content: context, purpose, goal. Rand excelled in these three key notes of the content of design by using his so called sixth sense, talent. Other easier ways of giving a design content is reminding oneself of the ethnicity of the target audience and by carrying out extensive user research studies.

As a product design student I am more than interested in finding out more about Richard Sapper's ideas. The methods he uses makes him quite unique if compared to the now a days crop of product designers and industrial designers who are stuck in front of their computers. Richard Sapper is well known for his very simple sketches and very fast mockups made of paper. This kind fast prototyping gives the designer a glance of the possible final product very early on in the design process.

This leads to the obvious outcome: when designers have their own original design methods the concepts they produce are also very unique.
A good example of this kind of lack of versatility of end products in a company or a design office is in Yamazaki's opinion Naoto Fukasawa's office. A studio which is lead by a strong character who has too strong of an opinion, as his presence doesn't leave room for original designs of the obviously talented young designers working under the same roof. This kind of atmosphere leads to very homogenic design pool as all of the products made under Fukasawa look more or less the same.

In the nutshell what designers should concentrate more on is actually designing their own unique design method and that is what we will attempt during this this course.