Ideas Day

A few weeks ago, saw this years annual Ideas Day in the Dundee Product Design department, and it proved to be just as good as the previous years.

Each year, the fourth year Product Design students are lucky enough to be visited by some of the top designers and design academics in the UK, to discuss their ideas and pick their brains with some probing questions. The ideas session is followed by a Q&A session open to all years.

This year saw an especially interesting line-up even though a few people could not make the event. The guests this year were:




Richard Banks - Microsoft Research Cambridge

Professor Andrew Shoben - Greyworld and Goldsmiths University

Daljit Singh - Digit London

Professor Bill Gaver - Goldsmiths University

Dr Tim Regan - Microsoft Research Cambridge


The Q&A session lasted an hour, with eight questions posed to the panel, causing intriguing responses and often lively debate.

The first question asked was "Where is the place to be for design right now?". This opened up debate about physical and virtual space, and the issues associated with both. Andrew Shoben started off by saying that online was where it was at, rather than a physical or geological location. Richard Banks corroborated this, saying that he was an avid promoter of networked, distance working, as he himself divides his time between the Cambridge studio and home.

Tim Regan, however, strongly opposed these ideas, instead suggesting the 'water cooler effect' of face-to-face human interactions, and ability to infect others with your ethos was a vital part of effective design. Tim, who works with Richard, also said that Richards lack of physical presence was often detrimental to their projects.

Bill Gaver voiced his opinions on the matter too. Talking from his personal experience, he felt that it was often nice not to be in an absolute hub of design, where there is a risk of saturation and becoming homogenised. He challenged us to think about what a "Dundee style of design" might be, and said that embracing your current situation and finding the perculiarities in it could create interesting results.

Another interseting point of discussion was what they look for when offering positions, and core skills they feel are important. Accross the board, the panal felt that the grade was less important than the work in the portfolio or your enthusiasm. Daljit Singh thought one of the most imporant abilities to show was communication and creativity. He identified the point that as design student we are creative in our work, but when it comes to applications and jobs alot of people forget this (not advocating gimmicks though)! He also emphasised the point of reasearching the organisation you are approaching.

Andrew brought up the idea of being a generalist and not a specialist, but not in a negative way. He said that at Greyworld, they valued open mindedness and wide thinking as the range of products they undertake can be so huge.


To find more information on the guest speakers follow the links below:

http://www.richardbanks.com/

http://www.greyworld.org/

http://digitlondon.com

http://www.gold.ac.uk/interaction/

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/timregan/


P

Music + Design = ?

Whilst listening to some music on Spotify the other day, I was bombarded with Becks promoting their new labeling for their bottles. Over the past 22 years, they have used their labels as a blank canvas for some of the largest names in contemporary art, generating a gallery of 25 designs. Now that's pretty cool, but nothing special to be honest. It was their newest direction that really caught my eye.

They have, over recent years, added music to their area of advertising and marketing. Now, in 2009, they have decided to combine the two together in their latest promotion, 'Music Inspired Art Labels'. This allows selected artists, this year's being Hard-Fi and Ladyhawke, to design the labels inspired by them and their music.

http://www.becks.co.uk/archive/main.html

This made me think about how effective music and art has been used as a tool for promotion and advertising in the past, and how music and design could be used together, to enhance areas and issues in design that are normally overlooked.

Anyhow, it's just some food for thought [and me getting my foot back on the blogging ladder!]

Peace.

*_*

Visualising Data/Sustainability

Perusing the blogs, I found this recent live sculpture come data visualisation I thought was really cool. A thousand miniature people have slowly melted away in a Berlin square in an effort by the World Wildlife Fund to draw attention to melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. Nice work.

P

Biotechnology - So when can I grow my own iPod?

Its been a while since our last "proper post" on the Unbox blog, so I thought it was probably about time I fired something up into the ether.

In c.1947 the transistor(as we know it today) was invented and developed. It's the electrical component that has made possible all of today's modern electrical devices, from the digital clock to the laptop I'm using the write this post, and has meant the world of electronics and digital products has evolved and grown into the colossus it is today. Almost every aspect of our technologically saturated lives has been touched by the electrically charged fingers of electronic engineers, product designers and software programmers.

This evolution is probably best illustrated in Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip will grow exponentially about every two years. Moore predicted this in 1965, and has seen the validity of this law repeatedly proven ever since. With the flourishion of Moore's Law, it led to smaller and smaller complex products being produced. However, according to a recent Guardian article on the 29th July, this could soon be coming to an end. Not because of a plateau in technological advancements, but because of growing economical pressures. But if the last 40 years have been the age of "nano" and "miniaturization", then I think the next 50 years could well be the era of BioTechnology.

What is Biotechnology? A really simplified explanation might be to say that its using and engineering living biological organisms, in conjunction with modern techniques and technology to create a fusion of both.

Biotech isn't really all that new, and has been used extensively in the medical world, developing new cures, synthetic organs and mentally controlled false limbs, as well as in the area of biological research, helping to map the human genome. But now, as with early electronics, biotech has grown, and is starting to present some of it's true potential to a wider audience.

In the last few years, there have been some really exciting and innovative developments made in the area. We now have a biological computer/processor capable of performing simple operations significantly quicker than standard computers. The biological computer can perform calculations simultaneously, and whats more, will actually get faster over time. We can now code with DNA similarly to how computer programmers might write in Java or C++. A sort of "bacteria photoshop" has been made, where individual cells colour themselves, all instantaneously, producing a sort of bacterial photo of an image. And as its all done simultaneously, is super quick compared to complex computer algorithms used currently. In a slightly less mind-boggling example, researchers have made a yoghurt who's flavour can be engineered on consumption. This is better than it sounds. I don't simply mean a yoghurt which you can add a bit of food flavouring or extract to, oh no! This yoghurt, when sprinkled with some strawberry genetic particles, actually becomes a strawberry yoghurt, not just a strawberry flavoured yoghurt.

OK you say, pretty cool, but not really something to change the world of product design? Maybe not at first sight. Last year, three members of Unbox presented a couple of talks at a Sustainability forum, my subject being Biomimicry. One of the most interesting aspects of biomimicry is looking at how nature structures and builds its "products and materials" such as coral, natural plastics, fibre optics etc. What if we could combine the two disciplines, and engineer the growth of, for example coral, then we could grow our own procelain products! And what about using our biological processors to grow consumer electronic components? I love the idea of iPods, cameras, phones being grown in petri dishes and test tubes! OK, maybe a bit far fetched, but maybe not the completely wrong direction.

But there are other benefits of biotech. A group of students have developed a product to test for water pollution and harmful pathogens in third world countries. It's a bacteria engineered to turn bright green if it detects harmful substances in the water. But better than this, once added to the water stream, it evolves and can actually help eradicate the waste and of course constantly measures the toxicity of the water.

Aside from the brilliant potential for this new field, the exciting part of this is its growing availability. A type of prototyping kit for biotechnology has been developed, which could make it as accessible as the arduino has for amateur or electrical hobbiests and hackers! This has the potential, in years to come, to radically change the face of what a "product designer" is. It could also have a larger social implication, with a ripple effect as biotechnically designed products enter the home. How will people's relationships and reactions to products change if they are, in a sense, "alive"? And if there is a rise in amateur biotechnicians, developing products for real use, what will happen when things don't go according to plan? I'm sure certain papers and media will oppose this new technology, raising questions of safety and possible epidemics and outbreaks of new bacteria!

So can you expect to see Product Designers in white lab coats, test tube in one hand, sketchbook in the other? Will you now need an A-level in biology as well as Design Technology to get on the course? Will prototyping be on E.Coli and blue foam? I doubt it. But in the next fifty years, I feel that this will be an area of real innovation and growth that product designers will be at the forefront. Watch this space.


P

Photos!

After recently splashing out and buying a Canon EOS450d DSLR, I've been spending the last week snapping everything in sight! Here are a few of my first efforts, but to see a larger selection, search for "Paddy Stevenson-Keating" on flickr. Any comments are very welcome!

Follow us...

Follow the Unbox Team on Twitter;

http://www.twitter.com/charlieadam

http://www.twitter.com/joshlegend

http://www.twitter.com/paddystevenson

http://www.twitter.com/timmmpryde

That is all.

*_*

Picturing Dundee

After being honored to have been selected to exhibit one of my photographs for the "Picturing Dundee" competition, I was thrilled to travel over to Dundee for the opening night. The event was brilliantly attended, with a couple of hundred people making the time during their summer holidays to come see the 16 selected works on show. The evening was crowned with a hugely inspiring and interesting talk by landscape photographer Colin Prior. Prior included some of his own personal favorite shots of his own which where truly captivating.

Although I did not win the overall top prize, I was delighted to receive a Highly Commended, and to have been chosen from almost 500 entries. I look forward to the event again next year, and hope to go one further and win the competition.

P

Paddy Also Loves Photography

After recently entering the Dundee University Photography Competition, I was ecstatic to receive a phone call to tell me that I had been chosen to be one of the exhibitors. The exhibit runs from the 23th-30th of June in the Dalhousie Building, so please come along and have a look if your anywhere near.

P

Adam Loves Photography

Andy Mueller is just awesome.

Does anyone else think that photography can be pretty easy?

Protecting and Sharing - Mutually Exclusive?

After a long and really interesting discussion with a friend of mine we were discussing how I as a designer, and the other designers in my course protect our ideas, and have sense of collaboration and helping each other out, even when working on different projects. I was arguing the point when ideas, knowledge, experiences etc. are shared, this is when you get the most interesting, exciting and innovative ideas. By working alone, or being too precious or secretive about your thoughts this can surely only be a bad thing - for both the well being of the designer, and the quality of the design solution. The most creative designs come from the intersections of disciplines and the sharing of extreme ideas. I think these ideas can be really seen in real world applications in front of us in our own course where there is a huge emphasis on getting input from many different sources, advising others and sharing information (just look at our insights wall for the current Microsoft project).

My friend was questioning where do you draw the line with this? How do you protect your ideas, and prevent your big break through from being stolen by someone else? Is my notion idealistic and naive? How would you feel is someone made a big break off something you had told them?

Its a really hard line to tread, and obviously there needs to be some degree of caution, but how do you judge this? What are your thoughts on the matter, we would be really interested to hear them (if your willing to share them that is!)

P

Content! Content! Content!

We're looking for YOUR content. Anything from comments on what you enjoy, to what shows get your gears churning, to what presenters say things that you actually like? Tell us what you enjoy or don't!

Comments will be much appreciated.

Cheeeers.

*_*

Sustainable Design Forum

This Friday the 27th, the DCA will host the Sustainable Design Forum. Unbox along with five other speakers will be contributing to the discussions. It would be really great to see as many of you there as possible, and it should be a very interesting night.

P

Welcome Unbox's New Member...

...Timothy Pryde!

Due to his outstanding contribution over the duration of the Microsoft brief, and how well he's gelled into Unbox, we're delighted to announce that Timmy will working with us on a more permanent basis. Congrats dude! Looking forward to having you on board.

More of Tim at http://www.timpryde.blogspot.com

Cheeers.

*_*

World Clock

I recently listened to Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo, give a talk on Design Thinking. He briefly explained something called "WorldClock", so I gave it a look.

Give it a look.

WorldClock

Also, give EarthClock a look.

EarthClock

Questions and comments welcome.

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip

Last Tuesday, Unbox attended a workshop ran by Hamid van Koten, entitled, "Sustainability: What Students Want?". The workshop was brought on by the Teaching and Learning forum that was held last month, and consisted of some awareness activities, feedback on what we as students actually wanted, and some free food courtesy of O'Brien's sandwich bar! Unfortunately, this isn't what I'm blogging today. For a really good write up on what went on on Tuesday, check out Struan Pendrich's blog post at http://resigndesign.blogspot.com, where he goes over everything that went on that day. Yes, he even includes the results of Hamid's heavily anticipated 'Eco Race'.

Today, I'm posting the video that Hamid decided to kick this workshop off with, Leo Murray - a graduate of RCA's, "Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip". His vivid interpretation of the messy situation we find ourselves in is not only eye-opening, but is also extremely hard hitting and relevant to designers, tutors, and everyone else charged with the crimes of destroying our planet. Opening up with the line, "This really isn’t about polar bears any more. At this very moment, the fate of civilization itself hangs in the balance", it is clear to see Murray's intentions, and throughout the animation, you find yourself torn between the despair of "these extraordinary times", and the excitement of being part of the solution.

"Wake Up, Freak Out - the Get a Grip" is an excellent depiction of climate change and the times that we live in. Obviously, with everything you read and watch, you should take it with a pinch of salt, as he does push the theory on a little, but i'll let you see that for yourself.

A PDF of the script with other useful links, etc, can be found here - http://wakeupfreakout.org/script.pdf and for some more general information on the project itself, check out http://wakeupfreakout.org.

Enjoy!

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip

*_*

Sustainability, Opinion, Apology,

Recently, there's been a noticeable increase in the interest of sustainability (within my peers). This could be due to a combination of a number of things, the fact that in our Design Studies classes we are discussing the book Cradle to Cradle, or that last semester our fellow student Chris McNichol created the quite outstanding "Cardboard Radio", which seemed to get people thinking about how their products could be sustainable.

Anyway this is drifting from my point, it being that with this added interest in going green, it seems to have caused a slight rift in the harmony of the class.

This came to my attention on Thursday, after we had been given a pretty damn interesting talk from 4th year Product Designers Fergus, Matthew and Tom. Within it, I felt there was a really valid and critical point made by Tom. He simply stated that sustainability is currently a fashion statement.

Personally, I couldn't agree more with this, but don't get me wrong, I am all for sustainable living and thinking, I just think some people are going about it in the completely wrong way. Currently we seem to have a really critical system in place, where everything is valued on economical viability. Now some people agree with this, and state that without thinking this way, how else are we going to save the planet? Others think this over-analyzation is ridiculous. It doesn't take a genius to see that these views conflict.

My personal opinion? I agree that we need to think about sustainability, it's an exciting area and holds so many amazing possibilities; especially biomimicry. However, I feel I need to stress that I think people are jumping on this sustainability bandwagon, and forcing it upon themselves. It feels like it's the flavour of the month and people are simply talking about it because it's popular.

Which brings me to my next point, in our presentation a couple of Mondays ago, we mentioned sustainability. We at Unbox know this didn't go smoothly with our presentation, and know it looked like a rush job added in at the last minute. I found out a couple of days ago, that presentation seemed to have dented our popularity amongst our peers, for the very reason I just mentioned. The "flavour of the month" thought, coupled with the less-than-smooth addition to our presentation led people to believe it was a crude addition in order to gain a little extra credit. All I can say is that it wasn't, but we apologise if it appeared that way.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what's been written here.

PS. This was not a dig at sustainability thinking, just the way it's portrayed. I would like to get that point across!

ah.

Sustainability Direct Mail & Invite.

Over the last few weeks, I've been looking around our college for students who are pushing sustainability in their own projects. Either through the university set briefs or just in their own personal time. I stumbled upon a 2nd Year Graphics student, Callin Mackintosh's, project on sustainability. He was creating an invite, which was inviting designers to a sustainability conference. I really liked the simple idea and aesthetics of his invite. Take a look.

*_*

P.S. Sorry it's been so long folks.

The Age Of Stupid

The Age Of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change, set in the future. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking back at Earth wondering why we didn't stop it whilst we had the chance.

I found this trailer for the film, to be released on March 20th 09, on Kate Andrews blog. The trailer looks like it could be a good film, but is it simply that, just a film? I totally agree that the issue of climate change must be brought to the attention of the public, but who today in the Westernised world, where this film will surely be targeting, does not know already. I applaud the director and Spanner Films for attempting to use such a popular, diverse media medium of the cinema to reach the public, but is this really the most effective way? Is this even the right content? I fear that the message in "The Age Of Stupid" could be shelved away in the viewers minds never to be seen again once they leave the cinema. Will it become another interesting, enjoyable film such as "The Day After Tomorrow" and the long list of TV programs along the same lines. Is it all too easy to separate what we see on TV and cinema as being a show or performance, people feel like these are just films like Star Wars or Batman and have no connotations in the real world.

I hope this is not the case, and I suppose even the making of the film shows Sustainability's transition into mainstream culture, but lets not think that telling people how bad things will be over and over will be an effective way of changing how we currently live.

P

Is Privacy Dead In The Age Of Digital?

As part of the wonderful Saturday night lecture series, Anne Anderson came to talk on the topic of privacy in today's digital environment. It was a really gripping talk that followed on wonderfully from the Unbound talk given by Lauren Currie and Kate Andrews (see previous post).

Anne began her talk with some of her views on how she saw the notion of privacy changing. There is a fine line between privacy and secrecy, and in order for people to feel safe yet free, the right balance must be struck. The UK has the highest number of CCTV cameras in the world, does this make it the most safe? This is a interesting issue. Why are we, as members of this surveillance society, so unconcerned about the number of pervasive ways of gathering information about our lives? Why do we not question what happens to all of the data collected about us each day? Do CCTV cameras really help prevent crime at all? In some instances it has been shown that they do, such as in car thefts in private car parks, but it has been also shown that they do little in the prevention of street crime. In fact, additional street lights have been shown to be more effective against this crime. The benefits of using such technology must be justified in relation to the costs.

Other types of new technology are also playing a part in altering the current view of privacy in society. With the emergence of more and more social networking websites and applications with our data, information about us and our lives is becoming available to a huge number of people, in the private and public domain. Anne commented on the generally poor “privacy policies” these sites often have. They are apparently often updated with new policies without he users consent. People do not often appreciate the true publicity of the content they post on their personal sites. Drunken photos or inappropriate content is clearly visible to anyone, not just the originally intended viewers. This raises a new ethical issue that prospective employers, teachers etc. must face. Should the actions of a person illustrated on their facebook account impact on their chances of getting a job or university place? Anne was unsure if it was morally right to do so, but a member of the audience questioned this by saying that surely these websites were an extension of the public domain, and asked whether Anne would ignore such acts if she saw them in reality in front of her? A very intriguing point.

New technology of course has always been seen as a possible way of invading people's privacy. With the invention of the first cameras, there was public outcry that they would be far too invasive and should be banned immediately. I feel that we are often in too much of a rush to exploit or develop new “cutting edge” technology without fully understanding the implications, or using the current technology really effectively.

Society always dictates how technology is used and its meaning. This can be seen in the invention of MSN Messenger, Text messages and camera phones. Anne talked about the

introduction of the “click” sound on camera phones to try to prevent inappropriate photos being taken. The social view on privacy has radically changed. In 1984, the term Big Brother was seen as suppressive, today people actually want to be watched 24/7 by millions of people! The topic of “sousveilance” was mentioned in line with this. The position of the watcher is now shifting from “The Man” to joe public as there is a greater popularity of public media broadcasting such as YouTube and Wikipedia. Timmothy Pryde asked the question about privacy when people openly post their thoughts etc. on sites such as Twitter. A difficult question to answer, but Anne was interested in this also, and suggested that possibly this was a form of people invading their own privacy, and said that the implications were still unknown.

Anne Anderson concluded her presentation with her personal privacy principles:

1. My default is private

2. No more that what is needed

3. Real penalties for data spillages

4. Informed consent

5. Expectations governed by strict rules

I feel these are some good points to follow to help keep our privacy. If you have any of your own please post them up (if you want to disclose them of course!)

So how do we design for privacy? What are the solutions? I feel that this is a really exciting new niche in design that is yet to be fully explored, and it is our responsibility to consider it.

P

Molly and Gerry Prototype

On Monday, Unbox presented our first fully working embedded prototype for our design concept in response to the Microsoft Brief. They were really useful tools in demonstrating the user interaction and experience. Below shows some images of the stages involved in the production of the prototype. We were all really pleased with the final outcome, and hope to further develop the concept and experience.

Making the card model

The breadboard circuit


Working PCB


Final Prototypes

More photos and a video of the interaction will be available soon on www.unboxdesign.co.uk