Monday, August 27, 2012

Design Questions

Dieter’s 10 principles

I learned from this article that design is made up of a lot of components, and it’s only a good design if these components are up to par. For my project, I chose a stapler. I chose this object because it has all ten of Dieter’s principles, the components that I spoke of. It is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and has as little design as possible. All of these principles together make the stapler simple, easy to use, and visually pleasing. The stapler not only encompasses Dieter’s ten principles but design as a whole. My major is graphic design, and the point of this career is to design something that gets a point across in a way that’s simple and easy to understand. The stapler is both of these things. The design is simple. You don’t have to look at the instructions to understand how to refill it or how to staple, and the simplicity of it makes us comfortable with it, which makes us want to buy and use the product. The major point for me in Dieter’s ten principles was that overall good design is about doing something to the best of your ability, not overthinking it, and making sure that what your sending out is something that you could understand and use yourself. These points are extremely important in any design, but especially in the project we’re doing now, because if you keep these things in mind when working on the project, then your bound to make something good that will get you a good grade.


Think and Make

For the longest time, I’ve though that design is all about art and pattern, but this reading opened my eyes. In the reading, it stated that, “design is a process for making things right, for shaping what people need.” This line managed to change my entire outlook on design. It really isn’t all about art. It’s about making something that makes people’s lives simpler. The object I chose was a stapler and it embodies simple to a T. The design actually makes it so that stapling takes less effort meaning that your hand doesn’t get as tired and you can do more, faster. The simplicity doesn’t just show through in my stapler, it also shows through in my major, graphic design. In graphic design, it’s all about getting a point across or giving out information. To do this, you can’t overthink things. You have to make a simple, clean design that easy to look at and understand. I think the main point of this article was to make people understand that you can’t put design into a mold. It isn’t associated with just one thing it’s associated with tons. Once you start seeing that design is endless you think of the endless possibilities you can do with it and then you come up with something great.


Don Norman Video

I learned from this video that design isn’t only about functionality. In the video, Don talks about a mini cooper and he says that it’s not the greatest car ever but you should still buy it. The reason why you should buy it is because its fun and fun makes people happy. That’s what design is all about, making people happy. It doesn’t just have to be fun, though, to cause this emotion. It has to be simple, understandable, and most importantly, visually pleasing. I find that my object, a stapler, has many qualities that make me happy. For one, it has a no slip grip pad on the bottom so it doesn’t move around on me. It also is designed so that it’s easier to staple with, making my hand less tired, and the design is sleek, making it look very high quality. In graphic design, as well as in a stapler, we find that people respond better to things that make them happy or things that are fun. I think the main point of the video was that design is supposed to make you happy. In design, the point is to get information to a person as simply as possible. If you can do that, then you make that person very happy. The two, design and happiness, are interconnected.

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