Alice Hawthorne Talk - Wednesday October 8th
I attended the event where Alice Hawthorne came to the tower and gave a talk. A topic that really resonated with me with me the discussion about the war in Ukraine. Near the beginning of the talk, Alice had discussed the roles of designers in the war and gave examples of what they had been doing. Industrial designers had developed/adapted drones to participate in war activates and this technology had made very positive impact for Ukraine and their military. Additionally, Ukrainian graphic designers had made modifications to the signs on the sides of highways and streets by making them blank to confuse Russian military forces. And, made many signs to point to the Hague. What I took away from this topic was that depending on what I or my peers design, we can help make a impact in a vert fast way. I want to become a professional industrial designers after I graduate. It is a field that, from how I interpret it, isn’t as fast as the examples that Alice showed. I interpret it as a industry that takes a lot of time for pieces to develop, design, manufacture, get to market, and sell. But, depending on certain contexts and motivates for design, industrial design can make a quicker impact.
Researching for our project.
Over the past week, we had interviewed many IE students by Google Forms and in-person interviews while students were leaving the tower. It was very interesting to understand how students interpret their own style and the fashion industry. I feel like I am a person who is interested in certain fashion brands and personal style but have a very different way of perceiving the fashion industry and how I shop compared to others my age so it was interesting to contrast how I shop and think versus other students.
Due to sickness, I did not come to class last week on Tuesday when there was group presentation’s. But my group told me afterwards over audio call about many different insights that they had gotten from Kaleb and other classmates during the feedback session. Despite not hearing the feedback verbally from peers such as V & Yara, the quotes that I had heard helped us a lot in how we want to frame our project.
On Friday (October 7th), Sofia, Selene, and I went to Calle de Fuencarrel to see how people shop and different stores. We explored shops such as Mango, Brandie Melville, and Decatholan to people watch and interview shoppers. The most fascinating part of this experience was not in the stores but came from the streets. We had seen that many couples dressed with similar styles or atleast had clothes with similar silhouettes. One memorable frame in my mind being a couple with different styles but both wore pants that were cut high, quite a bit above the ankles for both of them.
Learnings from the week applicable to future
Typically when university students are asked to research or conduct interviews, they are typically conducting the research strictly within their own university and specifically their own close friend group. Typically at IE, in university wide Whatsapp group chats, organized during 1st year or through events or clubs, people send anonymous surveys for school projects. Or conduct interviews in their own classroom or in hallways with friends who will typically give biased answers because its a friends project. This has happened a lot even with previous projects from my degree.
When conducting research in the tower, it was still relatively easy since students are still willing to help, in most cases, since they understand the need for interviews for a class since they’ve likely been in the same scenario. But, when we ended up doing ethnographic research on Calle de Fuencarrell, it was my first time doing research about people and conducting interviews with absolute strangers on a street. It was a very interesting opportunity for me since I had realized that this type of work will likely be important for me as a designer in the future.
I want to design pavilions in the future. Specifically large-scale pavilions for events such as a World Expo and possibly some pavilions that become permanent structure. When we were watching how people act on the streets and how couples looked together with their outfits, I had realized that in the case of designing pavilions, it is important to see how people interact. When it comes to designing something, there are some aspects that are obvious to all: a washroom is meant to be used as a washroom, a water fountain is to drink from / fill your water bottle. But when I had seen couples with similar clothing silhouettes, I had asked myself ‘Is that intentional? Did it happen by luck? Or is it now just a habit that they don’t think about?’ Due to those questions, I had realized that when you design a space, when you design a product, or when you design anything in general, there may be things that may not have been designed intentionally for a certain thing but may come naturally to the user. Due to this, when I have designs created/built, I’ll will hold it of high importance to watch how people interact with a space to see if there are any intentional or unintentional habits that are created by the design. This will help me realize any positive or negative aspects of the project and help me improve as a designer and help improve any future project.