Tea or Coffee?: ID is all about delivering an experience

Woman preparing Japanese tea ceremony © Bloomimage/Corbis

Themes that have developed in my portfolio of work have to do with people, systems and providing options. There are systems for gathering that I discuss like photography and personal ways to gather information in order to be a more observant, sensitive and better designer. There are also systems in nature that I wrote about that may inspire future designs. Decentralisation in a system is a topic that appeared while writing about Iqbal Quadir’s talk for A Better World by Design Conference. This entire semester has also been an endeavour towards making a system for me to organize opinions and document facts and experiences to reference later.

People
Here is an example of industrial design delivering an experience. I’m sitting in an airport at a counter typing this on my computer and facing a man typing on his computer. “Can you believe this place is as dead as a door knob??” My first thoughts to his full-force question were much shyer... um... what do you mean... uhhh... was he talking to me? I self-consciously looked around. He didn’t look at me when asking so I awkwardly tried to steal some eye contact. “If I had waited for the regular time to get here this place would have been packed, so what are you up to?” He had a hands-free Jabra tucked behind his ear. I’m sure many of us have had the experience of thinking someone on their hands-free phone was a talking to them OR themselves while browsing through the vegetable section of the supermarket. Cell phones, no- hands-free phones -deliver experiences that is almost like teleporting. All you need is a voice and you change the way you are anywhere you are.

In the middle of the floor infront of the gate at the airport a woman is smiling and playing with her hair as she talks into her metallic red portable electronic device. A teenage boy is throwing and catching a hacky sack with one hand and has his cell phone up to his ear with the other hand.
I noticed that people on cell phones can pace and snake around other people laughing out loud, uninhibited. In airports people make bubbles around themselves acting in ways they would not if they were not armed with a cell phone. This experience reminded me of how easily people can create comfort zones for themselves with cell phones. Being in transit is an opportunity to be yourself or be someone else. Waiting and being in transit is like being in limbo. Airports are transitional environments.

Then because I was writing this ID manifesto I thought of humanitarian design. Refugee camps and temporary disaster relief housing are also transitional environments. Compare the differences between airports and disaster relief housing. There are differences in the level of hygiene, environment, security and comfort. So much care and money is put into make sure that valuable airline customers are comfortable while they are in transit under the wings of aviation companies. The transit time of a refugee can span up to months while a passenger may be unfortunate to be delayed and stuck in transit for hours. Is money the only persuasion for us to put in as much care to displaced people as we do to travellers?

Some of these observations in today’s travelling really did provoke these thoughts that have to do with our priorities in designing environments and experiences for people.

Providing options
Another theme of mine is to provide options to users or designers. In my ArtDesign entry I wrote about the different options there were for designers to view and take a stand in the ArtDesign world. My first hard surface chair depicted below gives the user different ways of sitting. Meaning put into an object by the designer may not be what will be received by the user but the user always has options. A designer can design an entire product like a sandwich bar but the user or customer will only grasp a few of the fillings and there will be different combinations made. Having more meanings may lessen the chances of understanding the whole sandwich bar. On the other hand, few or no choices may monopolise the possible sandwich varieties but will not be very graceful. Finding the balance between providing options and getting a meaning across is key in having a successful design. Intention and control is the designer’s responsibility. Successful design, going back to its dictionary definition, has to do with intent and the designer’s intent.

Systems for Gathering
I remember beginning the semester with making a timeline themed with the Past and investigating the gesture of gathering so I will expand on that here. I compared photography and the camera’s history with the development of our own idea-gathering systems. I use sketchbooks to write and sketch, make lists, check them off. I use books and Word documents and the Favourites Folders in Internet Explorer to manage what I gathered. Day planners are another way i gather or collect myself in order to make sure everything gets done. This brings me to examine how we divide our days and time. I do so very linearly: Work time; personal time; family time; homework time; play time; free time: these are all ways in which we categorize our time. What about present time like the camera?

I could keep going and that’s the point. This blog has made me think in ways that categorizes thoughts. Above were three themes from my body of work that I expanded on. I can expand on any of the three categories as long as I have a basic framework. Working like this from the beginning of the semester will help me add to this body of work later on.

1. Gathering infinite amounts of ideas and recording these thoughts is the first step.
2. Retaining it all is a challenge.
3. Relaying them to others is more effort.

After all this I still strive to dissect these themes but only to a certain extent at a time. Keep in mind that there’s no point in blogging if no one will read it so you might as start a conversation with someone.

Actors Charles Laughton an Franchot Tone Drinking Coffee by Robert Randall

Art | Design

art n.
1 The creation of something beautiful and expressive; paintings and sculptures.
2 (arts) subjects other than sciences; creative activites (e.g. painting, music, writing).
3 a skill.

design n.
1 a drawing that shows how a thing is to be made; a general form or arrangement; a decorative pattern.
2 an intention; planning.

v. prepare a design for; plan, intend.

-Oxford English Dictionary

These four sub-categories can be a way of organizing opinions. The high-end design world may seem out of reach and unreasonable but sometimes it’s inspiring, refreshing and candy for the senses. These two opposite opinions call for an exploration of what lies in between.

Art & Design

Capitalizing the letters A and D somehow gives designers a space with a license to do anything. For example, Max Lamb’s turned concrete cylinders have received much acclaim for reasons that are not in line with my beliefs. I don’t see how its inefficient use of material was worth exploring such repetitive and mundane forms for the sake of him directly being part of the manufacturing process. Nevertheless, he pursues his philosophy like we all want to see our visions materialize. That’s what it means to design. Individuals wanting to make a statement initiated this A&D scene. In comparison, here we are, individuals gaining tools through education and stacking them until we will feel comfortable enough to stand alone (or in a team) to make an impact in the world. I think that part of what makes the Design scene feel like an ant intruding a city of skyscrapers are the Big Names. A student graduates from a design school, armed with her portfolio, and builds her identity to present to manufacturers or firms so she can be represented by them. These include manufacturing companies like Vitra, Herman Miller, and Ligne Roset. French designer Inge Sempé, for example, has her work with Ligne Roset. Ligne Roset is a family-run company manufacturing furniture and brainstorms possible (new) ways to make the product or alter designs with the designer. It’s a cool place to be. You have one-on-ones with the Big Names. You become an in-house designer. You’re linked in or in the loop, however you want to see it.

art and design

Strip away the pretention, white backgrounds and head-to-toe black clothing and look at the sketchbooks. What happens when art inspires design? When a functional design draws inspiration from fine arts or the process of fine art making the results can be very harmonious and subtle. The journey does not have to be about climbing the ladder instead understanding the ground you stand on. Some designers will choose to make products in a limited series. That scarcity may mean that demand and prices will increase but it also means that more thought and care is put into the making of objects.

Art vs. Design

Why do we make what we make? This is a question seen too frequently but not answered quite as well since we make a lot of junk. Is it for Art’s sake? Is Many designers on the ID history blog use scarce materials freely, to make a statement, provoke a thought or just make you laugh like Blendie. Emotions are triggered while holding a glowing jar or while sitting and knitting in a deep, plush, high-backed chair. It’s a similar interaction with paintings and the associations you make with objects (refer to my Meaning vs. Saying essay). This differs greatly from the utilitarian designs that serve a function and a function only. Think of Velcro and match sticks that are in the same category of industrially designed objects. Art vs. Design even a debate worth watching? Maybe art feeds or inspires design. In the Laws of Simplicity John Maeda mentions that ‘simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful’. Similarly, many featured designers from our last class, like Tobias Wong, have removed or repurposed obvious functions from objects and use them as symbols to carry their meanings.

Art of Design(ing)

What is my intention? What will my plan be to make it happen? In the process of designing my second chair I recognise a familiar pattern in the way I start. It is frustrating to see myself fall into the same potholes but I know that recognising that I do that is already a step closer to understanding my design process. I slowly establish my methods and values in my design process. With that set, I can look at Max Lamb and know that I don’t like his work. Having a consistent opinion is a weapon in the Design World. Since design and intention are synonymous, your art of design matters a lot: but first ask WHY you design before re-evaluating how you design. During the Better World by Design conference a speaker said that architecture is a political act because buildings are placed on this planet. The same weight of accountability applies to designers who make things that are extracted from the earth, made and used on the earth then left on or in the earth. Understanding why you do things and supporting other designers sharing the same beliefs as yours may dictate what the next big design scene will be.

Janine Benyus: Teaching us to learn from the natural world

“Biomimicry is the practice of developing sustainable technologies inspired by ideas from nature.” Janine Benyus is a biologist, writer, professor, conservationist and student. In 1997 when her book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature came out it to inspired not just other biologists but engineers and designers as well. Filled enthusiasm for this topic Benyus could not fit everything she wanted to say on her TED talk yet was still very articulate and convincing.

To inspire us to follow nature’s footsteps, her TED talk in September 2005 disseminates the questions: How does life makes things? What should we ask (in the next ten years)? How does life make the most of things? and How does life make things disappear into systems? Construction, raw material extraction, processing, maximising material potential, energy efficiency and disposal are the design challenges that are faced in the development of a product. All these steps of product development link to the questions she asked.

Janine Benyus also shares a few big ideas from biology. These may be some things I can look back to when I run through my check-list when I’m in need of ideas or idea catalysts. The first idea is self-assembly. Look at how the mother of pearl is assembled. It is forming in sea water and is tougher than our ceramics. Imagine, she says, making ceramics in room temperature, dipping it into and out of a liquid and having it harden by evaporation. What if all our hard materials were made in the same process as crystallization? Carbon dioxide as feedstock is another idea using a resource that is abundant. We treat CO2 like its the plague but plants eat it up and make all kinds of great things out of it. They don’t see it as a risk as we do. We should find ways to use the garbage that we placed in the atmosphere. Solar transformation is another idea that Janine Benyus highly values from nature. It too is a way of harvesting the infinite amount of clean solar energy there is (in the day time). The power of shape is relevant whenever designers do form studies. Just go to the Nature Lab. Go to the Nature Lab. GO TO THE Nature Lab. The bumps along a whale’s flippers facilitate the way a whale maneuvers him or herself by minimising resistance underwater. If the same principle was applied to airplane wings, fuel can be saved and this could increase a plane’s efficiency by 32 percent. Shape on the surface of feathers in thin film creates colour without pigment. Lotus leaves are self-cleaning because of the texture on their surface. Lotusan is a company that makes paint that dries with a similar texture so that rainwater picks up dirt as it rolls off. Timed degradation is a distant dream we all have for the products that we make so lets look at how nature does it. Detritivors or decomposers digest and return dead matter to the soil. This is essentially a humble community of various mushrooms and earthworms. Benyus asks us to look at the threads that attach mussel shells to rocks and compares it with the potential of our packaging design. The threads start to dissolve after exactly two years after being formed.

The greatest lesson nature can teach us is that it takes care of the place our offspring will inhabit once we are gone. This is worth striving for so I will end with a quote from Okala:

We’re not inheriting this land from our ancestors
but borrowing it from our children

– Native American proverb

L!ST o' L!NKS

If you're into...

Disaster Relief



CHECK OUT

Architecture for Humanity
Cameron Sinclair, Co-Founder of AFH

• Video for Young Global Leaders 2008
• TED Talk video
  
• Cameron Sinclair's also on facebook (omg)
  

Solar Cookers












CHECK OUT

Solar Cookers International

The Solar Cooking Archive


Nature inspiring Design



seriously CHECK these sites OUT

Biomimicry Institute
Janine Benyus on TED Talks


...brb...

Lets not be cars on a freeway

This weekend I attended the Better World by Design conference held here between Brown and RISD. Since Friday I have had the privilege to listen to many influential people in the field of humanitarian design. What am I left with at the end of this conference? I’m left with: a canvas bag, programme, map, orange water bottle, name tag on a lanyard and notes in my sketchbook. Now that the three-day conference is over we can think about it a little more, digest the discussions and put it in a drawer for a while and do the studio work that was suspended this weekend. This is one of the most frustrating times of a conference because the longevity of its impact is uncertain. The closing speech we got from RISD ID's senior, Mike Eng, was uplifting and gave me the sense of closure I needed which was really a push out of my seat. He showed us a photo of all these cars in a traffic jam on a freeway. In that image he saw people who were alone. Each car was independent of each other. Rather than working like that he beautifully used Transformers as a metaphor of how we should work and collaborate and keep in contact with each other after this conference. So if I pinch the pages that I filled from this conference it would be a quarter of an inch thick but what really surfaces the sketchbook are what three speakers said about creating the sense of ownership amongst disaster survivors, biomimicry, and decentralization. These three topics I will take add to the list of things that I gathered from the conference and hopefully remember them when I work.

Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, spoke to us about how people need to feel the need of ownership. He blushed slightly and said thank you when people thanked him for speaking and inspiring them. AFH seeks architecture and design solutions to humanitarian crises. When asked about why AFH does not have any signage by another architect, Sinclair’s response blew me away. He said that the greatest moment for architects is when the community forgets to thank. The members of the communities that have had this reaction to AFH’s help are so happy and back on their feet. They are empowered with the ability to generate their own income, support their families and live again. The humility of AFH is admirable. At the same time, this is an organization that surpasses donation and really touches on what is appropriate like what our class’s guest speaker, Bruce Becker, mentioned. We can all die hard trying but not when people’s lives depend on it. yes, we should do nothing because it might be wrong. Please, design students, think about what you do. It is inappropriate to have less emphasis on research. Like Cameron Sinclair mentioned, disaster relief volunteers and design students cannot be testing ideas on people who need solutions. People who live on the border of survival don’t need students testing out ideas on them so they can go home and write about how they ‘helped’ victims. Sinclair also mentioned that the moment you call somebody a victim, you victimize them. This field calls for so much sensitivity and preparation before entering.

Denise DeLuca spoke to us about biomimicry which I hope will serve as inspiration when we design products, systems or services. She is the outreach director of Biomimicry Institute which is where innovation is inspired by nature. She enthusiastically gave examples where human beings use nature's design. Even if the auditorium was dark, I could see her eyes beam while talking about how corrugation is inspired by shells to get more strength out of a material and how leaves inspired the creation of photovoltaic cells. Biologist and founder, Janine Benyus, said that biomimicry is the conscious emulation of nature’s genius. DeLuca asked us to ask nature how to. How can buildings be like trees or cities function like forests? Nature’s principles are exactly the same as Sustainable Design Principles.

Life adapts and evolves

• Locally attuned and responsive
• Has cyclical processes
• Resilient

Life creates conditions conducive to life

• Optimises rather than maximises
• Interdependent
• Uses benign manufacturing techniques
  Nature’s wisdom makes me weak and to have an entire institute dedicated to emulating its systems is such a huge service to humanity. We have to humble ourselves before the world.

Iqbal Quadir was the keynote speaker at the end of the conference and left us with the idea of decentralised prosperity. In his introduction, he thanked us for taking the time to be there rather than spending the beautiful day outside. Much like in nature, prosperity should be dispersed evenly. Organisms are not lining up for their turn instead the distribution of energy is happening simultaneously from different places. This main formula for productivity was connectivity. Quadir’s development of the GrameenPhone enabled millions of people in Bangladesh to have a cellular phone. This facilitated people’s ability to start businesses and grow. In this case, communication helps income to be generated simultaneously from different places. Quadir noticed similar patterns between Europe’s progress from the dark ages to the renaissance period and those of developing countries enabling him to predict what is to come. He was very adamant about the devolution of authority and the empowerment of citizens. The story of progress, he says, is the distortion of power. The same goes for the food crisis. There is no shortage but a mismanagement of distribution, absence of food preservation technology and political hurdles. That is why his next point about accountability is so important. A doctor will not risk anything because there is a whole group of people who have the power to hold them accountable by suing them. People in developing countries on the other hand, have no power to hold economists or government officials accountable for the negligence of their systems or so called solutions. This is why empowering citizens is so important. Repeating what I learned from Sinclair, we should not do anything even if we think it’s wrong. If we as designers have the urge to help and do something, we are responsible to make sure it is appropriate.

Remembering the people you’re designing for, asking nature and finding ways for things not to be systematically centralised are the three main ideas that I want to study and cultivate over time as I design. Through all this I hope to also be able to learn, digest and be able to tell it all. With the handful of my friends who were also a part of this conference I hope to be able to grow with them and still be able to return to them as we are all searching for ways to better the world by design. Hopefully we will remember when Bernard Amadei of Engineers Without Borders challenged us to write our mission statement on this planet. I challenge you to do the same. They always talk about them and they- filling the hall with his volume, sick of those words, he said, “I cannot stand those words! Who are We?” The human part of humanitarian design reminds me of who I interact with everyday and that the design starts there. Amadei also said, in his loud and passionate French accent, “if you do not bring smiles, it is useless”. Part of humanitarian design is personally being of service to humanity. Dream big but act small. We will experience, seek information and come across stories. Armed with all these we will become advocates, be able to tell the stories and through that inspire others.

Meaning vs. Saying

When I began designing my chair I thought about what people do while they sat. They eat. They study. They wonder. They poo. She pees. They drink. They drink tea. They relax. They’re in a conference. They negotiate. They’re serious. They’re in the principal’s office. They have coffee. They laugh. They procrastinate. They rest their knees. They shift. They (do not want to) get up. They chew and swallow. They wait. They read. They write. They reach. They stand on them. They put them in a circle. They take one out. They stack them. They arrange them in rows. They curl up. So now I know that people do different things in chairs. What are the different ways people sit in chairs? How do certain seats make people sit differently? The chair I was designing was going to answer these questions. These questions are what inserted meaning in the chair for me.

The inputs of a meaning into a product by the designer will either be completely lost, be altered through experience, emotional associations created by the user and environmental context much like the stiletto heel. The medical experts probably did not think they would impact women’s sexuality at a cultural level when designing the vibrator that was a device that simply saved them time and trouble. In the case of making my chair, meaning was being implanted by me as the designer through all those questions I wanted the chair to answer. I wanted to make a chair that offered the sitter an array of positions to sit in. The chair also arranged people’s postures when they sat in it because of the asymmetrically placed foot and arm rests. Whoever sits on the chair will also insert their own meaning into the experience they get from sitting in it. Certain elements like the feeling of cork against your arms and the solid wood beneath your finger tips will be associated with the user’s memories. These sensations highly affect whether or not they will like the chair. My intention as a designer was not to evoke emotions through materials. (Structure and aesthetic determined my material palette choices) The materials to the user became an emotional catalyst, something I did not include in my plan at all.

We design products or services imagining the user group and base things around the context in which it will be used and anything that is experience beyond our plans is coincidental and benign. This makes me think about what something means versus what something says. Meaning in products has associations with the designer’s intention. Products can also say things or be received in a certain way by users and this is happening one-way, from the product to the user. Compare meaning reception to the subjectivity of two-dimensional art like painting. Deriving meaning from a row of colour swatches on the wall would yield infinitely subjective responses. There is no one certain meaning. There is, however, certainty in what it says to the viewer. The red, orange, amber and cobalt blue certainly say autumn to me when I see that combination.

In this way being a designer is very much like setting up a sandwich bar. The entire bar is the product or service we are designing. Each filling are different meanings and the users make their own sandwiches. They pick up on things we put there on purpose but sometimes they don’t. Every user will make a different sandwich which will taste differently. We can put as much or as little meaning into something. For example, we can put out only white bread, slices of ham, cheese and humus and all the users can only choose between those options but not all will take them. Not all meaning comes through your design as you intended. This is frustrating when you want to affect change through your design and your meaning is lost and users are only eating slices of cheese. Your power is lost as a designer. Time, favouritism, emotional and physical associations, social and environmental influences will affect the user’s reception of anything. Anything. That is why we research and do tests and trials.

Speckled light

The camera is a product that captures an image using visible light onto a two dimensional light sensitive surface. Before this light sensitive surface or film was invented the humble act of drawing was the mode of reproducing a seen image. The human eye capturing the three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface using the hand was no easy feat. Light translating three dimensionality onto a two dimensional surface is about investigating the evolution of cameras but also our desire to capture moments. With this comes our desire to observe. As designers the sensitivity of our observations and what we do with them make who we are and inspire what we make.

The camera obscura was one of the first attempts to translate forms outside into shapes on a flat surface. A dark room with a small hole through the centre of a wall projected the image of what was outside onto the opposite wall. Its simplicity was ground breaking and roads leading to new practices, like photography, will radiate from it. Some of the first recorded camera obscuras were in 1021 from the Eighteenth Century Book of Optics of an Iraqi scientist, Ibn al-Haytham. Leondardo da Vinci also used this as he studied the visible world. Studying the visible world was one of the roads paved and travelled by many artists. The hole was the first idea of the lens. Daniele Barbaro was the one who added an actual glass lens replacing the hole which enabled one to control the size of the projection. Barbaro’s invention of the lens, or innovation of the hole (you decide), was another road that may have ended up with the development of cameras.

The development of cameras is parallel to our history and process of capturing ideas. The camera obscura takes what is outside inside. Similarly, we take in ideas and observations that we experience outside our minds into our minds. The next development of the camera was the camera lucida invented by William Hyde Wallastron in 1807. It consisted of a suspended glass prism that was at eye level over drawing paper. This was a way of tracing and training the eye. Many travelling artists used this tool. After observing we review and recall in our minds and sometimes replay and relay these experiences to other people in the same way tracing an image reproduces an observational experience.

Telling stories from a vacation is similar to sharing a photograph. Louis J.M. Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce developed a method of capturing a projected image permanently on a flat surface. They used a coated copper plate with silver halide particles treated with iodine vapour. The vapour was light sensitive. Daguerre further developed the photoengraving technique with his partner, Niépce, and called it heliography. This was the first practical application of what we now know as photography because it allowed prints to be fixed and reproduced. After experiencing something we have a desire to share it to others or keep it for ourselves to remember later. No matter how articulate one is, looking at a photograph from a friend’s vacation in Hawaii will produce a clearer idea of what it was like than if we were to just listen to stories. I think we work in the same way photographs do where we need to produce proof in forms of stories to validate our experience.

Does the accumulation of photographs or experiences go anywhere and how can we make sure we do not forget to capture any? The invention of the portable camera like the Kodak Brownie and then the Leica made this urge to capture everything much more viable. Moving forward from the parallelism between the camera’s evolution and our process of experience and sharing we can visit the idea of accumulation. The camera’s humble origin of studying the visible world has grown to become a medium.

Using the camera as a medium can be for the purpose of self-expression, communication or documentation. How a designers observes the world around her affects her and what she makes. Documentation is not limited to her swollen sketchbooks and journals but the documentation she has been exposed to: family photographs to literature to the media. These things will affect the connections she makes between issues and conversations she has with people and how she will remember them for later. As designers they say we solve problems so school equips us with tools. Let us pull out our box, lay each tool down, line them up and blow out the dust.

Looking at photography and the history of the camera from this stratospheric perspective makes it easy to see how it compares with our own idea-gathering systems. What are our tools that make this system work for us? What documentation methods do we prefer and do we even value it? How do we divide our days and time? Work time; personal time; family time; homework time; play time; free time: these are all ways in which we categorize our time. What about present time like the camera? How do we arrange these images in our photo albums- Chronologically or categorically or maybe even randomly? Having experiences and being able to gather infinite amounts is a wonderful thought. Retaining it is a challenge. Relaying them is another step.

To translate or interpret is one thing. Let us discuss the other side of the conversation. While listening to a friend’s experience in Hawaii we strive to be open minded in order to take in as much without clouding her story with our assumptions. The goal is to get as accurate a description of the story as possible. Similarly, this is like seeing and through drawing, attempting to be as loyal to the truth as possible. Perspectival drawing is a perfect example of literal and direct translation of the three dimensional space as seen by the human eye to a two dimensional surface. The camera was a wonder because it did it in a matter of minutes and now seconds or less.

We all have our own systems and need to re-evaluate them returning to the camera’s development which was a striving attempt to sharpen the way we see.

Chairs

Chairs have served many functions: social status indicators, comfort and convinience were what I focused on.

Light

The camera inspired me to make this timeline. It is a product that captures an image using the light that there is onto a two dimensional light sensitive surface. Then I began to go back in time before film of this sort was invented. I was humiliated when I realised that I took drawing for granted since it was the origin of cameras. The human eye capturing the three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface using his hand was no easy feat. Light translating 3-D onto 2-D is about investigating the evolution of cameras but also our desire to capture moments.

Past

Looking at the gesture of gathering makes me reflect on what it is we do as industrial designers. I begin with looking at people gathering food in baskets. People also gather ideas in forms of drawings on paper in bundles or sketchbooks. Children gather acorns and autumn leaves. From the grocery store we gather items in baskets or carts and proceed to checkout where they are contained in bags. Each of these romantic little gestures of gathering show me physical or ephemeral things that people gathered and ways in which they are contained. All of these things reveal different products or systems for gathering. I thought investigating this topic from past to present and from different perspectives would give me a broad view of what industrial design was about.

So what is it? They say Industrial Design has to do with redesigning the function or aesthetic of a product, system or service. My RA wrote this definition down for us one day so I don't really know where it originated from. For me ID is about delivering an experience.

I like experiences.
I like learning from experiences.
I like gaining experiences.
I like sharing experiences.
And so on

I like gaining, gathering and attaining things and it makes me feel full-satisfied. It's as simple as food refuelling your body.

By exploring ways in which we gather we can pin point why people like to have so much. Track back and see where all the making of things happened to satisfy all that wanting to have. I think that was the industrial revolution. It is when mass production was a brilliant idea and put everyone on the same page by allowing people to own the same assortment of products. Like the Ford Model T.

Looking at the history of how human beings gathered things opens so many entry points into the history of ID: manufacturing, the user group's needs, material usage, transitional packaging, and specific products.