Saturday 8 November 2008

iHappy

So it's post reading week and I have to admit I was sceptical about whether I would enjoy being part of a group project - I've only done one once before and it was a bit of a farce and jewellery tends to be a rather solitary practice. However, I really enjoyed it.

Over the first semester we've been given lectures by Professor Tom Inns and this three day projects put into practice all of the lectures on processes, branding, strategy, ethics etc which we have been given in which we had to come up with a theoretical product for Apple based on three questions. First we were put into groups - I was with Jumi (my studio buddy) and Brandy from design ethnography and then we were given our task: design a product based on monitoring happiness...

...yep. Vague, but curious and then we were given various methods in order to work our way through the design process including:

  • Edward de Bono "6 Thinking Hats" as a method of improving decision making.
  • Brain Storming (individual & group in a mass of post-it joy)
  • Prototyping
  • Stakeholders
  • Ethics (what are the products ethical standing)
  • Intellectual Property (copyright, patent, designer right etc)

It was really interesting and I actually really enjoyed this week. Working with Brandi & Jumi was brilliant, we had lots of fun making models & using a rainbow of post-its & I know I'm being vague, but I think I've come up with a possible idea for my own research project & because I've not thought it through completely I'm going to let it mull over in my head for a bit first. Sorry!

2 comments:

Qin Han said...

such a pitty that I missed it... must be such great funny :)

Emily Boyd said...

It was a great laugh.

I mean parts of it were really hard to do, such as the hats, that was a little confusing, but I think it was an extrememly good way of teaching us to find our own methods and that we won't all work in exactly the same way. :)