Design thoughts?

Social Innovation

creativecaz — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:25:01 +0000

Been really interested in social innovation since going to a talk on service design called ‘The Limits of Design‘ at LCC. And more recently to the talk organised by AIA UK ‘Betwixt Realities: Trans-disciplinarity and Resilience in Contemporary Culture‘. Speakers from both events highlighted the importance of exchanges of knowledge between different disciplines, hence my earlier post on multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary, and in the AIA UK talk, FoAM – a Dutch studio term themselves trans-disciplinary.

In their presentation they don’t mention at all social innovation but their projects are effectively social innovation projects. One memorable one is the ‘Edible plants‘ project which fuses creative thinking, design, science and technology to re-develop urban green areas involving the local community.

Similarly I’m working on a project with one of my classmates, which is to develop a game that positively changes the way we live, work or interact. So will post details on this later.

Branding ‘design’

creativecaz — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:25:11 +0000

I often have to help companies identify themselves, who they are, who they want to be and why. So you analyse every aspect of the business, from the people, to the products or services, to it’s operation methods. And often I wonder and have problems pinning that down for myself. That becomes a problem when you look for a job as when you go into a interview you have to very sure of who you are and what you can contribute to the company.

As a designer the problem is ‘what is our role?’. Since starting my MA in design management I’m beginning to understand a little more of the role design plays or can play in business and in society. I never understood design’s relationship with art, my own relationship with art. I choose to go to art school after high school because I thought I wasn’t creative enough, and that to succeed in design I had to be extremely creative, I had to be more artistic. Art school didn’t solve my identity crisis, in fact it left me feeling more lost. I knew I didn’t want to be an artist, I enjoyed creative thinking within a context that eventually had an outcome. (sorry that sounds extremely vague, I will explain).

This is what I understand so far of design, after 2 weeks into the course. Design is an ‘action-led’ process. It’s role is not simply to decorate or inject ‘creativity’ into business. It’s not even innovation, some papers published from London Business School say it shouldn’t be creativity. From my conclusion so far the role of the designer is it’s ability to identify and apply innovation and creativity to products, services and systems that adapts to the natural change in our environment. So hence the misconception that design leds to change is incorrect. Evolution will happen regardless of what we do, our planet will change whether we live in it or not. But perhaps my role as a designer is to influence how that change happens.

Multidisciplinary and beyond

creativecaz — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:16:20 +0000

Six years ago when I was still at art school the push was to specialise, you move from doing all arts in the first year to design in the second, and 3rd moving into either advertising, print, or digital media. You got a job in whatever field you decided to choose. It never made sense to me as I always thought skillsets are easily transfered from one field to the next. I became really frustrated at the narrow minded approach which was mainly put in place by non creative people. HR companies, studio managers etc.

Although this approach is still happening at a variety of agencies, there is definitely a trend moving towards integrated designers and integrated agencies. Designers and agencies that can offer, branding, print design, web design, advertising and marketing services. A new wave of designers that are alot more business savvy, that is equally comfortable coming up with an advert as they are jumping on the computer to code a website. It is not to say that becoming jack of all trades is diluting the quality of design. I think people are just realising that the market is changing and you have to adapt so quickly to new skillsets that specialising in one area could possibly lead to early unplanned retirement.

New Zealand bank fee comparison

creativecaz — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:55:41 +0000

It always pays to do a little research before buying or using any service. Recently I have been investigating into exchange rate to buy British pound from New Zealand dollars, and I have been following news and rates everyday. As markets are recovering and people are more willing to buy into risk investments making the NZD rocket skyhigh. This is very good news to me as I have to pay my school fees in pounds from my NZ savings. Even slight variation in rate can make a huge difference to my costs.

As the British pound ended on a low on Friday due to news that the government is going to print more money. I put my gears into action and started looking at what the banks are offering. ASB: 1NZD = 0.3926 GBP, Westpac: 1NZD = 0.3950 GBP, National Bank: 1NZD = 0.3951 GBP, BNZ: 1NZD = 0.3935 GBP

I was very disappointed that ASB was the lowest as they are my current bank. I called around to see if I can use another bank to make the transfer, and found that even though the other banks rates is higher they charge a hefty sum to make the transfer. National charge $12 plus 1.1% for anything over $1000. Westpac charge $25 plus 1% for all transactions. Where as ASB simply charge a flat rate of $25 regardless of amount. So for any international transfers over $1000 ASB offers the best value.

One man band

creativecaz — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:45:59 +0000

I have one client at the moment, it is quite a big client but what I do for them is very little, moneywise at least anyway. But for me it gets my foot in the door and in a place like London the ability to be able to drop names in meetings is crucial. Actually I’m not posting about how to get big clients or about name dropping in meetings. I’d like to discuss what it is like operating as a one man (woman) band.

In most reasonable size businesses we have people doing various things in various roles. What these people do sometimes seems redundant but I’m finding in reality small things take up so much time. Just simply managing this one client will take up 2 mornings of my time per week, chasing invoices, replying to emails from various people, keeping track of all current jobs. I find once you start a business, or start working for yourself, whatever the industry you are almost devoting 50% of your time to admin. And in time my designs will suffer because I’m simply not dedicating enough time to it. So I think it’s much more ideal to have a partnership where one can focus on business and the other on the technical, otherwise I feel it is not sustainable.

MJ is dead, feels like it’s end of an era

creativecaz — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:34:29 +0000

Whao Micheal Jackson is dead! Having grown up hearing constantly in the media the transformation of Micheal Jackson, hearing this news really makes me feel rather old! What an exit to have though for an incredible artist. What an amazing career he’s had, and such a sad life. I wonder how many of us would make that much sacrifice for a career like his.

Now Micheal Jackson would become an immortalised brand. RIP

The beginning…

creativecaz — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:49:10 +0000

The beginning is not quite a beginning as I’m not just starting out as a designer. I have been a designer, practicing professionally for almost 5 years. The reason I am blogging is I’m going back to school to do my masters in design management. This is so I don’t become brain dead during my 2 month break.