Week 1

Today we looked at the different meanings of products. We studied how particular products have been redesigned to communicate more effectively about what their function is and what their materials originally were. We studied the denotive, connotive and normative meanings of a product. Deeper study into products can help us to understand more about commodity fetishism and why many people want certain produtcts so much.

Week 2

There were two main exhibitons that were viewed at the Powerhouse Museum Sydney.  The Australian International Design Awards 2011 section featured a number of top designs including a joeycan for recycling shower water, a lightweight flip bike and a piece of medical techonoigly designed to treat obstructive sleep apnoea. The awards aknnowdedge excellence in design and innovation. The packpack bed was a highlighted design. The backpack bed is a lightweight back pack that rolls out into a full length, mesh protected bed.

Backpack bed by Swags for Homeless

Designs from the Engineering Exellence Designs Awards 2010 were also on display including The articultated head, the Aldar headquarters building, The Gated Auto-Synchronous Luminescence Detector and The Crucible Carbon Pyrolysis Process Engineering Prototype. The articulated head was a particularly popular design. It is a conventional industrial arm that has been converted into a pleasing installation piece. The piece interacts with audiences with human-robot interactions. 

The exhibition ‘Love Lace’ included a number of playful and inventive works that present a provocative challenge to traditional concepts of lace. These artists take lace to new and innovative levels by working with hair, steel wool and other unconventional materials. However made, lace creates very interesting visual effects with its interplay of light, space and shadows. This exhibition pushes lace from just textiles into different areas of design. 

Design on a truck by Ingrid Morley

Week 3

Last week the class went on trip to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney to view a number of exhibitions.  Although very visually pleasing and fun to look at, the objects in the exhibitons also have a particular meaning and function. The objects can be given connonative, denotative and normative meaning. 

Congnitive Dissonance theory suggests that people seek consistency among their cognitions. When something happens to create an inconsistency betwen attitudes or behaviours (dissonance), something else must happen to free them of the dissonace. Dissonace often occours when a person must choose between two incompatible beliefs or actions. The strongest dissonance is created when two alternatives are equally attractive. Sometimes advertising can be the source of cognitive dissonace.

Week 4

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused when someone is confronted with two conflicting ideas at the same time. The theory suggests that people have a motivational drive to reduce this dissonance. This is done by changing attitudes, beliefs and actions.

Adbusters are a canadian based not for profit anti-consumerist, pro environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz. Adbusters produces a reader supported advertising free magazine which is devoted to challenging consumerism. They are known for their subvertisments that spoof popular advertisments. Culture jamming is the primary means through which adbusters challenges consumerism. The goal is to interrupt the normal consumerist experience in order to show the underlying ideology of an advertisement.

Adbusters Issue 98

Marty Neumeier is president of Neutro LLC, a company specialising in brand collaboration.  Neumeir looks into how to bridge the gap between strategy and design.  His book ‘The Brand Gap is an overview that presents his theory of branding in a clear, direct and visually entertaining way. Naumeier states a brand as a persons gut feeling about a product, service or organization. “The brand isnt what you say it is, it’s what they say it is”.

The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

Week 5

Narrative Theory

Humans communicate alot through the telling of stories. Storytelling in an organisation and delivery method for communication. Children are raised with stories that communicate a message of good always triumphing over evil. However for people to be able to cope and manage is this world this ideal has to be broken at some point. 

Attribution Theory

Attribution theory suggests that we do attribute to the cause of certain events to internal or external influence. Rhetoric is the theory that we constrct our reality with communication. Meta-theory is the underlying belief about the knowledge and values that structure and guide scholarship. 

Social Theory

society was divided into happy and unhappy people. The bourgeoise, who control the means and production; and the proletariat who are in productions for the wages. Society has a substructure (economic/modes of production) and economic conditions underpin the society such as capitalism or communism. It is also underpinned by the class structure.

Week 6

Jane mcgonigal is a game designer who asks the question “Why doesnt the real world work more like an online game?” In her work she creates games that use moblie and digital tecnology to turn everyday spaces into playing fields. Her game-world insights can explain and improve the way we learn, work, solve problems and live our lives. Mcgonigal released a book called Reality is Broken which looks as why games make us happy and how they can change the world. In 2010 Mcgonigal gave a TED talk that discusses this topic. She explained how games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds and incentive to learn certain habits for success. She talks about how to harness the gamer power to solves real world problems.

Reality is Broken by Jane Mcgonigal

Week 7

Cultural Studies is an academic field based around the ideas of critical theory and literary criticism. Cultural studies involves looking at the political nature of contemporary culture as well as historical foundations, conflicts and defining traits. The underlying belief about reality, knowledge and values that structure and guide scholarship multifaceted intellectual area that explores the idealogical interconnections among media politics economy and practices on individuals in a cultural system. It attempts to think about the mass media as elements in a whole way of life, a complex unity held together by culture, by the production and reproduction of systems and symbols and messages. Culture is the weaving of values and belives that undergird a particular society or group.