In week 1 of our Design History module, we began by journeying back and exploring design progress and changes throughout history. I very much enjoyed learning about this, as I was not familiar with much of the different changes and major stepping stones which allowed design to develop into what we see in modern-day.
We briefly looked at the history of design. This gave me both a sense of how design has evolved and a look into the content we will cover in the coming weeks.
Today, many technologies use multimodal design. This is a term used to describe devices that have multiple ways that users can interact with them. For example, using an iPhone users can use touchscreen and speak to Siri, giving them two forms of interaction. The growth of AI has introduced a range of possibilities for designs, including personalised and auto-generated interfaces. Some devices don’t even have on-screen interfaces, such as Amazon Alexa which detects users voices alone or Google Home, which sense movements.
The early internet was the first time we began to see responsive design. This refers to applications or websites than can be used on a number of different devices and screen size without their design being compromised. Although the really internet wasn’t very refined, it was responsive to different screen sizes, a key step to get where we are today.
Postmodernism in design was an era of more experimental design. It involved bright colours, unique designs often characterised by a ransom note, scrapbook type style. One of the examples of Modernism that we looked at which intrigued me most was the Sex Pistols album covers. I am quite familiar with their work and have always found their design style interesting, but never really associated it with any design style.
I was particularly interested in some of the earliest examples of design, including Modernism. Modernism was a key step forwards in graphic and digital design, showing major progress with various forms of media. In comparison to the prior Bauhaus era, I found it fascinating to see the stark changes despite not being too far apart in history. One piece of work that stood out to me during this weeks lecture was schützt das Kind!, produced by Josef Müller.
One of the main reasons that this poster grabbed my attention is that it, in my opinion, has aged very well. I, among many others in the lecture, agreed that this poster could still be applied in modern society. This gave me a good insight into the extent to which there was a revolution in design many years ago, helping me to understand design history better as I previously viewed as purely being a modern field that would not have been possible at the times many Modernist artists produced great works in.
schützt das Kind!, Josef Müller-Brockmann.
During this week’s lecture, it was recommended that we watch Wilson Miner’s talk ‘When we Build’ which took place at Build 2011. I found this talk to be exceptional in describing design and the impact that it has on the world and the changes it faces.
Miner speaks of Marshall McLuhan’s book ‘Understanding Media’, which tells us that mediums in society change out attitudes towards the world, our base of thinking. By a medium, he refers to things that determine how we can interact with each other and live, ranging from obvious things like cars to everyday objects that go unnoticed such as lightbulbs.
This talk is incredibly inspiring for designers, emphasising how design makes the environment we live in. He says that as designers, we have the power to build the world that we spend most of our time in, rather than simply making things. He emphasises how designers should be free and open to change, or ‘let go’, so that they can evolve and work alongside the world rather than living in a world which no longer exists. This key statement really inspired me to be open to all different forms of design, rather than being set in following a certain style, sticking to the same fonts and more limitations.
He describes Interaction Design as creating organisms and eco systems, they evolve and form life. They constantly move in time, unlike houses and cars which move forwards. I found this helpful to hear, as he emphasises that as designers, there will always be something to create and improve.
Miner ends his talk on a powerful note, reassuring designers that the things that they create don’t need to ‘change the world’. Instead, designers can simply put a ‘dent’ in the universe, which I interpreted as saying that despite not making many significant changes in the grand scheme of things or forever, digital and interaction design can make the world a better place at the time.
Overall, I found Miners’ talk to be deeply inspiring and actually rather exciting, showing me that design can have a great impact on the world and even change the course of history. It also helped me to understand that not every design or creation needs to have a major impact on the world and change the course of history, in fact, if design impacts the world just temporarily, it has still succeeded.