Wednesday 25 November 2009

Illumination Project









This is a first year project I did last year. We were asked to design and create a self supporting lamp. I decided to design a reading lamp.
I wanted to use an unusual material to create a soft light that would be comfortable for bed time reading but would also look attractive when the light was off. I became very interested in shadows during my research and I experimented with different materials to create a subtle shadow.
In the end I created my lamp by rolling up hundreds of pages of books and cutting them into small ring shapes. I then glued them back together side by side to create a honeycomb appearance. The intensity of the light is mellow and the ring shapes cast relay nice shadows on whatever surface you place the lamp.


Friday 20 November 2009

Exhibition design



Research And Inspiration Final Presentation.

Development Final Presentation


Final Design Presentation




My most recent project in Interior and Environmental Design was to design an exhibition based on the theme of jutopolis. As jute was a major employer of the Dundee people less than 100 years ago this project was extremely relevant to our town. Through group work researching the jute industry and similar exhibitions we found that the education of the history of jute lacks the workers point of view. And so in my group we intervened a woman who worked in the mills "Lilly Thompson". This gave us a great insight into the hardship these workers endured.
In the end we designed a sensation based exhibition which should give the spectator similar feelings to the jute workers.
As you enter the exhibition you see a wall with a quote we received from Lilly which says
"No matter where you turned, it was jute" We felt that this quote was extremely significant in the viewers understanding of how important jute was to the people of Dundee. The second thing the viewer would see are three sketchy illustrations of hands doing three signals. This is because the mill workers often had to communicate visually because of the defining noise of the machines. Then they are confronted with a wall of hanging jute that a video of Lilly using her hand signals in the mills is projected onto. Viewers are encouraged to walk through this image of Lilly as if walking through her into what was her life. There is jute all around the viewer now and thicker pieces of jute with spotlights above them entice them to pull them. They trigger a sound box which plays important quotes that Lilly had said in our interview. Towards the end of this vast area of jute it begins to become tangled and eventually spirals into a tunnel which symbolises the fall of jute. When the jute industry died out in Dundee people were left jobless. Many were uneducated and had nothing else to do in life. In this tunnel another quote is written "I am a weaver, I was a weaver". Lilly said "I am a weaver"and then quickly corrected herself " I was a weaver" this was great because it showed that those people who were in the mills still feel part of it because it was their entire life.
I feel through our design process we have successfully designed an exhibition that truly helps people understand the life of a jute worker. I would hope that the public would enjoy our exhibition and remember it for years to come, never forgetting about the hard working Jute workers.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Gathering Evidence Homework

Andersen, KN ,The Use of Facebook in National Election Campaigns: Politics as Usual? , 2009.

This text describes social networking actively working as a means of communicating to others out-with a tangible social circle.


Bruce, Fraser, Making connections : an exploratory study in product innovation through an analysis of Social Networking.

This text discusses how social networking is a good way of connecting with others.


Calder, BJ, An Experimental Study of the Relationship between Online Engagement and Advertising Effectiveness, 2009.

A description of the effectiveness of online advertising through social networking sites.

Eberts M. and Gisler M, 2004, Careers For Financial Mavens And Other Money Movers, McGraw-Hills

This Book is a self help book to help financial mavens find the right job.


Friese G, Social media in EMS. Social media and Social Networking offer new opportunities to communicate with those inside and outside your organization, EMS Magazine 2009 Sep 38 (9), 39-45.

This text shows that social networking is a great way to get connected with people from all walks of life.

Galeotti A. and Goyal S, 2007, Law OF The Few, University Of Essex Department Of Economics

This Journal documents the findings of a social experament to find the connectors amoungst a group.

Linda D. Molm Nobuyuki Takahashi Gretchen Peterson, Risk and Trust In Social Exchange: An Experimental Test of a Classical Proposition, 2000.

This text discusses the importance of trust and how gaining a persons trust has a possitive impact on an individuals life.


No Author, Advertising. USMES Teacher's Resource Book, Preliminary Edition. 1974.

Discusses the best method of advertising and the way our brains are programed from a young age to be atracted by certain things.


Yakir, A, Medical students' attitudes to the physician's oath, 1998.

This text talks about the relationship between attitude and progress.



Sunday 8 November 2009

"This is what a Honda feels like"


When you think of a Honda you most probably think "QUALITY". In my opinion Honda have some of the best advertising out there. The reason there adverts are so good is because they really understand what people are attracted to.
As a young designer I have been triked into thinking that design is all about how something looks. But it turns out that people are a lot deeper than we think. Even if they themselves don't know it. I discovered this during research for my current project furniture design. In which I have been investigating the attachment people form with their personal objects. This was something I plan on focusing on in my design process using the knowledge of the joe public's weaknesses for inanimate objects to manipulate a sense of pride in a piece of furniture.
I have discovered that along with other things the sound and feeling an object gives is equally important as how it looks. Compare the turner on an old keyboard to a new and their is an obvious loss of character. The new supposedly better keyboard twists easily and irrationally between your fingers whilst the older keyboard's turner turns with sense of tension in your hands, it makes a sweet but low clicking noise that sharply vibrates between your fingers. This instantly makes you more engaged with the object and has connotations of durability and expense. Objects like this are more desired and people are more likely to form an attatchment to them. Maybe the older keyboard isn't quite as impressive looking as the new one, but surely whats on the inside is more important that the presentation case?. It may be an important aspect of design but unfortunately our consumers wont get a chance to feel the quality of these objects unless we have a visual aid to draw them in. The perfect solution to this is to incorporate the quality feeling and sound of the old keyboard and put it in the new modern looking one. A lot of designers are piking up on this now and we should see the quality of accessories return to our homes shortly.

Honda are using their knowledge of this to sell thousands of their products. Its interesting how the introduction to the Honda advertisement says " This is what a Honda FEELS like" when it never mentions the sense of touch throughout the entire duration of the commercial . Honda have sussed this link between sound, feel and quality and have played on it in these adverts. Thats what makes them so successful and when you think of a Honda you most defiantly think "QUALITY".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCMmk6gw9wM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGngcQb_0qg


Friday 6 November 2009

Love Your Furniture


This week I have ben researching material for a project I am doing o furniture design. I wanted to somehow put the love back into furniture. in this Ikea generation furniture is seen as a disposable object that is perfectly acceptable to be thrown out as fashion changes. Times have changed, it seems hard to imagine that people used to spend the equivalent of a whole years wages on a piece of furniture. This created a sense of pride and people rarely threw them away. I want to get rid of the wasteful state of mind we have in today culture and design a piece of furniture that someone would be proud to have for the rest of their life and also hand down to their children. Someone who will have nothing to hand down to his children is Michael Landy, who in a piece of performance art he named "Break Down" destroyed all his earthly belongings. His car, his art, everything except his cat and girlfriend. In my group we discussed the things that we thought made people hang on to things these days, and so started to make a college of people with their sentimental objects and a small statement about why the object was so important to them. A lot of people discussed the secrecy of their possessions and most of the people we spoke to said that their object had a memory attached. This sparked our imagination to create a piece of furniture with a secret compartment for all your secret memories.

Please email me if you have any sentimental objects that you would like to be put in the college.

A.Fitzpatrick@dundee.ac.uk