iPad + Flipboard

I recently purchased an iPad 2, and as a result, think everyone should. Not only do they reduce the daily weight you have to struggle along with to and from work/class/general travellings, but you can also utilise the fantastic app that is Flipboard.

It acts as a personalised virtual magazine, to which you can customise each section to suit your personal interests, and flip each page as if it were a real magazine. Aside from all that, it looks shiny and professional, and makes you look cool while in Starbucks, and best of all it's free.

Get it, now. And if you don't already have an iPad, save up for one of them first!

Design Studies: I Propose To Look To The Future

Why

For the last leg, we had to combine our efforts throughout the year including the research itself, the methods learnt through the likes of service design tools, the science of ethnography and our investigation into semiotics as designers, and create a final research proposal; thus creating a miniature version of the journey taken when writing such papers as a dissertation. I have to say, it's not half as bad as I would of expected, and have actually enjoyed several aspects of it, particularly ethnography and semiotics. Both help develop your approach as a designer be it from any discipline, as the principle remains the same - thoughtful design makes good design, and these are the things that help you engage with the user. I have learnt so much from this perspective, and as silly as it sounds I had previously not considered the consumer and or user half as important as they are. This ironically lead me to understand that understanding in itself is absolute key when designing for anybody other than yourself.

So, throughout this academic year I have been looking at how to engage the user in terms of advertisement. As I have previously stated, I have been asked to derive a research proposal from this, with specific regards to our individual disciplines. Advertising however, is an across the board topic, so I shall take a more personal outlook on the following, rather than a generalised I&ED outlook. I have linked in my previous posting throughout, as well as at the end of each category (although renamed the postings to fit the context).

Related Posts:
Design Studies: Service Design Tools
Design Studies: Ethnography
Design Studies: Semiotics
Design Studies: Final on Viral Advertising

Who

I would seek to explore what exactly it is that gets a graduate into practise other than their qualification(s) - as due to our current economic climate, employment is becoming increasingly difficult for inexperienced designers to successfully pursue. It is common knowledge that it is extremely difficult to land an internship during their academic years, and post-graduation it is becoming exponentially difficult to achieve employment with little or indeed no experience what so ever. Practices and companies are cutting back budgets, making already employed people redundant, let alone creating new positions for inexperienced yet professional designers. So my question is, how can you combine viral advertisement and innovative marketing strategies with the lengthly task of seeking graduate employment?

During one of our lectures this year, Lauren Currie (known in the realms of the internet as @RedJotter) suggested something that has stuck in my mind. She suggested that those seeking internships should not call a practise they were interested in, but rather actively go in and ask. She proposed we ask one of the members of staff out for coffee, and be that person who goes and enthusiastically requests experience. Her outlook was to be forward about these things, and not to back down if you were shown the door.

Related Posts:

Design Studies: What is Viral Advertisement 

Design Studies: Lauren Currie

What

But what else can be done? Surely there is more to this than hopelessly doing the rounds of companies in a lottery type fashion, hoping one day your numbers might just come up. Starting off small with things such as a "blog flyer" is all very well, but I would like to investigate into what makes a person memorable, what you can do to create a stir, and how can you become your own viral advert "epidemic"? I recently did a post on innovative CV ideas, which could be an aspect incorporated into your very own guerrilla marketing technique. How do you sell yourself as a new brand that everyone needs? Similar to as described in Gladwell's The Tipping Point, how do you make yourself sticky?

The BBC reported that only 13% of creative arts graduates found employment within the first six months of graduation.  The Guardian also reports on employment statistics for 2010. How do you ensure you fall into the right category within those statistics? In order to tackle such a never ending issue for graduates around the world from multiple industries, but more specifically those within the design sector, how would I propose I investigate this?

This is a real issue and unfortunately has real consequences, with The BBC unfortunately also reporting that design has one of the lowest employment rates, showing graduate unemployment at a 17 year "high".

Related Posts:
Design Studies: Blog Flyer
Design Studies: What Makes A Person Memorable
Design Studies: Creating A Stir
Design Studies: Creating Your Own Viral Ads
Design Studies: Innovative CVs

How

How do you extract the reasons one graduate is employed, while a similarly qualified, aged, and experienced graduate may not quite cut it? What is it that propels yourself from run of the mill nobody, into sought after fresh meat on the market? I propose that in order to find this out, studies would have to be created to analyse successful candidates qualities versus all applicants qualities, along with sought after free lance designers that provoke employers to come to them. Further to my previous research that suggests irrelevant stunt like attention seeking marketing strategies may work well, I would like to examine wether or not this would be appropriate for self supported viral marketing strategies, or if a strong brand ethic is required prior to tackling the irrelevant viral advert market. I propose that a ethnographic based survey be taken, paying particular attention to the trends seen on the likes of such social networks as Twitter.

If a selection of newly graduated design students were to be followed for the crucial first 6 months after graduation, would those who actively use their Twitter to make new connections be the first to be employed?

If all current fourth year I&ED students were to be followed for the initial period after graduation, who would be employed first and by what means?

I would also propose to contact design practises and actively seek the answers as to how they tackle the process of selecting a new employee, and the ways they instantly cut down applications from everything to the "select few". For example, Think Vitamin explains why they hired a new designer.

Candy Chang

Last night, I easily wasted 4 hours on StumbleUpon. One of the clever things it brought to my attention was the work of Candy Chang.

from candychang.com

from candychang.com 

from candychang.com

from candychang.com 

Her work is centred around urban installations that aim to bring communities together. "Before I die..." was the first one I "stumbled" across, which was quite inspiring. It's in the Hurricane Katrina stricken New Orleans, which still shows signs of the damage from 2005.

It's a really interesting way of bringing the community together, and I suppose is a bit like an open questionnaire. Passers by are invited to complete the sentence "Before I die..." on a large scale chalk board, with coloured chalk available. I wish I had permission to do something like this for our current assignment, where one of the options is based around finding out what people treasure the most.

Another of her projects, which is quite similar to one of the mind mapping methods we looked at, as well as being mentioned on Service Design Tools as the "Blueprint" method, was her "Post-it Notes For Neighbours" installation. It invites people to anonymously leave information about their living situation, giving people an idea of rent prices in various areas, this time set in Brooklyn, New York on a shop front. I really like temporary work such as this, as participants feel they are special to have the opportunity to be part of something that only lasts for such a short window of time.

from candychang.com

from candychang.com

from candychang.com 

I highly recommend spending even just 5 minutes on her site looking through her projects, but I guarantee you will be on it for longer than 5 minutes. Her work really is addictive and clever - Tenants Rights Flash Cards is another example of one of her good ideas. I'm not sure what she would class herself as, that is to say if she is categorisable at all. Some of her projects/installations seem to be a form of service design - amongst a multitude of other things, but she is stated on her site to be "a public installation artist, designer, urban planner, and co-founder of Civic Center who likes to make cities more comfortable to people" - which is quite nice really isn't it?

Her twitter is @candychang - needless to say I have already started to follow her!

Design Studies: Snooping in London

Further to my recent posts about ethnography, I thought I'd explain my findings during my primary and secondary locations.

My primary location - a place in which we are unfamiliar with, somewhere we do not regularly occupy, and therefore feel a reasonable amount of discomfort in - was the London underground system, primarily in the business district, stretching into the ExCel exhibition centre. These places were locations that I felt generally out of my depth, as busy business men smoothy made the transition from work to transport with their silent unspoken etiquette. This was something a student in particular would find intimidating, as you are an amateur to their world, and feel like you are getting under their busy feet. Do I stand? Do I give them my seat? What do I do when I can't reach a rail to steady myself? How do you get across the extremely busy carriage if you find the stop's doors are on the opposite side to which you are? Do you apologise if you brush up against someone? It's all easier said than done, but regulars to this do it with ease.

Oh, and apparently nobody apologies in London.

this was just the entrance hall, mid morning!

We also had to select a secondary location - somewhere where we felt comfortable, a place that we regularly visit. For this, I selected my local bus stop - in which I visit up to 4 times a day. I understand that if an older person were to come to the stop I would allow them on first so they don't feel like they are holding up the bus by getting on last, I'd also help them with any bags. I understand that you allow the people to alight the bus before I board. I understand that you only say "you first", "no you" a maximum of twice, or the politeness catch 22 will never end. I also understand, that at an empty stop you should always sit at the waiting seats towards an end, so that others arriving can sit on it without feeling they have to sit right next to a stranger, or do the awkward slide along. Not all stops have a "No Smoking" sign - but everyone from Scotland is aware of the law stating you may not smoke in a bus stop with 3+ sides. This means a post is ok to smoke at, a side with a roof is ok, but not two sides and a roof. I know all this because over time I have absorbed the unspoken etiquette.

All of these things are learnt through doing, but how could this be made more apparent for newcomers? My primary and secondary locations have highlighted that although I find my daily routine easy, I only perceive it to be easy as I have done it for so long. A new surrounding brings new customs to adhere to, but how can you prevent that awkward "oh look, here's an out of town-er" stare? This brings me to my next task:

Relating This To Interior & Environmental Design


Signs can be overwhelming. Yes, we need minimal signage to direct us generally, and warn us of serious dangers and hazards, but bombarding a person with ways in which to behave and react would be inappropriate - in fact it would do the opposite of it's intention and leave the newcomer even more intimidated by the whole situation.

So how can the design of the location help improve acceptable etiquette in busy a metropolis? Perhaps a simple floor plan on the carriage floor may help - similar to that of footsteps found on the ground at cash points, making people aware of how far away they should stand from the user for security and privacy when access private information, such as that of bank balances.

A consistent distance away from everyone means that there's less chance of the awkward squeeze, and perhaps align these with easy access to rails for each passenger to hold on to. Footstep places would of course need to be much closer together in order to hold a similar amount of people to present numbers, but by arranging them in a more logical fashion, it would perhaps allow for a calmer organised structure of people to travel - thus making it less daunting for newbies.

Pompidou Centre

Another thing that I found was missing was clearer signage to platforms. In a large crowd, it was difficult to see which way to go when switching line at one station. We travelled a lot on the DLR to Lewisham, however several DLR lines travelled in that general direction, although with different final destinations. Perhaps colour coded lines on the ground directing you to each platform would prevent people having to scout for signs - something that slows up crowds and irritates people who know where they are going. Following a simple thing like this would make it easier for people who have never experienced such a place before to blend in with the masses of regulars. This form of direction is regularly seen in hospitals, and an example is given above from The Pompidou Centre, Paris.

As far as The ExCel goes, it was quite well laid out, and made it easy for us to make our way around. It was more intimidating in terms of the social aspect, as we were out of our depths in terms of knowledge, rather than navigation.

Design Studies: Ethnography

So further to my last post, the next step was to read up on Ethnography.

                                     

taken from the linked site above

A condensed explanation is shown above, and further reading on this can be found in the link, also given above.

This process makes quite a lot of sense when you think about it really. Observe, realise, and only then design. I think we subconsciously take this into consideration, but a much more in depth approach needs to be taken when we design for a user. In a way - everything is service design. If it has a purpose, a use, or a reason for it's existence, it provides a service, regardless of scale. Pin pointing ways in which to reduce, time, effort and complexity is good design, and all this can only be realised through laborious observations, that may be lengthly to complete, but are invaluable when reducing down to a final outcome.

For example, myself and a few class mates took a short trip to London for a conference for our course. While travelling through the business hub every morning for the three day event, I found it difficult to understand how to behave amongst hundreds of black shiny shoed business men, with their Starbucks lattes, broadsheets and pin striped suits, all of which silently walk at 10m/s. They automatically understood the tube etiquette, which seemed to change for this line only, compared to the likes of Whitechapel.

Do I need to go on a course before boarding?

There were no signs to say you virtually do not talk while aboard the train. There were no signs warning you that there would not be any bin facility for the next 30 minutes of your journey. There were no signs to say you have to be extremely well balanced to be able to squash into a 20cm square area of floor space, with no access to a rail to steady yourself, as the carriage jolted forward - as well as no signage to say that you may not also brush into someone else, even if they are a mere 5cm from your face. This to me, was bad design. A floor pattern may of helped, giving people a plan to adhere to, a sign to be aware if you are taking things onto the carriage that you will soon wish to dispose of, you will not be able to dispose of it any time soon. These things would quickly come to light if someone was to spend time researching this from an ethnographic perspective.

Design Studies: Service Design Tools

For our current Design Studies assignment we had to visit some websites that document ways to help you when researching for design. One of these was designstudiestools, to which I found the case study for Blueprint quite helpful.

Blueprint is similar to how we work during the early stages of a project - listing the main issues on post it type notes and sticking them under the corresponding group. This enables you to see patterns and visualise connections between topics. This also ties in with my relatively recent interest in Infographics - which also aim to visualise information, in a more simplified form.

For future projects I may continue with my front line of attack with sticky post-its, however I may then re structure my findings in a more easily understood visualisation in the likes of Photoshop, for future reference. The clearer a picture you can get before delving into designing, the cleaner design you will end up with, so it would seem.