Kids Furniture Ideas Investing Furniture Kids

Beautiful Kids Bedding And Kids Furniture For Kids Room.



Coolest Childrens Furniture Fun Childrens Furniture For The Cool.



Kids Furniture Decorating Ideas.



20 Kids Room Decorating Ideas Kids Furniture To Revamp.



Attractive Wooden Kids Furniture Designs.



Beautiful Children Bedroom Furniture Designs.



Kids Furniture Decorating Ideas.



The Latest News On Modern Kids Furniture At Modern Interior Design.



Children Bedroom Furniture Sets Modern Homes Interior Design.



Kids Furniture Ideas When Investing In Furniture For Your Kids There.

De Winkel: EightDayz

One of my projects here at HKU was to redesign a shop. Here it is!

GIDE 2012 + Other Business

mind maps + scribblin'

I have been rather quiet as of late on this blog, as I have been beavering away so to speak at several other things.

GIDE is one of the main things on my mind at the moment - for more information see my separate blog for all related posts over on the dark side at Wordpress!

Aside from that I have been working away in the studio, and have taken well to the new course structure, including my new module entitled Critical Making. I shall post separately on this.

I have also this year become a student ambassador for the University of Dundee, attending visitors days and helping the University promote itself to potential future students by providing tours. This has been a fantastic opportunity to meet other students as well as learn more about how our campus operates.

We have of course also moved to our new studios, which, although are having heating issues at the moment look set to be brighter and more spacious than our old location - and I also have a wall space to populate, which I can't complain about!

Sketchup and AutoCAD however, are calling...I have to admit I've missed the project buzz!

stumbling through summer

Well, it's July.

Apologies for being rather quiet on the blogging front this past month and a bit, I been flitting around like a butterfly doing a manner of different things. Okay, I'll admit I'm perhaps not like one of those butterflies you'd see on The National Geographic "Photo of the Day", more like a busy little moth.

Aside from the various things I've been doing, including helping a friend find a new house / actually move house, visiting home for a quick catch up with family, working and spring cleaning (yes, a little late I know), camping, attending the degree show (congratulations are in order for all DJCAD graduates of 2011, more specifically IED's now former 4th years, you guys did a fantastic job!), visiting Glasgow, working for the university during graduation week and going to see the midnight opening screening of the last of the Harry Potter series... I have also been putting together some things I plan on using come September. The daunting thought of third year has well and truly set in, so I figured that I might as well use my summer months to do something useful, rather than waste them in beer gardens in the sun. Don't worry though, some hours will be spent doing just that; if the sun ever shows itself.

I've bought some new books to pour over during the next 8 weeks before term starts again as well, which I'm looking forward to. I'll post short reviews of them if they are any good.

Further to my beavering online researching various things I've realised I am getting heavily addicted to stumble-upon. I'm not sure what a user of stumble-upon is called - a stumbler? A stumble-uponer? Either way it's proving to be very useful as I've honed my interests into course related topics and has so far produced interesting pages - along with throwing in a few funny images of animals for good measure.

As you can probably derive from this post - I'm keen for term to start again, and feel quite lost without the pressures of coursework, projects, deadlines and the general buzz from IED as a whole. I guess that's a good thing, nobody gets a near 4 month break from their career unless it's forced upon them in the form of redundancy (which I hope will never plague any of us!).

Alas, just as I sit here moaning about the lack of summer weather - the sun has decided to show it's face, but for how long is anybody's guess, so I'm off out into it.

...Although I think I'll take my wellies, just in case.

Oslo, Norway

Last weekend myself and Kirsty of JMD took a short trip to Oslo, Norway. Amongst visiting the Architecture Museum, Contemporary Art Museum, Ice Bar, sculpture gardens, and general city centre, we also visited Snøhetta's Opera House. I was first made aware of their work when they were one of the six finalist architects bidding for the V&A Dundee project, to which Kengo Kuma won.

Upon getting home and reading up further on them, I have realised we also unintentionally visited another of their builds, in the form of Lysaker Stajon - a train station on the outskirts of Oslo.

I was very impressed with their work, as the Opera House in particular had a fantastic mix of architecture coming inside, as well as the roof becoming a fully open walkway for sightseeing. Upon walking up to the highest point (the walk ways were a series of flat angular planes that acted as "tiers" for visitors to meander around) you were able to see quite a distance, unfortunately a  lot of building work was currently going on in the immediate vicinity, causing quite a bit of visual obstructions. Aside from allowing visitors the ability of distance sights, it also allowed a view into the central glass atrium, housing the staircase to and from theatres, along with a general open space for crowds. This in particular was where you could see that the architects and interior designers had worked extremely closely to create a streamlined design from exterior to interior - without creating a mirrored shell of textures on the interior. On entering the reception area you are fronted with a large, somewhat overwhelming wooden organic structure, which is quite the contrast to the angular white slabbed exterior. It does not however feel too much of a contrast, as the floor flows from outside to inside, becoming a constant.

Their website informs me that Snøhetta have another company called Snøhetta Design, who provide (to quote):

"Snøhetta Design is a multidisciplinary graphic design agency incorporated within Snøhetta. Our services are based upon designing brand relations between corporate identity and architecture, between people and brands.

Snøhetta Design clients have projects integrated with Snøhetta Architecture or without any relation to architecture. They all, regardless of grapihic design, interior, landscape or architecture, are projects where we nurture concepts."

So basically, they are an all round design house who provide a service from start through implementation to execution and beyond.

I love them!

Summer is here

I've been exceedingly quiet recently, due to my project being in full swing. Finally, as deadline was on Monday 2nd May, I can finally update with my outcome.

I tried to create an interior that reflected The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency's (SEPA) field, as well as creating a fun space in which to work. I also wanted new visitors to be surprised by their interesting surroundings, thus promoting the crucial work that SEPA do. When I visited their branch in Arbroath, it became apparent they were working in mundane office conditions which makes motivation within their staff difficult to achieve, as well as downplaying their work for visitors entering.

I tried to create an urban jungle, taking industrial brutalism and infusing it with the impurities and lack of uniform seem in the environment. For example, the 4 managers office spaces are all next to each other, however I made small differences between them, similar to how tree's grow. You can plant them in a row but no two will grow the same. Some have slightly bigger floorspace, however have a lower ceiling, or partial ceiling. Some have views into communal areas of the building, and some have drops from the above floor down into their space - however all have smart glass facades, which may be turned "on" or "off" depending on the privacy required.

Details

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.

EcoOffice: Easter Break & Deadlines

Quick update - the current project is going well.

It's now the Easter holidays, although by no means will this be a holiday as the deadline is on the 2nd May.  This means as I now plan into my final decent, I need to make final decisions upon how to present it all. We have been informed that it is not necessary to produce a scale model, but for those of us with presentations lacking a model, we must produce other scaled representations. In this case, I do not intend to build a model as my design has developed into a dense space, making a model too time consuming to do to a standard I would be happy with, not to mention being of little use as it would not be sufficiently viewable. I have chosen to provide plans that will be printed and displayed separately, along with an exploded axonometric, and an isometric showing colour coded departments.

The remainder of our materials fee which is paid annually will be put towards our printing costs, totally 2 A0 sheets, and for a small fee we can opt for a third. As I plan not to make the model, I will continue onto a third presentation sheet.

I am currently battling the baffling realm that is rendering software, which I have a feeling may continue on for some weeks yet.

Planning, I am very good at. Now however, execution is required. Thankfully Carol, our tutor, reassured me on Friday that I am further ahead than I thought I was - and in fact almost finished, so therefore should take a break. Clearly she doesn't know me very well still, because I won't be taking a break from this until it's finished and checked. And checked again. And then edited. And re-exported. And checked.

www.hku.nl

Lastly of my things to update about, I submitted my final application form for the Erasmus exchange programme just over a week ago. I spent a long time getting paranoid over my personal statement and portfolio, in fear I wouldn't do it justice and damaging my chances at such a good opportunity to meet new people and visit new places. I chose to apply to the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, with no second option as I didn't want to travel elsewhere if I were to be unsuccessful in my first choice. But alas, all is done and submitted now so lest not fret about what can not be changed. But I will fret, it's what I do best after all.

EcoOffice: All Quiet On The Western Front

I suppose I've been pretty quiet in terms of posting about my current project.

We were given an extension over the Easter break as it seemed that the project was too large in comparison to the time scale we were given. This works out at an approximate extra 4 weeks - which is a huge amount of time. As a result of the extra time however, a more refined and substantial presentation is now expected to warrant the large extension.

exterior cladding and signage (foliage)

entrance

reception area and lift shaft to rear left, with waiting area to left (out of shot). Green wall to right in reception, and containers housing two meeting rooms, which can be adjusted to create one much larger space

Cantina space with CEO office at rear, glass panelling to rear left allowing views into lab space. Glass partition doubles as a white board for staff notices.

Lower: quiet space and digital library (kindle bar). Upper showing two of four manager office spaces.

Upper level for main work space, with locker facility (foreground, right) and large windows (top left). Views into lab space from rear right. Obviously work still to do here, as there is no barriers along platforms! Green wall to right, and on lift shaft.

I'll blog about this further when I have more time, apologies for the short but sweet post!

That's all folks!

Yanko Design

While trawling through endless products online to include in my final outcome for my conceptual design for a Dundee branch of SEPA offices, I came across Yanko Design, an online magazine dedicated to various aspects of design, including industrial, product and interior design.

A few products fascinated me, as not only do they look seamless and elegant, but many of them also have an environmental aspect, something that is crucial during this project.

This interesting take on the extension lead is energy saving as well as innovative - something that I'm sure would come in handy in an office environment. The "Powerful Branches" designed by Eunsung Kwon also has the useful ability to adapt as required by simply adding in a modular "branch", meaning it can grow to suit any demand.

Another product I came across was "One Litre Limited" by Yonggu Do, Dohyung Kim & Sewon Oh. This is a faucet that is limited to the use of one litre of water, before requiring to be turned off, allowed to fill, and turned on again. It promotes user awareness of how much water they use, as opposed to the 6l used in just 30 seconds of a standard running tap.

It helps that it's a nice design too!

Lastly, the "Eco Shelf", by Seung-Hyun Yoon, Seol-hee Son & Jo Chal-youn is something that is minimal as well as useful. It's essentially your cooling system built into your surroundings, minimising the intrusion of large appliances such as air cons. Oddly, I have already designed a similar bar area for the cantina space, so this would be a perfect product to incorporate, as I have not considered the space for such an appliance yet.

If you would like to follow Yanko Design on Twitter, you can catch them at @yankodesign.