Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Design Skills

Some Definitions for Social Design Class:

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is taking an idea and thinking of a creative and sustainable way to solve it. Design thinking is "thinking outside the box". You aren't trying to invent the wheel, your just trying to make it better with design thinking. Its a way of taking an exisiting problem and solving it with a solution that will improve the conditions the problem came from.

Sources:

http://designthinking.ideo.com/

http://www.idesignthinking.com/ <--Great Site


What is "Design Skills"?
Design skills is a broad term. I can be tecnical skills with 2D or 3D modelling or it can be abstract skills like inventiveness and imagination. From http://www.lukew.com/ it is the "mingling of medium and message".
Sources:
http://design-skills.org/
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?613

What is "creativity"?

Creativity is thinking of something in a new way. It is being uique, and a mix of social flair and design skill.

Sources:
http://creativity-online.com/
http://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.htm

Retirement Elusive even in South Korea

I was reading the Monday, September 14th, New York Times today and I came across the article "In South Korea, Retirement Can Be Elusive". We were talking in last social design class how in Asian cultures it is more prevelant for Adult children to take care of their parents. This article says that tradition is changing. In this new modern world, there seems to be just no place for the elderly. The government of South Korea is holding silver job fairs, basically job fairs for the 70+ year olds living there. In a recent survey there, they found in 2009 only 48% of elderly South Koreans were living with their children. That is down from 72% in 1990. It seems to be drastically in decline as financial stressors and lack of room in urban cities increases.

It is really sad to see this tradition changing. I have always respected that in the Asian cultures and wished that the U.S. Cultures would adopt some of the time principles. At the same time, I personally do not like my grandparents much and would not like to live with them. I guess in that resepct I am a hypocrite.

The New Ipod


(delayed article post from Thursday, September 10th due to no internet)


I was reading the New York Times and flipping through the 50 million articles on the healthcare debate and the flood in Turkey when I found an article that was seemingly small in comparision to the rest but struck a cord I guess.

It was about Steve Job's speech about announcing the new Ipod and talking about his Transplant which I might add was a bit off topic. The article centers not on the new electronics but about the man. I think honestly they should have covered something about this new contraption I am selling to hundreds of kids a week at work.


This "new" ipod, is a revamped version of the old ipod; however, they had added a camera and a video recorder (but no microphone to pick up sound, sorry kiddo you gotta buy that seperate). I want to know why EVERYTHING today has to have a camera. Isn't it enough to hold an entire collected of DVDs in the palm of your hand? Now you have to have a digital camera too? How long until someone hacks the wifi in the ipod touch and uses it as a digital stalking device? I remember the days of the good old fashioned CD player. They were big and clunky and you couldn't hide them in class so you were actually forced to listen to the teacher and you could only hold a cd at a time so you were forced to listen to the same band preform a few times and you would stop. Today kids are so plugged into their ipods it will be a miracle if they can hear in 20 years.

Ideas for Social Design Project 1

I was thinking about this for a while and I decided to center around a few of the more important issues from my Creative Caffeine assignment (that can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42073068@N05/3883091760/in/set-72157622226771476/).



I am a youth cheerleading coach and my girls are between the ages of 7 and 9 years old. They act and look much older then they are. I personally think they are trying to be little Hannah Montana's. But, the more disturbing part is a lot of them wear short skirts and makeup. Due to privacy issues with me being a coach I can't show the faces of these girls but you can see just from what they are wearing the problems.

This got me to thinking what really was the problem and how I would work it into a guerilla/DIY project that would work on a larger scale. I think the problem is not with the youth of America alone. I think all women find this unconscience need to wear make-up and paint themselves up like clowns to fit societies idea of beauty.

More research of the history of make-up to come; however, I have some ideas about what I might do:
1. Window clings to the bathroom mirrors of the women's room with informational facts about the history of make-up.
a. clings with a slogan like "think before you ink" or "save it for the clowns"
b. "Why?" typography cling that is asking "why are you doing that" with a researhed quote about media influence or about man being attracted to women due to appearance alone.
2. Informational Brochure, would probably be linked to the window clings maybe taped to the inside of bathroom stalls talking about the history of make-up and the history of female oppression and how they are linked
3. Stickers that just say "why" stuck to boxes of make-up.

---------------> Creative Caffiene for this Project
I walked around and took notes about what I saw for an entire day. Every time I would go to the bathroom I would have to wait in line to wash my hands for the large line of girls fixing their makeup and hair.