Author: Iestyn Jowers
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A rose by any other name…
If the prevailing brand culture is a reliable indicator, then society at large is seemingly obsessed with names. Products, including electronics, fashion, food, etc., are bought because of the name slapped on them, often without much more thought. And, it often seems that political discourse and public debate suffers from a similar affliction, where complex […]
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Designers Telling Stories
Netflix has recently released season two of Abstract: The Art of Design, a series which celebrates innovative designers from a range of fields, including fashion, graphics, interface, architecture, automotive, etc. Some of the designers may be familiar to you, if not by name then perhaps by output. For example, Tinker Hatfiled (Season 1 Episode 2) […]
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Play, Wonder, Empathy – Educational trends from the Innovating Pedagogy 2019 report
The seventh Innovating Pedagogy 2019 report from The Open University highlights ten trends in teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world. One of these may be of interest to designers, since it considers how studio pedagogy is becoming more prevalent, through the use of Virtual Studios. The report has been written in collaboration with […]
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3D printing; What is it good for?
3D printing, technically referred to as additive manufacturing, is often heralded as the manufacturing process of the future. This is because it is a very flexible process, and is able to produce forms that cannot be manufactured using traditional methods. In theory anything that can be represented as a 3D model in a CAD file […]
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Is it smart to be Smart?
Smart products are elements of product-service-systems which use processors, sensors and communication technologies to collect and communicate data. The most common example is the smart phone which is a multi-functional device that uses its embedded technologies in different ways according to the installed apps, for example as activity tracker, health monitor, shopping assistant, etc. Based […]
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Memories of Lionel March (1934 – 2018)
Memories from friend and former-student, Chris Earl: Lionel March was a scholar and artist. He inspired generations of students and colleagues to combine the formal and the creative in planning and design. His contributions to theory and practice ranged from mathematics to painting, from computation to stage set design, from architectural history to architectural practice […]
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Will a robot take your (design) job?
As designers, happily embedded in the creative industries, we may feel that our jobs are safe from the looming automation that artificial intelligence (AI) and robots will bring to the job market. For example, explore the BBC’s tool for predicting the likelihood that a robot could take your job, and you will find that design […]
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Managing creative processes
Found an interesting article by Steven A. Lowe, Project management: A surefire way to kill your software product, which discusses management practices applied to software development. Although Lowe’s focus is software, the discussion can easily be applied to management processes in any creative industry. Much of the narrative will be familiar to anyone who has tried to be creative in […]
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Circular economies
I came across the following Greenpeace video which paints a bleak picture of the impact of the smart phone revolution over the past 10 years or so. The constant drive to own the latest and greatest smartphone is having a huge impact on resources and the environment, and this is unsustainable. The video suggests a solution […]