Category: Design comment
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Transformative Transport design
Sometimes something happens that represents the tipping point between simply enhancing the design of an existing product or service and when a transformative redesign happens. I am wondering if we are about to hit this for urban transport systems. The modern tram is frequently seen as a core high quality public transport system, but its […]
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The Design Group at TEDx – Part 1: Learning to Change Our Minds
The Open University hosted TEDx last week, providing a platform for a range of interesting and diverse speakers across the UK. The Design Group (not short of something to say in public) was represented by no less than four speakers. Claudia Eckert, Helen Lockett, Stephen Peake, and Derek Jones. Over the next few weeks each […]
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Designing Urban Atmospheres
In everyday speech, people may say that a restaurant has a very romantic atmosphere. Likewise, the atmosphere of a shopping centre may be said to be vibrant. It may be difficult so explain exactly what such an atmosphere is or how it is cultivated but we can be certain that a design expert of some […]
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Mackintosh & the Glasgow Style Gallery- Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
I was in Glasgow recently, and lucky enough to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum . The grandeur of the building itself is worth a visit. The organ playing was a memorable experience, as was seeing the beautiful paintings in the Glasgow Boys Gallery and the products in the Mackintosh and The Glasgow Style Gallery. […]
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Engineering design on show
The Engineering Design Show in the Coventry Ricoh Arena last week provided a great opportunity for Design academics Nicole Lotz and Georgy Holden to see companies showing state-of-the-art design engineering as well as to meet with one of our new design students. A strong theme in the show was 3D printing. This ranged from day […]
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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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Yorkshire Sculpture Park
The Open University is part of a Centre for Doctoral Training, called DesignStar http://www.designstar.org.uk. The centre had organised a Summer School at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk a couple of weeks back. On the first day, the group of around 20 students and supervisors had a choice to attend either of two sessions led by the […]
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Design Revolutions? IASDR 2019
The IASDR2019, a biannual conference on design research, organised by the International Association of Societies for Design Research, brought together a truly international group of researchers and designers. This year’s theme ‘design revolutions’ steered some discussions around design and change. I asked myself: As we are living in a more and more chaotic and rebellious […]
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Conference Report: Learn X Design 2019
Conference Report: Learn X Design 2019 | Crossposted from https://www.designresearchsociety.org/articles/learn-x-design-2019 The fifth annual DRS Pedagogy SIG Learn X Design conference, Insider Knowledge, was held July 9-12 at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. And the Design Group were represented by both past and present members. The conference hosted 150 delegates from 81 institutions in […]
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I installed email notification
I hope everyone is having a great summer! If you’d like to add your email to receive blog post and comment notifications from Open@Design (that is if you are currently not an ‘author’) please send me an email at nicole.lotz@open.ac.uk