Research pt.1
- Ahmad Ahseek
- Aug 25, 2020
- 6 min read
BMI cool roof
I’ve read about the BMI cool roof, where the designers thought about a way of giving a roof different purposes, in this case, it’s about reflecting solar radiation and cooling down the building, a method which they claim useful for hot climate countries. The company explain how beneficial their technology is, especially due to the fact that the interiors will remain cool reducing the need for air conditioners and thereby the electricity usage and cost.
BMI also states a few important points such as how through the usage of a specific material in architectural design they can solve some global issues such as the over consumption of energy. They developed 2 different products a TPO heat insulation layer which has to be applied on the roof and a painting which serve the same purpose.
Thinking about architecture in the form of design it is a very interesting concept. Especially the paint which does require any reconstruction and it is even very accessible for the majority of people.
Story of Smiley Face
It was interesting to read about the story of the smiley face. Since its so widely known now I wasn’t expecting it to even has a copyright on. The story began with Harvey Ball in 1963 when he was asked to come up with a design to cheer up the employees of a business. He was paid only 45$ for his design and a few year later it became so famous that people were fighting to get the copyright over it but it is widely accepted that Harvey was the creator of the design though.
What intrigue me was mostly the materialistic ways of life throughout this story; how Bernard and Murray Spain, Franklin Loufrani and Walmart were trying to obtain the licensing over the design and earn from it.
This story actually made me realize how copyrighting is important in the world of today especially if a designer want to protect his design from other’s hands.
The design, even though now used in texts in the form of a language, and on many shirts or even banners in some occasions remain a symbol of positivity and an act of kindness.
The Future if VUI
I found it interesting how we keep on laughing about the mistakes that occurs while using Google Assistant or any of these Smart Voice services and then listening to the behind the scenes of the designers who did it. It is in fact a very complex mechanism, especially because we humans tends to be messy but our brain has the ability to cope with it and understand whatever is within this, accent, sentence structure among others, but computers don’t and since these services are computers it make the desired outcome harder to reach. In this case, since the product aims the wide audience, it’s not favorable that the audience have to adapt to the computer which furthermore adds to the difficulty of this task.
But the research keeps on going, and there were so many interesting points within this article such as how we humans we interact with each other, since talking is a very emotional and a more intimate way of interacting. The designers of VUI are actually researching on how to make this technology more smart and to reply to a person in the way a real person would have replied in a specific situation which I think is the way that it has to work. We surely don’t want everybody to leave behind their emotions to start communicating with their phones since we use our phones everyday this will affect our own ways of socializing from my perspective.
Moreover, it states in the article that VUI shouldn’t read too much neither because, it might bore the person to listen to his Google Assistant reading all the lists of the item he searched one after the other, especially due to the fact that the internet is overloaded with information. But in the same manner, each individual has their own characteristic from what I believe and maybe some will be expecting that their VUI will summarize at least the first 3 headlines.
I was actually very interested in this subject, especially because there’s a lot of psychology and sociology within it. I in fact believe that the development of this project could go extremely further, knowing how Google, Huawei and Amazon has technology that detects what people search and brings specific ads that relates to each different personalities. By the same way, detecting the character of that person and make the VUI replying this person in a manner that he will feel comfortable with because I don’t believe that everybody would like a response in a very formal manner everytime. The cons however, to this method is that some might take it as an invasion of their privacy, so there’s still a lot of exploration to be made.
Meiting Song's Designs and Background
The following article intrigued because it was simply about a recent graphic design graduate and not about some facts or famous Graphic Designers, so I wondered how she caught their attention. Meiting Song, explains her ideas and visuals and also her background, being a Chinese studying in the US during the Covid season, she felt insecure and needed some positivity thereby creating some visuals to express herself. However, this wasn’t what caught their attention at first.
She from the beginning had a unique style, influenced by the early 20’s Chinese Pop Culture and also due to the fact that each of her animation has a different style from the other and she did explain how she likes exploring different medium, she did photography, illustration, graphic design and animation mostly, and still she wants to explore music and be able to make her own music.
I’ve always been intrigue by multi-disciplinary artist or designers and try to get out of my comfort zone when I feel quite prepared to do so. I really enjoy how she explain her journey through the creative side, starting by
Chinese painting from her childhood to digital animation she does right now, and I also enjoyed the fact that she wants to explore music which is totally different from drawing. She explains how it’s hard to find the right music for her animation and thereby the need for her own music.
I believe that through exploring such skills away from our comfort zone we can discover new things like perhaps even discovering new philosophies or new methodology to solve a problem, I do know from my previous research for my previous projects that music has an effect on the brain, so even though it’s far from what design use to focus on it can be a very useful tool in the future.
Magazines and Social Medias
Thinking about magazines we never really associate it to digital but since the social medias started the need for digital design started surfacing. A point that was mentioned by Zeit Magazin from Germany states how their designs were not suitable for the social medias but they had to adapt since they discovered that their audience from the social medias were more active.
They also talk about how when it first started people found it different to make content for social medias since they were aiming too high, making complex animation when they could make a simple gif on certain pages. And this part reminded me on how as designers aiming simplicity is occasionally the best option a bit like the Swiss Designs.
This point was actually proven by another example in the article where The New Yorker, which has a cover that animates itself in a quite mesmerizing way when you place your AR app, in this case the Uncover app over the cover of the magazine. However even though how so many details were popping up due to the fact that people had to download an additional app to view it many were not so willing to try it out and the demand for AR in magazine designs had a decrease.
I believe that this story is a really good example on why we have to aim for simplicity as designers. Our audience wouldn’t be willing to do any extra steps, we have to offer them something that will be ready for the interaction.
Dezeen, 2020. BMI Group's "cool roofs" reduce interior temperatures while benefitting the environment. [online] Available at: <https://www.dezeen.com/2020/08/21/bmi-group-cool-roofs/> [Accessed 21 August 2020].
My Modermist Met, 2020. Who Invented the Smiley Face? Discover the Not-So-Smiley History of the Graphic Yellow Icon. [online] Available at: <Dezeen, 2020. BMI Group's "cool roofs" reduce interior temperatures while benefitting the environment. [online] Available at: <https://www.dezeen.com/2020/08/21/bmi-group-cool-roofs/> [Accessed 21 August 2020].> [Accessed 18 August 2020].
Gladow, K., 2020. 3 Reasons Why It’s Time to Talk about Voice UI. Frog, [online] Available at: <https://www.frogdesign.com/designmind/3-reasons-why-its-time-to-talk-about-voice-ui> [Accessed 25 August 2020]
Ong, J., 2020. What is “good taste”? Meiting Song defies categorisation with her all-encompassing portfolio. It's Nice That, [online] Available at: <https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/meiting-song-the-graduates-2020-graphic-design-animation-illustration-170820> [Accessed 17 August 2020].
Gosling, E., 2020. How Designers Are Adapting Magazine Covers For the Digital Sphere. Eye On Design, [online] Available at: <https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-designers-are-adapting-magazine-covers-for-the-digital-sphere/> [Accessed 17 August 2020].
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