Bringing the idea into the world
- The thesis from the previous stage is a good beginning but only outlines a direction
- How to explain the ideas further
Creating a sustainable concept
- Make sustainability an inherent constraint
- Minimizing the environmental impact
- Materials, energy, life
- Colors are toxic
Gestalt perception
- Fill gaps, ground the concept to the reality, present to others, be familiar with the inner working so you can change things.
- Gestalt: shape, form, pattern, whole
- Law of Pragnanz:
- Similarity: we tend to group similar things
- Proximity: group based on nearness
- Closure: group completed items
- Continuity: we see complete shapes, pattern recognition
- Membership character: define a single part of a whole based on the context
- Open gestalt: enough elements to suggest a whole but not to create the entire design
Brainstorming
- Spontaneously thinking
- Record everything
- Rules: have an agenda, define success, in a group appoint facilitator, write all ideas down, don’t criticize, no doomsayers, the more ideas the better, welcome hitchhiking ideas, encourage free willing, set a time limit, edit and consolidate, revisit.
- Use as inspiration
- Spot the relevant ideas and let go of the bad ones
- Brainstorming is a game
A poetic tool kit
Smile: comparison of two unlike things
Metaphor: more immediate relationship between objects, omits “like”
Analogy: comparison in which different items are compared point by point. Shows similarities
Brainstorming tools
Cubing: examine the concept from 6 different perspectives
- Description
- Comparison
- Association
- Construction
- Use
- Troubleshooting: pros and cons
Concept maps: organizing and presenting knowledge, nodes, and connectors
Analysis
- Listing pros and cons
- Visualize and sketch
- Scamper: gain insight into a developing concept
- Substitute: replace something in your design
- Combine: blend elements together
- Adapt: adjustments to more elaborated demands
- Minimize/ magnify: reduce or increase the shape or form
- Put to other uses: create new ways of using something
- Eliminate/ elaborate: strip the concept down to most basic state and build it up from there, eliminate waste
- Reverse/ rearrange: swap something
Presenting concepts
- Summarize concept as well as explain it in complete detail
- Do’s:
- Practice presentation
- Cover all the bases
- Speak to your audience
- Be enthusiastic
- Welcome all feedback
- Present options
- Samples and visuals
- Don’ts
- Assume knowledge
- Assume obviousness
- Gloss over gaps or problems
- Present fillers
- Spend more on the content than the presentation
- Present inaccurate or half-finished models
- Assume that presentation technology will work
- Panic
