LP – Journal Entry – Week 1
After reading the Manifestos by various authors and the article “The 6 Pillars of Steve Jobs’s Design Philosophy”, I’ve gathered insights on how a designer can design a successful product. Bruce Mau gave an example on architects’ designs, that architects should possess the ability to understand the needs of the public, not only through analyzing the events and patterns around them in the past and present, but with some intuition as well. The architect is human and should have needs of their own which they can incorporate into their designs, and it will solve the problems of people who think the same. In the article, Cliff Kuang noted how Steve Jobs had an unique approach to designing a product. The message I got was that designers should always polish even the less noticeable details, not just because it will grant themselves peace of mind, but also because its how the audience will determine their impression on the product. It was discussed when the author talked about how Steve Jobs, despite common designers’ complains, would spend hours polishing the user interface, claiming that people will look at details for hours on end.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 2 Identity
This week’s readings are centered around the idea of identity. I saw points discussed of how sights and experiences determine images, but images and words are only the reconstructions of the scene saw by the creator’s eyes. The words reveal the character of the writer, and the image is the artist’s depiction of that scene. Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook” explains this relationship thoroughly, giving real life examples about how her notes she took. For instance when Joan talks about her daughter “Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up.” As a child, they have no sense of regret due to them being new to this world, age is a factor of identity too, therefore Joan doubts that her daughter will have the habit of marking down any experiences at that point of time. In personal cases, upon creating a design or artwork, its the same, your works will inevitably reveal your identity. For example, people who view my recent works and my current works will label me based on my art style, thus generating an identity that is unique to me. They mark me as someone who can create scenes where fantasy depicts a real life lesson, through the use of complex lines and a black and white color scheme.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 3 Observation
The readings this week is mainly about observations of constructed environments around us. “The Experience of Place” by Tony Hiss explains that some aspects of a constructed environment cannot be planned beforehand. What might work better than expected must come from the effect of the environment produced on the targeted population. People have the ability to adapt and adjust to a constructed environment, so at times the environment’s design can end up shaping the lifestyle of the people in the area. Observation is important due to the fact that its a form of testing a theory, with the theory being the product introduced to the intended audience. Further observing the patterns of the lifestyles of a population can sometimes reveal surprising information about what works or not. An example given in the reading was the fact that, over the last century, more and more people have been acting less outdoors. This observation also led scientists to believe that this might be the cause of the negative statuses of certain demographics residing in a certain area.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 5 Research Topic
The reading of this week is spoken from the point of view of the author. He recalls events from his childhood, where he took a foreign language of Japanese and had to learn 150 kanji characters every day. It was this memory that caused De Waal to grow familiar to Japanese culture, in their forms of arts and crafts.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 8 Interpretation and Argument
The week was focused on determining a topic that is interesting for people to read but at the same time tackles a very important question regarding constructed environments that humans nowadays strive to upkeep and innovate. Through researching, I formulated a question that is almost an argument, are constructed environments merely a way for people to prolong the inevitable fall of nature? If we look around, life today as we know it or may not know it is slowly transforming our minds into thinking about how to efficiently and effortlessly obtain our goals, whether it’s through the help of technology or human innovation. But have we stopped to think the output of our desires? Where would our designs end up trying to satisfy the needs of everyone?
LP – Journal Entry – Week 10 Thesis
Thinking about my research topic, I’ve come to the conclusion of joining my 2 initial questions into one broad yet manageable topic. My thesis is: Elements of an advanced constructed urban environment consisting of noise pollution, the fast and unforgiving pace of the lifestyle, and the competition between diverse groups of people generate an uncomfortable living environment for humans as well as causing harm to the original natural ecosystem of the area. Constructed urban environments will ultimately be hazardous to the well-being of humans. This research aims to prove that constructed environments are a mere excuse to delay the inevitable future for human well-being under the current mass expansion of urban settlements over our natural environment.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 11 Visual Research
Visual research is really what all of us do subconsciously every day, regarding the environment and the people around us. Our eyes capture imagery, and we analyze patterns of different groups of people around us. For example, the patterns of lifestyles between an Asian and a North American, in contrast, the people’s attitudes towards human ingenuity are different, one is more straightforward and one is more recessive, preferring to avoid the problem. Visual research can also come from certain cues that people give to each other, speeches, taboos, and much more. For my research paper, the visual research will center around how people respond to preserving nature and upholding the pace of expansion for the materialistic lifestyle that people live by in today’s society.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 13 Outline
The week was all about outlines, for seminar and for another class. The outline I created was a simple reminder of what to put and where to put it, as well as a place to decide where my most important points should fit in order for readers who are not reading in-depth to my text to be able to find out the powerful argument. The outline is not something I personally would create in my normal habits, so I find it hard to follow through as I generally improvise as I write. I aim for the research paper to sound more relevant to the reader, as in I will make it sound educated yet the language and points will be easily understandable.
LP – Journal Entry – Week 14 Reflections
As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect upon all the events that happened since the fall semester last year. An in-depth reflection has already been written for the cross course reflection, but mainly for the seminar course, the most important thing I got out of it was to refresh the skills of doing research and organizing it all into various forms of presentations. Being from an illustration major, it is important we reflect upon our process, and this course introduces the research and written aspects. The topic I chose was aimed towards the human effort to counter the side effects of urbanization. With little prior knowledge to constructed environments, I had to dive deeper into wondering about why some constructed environments are unable to sustain the growing population whereas I would do surface investigations before.
