Week 10 - Design Insights

ON LEARNING WITH DEEP DESIGN INSIGHTS:

1. What are the 3 most important lessons, takeaways or design skill-sets have you learned from the distinctive ‘Design Insights’ module? How have the module allow you to explore across specialisms to develop as versatile artists, designers and researcher of tomorrow? Please elaborate your answers.

- critical thinking

In this world dominated by media and perceptions, it is important for people, especially designers to know what they are thinking and how they are feeling towards a certain issue. Designer create stuff, and there is a huge responsibility in it, as everything is inter-connected with social, politics, and environment of the world. And it is also not just about knowing stuff, but understanding them. When we understand things, we will form questions as to why and how and what will happen afterwards. These are the things I learn most from Design Insights class.

- curiosity

It is crucial to have a curious spirit in order to be a designer or artist. Imagination is limitless, and so are the things in life. They expand and change in split seconds. We are living in a dynamic world, one that is filled with cultures and stories from around the world. It is a designer’s job to explore and see these things in order to get exposure. My mentor once said that no amount of knowledge can beat exposure. Skills and knowledge to be a designer can be gained by everyone, but perspective and character is what distinguish a designer from others.

- have fun

This is something that I have been struggling with, as I am quite a serious person in nature. But upon doing my works and conducting research for my trend report, I realized that I need to take things lightly and just have fun with it. Because when I did, I actually gained new insights. When I am having fun, I tend to be more curious and excited to learn new things. It is because I see them as new discoveries instead of just tasks to do. And it is actually good to just laugh at yourself sometimes, for the mistakes that you did. Because honestly, at some point we are all just dumb. We’re just little humans living in a big rock full of the unknowns, so just relax a bit and enjoy life.

ON TRANSDISCIPLIANARY INTERACTION AND COLLABORATION:

2. The progressive module adopts a trans-disciplinary approach to train future arts and design practitioners to position their work within contemporary, cultural, social and historical contexts. How have the module's trans-disciplinary approach inspire your learning and growth. Specifically, which 2 or 3 students did you learned the most from?

Coming from an illustration background, I have always been focused on stories from people, and how I feel towards them. But learning in Design Insights class has showed me that there are several other lens that I can see from, which can help with my view as a growing designer. Learning from famous and successful designers also taught me how I can navigate my way through. To try different things, to be culturally rooted, and to not be scared of failure. I guess it’s more about strengthening the foundation of my view, my opinions, and my perception to the things around me. I feel like I am slowly building my character as a designer, speaking my heart out from these journals and the trend report. Like I said, having your own voice is crucial in becoming an established designer.

1. What specific lessons did you learn from them? Elaborate.

2. How did other students gain from their interaction with you? Elaborate.

I think the student that left the strongest impression to me was Joey. She was the first person that I talked to in the first day of Design Insights. We were both late and the space in level 12 was quite packed so we had to get extra chairs to join the class. She helped me get mine and I was thankful cause I was really nervous that day. While conversing with her, I found this spark from her, it’s like she’s saying, “hey, i’m here, you’re awesome and let me know if I can help in any way” through her eyes. I guess empathy is what I learned most from her. And also her energy like being vibrant and bold.

I think the second student that I learned the most from would be Sanaya, she’s just very opinionated, in a good way. I have never been able to be as verbal as her, but I know that I have my own opinions. I guess I have been trying to learn from Sanaya to speak my thoughts out and be okay to be angry sometimes. I am a grateful person but sometimes it kinds of affects my judgement on things, to sometimes overlooks the flaws in everything. I can be angry and it’s okay cause it can be a start of change and even to create something better. It’s a tough life and we deserve good things, so it’s okay to ask for more sometimes.

ON TEACHING WITH YOUR FUTURE DESIGN PRACTICE IN MIND:

3. Dr. Bernard and Dir. Rand come from the world of art, design and academia with capabilities to take students to the next level. How have their creativity and exploration, daring students to push for exciting design frontiers by challenging them to pursue their dreams change your perspective of what design is, or could possible be? Specifically, how is the quality of their theory-practice led lectures and tutorials, teacher-student interaction, and above all, how have their 'design practice' pedagogical approaches impacted your own learning experience as an aspiring artist and designer practitioner?

1. Elaborate on your student-teacher support and mentoring experience with examples.

2. What would you like to say to each of your two lecturers:

i) Dr. Bernard Tan

ii) Dir. Rand Ang

From Dr. Bernard, I learn more about connecting design as a way of life. Every advice he gives us, it’s not only about our future as a designer, but as a human being. I guess I discovered a lot of things in design that are actually a way of life as well. For example, to be empathetic and understand audience, is actually pretty similar to how we maintain our relationship with the people around us in real life.

“Design is ultimately a quality of craft and thinking

“Design is to help society know the grand scheme of things”

- Dr. Bernard

I guess life itself we always seek to know the grand scheme of things, to make sense of everything. In design, we lessen the chaos a bit and create to help people, or to just simply express, in hopes that we can connect and figure our way through together, between designer and audience, as human beings, for the future.

From Dir. Randy, I learn to always expand my way of thinking and see things in different lenses. Randy also taught me to have more fun and lighten things a bit. Not every task needs to be taken too seriously, as long as we’re doing it correctly, critically, and responsibly. I always admire both Randy and Dr. Bernard as two amazing people with loads of experience, and also kindness to give their time to teach us these priceless lessons. They’re basically helping us crafting our stairs to be successful people.

“Design is storytelling. In everything we do, we tell a story.”

“Change happens within us.”

- Dir. Randy

I think that to notice what we have to do through design, it starts with us first. The way we embrace our background, the way we articulate feelings and thoughts. Everything we do is an act of storytelling, like Randy said. We’re not only narrating a story for a brand or a company, but of ourselves as well. In this rapidly changing world, design also keeps changing. Why? Because we, ourselves are in the process of changing and developing as well. In the end, design is human-centric. Everything revolves around us.

BONUS QUESTION:

• What type of ‘Design Futuring’ do you wish to learn or pursue in the module next semester? Please elaborate. Thank you for all the design related thinking and writing

I wish to learn more about how movies can affect design and design affect movies. Something like incorporating sci-fi elements in movies to future design? I guess I am a victim of sci-fi movies but it would be nice to actually design stuff that could be in future dystopian/utopian movies. It's also a good exercise for us to reimagine and predict future scenarios while playing with our imagination.