CR02 & RR02

What is Design?  I thought the brief segment of history of the industrial revolution was boring. It got really interesting when he started talking about new manufacturing technologies, about mass marketing and how it gave birth to the middle class. I thought the invention of the singer sewing machine and how it gave way to one of the first installment payments plan was interesting. So now the facts started to get a little more interesting it started to talk more about how the industrial revolution impact Aesthetics in Design. The part of the lecture I found most interesting were the chairs. I guess a few of them can be found in the architecture and art library.

What do designers do? So the class covered over what types of design OSU offers. I kinda already knew what they offered after speaking with the academic advisor. The actually definition are pretty vague and confusing. It was interesting to learn about the typography for VC majors, I never really paid attention to the difference in serif and sans serif and what message they conveyed. Then we watched a video of Paul Rand, he designed the ups, IBM, abc and a tons of other well known and recognized logo. He spoke of his view on art and aesthetic. I thought what he said was really confusing. I've never really talked about art so it was a lot to take in.

Paul Rand

So after reading the chapters in Heskett, it kind of reminded me of a Ted Talks i heard recently by Matt Ridley about "how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is."
Ted Talk Here
It's mind boggleing to think of how much in life revolves around design. It is a vast and deep topic. It was cool to see how simple design evoled to help human survive. An interesting quote in there was about how life is entirely condition by designed outcomes of one kind or another. A really interesting point i thought the book brought up was the need to understand cultural diversity in design. It seems like each culture has a very different need of the same thing and not understanding that could do more harm than good.