Introductions — Reflections.
Design Philosophy has always fascinated me. The way something is designed holds an inherent stake in how it affects its user, and these stakes are not to be taken lightly. Communication is all about the transference of ideas, through mediums, through societies and through culture. When you marry such a high stake with the impact it could reach through communication — it becomes apparent immediately that the philosophy behind it must be thoroughly explored and understood.
While I certainly enjoyed the core intent behind the class, I couldn’t help but notice that there were a number of complications, as well as perhaps things that could’ve been improved. It is known that self-analysis tends to be an inaccurate or incomplete source of research at times, and i felt that perhaps our introductions could’ve been more interactive as the students got to know the lecturer, but ultimately, with near 50 students to round out the class, this would’ve no doubt proven nigh impossible. Perhaps over the rest of the course, this will change. Regardless of this, the activity’s final outcome did prove to be a great segue into talking about the evolution of design trends and the tie in with how our technological ability and understanding has changed in our local contemporary context.
These understandings and reflections then go on to shape our future of design, of research and of creation — learning from our mistakes and our successes to further perfect what it means to be alive and human and experience our existence. To that end, I believe that this course will provide a cornerstone of understanding to us that we, as designers, must grasp to fully maximize our place in the digital ecosystem that we inhabit, and what roles we play in bettering the lives of others.
it is important to be rigorously critical (especially self-critical) when analyzing and deconstructing or constructing. Every idea that merits research or exploration deserves to be methodically investigated to provide the designer feedback on its feasibility, viability and desirability — this concept is perhaps one of the core ones behind Design in general, and is a direct result of our furthered understanding that has developed after finding insight on the most crucial aspects behind our designs — the people that interact with it. Without researching what our society needs — how are we supposed to change it? In our digital age, these needs are rapidly changing from what our historical ideas have shown us to be the case — the world has moved online. We have inhabited a co-created virtual structure.
In this digital migration, a lot of sentiments have been dropped, while some have been bought on from the old . Yet, we can not deny that our social understandings of design, philosophy and technology are being stretched thin — we are approaching the age of cybernetics, AI technology that could automate the world (and also burn it to ash), hardware capable of accurately and realistically simulating our existence as we know it. It no longer means the same to be Designer as it did 50,30, or even 10 years ago. While the exponential curve of technological advancement has been apparent, no one can predict the path of futurology. It falls to us, as Designers, to use what we know to perhaps guide the oncoming avalanche of advancement in the right direction, not as the moral and ethical judges, but as advocates for human prevalence and prosperity.
In the end, in order for us to design for change, it is quintessential that we learn where to see and listen-so that we do not design blindly. After all, what is design if there is no one you are designing for?
