Sunday, September 14, 2008

[Reading] Designing Design



"Designing Design*," I found this book during summer before the semester started. It's amazing that this book is out of stock for almost 2.5 months, and the online waiting list is still really long. I was lucky enough to get the last second copy before my friend told me the book was really popular. I skimmed through the whole book (only pictures and some titles) and started reading the first chapter (during the summer). After a while, stuff (bootcamp, restration, etc.) cut in so that I didn't keep on reading. The new project which we're currently working on in this class reminds me the first chapter from this book. So, what the book is talking about? Well, the contents in this book are separated into several parts. Only the first part, which is "Re-design" reflects Iva and my concept for the project.

The author (Kenya Hara) who is also an art director in Japan started and planned an innovative design exhibition, which was called "Re-design." His plan was to assign one everyday object each artist involved in this project. The main idea was to re-design the object into a different look/ appearance to break the traditional impression on this daily object. The function would remain the same, just the look was different. For instance, he made one architect to re-create the roach house. So, this architect came up with a tiny flat paper tunnel to trap cockroaches. A simple shape out of the traditional roach house. Other artists re-design matches, diapers, toilet paper, and even food!

After we were assigned to create product(s), it recalled me the contents from the book. "Re-design" concept really gives me inspiration. So, I told Iva maybe we could start working on this direction. And, we want to continue this "Re-design" theme and develop more for ourselves. This book expresses a lot great concepts and is a good reference. So, you might want to check it out later.




*Book cover photo taken from "2Modern Design Talk" website: http://blog.2modern.com/2008/01/design-publishe.html.

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