Task 01: Dieter Rams – 10 Principles of ‘good design’

we have been put up to the task of finding two objects that we commonly use or own and to explain if that object follows the Principles of good design. the principles are

My chosen object is going to the canon DLSR cameras, I’ve chosen this due to the fact of what it was designed for and how its helped people around the world to be creative.

What I already know is about DLSR’s are that they can be used for a lot of things. They can be used for simply taking photos of the things around you and using it for personal use. It can not only be used for personal reasons but also for commercial uses such as advertisements and presenting a certain product in whatever way the creator envisions. I would say that it is an understandable and innovative object that almost anyone can use day to day if needed.

The overall look and design of DLSR’s such as cannon, Nikon and etc.  they all follow a similar design, what I can see is that they use a basic colour scheme such as black and white so that the buttons and information is clear to the viewer. Having this black and white with the lens attachment also creates this unique aesthetic as if your looking down a scope and that incentive gives you the feeling of wanting to use it again. I would say that the camera is unobtrusive in ways as it’s easy to hold in your hands due to the curvature of the handle allowing more grip to the user but also of the size, although it can be annoying at times to pack or carry round while you’re doing your day to day work the camera can easily be put to your side for quick shots because of the pre given strap. The designers thought of a way to minimize space when carrying it around as well by allowing you to take of the lens and use a cap for the lens mirror so that It can be protected whilst you change the lens or you need to free some space in your bag. The designers definitely thought through the process of creating this camera so I would say that it is thorough because of the amount of options and ways to protect the object but also it being long lasting due to the thought process they had when designing it.

Lastly a lot of objects now a days are not the most environmentally friendly but what I found about canon is that they launched a “Environmental Vision” campaign where they aim to improve on its corporate activates and how the company aims to achieve sustainable cooperate growth. This means they are going to find better and more sustainable ways to create their products with as little environmental impact as they can. I see canon as an all rounded company as well as their DLSR cameras as you can see through their products. In the end what I found researching more into this product is that it’s a product that you can buy and you know what you’re getting into, this object in my eyes follows all of the criteria and can’t do much without its limitations of being used for taking photos and so on.

scissors

The design for scissors was to enable people to create and use it for crafts when it came to create handmade designs. The earliest designs for scissors dated back around 400Bc in Egypt but some other research shows that it might be dated even before that time. Although this object can be seen throughout history the uses and design has not changed all that much, when the idea of scissors started to come about the first designs has more holes for your fingers to go in such as three or four holes to hold on to but as the years went on it started to become more simplistic and could say easier to use.

I find that the object was innovative but only when It started to evolve into what we know today as the only design changes were the holes you would hold them with. Because of its simple design it doesn’t have much use for what it was made for other than cutting things such as paper and using it for arts and crafts. With this it does follow some of the 10 principles of good design but not all of them.

The principles of the design it follows are that its honest as it can’t be mistaken for something else due to its limited use, its long lasting but sometimes can break depending on the manufacturer. I also see that it has as little design as possible and that’s probably because of what it was created for and at that point really didn’t more improvement as it served it purpose to the fullest extent it can. If It was to be improved on it would be things such as a sharper edge or a better way to hold it, I find that I slightly follows the principle being thorough down to the last detail as designers over the years have simplified it to the point it doesn’t need more improvement.

Compared to the DLSR its application of use it far from what the camera can do. This is obviously because the reason of design was for different uses, but I wanted to compare the principles together as its shows that whenever something is designed you can see that if the object can be used for many things its possibilities of improvement can be endless. This idea of improvement with scissors can only go so far and that’s why I don’t think it can follow most of the 10 Principles of good Design.

Introduction to the module

For the first Lecture we started off my introducing ourselves and after a break Paul went through a power point explaining what the course is going to be about. He explained that the module is going to be focused on the academic and thinking skills that we can use to help our skills though out the module. Not only will we focus on them improvements we will learn and explore where we are now, where we aspire to be and where ill we aspire to be in the future.

After going through what the module will be like we then looked at different design concepts though out different jobs and industry’s that use a design for one thing or anthother.

During the end of the lesson we were given the task to look at the 10 Principles of good design and how it can affect the things that are created and designed.