Homes and their Interiors

For the past few days I've been looking at different furniture brands, artwork for inspiration for my design and a bit of psychology thrown in for good measure!

The first furniture brand I was looking at was Domus.

Gestalt Psychology

I also started to look at Gestalt psychology where he talks about the principles of visual perception and how human organise information in order to understand it efficiently.  Gestalt says that this group of perceptual information and being able to link this to previous knowledge of a situation can help one to understand a seemingly new situation. Gestalts' principles have been applied frequently to User Interface Design and software. I may look into his work further to help build a strong foundation for my design. The reason I was pointed towards this theory was from looking at a previous students thesis - Celeste Bergin.

Thesis

I started to look at Celeste Bergin thesis on Ornamental Pattern:An Interactive Design Process as although it was not a similar topic, it did have interesting points on shapes and patterns.

 Surrealism & Dali

The reason I started looking at Dali was that a lot of his inspiration for his work came from Sigmund Freud's writings on the significance of  subconscious imagery. As I am trying to provoke exploration and for users to derive their own personal meaning, this held quite a significance. 

I have given a very brief overview of what I have been looking at this week but I plan on expanding these points in more detail above after 3dCamp!

Dissertation Inspiration Continued... "design doesn't always have to look forward..."

“... design doesn’t always have to look forwards...”

What I mean by this is, my inspiration is not just drawn from all of the amazing technologies that are being worked on at the moment but that much of my inspiration has been drawn from older sources such as twentieth century designs. This is where I started looking at older products or older models of products such as 70’s tvs, gramophones, record players, radios. I also liked the idea of looking at products that maybe we don’t use anymore such as a teasmaids and along those lines.

The images above signify connecting people, using music as an activation key, entertainment - this should be fun, different - that this should be interesting. One of the reasons I picked the teasmaid is because I think it is a really interesting design. The fact that an alarm clock and a kettle were married together I think is really fun and a a really interesting way to solve a problem.

One of the reasons I was interested in looking at furniture or domestic appliances is that generally they apply to the masses. In all homes there will be some sort of seating, lighting or appliance so I really liked the idea of using something like this as it would not be alien concept to people and hopefully they would be more comfortable with it.

Dissertation - What is the Idea Now

‘ ... to create an integrated piece to enhance living spaces ...’ 

For my Dissertation, I have now decided to investigate the area of Interactive Living for the Domestic Market. I would like to create an integrated and interactive piece for the home, which enhances your time spent there. Nowadays, everyone is busy so I would like to create something that evokes the senses in a natural, seamless way while at the same time ensuring that it is not intrusive or overbearing. Functionality will have a big impact on this design, in that I want the interactivity to create added value, as opposed to taking away from its original function, i.e. if it is a chair, it should function as a chair. 

It is also vital for me that what is created is something the user will want to interact with and feel positive in relation to the piece. It is important to that is not just adding to the mass of already excessive products but that it actually adds something positive to peoples lives and that they enjoy using it. Going forward I think it will be very important to ensure that whatever solution I come up with still has its function and that the ‘novelty’ doesn’t wear off.

I would like to design an interactive piece that either incorporates furniture or domestic appliances. Where possible, I would like to use either pre-existing products and adapt them to be twenty first  century versions of themselves, or using them for a new purpose / ‘repurposing them’.

Dissertation - Where to go now...

Since my last posts (which I didn't get to finish anyway!). I have looking to possible go back to one of my original areas but taking it on in the form of interactive furniture, perhaps a coffee table. I like the idea of turning everyday objects that are not traditionally interactive in the media sense into more advanced versions of themselves.