My 10 year old camera

Here's the image of my camera by the way. All the photos of Martin Place, Powerhouse museum, etc, gotta give a credit to this little guy here. So many stories and memories that I can tell about my life with this camera. I've traveled to so many places like Seoul, London, Hokkaido, Amsterdam, Sydney (yep! he's here with me now), etc and I always brought my camera with me. So it's kinda special to me and it's amazing that I'm still keeping and loving this camera.

Family Product Tree assignment

The image is a bit of low quality so sorry about that, i used a 4.0 megapixel camera and that's the only camera I got. All of my pictures here on my blog are taken by my lifelong buddy, 4.0 megapixel micro-mini digital camera... Olympus. It has been with for me about 10 years or so. I got the camera as a birthday present when I was 8!  Although this camera is not as good as any other latest models, it has served me well. The older the product or the more you show your appreciation towards your own product, the history of product will definitely become richer and more valuable no matter how how many years old or ugly looking the product is. Should consider to get a better one, perhaps Canon?

Design Passport Review

1.) Visit a museum: I've visited the Powerhouse Museum two months ago (April). i managed to explore all of the products that are designed for Australian International Design Awards 2010. The finalist is from UNSW and the designer is my tutor, Gonzalo Portas!  (completed on 17/4/2011)


2.) Visit a exhibition: I went to the Sydney Convention & Convention Center to check out what is Design Build 2011 all about. I got the chance to see a whole range of household products, especially the latest technology that is involved in some of the electrical products. The exhibition also showcases the industry of both building and construction. ( completed on 13/5/2011)

3.) Read and comment on a design blog: The name of the blog that I've read is 'theory.is the reason' (theory.isthereason.com/?p=50). I read 'Karim Rashid: Democratic Design' and the post is about improving products that would fit the people's use and present time. The main focus in design is us, humans! This is a good reminder for industrial designers because we can always design something new and yet comfortable for the people, not only just by following the previous or old design that have been explored. But of course, it is not always easy to achieve that. (completed on 30/4/2011)

4.) Read and comment another students IDES1122 blog: The blog is belong to Edric, that is Edric IDES1122 blog. It's about a dialog between 2 men about a painting. Man 1 was trying to understand the meaning and what kind of representation of man 2's painting. Both men were arguing because man 1 wanted to see something familiar but man 2 wanted to make his painting something different and more independent. My comment is: "That's a good point Edric. It is one of the principles of design that we need to understand. We shouldn't waste our time to copy or imitate something when it comes to appearance. It must have a reason to copy something. (completed on 11/4/2011)

5.) Read three design magazine/journal: The magazines that I've read are Axis vol.150 - April 2011, Form The Making of Design 237 - March/April 2011 and Innovation interactive experiences - summer 2010.
My particular interest was the interview with Kaoru Kasai from the Axis magazine. He gave the readers the his thoughts what is design is all about and his working life as well. It's great to know someone like Kaoru Kasai in more depth about him. Another article from Form magazine is quite interesting and the title is 'How to get inspired'. It has a list of advices by designers from around the world on how to get inspired in the design world. Basically, most of them would say that it's all about the passion in us. (completed on 12/5/2011)

6.) Do the UNSW Library induction - ELISE: It's a good thing that I've completed the test during the orientation week, on February. Definitely don't want to do the test while having a busy time with my assignments. (completed on 24/2/2011)

7.) Visit another Library - COFA, Fisher, etc: I went to the COFA library to borrow a few books that are related to industrial design. My first book was Phaidon design classics.333 of 999 objects.Volume 1. I think this book has a great introduction what is industrial design is all about and it's a good start for those people who is still do not understand the meaning of  'industrial design'. It's a giant book and of course I did not have the time to read and admire the whole book but definitely will check it out again in this coming holiday. (completed on 10/3/2011)

8.) Listen to ABC Radio 'By Design' Podcast: Although architecture is thought to address only one sense, that of sight, Julia Pallasmaa thinks it should be all about touch, small, hearing and even taste as well. I never thought that architecture could be related to taste. Perhaps it could be applied to industrial design too? I sure that everything can be expressed through more than one element other than sight. (completed on 15/4/2011)

9.) Watch a TED talk: The tittle of the TED video is 'Steve Jobs - How to live before you die'. The 3 stories told by Steve Jobs to the graduated of Stanford University are truly inspiring. All these stories are real life stories that Stove Jobs had gone through. The lesson of the 1st story is to believe in ourselves that we can 'connect the dots' by looking forward which will give us confidence to go through all kinds of hardships.
The lesson of the 2nd story is that we have to find what we love in almost everything that we do and to do what we believe is great work. He also stressed out that if we haven't found the things that we love to do, keep on looking and don't just keep staying at one place.
The moral of the 3rd story is that no one can escape death and this is the reason why we should not waste our time of our life on other people's opinions. We can always choose to follow our heart because we know what we really want to become deep inside in our hearts. Steve Jobs reminded us that death can be a life changing tool. (completed on 3/4/2011)

30 dumb inventions?!

Just spotted an article from the LIFE and it's about 30 stupid or useless inventions made in the past 50 years or so. Looks like the inventors are trying hard to be smart or they just designed it for fun? 
By the way, the Hubbard Electrometer, 1968 reminds me of Roald Dahl's short story 'The Sound Machine'. Ridiculously hilarious.

Link: http://www.life.com/gallery/25371#index/0

7 tips for better relationships and networking

This article is pretty useful in my opinion, and the given tips are something that we could and should learn as industrial designers. The article is about how to make better connections with other people and organize ourselves.

Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/112239/7-networking-no-nos

Knowing smart products

These are some of the simple but clever products that have made quite a success and most of them are selling like hot cakes! They are not really 'life changing' products but I find that the inventors are quite thoughtful.

Here's the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42978992?slide=1

 

Source: CNBC

My Piranesi: Behind-the-scenes

Technically, we've got 9 more days to finish up our Piranesi drawings. Hopefully, everything will be done by next Wednesday. So far so good, nearly 25% of the drawing has been completed but still got a lot of work to be done. It took me about 6-7 hours to finish 25% of the drawing.

Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a great tool to enhance our creativity and would improve our thinking skills. It could even help us to generate new ideas while drawing the map. I always try and learn to draw mind maps, especially thinking hard and smart of new ideas for assignments, drawings, daily activities and so on. I find that mind maps have the ability to engage and interest us to do things that we do not find it interesting at all.

                                   
Do try to learn and draw mind maps! It might become one of your best ways on how to plan your work more effectively and fun at the same time.

7 insights to make you a great designer

There was a topic on a website called 'Design Droplets' and it's about seven ways/reminders/advices to be a good designer. It's an old link but the info is pretty useful for us. Do check it out and I hope you would learn something from it, whether new or old.

 Link: http://designdroplets.com/articles/7-insights-great-designer/

Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs book

This a book that I've bought about 6 months ago in a bookstore in Malaysia. I haven't finished reading it yet, but the book was really good so far. You would learn on how to deliver presentations that could excite and would ensure that the audiences would keep listening to you, just the way how Steve Jobs did it. Of course, planning is always the first step to start, so you have the create a story first before delivering the experience. I think this book is more suitable for the industrial designers because most skills and techniques of presentations in this book are more on how to convince people to buy a particular product. It's definitely a good way to watch YouTube videos of Steve Jobs' presentations and at the same time, reading the book.

 There are two quotes that I found in this book that I would like to share them with you guys :

1.) A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different and novel - but if that person can't convince other people, it doesn't matter.    -Gregory Berns-

2.) I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.    -Wayne Gretzky-

Books from Library 2

A few days ago, I went to the COFA Library again to find a few interesting books to borrow. Let's have a look:

I would recommend you guys to get this one. This book is about how to design sustainable products and in order to do it, we have to obey five principles: Cyclic, Solar, Efficient, Safe and Social.
Cyclic: part of natural cycles or made of materials that can be composed
Solar: Renewable energy
Efficient: Less environmental damage or less materials needed for a specific product but still effective
Safe: No hazardous materials
Social: to give everyone a chance to be part of the team to create the specific product; must be fair and cooperate with others

This book is written by Henry Dreyfuss and published in 1955. This book is a great guide for those who wanted to know how to design products that 'fits people'. The title says it all. I've read the first few pages and it was really fun and enjoyable to read actually. Lot of drawings of cartoons and written notes too.

Personally, I love cooking so I am definitely interested to include this book into my 'books to borrow' list.

A visit to the Powerhouse Museum

My visit to the Powerhouse Museum this afternoon was indeed an eye opener. Other than learning design, I took the opportunity to explore the whole museum and find more interesting info about fashion, space, architecture, Australian history and many more. Below are some of the photos that I've took.

 

                                               
                     Guess who's the designer behind this product below?

 

The designer is Gonz, our tutor. Wow, that's a very good achievement!  Congratulations! I couldn't believe it man, It's Gonz. I'm so happy for him. I assume that we do need to know and remember our biology that we used to learn in school to create this product. What a great way to improve it.

 

 Another fantastic product coming in next....

 

 

Why pink?

There was an interview made by Yanko Design with the famous designer, Karim Rashid. The interview is quite interesting and it is a good start for those who wanted to get to know more about him through this interview, especially why the pink colour is his favourite.

  

Here is the link:

 http://www.yankodesign.com/2011/04/04/not-afraid-of-color-interview-with-karim-rashid/


There is also another site by a blogger about Karim Rashid that I've stumbled upon. This lucky blogger actually got the chance to meet him and he do know quite a lot about Rashid in terms of philosophy, the current situation and future of design. It's a very good read:

http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=50

Pictures of Martin Pl

These are some of the shots that I took at Martin Place last Saturday. It was enjoyable exploring the place with my group members, drawing and taking pictures of Martin Place and its surroundings. I think it is a good way to learn to appreciate the beauty and understand deeply what makes Martin Place so significant.

 
Trying to be a professional photographer you know...