On Thursday 17 March, I attended the Industry Speaker Seminar at Swinburne University with other Vis Comm students from my school as well as from other schools. It was designed for Vis Comm Unit 3 outcome, which is based on understanding the individual professional design processes and practices undertaken by designers in various fields: communication design, industrial design and environment design. I was very lucky to hear stories from Sonia Kretschmar, an illustrator, Matthew Butler, a furniture designer, and Darren Naftal, an architect.
I found interesting that each designer has some sort of brief / criteria to develop their design with. Sonia begins designing a book cover with a synopsis of story and a brief setting of characters and motifs given from the publisher. Matthew check his initial sketches or prototypes with a range of criteria to consider ergonomics, aesthetics and quality of it. Darren creates a client brief to clarify the requirement, client’s lifestyle and their preferences. Although their purpose, audience (clients) and context are different, their final outcomes are to meet the need, as a result of correctly identifying what is the problem to be solved.
Each designer talked about the use of materials/media that made them unique and distinctive. For example, Sonia’s drawing process involves acrylic or pencil on paper as well as digital refinement process on Photoshop. Matthew explores the use of recycled/reused materials or the minimisation of the material waste produce sustainable furnitures. Darren considers the existing condition of environment / site in the selection of materials or interior products to build the environmentally friendly and energy-efficient house that requires less maintenance.
What I liked about this seminar was that I could learn how designers think and respond to the projects as well as their technical side of the design process. I would like to thank my Vis Comm teacher for providing me this opportunity 🙂
Saran Kim | Blog 