These weeks seem to be flying by. I still have one foot in the first briefing, yesterday I had a tutorial with Frauke. It feels like a never-ending task. I should probably concentrate on the next task…
Research material this week
Luke Veerman from the agency Eden Spiekermann talks about how to get new projects. It starts with finding a problem that you want to solve or that you are interested in. And secondly, you have to find something that fits your skills (‘be honest’). And as always, contacts and customers are important, ‘word of mouth’.
Design Indaba: Michael Beirut on how to think like a Designer:
- HOW did someone do it
- Sometimes a good ideas is not all
- Interact with the community
- Be witty
- Consider using the old in a new way
Design Indaba: Marian Bantjes & Jessica Hische on becoming (and staying) successful:
“Your education is what you make of it” (J. Hische)
“Work with people that share your enthusiasm”
“Be really into it and go and read more” (M.Bantjes)
“Much inspo comes from the environment” (J. Hische)
“Inspiration can come from anywhere” (M. Bantjes)
“It’s not hard to become successful it’s hard to maintain success” (J. Hische)
After watching Jessica and Marian’s talk, I wanted to learn more about Marian as I had already heard of Jessica and seen some of her videos where she teaches about typography. Marian interestingly didn’t go to art school and is very keen to realise herself in her work through ‘relentless experimentation’.
“There are so many people who are trying to do what they love […] and not making it […] I was lucky”.1 (not very motivating to as a non designer starting to get started in the field). What really stick though is that she believes that we have to “get over the idea that design has to be strategic and that it has to be conceptual, which is not to say that it should never”. For her the focus on craft is missing and she thinks design can also be Art or look pretty. “I create work that is mutually beneficial to myself and the client”.2
“We tend to undervalue things in society that we can’t measure”3
Tutorial with Frauke
I was looking forward to some feedback from Frauke, as I didn’t develop the idea of the NFT any further and used a ‘real’ product instead. She really liked the design and the idea. She thought it was unique in that it is a site-specific intervention that incorporates collaborative design and cooperation. Instead of me managing and making the product, it’s made by the people (of the bakery) themselves. And I’m more of a consultant delivering the package. She also mentioned that it could be interesting if I made the product myself. She drew some parallels to the Covid times when the restaurants only delivered the ingredients and people prepared the meals at home.
I also showed her my finished mix, which included the individual packaged ingredients. I told her that I was still questioning the design, as Teresa had told me last time that it wasn’t ‘graphic’ enough, and that she advised me to look for more examples of homemade products. Interestingly, Frauke had a very different opinion. She told me that I was trying to make it look too pretty at the moment, and that it contrasted with the ‘stamped’ effect of the outer bag with the logo. She said she would make it look more utilitarian (=radical, conscious protest activism). She suggested I read more about Jenny Holzer. Her works are typographic responses to social issues and topics such as war. She calls it “visual poetics that can have to do with color, pauses and omissions”. In her work, she often focuses on cruelty. It is a form of protest or an approach that makes people recoil, she says.
Frauke reminded me that I have to position myself in relation to the brief. If I want to show homemade graphics or social justice (1960s/70s conceptual art).
I have to define and position myself. I have the best sense for my project.
She went on to say that we shouldn’t be afraid of being artistic and not making something look nice, that’s not the point of the self-initiated project. It’s not a client-led project, we can be completely open and work on the edge. It’s about developing myself further and exploring the boundaries. It’s also not about mastering the (Adobe) software tools.
Webinar
In the webinar, several examples of brief 2 were presented. One that I found very interesting was called ‘Traces of Memory’. This is an interactive on-site experience where visitors are invited to contribute to the archive collection by linking their own memories or stories to objects. The person shares a memory with an object from the past using the microphone, which is then translated into an audio memory, which in turn is analysed for keywords and then linked to the museum collection. An object from the collection and its story are displayed.
Teresa mentioned that it is important to also think about storytelling after the experience. What will happen afterwards? In the example above, there is an online portal where people can listen to others’ memories of the objects.
It is also worth considering where the experience will be promoted for the science museum. Where will the poster be displayed and who will see it? One further option would be to gather feedback from a potential audience.
The brief is very open and experimental. We can choose the whole collection or a specific area.
Research and approach towards brief 2
John Stalk mentioned that we should first think about what kind of experiences we want to create. Initially, I took the opposite approach and searched for specific objects in the collection to get an idea of what was on display and to get inspired. But after more than a week of searching, researching and reading different objects in the digital collection, I felt that I had to get more specific and decide on some themes. I took John Stalk’s advice and thought about what kind of experience I wanted to create for people. I also visited the Munich Science Museum with a friend to get an idea of what you can experience in a science museum these days (the last time I was in one was as a child).
Afterwards, we thought about the experience.
I also liked an object that was not strictly “scientific”, a ball onto which moving images were projected. (It was a bit out of context, I have to say; it showed a water wave, for example). My friend said it seemed a bit random to him and that a museum should show something that makes sense (maybe that’s the point of having a context?). He said that if he went to a Van Gogh museum, he wouldn’t expect to suddenly see something that had nothing to do with Van Gogh.
Also, we both agreed that it’s a big museum and you can’t possibly see everything in one day and that you probably won’t read all the descriptions of the objects most of the time. Perhaps a ticket for another day would be useful? Also, the focus in this museum is a little too much on aviation.
I didn’t feel like there were enough places to relax. There was a café, but in the exhibitions themselves I couldn’t spot many opportunities to sit or rest (like in art museums, for example, where there is usually at least some seating). I also missed the connection between science and art.
When it comes to my own experiences with exhibitions and museums in the past, I still have one particular one in mind that I really enjoyed. Many years ago, I was in Japan and experienced a Teamlab creation. I still remember it today and how amazed I was. I even went straight back to the same room where that particular piece was on display to see and feel it again. It was really beautiful. The colours, the music, the creativity and the beauty.
Team lab example
Researching about teamlab:
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John Stalk talk
John Stalk is the Digital director of the Science Museum in London. He gave an overview of what is a museum, how are they measuring their audience and what is science capital (= insights into what influences and shapes people’s attitudes […] with science; learning.sciencemuseumgroup.org). Also he talked about the different services they offer and their aims.
- history of science and science in the everyday
- engaging people in interactive
90% not on display -> bring hidden collections to the audience
Different displays:
| -gallery (not change often) -exhibitions: more digital, shorter, cutting-edge, more experimental -interactive exhibits: more physical, few screens, “wonderlab” for children -festivals -digitally: planning a visit, remote digital visit (online collection, 3Dscans, learning matertial for teachers, kids’ website, editorial -> https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/) -podcast -youtube -games, apps -3D (SKETChFAB) -Wikipedia -VR (challenging for museums, people not used to it) -> bring VR and physical together |
I think some of the tags in the blog section might be useful to group topics/areas of the museum:
Collection interfaces
On of the challenges is how to access huge amount of data like it exists in the collections. Data is not enough; online search keywords might not show matching results
- visual search (photos, map, historical visualisation of collections over time, visualisation by color)
- animated books -> sense for physical
- data visualization
- crowdsourcing -> users can add comments, transcribe, tag things
- machine learning -> categorising, character recognition, map generating
- …
There are different groups of people wanting to access content.
- researchers: might need a very powerful, advances search
- general users: collections, topics, themes
- children?
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT (John Stalk)
- How does it deliver the museums mission?
- engaging people with history of science/tech/medicine..
- Who is the audience?
- What user need does it fulfil?
- educational, fun, researchers, teachers
- What will users have to do to achieve this need?
- are they more passive or active?
- context: What messaging is needed to drive this behaviour -> better to be simple
- Where does the activity happen and what tools are provided?
- What messaging is needed to drive this behaviour?
- What product or content needs to be produced?
- new or existing
- How measure audience behaviours?
Research task: Carefully read, analyse and reflect upon the four ‘Industry Set’ project briefs.
Write notes about each brief and think about the benefits and drawbacks that they each offer.
What are the main hurdles that they will present you with creatively? (Note: only one brief this module, the Science Museum)
The Science Museum cares for an astonishingly diverse and internationally significant collection of 7.3 million items […]. Design a range of new solutions to present information to the public in relation to the digital archive collection. Using assets (catalogue records and images) in the Science Museum Group online collection, design a visualisation, user interface (real or imagined), or exploration tool for discovering the collection. Create ideas, test, play and prototype your design solutions. These could be interactive, built, animated, machine generated, storyboarded or presented as a series of proposals.
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I like that we are basically free to experiment with the collection and create something without being limited to a specific area or visualisation. Some of my questions were whether it has to be something that is only available online or on site, whether it can be digital or physical. All these questions were answered in the webinar and we are completely open to choosing.
On the other hand, this openness creates an unlimited number of possibilities and choosing a theme will not be easy. As I mentioned earlier, I started by researching the objects in the collection. And there are a lot of them. Creatively, I think it will be difficult to turn something into reality, such as an immersive experience on location, without the appropriate skills and time constraints. But as John Stalk and Teresa said, this should be an assignment where we can experiment, imagine and be creative without thinking about constraints like budget or realisation. On the other hand, one of the learning outcomes is collaboration (LO7: Collaborate – Demonstrate inclusive and empathetic strategies to plan and execute a project across distributed collaborative situations).
How can there be collaboration if there is no connection to real-life experimental opportunities? we mainly work on it ourselves, we can ask students from our cohort or our tutors. Is that enough?
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