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The first thing that comes into view upon entering the “Designer Maker User” exhibit is a large wall filled entirely with objects that people have submitted. These have been chosen by a crowd and selected specifically because people felt they were well designed or because they simply enjoyed them. The plaque reads that the users felt these objects did their job well, were beautiful, or held special personal memories. Already it is made clear that design is made by the people for the people. It is highly important that designers take part in a continuous conversation with the makers and users to be able to understand the needs of the people and to create to their fullest potential. One could not do their job without the other, so this ongoing communication is crucial.

Design is not simply confined to the usual categories of graphics, fashion, and architecture. While these are extremely important elements of design, it also reaches other parts of our lives, such as transportation and software development. It is so intertwined into our daily routines that we sometimes don’t even realize it’s there. Ernest Rogers sums this up when he says that the role of design ranges “from the spoon to the city”.

Designers must understand not only the practical needs for their products, but also the emotional ones as well. It helps for them to be in tune with their users and also understand the limits and possibilities that comes from the makers. They must continuously ask questions, observe how consumers interact with their designs, and work to meet and exceed these expectations. However, a design can be successful in one setting and unsuccessful in another setting, as design is reliant on the needs and wants of a specific user, at a specific time.

Whether creating for aesthetic or for practicality, design is a process. It is one of trial and error, research, brainstorming, sketching, and collaboration with maker, user, and sometimes other designers.

Additionally, it can be extremely difficult to predict the long-term impact of a design. One such example is the shipping container. Invented in 1956, the shipping container's uniform shape revolutionized the trading industry, bringing order to a chaotic system. The creation of the shipping container has had a worldwide impact. It has shifted manufacturing from the West to the Far East, encouraging the rise of cheap, mass-produced goods.

Shipping containers, though designed with a specific purpose, have become quite popular as an element of architecture. Both repurposed and new, shipping containers have proved to be a low-cost, creative, and flood-proof and fire-proof material to build homes with.

Another example that reflects the important relationship between the Designer and User shows through in the London Underground System. As more lines were added and the system was expanded, the maps became more and more confusing. They began to turn into a jumbled and incomprehensible mess that was difficult for every day users to quickly understand. Harry Beck realized this problem in the late 1920s and used his previous knowledge of designing electrical circuits to influence his new plans for an updated and simplified map of the Tube stations, which is still in use today. Without being aware of the daily interactions and feedback from the users, Beck would not have been able to design such a well thought out and easy to understand version of the Underground.

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A crucial component of the design process is actually making the design come to life—this is where the Makers come in. The job of makers is to figure out the materials,  production processes and techniques needed in order to create physical designs. The way in which something is made has a huge impact on its future.

Makers need to take into consideration the intended use of a product/design, the cost of production and the final cost for users, what kind of materials are available and how those materials will affect the end result, the affect of the production process on the environment—the list goes on and on. From steam power to 3D printers, large-scale manufacturing to makers working out of their garages, and a shift in the social aspect of making, what it means to be a maker is constantly shifting and changing as time goes on.

The Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s is what gave Britain the push to shift from an agricultural land to one that was focused on manufacturing. During this revolution, new technologies were invented that allowed for automated manufacturing processes to come into use. The Industrial Revolution also lead to a change in the connection between user and maker. Rather than the user commissioning the maker for handcrafted goods, users could now purchase products that were produced on a larger scale. Another shift in the maker world came about in the 19th and 20th centuries. New manufacturing processes made it possible for cheap, identical items to be mass-produced. This shift led to more industrial cities and urban concepts in design, one example being high streets.

One noteworthy example of manufacturing innovation during this time period is the Thonet No 14 chair. Entrepreneur Michael Thonet struggled to come up with a chair design that was functional, cost-effective AND could be easily mass-produced. He experimented over and over again with wood and finally, after boiling strips of wood, came up with the “steam-bending” technique. This technique was easily repeatable and cost-effective, making it the perfect solution. Thonet was able to reduce the No 14 chair to just six pieces of wood, ten screws, two washers and wicker, adding to the chair’s ease of mass-production. The manufacturing advances made by Thonet and many other European industrialists have made a lasting impact on the manufacturing industry and in turn the design industry itself.

The art of making has made great strides since the ages of the No 14 chair. Digital manufacturing involves using computer software to create a design, and several different techniques are used to make the design come to life in physical form. 3D printing is one of these techniques that has greatly expanded the possibilities for making. This technique can use a wide range of materials, from plastic to ceramics, metals, and wax. 3D printing has found its way into many industries—food, healthcare, retail, replacement parts. It is highly customisable, which means specific replacement parts for things ranging from military tanks to older models of machinery. As far as healthcare goes, makers have 3D-printed prosthetics, surgical models, and even live tissue, and the advances will keep going up from here. Advances in printing food are even underway. One of the most impactful aspects of this new manufacturing technique is its ability to be sustainable and have a low environmental impact. 3D printing is clean and precise, creating less waste than traditional methods. There are fewer unsold products as 3D-printed items are made in limited batches, there are less wasted materials and less product transportation, and the materials used have the potential to last longer than most objects.

Two examples of digital manufacturing that stood out from the exhibit were the Chubby Chair, designed by Dirk Vander Kooij in 2012, and the geometric dress created by Issey Miyake in 2011. The Chubby Chair is made from the interior components of discarded fridges, which are grind down and squeezed out of a nozzle in a continuous strand of plastic. The dress on display and the rest of Miyake’s 132 5. collection was created using a computer program that constructed three-dimensional shapes from a sheet of fabric. The fabric folds almost like origami, and the fabric chosen is woven from threads made of melted plastic bottles. The process of 3D printing itself and the materials that digital makers are utilising are all contributing to the sustainable strides in manufacturing.

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3D printed items in the Maker section

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Issey Miyake's 132 5. dress

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We purchase and use products on a day-to-day basis. Each of the products we look at are designed strategically for the product’s purpose and to influence the user. Even if you do not believe it we have the capability to influence design, whether it be a success or a mistake. We choose an item based on a variety of reasons. It could be chosen based on cost and efficiency. While some decide on emotions and perception. Being the user, we have to decide which items we prefer. The cheaper products are easier it is to replace once it breaks but some would rather pay more for a top quality brand. Everyone has their own motives for determining their purchases.

Walking through the exhibit I came across the Le Smoking Tuxedo. The suit was powerful symbol back in the 1960s. It empowered women to wear bold clothing that was originally made for only men. Yves Saint Laurent took the originally male version of the suit and specifically tailored it to the female body. He made it flattering without showing skin and lavish details. You can see how impactful this was just by looking around at the women who fashionably sport suits now. This is also a great example of how possessions reveal who we are and what we want to become.

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The invention of the computer transformed the graphic design industry. Previously, sketches and drafts had to be assembled by hand. Images were cropped with an Xacto knife, type had to be sent out to a typesetter, and elements were set in place using rubber cement or adhesive wax. Today, this is all done digitally with the click of a button. This drastically cuts down production time and costs, and makes the trade of graphic design accessible to a wider audience.

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This is a really good effort team 4 - a thoughtful response to the brief and great examples. Well done.

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The Aesthetic Movement was an artistic movement lasting from 1860 to 1900 that advocated "art for art's sake." It was a result of the belief following the Great Exhibition that beauty had been lost. Too much was being produced by machinery.

The Aesthetic Movement advocated the visual, the sensual, the decadent, and the exotic. It was a lifestyle revolution: art should be found in aspects of everyday life. Industrialism, conservative morals, and Victorian materialism were rejected. Aesthetic design featured linear forms, geometric patterns, and muted colors. Frequent elements included peacock feathers, lilies, and sunflowers. European designers were influenced by Chinese and East Asian art, as seen in the blue and white chinoiserie they created. These artists also used models of unconventional beauty, such as those with red hair, and looked back to the art of the past as inspiration.

What was once a modest house had become a private palace. Homes were decorated eclectically. The paintings, belongings, and interiors represented who the owner was and who the owner was not; the home became a status symbol.

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Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900

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The first major exhibition dedicated to Aestheticism highlights the spectacular work produced by the artists, designers and architects of the late 19th-century, including James McNeill Whistler, William Morris and Thomas Jeckyll. Lead curator Stephen Calloway and other experts lead us through 'A world of beauty, flamboyance and faint danger ...'

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Leighton had gotten the area of land for his house in 1844. He wanted to construct a studio-house and already knew someone to take over the architecture part. He chose George Aitchison whom he met in Rome in the 1850s. He specialized in warehouses, railway architecture and docks. Aitchison had never built a house before but this was important to Leighton. He would be constantly working on this house for 30 years.

Three years after the house was completed, Leighton started to add expansions and alterations. He added the Arab room which was where he displayed his collection on items he brought back from Damascus. He then added the winter studio which its purpose was to be Leighton's studio in the winter. I was basically a greenhouse to protect his art in the winter. Another room he created was known as the Silk room. This was created only months before his death and the reason for this room was to display his expanding collection of paintings. The room was lined with green silk and artists that were displayed included Albert Moore, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, George Frederic Watts, and more. If you notice closely you would realize that Leighton's bedroom was the smallest and most bland room in the entire building. The reason was that he didn't have much of a private life and wanted to dedicate the house to beauty and artwork not for living in necessarily.

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The Arab Hall was an extension of the Leighton House, built in 1877. It features a golden dome, stained glass windows, a fountain in the center, a golden border of mosaics, dark wood floor, and Leighton's personal collection of Middle Eastern tiles.

The Arab Hall embodies the Aesthetic Movement. The ordinary home has become art in itself, lending to the belief that the potential for art is everywhere. The Hall extensively incorporates elements of worldly, exotic art and design. The turquoise tiles, striped walls, large gold dome, and coffered ceiling corners take direct inspiration from Islamic architecture.

Having studied Islamic art and architecture in an Art History course, I was extremely excited to get to view the Arab Hall. Islamic architecture was one of my favorite topics to study. I find the intricate details fascinating and astonishingly beautiful. Though I do not know if the Arab Hall would be entirely practical for modern-day living, I really enjoy the Aesthetic style. Having an eclectic taste in fashion, art, decor, and furniture myself, I find the hodgepodge of the Aesthetic style intriguing.

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William Morris: Morris, while a pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, was also a key figure in the Aesthetic Movement. William Morris and his mentor, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were two artists that kickstarted the Aesthetic movement. Following the Great Exhibition in 1851, Morris, Rossetti and other young reformers were angry with the design standards set by the exhibition. They decided to experiment with new ways of life in order to defy these standards, and thus the movement of all things beautiful began. Morris established his company Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861. This company produced hand-made textiles, tapestries, wallpaper and other products for the home that used beautiful and elaborate patterns, making them fit perfectly into the Aesthetic style.

Morris had such a large influence on the art and home decor world at the time, and his various commissions are a testament to that. In 1887, Queen Victoria commissioned Morris & Co. to design a custom wallpaper for the Balmoral Castle. The company was also commissioned to redecorate the entryway and banquet halls in St. James' Palace, thus resulting in a wallpaper adorned with silver and gold accents called "The St. James". One of Morris' most well-known commissions is the Green Dining Room, which can be found right in the V&A. The room was commissioned in 1865 and is meant to "enchant" its visitors, with deep forest green oak paneling, swirling wallpapers and stained glass windows.

Frederick Leighton: Lord Frederick Leighton was a very important and influential British artist during the late Victorian era. He began to become very well known after Queen Victoria purchased a painting from him in 1855. This greatly pushed his career forward and he went on to become the President of the Royal Academy of Arts in the year 1878.
Leighton had studied art in Europe and was greatly inspired by Greek and Roman mythology. He often incorporated subject matter that was found in or connected to these ancient stories. Leighton always held a large appreciation for beauty and worked continuously to create beautiful things in his own artworks through using rich, glowing colors.

James Whistler: James Whistler is celebrated for his innovative painting style. His art was an example of the Aesthetic Movement's slogan "art for art's sake"--he intended for the viewer to focus more on his manipulation of the paint rather than any specific subject matter. Whistler developed his own style using limited color palettes and contrast, a skewed perspective, and unconventional models. Whistler is credited with starting the "Anglo-Japanese" fine art style. He had a fascination with Japanese art, and was the first American artist in England at the time to incorporate delicate oriental patterns and motifs into his own work. "The Peacock Room" is one of Whistler's most notable contributions to Aesthetic interior design. Designed for Frederick Leyland, the room was meant to showcase Leyland's collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain. However, Whistler went overboard. The walls are a rich peacock-feather blue green with elaborate gold peacocks painted on them, and the ceiling used a complex design of a peacock feather pattern. The room is regarded as a hugely successful example of Anglo-Japanese artistic fusion.

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In previous times, clothing and accessories would be used until the very end of their lifespan. An item would be mended or altered to fit the contemportary style, often repeatedly. Instead of simply discarding an article of clothing that had developed a hole or other form of damage, the hole would be patched or the damage concealed. If there was major damage to the object, it still would not be thrown away. Major alterations would be made or new decorations would be added to hide the blemish.

When the clothing was finally unwanted, it would be passed along to servants or to fripperers. Fripperers were second-hand clothes dealers. Buttons, thread, and trimmings would also be reused and resold, while scraps of fabric would be used for stuffing upholstered furniture or for making paper.

The shoes pictured below date back to 1720-1750. They were made from reused materials. The embroidered fabric used dates back to the 1620s

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Dust contractors were a team of scavengers from the 18th and 19th century that would look through mounds of dust. They would collect anything that they thought would make profit. This would be any material that would make great fertilizer and coal dust for brick making, such as broken clay pots

Even in the past sustainability played a big role in people's lives. They were working to try to keep the cities clean but also trying to make a living simultaneously. When you look around a city's ground or river you notice trash just lying around. Probably something you didn't know is that there are workers that go around trying to keep the city clean. The past on the other hand valued objects more than we do now. The past was riddled with war and unemployment so anything that they could find or have they valued dearly. Those objects could have been used to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. But today with all the technology we have, it is convenient to have anything at our finger tips and discard the items we dislike. I also think that most people in our cities today don't realize the consequences of discarding things that could be valued by others.

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One challenge of urban living that the exhibit touched on is transportation. While car design over the past two decades has led to less carbon dioxide emissions, traveling by car is still harmful to the environment. Car travel is increasing and is still the most popular form of transportation, and it is predicted that there will be three times as many cars in the world by 2050.

Despite these statistics, there are still examples of urban communities stepping up to the plate with alternatives to traveling by car. Cities are becoming more and more bike-friendly, with designated bike lanes and bike-safe rules of the road. Philadelphia, among many other cities, has implemented a citibike program where residents can rent a bike to ride and drop it off at another station closer to where they land. Amsterdam is a shining example of a city where bikes essentially rule the road. The exhibit shows before and after photos of a bank on the Seine in Paris, one from 1983 showing the bank littered with cars and a recent photo that shows people walking through the open space. Cities are transitioning into places where walking and biking are actively encouraged and possible.

Public transportation is also becoming a more popular form of travel in many cities, and systems of public transportation are constantly being improved. Personally, I try to encourage family and friends that are skeptical of public transport to give it a try. Showing others how easy, accessible AND beneficial public transportation is (for them and the cities they live in) will help encourage its more frequent use.

In addition to these examples of progress, the exhibit challenges visitors to think about innovative solutions to this transportation problem. It prompts visitors to consider the possibility of bringing work and home closer together and creating new centers for urban life, thus discouraging and eliminating the need for excessive car travel. Design becomes crucial here, as the design of cities themselves, roads, transportation systems, and public/community spaces all have the potential to cause a shift in the way we move about our cities every day.

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The City is Ours surveys the changing and shifting factors of an ever developing urban environment. As time passes and more people are born or migrate into a city, their surroundings have to change with them in order to adapt to new needs. Urban environments have been growing in popularity and therefore, population. This requires more housing, more jobs, and more consideration for the surrounding environment. It is important for people as citizens of a city to realize the effects their actions have on the outside world. With such a dense population in such a small area, all little acts add up to one large effect. We must become conscious of our living arrangements and habits in order to live a more sustainable and ethical lifestyle that will benefit both our land and our communities.

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In today's society, people rarely bother to patch or mend. Instead, they choose to throw away the damaged item and repurchase it, as mass production allows for this to be done at a relatively low cost. However, these actions take a toll on the environment. Throwing away and repurchasing is not a sustainable practice.

To do my part for sustainabilty and also simply for the enjoyment of the search, I buy much of my clothing at thrift or vintage stores. I not only prefer the clothes that I discover there, but find that they are usually of better quality, especially if older. I will also rework clothing, adding ornament or altering structure, so that it better suits my taste and I get more wear out of it. Knowing that purchasing clothing secondhand is helping to keep things out of landfills, my purchases are all the more rewarding.

The value of an item has diminished significantly in the minds of modern society. This is a practice that I hope can be tamed, or even reversed.

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Cities are constantly growing and expanding, and therefore, construction never ceases. This means new additions of buildings and asphalt appear almost every day in order to accommodate increasing populations. However, these concrete additions are a major heat trap and cause the air in urban areas to be much hotter than the surrounding rural environments. Emissions from cars are also no help to this problem and the constant running of electricity and heating units are hazardous to the state of our air as well. In order to decrease the harmfulness of this trapped heat, cities have made an effort to incorporate more green spaces into the urban world. This can be seen in the New York High Line, which was transformed into a grassy area of trees and plants. Not only does it serve as a popular city park that is pleasing to the eye, but it also helps to cut down on the heat trapping from the buildings around it. Green spaces like this cool and purify the air, provide shade, reduce rainwater runoff,  and bring nature back into urban life.

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Vintage Adidas Superstars, purchased in London

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oFC3SS5tmNqLuqKHKEA3mXfA5up4OzhTr46yEipKooQ/edit?usp=sharing

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Some good research here folks, well done. You might discuss specific examples of objects of design and their aesthetic elements.

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Some really thoughtful observations here, well done. More additional research would increase your grade.