December 12, 2010

I just got back to the southern land (thank God). The cold was definitely not serving my mental state well :) But just being two days done with school, I can say, this was the best semester at CMU Design yet. I think I learned more about who I am as a designer, for example, how design crosses so many different disciplines and is unable to be defined narrowly within professions. I actually wrote an article on Imprint (Printmag's design blog) on this idea. Through researching and designing in my thesis project, I also saw how different types of design (communication, interaction, information, architecture, etc) all work together to most effectively solve (or attempt to solve) the wicked problems of the world. It is not just one isolated design field that encapsulates good design; rather, it is many design fields coupled with non-designers and design research to uncover the best solutions and innovation. So, even though I've always known the effectiveness of multiple design disciplines involved in one project, I'm starting to put it into practice and experience how beneficial it is.

Friday, we (the 2nd year design grads) had our thesis poster session that documents what we've done this semester and our next steps/questions for next semester. My project is about designing for people to overtake (through social impact) the Western Diet and enter into a new space of 'Sitopia.' You can download my poster here.



And, finally, I did a joint project between my information design and prototyping classes where I attempted to illustrate to individuals the current problems with the western diet system while simultaneously teaching them how they affect the system and how the system affects them. At the final crit, I received a lot of feedback on how I can make this better, which I plan on doing over the holiday. But, for now, this is what I have.

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