Bags and emergency houses

This last lecture is more design focused. Our tasks today were designing bags and emergency housing in the event of a natural disaster.

The bag designing was alright, but I liked my emergency housing design more.



Here's a scan of my bag design. The top one has heaps of compartments that fold out, since I like to keep the things in my bag in categories so that everything's easier to find.

The second one is more of a portable cupboard than a bag though. Which could be made from carbon fibre for strength and lightness.

Below is the emergency housing design.


It's more of a small makeshift community housing design, because I think that in a natural disaster it's a good time to pull the community together and help each other out. It's something that people don't normally do until disaster hits and it's a good time for bonding.

My favourite part of it is the fire pit in the middle where all the cooking and whatnot happens and the box beds.

I think box beds are great because they keep you very warm in the winter since it's like sleeping in a closet and gives you a bit of privacy as well. (Wikipedia, 2011)

And that ends the Math and Art paper.



Feedback time:

It was so boring that the mind oscillates between falling asleep and contemplating suicide.

Improvements could be made to prevent this.

This paper could have been synced with studio to show us how math and art is relevant to what we're doing and really let us take something important away from the lectures.

Whether you're an artist or a programmer it is highly likely that you're here to make something amazing. To appeal to this the paper could do something better with the presentation of course material. Rather than saying "Here's this theory/random observation, let's test it out by doing this, this, and that which does not particularly interest you." it would be better if it was like this "Hey guys, make something that has this, this and that. Now that you've made something cool let's see what math and art has to do with it."

Do NOT set up the desks and chairs highschool classroom style. It ruins the atmosphere by making it seem strict and serious, which is what a highschool classroom does. It is restricting and conditions the mind to automatically think "I'm supposed to be bored and wanting to go home right now."


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References:

Wikipedia. (2011). Box-bed. Retrieved October 17, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-bed

11 cut squares

In all honesty today's lecture was rather average, with nothing of strong interest to me.

One activity we did though was try to cut out 11 squares from a square. It was harder than I thought and I only got two solutions out of it.




Another topic was lying with statistics. I disagree with the methods of lying with statistics in class today though. They were all focused on manipulating the look of the graph to make certain stats look bigger/smaller through shape, scale, 3D vs. 2D, and use of colour.

These would make it LOOK bigger/smaller as you wish, but in my opinion it only takes a person of average intelligence with determination to find the information to know the real comparison between the stats. You could use as much manipulation of visual elements you want, but no matter what you do the numbers won't change and it will still be presented on the graph. Therefore lying with visuals is not reliable in terms of statistical interpretation.

A better way to lie with statistics is to manipulate the stats themselves. This is not to say that you change the values altogether. For example, one way is to select your sample group that is biased towards your desired results. Let's say I wanted to prove that people prefer heavy metal over pop music. I could use a biased selection of my sample group by only asking people at places that play heavy metal. Then I can say that I selected my sample group from various locations which play music. Only that I would conveniently neglect to say that it was locations that play heavy metal.

If somebody looks for information, it is best to manipulate the source of information rather than the visual representation of it.

Packaging

The topic today was packaging design and how the purpose of the design is important in the process of making the packaging. Our little task for this is to make our own business cards.

For mine I was going for simple and minimalistic. To be honest I designed it not to get a job, more like making someone take time doing what I want them to with the card.

I wanted the person to burn the card in order to reveal it and maybe burn the whole thing afterwards if they feel like it. It sure doesn't fit the objective of getting a job, but it does fit my objective: make people burn things by giving them an excuse to burn things. I'm sure a lot of people like fire :) It's warm and beautiful, but can get out of hand. I accidentally set the card on fire as you can see in one of the photos.



The invisible ink I used at the back is lemon juice. The acidity of the juice thins the paper it comes in contact with so it burns before the rest of the paper. Thus revealing the writing (McNally, 2010).


I did a test first on some scrap paper to see how it would turn out.


Then I tried it on some paper crinkled and soaked with tea, which was then left to dry. It didn't work on that because the tea also thinned out the paper so everything burned at the same time and couldn't reveal the letters.




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References:

McNally, C. (2010). Why Does Lemon Juice Make Invisible Ink? Retrieved September 30, 2011 from http://www.ehow.com/facts_7313493_lemon-juice-make-invisible-ink_.html