Monday

TASK 8 - Sustainable design

Sustainable design is usually used as a synonym of green and eco-friendly 
design or design for environment. It`s importance and overall public conscience are growing as people are becoming more and more aware about their impact on the environment.

Also for designers it has becomed an important consideration and it`s treated as “design discipline” on their approach for reducing packages, moving from print to digital communication methods, redesigning products or services. 

As a “discipline” it may include everything from designing small objects 
for everyday use to design for buildings, cities etc.
Sustainability in design came as a reaction to the overuse of natural resources, rapid growth of population, massive consumerism and environmental degradation.
It makes us look at everyday objects and try to redesign them in a better and more efficiently. It also makes us think more about the products “ life cycle” and how it can be produced and used efficiently and recycled in the end for new raw materials. 

Products "Life cycle" diagram. Source























I think that sustainable design is one of the answers to the most of 
our environmental problems. Using environmentally friendly materials for their products, 
is something all designers should aspire to. 




























The Kenno 
children’s chair

These cardboard series, designed by Heikki Ruoh for Showroom Finland, are light, eco-friendly and very beautiful indeed. The Kenno children’s chair is the result of experimentation with a new kind of recycled cardboard. The sturdy yet lightweight material can be re-recycled as paper; water-based adhesives are used to create its sandwich construction. 


other example

 

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DESIGN THINKING.
A particular style of creative thinking

Design thinking can be a particular approach to understand and solve problems.
There is not a method or a process which can define the design thinking. 
There are as many different design processes as there are designers multiplied by design problems. (wikipedia.org/wiki/design_thinking)

It is a term being used these days to define a way of thinking that 
produces transformative innovation.
For instance, the creation of alphabets, 
thousands of years ago is an example of design thinking.  
……………………………………….
- The term design thinking has becomed popular, becose it makes it easier for those outside the design industry to focus the idea of design as a way of thinking about solving problems, a way of creating strategies by experimenting them rather than thinking about design as an artifact (chair, car, building) or a fashion style (dress, pair of shoes). (Redhat, Burney, 2006)

Design thinking / Impact on business operation   

-Today, it`s increasingly difficult for companies/businesses to find ways 
to compete in the tough markets.
They are finding that their methods for generating innovation and values aren`t giving them advantages on competition as they used to.

-The success of companies who have build “Design thinking” cultures has began to be noticed. Inovation and technology is they are talking about. Companies are creating new strategies and restructuring their selves by making huge investments to take advantage of design thinking. (Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Toyota, VW).

The Fourth Order of design

-According to Professor Richard Buchanan,
The first order of design is communication with symbols and images.
The second order of design is is design of artifacts 
(engineering, architecture and mass production)
The third order of design is design of activities and processes 
and it is all about interactions and their experiences
The fourth order of design is design of the environment and the systems 
within which all the other orders of design exist

Understanding how these system work, what are the core ideas that hold them together…
that’s the fourth order of design problem.
Designers that lead and take higher positions, determining strategies and directions of thinking, dealing with complex questions of our social life are the fourth order designers.

…………………………………………………………………….. 

Design at this level concerns the environments how people archive their goals, systems and organisations in which they act or with which they interact.
For instance, -Apple- is a sample to illustrate the fourth order …the entire chain what they have made, including the store and business case.


TASK 7- Advertising

Advertising

Advertising is an introduction to consumer and general public of “services and goods”. 

The real role or it`s aim is to make people aware of goods, products or services available under a brand.

We can call it a communication between companies and their costumers.  

In other words, for a successful business, advertising does not mean selling of products or services but helping in increasing the sales, through creating awareness in people.

However, advertising as a highly visible business activity may “fall” (and it often does) in ethical standards which often can be risky for the companies.  

Large companies have set their ethics standards as formalized rules or 
policies to describe their code of ethics.

Some of common examples of ethical issues in the field of advertising are:  


-Vulgarity used to gain consumers attention  
-Use of stereotypes  
-The use of racism, sexism, violence and shock tactics in ad. campaigns  
-Adverting harmful products (unhealthy food, tobacco, alcohol, gambling etc)  
-Misleading information: false claims and lies

In the UK market, I think that advertising tend to be more ethical on its approach because of the higher level of the public conscience and organizations ( ASA-Advertising standards authority) that control ad. industry, which ensure that ads that we see are legal and honest by enforcing their advertising codes of ethics.


Good advertising
 

Advertising, in fact, is proper promotion of the products not selling of them. Using its forms organizations can give proper information about their brands to the costumers and consumers. Good advertising facilitates people to buy their proper products. It helps to increase and assist companies in selling services and goods.

 

Advertising  
Everything and everywhere

Ambient media and guerilla marketing are another forms of advertising determined by some as non-traditional or alternative media. The key to a successful ambient media campaign is to choose the best media format available and combined with effective message.

The following are some reasons for the popularity growth of ambient media : A decline in the power of traditional media, a greater demand for point-of-sale communications, its ability to offer precise audience targeting and a higher demand for advertising spaces and methods.

What I like about these forms of experimental communication  is their ability to produce mass attention in centralized locations, or directly interact with consumers during normal every day activities.




Creative advertising

























 







































Advertising vs. ethics 





















































UNHATE - UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON.
...couldn`t avoid these samples.










































CONTROVERSIAL CONCEPTS
Extreme advertisements
-shock tactics 



























Ambient media & guerrilla marketing 


 






































































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REFERENCES

http://hassam.hubpages.com/hub/Importance-Of-Advertising  
http://zestyjill.tumblr.com/  
http://mgm0508.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/dolce-gabbana-unethical-advertising/  
http://weburbanist.com/2007/06/06/15-coolest-craziest-and-most-innovative-guerilla-marketing-campaigns/?ref=search  
http://www.designishistory.com/images/publications/manifesto.jpg

 





TASK 6 - Product packaging


The role of packaging is to protect, promote and facilitate the use of the product. It protects products from transport, physical and barrier protection for instance from germs and other issues; sells the product promoting it and communicating with potential buyers while attracting their attention and being different from competition and also provides important information about the e.g. ingredients, instruction of use etc. facilitating the use of it.

According to various reports packaging has less than three seconds to grab the consumer’s attention and considering that more than 70% of “purchasing decisions” are made at the shelf, that pack has got to work hard. The problem with packaging nowadays is the pollution that it makes and the huge amount of rubbish it generates. The focus for years has been on using sustainable and eco-friendly materials which can be recyclable.

Good packaging designers have two key tools to grab the consumers’ attention, graphics and structure. Designers have to make sure they convey information, about the cost of their product, the ingredients it contains, and whether or not it can be recycled. Packaging graphics must do more than simply look pretty.

About graphics they must think about:

  • Color - The first thing you remember about a brand may well be its color.
  • Story - Building a story into the packaging of a product. A way to convey brand essence. Doing so allows consumers to connect with the product on an emotional level.
  • Illustration - When designing pictures onto a piece of packaging, practical considerations like the printing process and substrate onto which the image is going to be printed must be made to ensure they express the exact mood needed.
The structure of a pack serves for these multiple purposes, like: to create shelf standout and sell the product, protect it, facilitate the use of it etc.

They must also think about how to make the product easier to use and create standout, for instance some products are recognizable simply from the silhouette of their pack. Before 30 years trends were to improve aesthetics and sales of the product, using different materials and most advanced print techniques to make a standout for their product. However, now the trends are to minimize the over use of different non eco-friendly materials towards more simpler and more functional product packaging. Sustainable packaging also considers issues such as carbon footprint, the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly during production process, transport, sale and consumption usually expressed like (CO2). Some brands and retailers on their packaging carbon labels include information on how to reduce a product's carbon footprint when you use it and in some cases it will tell you how it compares to similar products.
 
Green packaging is a demonstration of commitment to the environment. It is also the growing awareness to the impact that packaging production has to the protection of it, creating packaging products that can be recycled, reduced (materials) and reused. Traffic light labeling is a system for showing the consumers information about their food product and it`s levels of fat, sugars and salt in their product using different color coding to indicate the level of nutrients. 
Mood garden tea 
 




















”Being in the right mood at the right time can make a world of difference. Getting in that right mood can sometimes be as simple as a cup of tea. Mood Garden is a tea company that focuses on providing Fair Trade loose leaf tea in the convenience of tea bags. Each tea blend corresponds with a unique color and flower to help visualize these moods. When the tea drinker removes the tea bag from the stick, a prompt followed by a small flower is revealed. Since many tea drinkers read while brewing, the vertical orientation of the stick makes it a very convenient book mark. Designed by Alexander Chin.



Nooka Glueless Packaging
 
























“Nooka is continuing its tradition of green packaging with the introduction of the Nooka Glue-less custom box. This paper packaging is truly eco-friendly, requiring minimal material, minimal labor and is biodegradable. ” Via Lovely Package



HANGERPAK






















This project won First Prize in the D&AD; Student Awards 2007 category 'What else do you do?'. Steve Haslip's HangerPak comes from a slightly different point of view; his packaging design turns in to something you can use with what comes inside. Even if a cardboard hanger has a limited lifetime, it still gets an extra life cycle instead of going straight from package to recycling bin (or, worse, the landfill).
http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/sustainable-product-design/packaging-design-at-its-best/page/4/




References: