Wednesday 29 October 2008

RSA designDIRECTIONS 2008-09 (INTERVIEWS)

01 - NO NAME, NO AGE, ONLY A PICTURE!


Met her at cafe nero, harrow,
No name, no age only a picture!!
She meets her friend over a coffe, She feels old only when she looks at her mirror.
She does not feel lonely, she said she is so lucky because her daughter lives 5 min away from her.
So she sees her granddaughter everyday, and helps her daughter a lot.
She is stilling teaching private lessons, and she paints.
She thinks that the brake down of a family is the major issue for loneliness.
And this new generations have to work harder, specially single moms.


WHAT I THINK is that
We should solve the problem (family brake u) from its root!
Loneliness is not a suddent feeling that come to old people in certain age! this feeling was shaped in other ways their lifes due to living without the member of your family, and take the real shape of loneliness when the person is retired.
Elder people prefer to spend time with their own family.


02 - Jeanette Nakhle Ziadeh (LEANON)

Born in 1933 in Rass Beirut. She is the elder in a Lebanese Christian family of two daughters. She got married at the age of 15 and had her first son at the age of 16. By her 23rd year her family was made of four kids, two sons and two daughters. Today, she is 75 years old and has 9 grand children and 3 grand grand children. She became a widow 3 years ago and lives since then in her own house next to her children.

In what area did you excel?
"Being a successful housewife and mother and grand mother. Despite the hard financial situation that marked my life, I used patience and good will to overcome any obstacle."


After reaching the age of 60, did u feel lonely?

"I do feel lonely indeed only after I lost my husband 3 years ago."


Do you find entertainment with elder people like you?
"I prefer the company of my own family rather than spending time with neighbors or friends. I also enjoy spending time alone in my house.

What are your hobbies?

"Housework, reading and praying, watching soap operas and television series, visiting Sunday mass, gardening, baby sitting."



Why did you quit smoking?

"I realized that smoking is harmful to my health at this age so I quitted although I felt it was a step that should have been taken even earlier."

What about your monthly income?
"I survive from my monthly rent revenue as I inherited my parents house in my native village."

How is your health status?

"Comparing to elder from my age, I am healthy and strong and active. I start my day at 5am and eat healthy food avoiding any fat. Nevertheless I have back pain and weak eyes due to an old car accident, but since my children and grand children are always around I worry nothing."



Wednesday 22 October 2008

RSA designDIRECTIONS 2008-09

















Action for age

designing a better future
A new way of thinking about the world.

In this project we should be more interested in the journey than in the destination.This is a brief which concise of design not as an output not as a product but as a way of thinking about the world; a service, a set of interaction. By 2020 half the adult population in Britain are gonna be over 50.

For lot of old people, they suffer from loneliness, from isolation. How can you as a young designer help this social group to be more connected, to be less lonely, less isolated???



PROCESS:
01. Reading and analyzing
02. Decoding the brief
03. Identifying and analyzing the problem: Isolation and loneliness to old people
04. What is that problem a result of?
05. How can designers be brought into this mix?

How can designers address some of the social factors
How do we start as designers
06. This problem might be divided into two groups:
• Social isolation (which is a very low number of social contacts)
• Loneliness (which is actually something else)

07. Decide on which group am I going really to concentrate
08. Involve other people in my work
• It s not designing from our own point of view, it s really important is to understand what is like to be living as older people’s life
• As a designer, I should design with those people rather than for them, invite them to give me ideas so I can set out the scene quit clearly.
• Ask them questions
• Get their ideas
09. Build on previous interviews with the group, and introduce others
10. Moving forward through out the brief
11. Coming out with new potential solutions
12. Test my ideas back with people constantly
13. Who will deliver the service?
• Get the provider’s point of view (that might give other opportunities that I didn’t think about)
14. Finding the means, the media, the best way of bringing these lives and make them real, make these experiences come alive.

Resources:

The Oxford Institute of Ageing

The Oxford Institute of Ageing is a multi-disciplinary research institute committed to high quality, strategic research, informed by good policy and practice, leading to a greater understanding of societies as they age.

The brochure contains information participants may find useful as part of their research

Age Concern


http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/

Age Concern is the UK's largest charity working with and for older people.

The following link allows you to find your nearest Age Concern office:

http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/local.asp

The following are Age Concern publications aimed at supporting older people and which may be useful to stimulate thinking around new services and networks:


The Journey to the Interface: how public service design can connect users to reform

A pamphlet for DEMOS by Sophia Parker and Joe Heapy

This pamphlet brings together what DEMOS (a think tank) and Engine (a service deign company) have learned about working with service organisations. It draws on the principles and practices of the emerging discipline of service design and argues that service design can offer policy makers and practitioners a vision for the transformation of public services. Contains useful and interesting case studies.





Friday 17 October 2008

coolANIMATION

http://www.romainsegaud.com/preload.html (bip bip)

Wednesday 15 October 2008

twoDESIGNERS

01 Tarek Atrissi www.atrissi.com

Born in Beirut, Tarek Atrissi has worked and studied in Lebanon, The Netherlands, Qatar, Dubai and the United States. He Holds a BA in Graphic Design with distinction from the American University of Beirut; a Masters of Arts in Interactive Multimedia from the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland and an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York- where he studied under people like Steven Heller, Paula Scher and Stefan Sagmeister.

I have chosen Tarek because I am interested in the Arabic and Latin combination, and since type is on of the designer/s main considerations. So every designer is expected to choose the proper type from an enormous range of available Arabic and Latin types.
Since the visual appearance of typefaces depends to a large extent on the relative measurements of their proportions, Tarek has designed a wide range of Arabic typeface, which are carefully studied.





02 Si Scott www.siscottstudio.com

I have chosen Si Scott because I like ornaments, swirling, wet, flourished typographic illustration, and he is an extraordinaire typographic illustrator. I think he is a trick typographer with a really distinctive style.








Tuesday 14 October 2008