Gratuitous SEO Link

This is a link to a site you should look at.
Repeatedly.

http://www.mysterylunchdesign.com/

and this one.

http://www.mysterylunchdesign.com/coffsharbour/index.htm

Do it.

Govinda - Senses In Design

Design is everywhere. It must be able to relate to a wide range of people and engage them. The designer needs to create a design that will successfully fulfil the problem, whether it is to help sell an item or make an item more user friendly. The way we interact with a design is through our senses, whether its sight, touch, sound etc. For a design to be successful, it helps for the designer to familiar with the product and how it interacts with the viewer through the senses.
Being aware of how it feels, looks, sounds, smells and tastes, either literally or the connotation it gives can greatly improve a design.
Sight is obviously the most important aspect. The design must ‘work’. It should grab the viewer’s attention and be able to hold it for some amount of time. Visual stimulation is the key.
The other senses come after that and also play and important role in the overall effectiveness of the design.

The Senses...Jamie

The Senses.

An amazing technique that i like to use sometimes to clear my mind and focus all my energy onto one object by using the senses. First i try to clear all prior knowledge on what the object is, what it does and pick it up as if it is a new discovery.

First i use touch:

To look at the way it sits in my hand, if its cold/hot, if it is friendly to touch like any sharp edges.

Next look and observe it:

This is a great way to see how it looks when it ornate, doing something, how it sits on the table, how the design of the object works, its purpose.

Then listen to the object:

What can you hear, does it make a sound, does it sit quietly, is the sound pleasant or harsh.

After is the smell of the object:

Does it have a smell, does it not, is the smell nice or harsh, does its smell attribute to the object, or just a facet of how it was made. 

Finally There is Taste:

Sometimes not needed, but in certain cases, is it sweet, is it sour, is it crunchy, or is it a liquid. 

There are many ways to use the senses to observe something and usually you will come away with a new perspective on the object, or a new thought on what it does, like something you didn't know before. As you can see the senses play a major role in how we create an object. It is a personal thing to, if you know you love something, that the person next to will not have the same view. Is this due to the feelings that a person has, or are our senses different. Can i smell something that someone else can't or can they hear something i can't. The senses make the reality we live in and when we design we are creating a new piece of reality that will in turn taken, without thought, through the senses.

Six Hat Thinking...

This is a creation of a situation where two people are talking where one is wearing the six hats. In this you will see how the hats change his view on things...

The White Hat...

"Dad can i go to the toilet?"

"Yeh there's one down there, and over there"

"Well i could go to that toilet, but it is all the way across the street. or i could go to that toilet but it looks pretty dirty... well i could start to go in that one that is dirty, then finish the rest across the street..."

The Red Hat...

"Dad can i go to the toilet?"

"I Guess"

"What do mean by 'I Guess' if i dont go i could get serious problems. why cant you understand what im going through."

"Ok Then Just Go"

"Don't get pushy your so mean all the time, you always hurt my feelings. Why?"

"Please just go"

"Ok but ill be a while cause ill be crying..."

The Black Hat...

"I gotta go to the toilet."

"Well go."

"Nah i don't want to. I bet its dirty, or there's no toilet paper, or there is probably someone in there, or i bet it smells really bad."

"Well don't then"

"Yeh but i bet my blater will pop, and then ill go to hospital. its too late now i probably won't make it any way..."

The Yellow Hat...

"Can I go to the toilet?"

"Yeh Sure."

"Are you serious, thank you so much. Your the best. Thank you Thank you Thank You. I hope i make it. there probebly just cleaned it so i bet it will be freshness all over..."

The Green Hat...

"Can I go to the toilet?"

"Yeh of..."

"TOO LATE!!!"

The Blue Hat...

"Can I go to the toilet?"

"Yep."

"Ok Good, now, how should i go? What do i need to do? Where should i go?..."

As you can see the six hats thinking can completely change a situation when placed into action.

This is a great tool for the designer as he/she is able to view things from all angles and thus being a success. 

LEE: Process

My process basically is threefold.

Uno: Receive brief and either crap my pants (hypothetically) or receive brief and be stoked on the idea of the project ahead.

Deuce: About midway through the allotted time for completion of the task at hand. I will begin to doubt basically everything. Either the stuff I have done I believe to be trash. Or the stuff I have not yet done is sure to be trash. I need something amazing/different or ill fail pretty chronic like.

Three: Later on there always comes a point where I go. "screw it, I am just going to do it and see what happens". Because i usually over analyze things and try to do things that i probably shouldn't. Or is not my style. Or try to be like other artists i have seen.

In the end after much doubt. Step three will usually set me straight and in most cases i will turn out with something that i dig.

True story.

Lee: senses

Some people believe that all senses are extremely important for design work. Some people do not.
To begin with. I was of the latter. Believing that the only sense required is sight. Otherwise you would not be able to see. Thus not be able to make anything decent.
But after much procrastination it struck me that the other senses are also valuable to design, though, of lesser value than that of sight.
-Touch: can be used to sample textures or the feel of objects, weights etc.
-Hearing: at first I thought. Designers use sound to design? yeah right. what are you gunna do? listen to the paper? no. Then i realised that i often listen to music when i am doing assessment tasks or tackling the ever horrid "Blog". The music in ways i do not know. Makes the process more smoothe, can somehow, clear creative blocks
-Taste: Who doesnt like eating paper?!.But really. I don't think taste has anything to do with anything. Except for lunch. which is an important part of everyones day. Especially after a hard day swearing at indesign.

Ah senses. What would we do without you?
If only this blog make sense.

STYLE-Kurt-

Some key factors to my style are

PAOLO - my process

I normally start of with closing my eyes and letting my imagination to go far, good ideas normally

are already there somewhere, they just need to be founded. In second analysis I go researching on the internet and try to find something amazing and very interesting that has  already been done in the past. Once I got inspired by it I try to understand how that has been realized. Than considering my qualities, abilities, skills I start realizing my own version of it and putting my own style on it. I think that our personality and style  is just a collage of other personalities that have been absorbed by yourself during the years and the process starts with copying from our parents after birth, for example without coping and improving the technology development would not exist and I would not be able to digitally writing by using this computer right now. Anyway I start brainstorming and formulating ideas, the ideas become sketches then thumbnails, template, refine, layout, print; then I prepare a suitable presentation and the job is done.

JOSH - senses

In the design process it is extremely important to use all your senses.
Sight - by looking at an object we can remember something with a name or shape.
Touch – helps us to remember or develop a stronger feeling about an object.
Smell – helps us to gain a greater description of the things.
Hearing – is letting us know what is happening around us but also can be a major factor in influencing our decision of the object.
All these senses work together to help us to obtain information’s about a design and produce the design.
We also are able to create objects to make the audience use there senses in viewing the object/s.

In today’s graphic development audiences are being challenged more and more to use there senses when viewing an object. Advertisement is a perfect example of this with there use of technology.
Because of this audiences are now able to build a relationship with products and objects.

:)

JOSH - quote one

When it comes to design I think it is important to have a method.
As a designer we can tell if a product has been produced with a method.
Although a good designer can make the end product look like it has been produced with no method.

Communication is key in the portrayal of method in sourcing feedback.
This feedback is sourced from the client, then this will be turned into a method and then produced again as the end product.

ROGAN : PROCESS

ROGAN : SENSES AND DESIGN

Bruno Munari states that every facet of design must maintain a relationship with the senses.  Whilst this is true, not all facets of design are able to communicate with every individual sense.  For example: obviously web design is not going to communicate beyond a visual level or a t-shirt design is not going to appeal to your sense of taste.  Design that does appeal to more than one of our senses can become far more successful.  Again an example : A card that has text that has been embossed and perhaps has a nice texture to it would also appeal to ones sense of touch as well as be visually appealing.  It is all related to a persons attraction to someone or something, put simply you will be more attracted to someone/thing the more of your senses are appealed to.  You are obviously going to be more attracted to the a person that looks good and smells good, rather than one who looks good but has life threatening body odour.  

www.senseofsmell.org

http://www.dolcevita.com/design/designers/munari.htm

The Senses - Tane

Go here. NOW.  

www.online-graphicdesign.com/multimedia/sensexperience/senses.html

As the monkeys have demonstrated, sense is an integral part of life. And I s'pose you have to be alive to practice graphic design (disputable though). So therefore, I think the senses are very useful. The sight monkey I feel presents the most truth though, that not all lights at the end of the tunnel are good. Hang on, I don't even know what its trying to tell me. Friggin confusing monkey advice. Forget it.
And the touch monkey. Jesus that was creepy. What the hell was wrong with that finger? The stuff of nightmares.
The taste monkey didn't give out advice: it just made me so very thirsty for an ice cream and root beer smoothie.
But as you can see, a flash movie can affect you later in life and even frighten you.

My personal opinion however is that sense is probably useless in digital design, apart from sight of course. emotions certainly play a part. Good graphic designers should take this into account.

PAOLO- A small reflection on the importance of our senses.

All right!!  I`ll try to express my opinion about the potential of our brain and then to talk about senses as a consequence  and  please permit me also to have you guys doing this terrifying experiment just before I start. lay flat your arms forward,  hold  your hands  like if you were clasping an object and now put them close to each other. What you are looking at is the size of your brain. Why did I say terrifying? Well because people normally think that their brain is bigger than that. No worries people, being smart is not just a question of size. Ok dude stop mucking around and go straight to the point (voice out field). Ok Ok...... Our brain works like

a computer it does have an operative system which is binary( thought and language) same as the computer (0,1). The language of scheduling 

                                         brain: Visual - Auditory –Sensory

                                         computer: Cobol – Basic – Fortran

This means that to program itself the brain needs a language that is divided in 3:  visual, auditory, sensory, they are 3 types of intelligence. In each individual only one is overridding. For examle a visual person gives more attention to informations recived by the eyes ( normally graphic designers are visual people) they would give more priority to what they see then to what they hear or touch. Recognizing  the 3 types is easy. Visual people : aesthetic, they take care of their image. Auditory people: analysis, valutation, they think continuously.  Sensory: relax, comfort, feelings, emotions.

The point is that if we want to communicate to other people not only in the graphic design world, but in our life in general we must learn how to develop the other languages in order to communicate  directly to the unconscious  of the other people so they can not only see the design but also feel it smell it and touch it and keep it real. We learn this, we will not have problems with our costumers in the future. To fall in love it`s necessary to touch, to see and to hear the other person (example). Making our presentation coming with music  it’s a way to add another kind of language (I really like the motion graphic also because the images move attended by music) , adding a perfume to the product or simply spraying a particular fragrance in the air before to start our presentation could have a better catch on customers(maybe this wouldn`t). At Dysneyland they use this sistem perfectly infact it is the turistic attraction more famous in the world.  Let me just talk about the cinema 3d . You go in and they give you 3d glasses (visual)so you can see in 3 dimensions, then you find yourself all surrounded by a Dolby stereo(auditive) then the chair starts moving( sensitive) and everything gets real………….knowing this is fondamental for selling.

One more thing, if you want have an intense experience about senses by reading, the book you are looking after is: " Proust and the sense of time"

enjoy it!

                                                   

The Senses & Design- Kurt

Sight
or vision is the ability of the brain and eye to detect electromagnetic waves within the visible range (light) interpreting the image as "sight."
I guess sight would have to be the first on the list when it comes to design and the senses, as we are visual artists and communicating through graphic design, it,s the first sense that we use when analyzing someone or thing.


Touch
also called mechanoreception or somatic sensation, is the sense of pressure perception, generally in the skin. There are a variety of (nerve endings) that respond to variations in pressure (e.g., firm, brushing, and sustained).
Touch would be 2nd in line when dealing with the design process as we generally process our ideas and pick up a pen or pencil to begin to transfer visual thoughts and ideas to paper.Touch is also important to us as we may have to design a 3 dimensional object that we can hold and really get a feel for how it will be.


Hearing
or audition is the sense of sound perception. Since sound is vibrations propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these vibrations, that is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense akin to a sense of touch, albeit a very specialized one.
I,m not sure if touch or hearing would come before another in the design process as they are equally as important as each other, in saying this if you are receiving a brief maybe at a meeting, hearing would be right along side sight as you are listening to the boss give you the brief and maybe reading it on paper at the same time. Personally sound is very important part of my design process as i find when there are distracting noises or sounds going on around me i find it difficult to be creative, and when i,m listening to my favorite music i will flow and work effectively.


Smell
or olfaction is the other "chemical" sense. Unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Odour molecules possess a variety of features and thus excite specific receptors more or less strongly. This combination of excitatory signals from different receptors makes up what we perceive as the molecule's smell.
Smell is also a major factor in the design process as our environment where we work has a lot to do with the quality of work that we are producing, for example i know when we are sitting in either of the computer rooms working away and the air conditioning isn´t on or the windows arn´t open there´s quite a strong smell of human odor so to say, and we really can,t be effectively creative.


Taste
or gustation is one of the two main "chemical" senses. There are at least four types of tastes that "buds" (receptors) on the tongue detect, and hence there are anatomists who argue that these constitute five or more different senses, given that each receptor conveys information to a slightly different region of the brain. The four well-known receptors detect sweet, salt, sour, and bitter.
Taste would have to be just as important as smell in the design process, the saying YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT definitely sums it up. Something that is really important when doing good design is to be feeling top fit, you can,t work properly when your sick, hungover or hungry for that matter and good tasting food or drink is a major contributing factor to how the machine (us designers) will work.

JOSH - my process

Where Process Meets METHOD and MADNESS-Kurt

When process and method are discussed, they tend to be used interchangeably. However, while they are two sides to the same coin, they are different. Process is a naturally occurring or designed sequence of operations or events over time that produce desired outcomes.
Process contains a series of actions, events, mechanisms, or steps, which contain methods. Method is a way of doing something, especially a systematic way through an orderly arrangement of specific techniques. Each method has a process.
From a realistic standpoint, a design method is concerned with the “how” and defining “when” things happen, and in what desired order. Design Methods is challenging to implement since there are not enough agreed-upon tools, techniques and language for consistent knowledge transfer. Two people can therefore use the same method and arrive at different outcomes.

"Method" is the careful, systematic way that something intelligent is done. "Madness" is the strange, meaningless action of a crazy person. There is "method to one's madness" when what looks like strange and meaningless action (madness) is actually the result of a carefully reasoned plan (method). Example: "Give me a moment to explain; there is method to my madness." [This idiom comes from Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Polonius speaking: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."] Example: "We thought he was crazy to do it that way, but it turned out that there was method to his madness."

design; lani style

senses_ALEC

At first my conceptions of this senses blog had me stumped as I could not completely conceive how all five senses could influence the design process. Then while trawling the internet I found an aptly ironic website titled, www.endofcyberspace.com. It's contents contained an article published in the New York Times by Gregg Zachery which explored the deluded nature of designing a product wholly on a computer which was indeed intended for the real world. 

"Using computers to model the physical world has become increasingly common; products as diverse as cars and planes, pharmaceuticals and cellphones are almost entirely conceived, specified and designed on a computer screen. Typically, only when these creations are nearly ready for mass manufacturing are prototypes made — and often not by the people who designed them."

The article goes on to explain that the relationship between computer design and 'hands on' design is flimsy at best. It pushes the importance of the prototype, the proof print and the 3D hand made model, the need for something tactile to see, hear and touch and even taste!  As a designer myself I have witnessed first hand the folly of relying solely on computer based design. The alcohol label project is one instance in which I placed my full trust in a computer. To me the text seemed to be sitting in perfect harmony with the borders...until I proof printed it! The proof print in tactile, non computer based form showed many errors and allowed me to re-evaluate and refine the label. 

This article as well as Manari's quote has shifted and expanded my outlook on the design process by showing that you can never be satisfied with what's on the computer screen because nine times out of ten the printed, tactile version will look, smell, feel, sound and even taste different. So when designing for the real world I believe that all five senses must be considered - in every stage of the design process -  to achieve maximum success.

THE SENSES | leilani

"Every facet of the design process has to maintain a relationship with the senses. When you confront an object, you've got to touch it, smell it, listen to it... "

I wonder if Bruno Munari will ever know what he’s started. I can just imagine the people around the world that will take him word for word and touch the intangible, smell the unscented, or listen to things that were never meant to make sound. One things for sure, I might end up designing packaging for a toilet seat cover, but there’s no way I’ll be licking it.

Or will I?

I digress --- [and yes, I do know what that means]

I suppose what Munari is suggesting is that knowing a product is the key to designing for it. Can you design for coffee label without knowing the dark, rich, sweet love that caffeine-addict knows? Of course. But that doesn’t guarantee that what you produce will be effective. Neither does being the primary consumer for a product mean that you will design something that suits the product well. Love can be just as destructive as indifference. Any working designer knows that it would be impossible [if you want to eat] to have the all candlelight dinners and moonlight beach walks required for an intrepid romance, with every object that comes through your door.

A good design encompasses everything that the object stands for, and promotes it to the consumer accordingly. I also think that part of what he meant is that a design shouldn’t just satisfy the eyes, but the rest of the senses as well. Touch is one of the most overlooked. I know for myself, I like things with texture, shape, a differentiation in surface. Gloss, and matte. Rough and smooth. Its not just about how it affects you visually, but it’s the way it stirs the rest of the senses too.

http://SpunkOnAStick.deviantart.com/art/Lick-50298622