Reflection on Philippe Starck's Design for Life

The Processes / Designer's Practice:
Their whole struggle and stress and the outcome is interesting, because they are like us students in studio....we stress and stress and stress and go around in circles, with the inability to finalise an idea....which sometimes results in nothing...then there are the 'smarter workers', who work smart instead of work harder: no stress, but come up with simple, straight forward solutions. I've also been inspired by their way of researching, and how they put themselves in the target audiences shoes. We just imagine we are in their shoes, but the designers attempt to immerse themselves in the consumers, they dress themselves up silly in order, for example, to find out exactly what it feels like.

Own little world:
- In one of the episodes, someone is sent it by Starck to help the students, and help them with researching and developing their ideas. Some students, reject help, one even just stays in his own little world who whole time, believing he can pull it off. I feel that this is also being arrogant, in that they are so closed minded that they refuse to be swayed by anyone else's perspectives or input.
- Not that this observation is THAT important, but I noticed that the most arrogant students who started off were the first ones to be kicked out of the competition, in both episodes one and two.

What you need to be a designer:

- 1. Jeremy Myerson talks about the 'internal source - your own memory, your own personality, recollections, the creative influences that you have soaked up over time.' I feel that in order to achieve this, in an industrial designer's life, they should not be solely concentrating on the study and practice of designing, but they should be exploring different situations, cultures, worlds, and be like a sponge in absorbing everything in their surroundings, pushing themselves out of their comfort zones, in order to expand their 'internal source' which is so important, or else you would be nowhere.

- 2. second source: looking outside, observation, talking to people, seeing what's happening. - primary research

- 3. technical background - My classmates and I have realised that this particular industrial design course, or maybe even all of them, worldwide, is lacking the more technical, physics, engineering foundation that we so need, and that is talked about in this video. Instead of just looking up an engineer to help us with our 'concept', we should already know all the technicalities before starting the project, inside and out, in order to completely absorb and design the product. I don't think it is enough to research it, because it is just never ever enough information. Maybe we need an engineering degree as well....only another 4 years or so.

- 4. great work, poorly presented - passion, conviction, the pitch. I've learnt the importance of PRESENTATION!

Some of these professionals touch on what they believe are great designers, such as the Mac mouse, which is based off a drop of water, or a chair that has a form that is based off a leaf. It seems like they are focused so much on the appearance of the product, they forget about the usage of it, and the product in context, and how it functions. The mac mouse for example, have received many poor reviews, saying how it is not ergonomic, and creates pain in user's hands if it is used for too long.

In episode 2, it's like Starck expects so much out of them before teaching them anything, so why does he call it a school? He says he likes intelligent people but doesn't want to hire intelligent people, which makes no sense either.