Homework: Find one object (can be anything - a photo, poster, toy, piece of clothing, tea cup, designed object, etc) that defines or inspires you as a designer and prepare a 5 min speech to the class about this object.What is special about this object and how have you incorporated elements of this into your design work/creative practice? What does this object say about your personality and personal style?
I do not have a constant source of inspiration as I tend to draw my ideas from what is new at the time.
The item I chose is my headphones I use occasionally as they reflect my design personality quite well.
To start, the headphones aren't overly flashy and the branding is kept fairly subtle, however all the little things are all done well which gives them a premium look and identity. With a closer look on the headphones, the stitching for the leather is almost perfect, the size of the earmuffs cover the whole ear comfortably, the leather itself has a nice soft touch texture, the metal parts have a chamfered edge and all this is topped off with a dark blue to compliment the grey.
Although it is arguably not the best for sound quality when compared to others in the same price range. The sleek design makes up for it.
Basically I consider the aesthetic of the items as I feel it is important before considering the quality of the product itself. This is similar to how I look at designs as I prefer them to be balanced overall in terms of art and technique, as the headphones sit in the middle of good sound quality and design.
Now there isn't any unique features or neat additions on these headphones and they only offer the bare minimum experience, however the design of it focuses on perfecting core aspects of headphones.This reflects my style of design as I consider myself not good enough with a pencil or Photoshop to create something super creative or artistic, so I focus on perfecting the core aspects of the design in order to get my design to stand out rather than attempting to create an art piece, similar to the design concept of the headphones.
This translates to spending too much time focusing on the smaller things in a design such as choosing the right typeface. With every design I usually spend an excessive amount of time just browsing through different fonts to find ones that complement each other. Another example is I would question if the design would look better if I added in a something small like a line or dot in this area. Choosing colours also takes up a fair amount of my time, although I assume it does for everyone else as well.
My design concept is to keep things simple, and then continue to add subtle details until the design feels whole. I much prefer a sharp clean design over a messy one.
The headphones are a reflection of this as the design of them is not complex at all. It does not have any unnecessary elements and the headphones are kept as simple as possible. Although this does come with some negatives, such as the headphone band cannot fold into itself for compact packaging or the ear cups cannot pivot to give extra comfort.
However this suits my design style as it’s not based around creating amazing art, or in terms of the headphones the addition of unique features. Which reflects upon my style of keeping things simple and precise.
Overall the headphones are a reflection of my pickiness when it comes to the small things in a design and I tend to spend too much time perfecting them, as I understand that my art side is not my strong point so I focus on the core aspects of the design itself.
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