my new pen 
&& it writes in black or red.. because she’s clever!!
Alessi or should I say a-lassie pen! :P
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Monthly Archives: January 2011
HT30007-Assignment 2a: Postconsumerism/Profiling the Postconsumer
Week Two
This week our team met to discuss our new assignment ‘introduction: Post consumerism’, having read up online I was interested to see what the others members of my group thought about post consumerism. In the module handbook it asks us to research the emerging trend of post consumerism looking at who these people are that postconsume.Numbers in the group were low this week, but still were able to work well together. The activists worked well along side the theorists and a great balance was met. We started by talking about what is a post-consumer wrote a definition.
We then went on to talk about it in more depth, Leanne found some really good points from Matthew Taylors blog (http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/creditcrunch/post-consumerism/) and I also found some interesting articles on the RSA website and http://www.wallpaperdepot.com/ideas/postconsumerism.html
From our discussions we realised that post-consumerism is not recycling, its a clever approach to sustaining the way we buy products. In a post-consumers mind, before they are purchase an object the theory behind post-consumerism sets in and makes you ask yourself ‘do I need this?’ ‘where has the product came from’ ‘do I really need the object’ and ‘how long will it last.’ Post-consumerism makes you think and talk about consuming more than ever before, creating a ‘large scale movement’ (wallpaperpot) through large social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We no longer keep quiet about our purchases and customer experiences, we like to share with other what we have found. Your experiences good or bad are listened to from your followers and friends. This ‘word-of-mouth’ communication is what post-consumerism believes is a lot more affective than advertising- I hope you’re listening business people!
Here are some of our mind-maps from our afternoon…
Here is our final poster complying all our thought onto one easy to read poster with newspaper cut outs to emphasize points…
Assignment 1a/1b:learning styles
I believe group work (however frustrating it can sometimes be) is fundamental to any degree and has played a large part of my degree since my 1st day.
This weeks assignment for Design Studies was to determine what part you play in group and how this can help teams work more productively because certain people worked best in a particular area but less in other. That said we were all asked to fill in a ‘Kolb’s learning styles model’ survey answering ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ to each question.
The survey can be found at: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/learnstyle.htm
My results were as follows:
Activist: Very strong
Reflector: low
Theorist: low
Pragmatist: low
The results from the survey suit me to a degree but I did not expect to get ‘very strong’ for activist.I think the reason activist is ‘very strong’ from my test is because I do like to have my opinion and voice heard in a group situation although I like to see my self as more of a reflector, I amnt the type of person to act fast about a decision and I am very indecisive with decision making. I like to think I take things step-by-step evaulating success and failure before moving on.
I think I see myself as more of a activist/ reflector.
My group met on Thursday to discuss our results and to talk about what we think we all were by guesting eachothers results. Some were exactly right and some were completely wrong. My guesses from the group members were accurate for some but not others, but as we discussed as a group we all agree what everyone was based on their personalities.
Kirsty Turpie – Activist (activist)
Fiona Harper – Theorist/Pragmatist (high activist)
Lynsey Hutchison – reflector (low activist)
Leanne Evans – Moderate Theorist (very strong theorist)
Gary Gourlay – Activist/Pragmatist (everything except reflector)
NB: normal font for predicted/ bold for test result
So from the team results we can see that there are mainly activists/theorists in the group. We feel that this is a positive mixture in the group and that we can learn from each others learning styles. In saying that the activists may need to sit back when a task is assigned and not try to take other and the theorists can take a different slant of the task for example. I think I admire the reflectors most as they can observe and justify ideas made.
Semester 2: lecture 1
Another semester another blog post for design studies.
On Wednesday this week saw the start of design studies lecturers on a that run every Wednesday morning for a couple of hours. I’m not just saying this but I have always liked design studies out of all my modules taken since 1st year, its were I think to myself ‘yes, this is why I am here’ and Wednesdays lecture did not disappoint. Hamid spoke a little about the module and what was expected, he then spoke a little about our 1st assignment which I will come to soon but also added some topical treats such as teaching us about the water company called ‘One love’ from what I interpreted they found it crazy that millions upon millions of bottled water is sold worldwide annually throughout the world to those who have running water from their taps at home, where as some people in poorer parts of the world have no access to clean water, they then decided to set up a company that would go into the bottled water industry and sell water with all profits benefits those without any water, setting up water pumps in local villages for example and has so far changed 1 million people’s lives! Now that’s impressive!
http://www.onedifference.org/us
The lecture then moved on to us watching the documentary so may say mocumentary! called ‘The Yes Men Fix The World‘ I will let you judge this one yourselves!
Christmas Spirit on a train carriage
After a lovely Christmas break involving family gatherings, shopping and work (:/) I’m back in the blogging game! I always seem to have the perfect thing to blog about but completely forget to post!
I want to start by telling you about a peculiar experience that occurred on my train journey home in December.
When the snow was knee high and all the trains were running slow I waited in the ever so airy Glasgow Central Station with sore feet and arms from the miles walked shopping.
After an hour waiting my train was eventually called and I finally get a well earned seat in my carriage (for once!). Whilst sitting in my quiet carriage, bored, waiting for the train to depart I notice a girl walk past me and stand in the doorway. Me, being nosey glanced round to find her carrying a wad of brown envelopes, the sliding door then opened and the girl walks down the carriage handing out the envelopes, she places mine on the back of the chair where the folding table keeps it secure. I was ever so curious but didn’t want to act too eager and so decided to see others open their envelope before I did, after all, it maybe wasn’t meant for me! Whilst staring at the brown envelope I noticed writing attached to the front which read…
Two excitable kids bouncing up and down on their chairs shouting ‘mummy, mummy look was it is’. I decide I can’t wait either and after reading the instructions on the front curiosity gets the best of me and I open it to reveal a lovely 3d laser cut Christmas card.From the discussions I hear throughout the carriage they were all different! My card is a Superman theme with the caption ‘your my hero’ on the front!
Reflecting back this spontaneous surprise it has really inspired me. Obviously the girl, named Becca Thomas had carefully planned her surprise (who I later found out that she is part of a group of architecture students past and present at Strathclyde Uni in Glasgow that go by the named PidginPerfect). I really like the way she went about giving people the cards, she did so silently, they were optional for people to open, she made sure were reassured by the words on the envelope on a train, living in these terrorism times. She didn’t do it for money but I think (as cheesy as this sounds) she did it to spread some Christmas Spirit! Strangers in the carriage smiled at one another seeing what each others card had on them.
From a designers perceptive the details on the envelope were in a very similar style to a cultural probe, the Ms Thomas ask for feedback/asks us to pass on the card almost creating a social network spread for the card, she also asks us to alter it to your taste but then again she doesn’t ask that you do anything. I have been meaning to email her since Christmas about the card and definitely intend to, just to say thank you for the gift, I decided to colour my card in, it seemed a waste not to.. pictures to follow on my colourful creation!
Here are some useful links if you fancy reading up on what PidginPerfect are all about!
http://www.facebook.com/pidginperfect?ref=ts#!/pidginperfect
