_ M2 Design

‘Design is what links creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end.’ -Treasury 2005

After coming up with the idea of how can a plastic bag would be a second skin in terms of a inflatable object. It is needed to put the

object on a human model, to demonstrate the actual use and size of the inflatable object to a human model. It is good nowadays that there are computer softwares that can help to illustrate virtually.

_ M2 Design_ Sketch design; photo mesh

We are asked to use 123D catch to digitalize our own body. But due to fail communi-

cation with my teammate, I didn’t receive the digitalized body. So I have found a human model through the internet. To help me to illustrate the actual size of my designs, and gaining feedback from this.

It comes out quite good on both size and shape. A little bit modifica-

tion is made to both design though. Shield cannot be only semi-circle shaped as the personal space is not needed that much on sides.

For spiral, the initial design is too thick to fit with a human model. So I have

reduced the thickness of the design, but the feeling is quite different to the initial one, it looks quite nice and seems can be more portable than the initial design.

_ M2 Design_ Meaning of personal space and second skin

Before I started to develop a more detailed design, I think it is more important to refine the

meaning of personal space, and also the mean-ing of second skin. Because they are the funda-mental issue I am facing and my definition to personal space and second skin is critical to my design.

Personal Space

To me, I don’t this I needs much per-sonal space, as I don’t really concern

on how close people are to me, but I more care about if people come near to me with a offensive attitude, e.g. go near me to harm me in anyway. On the other hand, I would like to stay close to people who are nice to me. So my personal space is really depends on my feeling to the one who is approaching. To sum up my thought about personal space, is that it is changeable.

Second skin

How about second skin? What will my second skin aid me to protect my personal space? Second skin, to me it is a

protection, however, the protection should not avoid me from communicating other, it should appear when it is needed. Thus this second skin, which same as my personal space, should be transformable. My second skin would help me to pretending me to be another one, another stronger one that when the malicious see me, they wouldn’t have the thought of attacking me, but to afraid of me.

When people is approaching me with weird thoughts, sometimes I would rather do this to regain my personal space.

Mask is a way to illustrate my thought of second skin, by wearing a mask you can hide your identity so people don’t know who you are, which will be more caution when they try to harm you.

_ M2 Design_Precedent

Although the shield and the spiral seems developing a fairly good design, but it

is not the one I want. I would like my design can be developed more.

As mentioned in Module 1, there is still one more idea that is transformability of in-

flatable object as it depends on the air filled inside, and this would be the most suitable idea relating to my definition of personal space and second skin.

So, instead of just having an idea of trans-forming the inflatable object. I would like

to search for precedent that are pretending they are powerful ones.

The ‘false head’ of butterfly is one of the example to pretend-ing they are a bigger creature to mislead their predator.

Blowfish is normally a little fish with a innocent face, but when its in threaten, it inflates itself with so much amount of wa-ter and become much bigger.

_ M2 Design_Precedent Except the precedent of nature, there are

precedent projects as well...

Big Blob by Jimmy Kuehnle

Big blob is a project by Jimmy Kuehnle in 2007 at Nagoya, Japan. It is an inflatable suit for some one to sit. It looks like a dinosaur tail, and others would avoid from going near it.

Cloud cities by tomás saraceno

Cloud cities is a project by tomás saraceno in 2012 at hamburger bahnhof, berlin. In cloud cities, people have their own living environment and will have least contact with others personal space. Although it is not about pretending, but I think this project will help me to iden-tify personal space.

_ M2 Design_Developing ideas

To achieve the idea of transformating inflata-ble object, several attempts should be made

in order to explore more different feature that a inflatable object can combine with the idea of second skin.

Maybe it can be like a shell shape so it looks like a big hand slapping forward.

Maybe it can be like a cylinder shape so people will notice you.

Maybe it can be like a spike shape just like the initial design, and it ap-pears to be like a porcupine.

Or it can also be a giant mirror im-age of yourself, so it will be even more iconic than the spikes.

Or it can also be some kind of hor-ror creatures, that scares others out...

_ M2 Design_Refining ideas

I would like to refine the idea of Giant. Because giant gives me the strongest feeling of protecting

me and it is like emphasizing the existence of me. So I try to illustrate it in Rhino. Simple draft like giant is made and it comes out really nice in both size and meaning. It would be nice if it is built.

On the other hand, the giant should be easily dispatched as when I am facing my friends,

I would not like to bring my giant to talk to my friend, because that will threaten my friends, so it should be easily and quickly dispatched.

_ M2 Design_developing agenda After few days of thinking deep in the

idea of giant, I feel that it is still lack of development space, as this is just em-phasizing my own thoughts but it is hard to let others to get interested about.

So, instead of just the giant, I deduct the idea of giant into two separate and dis-

tinct ideas: exaggeration and imagination.

Why would it be exaggeration and imagination? The fundamental

idea is giant. First of all, what is a giant?

A giant is : 1) A person or thing of ex-traordinary power, significance, or im-

portance; 2) a mythical figure of super-human size and strength, esp in folklore or fairy tales (the free dictionary 2013).

What have I learnt from the defi-nition is that: giant is a huge

thing, and giant is a mythical figure.

Through out these definition I conclud-ed that exaggeration and imagination

is the fundamental idea of a giant and will be my ideas to develop to my final design.

_ M2 Design_visualizing ideas

When your movement had been exagger-

ated, first of all you will be greatly noticed by oth-ers, and of course, more space will be occupied by you and thus protect-ing your personal space.

Imagine you have 4 more legs, or a tail, or a pair

of wings, what would that happened? Would eve-ryone just treat you as a freak and no one want to come over? Or peo-ple will crowded at you”

_ M2 Design_Prototype approach

As I still haven’t decide which will be my fi-nal idea, One of those ideas have been

chosen to make a prototype to illustrate how it work on real human body. The one I have chosen is the first one, a beam attached to the body to exaggerate your movement of arm.

The idea of this is that you have a pair of ex-treme large arms, that when you move your

arms, your larger arms also moves which exag-gerates your movement. At one end, there is some little tentacles there, like a jellyfish, which are used to increase communication with others.

Reference

Cox, G 2005, ‘Cox Review of Creativity in Business: building on the UK’s strengths’, British Design Council.shaneswaffle 2012, personal space, image, viewed 18 Aug 2013, < http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3741435/personal+space/>.Elric888 2012, Butterfly with Eye-wings, photography, viewed 21 Aug 2013, < http://elric888.deviantart.com/art/Butterfly-with-Eye-wings-178367529 >.Erdinc Ataberk 2009, V for Vendetta Guy Fawk..., image, viewed 19 Aug 2013, < http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/guy-fawkes-mask-3d-max/437441 >.Leigha db 2011, tomás saraceno: cloud cities at hamburger bahnhof, berlin, photography, viewed 21 Aug 2013, < http://www.designboom.com/art/tomas-saraceno-cloud-cities-at-hamburger-bahnhof-berlin/ >.The Free Dictionary 2013, Farlex, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA viewed 30 Aug 2013, < http://www.thefreedictionary.com/giant>.