Car bed

This relates to design because it's about the importance of DOING as much as planning, thinking, drawing.

I've had on my mind for a while to buy a Berlingo van (or similar)

And to drive from Ireland to Wales and have a wonderful Amdro Jumpkit installed so the wee van could be a camper van. Somewhere to sleep in but small enough to be (almost) mistaken for a car.

The Amdro is designed, invented, manufacted by Iwan Lloyd Roberts by the company he has built up in Wales. It's great to support designers like this. There are copies of the Amdro jump kit doing the rounds too - the idea has taken off. 

But a conversation with a flatmate who works as a panel beater and is around cars and vans put me off a bit... because he talked about VAT on vans and DoE tests and all manner of complications.

I don't know how right he is but it got me thinking.... I should work with what I've got. Which is a 2001 Toyota Corolla.

That pic is not my car... but my car is a three-door! So it's tricky to maneuver in and out!

I found some videos. Some about people permanently living in their cars :(

So I took some measurements of my car with the passenger seat down.

 And then worked on a design

I needed:

18mm plywood (in two sections so I could fold it into the boot)

Hinges

For a mattress, I have a Thai Kapok mattress

For support under my head (between the passenger seat and the back seat), I used Ikea Adils table legs - the holder is peranently screwed to the plywood and the legs can be twisted on when needed.

And at my feet, I rested the plywood on a box, Ikea again: Samla (Width: 56 cm; Depth: 39 cm

Height: 28 cm; Volume: 45 l)

There is a lack of support, however, in the middle of the bed. I had to use pillows here (4 of them!) under the plywood. This still needs to be resolved. It probably is the biggest issue in designing a car bed - the distance that must be spanned.

So I've slept in it and it works! Comfy enough. With duvet and pillow proper bed-like. It offers great freedom to just head off and not be worried about having nowhere to stay! I can visit friends who live on smallholdings and farms with nowhere to put me up.

The condensation issue is a bit crazy, loads of moisture generated overnight even with the window a bit open.

So the message from this post is... Go ahead and do it!

Paper Geodesic Dome

I used two sources when building my paper geodesic dome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym1388CcwuQ&t=176s
http://makezine.com/2008/02/29/how-to-make-a-geodesic-do/

The YouTube video inspired me to make a dome from paper and gave some tips on how and the diagrams on makezine were brill.

This is a 2V dome. That means there are two different strut lengths. I made them from yellow and white paper so I could see the pattern. One strut length is 88.3% the length of the other.

Bilingualism and how it affects how we think of things

This is an example of how my brain works independently of language.
I was raised bilingually (Irish / English). I assume that my way of thinking of things has been influence by my bilingualism. I don't think in terms of words necessarily but, rather, in terms of things.
For example...
I wanted to describe my diary/notebook, how it looked. Here is a picture of it:

"it's black with an orange...[?]..."

I couldn't think of the word.

"Rib?" Is it black with an orange rib?

I knew that was wrong.

I could picture this bone-like thing. And was trying to think of the English word for it. Rib was wrong. Bone? A part of the body? No it wasn't a "back" because it was a kind of straight line bone the entire length of the body (well not quite entire length of the body but length of torso anyway).

Spine!

I don't know if this is due to bilingualism; if bilingual people think like this. That our brains our geared more towards context and objects and ideas than words...? The look of it, the feel of it, the "it" of it more than the word. So that's what I was doing, searching for the English word that fitted the "it-ness" or the "thing" that I had in mind.

As designers, involved with things and objects, I think it's important not to get too caught up with words. Not to be anglo-centred. Or indeed any-language-centred.

Ivar v Hejne

I've moved house 6 or so times in the past two years. When I was moving first, I needed to buy shelving. I knew that it was likely I'd be moving again so the shelves I bought had to be capable of moving with me! And boy, was I right about moving again...!
I dismissed the idea of buying Ikea Billy shelving - bookshelf units that seemed permanent once built. And bulky to move.
So I narrowed the choice down to Ikea Ivar or Ikea Hejne.

Hejne was sooo much cheaper. And they won me over. I bought three Hejne units and 1 Ivar (for testing purposes!). And what am I left with? 0 Hejne + many more Ivars that I've bought over the years.
I didn't like Hejne at all. They were flimsy and cheap. No choice in height. Supposed to be adjustable but really the adjustable heights were so wide apart that the options were limited. I think there was a deep/narrow shelf depth option. I used them both in my utility room and in my sitting room. They didn't look well in the sitting room, the books were never the right scale on the shelves. The utility room was a bit scary cos the shelves didn't feel sturdy enough for all the paint and tools piled on, but then I didn't attach the shelves to a wall which would have provided sturdiness. I thought it would be handy to have four stand-alone posts at the corners that could be used on narrow or deep shelf depths but I think the stand-alone posts caused some of the wobbliness and lack in firmness.

Whereas, Ivar, I love. Very easy to deconstruct and reconstruct. Easy to move (well, with a big car for the super-tall side posts!).
In order to change the shelf heights of Hejne, the unit had to be moved away from the wall to access the allen key screws at the back (and an allen key had to be located) whereas with Ivar, the pins can be pulled out of the holes and the shelf heights adjusted without moving the shelving unit.
Dunno if I'll have them forever and ever, if they'll last *that* long. But they've lastest the 6 moves so far and there's more moves on the horizon.

Moon-reactive street-light

These winter months, I am walking home in darkness from college. There is one particular patch on my walk which is quite precarious as it is outside a building site. The rest of my route is well-lit. So I particularly notice when the moon is out because a full, bright moon makes this section of my walk easy to navigate.

Streetlights can turn on/off in daylight when they are not needed. Why couldn't streetlights turn off at night time too - on those nights that are illuminated by the moon? How much energy would be saved? Surely a minimum of 12 nights per year, i.e. 1/40th. But every watt of energy saved is a drop of oil still in the ground or an ounce less carbon in the atmosphere, eh?

So for the purposes of this blog, I did a bit of googling.
"Lunar-resonant streetlights". They exist!
 Designed by Civil Twilight Design Collective. The lamps use led bulbs and respond to moonlight, dimming according to the level of lunar brightness.
A book reference which may potentially provide info on calculations etc: Light and Color in the Outdoors By Marcel Minnaert

Size, scale: earphones

How and why do some things get used and work... and others don't?
The latest example of this in my life is earphones.
I got a gift of these large pink earphones for Christmas a few years ago (not these ones but similar).

And since I started walking to college last September, I used them nearly every day. Apart from the fact that they blocked out the sound of traffic and were comfortable, the size of them meant that I found them in the mornings, stored them in my college locker during the day, and saw them again in the evening to remember to bring them with me on the walk home.

But they broke. Dunno how. The sound stopped working.

So I sourced a wee pair of earbuds that I had lying around.

Disaster.

The size and scale of the earbuds in comparison with the large pink headphones meant that I was always leaving them behind, putting them in pockets, losing them behind things in my locker. They weren't effective in my life!

I think it's interesting regarding design and intuitive design. And designed objects that get used.

Vegan Cooking for One

This is a design blog so I need to talk about the design of this book. Leah Leneman is the author. Published by Thorsons, a British publishing company in 2000 but originally published as The Single Vegan in 1989.

What I love is... the shopping lists. The book is broken into seasons: Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. And there are 9 weeks in each season. So that's 18 weeks' worth of recipes.
The notes in the beginning explain that sometimes vegans live with other people who aren't vegans - so this recipe book is not for single people per se but in particular for vegans who cook for themselves. Clever!
There's one recipe per day except for Sunday when there's a lunch, dinner and dessert recipe provided!
One day, a recipe might require "half a cabbage" but one of the other days of the same week, the other half cabbage will be used up.
There's also a list of staples included - or store cupboard stock.
Personally, I am not a vegan. But I am single. I discovered I actually eat out a few nights in the week and therefore the shopping list actually lead to waste.
My favourite recipes were the indonesian noodles and the green curry. Some of the recipes were a bit odd - involving eggless mayonnaise but I suppose that's par for the course for a vegan... and I always replaced the tofu with sausages :)

Design that makes the world work smoother

Sometimes we forget that things were designed. Systems and objects conceived in someone's mind. Solutions devised. Problems analysed. People and scenarios enquired into and understood.
How's this for a successful ubiquitous design?

The ticket machine with numbered slips of paper and correlating display. 

I have seen this in shoe shops, train station ticket offices, official government passport or motor tax offices. And used internationally also.

I especially think this is wonderful because users are empowered - it's quite a straightforward system, uncomplicated, easy to understand - and if this system is not working out in the user's scenario, it's easily removed and another queuing method devised.

Sometimes the tickets and the screen are out of synch when the customer agent clicks for the next number "64?" and nobody appears but quickly, humanly, a little bit of eye contact among queuers, a decision by the customer service agent and the numbers are brought back to function. When used in the right places, I love it!

Seen in Gotheborg Design Museum:

Turn-o-Matic, M80
Queue ticket dispenser and queue number display
A&E Design AB, Stockholm, 1974
Tom Ahlstrom
Hans Erich

Designing websites

I've dabbled in design of all sorts. And one area has been website design.
Similar to database design, it's really important to get the layout of the end item mapped out before ever using fancy software and good looking graphics. The "architecture" of the website is very important.
Here's a draft initial sitemap or layout design I did for the pages on a friend's website for her company. We never followed through on it but the initial sketch stands up.

I initially drew this on paper as a mindmap kind of but drew it on paint for the purposes of sharing here. All the technology in the world can't beat a little bit of human thinking and intellectualising and planning.

Insighting, Ideating, Iterating

I took this section from http://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/insead-blog/the-innovative-organisation-learning-from-design-firms-3833
It describes for me so clearly the design process and the way I was taught in architecture school although nobody ever defined the stages like this.

User-centric insighting: In order to create value in novel ways (the goal of innovating), you must first locate opportunities to do so. Where to start looking is easy to see—with the end-user—but it’s far more difficult to detect and synthesise actionable information within the complexity of the user experience. Customer surveys and focus groups simplify the process, but are often removed from how people authentically respond in the marketplace. Designers, by contrast, prefer observation to interrogation, developing empathy to discern unarticulated, even unconscious, user needs. As Tim Kobe, CEO of design firm Eight, Inc. put it, “We represent the end-user in all the design decisions that take place in these innovation projects.” And that’s why building empathy with the target user is crucial, as Continuum did when working with Procter & Gamble to reinvigorate the Pampers brand. Observing mums and their babies, designers realised that the mothers’ ultimate concern was their infant’s development, not the diaper itself. With that in mind, they devised a line of premium diapers for different developmental stages (Swaddlers, Cruisers, etc.) rather than segmenting by age.

Deep and diverse ideating: Designers generate heaps of new ideas based on user insights. This phase is where they unleash their creativity, coming up with as many and as distinct potential solutions as possible before putting much thought into implementation. These preliminary solutions are the product of an organisational process that deliberately cultivates a broad range of perspectives. Far from avoiding eccentric and exceptional voices, design firms seek them out and encourage their contributions within an atmosphere of freedom of thought and playfulness. Playfulness is so important at IDEO that they have created a Toy Lab where designers conceive and test out some of their creations by playing with kids as young as 18 months.

Rapid and cheap iterating: Designers understand that the creative flurry of the ideation phase can take them only so far. They are quick to make ideas concrete and not shy to declare them failures when they don’t live up to expectations. For designers, failures are not negative events but learning experiences. Producing fast and cheap dummy versions to test out concepts means that even when the experiments flop, it’s still a win-win. Singapore-based multidisciplinary design consultancy Awaken Group makes “low-resolution prototypes” of spaces using stacked cardboard boxes to represent walls. That way, alterations can be made to the design in a matter of moments as the client walks through the demo space.

Thank you to Manuel Sosa. Read more at http://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/insead-blog/the-innovative-organisation-learning-from-design-firms-3833#IubtlgXCQALWBUiK.99

Shop and Work Spaces in Köln

Three years ago, I took a notion that I would like to live in Paris. I took time off from my steady, pensionable job (which was making me miserable at the time) and lived in the Latin Quarter for a month. But I couldn't bear it. I barely survived three weeks. My niece had been born in Germany (she was born while I was still in Ireland) and I couldn't wait to go and meet her. Here I was, on continental Europe and so was she! So I abandoned ship, I left Paris a few days early. I paid a ridiculous price for a train ticket to Köln.
All of that is an unecessary prelude really... the real story starts like this...
I had a few hours to kill in Köln before catching my next train. I went walking through the city. I was blown away by all the high street stores. Every shop you could name. From the UK or France or Germany or Italy - Pimkie, Body Shop, l'Occitane, HandM, Next, Benetton, Penney's/Primark - they all had huge branches in Köln. I don't really favour high street shops but I couldn't help be astounded. Brussels was similar but not as big, and not all together on the broad pedestrianised street: Hohe Strasse and Schildergasse.
And then I meandered on to smaller streets. And loved what I saw there too. Designers with workshops behind their shops. So a shopfront, and then maybe a mezzanine floor where the clothes were being sewn and made situated above the till / dressing room / stock room. And there was more than one of these! I loved it. Eagerly, I asked the shop owners and designers for their business cards. I saw it as maybe an option for me. An alternative to returning to my dreary desk in Dublin.
And on my next visit to Köln, I was excited to revisit this street. Of course, I hadn't made any life changes. I had returned to my safe job. So I was seeking inspiration and reassurance that these alternative places existed.
But I couldn't find the shops. I walked along the streets where I thought they were. I had mislaid the business cards. I remembered "Breite Strasse" very distinctly. I walked it and the adjacent streets. No luck. Maybe they'd gone?! Maybe they couldn't survive? The dream isn't a practical reality. Other "cool" shops were now inhabiting the streets in the area. Gentrification.
I have visited Köln twice at least since. And each time, I've walked in the vicinity of Breite Strasse hoping to see something I'd missed. It's put me off Koln. I don't like the place as much anymore. With the hipster Belgian Quarter. Sure, I've discovered the amazing Die Wohngemeinschaft hostel, the fab hairdresser a few doors up, Mythos, and the lovely coffee shop called Yummy Müslibar.
But back to Paris... the other day I was going through my old travel diaries. And I was delighted to find, tucked into the back of the Paris scrapbook, the business cards for the designer-maker shops in Köln. With trepidation, I checked their webpages. And I was ecstatic to discover that they both still exist!

rkm-kleiderkunst.de
schinkelwitz.de

I blame the map on one of the business cards for my confusion. The map highlights Breite Strasse and other streets in the area and only has a big spot on the shop location... but *doesn't* hightlight the actual street that the shop is on.
The street name? Auf dem Berlich. And I can't wait to go back to Köln and walk along it.

Intuitive Design using Colour

My mam and I both have Hetty and Henry vaccuum cleaners. Hetty has been part of my life for three or so years and when mam needed to buy a new hoover, I had no hesitation in recommending the Numac family to her.

I noticed that everytime my mam went to turn off her Henry, that she hit the "hi power" button instead of the on/off switch.

This puzzled me. I never got this wrong. We investigated...

On my cleaner, the on/off switch is green and the hi-power switch is red - this must be the intuitive colour for operation.

Which one would you go for to switch it on/off?
Another example... I remember getting a new bank card and noticing that almost everytime I used it, I inserted it at the wrong end... whereas, this had never happened with my previous card.

Unfortunately I can't remember exactly which end I inserted first, but I think it was blue!

Costume exhibition in Kilkenny craft gallery

This exhibition runs until 16th October 2013:
http://www.nationalcraftgallery.ie/exhibitions/costume

There were two rooms; two displays.

 "Behind the Scenes"

Turning the traditional idea of a costume exhibition inside out, Behind the Scenes focuses on the undergarment, demonstrating that these complex, functional pieces are beautiful objects in their own right. It follows the team’s journey from initial concept through sketching, designing, pattern-cutting, sampling, construction and tailoring to the finished pieces themselves. Featuring panniers, hoops, crinolines and bustles, specially created for the exhibition by the Abbey team, the exhibition celebrates the sculptural qualities of these beautiful objects and the superb craft skills employed in making them.

Very interesting, good exhibition. Beautiful space in which to house the exhibition.

Although not entirely consistent in terms of the approach taken with each demonstrated piece, eg some had pic of item on-stage; some had notes of the play/character/actor who wore it, some had story to go with it (bird-seed bra; duvet crinoline), some had notes on or interview with the designer. I'm being fussy but it's because the information that was there was so excellent that I would have liked similar for each item on display! The exhibition information boards needed a little more thought on the layout, or a bit of planning or... as I said, being fussy.

There was really great information and the story of the underwear garment provided alongside the fat man suit. Unfortunately for me, I'd heard all the stories on a radio programme so the surprises and highlights of this small exhibition were already known to me.

Setting out on my career as costume designer, I'm starting to draft my own patterns. Corsetry is something that fascinates me, I'm a little daunted by it.

These pattern pieces were labelled "Corset pattern pieces" - I was puzzled, how did they fit together?! On closer inspection, the pieces were labelled with different designer/character/actress names. It looks cool on the wall as it's laid out with the shadows behind the pieces, but ultimately there is no deeper layer of information provided.
***
"Future Fashion" was the second display and included pieces from:
Úna Burke
Andreia Chaves
Marloes ten Bhomer
Stephanie Bila
Ana Rajcevic
Julia Lundsten of FINSK

I'm in a "cage" phase at the moment so I particularly loved these Invisible Shoes.

Andreia Chaves is the creator; those works struck me above all and I sketched two of them: "Invisible Shoe 2" and "Goldsculpt 1".

Overall, a very worthwhile trip. Thank you -despite my pernickity comments - to curator Angela O'Kelly.

The birth of a new blog

Over this past while, and especially these past few days, my interest in sewing has grown. It is fascinating - FASCINATING - to see the variety of blogs that are out there.

• Some people blog to gather their own ideas together like a collage (which is what this Design blog has been for me, a collecting-point for my thoughts and little by little I can see my own style become recognisable)
• Some people blog for support and to share their projects and ideas
• Some people blog as a business - they promote their shop or their products
• Some people blog to promote their ideas and way of life, to voice their opinions

One blogger, Adrienne, from All Style All Substance, is doing a thesis on feminine studies, and if I understand correctly the topic is sewing and women and the blogosphere.

I enjoy my Design History Musings very much. And I am still grappling with what "design" really is... or at least what it really is for me.

I don't want to confuse my sewing projects with my design musings. I want to partake in the sharing and commenting and admiring of the community of sewing bloggers! And my sewing projects don't need to be interrupted by postings about spoons!!!

There are many other online ways to gather together sewing enthusiasts. And by 'sewing' I really mean dressmaking because there are quilters and crafters out there and they're a whole other kettle of very interesting fish! Other tools include

• burdastyle
• flicker for photos
• etsy or dawanda as an online shopping 'street' for retailers, consumers and window-shoppers all
• pinterest (although I don't get the need to link to facebook or twitter)
• facebook
• twitter
• patternreview

But for all that, I find blogs are leading the way.

My past few posts have been very wordy... that needs to come to an end too! More images, please.

I bought this postcard in the Museum in Ixelles in Brussels recently. I saw so much on my month in Europe that I haven't processed the half of it! I loved the postcard because the work is so concentrated and the pencil is touching the paper. He his Paul Hankar, an architect during the Art Nouveau style period. It is a poster drawn by Paul Crespin (1859-1944) and shows Hankar's concentration while doing the work and his body bent over the desk. I need my mind to give way to my hands and give way to physical production too.

I chose another two postcards while I was away; it strikes me now that they all have that theme of physicality and concentration on the task at hand.
This one is of a choral singer doing a solo line, or maybe she is a soloist and the other singers behind her provide backing... I'll never know! It resonated with me because I sing. I sing in a choir. And just before I left for Europe, I sang at the funeral of a good friend's grandfather. And I daresay I didn't look as composed  or as humble as this soloist does!

The image is a painting by Henry Lerolle (1848-1929) entitled À l'Orgue. I picked up the postcard in the Orangerie gallery in the Jardin des Tuilleries in Paris.
The next image could be haunting, but when you study the girl, she is just so concentrated and so immersed in reading the pages that the feeling changes to one of intrusion on her space. I imagine she's reading a script and about to go on stage. Or maybe she's directing the play or the film or... I don't quite know why I like it and I don't quite know why I can't help looking!

This postcard was bought in the Pompidou Centre in Paris. It is from an oil painting by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) and is entitled Lesende.
I hope these three images are a satisfactory way to remind me of the purpose of this particular blog and to satisfactorily make the move to a dress-making only blog. Find it at fuail.blogspot.com

Dirk Wynants

When I posted about the Visit to The Design Museum in Gent, I mentioned I'd write more about the exhibition about Dirk Wynants.
I loved this product:

• Arthur

I liked this product:

• Picnik

And I kind of liked this one:

• Donut

I did not like this one:

• Kosmis 'oris

A kind of podium thing. Too "designery". Too "cool". A bare bulb? An overall unaesthetic shape. But I thought the internal step, the space for computer/notes to be hidden etc were good. Good ideas but badly manifested (in my opinion, of course, I think the Museum in Gent are very happy with it and they use it for launches and speeches).

But back to my very favourite of Dirk Wynants designs for the Extremis range: Arthur.

Arthur is a fold-up / flat-pack table that can be put together temporarily for a dinner party. Move the usual, regular, day-to-day bits of furniture and life aside, and fill the room with a table for friends and food. Everybody can have a large dinner party!
Comes in three different sizes for 8 or 10 or 12 people.
And the centre circular plate rotates (which I love and experienced in Cairo for eating mezze).

Sewing "cake" or "frosting"

Reading another blog about sewing, the blogger, Tasia, discusses her concept of "frosting" and "cake" and how she much prefers sewing frosting.
She puts it much better than I ever will! And you can find her post here.
Put simply:

• frosting = fancy dresses, beautiful fabrics, lushness, showing-off, fun and frolics
• cake = jeans or black skirt, for example. the sensible, classic items of clothing that form staples in a wardrobe.

As a designer, I think I'm ALL about the cake!!! I don't go for frills and decoration for the sake of it, I want my core object to be beautiful and practical and wearable and interesting. 

I wonder what my favourite cake is...? I do love lemon drizzle.

I certainly and absolutely prefer a soft lemony sugary cake to a cupcake, for example, which is normally all sponge and mostly sugar-coated excessive swirl of excessive coloured sugary cone on top.

My reason for sewing is to make wearable unique clothes that suit my style and my shape. I have no desire to be a couture fashion designer or be on the catwalks. If my friends come to me with fabric and an idea, and I can produce an outfit, I'll be happy!

Easter Egg

I received a gorgeous Easter Egg this year. And - after opening it - realised how well produced / designed the egg and packaging were, hand-in-hand.

• Firstly, the circular tube + the base of the chocolate egg: the chocolate base is poured to just the right diameter to fit in the tube. The base keeps the egg steady in the packaging.

• Secondly, there is a hole in the back. At first I thought it was useful for getting out the little chocolates (theegg is full to the brim of little chocolates!) but then, of course, I realised the reason for this hole wasforgetting the little chocolates into the big egg in the first place!

• And thirdly, the chocolatier's name was displayed on the front of the chocolate egg in a square of chocolate dyed red. Yum!

The chocolate is delicious. Thank you, Monsieur Pierre Marcolini and, indeed the aunt who presented me with it ;)

Design Museum Gent

During a Month in Europe, I made a day-trip from Brussels to Gent.

Gent is a very picturesque city - quite Dutch with it's canals and bicylclists. It was very cold when we were there and not the most comfortable to walk around. We went to the Design Museum first but decided not grab lunch before heading in to the exhibitions. Nothing worse than an empty stomach + trying to take in what a museum has to offer (well ok, there are many many worse things...)

The guy at the desk was odd. He never gave us tickets although we paid, nor a map of the building. And pointed us in the direction of the cloakroom. We then entered into some period-style decorated rooms, a tour of which brought us back to the foyer and the ticket-man. Utterly confused, we wondered if we should cross the hallway and go through a passageway marked with a do-not-enter symbol. Perhaps the "do-not-enter-ness" applied if you hadn't yet bought your ticket...?!

We overheard a French couple being told the way... and on we went...

Much of the museum is housed in the rear building behind the courtyard. A modern insert behind an old facade. Apparently the floor is hydraulic and can be adjusted depending on the items being exhibited - a two-storey boat, I assume! Or a dinosaur...!

The permanent exhibition focusses very much on style - Art Nouveau, Rococco, Art Deco. This is not my own personal strong point. Historic referencing. Nor is it something I am interested in. Style and Period and School. Bah.

There were two temporary exhibitions which we visited: 'Design Works?' - a collection of the designed products by Dirk Wynants and 'Eternal Spring' - Barbara Nanning's glass sculptures.

We think, although it is not listed in the exhibition, and we somehow missed it on our walkabout in the galleries, that there was also an exhibition on Tablewear. Qui sait. As I said, this museum is not the easiest to manoevre about.

The Dirk Wynants exhibition started very bizarrely with an information board telling the story of how much globes meant to this person. No introduction about who the person is. I felt it was a marketing exercise for this designer. A chance to justify his designs and "explain" them. I think I will do a separate blog post about what I liked about his work and the pieces I liked.

Barbara Nanning's objects made me think that there is a distinction between creating or artistry and being a designer. I think "design" must define a separation between thinker and maker. The designer must communicate ideas through drawings or models or verbal instructions and someone else then produces the finished product as closely, hopefully, to the intentions and 'vision' of the designer. I think that is where the magic or the mystery occurs. In laying down the ideas, in describing them, and in their interpretation. There is a process of:

• client describes brief
• designer interprets brief and describes solution
• workmen produce solution
• client lives with the production

That process, I think now, is what fascinates me about "Design".

And not to confuse the issue too much, but always there is another element to the process:

• consumption

It also fascinates me that the client and their brief, for example "I need to buy a draining board rack", can be influenced by so many factors to do with marketing and shopping experience, and branding, and cost... whereas designers are influenced by creating a piece that is... what? dramatic? useful? etc... and how, in real life, do these needs collide?

To be continued....!!!

Oh - to conclude re the Design Museum in Gent. I saw some Lalique glass. A vase. And am fascinated to see more of his work.

I think Design Museums are tricky. Are they aimed at the general public? At designers? At creating awareness of "design" - etc. I think of the museum in London which Terence Conran was involved with and the wonderful museum in New York.

Design for Coffee Table (& Side Tables)

Recently I moved all my possessions from my parents' house to my rented accommodation. All my books, notes, clothes, perfume, fabric, pens, art equipment... everything!

And today, I took out my cutting mat and blade and made a model of an idea I have for a coffee table.

The idea started like this

• I like to have "coffee table books" on a coffee table and to have them visible, but not in the way of day-to-day use [glass top with shelf below]
  
• Coffee tables are for eating dinner in front of tv and cups of tea and putting the remote control and tv guide (we're old school, we still use printed tv guides)

And a second idea that influenced this finished design, comes into play especially when guests are seated

• side tables for drinks and nibbles

Third design aim:

• Often, at a large gathering the coffee table is in the way and must be moved to a bedroom to make enough space in the sitting room

So, hey presto:Two side tables. When not in use, they lie on their sides on the ground and a sheet of glass is placed on top and another slightly smaller-sized sheet material rests on them. I haven't decided on materials - possibly perspex (or glass) for the top with the side-tables/ "legs" and sheet material in metal or wood.
It's lovely to be designing again! Made possible when all the bits and things I need are to hand.

The measurements are approx L800 x W800 x H400.