Daniel Rocha

For the letter D, I chose to use an apple slice for my serif character because the bowl of the letter complemented the curve of an apple. When drawing the thumbnails, I used the font “century” to help me get an idea of the form the object would be taking. I used the same font in adobe illustrator; took the anchor points and stretched them to fit my scanned drawing, but later adjusted them to help favor the serifs on the left of the character. I took the letter apart and use the counters of the D as the leaf on the apple slice to help the audience further understand the concept. I chose to keep the serifs because they helped the Apple slice to be legible as a letter too.

    Human-centered design focuses on what people need, the context they live in, and finding a solution that satisfies the people. Human centered design is a process that is not linear and may feel more like madness rather than an actual progressive method to finding a suitable solution. This type of design has multiple different solutions but each and every one has its pros and cons; a community might be happier with one more than the other. Human centered designers focus find a problem and look for multiple different ways and angles to solve a problem in hand. They gather ideas from other problem solvers, people who are exposed to these problems, and people witness these problems. The people who give the best feedback are the ones who experience these problems first hand. Asking questions creates deep empathy with communities and individuals, making the feedback genuine and reliable for the designers. The steps that designer goes through are inspiration, ideation, and implantation; these steps are unavoidable to execute a design that serves its purpose.

    When looking for inspiration a designer should ask many questions to the target audience. They should also try and to witness or experience the problems first hand for the best ideas, to solve these problems they strive to design for. Working together with others is key to progressing to the best solution possible; an individual may be able to solve a problem themselves, but with a team with the same goal set in mind the process becomes quicker and more ideas from different mental perspectives arise.

    Every idea is valuable; one idea might lead to another. Testing out every idea given is very helpful because the craziest idea might be the best and another might be too complicated for the audience. That isn’t to say every idea is the best idea but rather a stepping stool for others. Sharing your ideas with a team is very helpful; finding a solution shouldn’t be done alone, nor is it easy. The idea isn’t to steal solutions from one another but rebound off what they have or supporting them in their progress.

    The designer should ask for feedback of the product created after it is tested and shown to others. The designer should redesign the product; solving problems the prior outcome had. According to The Field to Human Centered Design failure is an incredibly powerful for learning. The problems that arise from the solution that was tested are seen road blocks but creating something beautiful shouldn’t be easy; Rome wasn’t built in a day. Humans are always progressing, the world around us changes, and people’s views of the world they live in change too; the solution that work now may not work in the future. When something is produced, we live with it then over time we learn from it, and later we can produce something more creative. There is never a perfect product, anything and everything can be better than how it is, but is practically impossible to achieve without recognizing all the feedback that the designer has received.

Cited sources:

IDEO. “The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design.” IDEO.org, bestgraz.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Field-Guide-to-Human-Centered-Design_IDEOorg.pdf.

Designing anything takes thinking, time, and a drive to find a solution. The end result may not be the best, but can always be referenced to find a more suitable solution for the goal in mind. Creative thinking, design thinking, and human-centered design are topics that are practically a necessity for designer to have in mind when starting the process of a new solution. Anybody can design something, but to make that appeal to others is a task that takes many steps to get to.

Creative thinking is to think in a way where the end result would be something that stands out, and could possibly show progress from a previous or similar solution. The most important thing is to create an idea in mind, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, to create means “to bring into existence”, so with that idea we begin to branch off with more ideas and make connections between them for an advanced result. Creative thinking is process that could happen in a blink of an eye or could take years; it depends on the thinker’s life experiences along with the perception they view things around them.

Design thinking is thinking about the design from other perspectives. When designing it is in the best interest to satisfy others before yourself. Nigel Cross states that in Kenneth Grange’s view, it is a ‘road to righteous boredom’ to ‘scorn the elements of style, fashion and pleasure’. The style of the product may appeal to a certain audience, or could be so out of the ordinary it may not have a specific audience to appeal to. When appealing to others a difficult task can be “generating style and form from function and use” of the product (Nigel Cross Pg. 65).

Human-centered design focuses on what people need, the context they live in, and finding a solution that satisfies the people. The designer should ask for feedback of the product created after it is tested and shown to others. The designer should redesign the product; solving problems the prior outcome had. According to The Field to Human Centered, Design failure is an incredibly powerful for learning. Working together with others is key to progressing to the best solution possible.

Humans are always progressing, the world around us changes, and people’s views of the world they live in change too. New ideas are always coming into the world; new ideas mean new opportunities for designers to make those visions a reality. When something is produced, we live with it then over time we learn from it, and later we can produce something more creative. There is never a perfect product, anything and everything can be better than how it is. Making it better requires time, creative thinking, satisfying the audience, feedback from all different kinds of sources, and working together with others. Designing is a process that cannot be stopped, as long as there are new ideas flowing in, new problems to be fixed, and more people to satisfy. Making people happy, communication, and experience is very important; not only in design, but in the world around us.

 Citations/ Sources:

“Design.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/design.

Cross, Nigel. “Designing to Please.” Bloomsbury Design Library - Walter Gropius, 2011, www.bloomsburydesignlibrary.com/encyclopedia-chapter?docid=b-9781474293884&tocid=b-9781474293884-chapter3&pdfid=9781474293884.ch-003.pdf.