Week Three – Reflections

This week our class was visited by two representatives of Design for America. This organization showed us how to take a step back from the building of three dimensional objects and to really look at how the design for that object came into existence. After some ice breaking exercises, the team took us through a brief version of the design process and how to think about solving a problem.

I haven’t played with crafts in most likely over a decade. However, with the DFA team, these crafts became rudimentary prototyping tools, making building the design as fun as thinking of it.

The most astonishing part of this process was how important it was to remain in a judgement free zone through the whole experience. Because we had all been playing silly games moments earlier, our team was better able to tackle what seemed like difficult problems before we were all able to loosen up.

This appears to be the most important part of the design process. Most problems that are trying to be solved have been around for a long time. In order to solve a long standing problem, it is important to think in a way that no one has before. It is impossible to do that with the fear of being judged by your peers, so a necessary part of the process should be to take that fear away.

Going forward, I believe that it is necessary to keep that judgement free zone in all aspects of digital making. Design is the foundation of the making process. If this foundation requires no judgement, it only follows that the making be judgment free as well. With this mentality, it would become easier for the fabrication of the design to able to be improved as well as the design itself.

– Noah Baird

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