Practical questions

1. Identify key themes within essay and research (blogs) 
2. Choose one theme. 
3. Build three initial ideas/plans from this. (Choosing a specific idea to re-enforce over and again) 

Key themes: 

• Psychological and physiological concepts and techniques in the aim of showcasing the ability to elicit stronger emotional responses through sensory design, marketing and architecture techniques. 
• Multi-sensory design and sensory marketing techniques and uses of sensory design within the field of the retail 
• Use of sensorial cues to evoke emotional responses from consumers, to create a stronger identity
• Sensory design within the field of sensory architecture, theories of Phenomenology and to how it situates knowledge in the body
• Presenting the argument between the dominant sense of vision  and the other suppressed senses
• Sensory design in the context of therapy - Reference blog on synesthesia 
• How sensory incorporates a strong sense of inclusiveness - the effectiveness of sensory design in the context of therapy
• Using VR to replicate synaesthesia in a retail environment – connection – multisensory 
• Redesigning a space or area based on your knowledge – simplify (potentially a VR piece or a rebranding of a company within the retail industry) 
• Choosing a specific idea to re-enforce over and again 
• Plan – ideas for practical – sensory rooms 
• Something bland – make it interesting having a connection.

Inclusive design research

http://www.bagbooks.org/about-us/what-we-do/multi-sensory-books 

Multi-sensory design for people with learning and sensory disabilities: 

• Sensory rooms - What is the rooms purpose // who's going to use the room
• Types of sensory rooms: 

Multi-sensory architecture 

• The hierarchy of senses 
• The figure illustrates the hierarchy of attentional capture by each of the senses as envisioned by Morton Heilig, the inventor of the Sensorama, the world’s first multisensory virtual reality apparatus

• Good article on the merging of senses - https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/04/03/why-sensory-design
• Fusion of mind, body, and sensation.

Anosmia - the loss of the ability to detect one or more smells

Anosmia smell wheel showing the monotony of smell loss, 2015; Christine Kelly (American and British, b. 1959)

Anosmia smell wheel 9 months after onset showing more intense but still not pleasant smell experiences, 2015; Christine Kelly

Synesthesia - stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

• Music can play in color
• Letters can conjure sounds or textures
• When learning the alphabet, a child might link the color green with words that start with g. Such associations become fixed for life,
• David Genco, a graphic designer with synesthesia, assigns color, gender, and personality to numbers. In his interactive video project Synesthetic Calculus, video clips visualize unique ways of remembering numbers via sensory connections.

Synesthetic Calculus (stills), 2012; David Genco (Luxembourgian, b. 1985)

Synesthetic Calculus (stills), 2012; David Genco (Luxembourgian, b. 1985)

Neurologist Richard E. Cytowic:

• ” The human mind has a gift for connecting sensations — we link tastes and colors, sounds and spaces. Some people who are deaf or blind become acutely attuned to multiple senses, using areas of the brain typically devoted to sight or sound to process other inputs. People perceive objects and spaces with sound and touch as well as with vision. People experience sound by feeling vibrations and seeing movements as well as hearing by ear."
• “The brain doesn’t care where the signals come from — your eyes or your big toe. Send in anything, and the brain will figure it out. Reality takes shape in the dark theater of the brain.”

Bruce Mau - 'Design Live' essay -“To design for all the senses: start with a blindfold.”

Adam Jasper and Nadia Wagner - 'Smell' essay - "Smell sits at the bottom of the pyramid, in part because it resists attempts to be visually diagrammed"

Juhani Pallasmaa book 'Eyes of the Skin' questions the dominance of visual form and the Western obsession with “ocularcentrism.” (The privileging of vision over the other senses.)

Pallasmaa says architecture should embrace and envelop the body with authentic materials and tactile forms. Sensory design slows space down, making it feel thick rather than thin. An intimate room reverberates with shifting shadows and surfaces wrought from wood, wool, or stone. An atrium changes with the sun. Rough walls and dense fabrics absorb clatter and din.

Types of senory design: 

• A scent player for Alzheimer’s patients stimulates the appetite by releasing the smell of grapefruit, curry, or chocolate cake at mealtimes.
• actile graphics are used to communicate ideas through the sense of touch.
• Buildings with spacious hallways and vibrant materials accommodate everyone, including people experiencing blindness, deafness, or memory loss.

Mapping

Graphic designer Kate McLean created a sensory map of Singapore using experiential data generated by over two hundred residents who went with her on “smellwalks.” Suspended in the humid air of this island city are the smells of curry, jasmine, and Manila rope. Little India and Kampong Glam are districts especially dense with scent. McLean’s map locates distinctive smells and visualizes their trajectories. Smell cannot be abstracted from bodily experience: “Using humans as sensors is a method that aggregates personal insight…. It is about the acceptance of the subjective as worthy and useful data.”

ESSAY LAYOUT

 How Valuable is a Multi-Sensory Design/Branding Approach within the Respective Consumer and Teaching Industries?

Sensory design is grounded in phenomenology.

Changes to Essay Question

After some really interesting research into the sensory design within the education of people with disabilities and the influence of multi-sensory design within architecture, I've rephrased the question to accommodate the two topics. A large part of the essay will still focus on the effectiveness of multi-sensory design within the consumer industry but through the common thread of the value of the considerations of senses and the implication that it could be a bit gimmicky, the essay should be able to smoothly transition between the topics of consumer industry to architecture and the impact of sensory design in the areas we shop and/or live in, to its value in the education of people with disabilities. The essay will offer arguments for and against the use of the sensory design in each of these fields of working. 

To Do

• Add to research on sensory architecture - find a way of relating the research back to the survival of multi-sensory design 
• build on research into multi-sensory design for people with learning disabilities
• Draw links to inclusive design 
• Draw links between consumer psychology and multi-sensory design 
• Work out the structure  - compare to old structure - see how new topics could fit/replace old headings.

191 Bar Crawl Brief

 

Sensory Architecture

1. research on how deeply ingrained the sense of vision is in our understanding of the world 
2. research on architects whose practice is guided by the heightening of sensory experiences (more research on highlighted artists) (Glenn Murcutt, Steven Holl, and Peter Zumthor )
3. Research on how consumer consumption patterns influence the craft of architects, Joseph Rykwert - more research into this field of thinking
4. The Senses: Design Beyond Vision
5. Juhani Pallasmaa's book 'Eyes of the Skin' questions the dominance of visual form and the Western obsession with “ocularcentrism.” (The privileging of vision over the other senses.)
6.  Joyce Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka, Sensory Design (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). (describe the different ways we encounter architecture...We judge the scale of a building in relation to our own limbs and torsos)
7. shopping with freud

• Pallasmaa, J. (2012) The Eyes Of The Skin Architecture and the Sense. 3rd Edition. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 

This book aims to express the importance of the tactile sense for our experience and understanding of the world, The book draws links between the debated dominant sense of vision (how deeply ingrained the tyranny of vision is) and the suppressed sense of touch. And how the influx of new technologies flipped the script to where pictures controlled language, not the other way around.

Pallasmaa says architecture should embrace and envelop the body with authentic materials and tactile forms. Sensory design slows space down, making it feel thick rather than thin. An intimate room reverberates with shifting shadows and surfaces wrought from wood, wool, or stone. An atrium changes with the sun. Rough walls and dense fabrics absorb clatter and din.

'touch is the sensory mode which integrates our experiences of the world and ourselves' p12 - Pallasma argues that our sense of touch is the compass on which guides our reference, memory, imagination and integration of the world around us. And argues that all the other senses are an extension of the tactile sense, stating that 'the senses are specializations of skin tissue' p12 thus meaning that all forms of sensory interaction are modes of touching. 

He states that architecture must be set out with the task of accommodation and integration at the heart of it, through addressing all the senses simultaneously, in turn helping to amalgamate our impression of self with the experiences of the world - with the intention of reinforcing our sense of reality and self. 

Vision and Knowledge 

In western culture, sight has been regarded as the most valuable of the five senses. In classical Greek thought, certainty was centered around the sense of vision. 'The eyes are more exact witnesses than ears' p18- Heraclitus Plato regarded the sight as humanity greatest gift, stating ethical universals must be accessible to 'the minds eye'

During the Renaissance, the five senses were understood to form a heirachacle system from highest vision down to touch. (fire light - heart) - p18

'The hegemony of vision has been reinforced in our time by a multitude of technological inventions and endless multiplication and production of images' - Pallasmaa p24 

'An unending rainfall of images' - Italo Calvino p24

'The fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as a picture' - Heidegger p24

'The only sense that is fast enough to keep pace with the astounding increase of speed of the technological world is sight' p24

Visual images have become commodities 'A rush of images from different spaces almost simultaneously collapsing the world's spaces into a series of images on a television screen...The images of places and spaces become as open to production and ephemeral use as any other commodity' p24

Multi-sensory experience (architecture)

Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory; 'qualities of space matter and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle' p45 

Steinerian philosophy assumes that we actually utilize no fewer than 12 senses.

'Vision reveals what touch already knows. we could think of the sense of touch as the unconscious of vision' p46 

'The only sense which can give a sensation of spatial depth is touch because touch senses the weight, resistance and three-dimensional shape (gestalt) of material bodies, and thus makes us aware that things extend away from us in all directions' p46

The use of body senses

The body is not a mere physical entity; it is enriched by both memory and dream, past and future. Edward S Casey argues that our capacity of memory would be impossible without a body memory. The world is projected in the body and the body is projected onto the world 

We have an innate capacity for remembering and imagining places. Perception, memory, and imagination are in constant interaction; the domain of presence fuses into images of memory and fantasy 

The multitude of sensory experiences is heightened in the work of Glenn Murcutt, Steven Holl, and Peter Zumthor 

Alvar Aalto was consciously concerned with all the senses in his architecture. - more interested in the encounter of the object and the body of the user than in mere visual aesthetics - 'Aalto's architecture exhibits irregularities and polyrhythms in order to arouse bodily, muscular and haptic experiences' p76

Aalto's architecture is based on sensory realism. His elaborate surface textures and details, created for the hand, invite the sense of touch and create an atmosphere of intimacy and warmth 

Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision (book) - analyses historical connections between vision and knowledge, vision and ontology, vision and power, vision, and ethics. 

The task of architecture 

'Buildings and towns enable us to structure, understand and remember the shapeless flow of reality' p76

• Mallgrave, H & Goodman, D. (2011) An introduction to Architectural Theory 1968 to the Present. 1st Edition. Chichester. Wiley-Blackwell. 

Documenting the relevance of semiotics and the use of quasi-scientific fields of working to inform the 'meaning' within architecture and how the common thread of thinking applied to the consumer environment through advertisements can inform the way in which architecture consider the consumers' consumption activities, in the design of the environments we inhabit. 

Semiotics and Architecture 

Joseph Rykwert's 1960 essay "meaning and building"p39 called for designers to attend to architecture's emotional power - using the works of psychologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. On top of this, he urged architects to look at the works of American advertising to learn how someone defines their particular place in the world. 

Most of Rykwerts theory based on positivistic or quasi-scientific foundations 

'Through a semantic study of the environment, we can discover the means of discoursing in our buildings. Only that way we will be able to appeal to the common man' p40

Meaning in architecture 

architecture and its interpretation

The sensory design considers not just the shape of things but how things shape us—our behavior, our emotions, our truth. 

Forms of multi-sensory design/branding // multi-sensory and inclusive design ?

 Design: 

• A review of multi-sensory technologies in a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) classroom. (immersive VR, information technology, learning motivation, learning outcome, multi-sensory instruction, multi-touch tablets, multimedia, somatosensory stimuli, virtual reality, visual stimuli) 'What multi-sensory technologies are available to use in a science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) classroom, and do they affect student engagement and learning outcomes?'
• A Brief History of Multisensory Design (https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/multisensory-architecture-design-history/) 
• Understanding multi-sensory and inclusive design principles. (https://medium.com/design-intelligence/project-kickoff-understanding-multi-sensorial-and-inclusive-design-principles-1d3e5cf99aa8) 
• Reframing the Situation: Design for Life--Thinking beyond Inclusive Design. https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=b96cf8f5-18c2-4ee1-abd8-8d4be5aa2152%40sdc-v-sessmgr01
• Universal Design - good term for researching articles 
• 
  

Multi-sensory and inclusive design? 

'Ultimately, sensory design is inclusive. It embraces users with different abilities and special needs. After viewing tactile braille maps and architectural layouts that increase mobility for blind people, we were inspired to design for our subset of the visually-impaired.

But we also saw pieces that would not only be beneficial for people with disabilities, but for able-bodied people as well — like utensils to minimize spilling for people with arthritis, grab bars designed for wheelchair users, and a smart voting booth with an audio controller for those hard of hearing. Hence, subtle adaptations to existing designs can integrate people with disabilities into societal structures, instead of providing an entirely separate way of conducting life. This is smart, inclusive design that breeds desegregation and champions equality.'

“Our greatest asset when we design is human diversity.” —Tim Allen

Paragraph 1 Research (consumer theory) [The relevance/importance of multi-sensory design/branding in consumer and art industries. will it survive through and after covid?]

Consumer Psychology, (Jansson Boyd, 2010) 

Reference List:

Jansson-Boyd, C. (2010) Consumer Psychology. (2nd edition), Maidenhead: Open University Press.

In-text citation:

Jansson-Boyd, C. (2010)

Brief History of Consumer Psychology 

Consumer Memory & Learning 

Perception & Attention 

Brand Loyalty 

Identity 

This research will form the basis for some of the avenues I will want to explore in my first paragraph, in relation to how consumers interact within the consumer industry, in particular the physical shopping environment. 

This research doesn't offer much in the way of multi-sensory design with the consumer industry, but it does offer points of discussion on fundamental elements to consumer psychology and how connections between the consumer and the branding//advertsising within the consumer industry are formed. 

Schultz, D.P., & Schultz, S.E. (2004).  A history of modern psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth

Berger, A., Ditchter, E. (2017) “Introduction to the Transaction Edition," The Strategy of Desire, [E-book edition]. Abingdon: Routledge. 

Dichter, E., The Strategy of Desire, 1964, p. 341

Kanner, A.D & Gomes, M.E. (1995). Ecopsychology : restoring the earth, healing the mind. San Francisco : Sierra Club Books.

Schwartz, S.H. (1990) “Individualism-collectivism: Critique and proposed refinements” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. P139-157

One hour Brief - CALM #DATEWITHAMATE

About:

A one our brief for 'CALM', a suicide prevention movement. The aim of this brief to quickly come up with an effective set of storyboards for their Instagram page, that would approach the idea of checking in on your friends. 

In a time where people are feeling lonelier than ever due to restrictions on mixing households, the CALM movement's agenda is more relevant than ever, offering a place for those affected to reach out and have a connection with someone. The current climate we are in (COVID) was a driving force behind our outcome, along with some of the previous styles of content on the CALM Instagram page. 

Research: 

Collage of selected promotional works from 'CALM' Instagram and website. There was a variety of imagery with bold type layered ontop and 'memes' on Instagram, but as a group, we were more drawn to the illustrative works of similar organizations such as 'The mInd Map' who communicated their message through short-punchy phrases and playful sketches. 

Initial Ideas: 

Mel's playful sketch here was aims to communicate a sense of brightness and lightheartedness to what is a very serious topic, we aim to work with this aesthetic alongside meaningful messages to create a genuine but fun approach to the Instagram stroy boards. 

While Mel and Hannah work on the style of the middle (2nd) tile on Instagram, Ben Cobb and myself work on slogans to accompany the middle imagery. 

Here my slogan attempted to catch the audience's attention through a sense of visual hierarchy in the type, creating a potentially memorable slogan that can be read in two ways. A quick outcome that could be refined a lot more, the background color doesn't communicate our light aesthetic, but this was simply chosen to make the type stand out more; with more refining, a different typeface would have been chosen, one that felt softer than this, potentially Futura as it still looks effective as a heading type but has rounded look to it. 

Bens design here incoprates speach bubbles, a visual cue to the topic of callign and having discussion with your friend in need. Layered textures used on the speach bubbles to add a sense of depth to the design. 

Specification (written by Shamita) 

CALM - Date with a Mate

To celebrate the power of friendships, we have created storyboards for Instagram for the CALM campaign. Yellow and pink create and bright and happy aesthetic. We have used two type based and one illustrated boards with playful styles, to show how fun and lighthearted you can be after calling a mate.

Final Outcome:

with alterations made to the typeface and a change in the color palette (to communicate a sense of brightness and happiness), Hannah has put together a set of story boards that present our take on the #DATEWITHAMATE campaign. 

Student Starpack Awards 2021

 

Brief Reviews

 

1. The brief needs to define what the name of the fast-food chain to give a starting point/reference to build the brand around 
2. Why's the target demographic so small. Keeping the branding contemporary and aimed at a younger audience is one thing, but limiting the target audience to an age range as specific as this feels limiting and is also quite vague, which complicates what they're wanting the outcome to look like. 
3. Will the Spanish food be focused on a particular region? This would entail a particular aesthetic if it's trying to present an authentic Spanish branded aesthetic. 
4. Needs more context as to where the restaurant will be situated, what the kind of packaging will be (sustainable considerations), 
5. The underlying question isn't very clear, where do they aim to be situated in their respective market? Do they pride themselves on their ingredients? Are they a start-up company or are they established?

This brief has the starting of a good idea, there needs to be more detail on the values of the business as a whole, as to give more context to build a unique branded identity. 

1. Too personal 'My friend'. 
2. What will they be branding, bit vague, needs more context as to what they will be branding. Is it a socially distanced event or an online platform?
3. Is there a specific aesthetic the DJ's looking for?
4. Will this brief include promotional designs i.e. Instagram posts, posters, etc. 
5. 'The branding should convey interactivity' is a bit vague. Could they of referenced a certain genre of music to create

Title is a bit misleading, the criteria for the outcome is vague and the mandatory requirements should have been included in the brief description.  

Interactive Socially Distanced Design

 

1. 

East London-based Accept & Proceed's proposal focuses on reshaping amateur football pitches to allow for matches to restart. It proposes placing colourful marking on the pitch highlight the area that each player can occupy so they do not come in contact with each other.

2.

Brand consultancy Dn&co chose to focus its Augmented Assembly response on Parliament square, although like many of the ideas it is designed to be appropriate for many open spaces. It proposes creating an app that would be used to project shifting patterns onto the ground so that spaces can be broken up organically, rather than using grids.

3. 

London-based designer Paul Cocksedge's Here Comes the Sun blanket would allow people to "socialise safely and confidently" outdoors once Covid-19 lockdown restrictions have been lifted. The open-source design comprises a looping section of material in the shape of an outline of a circle and four separate pieces of fabric cut into circles, which can be placed around the outline at six feet apart. Called Here Comes the Sun, the blanket has been designed for a "post-lockdown future" to make sure people maintain the suggested two-metre distance while in social situations such as picnicking or sunbathing with friends.

4. 

New York's High Line park has reopened to the public following coronavirus lockdown with 1,000 painted green dots graphic designer Paula Scher created as markers for social distancing. The High Line reopened on Thursday 19 July over four months after it closed due to the pandemic with a one-way system starting at Gansevoort Street.

Scher, a principal at Pentagram, designed the spots to cover the benches, seats and ground of the public park in repeated intervals to mark safe distances. Dots on the path, which was created along an elevated railway, are placed in rows that expand as it widens. The dots help users judge the way forward and how they should space themselves along the path as it becomes wider and narrower," Pentagram said. Scher has also designed signage with symbols in dots that illustrate three key instructions: stay six-feet (two metres) apart, wear a mask and move one way. 

5. 

The grass of New York's Domino Park has been painted with white circles to encourage the public to stay safely apart during the pandemic. The design, which was created on Friday 15 May, comprises a series of white circles applied with chalk paint onto a plot of AstroTurf, or artificial grass. They mark out circles for groups or individuals to sit inside.