Exchange

We split off into our assignment groups with multi disciplines. It was interesting to see how each disciplines are doing different projects but they somehow come together to correlate with each other in terms of well-being. Our group consisted of 4 visual communication designers and 2 industrial. It was also interesting to see how spatial students are also exploring and experimenting with VCD components such as animation. Although they said that they are not familiar with any of the programs, I feel that we could use this chance to help exchange our skills. Industrial students are heading towards a visual approach by creating a hands on product using the aspect of food from which they can interact with. Whereas VCD students are still currently on our research stage, finding stats and written sentences. I feel that in our next exchange meeting we will be able to present our ideas with visuals. As my topic (sleep deprivation) is targeting towards tertiary students, I was able to have some interesting conversation with everyone, from which I can take away and consider in my project.

Week 2

We started the lesson by going back to the brief and unpacking it further, while also looking at the outline for our reflective blog. We were also shown some visual brief examples from previous years to help us get a general idea on what we will have to generate by the end of the brief. For this year, we will have to generate our own images, whether it may be drawing or photographing. I think that this is where the whole design feel comes into it. This was an interesting way to incorporate design and well-being together. The lecture was also quite helpful in terms of making the brief a little more clearer.

We started planning our 8 points, incorporating context and images to help us get a general feel of what we wanted to convey. We then formed groups based on similar topics that we wanted to look at.As a group we started refining and reducing our 8 points to really pin-point on what we are wanting to do. We then presented our idea to two different groups and got feedback as a result. At the end of the day we had to do a 30 second presentation to really convey our idea to the audience. We found that 30 second was too short for us and we had to really narrow down our idea as it is still quite broad. At the end of the day, our group decided that for our target audience, we want to mainly focus on first year university student who has just started living on their own. This exercise allowed us to see what information we wanted to look into and push further ahead.

Week 1

We had an introduction to the brief and some examples from forth year. It was interesting to see how they transform the concept of well-being into a product. One example I found particularly interesting was how a group of people was able to make small changes to assist in individual's well-being by altering a space e.g. making stairs interactive to attract people into walking instead of taking the escalator. We also had a speaker from life hack who further explained to us what well-being is and how they adopted the idea of well-being. I started off this lesson by only having a generic definition of well-being, but after the lesson I was able to come out having a more defined description.

We started off the brief with an exercise where we tried and open up about our most happiest times and the time when myself or someone close to me has struggled the most. Since it was the beginning of a new semester, we were more reserved about the information we wanted to share with people we aren't particularly close with. We mainly focused on more generic things such as uni stress and exercising. We then went on discussing on how we can resolve these problem regarding to our well-being, however we found that there isn't a definite resolution where it can completely fix our problems, but instead slowly aid it and make it less difficult/stressful. Although it was harder to share our problems, I found that this exercise really help me to further define what well-being is. For the next step, I will take some ideas I found interesting, research them further and pick one that I want to concentrate on for the first half of the brief.

We then proceed into writing the ideas that we wanted to focus on sticky notes, and then separated them into similar categories. As a group we had to pick 10 ideas and then present them to the class where we identify the similarities between all the ideas. There was a noticeable trend between the ideas but some went into different categories as they could affect different spectrums of well-being. After this exercise, I decided that I wanted to focus on sleep deprivation/insomnia as I feel that as a student we suffer from a lack of sleep which affects our abilities. Although this is still quite broad at the moment.