Thesis- idea # 1

Fashion vs Sustainable materials

Sustainable materials at H&M

Respecting the environment is important both for us and for our customers. That's why we are already using sustainable materials in our goods - and why we are testing new ones all the time.

H&M's most important sustainable material right now is organic cotton. Organic cotton is cultivated without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, which means it is better for the environment and for the farm workers. H&M has been selling clothes containing organic cotton since 2004, and we are still continuing to invest in this initiative. The aim is to increase the use of organically grown cotton by 50% every year until 2013.

Hear what H&M's Henrik Lampa, Mathilda Tham from Beckmans College of Design and Marcus Bergman from the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, Sweden have to say about sustainable fashion and organic cotton – and what you can do to minimise your impact on the environment.

In addition to organic cotton, H&M also sells clothes containing a number of other sustainable materials. Here is a selection of those you will find at H&M in 2010.

Organic wool
– is wool that comes from sheep that have been bred with organic feed and chemical free pasture, and haven’t been treated with synthetic pesticides

Organic linen
– is linen that has been grown without the use of hazardous chemicals

Recycled cotton
– is cotton made from textile remnants in production

Recycled polyester
- is polyester made from PET-bottles or textile waste

Recycled polyamide
– is polyamide made from fishing-nets or textile waste

Recycled wool
– is wool made from worn-out woollen garments and remnants of fabric

Tencel
- silk-like, renewable material which has been produced with minimized environmental impact.

Work Cited

HENNES & MAURITZ AB, homepage,2010

http://www.hm.com/no/materials

Etch-a-Sketch 3D

o2 Creative Solutions is an "experience design firm" that seeks to combine design, communications and technology. Up above is their Etch-a-Sketch-inspired Sketch-3D tool (featuring Core-fave Mike Doyle!):

Sketch-3D is an interactive, integrated software/hardware system that enables users to create their own anaglyphic 3D drawings. By using a ubiquitous interface metaphor (the "Etch-a-Sketch"), Sketch-3D allows anyone to participate in generating stereoscopic imagery in a way that is simple and engaging. In addition to the personal experience, Sketch-3D can be scaled to work with any output device from large scale projection to plasma displays to an integrated LCD. This versatility allows for Sketch-3D to be tailored to fit a wide array of installation environments.

No word on how to erase it, but we're guessing you have to get two people to rip it off the wall and shake it vigorously.

Notes from-Fitzgerald-BuryDesign

“to make the world a better place.”

Most theory—whether it is “academic” or “practical”—also comes down to procreation: assuring the creation of more professional design.

Untrained design can make inroads into information design. This might be considered the branch of design impervious to unprofessional interloping. But we should consider the example of Edward Tufte, as practitioner and in practice.

If we imagine graphic design as an individual, we must explain why it doesn’t affirm its desired identity, then breed wildly. My explanation is

Freudian: design has a death wish. It constantly seeks to eradicate itself.
- Designers will instinctively reject this notion. We’re fighting for our lives! Indulgent clients are at a premium.

What is significant is that designers look outside their professional standard to a source considered pure and immediate. And, often—from hand-drawn and painted signage to ‘zines to desktop horrors no designer would uphold—distressingly effective.

The notion that design is an on-the-job learning experience continues to dominate. Students enter with a vague interest in text and image—often, not even that—and are channeled wholesale into professional design making. A successful design program is defined as one that (re)produces more professional design and designers.

Gordon Salchow wrote “Graphic Design is not a Profession”
- He pointed out design’s resemblance to literature and music, calling design a “...fundamental humanist communications discipline...its peers are the Liberal Arts.”
- Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and the ‘Real World’,”

Andrew Blauvelt
- “Design as a field of study without practical application is unlikely and undesirable...it is the practice of graphic design that provides the basis of a theory of graphic design.”

Designers claim their activity is all about ideas—not software, not formal facility. Educators are called upon to foster a critical sensibility: a questioning mind capable of intellectual discipline. Design’s vital aspect of craft is a product of a
cognitive awareness.

Thesis consideration

1-Illustration- about children
2-Branding, about nature or organic
3-Graphic Design

Another option : fashion

Notes from- Bierut_designers cant think

“Swiss” schools and “slick” schools

“semiotics” (Swiss) or “conceptual problem solving”(slick)

-To the portfolio schools, the “Swiss” method is hermetic, arcane, and meaningless to the general

public.

Process schools-favor a form-driven problem solving approach.

-To the process schools, the “slick” method is distastefully commercial, shallow, and derivative.

aim: to provide students with polished “books” that will get them good

jobs upon graduation.

The problem-solving mode is conceptual, with a bias forappealing, memorable, populist imagery. The product, not process, is king.

the portfolio schools are staffed largely by working professionals who teach part time, who are impatient with idle exercises that don’t relate to the “real world.”

-East Coast corporate identity firms love the process school graduates; anyone who’s spent six months combining a letterform and a ballet shoe won’t mind being mired in a fat standards manual for three years. On the other hand, package design firms are happy to get the portfolio school graduates: not only do they have a real passion for tighter-than-tight comps, but they can generate hundreds of stylistically diverse alternatives to show indecisive clients.

-Without the benefit of intensive specialized programs, the pioneers of our profession, by necessity, became well-rounded intellectually. Their work draws its power from deep in the culture of their times. Modern design education, on the other hand,

-Modern design education, on the other hand, is essentially value-free: every problem has a purely visual solution that exists outside any cultural context. Some of the most tragic victims of this attitude hail not from the world of high culture, but low.

Bastardised, is the culmination of Bunch’s global
identity project.

The book showcases the wealth of creativity, beauty and humour
found within 289 of the Bunchisms specially selected from
750 contributions.

Notes from reading 03

Successful Thesis Proposals

1. Start with what interest you. What are you obsessed with? What are you passionate about?

2. Make sure you have a point. What are you arguing?

3. Do not base your proposal on the obvious

4. Shorter is usually better

5. Think through your claims. Are they true? Logical? Do you believe them? Will others believe them? If they are true, what are the ramifications?

6. Do not make sweeping statements for dramatic effect or without supporting them with documentation.

7. Define your terms.

8. Do not claim that you will prove anything-we are designers, not cold -fusion scientists.

9. Please be aware that you will revise your proposal as your research dictates and your process evolves.

Research

1. Let your topic dictate the type of research you do, and have an idea of what you are looking for.

2. Maintain a level of cynicism

3. Consult with an expert mentor in your chosen field of study.

4. Develop a system for note-taking as you read.

5. Footnote your sources.

6. Avoid reading pseudo-science.

7. Interviewing all of your friends about your topic is not research of intellectual merit.

The Thesis Project

1. Do not have preconceived ideas about what form your project will take.

2. Create a written outline of your narrative/argument diagramming your core and secondary messages.

3. Give your audience "multiple access points" to your content.

4. The visual language of your thesis should be appropriate to your subject/content.

5. If you are unfamiliar with your chosen medium-video.

6. Approach the idea of creating an installation with some trepidation.