Non-traditional Geometry
(2015) In Diploma work IDEM01 20151Industrial Design
- Abstract
- Why have I decided to put the final touches
on this document now, almost six years after
I left the Lund University School of Industrial
Design? In retrospect, with six years of
experience as an industrial designer, the
focus for my master’s thesis would have been
something entirely different, but this document
is an interesting snapshot of my thoughts at
the half way point between when the doors of
the world of industrial design were opened for
me and today.
I feel that I owe the School of Industrial Design
to wrap up my degree since, even if I am a
practicing designer who was educated in
Lund, the educational system still views me
as a drop out and base future funding for
the programme on the number of graduates
versus... (More) - Why have I decided to put the final touches
on this document now, almost six years after
I left the Lund University School of Industrial
Design? In retrospect, with six years of
experience as an industrial designer, the
focus for my master’s thesis would have been
something entirely different, but this document
is an interesting snapshot of my thoughts at
the half way point between when the doors of
the world of industrial design were opened for
me and today.
I feel that I owe the School of Industrial Design
to wrap up my degree since, even if I am a
practicing designer who was educated in
Lund, the educational system still views me
as a drop out and base future funding for
the programme on the number of graduates
versus the number of students enrolled.
When I was in design school all I wanted to
do was to design for real life conditions, and
after some years in the field I can sometimes
miss the freedom of designing for no one but
yourself. (Even if i stated this at the end of the
report that designing for no-one but myself
had been a privilege and it allowed me to
explore things that a potential client wouldn’t
have.)
Even if professional life teaches you other
things than the things taught in design school
I felt (and still feel) that the School of Industrial
Design in Lund equipped me very well for
the professional life to come and I have also
discovered things that I was taught that I
didn’t know about before working in as design
studio for a couple of years.
In design school I wanted to design for as close
to real life conditions as possible but since
I was surrounded by other designers at that
time I couldn’t have been far more removed from “the real world". The constraints applied
to, and the success factors defined for, a
project undertaken in a group of designers
are very different when the environment
of a project has a different professional
composition. Personally I don’t think this is
due to differences in mind set between people
attracted to different educational paths but in
how people of different disciplines are taught.
During the education we were encouraged to
argue around why we made certain calls during
the course of a project rather than if a decision
was the correct one or not. This leads back to
the fact that there are no “correct” answers
when it comes to designing a product, service,
experience, brand etc, only answers that are
more or less relevant. During my education
spontaneous collaborative critiques didn’t
only help to elevate the level of all students
involved but also gave us solid trying in arguing
for our own cause. This discussion based
learning-through-others approach gives the
designer a clear separation from his or her
creations. I have later discerned in people of
other professions a tendency to identify more
on a personal level with an idea or concept.
I would argue that this behaviour stems from
an educational environment based more on
following established theory and process,
where there is one preferred answer to a
specific task, rather than helping one develop
ones own process.
This is also reflected in this report since the
report is the documentation of my final project
and not the project itself and thus it is more
focused on describing my way of conducting
this particular project rather than showing my
ability to work according to a set format and it
could definitely not show something that I, at
the time, didn’t even know I knew. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/7450530
- author
- Nordenskjöld, Carl
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- IDEM01 20151
- year
- 2015
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- publication/series
- Diploma work
- report number
- LUT - DVIDE/EX--12/50189-SE
- ISSN
- ISRN
- language
- English
- id
- 7450530
- date added to LUP
- 2015-06-25 15:23:00
- date last changed
- 2015-06-25 15:23:00
@misc{7450530,
abstract = {{Why have I decided to put the final touches
on this document now, almost six years after
I left the Lund University School of Industrial
Design? In retrospect, with six years of
experience as an industrial designer, the
focus for my master’s thesis would have been
something entirely different, but this document
is an interesting snapshot of my thoughts at
the half way point between when the doors of
the world of industrial design were opened for
me and today.
I feel that I owe the School of Industrial Design
to wrap up my degree since, even if I am a
practicing designer who was educated in
Lund, the educational system still views me
as a drop out and base future funding for
the programme on the number of graduates
versus the number of students enrolled.
When I was in design school all I wanted to
do was to design for real life conditions, and
after some years in the field I can sometimes
miss the freedom of designing for no one but
yourself. (Even if i stated this at the end of the
report that designing for no-one but myself
had been a privilege and it allowed me to
explore things that a potential client wouldn’t
have.)
Even if professional life teaches you other
things than the things taught in design school
I felt (and still feel) that the School of Industrial
Design in Lund equipped me very well for
the professional life to come and I have also
discovered things that I was taught that I
didn’t know about before working in as design
studio for a couple of years.
In design school I wanted to design for as close
to real life conditions as possible but since
I was surrounded by other designers at that
time I couldn’t have been far more removed from “the real world". The constraints applied
to, and the success factors defined for, a
project undertaken in a group of designers
are very different when the environment
of a project has a different professional
composition. Personally I don’t think this is
due to differences in mind set between people
attracted to different educational paths but in
how people of different disciplines are taught.
During the education we were encouraged to
argue around why we made certain calls during
the course of a project rather than if a decision
was the correct one or not. This leads back to
the fact that there are no “correct” answers
when it comes to designing a product, service,
experience, brand etc, only answers that are
more or less relevant. During my education
spontaneous collaborative critiques didn’t
only help to elevate the level of all students
involved but also gave us solid trying in arguing
for our own cause. This discussion based
learning-through-others approach gives the
designer a clear separation from his or her
creations. I have later discerned in people of
other professions a tendency to identify more
on a personal level with an idea or concept.
I would argue that this behaviour stems from
an educational environment based more on
following established theory and process,
where there is one preferred answer to a
specific task, rather than helping one develop
ones own process.
This is also reflected in this report since the
report is the documentation of my final project
and not the project itself and thus it is more
focused on describing my way of conducting
this particular project rather than showing my
ability to work according to a set format and it
could definitely not show something that I, at
the time, didn’t even know I knew.}},
author = {{Nordenskjöld, Carl}},
issn = {{ISRN}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
series = {{Diploma work}},
title = {{Non-traditional Geometry}},
year = {{2015}},
}