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Are these not the most BEAUTIFUL shoes you have ever seen in your life?!?! Helen Furber who recently graduated from London College of Fashion created these stunning wedges, using all eco-friendly materials! helen-furbers-modular-stalactite-like-heels-redefine-sustainable-luxury
Found these pretty crazy pieces by a Los Angeles based artist Carlee Fernandez. This collection is called Canade II 7000 and includes these two peculiar looking suitcases. Im not too sure if this wold be a big hit in the fashion industry but would defiantly get the attention that they deserve.
With parts of the world being so polluted, This fashion statement, designed and developed by Genevieve Mateyko and Pamela Troyerat the Emily Carr university of Art and Design can detect common rban polltants like benzene, carbon monoxide, ammonia and nitrogen oxide. (all fond in cigarette smoke) The idea is that this cowl-neck vest studded with LEDs that stimulate the way yo breathe based in the toxicity of your environment along with tiny vibrators that alert yo when you have wandered into an unhealthy airspace.
While I was browsing around the internet looking for information on my sustainability project I stumbled across this which i thought was pretty relevant to my previous assignment for design studies 'Part 5A'
One of the lovely sights of Whistler, Canada. Just thought I would rub it in a little bit.In this essay I will be revisiting my studio briefs that I have tackled this past two semesters and looking into how I would be able to use both the secondary and primary research methods that have been used whilst carrying out my design studies assessments and hopefully connecting the two studies together in unison.
The studio brief that I am going to carry through with this project is our fourth brief ‘Setting’ that looked into the design of a piece of jewellery which was to incorporate a setting of another material/s. our design had to be inspired by the religious or spiritual symbolism used in jewellery and the was precious or semi-precious stones and other materials are used by jewelers. Firstly we were to research a selection of different precious and semi-precious gems, how they are formed and what powers they are thought to bring to a piece of jewellery. Then develop a design that either incorporates the idea of certain gems having powers or look into the religious entity of gemstones. In this project I chose to base my design around Buddhism.
If I was to re-visit this project I think that I would go right back to the symbolism that people connect with gemstones. I would use the interview process with images to gain information as to what people form different disciplines would make of the precious and semi-precious stones. I feel that the visual guide would help the majority of designers; they might connect completely different things with just the colour or the shape. Does everybody connect diamonds with wealth and marriage? It would be interesting to see what difference would appear when interviewing jewelers compared to graphic, textile, and interior etc designers. Would they share the same enthusiasm for gemstones that us jewelers do or would they just go by colour?
Instead of investigating solely into one religion I think I would look into one aspect of religion in itself, the most important factor that I think would be the most interesting would be the meditation. Every religion has a different stance and way of prayer. I think that the best way to research into this would be a combination of photography and secondary research from previous studies that have been carried out. I did carry out a brief look into different meditating hand positions in the Buddhist religion. And it would be very interesting to have visuals of other prayer and meditation postures. Seeing a huge collaboration of different religious postures so that they can be easily analyzed would give the design of the piece a variety of different spiritual meaning instead of just being devoted to one religion. But on the down fall of a huge range of religions coming together it might not hold the same values as a piece that is solely for one religion. I think it would be interesting to have views from people who have a religious background if I was to merge a couple of religious values together. Another visual that I could have taken into consideration would be the actual Gods themselves. The different sacrifices that it ha received from the followers, this could be materials possessions and also living things. Photography of the ritual grounds would be fascinating to research into if these were made available from some of the more secretive religions.
To go back and get involved in some of the spiritual sides of different religions would able me to take into consideration the values of the religion more. Obviously the most available service to observe would be Christianity as it is ready available in many areas of every main city. It would be a lot more interesting if I was able to sit in or take part in a religion that is not as well commercialized in this country so that I was able to add culture to my design as well. The materialistic sacrifices that have been a tradition in a huge number of religions would be very interesting to incorporate into my work. The obvious factor of the gifts that are given to Gods is the extravagant gemstones that are used in then, too expensive for placing into my own design but synthetics could be used instead.
In level three I think that to improve on my design work to incorporate more of my assignment work within my briefing work. I think that this would severally help me engage both subjects as one subject instead of thinking of them separately. Using the visual methods that I have developed in semester two would drastically improve my preliminary research in the studio when I look back and see how much I could have changed and improved with my research. Although at this stage in my course I still feel that I am a jewellery design student hopefully next year I will feel more like I can design in a broader range that can solve more problems that just aesthetics, combining my studio knowledge with problems that are faced around the world, even helping in natural disasters. I can defiantly see myself verging towards using my design skills to tackle issues bigger than just my field of design. I think this will be something that I will be thinking about over the Summer and even the Easter holidays to take into account through my third year. However I think that I will be focusing firstly on my practical skills and get them up to higher standards before I try and solve global issues.
In this essay I will be covering the topic, which I went into depth with in semester one. I firstly looked into personal security but it then developed into the technological development of armed forces uniforms and how smart technology should and could be used in the further safety, security and even personal health. I will be looking into how development in this field would be improved or advanced from the different observation methods I have gained from semester two.
After re-reading my work from last semester I think that I was on the right track to understanding how this could be achieved using technologies that my primary sources had looked at in more depth. Koncar and Boussu look into the improvement that could be achieved if electronic and optical technologies were to be used in battlefield communications. Tunde Kirstein, Didier Cottet, Janusz Grzyb and Gerhard Truster also look into the benefit of wearable technology in the case of it becoming aware of the users health situation. I still think that these are all still very relevant to this topic to take it further.
The methods that I have developed and practiced using this semester would be of huge beneficial use to further my research into smart technologies and wearable electronics. Some of the visual observations that could be applied to this topic would be firstly be the activity we covered ‘Observe and Record’, this would be applied through watching how the armed forces move when in action, for example carrying out this activity at a training facility to observe exactly what movements and durability that the smart materials would have to withstand and be put through. Watching where the weapons are held, what is the most worn out part off then body, the body part used in forceful situations etc. From watching shooting ranges and target practice within the facility it would make the most at risk area more obvious to the researcher, seeing where they are taught to aim and shoot for (torso would defiantly be the easiest or head are the most obvious targets) or the most vulnerable parts of the body so that the technology that is able to detect where a bullet has penetrated the clothing would be able to signal straight away, this could also be applied to the armoured vehicles such as 4x4 that don’t have the same stability as tanks were under attack and would speed up the mechanical procedures that would be carried out. From the experience I gained using this method of visual observation, habits and atmospheres can quickly be taken into account, therefore when observing all the different parts of the forces technologists would be able to differ the needed results for each force.
However I am a bit swayed into whether interviews would be a suitable option to carry out if I was trying to go into the development of these technologies. I found that when I was carrying out my interviews that the interviewees were not always 100% honest. Sometimes they were trying to convey someone that they thought that would sound better than the person that they actually are. And in this sort of field of protection it is not something that should be lied about or twisted if they wanted to portray themselves as somebody else. But then if the questions were worded as how they would go about using there training in action then it would be more useful, it would give the knowledge of how an armed forces member would think of how to use there training and not just how they are told. If an experiences or retired soldier was to be interviewed it would be extremely beneficial towards this research as they would be able to state clearly how they use there uniforms and what they feel is the most scarcely protected area.
Photography that may be kept on file of soldiers in battle or training would be useful towards the development of safety and security as it would allow us to see the posture of soldiers when they are in there most vulnerable and guarded positions. Doing a case study on hundreds or even a hand full of different soldiers from different criteria’s of armed forces would allow technologist specialists to develop a better understanding of the stances that mostly taken place during there most physically demanding procedures. This in itself would benefit where would be the most practical places to place the smart technology with out it interfering in the process of protection. When conducting a similar observations through another persons childhood photographs, I found that I was able to obtain a lot more than what I originally had from first glances, but when I went back over and really looked into them a lot more information can be obtained. You would also be able to look into where the communication appliances would be the best accessible, the idea of having electronic keypads have already been challenged in a research centre in California, they have looked into new displays that have the flexibility to be applied to any field requiring this technology.
Through this semester and the previous semester I have gathered many visual observation techniques that I have put into practice. I have concluded in this essay that by using the different techniques to gain more information into the armed forces uniforms, safety and protection. The observation method of visually seeing how training would be conducted seems to be the most valuable form of research.
Bibliography
'Wearable computing; towards humanist intelligence' IEEE intelligent systems 2001 May/June
Mann, S 'Smart clothing; the shift to wearable computing' commun Assoc. Computing Machinery, 1996
Coyle, M 'The lifeshirt system: bringing high tech patient monitoring from hospital to home' In proceedings second International Avantex Symposion, Frankfurt, Germany 2002
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