Design Studys 'Good design, bad design'

I swear my brain is going crazy today, too much to think about from our design studies lecture and from our seminars.

'To make a classroom a perpetual forum for political and social issues... is wrong: and to see aesthetics as sociology is grossly misleading. A student whose mind is cluttered with matters that have nothing directly to do with design, whose goal is to learn doing and making, who is learning how to use a computer at the same time that he or she is learning design basics, and who is overwhelmed with social problems and political issues is a bewildered student. This is not what he or she bargained for nor, indeed, paid for.'
-Paul Rand

I've been coming out of the design studies lectures feeling nervous and stressed out about getting out of my own bubble and getting involved in real-life design, when all I really expected to learn was how to design and make textiles. However, I have also felt inspired and excited, the negative feelings come purely from fear of leaving my comfort zone.

Therefore, I think this quote is completely out of touch. If nothing we do changes, relates to or fits into the world around us and is purely intended for museums or just to look nice, then nothing we do means anything. Plus, as a friend has just pointed out to me, 'a student who knows nothing of politics or the workings of the world is truly an uninspired student.'

Anyway, I enjoyed the lecture. It might have completely confused me about being creative etc but it was interesting and I am trying to understand it! I loved Johanna Basford's Twitter project, I tried to tweet her about it when I heard about it but I'm not sure it worked. I totally don't get twitter yet (only been on there for 8 months after all). Such a cool idea!

Before this lecture, 'visual literacy' to me meant understanding colour, images and the effect they have. Now I haven't a clue what it means. I'm going to have to read those notes ten times before I grasp what it is I reckon.

Also, my three things were: train passenger, guilt and scarf... and my story was then that a train passenger was feeling guilty for stealing another passengers scarf (?!), which lead me to crime on trains, which lead me to preventing crime on trains. Hm.

The seminar after the lecture was about the tipping point. And using themes from the tipping point as examples for designing for real life. One thing we spoke about was how to use design to prevent crime. Everyone started mentioning ID cards, random fingerprinting, cameras with eye recognition etc... none of which I agree with. I think it's a horrible thought that people are watching you and waiting for you to do something wrong.

So then I was asked to think of a way to target criminals while keeping privacy for innocent people. I still haven't come up with anything.. even though 'blue sky' thinking is allowed. I'll have a think about it and I suppose something might come from a group brain storm...