A TV program called 'design for life' is about a competition within 12 Philippe Stark selected design students from the world. One of them who win the competition will work with Philippe Stark in his design agency for 6 months. But, the rest of them had to leave after each cruel tasks.
There were a few challeges those 12 designers had to face and struggle in order to stay at the end. The first challenge was to buy two products from a market with 100 Euros and 1 hour to find two products which can show function, or ecology, or gender. This challenge is testing their ability of identifying the thinking behind a product. Moreover, testing their skill of explaining their point of view on the product. In the first challenge, designer Nebil was the best in the group of 12 designers because his excellent explanation on his choice of the product. He defined that every product has an attraction to a certain gender.
The next challenge was to design a product that benefits humanity, and this was the only information they get. This was a real challenge for all of them, although they were free to design anything they want, they didn't know what Starks expect from them. Thus, it was not easy if they didn't go and do some reasearch from their target markets. Research and investigation are the essential things designers should do. So, they know what the market want. One of the test for those students were testing their skill of presentation. After watched this challenge, I learnt from Elsa through her presentation that 'everything you do should be well considered like what Elsa did.'. For every designer, we should make our presentation clear and straight forward so the client don't get confused by the end of the presentation.
The third challenge was telling them to design a product which is ethical, ecological and democratic. This is for daily use and is non-electronic. This time, Mike taught me a lesson - some good methods of being inspired. He put himself into a situation where is similar to a blind person. So, he got to understand how blind people feel, what the difference between a normal people and them, and what kind of product they need. Thinking of the target markets and the way they interact the product you design is every designer's one of biggest job.
After finishing watching 6 videos of ' design for life ', as a designer, presentation skill, ability of comprehending a product, and investigation of target market are important as well as essential. Always, designers have different kinds of pressure from everywhere, but always, designers will work out the solution and give the world the most well-thinking product.
