Tag Archives: product design

SteamPunk Design – What is it exactly?

Posted on by

Image

Firstly I must say that I absolutely love this genre of design. As a way of inspiring and influencing students to think creatively with their design work it is brilliant. They have to:

  • Explore design and product history fully to understand
  • Make creative decisions about the mix of aesthetics and technology
  • Look carefully at the amalgam of materials and manufacturing methods
  • Be aware of the need for combining form and function in their work
  • Provides for some really cool sketch, concept and graphics work

What more do you need?

I first became aware of SteamPunk as a consequence of watching some very entertaining (in my opinion) films – ‘Mad Max’, ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentleman‘, ‘The Wild, Wild West‘ and the ‘Fifth Element’ to name a few.

  Image   Image

But what is SteamPunk exactly?

The genre seems to have originated during the 1980s and includes key design elements and influence from the areas of sci-fi, fantasy and history.  My design students have taken a lot of influence from the genre, and have used that influence successfully in their A-Level design work, but trying to hang a summative phrase to sum up the movement is not easy.

Image    Image

Having trawled ‘t’interweb’ and looked in some books the best single phrase that sums up SteamPunk design for me is this:

‘What the 21st century thinks that the Victorians thought the 21st century would be like’

There is no doubt that the opportunity to design products that embrace this genre facilitates that ‘creative juice’ flow. Kids get it; they run with it and, to a certain extent, are not constrained over and above the historical context.

cufflinks steam punksteampunk-usb

 

 

 

 

 

The opportunity to explore an eclectic range of traditional materials in their work (copper, brass, steel, wood….but remember NO plastics other than to create models that represent the genre 😉 ) means any manufacturing work that you do supports the theory with regard to design and making, using tools, machines and processes to fabricate their idea. Guys and girls are all motivated (jewellery, transport, fashion, tech products…) can all be tackled.

     Image  Image  steampunk laptop

If you are looking for a starting point to kick off a project then SteamPunk is a massively fun and creative way forward.

Volunteer__s_Goggles_number_2_by_AmbassadorMann

No links to key sites on this blog entry – Google is your friend. Go and have a look.

You’ll be inspired.

“To be a Designer and to be Creative you must…”

Posted on by

“To be a designer and to be creative, you have to think differently. You have to build ‘bandwidth’ in order to do this. You have to operate along the length of a line between industry and engineering and art and culture. Design does not exist in the centre of that line but ranges along the length of that line. It is this ‘bandwidth’ of thinking that creates designers. We need this ‘bandwidth’ – an understanding of science and engineering on the one hand and humanities, art and politics on the other – if we are to create a better future.

What is crucial to design is that we have to learn to look rather than see. Looking is active; seeing is passive. Designers see things that others do not. It is crucial to understand people. It needs a creative eye to see what is happening. Anthropology is more important than technology. The design process has three stages: idea, belief and embodiment; the idea is the most important. We have to shift paradigms to create new things. Be frustrated at how the world is and have an unshakeable belief in our ability to make it better.

We need constantly to ask ‘why not?’ rather than (the question many supposed ‘educated’ folk ask), ‘why?’ ”

Dick Powell – Senior partner and co-founder ‘SeymourPowell’ Product Designers