Filtering media Techniques/

For my final university project I have decided to run two projects that grew organically from research I undertook. The first was explained in a previous post about Virtual Protest in a Physical world, the second is on filtering Media sensationalism and spin to reduce the amount of fear and alert generated.

Although I ha vent settled on any ideas just yet, my initial response for the work in progress show we held is below. Its called the good morning group. It was a way if visualising the areas I'm thinking about and my research outcomes to start a discussion and debate about what it could be and what needs to be addressed.

The idea was based on conversations I had with various journalists, as well as reading a lot of books and articles. The techniques the media use to sensationalise stories are made up of a few standard techniques and phrases.

My thinking was surely with the internet allowing access to a huge number of news sources, could a system be set up that gathers the ten most googled stories of the day. Could it then gather these stories from a number of news sources and then scan them and provide you only with the most objective news stories? What would be the effect of this? Would we even enjoy it if it wasn't sensationalised?

With the internet now enabling anyone who is a consumer of the internet to also be a producer of information, and allowing us to access huge amounts of information at the touch of a button. Is it not now more important to understand how to judge a source rather than learn dates of battles, or the periodic table? Should their be assessments on googling?

Is it about filtering media techniques, teaching people about these techniques, or just drawing attention to them....? I'm not sure but its going to be fun to explore them all.

Some Pics of me making the mock ups...

London By Night.

Working on a self initiated project creating lights based on the London Skyline. I was inspired by the way London looks when it is lit up at night and decided to do a short project on this idea. It is a working progress but the images below show where I am at the moment. I have so far made mock ups of initial designs for the Gherkin, and the London eye. They hold tea lights.

The aim of the project is also to have the materials and manufacture done within London so they become a true product of London- however a number of iterations need to be made first. I am going to have current ideas manufactured using water cutting, but the final pieces need to be chemically etched to give the details that are not cut through. They will also only be two sided, this is because the lighting effects are better, and also I can fit more on a single sheet of metal making them cheaper to produce.

Had very positive feedback from everyone I have shown it to, and also from two companies (who cannot be named) who might be looking to produce them in small batches. Its been cool to work on a simple object and focus on aesthetic and manufacturing problems and solution's.

PiggyBank Process images

Some backdated Snaps from the PiggyBank Project- showing a bit of design research and process. PIggyBank was a finalist at Audi Design Foundations Sustain Our Nation Competition.

Information Visualisation- How to Feed the world

How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

Audi Design Sustain Our Nation Finalist

Haven't blogged on here for ages, and its probably because of the amount of projects being worked on at the moment.

One exciting thing was I got to the finals of Audi Design Foundation competition "Sustain our Nation" for my Project PiggyBank. It is a financial visualisation service aiming to make peoples personal finances more understandable and tangible, and also trying to link local business to local consumers.

The aim of the competition is sustainability and social enterprise.
It was really exciting to go and present to the judges and a really enjoyable day/ project to work on.

Brock Craft talk at Metropolitan Works, London

Last night I attended a talk by Brock Craft, one of the partners at Tinker. It.


He talked about the development of the digital world and how they are trying to bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds.

This is particularly of interest to me at present as I am working on a project at the moment that is attempting to bring elements occurring in virtual platforms such as Second Life and World of Warcraft into the physical world.

After I had a number of questions (Unfortunately I wasn't picked to ask!)

How do Tinker. It see their role? It strikes me that at present they are creating really interesting and engaging ideas that are almost exploring applications for new technologies. The applications they are producing are fun and interesting and suggest possible uses for the technology- but how will this develop? Their are limitless uses for the technology their using but how does he see his role developing?

Designers have always been interested in exploring new technologies and throughout history they are often the people that experiment and test how things could be used- but I am unsure whether this is how Brock See's his role.

He also talked a lot about systems problems, such as those at Toyota and in medical institutions where lethal doses have been administered accidentally- and discussed these as interactions design problems. I like Brock cannot understand, especially how the later example can occur. How are designers being involved in creating these . No system should be designed where these things can occur, and prototyping and user testing as well as designing the equipment and process with the staff (Co- design) would reduce the risks massively. These are interaction design problems.

Anyway I digress, but it was a great talk in a great venue. Thanks Brock.

Communication of thinking.

Over the last year I have been working on projects that are quite removed from traditional "product" design, and that are crossing disciplines such as interaction design and service design. As I am not designing objects per se I have been exploring new techniques in order to develop new ideas, explaining new ideas,

I have found that producing scenarios and objects that summarise the thinking and conclusions from my research has been very useful.


More to ask questions, and create a dialogue between me and whoever I am talking to about the project. What I also have learnt is that it really helps to clarify my thoughts.
My more recent projects have been tackling with large, expansive and often fairly abstract topics and themes and by putting my thoughts and topics into scenarios and objects really helps to explain and focus my thoughts.



One example was for a project I am working on at the moment that is dealing with fairly abstract subjects including fear, control and protest. The wealth of research I collected, both user research and desk theoretical research, needed to be clarified and organised in order to explain to my tutors and other guests at our show. I divided y research into a number of categories and then generated ideas around these categories. I then created a range of objects and scenarios around each of these ideas. It made it so much easier for people attending to understand the process I was going through, and also my potential directions and allowed them to contribute thoughts and ideas- and we could exchange dialogue.

I feel this is really invaluable, especially when dealing with complex design problems.