PICNIC 2008

Last week the third PicNic took place in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. Students from Concept Development (a specialization of Communication & Multimedia Design on the College-University of Rotterdam) were invited to join the last day on the PicNic Academy!

For this I would like to pick out several speakers; starting with Michael Tchong a widely known trendwatcher and founder of UberCool.

He pointed out several 'uber'-trends which I would like to annotate;

DWT is the new DUI
(Driving while Texting is the new Driving under Influence)

Unwired
Creating a lifestile which is highly mobile independent

Time Compression
The acceleration of life, an average adult sleeps 2 hours less than hundred years ago
evalution is also accelerating, baby's sleep 90 minutes shorter already!

Energy Drinks
Coffee is becoming the worlds largest food chain

Generation of Ecstacy
a highly experienced environment, you want to be remarkable?

Fountain of Youth
everybody wants to (or tries to) be young again

Besides that the huge environmental 'be green' trend was continuously present at the whole conference, not to mention 'do the green thing' who explained that people WANT to change, but don't know HOW... so they launched easy and enjoyable entertainment for those who want to be green and need that little push in the back. They are launching a nice video campaign as well to make short movies of how to be green, which in I surely will participate with Windy Windmill !

And if you know trends... don't be shy to post them on Trendonomy.Net !

DesignThis! Major

Develop your own project within Communication & Multimedia Design! For the major of this year called "DesignThis!" you are supposed to develop your own project!

Well; to make things short; I am going to develop a handbook, guideliness for an internship / course of third year students. Not that it is not there, it is not there like i want it to be; simple, easy, understandable... Lots of students get stuck in the huge pile of information, how? What? How much? Where...

Let's make life easier!! Just look for yourself ;)

http://wereldstage.wordpress.com/

Garbage Fun

How can you make the most fun out of putting a huge amount of trash outside ??

Well, simply with a lot of people you can make a lot of fun by putting your trash outside, but where I get my pleasure is the reaction of the men who are picking the trash up. To make their job a little more fun we made some nice drawings on a poster seen on the picture with a 'Thank You!'-letter on it...

I am Chiquita Banana! And I Have Come To Say...

Last week assignment was to pick a brand and research it's identity, how does the brand express itself and how does their appearence shows up in their products. Not only in how their products contain their values from the company, but also how does the targetgroup understands those values.

Picking a brand out of a hundred (which is funny to do aswell; research yourself of how many brands do you know out of your head, and why can you?) I've came up with Chiquita. My Brand for 'Bananas' as it is for so many. But why is that? Why do I think of Chiquita when I think of Banana's?

Well at first you have to research the brand values, besides of having your own ideas of course, it is good to see how well their value's are expressed by themselves. Chiquita's values amazes me, especially because they seem to have other values on their corperate and national webspaces; in the Corperate they speak; "Integrity, Respect, Oppertunity and Responsability" though the Dutch website more aims at "Sustainability". You can see their Corperate values on their space aswell by the way.

But how does it feel for me? Well, my values, or more of thoughts is not like the impression what Chiquita tells to me on their informational corperate website. When I personally think of Chiquita, I'm more thinking of...

or to be serious:

Bananas! Exotic! Latin America!

Interesting, my own impression on the brand does not really correspond (except for the banana thing) with Chiquita. Going on to the last part of the assignment, to add a new product to their productgroup I researched Chiquita's products.

At first I was stunned by the fact Chiquita had more than only Bananes! Open Sesame! As well as the fact that they are doing a lot for locals and nature, so their "Sustainable" value comes forward here. Because of course; "when I want to buy Chiquita Bananes, I would want to be sure that they were delivered to me by 'trustable' company, right?".

On their Dutch space you can play (very cool) games, get recipes, find information and see their newest commercials. On their corperate website you can find their whole productline. But as well the 'Chiquita Shop'. And that is exactely the one I would like to pick up.

You would expect from a Chiquita Shop some really cool products which are in line with their Brand Values. But, no way Jose, the Chiquita shop really... is... desperately, a waste of time, tasting brick in an apple pie. Damn!

The same old boring products, a Chiquita T-Shirt, a Chiquita Umbrella, a Chiquita golfbal, a Chiquita Balloon and even more desperate; a Chiquita keyhanger... !

C'mon People! Is that the best you can do according to your own values, and proclaiming 'sustainability and being good for the environment' but selling easily plastic bags, balloons, useless keyhangers and 'non-recycled yellow paper (with a fullcolor chiquita print on it) ? How "responsible" is that ?!

So... coming to our last part of the assignment; giving shape to products according to the Brand. As I did not have 'sustainable' or 'healthy' (well partly) in my own brand interpretation, I worked out some possible Chiquita Products, according to my brand values;

The picture maybe isn't that great but I hope you get what I mean;

- Chiquita Hammock!

- Chiquita Condoms!

- Chiquita (summer) Clothing!

- Chiquita (summer) Slipper!

- Chiquita Helmet it seems, but I mean Chiquita Hats / Carnaval - Party Hats, like wouldn't it be cool if you could order those nice latin american party hats like in this movie:

designing 'design'

"Wat is design?" The key question of the lesson of the minor Concept Development (on the College University of Rotterdam) on the 5th of September. Discussing not only the term, the personal factor plays also a very important role; what is design 'for you'. Several opinions were shared, with 'design' as in a drawing, a sketch, a plan, a structure and so on. After hearing all the different arguments I took the statement that 'design' is just the English term for the Dutch word 'vormgeving' which consists out of two parts; 'vorm' meaning 'shape' and 'giving' meaning 'giving'. Literally translated: 'giving shape' with a material or substance what so ever.

In my essay which is downloadable here I try to prove my statement;

http://student.cmd.hro.nl/0766740/minorpd/vormgeven_van_vormgeving.pdf

Looking for the hands of Escher I found this great interpretation made by Shane Willis, a photographer using the fun of photoshop, for some more pictures of him;

http://photo.net/photos/radioactive