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Cuddly Alien Bagpipes
Posted by: David Keech on 3rd Oct 2007 in Keechdesign News
Earlier on in the year I took part, as a visiting lecturer, in a project at the RCA http://www.rca.ac.uk/ organized Yamaha, and overseen by Yoshihiro Katsumata of Yamaha London. Having spent over two years designing music related consumer product at their Japanese Design HQ, I was intrigued as to what students from the Design Products department would make of one of Yamaha's briefs.
The nice thing about being a student and working on real briefs for manufacturing companies is that you don't have to sit in a room full of engineers and marketing specialists waiting to clip the wings of your radical ideas. The aim of such a project is of course to tap into the kind of raw creativity and unfettered thinking that only students are capable of. The journey from student to professional designer is an interesting one, but would that we could all occasionally tap into that undergraduate naivety.
In reality, naivety didn't really feature. Ron Arad's students got straight into the guts of the project, all of them breaking down the boundaries of conventional music making, which I knew would appeal to Katsumata-san, who has a long history of "advanced design" activity. Furthermore, the confident way in which they presented and stood up for their ideas was heart-warming.
I liked the sound of the brief "How can design turn a music listener into a player", and hopefully did my bit by trying to explain how "design" is perceived from a musician's point of view. As with Yamaha's design team itself, some of the students were active musicians, others had a purely product design based interest. The design managers in Japan have long known the advantages of both.
At the end of the project, five students were selected to exhibit their work in Yamaha's "scene of tone" exhibition at Spazio Bugatti, part of this year's Milano Salone. Of that, a far deeper insight can be gained at http://www.global.yamaha.com/design by following the news link on the homepage.
Joe Nunn exploited the possibilities of dedicated furniture; elegant timber stools and chairs that have instrument-specific functionality. Brit Leissler describes her concept as "a cuddly, alien bagpipe" - irresistible enough, but more so when you learn that it enables you to "control analogue sound through unconventional means". But my own favourite was the work of Thomas Higgs. Born out of an infectious passion for the world of Djs and electronic music "Loop" is a bracelet that allows 16 button tune composition with variants such as pitch, tempo and even an effects and sampling facility. "Loop" - get it? Form follows function and in terms of technology meets body adornment - watch out iPod...
Posted by: David Keech on 3rd Oct 2007 in Keechdesign News
Earlier on in the year I took part, as a visiting lecturer, in a project at the RCA http://www.rca.ac.uk/ organized Yamaha, and overseen by Yoshihiro Katsumata of Yamaha London. Having spent over two years designing music related consumer product at their Japanese Design HQ, I was intrigued as to what students from the Design Products department would make of one of Yamaha's briefs.
The nice thing about being a student and working on real briefs for manufacturing companies is that you don't have to sit in a room full of engineers and marketing specialists waiting to clip the wings of your radical ideas. The aim of such a project is of course to tap into the kind of raw creativity and unfettered thinking that only students are capable of. The journey from student to professional designer is an interesting one, but would that we could all occasionally tap into that undergraduate naivety.
In reality, naivety didn't really feature. Ron Arad's students got straight into the guts of the project, all of them breaking down the boundaries of conventional music making, which I knew would appeal to Katsumata-san, who has a long history of "advanced design" activity. Furthermore, the confident way in which they presented and stood up for their ideas was heart-warming.
I liked the sound of the brief "How can design turn a music listener into a player", and hopefully did my bit by trying to explain how "design" is perceived from a musician's point of view. As with Yamaha's design team itself, some of the students were active musicians, others had a purely product design based interest. The design managers in Japan have long known the advantages of both.
At the end of the project, five students were selected to exhibit their work in Yamaha's "scene of tone" exhibition at Spazio Bugatti, part of this year's Milano Salone. Of that, a far deeper insight can be gained at http://www.global.yamaha.com/design by following the news link on the homepage.
Joe Nunn exploited the possibilities of dedicated furniture; elegant timber stools and chairs that have instrument-specific functionality. Brit Leissler describes her concept as "a cuddly, alien bagpipe" - irresistible enough, but more so when you learn that it enables you to "control analogue sound through unconventional means". But my own favourite was the work of Thomas Higgs. Born out of an infectious passion for the world of Djs and electronic music "Loop" is a bracelet that allows 16 button tune composition with variants such as pitch, tempo and even an effects and sampling facility. "Loop" - get it? Form follows function and in terms of technology meets body adornment - watch out iPod...
