Design Inside-out

Artful Design Reflection #2

The idea of designing inside-out is that the design is form-centered, and the function follows the form. It’s back to the argument of importance of “usefulness” because some may say that if an object is not function-centered, it might be useless. But I think usefulness cannot be accurately grasped. If a form triggers feelings of happiness, brings back memories, or creates emotional reaction, that’s useful! The world is full of unexplored knowledge, and playing with a form is a way to learn about things we don’t know!

Actually, “inside-out” design would be really useful for re-purposing things sitting idle at home. For example, I have this really cool candle holder, a souvenir in Turkey a long long time ago. It’s really pretty and cool! But I don’t light any candles at home and therefore, it just collected dusts at home.

Then I thought of an idea! Because it has a big opening, I turned it into a pencil collector. At the time of purchase, I didn’t think about using the it as a pencil collector at all, and I wasn’t looking for one. I simply bought it because it is so pretty. But because of its form, I’m able to find another use for it:) The versatile form allows it to have multiple usages.

So if we want to make a case to advocate inside-out design approaches, we can say that it’s helps with designing sustainably.

DESIGN EDUTE

The idea is as follows. A cutting knife makes sound when in action. And the cutting job might be jarring (imaging you are cutting 20 potatoes to make fries for 10 friends, or just preparing food for a big dinner..). To make it fun, you can turn on buttons on the knife. Each button corresponds to an instrument on drum set.

Let’s say you turned on bass drum, hi-hat and mid-tom, and you start cutting those cucumbers, those sounds will come out, and you will be making music!

Based on your speed of cutting and your force, the beats will change!

Imagine you are making this music when cutting vegetables :

There could be different combination of instruments you can install onto your knife. That would make cutting so much more fun.

Lastly, you can invite your friend over to make dinner together. Both of you can be cutting and making music together. Hey, a band is formed!