Re-envisioning Practices
Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon
Dismantling Ableism: An Exploration of How Play and Collaboration Can Help Children Generate a Deeper Understanding of People with Disabilities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sabhín O'Sullivan
The ultimate aim for this research is to explore how design and play can aid the dismantling of ableism and establish deeper connections between different groups within society. Specifically, it is an investigation into how we can use designed learning tools to facilitate interactions between people with disabilities and children. Play is a powerful method for generating understanding; the tools in this collection harness this power and encourage children to work with people with disabilities in an exploration of accessibility issues in their own environments. Through co-creation sessions with people with disabilities and primary school teachers, a learning program was designed for primary schools and youth clubs in Denmark. The program takes the form of an in-person workshop run by people with disabilities. It provides them with a platform to share their story, teach about the social model of disability and encourage children to critically think about the why people with disabilities are often neglected in the design of our communities. It helps kids identify accessibility issues in their own surroundings, which they then redesign in alignment with Universal Design Principles. The workshop was tested by a member of the Danish Association of Youths with Disabilities in both a Danish primary school and a youth club, the results of which are discussed in this paper.
Virga - a Collaborative Kinetic Installation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rab McClure
Virga explores the intersection of steam bending and digital fabrication to produce a collaboratively-produced kinetic light installation inspired by cloud formations. The project is part of our Field Study initiative, in which students and faculty travel each year to conduct embedded workshops with expert artists, designers, fabricators and industry partners, producing tangible artifacts we collectively exhibit afterward. Structured workshops introduce new activities and processes each year, with students working alongside faculty. Designers, increasingly, must navigate between and blend disciplines, working adaptively to create new environments, visuals, messaging and products. To produce Virga, faculty and students collaborated with experts to design and fabricate a collection of glowing sculptural forms inspired by cloud formations and made from steam-bent wood, 3D-printed connectors, programmable lights and tailored fabric. During an 8-day workshop in Spain, thin, paired strips of wood, cut from locally sourced ash trees, were trimmed to size, sanded, soaked overnight in water, heated in a steam chamber, and then bent into digitally-fabricated molds. When assembled, the bent-wood curves create a family of related but distinct forms. Designed for disassembly and portability, the collection now forms an interactive, kinetic installation, subtly shifting and rearranging—rising and falling as it glows. Our Field Study has taken us to work with glassblowers in England, with felt makers in the Netherlands, with metalworkers in Morocco and with ceramicists and computational designers in Italy. Field Study projects have been showcased in Venice, during the Venice Biennale, and in the Rossana Orlandi Gallery, Milan, during Milan Design Week.
Holistic Design and the Aesthetics of Relationship
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Nolasco
This paper provides a reflection on collaborative practices in art and design that aim at social and ecological sustainability taking the project Neve Insular as a starting point. This project began on the island of Mindelo, Cape Verde, in 2018, from implementation of the cotton cycle and in the context of the preservation of the material and immaterial cultural heritage linked to the Cape Verdean panú di téra. Since then, it has been promoting agro-ecology workshops, with the collaboration of schools, carding and spinning workshops, as well as artistic residencies, bringing together craftsmen, designers and artists. Underlying a concept of holistic design, these activities do not aim at product design but at fostering sharing networks and contributing to a circular economy and behavioural change towards greater sustainability. The process - i.e. the interactions between people, institutions, raw material and traditional knowledge - is considered a work of art in itself: initiated by the authors, they partially relinquish autocratic control over production with a view to sustainability and as a basic orientation the holistic system, from the production of the cotton, to its use, exchange and consumption. At this juncture, these expanded practices of art and design are political in the sense that they operate a different configuration of the visible and the describable and, consequently, of the feasible, not considering the individual as the sovereign and only being endowed with agency, but also accepting the agency of the elements of nature and of social creativity through a process of horizontal collaboration.
The Personality of Visual Elements: Creating a Framework for the Development of the Visual Identity Based on Brand Personality Dimensions View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Beatriz Andrade, Joana Ramalho, Edirlei Soares de Lima, Rodrigo Morais
In order to be successful in today's competitive environment, brands must have well-established identities. Thus, during the branding process it is necessary to attribute to the brand the personality traits and visual elements that best represent the desired identity. With significant advances in the area of communication, over the years scholars have analyzed how different visual elements (e.g. logo, color, shapes, typography) can represent the desired brand personality. However, typically these elements are analyzed separately, since few researches have studied the association of personality traits with the whole set of visual elements of the brand, so called “visual identity”. Therefore, through a systematic literature review, this study develops a methodological framework that allows the creation of the brand visual identity based on the desired brand personality, being assigned to each brand personality dimension suggested by Aaker (1997) a set of visual elements, namely, within the scope of this research, colors, shapes and typographies, which represent the desired personality traits. Thus, this research serves as a guiding tool for designers during the creation of the brand's visual identity, contributing to the set of visual elements of the brand correctly visually translating the personality traits that were defined through the branding process.
