MUPIC COURSE

Themes are processed not only by industrial designers. 

An industrial designer should produce innovative solutions - solutions that bring high added value. 

On a simple example, we will explain what added value is and how it is created.

Added value is created by enhancing the input material and transforming it into a more valuable product.  

As input material for production, we have 2 kg of metal profiles and 0.5 m2 of wood. It can be used for making chairs or a conference table. The future value of our work will depend on the design. This material can also be used for creating a physical therapy product, which, if provided with the necessary certification, can be sold for a much higher price than the chairs or a conference table.

The themes in industrial design are changing, as the world around us is changing. Technologies, production possibilities, as well as the habits and needs of people, are changing. The environment around us is changing, too. 

The goal is to generate a new solution, take into account new technologies, understand them, and utilize them as new tools - creatively and freely.

The key to success is generating the right assignment. How to approach it? How to develop it? In the introduction, we said that our design will always focus on a human or any other living being, including an animal living in symbiosis with man.

The key to a good assignment is to ask how our activity or a specific proposal can help a person in a given situation.

Let us take one of the projects implemented in our studio as an example:

Water Rescue Project: 

According to WHO data, an estimated 236 000 people died from drowning in 2017. The task for students was: Try to reduce this number! Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning

As designers, try to imagine the situation of many people threatened by floods, offer them a solution and help them survive their situation better with the help of your proposals. How to evacuate small children? How to help rescuers with communication? How to provide a safe place for infirm people?

Another example: together with the students, we work on an assignment: City transport Corridor 16 - a premium city transport line. We look for ways to increase passenger comfort.

It is important to ask the right questions. How to make it easier for passengers with luggage to board the car? How do we make passengers feel safer?

If we look for real innovation, we must target our questions on a real person with his/her existing problem and look for a solution.

What about other assignments: Design a rescue float! Design an articulated bus! Or, design a fire extinguisher!

These assignments are wrong. They do not focus on real human needs, but rather on inanimate products. Moreover, we have already tied its function and design with a description of what we were looking for. A float. A bus. A fire extinguisher.

If we want to be creative, we do not look for a float or a bus. A bus already exists and so does a float. We look for a rescue tool for a person who finds himself in deep water and needs help. We do not look for a bus, but, say, for a public space that provides transportation to passengers, offering them comfort and safety.

It may seem strange, but it works. 

It will be easier for you to look for a solution for a fire extinguisher if we describe the situation thoroughly and ask the right questions: How to simplify the manipulation with the device so that it can be easily operated by a person in a stressful situation? Versus: 

Design a simple trigger mechanism for a fire extinguisher.

A wrong assignment is likely to result in creating a variation of an existing solution. In the case of our design, it would lead to average styling rather than a design with a high added value.

Water Rescue Project – part of the presentation. Industrial design: Václav Svítil, Jan Vítek