To develop my vision and to have a look at the design world outside the department I went on study trips to the Milan Design Week and two design agencies in Brussels.
In Milan I dived in the different directions in design. The Salone del Mobile was interesting for seeing the commercial side of design, but the shown works were not really interesting to me. It was mostly just furniture. I preferred the work exhibited in the fuori Salonei events, because the designs had a story, whilst still being a design that one can buy and use. What I liked most was the expo Tokyo Design Week in Milan. The designs shown there were interactive, similar to projects at TU/e Industrial Design, and on the other hand totally new: incorporating Japanese culture with robots, manga and fashion. This was really inspiring and I’d like to see more Japanese design in the future.
The trip to Brussels focused on visiting two design agencies: Total Design, a smal agency doing web design, and Namahn, a studio that designs services and digital products. I liked the work of Namahn, that connects the digital world with the real world to tackle complex problems. I am really interested in this combination and I could imagine myself working for a studio like this in the future. Part of the visit was a workshop System Thinking for Designers. It was a nice introduction to a new ideation method, by analyzing complex problems through modeling them.ii