Pause...

- clean but not clinical 
- inviting to the user as well as calming

Deconstructing the Telephone

Minor Concept:

I plan to make the telephone a self-help tool for communicating with ones self, a healthy release of ones emotions. I propose a solution that encompasses different ways / uses of self communication. It is dependent solely on the individual where the concept is simply a catalyst for releasing and challenging personal and societal stresses. This design becomes their voice. It is a form of art therapy which, is there to improve or maintain mental health and emotional well-being.

Problem statement:

In today’s world of mass communication people have lost contact with themselves. Telephonic communication invades your personal space and more so with the invention of cellular technology. The world has truly become a global village where people have access to one another at all times. With all these forms of communication we spend a large portion of time sifting through the social noise and don't get a chance to hear ourselves think.

Knowledge Gap:

Society constantly advances new channels of communication. Through standards of modern society it is expected that you have access to these forms of communication. The problem is unique in the fact that through all these methods of communication self communication has been neglected. It’s a curious question on how lonely and separated people feel / are from themselves.

Do you hear yourself above the noise?

The growing technology constantly changes the way we think. It is ever moving and engulfs the world by its many forms of communication. Communication can occur over vast distances in time and space. A person is one tiny entity of this fast, ever growing digital age and is in constant access to all forms of media. This media somewhat controls their lives. And through these many forms of communication whether it is desired or not, the individual forgets to live in the moment of what is. The person forgets to communicate with himself.

Today’s telephone is in constant contact with our body, it invades our home, interrupts our work, steals our free time and infiltrates our community. In other words the telephone governs our lives as a whole. Our mind is in constant contact for the use of others and our home is accessible through the telephone for others. Work can only generally ‘work’ if you are available for contact. Play is governed by how much free time you have and our community is readily available through all forms of communication. We as a nation revolve around the phone and digital media.

With all this 'time' spent on communicating with others when do any of us stop to communicate with ourselves.

In Touch

The greater the ability to share information, the more impersonal the method becomes.

Today we have so many ways to communicate. We can keep in touch via text messages, but also have people follow our every thought on twitter and upload our experiences on Facebook for the world to see. This makes the world seem smaller.

Has this digital, intangible space improved our communication from a personal point of view?

Popular forms of communication today remove almost everything that makes us human. We share more intimate moments with our Blackberrys and iPhones than we do with actual people. A conversation via SMS is just text, black and white facts on a page… or is it? Human conversations are not straight forward black and white transactions, but an array of colourful interactions where laughter or a frown can convey more than a paragraph of explanation.

A simple “I Love You” followed by a gentle smile has so much more meaning then a picture of a Garden Gnome holding a heart posted on your Facebook page. Even if you have 100 people who “Like It”, it’s digital - not Human.

The simple phone call has been pushed aside for the instant gratification of the SMS or MMS or TWEET.

Do you need the human voice like I do?

Designing Me

Greetings

This is my first BLOG attempt.

So… first of all, my name is Alex. I live in South Africa and am currently studying my honors in Graphic design. I returned to the ‘studying world’ after being consumed in the ‘working world’ for five years.

This is my endeavour to find out (remind) what it is I love about design…. Graphic design. In the past years I have drifted from what is ‘traditionally’ graphic and been subjugated into code.

What is Graphic design and why am I doing it… (hmmm, something tangible?)

Well that is one of the many things I plan to discover this year.

Through my projects and research I hope to discover what kind of a designer I truly am. This blog will follow me through my honors and all that influences my creativity.

Syron