Road Trip!!!!

Wednesday morning we were up early on our way to the Big Shmoke for a day out being creative designers and shtuff. On our agenda was to visit the Eileen Gray permanent exhibition in Collin's barracks Museum, followed by a short luch break and then onto the Science Gallery and finally a visit to the IBM Design Studios.

Now I do admire the design of Eileen Grays furniture, I consider her style quite classy and simplistic, just seems to be a few geographic shapes thrown together really. Good design is simple design. However the exhibition didn't really capture my interest, it was quite dull and dark and dusty, with a bit too much to read, as in most museums I suppose.

On to the Science Gallery. The temporary exhibition theme was Trauma. The exhibition itself was absolutely incredible, every aspect was interactive and interesting.

Our guided tour was quite rushed so I wish I had more time to observe each exhibit. One of the most impressionable ones was Ted Meyer's Scared for Life collection. Ted viewed scars as a possible symbol for new life and regeneration rather than traumatising and distressing. Ted took prints from peoples scars and transformed them into pieces of art, as though they were something beautiful to be admired and looked at rather than hidden by embarrassment and shame. Below shows a womans scar that can now be observed by people as a colourful art piece. I found myself a little teary-eyed looking at this exhibit, especially reading the comments from the subjects themselves. Scars and injuries can often be traumatic and often life changing and it was interesting to see their relationships with their scars. People can feel defined by incidents whether the scars are mental or physical. We were invited to add our own incidents to the collection, drawing our scars on a sheet of paper.

While the Gallery tour was short lived, the day ended well with a visit to IBM Desing Studios. I wasn't sure what to expect especially on arrival at the site of very industrial grey block buildings. The Studio building was the only splash of colour among the blocks, inside the building was even more welcoming, The studio itself covers the entire first floor and it left me in awe. Having designed their workplace themselves it was the perfect space for designers at work. The open plan floor is dotted with groups of desks where teams could work together on a project, while there were several personal spaces of couches, exclusively and beautifully designed for the workers to relax comfortably or meet comfortably without interruption or distraction. Two walls lined with windows from ceiling to floor along with the mostlt white decor which left the space incredibly bright and open. Glass white boards also allow for a lot of creativity among the teams. The whole space really apprealed to me as a place I would like to work, it seemed to be created especially around the needs of a designer, with a very relaxed atmosphere, As for their work, IMB designers seem to have a similiar work strategy to ours, where user experience research played a large part in their projects. to summarise, I wouldn't say no to a job offer from IBM Design Studios.