The year ends and it is time to take stock of what has happened in the last twelve months, of remembering the memorable things and discarding any bad memories; and it is also the occasion to think of our good resolutions for the year that is about to begin.
There are many ways to awake creativity: some of us need to meditate in the morning, others get their ideas while they are showering, while others do not function until they have had at least three cups of coffee… And there are others who claim they are not creative at all. But the truth is that everyone is creative, one way or another. Being creative does not only imply knowing how to design or draw, we can all be creative in our everyday, in our daily chores…
Bionics can be defined as the application of biological solutions to architecture, design, engineering and modern technology systems. It is a good tool that has contributed to the formation of design, either by providing natural models as examples of several concepts, or through the application of many design solutions in different fields: material engineering, medicine, technological implements and architecture, among others.
We have reasons to celebrate! The prestigious Red Dot Awards have awarded Roca One Day Design Challenge with a design and creativity prize in the Spatial Communications - Event Design category.
We believe that, at this point, there is no need to provide any further information on the impact plastics have on the planet. While half the world is really aware of this problem and tries its best to reduce the use of plastic to the minimum, the other half isn´t and as long as a radical change of attitude is not achieved, plastic will continue being present in our lives. On an individual level there are plenty of actions we can carry out to try to control –not avoid– the negative effects. Certainly, the most obvious is to separate the waste we generate at home, recycling to the maximum and placing every single thing in the corresponding trash can; but there are other gestures that, no matter how small, add up.
The career of a designer is made up of different moments in time that, years later, end up being critical in their professional path. An iconic design that marked an era, a stay in another country, or their work as a junior designer in this or that company. We at Roca One Day Design Challenge would like the participation in the competition to be one of those key experiences.
Creative work is often a solitary process. The image of a designer sitting in front of his/her computer for hours, drawing, trying out new ideas, both moving forward and backward, is very familiar to those working in this field. There are several techniques that help us in this sense, like Sleep Writing, the moodboards and other processes we have already addressed in this journal.
But loneliness is not always a part of the creative process. There are projects in which we need to work collectively and sometimes, choosing the best concepts with so many people involved might prove to be a difficult challenge, both from the point of view of quality and the sensitivities of the participants.
The current rate of consumption puts the planet at a limit in terms of resource depletion and waste disposal. Scientists have been alerting that the situation is reaching a point of no return, affecting all living creatures and the planet itself on several fronts: climate change, natural disasters, displacement of entire populations, air pollution, invasion of waste dumped into the rivers and the sea, forest fires that will destroy the forest mass, unsustainable crops… and all those effects we already know about. The situation poses different challenges that designers, architects and engineers can and should meet by means of innovation and creativity. Politics will follow its path, but it is unquestionable that design can greatly contribute to adopting more equitable, responsible and supportive lifestyles
Unfortunately, talent is sometimes not enough when it comes to creativity, as it is also essential to know how to promote an idea and even how to promote ourselves. This might seem an unimportant detail but don’t be fooled, it isn’t. For instance, let’s take Thomas Edison, famous for having invented the light bulb, among other devices. But it was actually the British Joseph Swan who invented the light bulb before him and Edison, somehow, “developed” Swan’s idea. Therefore, why does the world remember Edison and not Swan? Because Edison knew how to promote his invention more effectively.
Holidays are around the corner in most of the countries and for any average person this means rest, sunny beaches or beautiful mountains (depending on your taste), trips, etc. But we all know that designers are on a different level; designers do not rest, even if they are on holidays, they are constantly thinking of that little problem they were not able to solve before closing the studio for the holidays, or even worse, they start analysing everything that surrounds them: if they are in a museum, they spend more time studying the design of a display cabinet than looking at the work of art it contains; or if they go to a restaurant on the other side of the world, instead of studying the menu to choose something different they have not tasted before, they concentrate on the design of the basin in the restroom or the décor of the place or even the lamps hanging from the ceiling. In short, there are things that never change.
