Before Week 1 the MENG students, and some BENG students took a trip down to the London design festival. It was a really cool experience, (particularly as I had never been to London before) looking into what current designers are up to currently. As the festival was so spread out we found ourselves travelling on the underground for quite some time. One thing that I noticed about this was the use of colour. At the top of most stations there was a lack of colour, design, and overall fun about the place. Where as when you went deeper down onto the platforms there was an abundance of colour in the tiles, with cool shapes and designs.
I feel this contrast shows a issue with modern design versus older design, the new things lack colour, fun, imagination, it feels very grey and black, which isn’t a bad thing as such as it gives somethings a very sleek finish. Whereas when you look back intime, i.e. the platforms, they used a lot of colour and shape to give an overall fun vibe things. Personally I feel this comes from the demand to make things as efficiently as possible, to reduce cost, time, and complexity. I feel we are in world driven by those three things that we as designers will do anything to cut corners, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and the expense of truly creating something beautiful, or with character.
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