Here is a video made by a team of second year BA Design students for a live project set by Kin Design. The video is an exploration of making social software platform more physical. The sound track is brilliant.

This year’s live projects, set by Kin Design and Imagination, were a great success. Feedback was wonderful and the students made some great work – more to follow.

Physical Apps. from Harriet McDougall on Vimeo.

Congratulations to Ben Redford, Chris Thomas, Harriet McDougall and Henry Flitton. A big thank you to Matt Wade & Kevin Palmer from Kin and Albert Fielder & Ditte from Imagination – as well as the teaching team; Charlotte, Jimmy and Belinda.

It’s taken quite a long time to get around to this post. The end of term has been pretty busy and exciting – we’ve had the best Christmas Ball ever, the third year BA students did an amazing job organising a brilliant party to raise funds for their degree show: the Ball included the amazing University of London Big Band that made the night feel extra special.

Second year students finished their Anti-Social brief, from a quick look around the studio there are some brilliant results.

Final year’s finished a tough term with ‘work in progress’ presentations – the range and depth of work was really encouraging. A lot of effort has gone into the development of their projects. Only a few weeks ago we saw Quique Corrales come to Goldsmiths to run a film making workshop. The brief was broad – explore your final year project through the medium of film. The results were great. Students had three days to design and produce their movies. Below, are a few examples of the difference type of film made:

Film Week: Paper Fictions from christopher waggott on Vimeo.

Democracy: Deptford from ben barker on Vimeo.

material from Jane Ellen Taylor on Vimeo.

Recorder Made Easy from Matt West on Vimeo.

I’m Not Superstitious But… from Ellie Edwards on Vimeo.

Every year, final year BA Design students run a cafe to raise funds for their degree show. The quality of the food is variable, year on year. This year however, it’s been AMAZING! The effort that they have put in is incredible; the bunting, the table and the George Forman mean lean grilling machine all add to the fantastic food. As a bit of a foodie, I’ve become a little fussy, but this year the quality of the food is very high. If you haven’t been yet, come… it’s the best grub in New Cross.

Yesterday we launched the joint project: Design is Dead, Long Live Design [The Great Goldsmiths Design Debate]. It’s a week long, intensive project were teams of second and third year BA Design students [together with a sprinkling of MA Critical Practice students] design, discuss and debate topics that they are given by the staff team. This year the polemics are:

Design is activism / Design is not activism
Design is pollution / Design is not pollution
Design should aid social mobility / Design should not aid social mobility
Design should be playful / Design should not be playful
Design is a problem solving activity / Design is not a problem solving activity
Design should serve industry / Design should not serve industry
Design should be made for the art gallery market / Design should not be made for the art gallery market
Design is a survival instinct / Design is not a survival instinct
Design is context driven / Design is not context driven
Design is white collar / Design is blue collar
Design is for the future / Design is for the present

Yesterday they were asked to create a leaflet exposing their position in the argument – the leaflet was seen as the first stage in a war of propaganda. The project culminates in a day of debate, which will take place on Friday in Goldsmiths Great Hall.

Today saw the launch of a BA Design second year brief: The Anti-social. It was an lively briefing for a particularly brilliant project. Laura Potter, Jimmy Loizeau and Nadine Jarvis will be teaching the project and I expect some exciting outcomes.

The projects sets out to discover, provoke, push and play with the boundaries of social convention. It asks the students to intervene in real-world situations where design can shift of perceptions of public acceptability. The briefing included a random site selection through the use of a large map of London and a set of darts… we quickly discovered that the students needed to brush up on their darts skills.

Although we are trying to push the students to question the values, laws and norms of society, we’re not trying to get anyone arrested – any irresponsible behavior will be frowned upon [especially if you end up selecting Buckingham Palace!].

This week is ‘Drawing week’ for the 3rd Year BA Design students. Yesterday’s workshop set out to explore their interests and projects through drawing. At this stage of the year things are still fragile, projects are in gestation and drawing acts as an investigatory process – a way to discover new lines of thinking and to make previously unconsidered connections.

The workshop builds on the idea of ‘drawing as thinking’ – an area of development that a couple of members of staff having been working on for years. Drawing acts as wonderful ideational process that can illuminate any design project. It’s a process that can highlight and unearth new opportunities by creating hybrids and unexpected assemblages. The exercises were similar to ones that I did with Jack Schulze, from Berg, a couple of years ago on a project called Olinda. Jack gives a lovely write up of it here.

The workshop asked the students to draw objects, issues, people, practices and contexts at the centre of their territories. Although it was a tough day, there was a lot of excellent work. I’m excited to see what’s produced by the end of the week.

More images of the session can be found here.