OUGD502: Design From Reason: Experiencing with Meaning

Hosted by Benjamin Hubert from Layer studio, a multi-disciplinary designer focusing around product design and social enhancement through problem solving. Hubert was another really inspirational speaker at D&AD festival, taking a Thursday Morning slot at the Truman Brewery Stage. Hubert has worked in studios across the world, being known as an award winning furniture designer and set up his own studio called 'Layer'. Hubert's design shifted from high end to pro-bono, encouraging a more charitable aspect to his practice and allowing craftsmanship contribute to solving some of the worlds problems.

By coming to D&AD I wanted to explore areas of Graphic Design, Hubert's argument was that by creating a product in some cases, this can be more powerful as it can rely less on a logo, allowing the brand to speak for itself via transparent communication. 

LAYER was approached by Maggie's Cancer Charity to help increase their donations via a branding campaign, yet when decoding the brief Layer asked 'what do you really need?'. This lead to the answer of donations- the charity needed an increase in money to do more things for their stakeholders and patients, and then asked himself how can we solve this through design? Hubert talked through this creative development, which then stemmed to a re-designed of the change pot, increasing donations through identifiable and simplistic design. This approach increased donations by 83% and educated the audience visually about Maggie's.

Hubert discussed when designing products for large scale use, for example a chair or even a change pot, no design is done for the first 6 months. He would stream all the design language and concept whilst gathering feedback from the target audience. 

From this talk I have learnt the power of ideas can be transformed on multidisciplinary scales, and asking the right questions can lead to a much more successful and long term solution. Also, product design and graphic design are two different things, yet the principles apply to both and aspects of the project management side can be carried over into my own practice, experimenting with a wider range of materials and platforms to convey my creativity.