Annie Leonard: The story of cosmetics

This video is about the cosmetics industry, Annie Leonard speaks about how the ingredients in these products are harmful to us and that they are links to health problems like cancer, learning disabilities and male infertility.  Annie then goes onto looking at the key features of our materials economy “toxics in, toxics out”. If at the factory they are pouring in toxins into a product example baby shampoo you’ll get toxins in baby shampoo, workers, communities and babies.

The average women in the US uses about 12 personal care products a day and the average man about 6. Each product that is used contains a dozen or more chemicals and less then 20 percent of these the safety panel reviews. Basically what annie Leonard is telling us is that we don’t know what these products are doing to us. To make us understand in depth she compares it to another situation asking us would we go on a plane that only inspects 20 percent of its planes?

Some of the types of bad chemicals are carcinogens means they can cause cancer. Other types are Neurotoxins and reproductive toxins proven to mess up brain development and reproduction.

She goes onto explaining that it’s the company’s fault and that are basically responsible for putting peoples health at risk. I believe it’s a useful video for designers because it explains the ugly side of products.

Annie Leonard: The story of bottled water

Annie Leonard talks about “how manufactured design pushes what we don’t need and destroy what we need most”. She starts off by saying if we lived in a city like Cleveland and we needed water would we get it from the tap or would we go for a bottle of water “fiji”? The bottled water was tested against normal tap water and was found that the fiji bottled water was lower quality, loses the taste against the tap water and costs more.

 Bottled water cost about 2000 times more than tap water. In a comical point of view she tells us to imagine if we were to buy a 10000 dollar sandwich. This makes buying a bottle of water sound even more stupid. She then says people in the US buy half a billion bottles every week. Which is enough to circle the globe more then 5 times.

She then goes through the “manufactured demand” process. It starts of by scaring us saying not to drink tap water it is bad. The goes on to seducing us this is done by hiding the reality of the product by images of pure fantasy. For example when the bottled water has pictures of fountains and pristine nature. Even with all these images a third of the bottled water industry’s water comes from the tap. 

Nestle released a statement saying that “bottle water is the most environmentally friendly product in the world”. Annie Leonard disagrees and goes onto explaining the manufacturing process.  This is the "misleading us" part of the manufactured demand process.

In this video I learnt that bottled water was a waste of money and that it’s doing more harm then good to the environment and us. This is important for designers because designers need to look at alternative solutions of materials and manufacturing processes rather then the ones that hurt the environment.

Annie Leonard: The story of electronics

Annie Leonard talks about why “design for the dump” is toxic to people. She starts of by stating the definition for “design for the dump” she explains that it is making stuff to be thrown away quickly. I found the bit where she says that her DVD player broke and she went to get it fixed, they asked for 50 dollars just to have a look at it and a new one at target would cost 39 dollars. She then goes on explaining the process a product goes through.

It goes through extraction, which she explains is the process of getting the materials. Then we go on to production where the materials are taken to and are manufactured into goods. Then distribution occurs and then consumption where us consumers buy the goods at our local stores and then we use these goods not knowing the harms they could be doing to the environment and us. When we are finished with our electronic products we then go through the process of disposal. Electronic products are then either taken to the landfill or overseas to be taken apart for the parts that can be resold and reused. This showed the harms that a simple electronic device can do but we all depend on them.

Annie Leonard then says that each year we make 25 million tons of e waste that gets dumped, burned or recycled. She then talks about how the company’s the designer’s work for try to “hide costs”. They try to externalise the costs, for example instead of paying to make the work environment safe the workers pay with their health. Externalising costs keep allowing designers to design for the dump.

This video was interesting due to its animation which made is easier to understanding the topic. I think its important for industrial designers to see this video because it looks at design electronics that aren’t reliable and the harms it does to our environment and us.

Product sketching

My design Career

I wanted to become a designer because I have always had an interest in the design field.  In high school I did textiles for my hsc because design and technology wasn’t offered at my high school. Textiles taught me design elements and principles that every designer for anything should know. Having to do a design subject and learning things such as the design process I realized how much I wanted to be a designer for my future career. 

With my sister having already studied fashion design I didn’t want to go down the same path. So I did research on what other design careers that were offered. I finally came across industrial design and realized it was a perfect fit due to it incorporating almost everything and anything you could design.  The more i learn from this course the more I grow to really enjoy and love industrial design.

 Initially I started of at UWS penrith studying design and technology which was a 3 year course. Due to my successful first semester I decided to give unsw a chance and see if I could make it into a well-known and established uni.  I wanted to go to unsw because I think the learning opportunities would be greater and I also think that I would be exposed to a better learning environment here as well. With also the influence of my friend whose cousin studied industrial design at unsw and said it was a very good course  I believed unsw would push me forward and help me into my future of design.

 I hope that this course would lead me into design field and let me design products for major companies. I would love to design furniture and pieces of art that can be used or just looks amazing in a home. I would also love to work overseas looking at the cultural influences of design and possibly learn more about design. I also hope that I will be successful in design and with not only just designing products I could possibly enter textiles and look at many different areas of design.

Design Excellence: JOEYCAN