John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

interdisciplinary design practice. This girl’s project included a range of clothing
and accessories for Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD) sufferers which is fairly
prevalent in Northern Europe – it is certainly prevalent in Glasgow where we
don’t see the sun on too many days. At present the range of products for SAD
sufferers are incredibly clumsy. There is a sort of light box that you are meant to
prop up on the table and eat your cornflakes at that is like a portfolio put on its
end and beams a fairly substantial bright light at you. The other one is a skip
cap that you are meant to wear all day long. But with the current threat of being
given an ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order) or being described as a ‘Chav’
these are pretty clumsy, pretty god-damned awful to be honest. What Cookie
proposed was a number of high fashion products including urban street wear –
so the ‘Hoodie’ (which is actually in more danger of attracting an ASBO), a
range of bags and a range of umbrellas. What is interesting about Cookie is that
she worked with a wide range of people on the project and in many ways had to
adopt the personas of these people. These included fashion buyers, pattern
cutters, technologists and manufacturers. I think this project transcended many
historical or conventional design boundaries including product, fashion,
graphics but also has moved into fields such as electronics, marketing,
dressmaking and branding. And as we speak I think there are possibilities of
this proceeding further. She has interest from a couple of notable garment
manufacturers in Milan.
The second project is all about good deeds. There is a book (the title of which
eludes me at the moment) so there is a little bit of precedent before Joanne took
this on. The concept really is to promote well-being and harmony amongst
communities. It is largely Internet-driven and the good deeds service
encompasses voluntary action such as cleaning your bosses’ car – so that is her
actually giving my car a wash – giving a stranger flowers or taking your
neighbours’ dog for a walk. Again, the project breaks a number of historic
boundaries and disciplines including graphics, multimedia, branding but also
the notion of entrepreneurship. What resulted from that was actually a
published book which was incredibly successful.
The next project’s origins lay in concerns with the authenticity of food. Again,
the outcome was a booklet titled Authenticity. It was not just about the
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