Masters of Arts 2011: A visit to the “Research” theme section

The main theme of this year’s Masters of Arts (MoA 2011), the graduate show of the Aalto University School of Art and Design in Helsinki, is “Redesigning Human”. Curator Marita Liulia takes the visitor on a journey to explore different aspects of considering humans in art and design.

It is hard to describe the variety of 80 thesis works exhibited in the show, but I am having a hard time imagining anyone to come out from this building without feeling inspired. From environmental art to textile design and from theoretical research to just beautiful pieces of art, there is something in the mix for everybody.

My involvement in MoA 2011 is two-fold: Participating with my own piece of research, “The Absent Peer – Non-users in Social Interaction Design”, I am happy to be embedded in a section of the exhibition that focuses on design research across graphic, strategic and digital design. In addition, many good friends and fellows are showing works that inspire and trigger interesting thoughts on design, art or life in general.

The exhibition has been built around the five themes of “Human”, “User and Design”, “Research”, “Environment” and “Art” (plus, an additional “Extended” category presenting works from the other Aalto schools). For the purpose of this (p)review, I present the seven works in my section of MoA, as they represent very well how works from different departments reveal a relation, once they are put into context.

Disclaimer: YMMV, your milage may vary. Your own experience of the exhibition and the works presented is likely to be different. Ideally, even my own perception will change after meeting more fellow graduates and diving into the books complementing the exhibition posters. After all, there is 80 works to explore – each with its very own message – and they have been compiled in this space to trigger our very personal dialogue with the works and their creators.

Research on graphic design

Eemeli Nieminen presents an insightful study of how non-fiction books convey information. His work “Book As a Means of Coveying Information – Theoretical perspectives on design and graphic rhetoric in non-fiction books” is represented with a very simplistic yellow poster which inevitably will be the first thing catching your eye when entering the big open exhibition space. However, the true depth of his work is only revealed once you pick up the beautifully designed book from the desk, which is a pity it cannot be bought in a print edition – though luckily, Eemeli offers it for download from his portfolio website.

Minsu Kuusisto, whose work “The Green Book of a Graphic Designer” is officially listed in the “Media” theme of MoA, asks how designers can have a positive ecological impact through eco-efficiency, communication and new kind of platforms that challenge consumption. She designed a climate-themed concept and identity – two posters are presented in the exhibition – that eventually led to that “Green Book” handbook.

Investigations on service design

Teija Losoi went into the field to investigate how design could improve the environment of a hospital as experienced by a patient. “The Waiting Room of Life – Improving the Comfort of a Rehabilitation Patient by Means of Physical Environment Planning” is a work that describes how the needs for efficiency, cost-effectiveness and the constraints of technologies used dictate the context, leaving one of the most important stakeholder – the patient – second place. In the design proposal presented, the well-being of the patient receives more attention in the physical environment, which lately has more and more turned into “health factories”.

Marika Tesolin’s thesis “Brand in space” was done for the kiosk chain R-Kioski, an ubiquitous sight in any Finnish city. Searching for ways for R-Kioski to engage with customers and employees in an emotional manner, she researched the current state of customers shopping at the kiosks and created a vision for the brand in the year 2110.

Riikka Hänninen presents a case study done for a grocery chain, where she investigated the involvement of customers in the development of the products and services they purchase. “Customer Involvement in Retail Business” leads to findings that evaluate how customers can be involved in developing a retail business, beyond the plain analysis of the usage data consumers generate when shopping.

Another book I definitely need to set aside some time to read through is “Navigating in the World of Services – What Are Service Systems and How Are They Experienced by the Users?” by Johanna Nieminen. Based on the abstract and the first impressions after skimming through the beautifully designed illustrations, her approach of considering services as ecologies/systems rather than single tools appears to be a great primer for thinking of service design in a new, more interconnected way.

My own work – on users and non-users

Last but not least, I find it exciting to see how my own work fits in here. In “The Absent Peer – Non-users in Social Interaction Design”, I critically investigate how non-users would have to be taken into consideration in the design of social applications and provide a theoretical framework for designers.

As with the other works in our section, the interest that motivated me was to find out how things really are, in my case from a sociological perspective. Then, since we all are professional designers, we processed these insights into creating either a final design or frameworks that can be applied in future design projects. What all works have in common is that nothing is taken for granted – the concept of “services” is taken apart as is the idea of “analysing customer data to develop the offering” or the general understanding of “the user” – and using scientific methods we found new ways to see the world and, eventually, make it an (even) better place.