History and Context of Creative Industries – Precariat

The Creative Industries holds different industries within it, including:

• architecture
• advertising and marketing
• IT software and gaming
• museums and galleries
• product design
• graphics design
• fashion design
• film, TV, radio and photography
• music and  performing arts
• visual arts

According to the definition, those who are “Precarious”  are those whose employment status and income are in an uncertain position. It can be presumed that people who work in the creative industries are mostly precarious people, as jobs are more “freelance”. Precarious workers can also include temporary working labour, temporary agency work, service industries jobs or being self-employed. With the uncertainty in the job, quite often that people will have to move from one job to the other in order to keep the flow of income.

An example of these precarious people can be shown in a TV series, such as Dynasty. A 2017 Netflix TV soap, following two of the wealthiest families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, as they try to control and take over dynasties.

In season 1, there was a total of 22 episodes. Therefore, more than 50 people in different creative industries would be involved in the process of creating each episodes. Ranging from actors and actresses to the hair and makeup team. On the other hand, if actors, actresses, directors and co-writers who are usually high-paid are excluded, leaving script writer, extras, the computer graphic teams, bankers, the wardrobe teams, location and set teams and many more, precarious. As when the series end each season, these people will have s period of time where they do not have jobs.

Although precarious employment can benefit the employees with a flexible time frame and flexible work. However, it can cause stress to the employees due to job insecurity, in which as a consequence they may receive lower income. Despite the fact that “Precarious Employment” can give the employees uncertainty on the amount of income and position, but that doesn’t stop the precarious employment rising in todays world.

 

References:

“What Is Precarious Work | Work Rights Centre”. Workrightscentre.Org, 2018, http://www.workrightscentre.org/what-is-precarious-work. Accessed 14 Oct 2018.

“Precarious Work | International Labor Rights Forum”. Laborrights.Org, 2018, https://laborrights.org/issues/precarious-work. Accessed 14 Oct 2018.

“Quick Facts About Vulnerable Workers And Precarious Work”. LCO-CDO, 2018, https://www.lco-cdo.org/en/our-current-projects/vulnerable-workers-and-precarious-work/vulnerable-workers-interim-report-august-2012/quick-facts-about-vulnerable-workers-and-precarious-work/. Accessed 15 Oct 2018.

“The Challenges Of Precarious Work – The Malta Independent”. Independent.Com.Mt, 2018, http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2012-07-29/opinions/the-challenges-of-precarious-work-313924/. Accessed 15 Oct 2018.

“Matthew Lau: What’S So Wrong With ‘Precarious’ Employment, Anyway?”. Financial Post, 2018, https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/matthew-lau-whats-so-wrong-with-precarious-employment-anyway. Accessed 15 Oct 2018.

History and Context of Creative Industries |Human Centred Design

Managing and developing a solution for a specific problem by involving the human perspective and opinions into each step is one crucial part in the process of Human Centred Design.

After discussing about Human Centred Design in class, I do think that Human Centred Design has become a big part of businesses nowadays in every aspects of the business, especially on the creative side. Personally, I think that HCD has played a big role in the medical industries, as hospitals and doctors faces new patients everyday, since they do welcome all patients of all gender and ages therefore, they don’t have a specific target market.

Since hospitals, clinics and doctors are faced with patients of all ages and gender, the do need to understand the feelings and the wants of patients in order for them to feel comfortable and relax before they do anything to the patients.

Using the example of the MRI scanner for children. They have changed the MRI scanners completely for the child to feel comfortable, since MRI scans can look weird and scary for a child who may not know the procedure of what is going on. Therefore by painting it as a pirate ship, a spaceship, or other adventurous scenes, can make the child feel relax and not scared. This is a great way for the medical industries and hospitals to adapt to their patients needs and wants by listening to them and looking through the vision, because children does look at the world in a different way from what adults do, same as patients, they see things differently from doctors and nurses.

In addition to the paintings that hospitals used Human Centred Design, by that the hospital can help children patients feel more calm during the procedure by using “gamification”. Basically tricking the child to stay still during the MRI scan, by saying “stay still the rocket is about to shoot off!” Since children are creative and imaginative they will be likely to imagine as if they were in a space ship, therefore the procedure can go more smoothly.

Apart from the example of the MRI scan, dentists clinics also opt for HCD, by having a TV screen above the seats, or paintings on the walls all around to distract the patients from the procedure that they are doing.

In my opinion, I think that as the world is now developing very fast, as well as the needs of each person has to be satisfied, whether as customers or patients, Human Centred Design should become a bigger part in problem solving in businesses and industries. As it will not only increase the reputation of the industries but will also create more sense in problem solving and the development of solution.

Barcelona Hospital makes MRI a space adventure for Kids

Or

This Dental Clinic in Banjara Hills in India

How Do Collections of Objects Tell Stories?

On Monday’s class we brought in the “5 random objects” in a specific bag. We we’re then told to swap with our partners in order for them to create an alter ego, meaning the second person or personality from the objects given. I was given A pen, post-it notes, sponge cake, wet wipes and glitter tape. All came in one recyclable bag.

Personally, I do think that a collection of objects can reveal a lot of things about a person, their personality, likes and dislikes, nationality, age, gender and many more. This is because the interests, hobbies, likes and dislikes of an individual can cause them to collect these kinds of objects. Therefore creating a story of their life, or perhaps, where they are travelling to. A slight change in an object can mean that there is a difference in the personality of the alter ego or identity created.

For example, from the objects that I was given, I certainly know that my alter ego would be a female university student, she likes to study, clean freak, super hygienic and she is from Asia. This is the beginning of my story from the objects that I was given.

With only 5 objects an identity was created. The observation of a person’s collection of objects can tell us the story of their life. Each object holds a memory, hence weaving the story of the person’s life

Alter Ego

As it was my first day in the university and my first lesson, I was eager to learn and take in new things from the teacher. My first ever tried was about “Alter Ego” and to be honest, i have no idea what that means…(english as second language student problem!!!)

Apart from that Clare (our teacher) also assigned us homework that relates with Alter Ego. Which are to select 5 objects , 2 of which are random and the other 3 which creates a combined impact, put it in a bag that needs to be chosen to create a story and a personality for a specific person. I had no idea what to bring, or who to create a story out of. Literally zero.

But throughout the week, I did think and relate back to my childhood, the place I grew up from, Phuket. A tropical island and a top tourist destination. Obviously growing up I would see tourist all the time, from different nationalities, everywhere around the island. So finally! I got the idea of the 5 objects, plus the bag.

The first 2 random objects are crisps and some band-aids. The other 3 are the “the beach essentials”, including: a travel size sunscreen, sunglasses and a towel. Putting these all in 1 big beach bag. Task completed! All that’s left to do is presenting this to my friends in class, which to be honest… I find this very nerve wracking and quite difficult!

Live Briefs | UCAS Create Your Future

Thursday 27th September, I approach the room with plenty of time to spare because I didn’t want to be late for my first live brief. The first live brief was about the UCAS university fair, called “Create Your Future”. The fair will set in both London and Manchester.

Russel handed us the task to do, which is to create 2 stands for Kingston School of Art and the Performance Arts Department, in addition to the stands we also have to design        t-shirts for the students ambassadors to wear during the fair. We were able to chose our own teams, which we have to include one second year student. So in our group there were Carol, Jin, Me and Frida (a second year student).

The day kick off at 10am sharp, I was quite nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get any ideas out, sitting there with my mind blank. However, as time goes by ideas started feeding through.

A rough plan before the final decision

The first stand we design was for KSA. This stand was inspired by the university itself, the patterns and the colours used. In addition to that, we also had the opportunity to take  VR onto our stands, which it will show different areas of KSA, so visitors can feel like they are walking around the campus. To force people to go in the same direction, and to scanned their tickets, we thought of an idea which the people go through each stages in a circle so that they could get the whole experience in the stand, including the leaflets collection, scanning the barcode, watching the KSA videos, and getting the tote bags from the mannequins. We chose mannequins as our holder for the tote bags in order to display the fashion department of the university which is quite popular.

The first stand for Kingston School of Art

For the second stand, we had 30 minutes to do, the idea of this stand for the Performing Arts department was to have the same pattern of the back board so that the visitors could associate the two stands and they can relate it together. A difference of this stand would be the tote bags holder. For this stand it would be a barre. I was inspired dances such as ballet, jazz and contemporary. Basically most dancers would use a barre before and people would recognise the usage of a barre, so why not change a bit of its function and use it to hang tote bags for display instead!

The second stand for Performance Art

Lastly for the t-shirt, Frida suggested about writing the names of each ambassadors so it could be more personalised and give our stand more personality. I was responsible for designing and putting up the t-shirt design. I used black and yellow as it represent the university. In addition to this, the back of the shirt will have 3 different courses and each t-shirt will have a different combination, this is to give KSA t-shirts more personality and more variations.

Front

Back

We pitched our ideas, Russel loved the idea of the barre and they loved the idea of our    t-shirt. At the end, the results came out as out t-shirt design have won! I was so relieved. Reflecting back on to this day, it was great fun! I was able to work with the experienced second year student, gaining more experience and the confidence from them. Although it was fun, but yet it was tough and challenging to work in the time frame that was given to us, I was stressed out at one point where I’ve had headaches. It taught me so many things doing this activities, to be more confident during the presentation, to be open-minded to new ideas, to explore and developed new ideas and so much more. This will be one of the experience in CCI that I will never forget.

The New Chapter

Today marks a new chapter on my life where I am officially a university student. The day didn’t go quite as planned. Well, I was late for class, the first lesson in university and I’m late!

As I arrived students were still arranging the tables, I was actually worried that being late on the first day of university will affect everything, but apparently it didn’t. The class then started with Claire explaining the modules that we are doing “Visual Narrative and Design Thinking: Creating compelling stories, creative problem solving” in more depth. In addition to this “Visual Storytelling” became part of the topic as it became very important. That me me realise how important different types of media has affected our daily life in different ways.

To be honest, I still felt nervous about what’s to come in the future and the 3 years of studying at Kingston School of Arts because everything seem so new to me, the course the teaching and just everything in general. However, the other half of me is eager to learn and try out new things, as well as discover myself much further than this. I am excited to be able to grow in this learning environment around me, having the most incredible team of staff and friends that study in the same course.