- •Unit 1 Product Development
- •1. Look at the products below and answer the questions for each product.
- •2. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations.
- •3. Read the following international words and guess their meanings.
- •4. Complete the sentences to show that you understand the meaning of the new words:
- •Tool to launch holistic sketch performance demand
- •To modify to solve problems to stand out design brief
- •Corporate identity
- •Text 1 stages in design process
- •1. Read the text again and put the stages in the right order:
- •Text 2 product design and evaluation
- •1. Designing products to meet the demand from consumers is called________________?
- •3. Are there only two driving forces for appearance of new designs? text 4
- •Societal, cultural and market influences
- •1. Decode the meaning of societal, cultural and market influences.
- •2. Write а definition of ’design statement’ in your own words.
- •3. What does it mean to be aware of consumer demand? Choose the right variant.
- •4. What is market research?
- •I. Choose the suitable title for the text.
- •1. Why do designers and manufacturers need market research?
- •2. What forms of market research are mentioned in the text?
- •The development of the consumer society
- •I. For how long do you usually use things like pens, mobile phones, tv sets, cars, etc. What does it depend on? Discuss the reasons with your group mates.
- •II. Read the title of the text. Can you explain the term “planned obsolescence”?
- •III. Read the text using a dictionary. Check your answer. Planned obsolescence
- •1. Read the text and say whether the following statements are true, false or not mentioned in the text:
- •2. Find the paragraph containing the following information:
- •3. State the main idea of the text:
- •Companies vs consumers
- •Unit 2 Design-led Companies
- •1. Look at the pictures of car prototypes and answer the questions:
- •2. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations.
- •3. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations.
- •4. Complete the sentences to show that you understand the meaning of the new words:
- •Text 10
- •1. Make a list of the most important points discussed in the text.
- •2. Give a summary of the text using your list. Text 11
- •Aston martin
- •Porsche
- •Text 12
- •I. Read the text and name Alessi’s famous designs. Alessi
- •1. Translate the text with a dictionary.
- •2. Give the company’s background. Text 13
- •9093 Kettle
- •Text 14
- •I. Do you have any Apple products? Describe them.
- •II. Read the text and translate it with a dictionary. Apple
- •Text 15
- •Bang & Olufsen
- •Text 16
- •I. Do you know products design in Japan? Can you characterize them? Are there any distinct features of Japanese design?
- •II. Read the story of Sony Corporation and say why these dates are important for Sony?
- •1. Why did Sony have to change its name?
- •2. What is Walkman, Watchman and Discman?
- •3. Sony predicted: "The Eighties was the age of the pc and the Nineties was the age of the Internet, the 2000s will be the age of the robot." - what will be the 2010s?
- •5. Fill in the gaps with the correct form of the words below:
- •Text 17
- •2. Render the text in English:
- •Text 18
- •Text 19
- •1. Read the text and say whether the following statements are true, false or not mentioned in the text:
- •2. Find the paragraph containing the following information:
- •3 State the main idea of the text.
- •4. Go to page 82 . Read another story about Lego “Lego is the best brick on the block”. What new information does it contain? text 20
- •Sleek and super-fast: London's new Javelin trains are a design triumph
- •Text 21
- •I. Read the title of the story. Make а list of questions you think the story will answer.
- •II. Read the story. Which questions has the story answered? nokia 6310
- •Text 22
- •A tragedy in tableware
- •1. Read the text again and fill in the table:
- •Text 23
- •Tetra pak
- •Unit 3 Designers at work
- •2. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations.
- •3. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations.
- •4. Complete the sentences to show that you understand the meaning of the new words:
- •Text 24
- •1. What product designers do you know? What designs are they famous for?
- •2. Do you know product designers from Russia or the ussr?
- •1. Find out the same information about the following designers: Phillipe Starck, Jusper Morrison, Jean Otis Reinecke, James Dyson, Luigi Colani.
- •2. Speak about one of these designers. Text 25
- •I) Where do you design?
- •Designing is work
- •Text 26 looking for а job
- •I. Have you decided on the work that is right for you? How do you know it's right for you? Below is а list of things people consider when they are thinking about what kind of work they want to do.
- •Text 27
- •I. Study the cv. It is based on the European Curriculum Vitae format.
- •II. Write your own cv for one of the jobs above. You can invent work experience for this task.
- •Text 28
- •Haus proud: The women of Bauhaus
- •1. Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius believed that women thought in two dimensions, while men could grapple with three. Do you agree? supplementary assigments text 29
- •Text 30
- •Convergent design
- •Text 31
- •Text 32
- •Lego is the best brick on the block
- •Text 33 color quiz
- •1. Read the descriptions and match the colors with the characteristics:
- •2. Go to the web page with the quiz and find out your color. Do you agree with the result? If not, read the personal characteristics below and choose the color you fit better.
- •3. Read your results to the group. Do your group mates agree with your color?
1. Why do designers and manufacturers need market research?
2. What forms of market research are mentioned in the text?
3. Here is a survey the purpose of which is to find how candles are used in and around people’s houses. Choose the product you’d like to design and work out a survey to find out information that will help you with your designs. Use the ‘candles survey’ as an example. Conduct your survey and share the results with the group.
Name………………………Gender M F
Do you have candles in your home?
Yes No
Are they ever lit?
Yes No
Are the candles on a stand or mat?
Stand Mat Neither
How much would you pay for a stand for a candle?
____________
Where are candles mainly used in your house?
_____________
What material would you prefer a candleholder to be made from?
Wood Metal Plastic Glass Other
Who would you buy the candleholder for?
_____________
TEXT 6
Read the text and render it in Russian.
The development of the consumer society
In the 1950’s products were advertised and marketed based on how they performed. Manufacturers emphasized the product name and how it performed as the major selling point of mass products.
However it was feared that supply would outstretch demand as people bought well made products that were built to last. Because of this designers and manufacturers began to make products that looked different each year, suggesting there was something inferior about the previous model or design so that public demand remained strong for new products.
In the 1960’s people began to feel the need to express themselves as individuals which they did through the objects they purchased. Manufacturers had to develop products that allowed people to express themselves individually and thus the mass production of identical items became more flexible and allowed for more variety.
TEXT 7
I. For how long do you usually use things like pens, mobile phones, tv sets, cars, etc. What does it depend on? Discuss the reasons with your group mates.
II. Read the title of the text. Can you explain the term “planned obsolescence”?
III. Read the text using a dictionary. Check your answer. Planned obsolescence
I. Planned obsolescence is a highly contentious issue that lies at the heart of some of the most important debate on consumerism, global sustainability and industrial design. Having first emerged as a major feature of the American economy in the 1950s, planned obsolescence is based on the concept of intentionally limiting the life of products so that consumers are manipulated into consuming more - an approach that continues to form a key part of the strategies of many large manufacturing companies.
II. There are two strongly conflicting views on the morality of planned obsolescence. Advocates claim that it keeps workers (and designers) in employment, is essential to economic growth and is ultimately beneficial to society as a whole. Opponents of planned obsolescence claim that the manipulation of consumers is insidious, that the value for money offered by limited-life products, no matter what the economics, is poor, and that the waste created by their premature replacement is environmentally ruinous.
III. An early and notable opponent of planned obsolescence was Vance Packard, who wrote the seminal book The Waste Makers (1960), in which he identified the three principal spheres of obsolescence - function, quality and desirability. Functional obsolescence arises when a new product appears that is perceived to do a better job than its predecessors. The obsolescence of quality, which is directly related to the physical durability of a product, has historically been achieved by manufacturers building in to products key components that have been designed to fail after a given amount of time.
IV. White goods, or domestic appliances, are particularly prone to this type of "built-in obsolescence", with, in most cases, the replacement of the entire unit being more cost-effective than the replacement of the defective component(s). The obsolescence of desirability operates mainly through changes in the appearance of products, fashion and consumer opinion all of which are driven by styling and/or advertising strategies. As early as the 1920s, the chairman of General Motors, Alfred Sloan, recognized that aesthetics would play an increasingly important role in the automotive market and instigated a system of annual stylistic changes so as to minimize the aesthetic durability of cars.
V. While there are clearly good economic arguments against the supposed social benefits of planned obsolescence, the environmental argument is even more compelling, especially given the urgency of the need to take meaningful steps towards achieving global sustainability. Making products more durable reduces the throughput of energy and materials, lowers consumption of finite resources, cuts emissions of pollutants (including greenhouse gases) and produces less residual waste. By doubling the life span of products, their net environmental impact can be halved. Making-less-last-longer is not only good for the environment, it also maximizes value for money and convenience for the consumer. Taken to an extreme, planned obsolescence results in disposable products - the most wasteful and least environmentally justifiable of all consumer product types.