Peer blog reflection 02

Sarah Howard:
   The first thing I noticed upon returning to her blog was the fact that she had changed her color scheme from pink and black, to a minty-green and black.  I mentioned i my previous blog post that the pink and black weren't my cup of tea but I certainly hope that she didn't change the scheme because of me!  Overall, I think that Sarah writes and expresses her ideas really well, getting her point across effectively.  One particular comment I liked was, " 'Nature doesn’t have a design problem. People do.'  Without studying abroad in Bolivia I don’t know if I could really grasp how truly valid that statement is."  I think that it brings up important issues about how design in some ways does make us lazy and complacent in our world, but part of it is allowing design to take too much importance in our lives.  I think that a global perspective is key in understanding what McDonough is trying to say. 

Mike B: 
   One of Mike's thoughts that I loved was, "This chapter really helped me see the importance of design to identity but also taught me that a good identity must be backed up with reliable service and dependability. If it is not then it's just a good design."  I completely agree with this and is one of the most important things I consider when shopping for anything.  Of course, an entire portion of corporate identity is creating a brand image that people trust and feel provides good products.  He also mentioned McDonough when he said, "His talk coupled with the discussion by Janine Benyus on Biomimicry was a great example of how we can stop wasting our resources and use design to build sustainable products and cities."  I completely agree with Mike here that we can use bio-mimicry to create a more sustainable world, but also to advance design and society in general by taking clues from the things in nature that have evolved and been refined over millions of years.

Ricardo:
   Once again, one of my fellow Kings changed the design of their blog!  I really liked Ricardo's original choice of a background, but I also like his second choice very much as well.  The simple water against white I actually found very relaxing and didn't draw too much attention away from the text of the blog.  Ricardo brings up one of the most disappointing things we've heard yet in class.  He mentions a wheelchair that would expand accessibility for the disabled and how it, "was supposed to be such a great invention but it was a dead project because it was too much money to make and insurance companies did not want to support it."  I like the simplicity of Ricardo's statement because it really shows that it wasn't something complicated like a design or material issue with the wheelchair, but simply the fact that insurance companies didn't want to pay for something so completely amazing because it was "too" expensive.