Tracey Lannon; Psychology of Design
In this lecture, Guest Lecturer Tracey Lannon, spoke to us about the psychology and emotion of design. Her main theory is behind being Human and how us as humans recognise and make sense of the world. Her concept comes from finding a meaning in everything you do within design such as an emotional response for example. Her work and practise also tackles a wider view of design and society; looking at real world problems and designing new human experiences.
In the lecture we spoke a lot about the Brain, the Eye and how these work in conjunction with each other to create this reaction that happens in a millisecond. The brain creates an emotion; An image of a lamppost that was shown to us can have 1000 different expressions or experiences related to it, and they are all individual and unique to ourselves. The dark and gloomy image of the lamppost has negative connotations to me; bringing back memories of walking through streets at night that are very eerie and dark. This experience of just a picture of a lamppost can be purely different to someone else's and thats what I found very interesting about this acknowledgment.
Perception or illusion?
We were also introduced to sensory information processing and more specifically the science behind how the eye creates the image we actually see in real life. We were also introduced to the idea how are senses pick and choose what to show us on a daily basis; how we would sometimes home into our name if mentioned or an image that takes our fancy. This natural filter of information is psychologically important in design on how we advertise particular imagery or text to an audience for them to receive it in a certain way.
We were also introduced to several different optical illusions. It was interesting to see people's reactions to them and how they affected people in different ways; it really did show the unique-ness of humans and how everyone is programmed uniquely to react to different imagery.
Overall the lecture really opened my eyes to ideas behind why designers do what they do. I would love to look into this further as I love the idea of psychology behind design; such as why people pick up certain products compared to others for example. I will also try and be inspired by this lecture within my own work; I will try and find ways of thinking outside of the box to push boundaries within design that allow for people to think and react to my work in different ways.
