Inspire your Design Technology Students – With Some Phillipe Starck

Inspiring Design Technology students is always important – in many blog posts to come I will focus on different areas of the curriculum and the large amount of content to cover. But I believe what is most important, as the IB ethos and Learner Profile suggests, is that we encourage the same skills and abilities within our Design students. So Risk-Taking and Open Minded are areas to focus on with design and many famous designers show these attributes – including the man behind this Lemon Squeezer – Phillipe Starck.

Phillipe Starck is a French designer with inimitable flair and so one that many students will immediately take a liking to – and so I often show an example of one of his products as a starter activity within the classroom. And discuss the product – analysing it in terms of materials, manufacture and design. So immediately you can discuss once the material Aluminium is decided upon – what are the properties of that material that make it the appropriate choose for such a function. How is it manufactured – casting maybe – and again discuss this process.

You may want to then use some videos to back up this manufacturing process and material – obviously Youtube is a great way of doing this.

• Aluminium – Properties and Explanation
• Manufacturing – Casting Car Parts

Placing the discussion of content within real examples is always a great way for students to remember much better. Maybe as a Homework activity they do the same process with a different product designed by Starck?

There are many other free resources out there – involving Phillip Starck including a video of his reality show where he trained English students to be designers within his company for a period of 6 weeks. Funny to watch but also really interesting for students to see the pressures but also how interesting and fun the world of design really is:-

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Have you ever used Ted Talks with your Design students – well definitely worth a look and especially the talk from Phillipe Starck who without any props or slides just talks and shows his passion for the subject.

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Related articles

• Liquid Wood by Philippe Starck (bigwindow.wordpress.com)
• Unusual Umbrella Lighting – Philippe Starck’s Marie Coquine Chandelier is Classy and Whimsical (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• T Magazine: Asked & Answered | Philippe Starck (tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com)