Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Paolo Cardini
Second Advisor
Jennaca Davis
Third Advisor
Damion Vania
Abstract
After many turns, I made my way through. Making connections between different paths, paths I thought I had forgotten, abandoned, discarded. My goal is to understand how the environment around us affects our emotional state, our behaviour, our mental health. I seek a destigmatized idea of mental health, a way to show that it is a factor of everybody’s health meant to be prioritized as much as physical health, to expose the burden of frivolousness that it carries. I seek ways to burst the bubble that mental health lives in the world of design, to show that mental health should be as integrated in all designs as much as ergonomics and sustainability. I seek to integrate areas of design and psychology. Through product experience and cognitive behavioural sciences, I explore areas of play, nostalgia, aesthetics, functionality, human-centered design and everyday objects as well as neuroscience, depression, anxiety, stress, frustration and overwhelm.
I take different twists and turns both in research and design which lead me to the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth proposes to be a new typology of everyday products meant to fit our everyday activities and emotional states. As every object, it serves multiple functions, some obvious and some not. It serves as a way to externalize and objectify our personal Overwhelms. It becomes our companion and a helping hand as we try to balance our time. It concretizes our everyday accomplishments. It shows us we are not alone and we are all just trying to make our way through the labyrinth.
Recommended Citation
Gonzalez Morales, Rebeca, "Through the labyrinth" (2020). Masters Theses. 568.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/568
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.