Podcast with Simon Dogger

The design studio of Simon Dogger focusses upon stimulating equity, connection and innovation. He is able to look further than what you can see and not only because he is blind. In cooperation with Dutch schools and universities his studio is working on design education for Visual Impaired People (VIPs). VIPs are resourceful and good inclusive thinkers, but this power is rarely acknowledged. That’s a pity since the design field and societies are in desperate need of different perspectives. This podcast is about the first steps toward a non-visual design school. It deals with the image of VIPs in society, the importance of touch and the benefit for design schools.

In a world where design seems reserved for those who can see, a new perspective is emerging. This podcast delves into the groundbreaking journey of blind and partially sighted designers challenging the visual dominance in the design industry. Through personal stories, innovative methods, and transformative workshops, it reveals how creativity thrives beyond sight. Experience how touch, sound, and emotion redefine design processes, making them more inclusive and human-centered. Join us as we explore a future where design is not just seen but felt, where limitations become strengths, and where diversity reshapes what creativity truly means.

 

 

Simon Dogger runs a design studio in the Netherlands with projects running from new museum experiences to developing methodologies for schools. He lost his sight during his design education, returned to graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2017 and won the Dutch Design Award in 2020. He looks further than what you can see, not limited by how it should look. His work is always human centered, dives into the source of the design equation and has a focus upon concept, the senses and audio.

 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

[upbeat music with acoustic guitar and hand drums, many voices talking in the background]

PERSON 1: Am I supposed to, like, say something?

CATELIJNE VAN MIDDELKOOP: I’m Cat van Middelkoop. I am a co-director of the Pictorial Research lab at TU Delft.

SIMON DOGGER: So, you got 20 minutes. From now on, we expect you to be there back….

PERSON 2: The workshops can help us become a better product designer as it gave, like Jeannette said, a different perspective.

[harmonizing voices sing as melody continues]

DOGGER NARRATING: [echoing voice] Non-visual design! [high-pitched squeals like lasers shooting] This podcast is about a new generation of blind and partially-sighted designers. [wavering laser-like squeals]

[music and vocals fade out to many voices echoing in a large space]

WOMAN: Hello? Do you need any help finding a train?

DOGGER: No, no. Thank you.

WOMAN: Okay.

DOGGER: I’m recording some sounds.

WOMAN: Oh! And I’ve interfered. Sorry!

DOGGER NARRATING: When I visited Leeds in April 2024 for my participation to the British Medicine Journal special edition, what you just hear very much symbolizes my motivation to educate blind and partially-sighted people to become designers. [voices continue, but quietly] My name is Simon Dogger. I am a designer, I have my own design studio, and I’m blind. And I will participate on the special edition by providing a podcast on the development of a non-visual design education. And what you just heard is very symbolic for what’s going on, because blind and partially-sighted people are judged to be dependent; they can’t do anything themselves. I was just standing there like any ordinary person, but still, people come to me and ask me if I need help.

Just a couple of figures on the Dutch society. More than 350,000 people are blind or partially-sighted. Seventy-one percent of them is unemployed. Many get rejected for follow-up education, and almost no one is a designer or in another position in the design field. This, of course, has multiple reasons, looking back at the position that blind and partially-sighted had in the past. But another way of looking is that there’s a high visual dominance in the design field. Schools don’t really think a lot about making their education accessible. They are not diverse, and they are kind of exclusive.

[fast-paced circus-style music]

DOGGER: [voice resonates as if in a giant space] Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Design Show! Exclusive only for those who can’t see. Buy your tickets here. Buy your tickets now. Yeah! There we go again. The Design Show: only for those who can’t see. [layers of laughing voices play as he announces] We’re exclusive, and we all look in the same direction. Buy your tickets here. Join us to become exclusive. [clown horn honks a few times as music winds fades and plays very quietly]

DOGGER NARRATING: Yes. That the design field is rather exclusive. It’s kind of strange. It would be okay if they did not have to answer urgent questions in society. In my opinion, designers and design agencies can contribute an enormous amount to the transition of a future equal society. They can independently research a topic, find a source of the problem, generate inventive ideas, and mainly, they can act as an oil as to make the communication and information accessible. They can be the oil, for instance, between governments and inhabitants, between schools and students. And there’s a lot of movement recently, top-down strategies, universities, school. [music fades away] They’re all thinking about becoming inclusive and diverse, but how can you become inclusive when you’re not inclusive yourself?!

[mellow jazzy music]

My vision, and also the core of the design education for blind and partially-sighted is that people from a minority position should stand up, present themselves, and let others see what strength they have. Now, earlier I told you about the numbers: Seventy-one percent is unemployed. Many got rejected for follow-up education, higher education, and there is almost no one in the design field. Well, the design education basically wants to take control of everything, wants to do something that has influence on the unemployment, on the follow-up education, and basically is by integrating blind and partially-sighted designers in the design field, becoming professional designers. Now, you might wonder what the value is of blind and partially-sighted designers, perhaps what the value is of non-visual design. Well, let me explain that to you.

Visually impaired have challenges, everyday challenges: computer, social navigation. Because they experience this every day, they’re inventive because they have to find solutions. It doesn’t really matter how it should, but they found a way to work around it. Now, this is a essential design tool. It is about creativity. It’s about problem solving thinking. Besides that, because they experience discrimination on a daily basis, they have a higher level of empathy. So that makes them very good inclusive and diverse designers. They can work on their own accessibility. And not only that, they can actually show others that looking does not only happen with your eyes.

I get asked the same question. I graduated the Design Academy in 2017, and like I said before, since then, I’m having my own design studio. People come to me, “How do you design?!” Well, first of all, I think that’s a very boring question. But politely I answer them, and I tell them that the core of design is thinking. And that’s where I’m good at. I’m good at thinking and talking. As an example, this whole podcast is recorded, edited by me. Everything! Music, the music you hear playing now, of course, my own voice. So that’s a good example of the value of blind and partially-sighted people. They can work with sound. They can work with touch. They can work with smell. In the past years, I’ve spoken to a lot of blind and partially-sighted participants, and I get the feeling they don’t have an ego. So that’s not limiting their social intelligence. And they seem to look further than what you can see. I heard many people say that they can look better after they became blind or partially-sighted.

So, actually, before we started at the design education, but even though we had the vision and the direction in mind, we started giving workshops on art and design education in the Netherlands. Now, these were workshops for sighted students, but we just wanted to check out their ability to, for instance, use Dutch to cooperate, to communicate, and what it was if a non-visual tutor gave lessons to them. [mellow music shifts to upbeat music on synth and drums]

SYNTHESIZED MALE VOICE: [read as a poem]

Our perception of the future has changed to pessimism

due to environmental pollution, inequality, and racism

Designers are now presented a new task

to make an ideology a reality that lasts.

[music continues, with high-pitched vocalizations]

For the execution of the methodology, we start with education

for designers have to learn to design with innovation

learn how to make their products more wide ranging

inspired by Simon [music fades away]

DOGGER NARRATING: Yes. Well, this was actually great because what you just heard is about play. [light, bubbly music starts quiet and slowly fades up] And if you use play and curiosity and experimenting, these are very good design skills. In fact, if you’re grown up, you’re not into the creative industry, play, experimenting, and curiosity is fundamental. [fast, trickling notes down the scale on a xylophone and quickly back up, as bubbly music continues]

Yeah. So, the song that you just heard was a song that was made by a fusion between a music student and an interior architect. We gave guest lessons. That’s my partner, Boey Wang, and me at an art school in the Netherlands, wherein, let’s say, an interdisciplinary collaboration was essential. Now, just the fact that they worked together and had fun, we saw that and observed that from the beginning, was superb. Now this was the fuel. This is actually the fuel to cooperate. Now, often, that doesn’t work out, but in this case, it was that much fun that other students of the class, they united. They all started making lyrics, playing bass, singing. In fact, play and experimenting and curiosity is proven to be very good for the brain. So, grown-ups, they can learn how children do that. [bubbly music continues, fast and cheery, lots of percussion]

There’s another reason why play is so important because it’s the fuel to keep on going. But I will explain to you about the importance of fun and play experimenting based upon my own work as a blind designer. [music rises to a solo on drum set and ends with a bright hit on a cymbal that reverberates then fades]

So, basically, I became blind during my design education, and it took me four years to kind of recover. [slow, experimental music plays ever-so-softly in the background] And then I got back. Now, during that education, I had the liberty and freedom to explore and to reinvent myself. It wasn’t always easy, but still for me, that three years of continuation of my design education…was…a pleasure. It was reinventing myself. And there, I experienced a very important key to my continuation as a designer. I should only do projects that I enjoy, that give me pleasure. Otherwise, I just simply will not be able to finish it or keep on working.

And I suppose many of the listeners to this podcast will agree that work is great. You hate it, but still, it’s fantastic if you’ve got it. And I will tend to say that it’s a, let’s say a fusion or a balance between relaxation and stress. It’s always good to have a deadline, but really, for me, the fuel is that it makes me happy. That sounds a little bit strange, but, you know, when I work too much in doing things that I’m not really good at and that I don’t really like to do, I easily get overworked, possibly get to burnout. Now, I’ve got all kinds of mechanism, mechanisms that won’t allow me to actually go there, but still, it is a risk. So, fun and pleasure and passion, some people call it, is fundamental. Yeah.

So, I hope I told you, but I became blind during my education, and when I graduated the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2017, I suppose as one of the very few visual impaired and blind designers, I immediately started my own business, my own design studio. Now, you know, designers, artists, they have to create ideas. And I’m quite sure that the more free you feel yourself, the better, and the more innovative and more associations you’re able to lay. So your ideas are just better. Like I said before, it’s not only that, because you need to have a balance between relaxation, having the time to explore, maybe do some online research, and to have a deadline. Because otherwise you keep in the mode of, yeah, just kind of moving around without a specific goal, an endless, endless game. So, fun is actually creating that freedom in your head. And of course, also just walking, sporting. So, there are multiple factors that play a role in the, let’s call it, the freedom in your brain. But definitely fun, and having no fear is a very good solution for that.

Now the other thing which is interesting to my idea is that people nowadays, especially in Dutch society, Dutch education, they tend to think a lot. The educational system has shifted from practice, from working with your hands, towards thinking. And that pattern I can also see in the society: a lot of thinking. And one of the disadvantages of being in your head is actually that it raises the level of depression and fear. Now, like I told you just a couple of minutes ago, walking and sporting and resting well and eating properly, that’s all beneficiary. But there is another very interesting component that I’d like to share with you, which is actually also a principle of the non-visual design method, which is touch. Now, touch is a primary life demand. People urge touch, intimacy, touching each other. And the corona crisis has showed that very clearly that you can’t be without touch.

Me, as a blind person, I get a lot of knowledge just by shaking somebody’s hands, and I often touch somebody’s shoulder to walk along, and I get a really good overview who they are. So, height, but also posture, weight. So that gives a lot of information. But there is another very interesting thing which relates to design, creativity, freedom. And that is that when you touch something, it is proven that it creates freedom in your brain. There is a hormone which is made, and actually, that hormone creates some ease of mind. So touch is extremely important, important, important. [“important” repeats and echoes over itself in layers, the laser beam squeal returns, turning into a high-pitched ring, and the wavering tones of a digital calliope looping, pulsing, rumbling, and floating]

[all fades to a high-pitched ring, which then dissolves into a jazzy tune on acoustic guitar]

So, what have we got so far? On the one hand, we got the image of people with an impairment, which is rather negative. We got the numbers about the visual impaired in Dutch society. [sigh] Like I said, many of them are unemployed, and there is no one, almost no one, in the design field. I’m an exception. And we got fun, which is important. Fun, pleasure, motivation. And then we got touch, which has a very positive effect on, let’s say, freedom. It has some influence on the brain. So here, the basically, the source of the non-visual design education was born. Now when I rolled back into the design education after I became blind, I really didn’t think about this at all because I was focused on my own design practice and my own design studio. But after graduating and after running a design studio for about seven years, I think it’s time to spread my knowledge, to spread and roll out my experience of what works and what doesn’t work.

Now, if you wanna do this, you have to think about a couple of things, which is schools, which is actually visual impaired students want to roll in. And you have to look at what is feasible in a design curriculum. Now, if I take the first part, that’s a major task because schools are at least hesitant to change. So, schools, they—and especially design schools—they put a lot of energy in inclusivity and diversity. But if I look at the schools, especially the design schools, they have a high visual dominance, and they’re not diverse at all. And this is symbolically represented in the numbers that there are almost no blind and partially-sighted design students. So, changing schools is important. And in order to do that effectively, we really need to think in what are their interests and what is the mechanism for them to change? And they all express the intention to host blind and partially-sighted design students, but working that out, that’s a long shot. So one of the things that they worry about is the quality of their design. And I do know that changing a curriculum, that takes a lot of time. So, it’s good to think back in how change can be done.

And the first thing is the involvement of all stakeholders, which means schools, which means regular, able-bodied students, and of course, the blind and partially-sighted future design students. And we started doing this quite a while ago, since 2021, by giving masterclasses to art and design schools in the Netherlands. And these schools, they were different from school like traditional education to, let’s say, more arts academy, free expression kind of schools. And when I’m talking about we, I’m talking about Boey Wang and me. Now, Boey Wang was involved in the beginning ‘cause he guided the students into product design. Now, we developed a method, and the method goes as following.

[a chime rings, Dogger’s voice echoes] One: an emotional and multi-sensory experience as a source. [voice returns to normal] We believe that current students in design education, but basically in general, they think too much. They think too much. They have a high level of assumptions. They don’t learn by doing, and basically, they don’t give themselves the opportunity to fail. So, the first part of the method is that we take them walking through nature for about a day while being blindfolded. And it’s interesting to observe what’s going on. Now, I do that by sound. In the first half hour, they communicate outwards. They talk to each other, they make jokes, the sound they make is louder. And then after half an hour, there’s a turning point. They start to turn inwards. The sound becomes lower. They stop talking to each other. And I think then a inward process starts. They become, of course, tired. They start to doubt the value of what they’re doing. They wonder how long they can go on. They think, what the hell am I doing here? And I think that is where a reflection, an inward reflection, takes place.

Now, of course, it’s not good to have an emotion of fear or irritation, but it looks like that after a while of going through this mental process, they are able to observe, start observing. And we ask them to notice what’s going on in their mind, their emotional experience, and of course, fear and irritation, they are part of that emotional experiences. And we ask them to document this in their minds, but later on through text or audio, and use that for part two.

[a chime rings, Dogger’s voice echoes] Two. Translating the emotional and multi-sensory experiences into material. [voice returns to normal] So an important step, and the second step in the method, is to materialize. And they have these personal input, this personal observation. And we hear, often, aspects or themes such as energy, rhythm, light, but also fear and doubt, and that’s all okay. The next step is that we use that to materialize. And materialization is the first step to shift from thinking towards feeling practice. And they’ve been walking for a day. They’ve got all kinds of ideas and input, maybe doubt, irritation, fear, and we want them to translate that in something tactile, something feel-able. And in order to do that, they first have to analyze or observe or be able to reflect upon what they have experienced. And preferably they have documented it in audio or text, put into keywords with an explanation what it means, and they have to look for stuff that represents that feeling or that text. And next step is that they have to describe, talk about it, what the material represents and how.

[a chime rings, Dogger’s voice echoes] Three. Translating the material into a prototype. [voice returns to normal] This third step is about shifting the subjectivity towards objectivity. It’s still rather subjective, but this part is about explaining the material and to get a better understanding of why the material has been chosen. And so, this part is interesting because it allows the students to reflect on what they have chosen, but also to get associations and better ideas. Now we have formed teams. There are teams of two students, and this is the moment where they start to collaborate. They have to fuse their inputs, their materials, their emotional experiences and start working together on one final product. And the product can be basically everything. We think that giving them responsibility and a freedom to make decisions is important. And also, this part is about collaboration. Doing things together is fundamental because really, good design and also equity can only be done through communication, working together. So, we ask the students to get together, work together, and select one or a couple of good ideas they want to follow up upon.

[music fades away into a sound effect of an old cassette rewinding, voices, and a fast, scratchy squeal]

DOGGER: Um…I would like to know where it’s going from now on. It’s rather chaotic. I don’t really understand. It’s all over the place, so please let me know where is it going to? [click of the tape player stop button]

DOGGER NARRATING: So, we use the methods in several art and design education basically to have another source, a more emotional input source, which is different from the way they start a design process right now. Because often, they start a design process based upon assumptions. [quiet but energetic hand-drumming music plays throughout] And in this case, you can’t be wrong! Because it’s your own personal input. And we’ve done several ones with differing results, but one of them was really good.

This was at the ArtEZ Hochschule Arnhem, which is basically a product design school with an international student population. And after one week, we saw a very high result in the level of participation, of growth, and of expressivity. And this was really the inspiration to do a one-week workshop in the Leeds University, November 2023. And here we used parts of the methods. We took them walking through nature blindfolded. We used that as a starting point, and we had the translation from their own input into material and into a prototype. There was a slight difference this time because we used a tactile form language, which allowed them to help as a toolkit for translating their subjective experiences into more concrete shapes and forms.

And just to describe the tactile form language, it’s rather basic. There are different shapes and different materials about the size of an ordinary play kit for children. But it allows you to translate your feelings into a shape which represents it. So, the focus in Leeds was really to introduce haptics, so using the sense of touch in a design process, and upon using your own personal input, your own personal experiences. And in the back of our minds, we also thought, okay, this is about non-visual design. So we also used it to test out if the introduction of a non-visual design method with blind and partially-sighted students was able to fit in an existing design education. And we started with a blind date. We teamed students up into groups of two, gave them a mask, and asked them to talk to the other students.

DOGGER: [recorded clip from the class] So you got 20 minutes. From now on, we expect you to be there, back there in 20 minutes.

BOEY WANG: Okay.

DOGGER: Yeah?

WANG: Yeah. So, you can move around, yeah. [the room fills with many conversations at once, continuing as Dogger resumes narration]

DOGGER NARRATING: So, the purpose of a blind date is that you talk to somebody, and you don’t have a visual judgment, so you don’t have a bias against that person. And actually, I experience that myself. I step towards people and then talk, and then I develop a judgment, but not from the very first visual beginning. So, just now you heard me talking and Boey Wang. Now, Boey Wang the next day took all the students walking through nature while being blindfolded.

[recorded clip of the walk begins with soft footfalls on leaves and grass and a woman laughing nervously]

STUDENT 1: I’m a bit panicky.

STUDENT 2: [laughing] Yeah, I think we all are. Oh, my God! I need to say something very profound and interesting while I have the microphone opportunity. Dear diary, um…uh…[laughs]. I can’t think. I’ve got too much my mental focus on this.

STUDENT 1: …understand stuff in other perspectives.

STUDENT 2: My dog died last week, and it was very sad.

STUDENT 1: Did he?

STUDENT 2: Yeah. [clip fades out, and drumming music returns]

DOGGER NARRATING: So, what you just heard were the students of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering product designers. We took them walking through nature while being blindfolded. Now, our purpose was not so much to give them an impression of how it is to be without sight, but we have some other reasons why we do this. And basically, it’s because we want them to become aware of their emotional and multi-sensory experiences. And I can hear it. The first half-hour, they start communicating outwards. They talk loud. They talk to each other. And then after half an hour, there’s shifting points. Then they become silent, and that is where I think they start to look inside. Now, it’s always a little bit tricky and not easy to measure ‘cause there are tiredness, irritation, fear. They are of course also emotional experiences, but they limit the observation of what’s happening into yourself. But it’s all good because this is where we start working with. And we start working by translating the experiences of the blind walk into a tactile form language.

And how can I explain the form language through audio? Well, think of the form language as one of these traditional tool play kits for children made out of wood. They look a little bit the same, but the difference is they have different shapes, they have different materials, and they can be connected to each other. So, this form language allows you to represent your experiences, but mainly your feelings on an intuitive level. [drumming music fades out into a very quiet, slow-pulsing ambient music]

DOGGER: Hello! There, we have Tom.

TOM: Yes, we do.

DOGGER: And Melody.

MELODY: Yes.

DOGGER: Melody. [clicks and clacks] Uh, Chile.

MELODY: No, Peru.

DOGGER: Oh, Peru, yes.

MELODY: Yeah.

DOGGER: Here, where it is? [several overlapping voices] It’s close by.

MELODY: Yeah.

[several people chuckle]

DOGGER: A pleasure having you here. We, we’re gonna ask you to first present your visual work to Boey.

WANG: What you make? [several overlapping voices] The pictures. Yeah, the photos.

DOGGER: Yeah, did you make photos? Yeah.

MELODY: Yes.

TOM: There’s three on her phone.

DOGGER: We asked you to make photos of it.

TOM: Yeah. Yeah.

DOGGER: Okay. Yeah. Present that to the Boey, and he’s gonna discuss it with you.

MELODY: That’s one.

TOM: These are our first two.

WANG: Okay. Yeah, I think. Let’s see. What’s the stick? What’s this one?

TOM: So the idea of this one was trying to, like, if we are the person in the center, it’s sort of building an environment around the person where, like, you can’t, nothing extends past sort of where your arms can reach. ‘Cause normally, your sight would be able to capture everything. But when you’re sort of stuck in a box where you can’t see because you’re, you can just sort of see what you can reach, if that makes sense.

WANG: Okay. Next one? Ah, this is quite similar, right? These, your—

TOM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, reasonably.

WANG: This is quite similar.

DOGGER: And how many did you make your work? Did you fuse your work together, or did you make—

MELODY: Yeah, we did five different ones and talked about those five.

DOGGER: Okay. So in total you made five?

MELODY: Yeah.

TOM: [chuckles]

DOGGER: Okay. That’s good.

WANG: Okay. What’s this?

DOGGER: And you fused your experience together.

MELODY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TOM: Yes.

DOGGER: Okay. That’s good ‘cause that’s—

WANG: Can you tell me, what’s this one?

MELODY: So, it was more like when we were walking around, it started here kind of not unstable, but kind of wobbly. And then once we started getting the hang of it, it was like, kind of smoother. But there were also some of, like when we were going against branches and stuff, and we might scream when we saw…. [several laugh] That was like our little. Yeah.

DOGGER: We might scream.

MELODY: Yeah, we heard a couple screams because of branches! [laughing continues]

DOGGER: Yeah, I heard it on the audio.

WANG: Okay, let’s make the tactile sculpture for Simon.

DOGGER: Yeah. If you can, if you can present it to me. So you choose one, eh?

MELODY and TOM: Yeah.

MELODY: [responds quietly]

TOM: I’m just going with the one which is like the box.

DOGGER: So, I remember what you made yesterday because I was a little bit hard on you yes-…. Uh, no, on Monday.

TOM: Yes.

DOGGER: And I, and I told you I didn’t understood. But then after that, you remade it.

TOM: Yes.

DOGGER: Something very simple and very nice. I told you it was almost like art.

TOM: Yes.

DOGGER: Yeah, powerful. So I’m interested in what you, what you’re gonna show me now.

DOGGER NARRATING: So, there were several teams of two students, which made very good work in the end. And Tom and Melody definitely fit in there. And what you have just heard is the first meeting after the blind walk with the assignment to translate their experiences into the form language. And we asked them to translate it, take pictures of it, and present a version to me on a tactile, haptic way so that I can feel it. And the person you just heard talking, Boey Wang, he guided the students more on a communicative, visual product design way, and I guided the students on a more conceptual storyline kind of way. And commonly, you know, mechanical engineering, they say, well, there’s too little creativity. And the focus of this workshop is to develop that from another perspective and to basically make people aware that intuition and touch are very important in a design process.

PERSON 2: The workshops can help us become a better product designer as it gave, like Jeanette said, a different perspective. ‘Cause often when we do projects we think of the aesthetics or like how it functions, rather than more how it feels or how someone could use it or interpret it in different ways.

PERSON 3: And for me, I think it was very important to see a different perspective that we weren’t used to before and going through obstacles and then finding a way to…to get back from that. For example, when we went on the blind walk, I almost bumped into a few things, and I tripped, I almost tripped over, like, the branches. So I think it was a good experience for me to learn how it feels and how you can bounce back from that. [quiet ambient music dissolves into faster-tempo music on sitar]

VAN MIDDELKOOP: We are extremely curious about vision from a non-visual and also a machine vision perspective.

DOGGER NARRATING: This is Catelijne van Middelkoop. She is co-director of the Pictorial Research Lab at the Technical University Delft, and we will be working together. Like she said, she’s extremely curious about vision, and it’s no coincidence that I am busy also with vision, literally and figuratively speaking. I have the vision to educate a whole new generation of blind and partially-sighted designers, and Catelijne really wants to join. Actually, she was the teacher that was decisive to take me back after I became blind to the Design Academy Eindhoven.

VAN MIDDELKOOP: What we were, we, we…. The value of you being in the department was that we could really point out that we, in the end, we have to talk about the quality of the design that is being produced. So we’re not, yes, we are very much focused on the process, but we also, we don’t just want it to be a nice activity. We also want to make sure that when something is well designed, designed well, that it can actually have an effect. And because we have….

DOGGER NARRATING: My return to the Design Academy and actually finishing my design education is extreme value for the non-visual design education and to add blind and partially-sighted in the design field to educate them. [music fades] And Catelijne was willing to dive into the adventure to host a blind design student, and she’s willing to dive into another adventure. [jazzy melody on drum, bass, and piano] And that’s the First Field Research at the Technical University Delft at the Pictorial Research Lab.

Now, if we wanna educate blind and partially sighted, we first need to know who they really are and what they can do. So there’s gonna be a masterclass of four days. Teams of blind and partially-sighted participants are going to cooperate, they’re gonna associate, they’re gonna develop ideas, they’re gonna select ideas, they’re gonna present 3D form sketches. Also, the tactile form language where I talked about earlier is going to be used. And this is really creating a starting point. After this, there will be interdisciplinary collaboration talks about where to go. Also, we wanna develop a communication strategy on changing the image of people with a visual impairment, in fact, with an impairment. And we’re gonna look at innovation. You know, artificial intelligence is now coming up. It has an enormous potential. But of course, there are also some dangers. But just to finish it off, we’re gonna have fun! [Dogger’s voice repeats “fun,” riding up and down pitches and volumes and echoing, morphing into a twinkly digital calliope tune that dissolves into a low, slow melody]

If you wanna participate on a non-visual design or on the education for blind and partially sighted, you are more than welcome! In fact, it’s rather big, so we need your help. You can visit my website at www.SimonDogger.nl or send me email at info@SimonDogger.nl. Check my Instagram @Simon_Dogger. [singing as a soulful, jazzy riff] Looking further than what you can see!