Convergence Lecture

As part of my sense of place project the word 'convergence' is the key topic which myself and fellow students are basing our research and designs around for the Concertina Sketchbook. The purpose of this lecture was to further my understanding of the word convergence and how that it applies to my study of design. My current understanding at the time of this lecture was that convergence and how it applied to design, was a cross combination of separate ideas forming  together generating a new concept.

"Convergence is an ambiguous term used by various disciplines to describe and analyse processes of change towards uniformity or union. Its application in the communications sector often referred to as media convergence also encompasses valuable approaches and insights to describe, characteristics and understand the digital creative economy" - Media Convergence Michael Latzer / Quote from the lecture slideshow.

Uniformity definition: Google Definition

1 A state or condition in which everything is regular, homogeneous or unvarying.

2 Lack of diversity or variation, especially to the point of boredom or monotony; sameness.

Union definition: Google Definition

1 The action of joining together or the fact of being joined together, especially in political context.

2 A society or association formed by the people with a common intreat or purpose.

However from the first few slides of the presentation I knew that the word convergence would be something that was of huge importance to the theory of design, as design is a subjective practice and is heavily debated, the topic of convergence would be an interesting idea to explore.

Other Words For Converge:

Multidiscipline - Interdiscipline - Crossdiscipline - Synergy - Intergrated - Hybrid

The lecture consisted of a set of opening quotations of opinions on the overall idea of how convergence applies to design. Following the quotations our lector additionally showed designs of varying styles and medias. For instance I personally liked the exploration of logo designs, keeping in mind the word convergence, I saw the designs in a completely new perspective.

Screenshot taken of the logo's shown within the lecture

For example the Kleenex logo at first glance appears like a standard font based logo, however with the word convergence in mind, I started to see the relation to the word through the way in which the letters were conjoined. This small aspect proved to me that convergence isn't just about overlaying different design practices and experimenting with gradients. It made a statement to myself that it is more about the subtleness of design, understanding the sometime less is more.