EXPLORING THE ONLINE GAMES AS AN INSPIRATIONAL TOOL

How do famous designers like Kenya Hara and Paul Smith get their inspiration? Paul Smith found inspiration in his collection of objects and his extensive travels provide him a wealth of visual stimuli, whereas Kenya Hara got his from the nature. In another words, inspiration could come in any form, it could be our daily life, the clothes that we wear, the ancient architecture that we come across or our dreams. Based on this information, this paper aims to investigate the possibility of using online games as an inspirational tool to create good design solutions.

Online game is chosen as the tool for inspiration because it is close to the heart of our undergraduates, the Generation Y. They are third year BFA students major in Visual Communication from Nanyang Technological University and Massey University. Online games is something they enjoy and familiar with. The author hopes that by playing the online games and with a certain awareness of the purpose, students would get inspiration from it to solve the design problem. Like what Kenya Hara say, “the essence of design lies in the process of discovering.”

The paper reports on the design and implementation of the course content and the online games exploration. The course was conducted once a week in duration of 14 weeks. The students were told to use the online games as the main stimulation for their design solutions. In order to see the progress, students would need to show evidences of the connection between their design and the online games. The result will be measured by the students’ design process and the quality of the final design.

The important part of this research is not to prove the right or wrong in using online games as inspirational tool. It is hopes to let students understand that original design solutions come from our surrounding and not from reference books. It also hopes that by going through this course students would understand their design process better and know the fact that anything can be an inspirational tool. Hopefully by going through this process, students would find their own special way of creating great design solutions.