Lesson 6: Exploration on analogy metaphor

As what research I've done, here is the definition or description about analogy metaphor.

A metaphor is an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of a word instead of another. Moreover, metaphor also denotes rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison and resemblance.

A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an analogy because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas analogy implies a difference.

I believe that in design field, metaphor has played a very important role. It can be an inspiration for our design. As a student of majoring in interface design, we always involve metaphor in designing products or interface for our assignment. Undeniable, metaphor make our design more interesting and not too boring. As a designer, we need to be innovative. Thus, choosing metaphor helps a lot. A metaphor doesn't need to be related to our design. In this case, our design will be more innovative and creative in such way.

For the most of my assignment, there is always the same treatment including progress of transforming metaphor into the new design. In this whole process, we need to be creative and innovative enough to transform metaphor into design no matter they are related or not. Our design need to be signature enough so that users still be able to identify the metaphor chosen.

With the understanding of metaphor, lecturer has given us some exercises during lecture period. It was the random association exercises. In this exercise, we were given a situation which is to make a person stop smoking in 6 months time and the random words given was traffic light.

characteristic of a traffic light: metal, dirty and sign.

Association 1: METAL

concept - make it tough to smoke

rationale - The element of metal might be added into the making of the cigarettes. This is to make smokers feel uncomfortable when holding the cigarettes because of the weight. When the smokers feel heavy, they will feel lazy to hold the cigarettes for long period as well. Besides, as the smokers light up the cigarettes, it will be heathen up as well. Hence, with this feature, smokers will feel hot when smoking or holding the cigarettes.

Association 2: DIRTY

concept - to create a "yucky" effect to the cigarette

rationale - To create this "yucky" effect to the cigarettes, the color on the cigarettes bud will faded out when it touches the lips, Hence, the lips of the smokers will be dirty as the color falls on their lips. Even the mouth will be dirty too. Color used would be dark color.

Association 3: SIGN

concept - create a weird and scary sign.

rationale - in this case, i will use the picture / image or sign of a bank note as the cover of the cigarette. This is to awake smokers that they are actually burning money on unhealthy item.