Interior Design Orientation by Programme Director
Wynn Arunrugstichai, a programme director for Interior Design, organized a special session to meet all the new Interior Design students. The goal was to inform students about the programme’s objectives and to awaken the students’ creative minds. They also learned about the background of the programme director they will work with for the next 3 years. Moreover, the freshmen had the chance to meet with senior students from whom they can get advice.
What is Interior Design?
In this meeting, Wynn helped students identify what Interior Design actually means. Many people confuse Interior Design and Interior Decoration. One point he emphasized is that you don’t need a degree to decorate your home beautifully, but to be an interior designer, you need to do a lot more than just decorate.
Art vs Design
As Wynn explained, everyone can decorate their home without a degree. You only need to go to a furniture store with references. Art and design may feel similar, but they’re actually very different. Design is an art form: a method of creative communication that uses a set of highly developed practices to give things, performances, and experiences value. Unlike other art forms, design has the potential to solve problems. This is why you need a degree: you have to learn how to design to solve problems. If you can only design but can’t solve problems, that is art.
Critics
Receiving feedback from critics is the most essential part of attending a design school. When you study Interior Design at Raffles, we treat you like a young designer, not a high school student. The way we teach here is through team collaboration.
Lecturers invite guest critics to class for each critique session. These will be real industry experts that can give students more knowledge and helpful advice. They will help you identify what your work is missing and where you can improve. In doing so, you will become a young designer rather than just a student. This is what makes the Raffles Interior Design programme special.
“ You are not a student anymore, you are a young designer to me. ”
About Interior Design
This course gives students the creative and technical knowledge and skills they need to become professionals in the interior design industry. It encompasses the study of both Interior Architecture and Design within the built environment, while focusing on human interface within given spaces. Emphasis is placed on space planning, creative problem solving, communication skills, knowledge of building materials, construction, computer-aided drafting and the history of design. Students are expected to provide design solutions to a wide variety of complex real-life space problems.
Fashion Figure Drawing – FM Computer Graphics
Students studying Fashion Marketing and Management, as opposed to those studying Fashion Design, may not require as strong a background in design because they concentrate on running a business in the fashion industry. However, the basics of design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are essential for those who want to produce marketing material. Students will benefit from these fundamental skills in their future careers.
Valentine, the programme director for Fashion Marketing and Management and the academic lead, showed us some of the amazing assignments done by the FM Computer Graphics Skills class from the previous term. These students had never used a design programme before, but in just one term, they developed these incredible pieces. We anxiously await seeing more of their work in the future.
Raffles International College offers design programmes in the form of Diplomas, Advanced Diplomas, and Bachelor’s Degrees (Honours). This includes the Fashion Marketing and Management programme in which students learn the business side of the fashion industry. The core of the Raffles educational system consists of teaching, learning, and practises. We give students practical experience that supports what they learn in class. Raffles promotes the idea that prospective students don’t need to be skilled before enrolling because we will teach you everything from scratch. We only need you to be eager to express your creativity and to be passionate about what you do.
About FM Computer Graphics Skills
This module introduces the basic techniques of computer graphics skills in Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop and explores the relationship between type and pictorial images for visualization and communication. Students will develop an understanding of basic design elements and principles, page composition, photo retouching, visual weight, appropriateness, consistency and the basic use of typography to create a multi-page fashion design layout document.
Photography Class
In Raffles News Vol. 70, we shared an article covering the photography class’ field trip to Chinatown and the Bangkok Art Biennale 2022 to practice photography and complete their assignments on photography techniques. The photography class lecturer, Keskarn, shared some great photos from the trip. Let’s take a look.
Street Photography Assignment
In this assignment, students were taken to the Chinatown area in Bangkok to capture moments surrounding the theme of street photography. Students had to develop a concept for what they would photograph, whether it be people, food, or a landscape.
What is street photography?
Street photography is a type of photography, or investigative photography, that captures unplanned encounters and unplanned events in public settings. Although there is a difference between street photography and candid photography, you can also say that street photography is a type of candid photography. Street photography doesn’t have to be limited to an urban or street setting. While people are typically the main focus, street photography may instead focus on an object or place.
The theme of the Bangkok Art Biennale 2022 is CHAOS:CALM, so Keskarn gave the students an assignment with the same theme. They used long-exposure pictures for the “CHAOS” portion and normal pictures for the “CALM” portion of the assignment.
What is long-exposure photography?
Long-exposure photography is a technique that uses a slow shutter speed to generate creative and unique-looking photographs. With long-exposure photography, the moving components of the image are blurred, smeared, or obscured while the stationary parts are sharply captured.
About the Digital Photography Module
This module aims to provide students with the foundations of digital photography. Students will be taught the importance of photography as an important visual element of communication and as a medium of expression. This module will also encompass photographic vocabulary, framing, composition, the “rule of thirds”, lighting, texture, pattern, lines, depth of field, perspective, space and color. Students will be expected to demonstrate an ability to use digital media and tools competently in their final photographic project.