Objectified: Content and Form

"Objectified" title screen

“Objectified” is an amazing film about product design in society and how industrial design changed our lives.  It focuses on who designs, why people design, and what is the function of design.  What is important to keep in mind during this movie, and it is something that is discussed very frequently during the film’s designer interviews, is that design is created because there is a need.  Design is created because an object can be bettered, it can be slightly modified to improve a person’s life.  Whether it is a small change like a better handle on garden sheers to enable easier bush and hedge cutting, or a medical device that allows vaccinations to be brought to third world countries more readily (I saw this at Ideo when I visited the Palo Alto offices this summer).  Content is why is the product needed in the community and how it can be best presented to the using public, while form is the actual product in its finalized state.  What I also really liked about “Objectified” was that it talked about how design is utopian.  This is something that we have listened to in lecture by Prof. Housefield, but it means that design is never going to be perfect, but is always striving to reach perfection.  “U” means no and “topos” means place, thus utopia is “no place” or an ideal land that does not exist in reality.  This is a great description of design because everything can be made better.

Fashion Shoot for Fun

Martin Wong (student and photographer at UCD) wanted to do a photo shoot this weekend.  Here are some of the pictures that came out.  It was really fun!

Comparison and Contrast

Compare and Contrast

When I am asked to compare and contrast, I often think back to my days in elementary school where I was taught how to make a Venn diagram (invented by John Venn in 1880).  These diagrams have two circles, exactly the same size, placed next to each other but with some overlap going on to create three compartments for words.  It is used for comparing two different topics or subjects, so one side of the circle is one subject’s unique characteristics, the other side is the other subject’s, and the middle section created from the overlap of the two circles is left for the similarities between the subjects.   

the basic Venn diagram

The Venn diagram has such a simply design but it is the perfect visual aid for young children to learn how to compare and contrast.  I know that this blog post was meant to focus on comparing and contrasting design, but I wanted to study the actual design of comparison and contrast.  More complicated Venn diagrams can have three circles, or even more if they can fit.  It is an easy way to illustrate logic, statistics, probability, and computer science, along with the basic qualities of a subject.  I think that this diagram is a perfect design; it is functional both in organizing thoughts and helping reach a conclusion.  This is what design is about, simplicity at its finest.       

Design as Conversation

image: USA Today, Gaga wearing meat dress at VMAs

Conversation is the key to human success.  People are social animals that need communication to survive in the world, whether it is mentally with happiness from friendship and relationships or it be success in the business world.  Recently, Lady Gaga wore a dress designed and made entirely out of raw meat at the 2010 MTV VMA Awards show.  This dress was worn by Gaga in response to a lot of controversy surrounding her raw meat bikini from the cover of Vogue (Hommes Japan).  This is the first part of design as communication…. Gaga is using a dress almost exactly the same as the bikini to reply to the negative comments.  She is using fashion design to speak out to the public saying that no, she was not ashamed of the bikini and that she believes she can wear whatever she wants.  Once the VMAs were over, Lady Gaga appeared on Ellen DeGeneres’s show and explained "Well, it is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian. As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the earth… However, it has many interpretations but for me this evening. If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat" (Gaga to DeGeneres).  Lady Gaga is clearly a woman who wants to make a statement, and what better to do it through fashion.  Not to mention, she keeps everyone on his or her toes, wondering what’s coming next!

Wonderers

The title of Justine Kurland's work at the Nelson (UC Davis)

Today, I went to the Richard L. Nelson Gallery to view the new photography installation by Justine Kurland titled “Wonderers.”  The exhibit captures the essence of vagrancy and sadness, and at the same time, freedom and wonder.  The images caught in the seven different photographs are scenes that for the most part, I have witnessed before: a homeless man asleep under a freeway overpass, a make shift home in the wilderness.  Except these pictures were so intense, so real, that even though I have experienced homelessness in my everyday life, these photos made it seem much more up close and personal.  And to my surprise, it was not as shameful or as degrading as I normally feel looking at vagrants in real situations.  I almost began to envy the freedom and the carelessness that these men and women processed.  That’s a funny word to talk about in relation to the homeless: “possess.”  Sure, these people do not possess much in the way of material goods, but they possess the freedom of time without commitments, the freedom of being in nature without humans around to ruin it.  Kurland’s use of bold, saturated color in her photography makes the images very much like how the human eye would see them if a person was standing in front of the scene instead of looking at a photo.  In one image, the leaves of the trees are super green and lush, and the skin of the wandering travelers is bronzed from days and days in the sun.   

Justine Kurland at the Nelson (UC Davis)

On the other hand, the picture of the “suicide bed” (which is a homeless person’s bed made up next to a train track in a dark tunnel) is very grey, dim, and almost sour to look at.  There is risk in the photograph as well as tangible fear from the onlooker than death could happen at any moment if the person in the bed were to roll over at the wrong moment.  Also, the design of the exhibition is laid out in such a way where you walk along and look at these big photos one after another which I think is very effective in the gallery’s space.  I highly recommend anyone and everyone to go look at the show.  Another fabulous artist at the show is Cutter Collective, go see!

Cutter Collective at the Nelson (UC Davis)

Bedroom Designs

I want to spend a minute thinking about how interior design can completely change the feel of a living space.  I find it amazing that when faced with a square room, a person can turn it into whatever they want through the use of color and furniture.  I really started to think about this when I moved into my apartment at the beginning of September.  Faced with a room that was 9ftx10ft, my options were limited… or so I thought.  When I first walked into the tiny, shoebox of a room, I thought to myself, “Oh god, my double bed that I just bought is NOT going to fit in here.”  Surprisingly, with a little hard work and heavy lifting, my bed, desk, desk chair, and shelves all fit into the small space.  Once I added color to the room in the form of posters, curtains, and decorations, the room started to feel a lot bigger.  How is this possible???  I kept thinking to myself that this is completely against my initial thought that a room would feel more crowded when items are in it.  The beauty of interior design is making the right pieces fit into the right places.  The use of space is key to creating a living space that is, well, livable.  What also amazes me is that my two other roommates were faced with the same tiny bedrooms and the final look of each room is completely different from one another.  These thoughts and ideas make me very exciting to study more on the subject in years to come.       

Design from Without

When I hear “Design from Without,” I immediately think of getting inspiration from an outside source.  Whether it is someone else’s work or an idea from nature, designers must pull ideas from every aspect of life.  The perfect example that I can think of for pulling ideas from outside sources is the photographer Sir Cecil Beaton, who used a Jackson Pollock painting as inspiration for his vogue photo shoot in 1951.  Beaton was an interior designer, photographer, fashion designer, and style icon from England.  As an artist, designer, and creative mind, Beaton looked outside himself to find the next trend and search for new beauty.  Even the painting that Beaton found inspiration from was created by design from without.  Jackson Pollock painted many pictures, but not in the usual sense of painting.  He used the flow of the paint and the movement of his body to form lines and splatters on a canvas.  His outside source was the natural movement of liquid, the actually physics of viscosity.  

 Cecil Beaton for Vogue, The New Soft Look, 1951

Sure, everyone has great ideas, but as “Stone Soup” day (talked about in my previous post) showed, collaboration is the key to design success.  A design must use other ideas to truly make something amazing.  This just emphasizes more on how important communication is; talking a plan or idea out with a peer or mentor could lead to huge new ideas.  Even if there is no one to speak with, go out, look around, the world is filled with objects and things that will spark some imagination when you as a designer are stuck in a rut.        

Stone Soup

 

It was a day unlike any other day at college… it was “Stone Soup” day.  I remember being read the book Stone Soup by Marcia Brown when I was in kindergarten. My 20 classmates and I gathered around our teacher, Ms. Fong, sitting on our little floor pillows and listening with eager ears.  I am sure most of you know the story, but in short, it is about three soldiers who are able to bring a community together and feed a large group of people through innovation and a little creativity.  I actually had not thought about this story until Housefield the week previous in Design said that we would be having a “Stone Soup” day where everyone would collaborate on building something out of “materials.”  The word material is pretty vague but my group ended up bringing all sorts of different items including glitter glue, cardboard boxes, metal wire, bottles, and much more.  At first, I was a bit skeptical that anything of interest would come out of these everyday, trash objects, but through thought, teamwork, and honestly, some spontaneity, our “soup” turned out pretty cool.  I really liked how everyone worked together, keeping the communication open, throughout the building process.  It was a good lesson on designing something, that alone, one may be at a loss of what to do, but once everyone starts talking and throwing out ideas, a great thing can be made.  My favorite part of our “soup” (which I should really call more of a sculpture) was the wrapped up cider bottle inside of the triangular box with the mesh, cut up, plastic fruit boxes as the background.  I have attached a picture of this above! 

My Warhol Obsession

Since Design 1 has been focusing so far on the “BIG” questions of design, the “who, what, where, when, why, and how,” I feel it appropriate to say that “the who” is us students, “the who” is you reading this blog, YOU can design, and YOU can design anything you want to design.  Designing is limitless and nothing can be designed to perfect.  There is always something to change, always improvements to be made.  Design is ever changing.  This leads me into my subject today: Andy Warhol.  It might sound a little cliché for me to say that I have a medium to large obsession with Andy Warhol.  Sure, every artist, designer, even none artistic student has a poster of his art tacked up to their dorm room wall (myself included, though now I live in an apartment, but my Warhol posters from my dorm room last year have moved with me), but I can say with 100% conviction that I LOVE Andy Warhol’s work.  Warhol crossed the barrier between design and art and made the two basically synonymous.  As you can see from my previous post about my AP Studio Art portfolio, I researched a lot of Andy Warhol’s work, including going to a gallery in San Jose that had an exhibition of his pieces on, before starting my own collection.  Warhol designed art that changed the course of art as we used to know it.  For me, Warhol answers the question, “Who makes design?”  He shows society that anyone can make design, and that designing something does not only mean designing a building or designing a chair.  He designed art and made people rethink what design and art are.  Since design is made by humans, everyone and anyone can design something.

What is Design?

When I was a senior in high school, I took a course called AP Studio Art.  I am sure many of you have heard or taken the class yourselves, but for those who have not, it is structured in such a way to get the students to show their artistic ability and viewpoint through 12 collection pieces, 12 breadth pieces, and 5 quality pieces.  As I entered the class, I did not really comprehend the amount of work I was about to take on.  Also enrolled in three other AP courses, I thought art was going to be one of my easier classes… boy was I wrong!  After painting, drawing, redrawing, and stressing for what seemed like an eternity (about one school year to be exact), my portfolio was finished just in time for submission.  A few weeks before the deadline, my art teacher pulled me aside for a few words.  Thinking it was going to be something like, “You’ve got this Libby, keep up the good work!”, I was surprised to hear that my teacher was worried about my collection.  She explained that she loved my work, but that it was more “design” and not “art.”  She wanted to let me know that if I did not pass the AP exam (a viewing of ones portfolio by a panel of AP graders) that it was not because I was not talented, but instead it was because my work screamed design.  This got me thinking, what is the line between art and design?  Who has the right to call something art versus design?  In my opinion, art is a combination of elements, whether it be lines on a page or rocks placed together on the ground, that capture an emotion, an idea, an essences of something.  I am no art major and have never taken a course called “What is art?”, but this is my best guess.  But then if my artwork was not art, and was in fact design, did it not hold the ability to affect a person’s senses?  I think the answer is that design IS art, yet holds some sort of function.  Design is man made; it is all around us, everything from the chair you are probably sitting on while reading this blog to the clothing on your back.  Needless to say, I received a 3 on my AP test.  Not high, not low, but a passing grade.  Who knows, maybe the graders thought it was design and felt pity for me and still allowed me to pass, I will never find out. 

Designed for a Child

When I was little, I lived in London where everything was grey.  From the pavement to the buildings and even the weather, the color grey saturated the landscape.  Different shades of grey surrounded me wherever I went, except at one special place that I still hold close to my heart.  This place was a children’s playground right by the River Thames that had brightly colored slides and shapes cut out of the plastic climbing walls.  I so clearly remember this playground as an oasis of new color and form completely different to what I saw everyday.  Not only did the playground have sentimental value to me (going with my parents, grandfather, friends, etc) but it excited my imagination in ways that would not happen anywhere else. The bright color of red plastic covered one wall of the walkway to the slide right next to yellow and blue.  The primary colors placed one after another stood out in my child mind and it is now obvious to me that the designer of the play park wanted to stimulate the young minds of children.  The smooth almost soft feel of the plastic slide still stands out in my memory along with that static, fuzzy feeling on my hands after sliding down it.  (This was how I first learned about static electricity.)  Going back to the playground now, I am sure I would be disappointed at its size and the brightness of its colors, but it was perfectly designed for a child in mind.