RSS Alert: New Article up at Coroflot's Creative Seeds: The Pen is Mightier than the Pen: Why Writing Matters for Designers, by Carl Alviani.
Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog Carl Alviani is adding spice to the discussion on the designers lost art form, writing. Where has the eloquence gone? Jumping two paragraphs in:
There was a time when facility and even eloquence with the written word was expected of just about every professional--creative or otherwise--and a lot of non-professionals too. Reading letters and business correspondence from the early part of the 20th century is a gently humbling experience, imparting pangs in the reader who realizes that a request for additional tacks by a carpenter in 1910 was written more elegantly than most correspondence between executives today. There are a range of reasons for this apparent decline--literacy rates are higher now, for example, and so the upper-class association that the written word once held has faded--but this is a larger, more academic question than I'm trying to answer here....designers create visual documents, and complain that their non-creative counterparts don't know how to read a sketch...
Book Review: The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam.
When I was a little kid learning to draw, I always had the deepest admiration for comic book artists, along with a profound misconception. Upon actually purchasing a Marvel, DC, or later an Image publication, the reader sees only crisp, perfect drawings, with no construction lines. You see, many artists proffer an illusion. There are several steps to making a comic: In the first step, the artist sketches out a rough with a pencil, complete with construction lines (often this is done on a much larger scale than the final page, so large errors appear small when it's printed). Second, an "inker" comes in and goes over the rough sketch with a pen, darkening only the ideal lines and ignoring errors. Then finally, the "colorist" lays a palate of color over the work.
So for the viewer, the final result omits much of the work that went on in making a "perfect" layout. This sort of trickery is pervasive in art, where artists ranging from Van Gogh to Vermeer may have used a variety of tools like the grid or the camera obscura to attain accurate proportions. Thus a subterfuge has been pulled over the eyes of the viewing public, who are left thinking that artists possess talent beyond their own, when actually a lot of the work that went into art has been erased or covered up and reworked with oils.
As someone who has gone to art school and seen that the act of repetitive practice can turn a mediocre sketcher into someone the world sees as "talented," I have no trouble understanding where Dan Roam is coming from in his book The Back of the Napkin when he speaks to his readers about visual thinking. Frankly, it doesn't matter whether or not people can draw when they present their ideas. All the errant lines and mistakes that they make when drawing under pressure contribute to a sense of immediacy and urgency in the final product.
Roam is a consultant by trade, and I trust that he won't take offense when I say that while his "back of the napkin" sketches lack the technical prowess of a Rembrant or DaVinci, his simple line drawings are clear, concise and evocative of the emotional verve one sees (and casually discounts) in the "funny pages." This, of course, is precisely the point of his book: simple sketches are often more compelling than technically adept Power Point slides.
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Beyond Fashion: Reviving Experimental Design, by Scott Klinker.
What's experimental in a Flat World?
A fragrance by Zaha Hadid. Jewelry for Tiffany's by Frank Gehry. Self-help books for hipsters by Karim Rashid. Signature designers had arrived in the luxury market long ago and by now it's ordinary. Radical or poetic form, once considered experimental, is the not-so-secret weapon of modern brand building. Where design once served industry, now industry often serves design. Here Design meets Art meets Fashion meets the Devil-wears-Prada Catch-22 of a culture industry starving for new icons and rocket-fueled by a viral Web. If the world is flat as Tom Friedman claimed, then so is design--stripped of the hierarchies that used to distinguish high and low, design and art, theoretical and applied. Has this newfound freedom produced wild experimental design thinking? Not enough. Instead, design's intellectual edge has been mostly employed by the vanities of a fashion system. Someday we may recall this period as design's fashion phase. Is it finally time to revive experimental design thinking from this fashion hangover?
It's not that fashion is bad, or unimportant. Design's marriage to Fashion was fated and permanent so that beauty and design storytelling are here to stay. It's just that it's not so experimental any more. The honeymoon is over. It's as if Memphis never died, and instead is continually reincarnated in an aesthetic economy endlessly hungry for new styles, with plenty of colorful characters ready to exploit new aesthetic markets. Outside this fashion system there are plenty of juicy design issues that deserve experimental exploration in search of new modern meanings. Experimental design is the way that design comes to know itself better and to advance its potentials. It's the way the field of design moves forward. Design has absorbed fashion. Uncharted waters await.
Orca Design's GreenHouse Effect exhibit.
In conjunction with the Singapore Design Festival, Beijing, Singapore, and Malaysia-based Orca Design launched its GreenHouse Effect exhibit, a conceptual exploration of sustainable solutions for the home. The collection tweaks products that we use daily to perform on a greener level, where a little change makes at least a little difference--better than none at all. Two of the items include the Post-It Notepad, which works as a notepad in one direction and sticky notes in reverse, and the Bottleneck Saver that restricts the flow on pumped products to ensure rations are economical and shampoos/soaps/lotions are used efficiently.
Classics Master: Interview with Kenneth Grange.
One of the founding partners of Pentagram, Kenneth Grange's CV reads like a list of iconic British products. During a career spanning half a century he has designed the UK's first parking meters, the Kodak Instamatic, the Kenwood Chef, razors for Wilkinson Sword, typewriters, loudspeakers, Anglepoise lamps, Parker pens, London taxi-cabs, and - arguably his crowning glory - the distinctive nose cone of the Inter-City 125. It is fair to say that few industrial designers have influenced so many areas of our lives.
The Engineer interviews Grange on his long career. Here's a snippet:
The designer's role, he said, is to make sure a product marries form and function in a way that will satisfy both marketing people and end users.He said: '[a marketing department] might come to us with a brief with a strong fashion component but that might not have a strong slant on whether its functionally is as good as it should be. The designer has to use his wits to keep all these things in balance, one without the other is a lost opportunity - that is the nub of the designer's role.'
But Grange does not see much evidence of this fine balance today and believes that the disproportionate influence of the marketing department has changed the role of the designer for the worse.
RSS Alert: New Gallery up at Core77: New York Toy Fair 2008
Trends at this years fair (Jan 7-20) saw a much stronger focus on 'green' issues and a heightened awareness of safety with many manufactures overtly promoting their 'Made in the USA' status. To be expected, a larger proportion of toys were offering a virtual component to extend the experience.
>> View the Gallery Here <<
Bruce Sterling exhibition about digital manufacturing in Turin, Italy.
Digital manufacturing is about computerized creation, digital design.
Digital manufacturing tools now come in wide varieties of prices and capabilities. And, they're being hooked to the net and made available to artisans in studios. The virtual is actualizing. When? Now! Computer manufacturing produces objects, tools, products and fine-art works impossible to make through any other way.
Today was the opening of manufacturing, the central exhibition of the Turin-based Share Festival, this year curated by Bruce Sterling.
More photos [also here]
Design Observer joins the Coroflot Network.
We are thrilled to announce that Design Observer, one of the most esteemed design communities on the web, has partnered with Coroflot to launch their new Design Observer Job Board. Design Observer provides a global readership with outstanding design discourse, criticism, provocation, and, well...observations on design and the creative industries, and we are proud to welcome them into our network.
If you've got a creative job to post and are looking to attract the best talent, check out Coroflot.com and its partner sites Design Observer, Businessweek, How Magazine, ID Magazine, Print Magazine, and the Art Directors Club.
London Design Museum's top 100 designs.
"Brit Insurance Designs of the Year" is surely an unsexy title, but that's what the London Design Museum is calling their latest design roundup.
The first in an annual exploration of the most innovative, interesting and forward looking new work in design of all kinds. Selected from around the world, Brit Insurance Designs of the Year presents 100 projects nominated by a group of internationally respected design experts, curators, critics, practitioners and enthusiasts. These projects fall within seven categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. The exhibition gives an overview of the most significant achievements in design and architecture in the last year, whether they are projects by a practice, a team or an individual.
With projects by Ron Arad, SANAA, Anthony Dickens, Nintendo, Apple, and others. Later this month a "winner" will be announced in each category, but the exhibit runs through April 27th.
Core77 One Hour Design Challenge: Theft Proof Bicycles.
Don't miss out! Win a $200 gift certificate at Harris Cyclery.
We all remember when our first Huffy was stolen. The realization that some lazy-eyed cretin had stripped away our freedom all for the purpose of a 15 minutes joy ride hit us like a ton of bricks. Maybe that was just me, but no one can argue that bike theft is rampant. A recent discussion on the Core77 Blog about a Biomega bike that attempts to turn the whole bike into the bike lock is the inspiration for our latest 1HDC incarnation. Can you design a better bike lock in one hour or less? Push aside that looming deadline and pick up your Sharpies...it's 1HDC time again! What can you bring to the table to prevent more Huffy Heartache?
Last Call:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
1PM PST (8 GMT)
Theme:
Theft Proof Bicycles
JURY:
Winner will be selected by the Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.
thanks to ip_wirelessly for settin' this up!
>>>CLICK TO ENTER YOUR SUBMISSION<<<
DMI Design/Value Conference, Singapore.DMI International Singapore Conference began on March 13th in Singapore, on the theme of using design and design thinking to solve business objectives. Or rather, creating business value through design. Here's a familiar snippet from their site,
The role of design in business has shifted dramatically over the past few years, and is now becoming recognized as a key business asset that can add true value. With a panel of international experts, this conference will communicate how to create value through design, based on the triple bottom line: economic, social/cultural, and environmental value.
The conference was kicked off by Tonya Peck, Sr User Experience Manager with the Windows Mobile team at Microsoft who shared her experiences on managing two far flung teams - Beijing and Redmond - working on the same design projects together though separated by vast differences in culture, time and geography. This is a challenge that most of us face and I've summarized some key points from her presentation after the jump.
Ben Hughes, Course Director, MA Industrial Deisgn: Central Saint Martins College.
Regine over at we-make-money-not-art catches up with Ben Hughes who gives some thoughts on the philosophy driving the MA Industrial Design program, and takes a stab at defining what exactly 'Industrial Design' means today.
We have been experimenting for several years with different means of prototyping interactive experiences in order to test them. We continue to incorporate everything from role-play to swift cardboard test-rigs to hacking existing systems, to basic programming. In terms of the latter, we have this year started working with Arduino, which look very promising. This year we also worked with colleagues in Textile Design and the Epigenome Network to explore ideas of Epigenetics using design thinking. I would draw the line at projects dealing with the entirely hypothetical, or 'conceptual,' as we are primarily interested in material culture; the 3 dimensional component of this stuff.
Ben trained as an Industrial Designer in the UK, worked for consultancies in Taiwan and Australia and came back London where he's been heading the course since 2000, writes about and practices design, and consults on industrial design, brand and marketing.
3D Modeling Symposium for Architects, Industrial Designers and Engineers. From April 7-9, the Universität der Künste Berlin (University of Arts Berlin) will be holding the first 3D Modeling Symposium for architects, industrial designers and engineers in cooperation with Visual-Dream.
The three day event brings together lectures, case studies and master classes to boost your 3D modeling skills. National and international experts will demonstrate advanced solutions for contemporary architecture, construction and industrial design - such as ParaCloud software which supports the design, or generation, of free form surfaces and complex constructions (photo: a digital approach to Kiesler's biomorphic Endless House).
All information and registrations under www.3d-msb.de
And Finally, Things we could never have built without CAD.
We're pretty impressed by Landscape Structures' Mobius Climber, which can help kids get exercise and maybe teach them a thing or two about fourth-dimensional wormholes.
But what we'd really like to see is an M.C.-Escher-designed condominium with space-saving anti-gravity staircases.
Early architectural tests indicate it would work! Well, at least in Lego.
Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and Niti Bhan for her contribution to this weeks newsletter!
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