Caution: Dangerous Design

image from http://nerdcereal.com/is-apple-target-now/ 

image from http://obamapacman.com/2010/09/video-new-apple-ipod-touch-multitouch-nano-tv-ads/facetime-ipod-touch-4g-2010-apple-tv-ad/ 

image from http://www.iphonesavior.com/2009/10/apple-ad-guru-lee-clow-refuses-to-retire.html

Although technology design improves our lifestyle efficiently, it could bring us dangerous damages. Apple is one of the best technology design companies around the world. Their consumers have a wide range from youth to elders who will use more than one of Apple’s products, such as iPod, iTouch, iPad, iPhone, Macbook, and more. It is incredible how human can create such technical designs to improve our efficiency and touch screens, which connects us closer to technology. However, technology designs decrease physical interaction in society, and could dangerously become one of our addictions.

The constant growth of technology design creates less opportunity for physical interaction; social lives become more and more available online, but less in society. iPhone has multiple applications and twenty-four seven Wi-Fi. Other than iPhone, iTouch and iPad has similar functions. The design of putting on earphones to listen to music or searching the Web while taking a bus creates a barrier between humans. We gradually have a closer relationship with technology designs than with human beings.   

Worse than having relationship problems is constantly sticking to our technology products because of its comforting designs for human. For example, the touch screen design is one of the great accomplishments through technology. The Macbook touch pad design is overly convenient with multiple short cuts through finger movements. Furthermore, technology design can become an addiction. We might start to rely on those technical designs more than we should. Sadly, we will never be able to notice what is happening in our surrounding physically. And less and less quality time with our family because everyone is so busy using their iPhones or other tech designs.

Technology design improves our society and efficiency in life, but we still need to maintain our physical interaction with each other. 

Utopian Design

image from http://moderndna.com/gadgets/strida-folding-bike/

image from http://www.savesafe.com.tw/Products/ProductView.aspx?s_id=70c0268ca7aa1718f1f7f60fc38e3c2a&t_s_id=6740

Utopian design helps improve the society. It would not be harmful to human, animals, nor the surrounding. Environmental design is now a popular design that has an approach to improve society, which is similar to the idea of utopian design. Those designs often save space and use as little energy as possible. Importantly, the design should not create pollutions or other damages to the world. Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zones, such as driving vehicles, to riding a folding bike that sustains health and protects the environment.

Riding bikes help build up our physical strength. It makes us healthier by letting us exercise, which will decrease our physical health problems. Biking on the road is also more refreshing than using the biking machine in the gym. In addition, biking can build up our immune system. And through daily biking, our brains function clearer, and we would be able to get our workload down more efficiently. Designers will be able to come up with better design ideas and fewer mistakes can be made during the process of design.

Folding bikes benefit humans, and it also improves the environment. They are designed to decreases pollution and increase space. It does not use any energy nor need any gas. Moreover, the folding bikes are design to use less material if possible. Comparing to mountain bikes or road bikes, folding bikes are simplified to a smaller form. Furthermore, the folding design is efficient and easy to use. There are simply one or two procedures for folding the bike. Not only folding bikes are ease to use, but its efficient space usage is needed in the society. Gradually, spaces become luxurious and difficult to earn, so objects that take less space and light weighted will attract the more buyers.

The folding bikes is added with efficiency and subtracted with weight issues. 

Color Interaction

Wayne Thiebaud's Sweets and Treats from http://tillagearts.blogspot.com/2009/10/go-see-sweets-treats-wayne-thiebaud-in.html 

real cakes reproduced from Thiebaud's painting

Wayne Thiebaud is an amazing contemporary painter that plays with color interactions. Thiebaud is well known for painting pastries and other mass cultural objects. Moreover, he states that he often paints from memories either from childhood or previous job experiences. He was associated with the Pop Art movement, and his work influence the era.

Thiebaud uses heavy pigments and solid colors in his paintings. Painting warm and cool color is how he uses as light and shadows. Most of the color paint are visually seen in his colorful paintings except pure black and white. White pigments, however, are usually used as background that creates a lot of negative space. But when looking at the paintings, you will not think it is visually white because of color illusion. Sometimes he does add little color to the white background, but not often.

The Cakes and Treats paintings were designed with color unity and harmony. The colors are bright and solid with major warm colors and a touch of cool colors as shadows. Through the dominance of warm colors, the blue shadows seemed to have a touch of red and become slightly purple. This type of illusion is color juxtaposition, which creates color combination when two pigments appear simultaneously. 

Thiebaud layered many bold colors on top of each other, and it creates the bezold effect like a visual gradation. This technique simplified the details but gives connection between two different pigments. Thiebaud’s style is contemporary, and he uses bold colors with huge white space that gives light intensity.

Thiebaud’s work always has a strong contrast, and the mass production product paintings also have huge negative space. These are his most identified techniques. 

Lost and Found

(all images via http://www.furniturestoreblog.com)

The Lost in Sofa chair design helps you store things in an unexpected way. I found this creative industrial design by architect Daisuke Motogi on a furniture website. The whole chair is cushion designed, so users can ‘stuff’ objects in between multiple cushions. This clever design can attract consumers that have similar needs and habits, but the product comfort and performance can be revised.

The outline of the chair is built with square shaped cushions. The form seems visually hard, but the material used is soft. The color grey also softens down the form and shape of the design. Safety issues would be less worrisome since the design is completely covered with cushions, unless there are sharp objects placed in the cushions. In addition, sticking stainable food and liquid would be dangerous. Furthermore, if anything is stuffed in to the chair, people need to be more careful when standing around and sitting down in the chair.

Adding to the safety issues, functional comfort representing a major part of the chair design process. Although cushioning should bring comfort, the sharp edges and outline overtake the inflexibility. The design of the Lost in Sofa chair did not include head and neck supports. Moreover, there is no curve support for the overall human body and gesture, since the chair was designed with vertical and horizontal surfaces, like grids. However, if you see it more as an organize storage, it is used with softer material compared to usual storages, including wood and steel. The comfort of the chair design is not well thought out.

There is not much space in between every cushion gaps. And it is hard to find an interior space to place this chair design since all of its side should be fully used for storing. The design is easy to use for consumers who usually prefer leaving items on or around their chair.

Other than being user friendly, the performance of the Lost in Sofa chair is used to store books, magazines, newspapers, phones, spare change, remote controllers, and more. This is an idea of a multi-function design, and also, working against all odds. Because of the ethical idea of keeping clean and neat in space, designer Motogi slightly works against ethics. As a result, he creates chair design for consumers that feel more comfortable in the sense of disorganization. However, the seat space is only limited for a single person. If there are also designs of a longer sofa made with more cushions, it might give buyers more opportunity to play with the design.

Last but not least, the aesthetic design added the final touch and décor for the product. The Lost in Sofa design is more suitable in a modern space. Its overall design appear neat, clean, with a neutral color tone. And as an industrially designed object, it is seen as a moderate sculpture or an organized squared chair as itself.

It is appropriate to combine the function of storage and seating together because you often need places to put things. For example, after reading a magazine, you can stick the magazine in to the chair and sleep. It is sometimes frustrating to not have any place to put your things. This chair design is user-centered with having cushions around the seat and places to stuff. The Ergonomic design of the chair is not focused on functions like safety and comfort, but the easiness, performance, and beauty. 

3D Effect

Here are the videos from Eric Hutchinson and Will.i.am. Both of the music videos have similar design approach with the relation of images, words, and music.

The typography in Hutchinson’s video was designed with animated lyrics.  This music video included many different typographic designs to the lyrics. The foreground and background relation is constantly switching in relation to words and images. The bold word flips placed on top of the black piano was interesting; it made the words and image seems like a whole. Where as, Will.i.am’s Korean typography is abstracted to forms and shapes since few Americans read Korean. The types also remind us how Korean Pop music is becoming popular around the world.

Hutchinson’s music video embraces futuristic designs with a classic black and white theme, and the classy design fits well with this jazzy music. However, Will.i.am’s video portrays robotic movements and facial expressions. In addition, the wardrobe, accessories, and nylon rubber fabric are futuristic.

The words are all portrayed in different eye-popping effects in Hutchinson’s music video, including the piano word board, billboard decors, and slide effects. Moreover, typography is connected in space with transaction movement. My favorite effect is how the words walked up to the screen and towards the viewer, also blurring out the rest of the forms in the back. The words then finished by pulling us back in to the background. Will.i.am’s design has an approach where lagging and drum effects. Also, the movement and overlap effect of the Korean typography give the 3D effect. Furthermore, two dancers are stretched to multiple ones, which gives the 3D depth. The play of ground and ceiling in 360-degree was also breathtaking.

The typographic design, futuristic theme, and three-dimensional effect are recently the most familiar effects used in music videos. 

Anthropologie Holiday Workshop

(images by me)

Holiday season is coming up and I got an invitation from Anthropologie that they will be having open holiday workshops. These workshops are for people who are interested in helping the Anthropologie Visual Team in the chain store close by.

Their Visual Team is the people who designed and decorated the whole store. And as my previous blog post, I mentioned I have admired Anthropologie’s window displays since I first walked in to the stores. Every Anthropologie store in different areas has slightly different designs cooperated by their own team members.

(images taken by me)

Now that Christmas and winter season is here, I am so thrilled to have this opportunity to co-work with the Anthropologie Visual Team and create their Holiday decors. My friends and I carpooled and drove to Burlingame for this opportunity to help out as volunteers (yes, Burlingame was the closest from Davis, but more workshops are coming up in other store locations).  

This year, Anthropologie is re-creating the green bushes of a Christmas tree with different types of wires covered with green painted wraps. Also, adding golden ribbons with written wishes and art craft nuts to be tied on the branches.

Anthro’s design theme for this holiday window displays is symbolic. It symbolizes the idea of Christmas trees and cold weather. Christmas tree is a decorated evergreen coniferous tree, and coniferous trees only grow in cold weathers. That is why this type of tree is now unconsciously recognized as a type of holiday tree.

After this unforgettable holiday workshop, I notice how Anthropologie works as a ‘design family.’ Group work is always important in society, and in design. 

Fashion: Words and Image

(Cover image from Vogue)

This is Vogue’s November 2010 issue. Anne Hathaway is the cover girl of this month. Vogue is one the most recognized fashion magazines in the world. This success relates to many reasons, and one is because of its elegant play of word and image.

Different fashion magazine has different style and design in their pages. Every Vogue cover stands out with its classic serif “vogue” fonts, and a strong cover image. It represents the classy and power that women express today. In addition, the color theme for the cover words and image are design in unity.

(One of the pages from early Vogue found in Google)

This page design is not from the November issue; however, the creativity in typography and photography remains in previous issues. The design and layout in the magazines are according to the play of words and images.

(source form impawards.com)

Moreover, the fashion documentary published last year, The September Issue, was a success to let fusionists and the society get a closer VIP look at the lives of the fashion industry and the life of Anna WIntour, the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. This poster above simply has a miniature image of a sunglasses and fashion magazine placed on a white space. The title of the documentary is equal the size of the image. And even smaller, below the film title it states “Anna Wintour and the making of Vogue.” The angled but recognizable Vogue magazine placed below the sunglasses is what sells and affects the whole fashion world. All the little details and icons made this fashion documentary noticeable and popular.

Vogue knows what and how their readers see the relation between words and images, which is why it is placed firmly on top of the fashion industry.  

Comic: Words and Image

(IMage source from Amazon.com)

(image source from http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/7aa/7aa971a.htm)

On November 2^nd, writer Brian Fies was a guest speaker in our design class. He is well known for his comics, Mom’s Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow. And he breaks most of the stereotypical ideas people have for comics. For the most part, comic uses a same approach as the design process.

Fies wrote in one of his blog posts “comics are a particularly powerful medium of communication-- economy of expression, use of symbolism, metaphor, and manipulation of space and time.” McCloud also talked about these principles in his comic book, Understanding Comics. It is about how image and words interact; the use of juxtapose is a example from all comic. Multiple words and images are laid out on a single page, but our eyes visual organizes the sequential order. Design is also about the form and content of communication.

Creating a book cover for Mom’s Cancer seems like an easy process with a few simple sketches; however, Fies designed about a few hundred samples to get to his final book cover. The fonts and color of the title, the relation between words and image, and many other aspects of the cover needed to be improved constantly.  

The relationship between words and images are connected. In comics, imagery are usually dominating and words is a supporting tool. But without the supporting words, the image would not have as much effect on the viewer. Nevertheless, in some situation, words can represent change in space and time. Words can also be used as sounds, and images could be as background. Words and images is inseparable in the comic world. 

H&M Heart Lanvin

(imageries via nitro:licious)

The collaborations are always amusing. The style of this Lanvin x H&M November line is designed for every age group. Lanvin’s artistic director Alber Elbaz and menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver design the collection. The imageries portray looking glamorous and elegant in any situation, even at the moment of seeing another person wearing the same dress as you are wearing. I am deeply excited and honored to be able to see luxurious Lanvin’s designs in H&M stores.

Cell Phones

(texting image on Google)

Anyone who loses his or her cell phone will be devastated.

 Cell phone is one of the largest industrial designs in the society now. It has different companies and brands for customers’ comparison. It has so many functions beyond people imaginations. Cell phones went from simply for calling purpose, to adding game applications, cameras, music, and much more. And the new type of communication, texting, has almost dominated the direct call system.

Naoto Fukasawa has designed a flipped cell phone with a multi-angle surface. Fukasawa noticed the texture of flat surfaced cells is unnatural for some people, and they would feel more comfortable with a rougher surface. Moreover, when people often put their cell phones in their jeans pocket, it will not easily slip out and drop on the floor. Commonly, there will be typed keys designed on cell phones, such as the business-friendly BlackBerry. However, touch screen cell phones become popularly used.

The touch and how it holds is important to every person; the shape of the cell phone matters. Some designs are more rectangular and sharper edges which give a sense of clean and power; whereas, curvilinear cell phones are some times smoother to hold and feminine.

Buyers are consuming through color preferences.  Black is the most common color use for cell phones. Moreover, the cells are mostly designed to be symmetrical. But there are several asymmetric cell phones. For example, they design a clock slightly placed to the right on the front of a flip phone. Consumers also often have their personal preference for the size of their cell phone screens. Furthermore, there are designs for phones to flip side ways; these are usually for people who prefer texting.

Everyone likes to personalize his or her cell phones. People pick the industrial designs that fit their status and tastes. 

Objectified

(The film Objectified and Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa)

How do form and content interact?

When people are looking at or using a design, they do not consciously know it is a designed object, but the designers do. How do the designers consciously know what their purpose for the design is? How do they connect the form and the content of design? It is through the fixture process and functionality of design.

The Apple Company, for example, is one of the biggest and most successful American companies that designs software and electronics. Their products attract all age consumers from youth to elders. For the MacBook Pro, it is designed through simplicity and easiness for buyers; it is so comfortable to use that people forget it is specially designed. It was a long editing process to create a successful product like MacBook Pro. The Apple Company designers revise a single part of the laptop multiple times to make it effortless to use. The long editing process is for consumers to use their product effortlessly. That is the beauty and a successful design.

Sometimes, a design seems too simple and commonly seen, that people ignore there is always a story behind every designed product because it is designed with specific functions for people to use. For example, Henry Ford designed cars that can represent the society. Cars needed to have a few certain facts, such as looking environmentally easy and simple.

Naoto Fukasawa is a Japanese industrial designer who worked with famous companies like Muji and IDEO. Fukasawa’s design of the Muji CD player was shown in the design film, “Objectified.” He states a great metaphor for design could be that “you don’t know what the fragments are going to create…designer has to take all these scattered pieces and combine them into concrete item in one instant.” Designers are secretively fixing product in time to create the success function for buyers to use. End with a final product that can make the users comfortable enough to not feel like it is purposely designed.

Design tells a story. Forms can be easily created, but for them to be a design, forms need to be interdependent with its content. The function and process in editing is what connects forms and content.