Objectified

After watching the film Objectified, I believe that design is truly everywhere in our society. Objectified is a documentary film made by Gary Hustwit. In the film, many industrial designers were interviewed. Designers talked about many valuable concepts and ideas, and especially their views on the interaction between content and form in design. It is an intriguing film about what goes on beneath the surface of our everyday objects we take for granted.

Early in the film, it showed that Japanese toothpick is not just a toothpick, but with its own meaning behind the surface.  The toothpick actually includes many design elements, it not only has the basic function for people to pick their teeth, but also has designs at the end of the toothpick that include two noteworthy elements, which function as an indication that the toothpick has been used and as a toothpick holder.

In the film, it also tells audiences that a good design is not only about its appearance (form) but also about its function (content). The film makes audiences think of why and how a design looks the way it does. A Japanese designer, Takahama Kyoshi, says that design is “dissolving the behavior,” meaning designer design things in order to make people live better and more naturally. Take the modern potato peeler from Smart Design company in San Francisco as an example, the peeler was first designed for people who have arthritis. In order to make the peeler more comfortable to hold, the company re-designed the traditional potato peeler by changing the peel holder to bicycle rubber holder. In a more ergonomics way, people may feel more comfortable when using the peeler.

Later in the film, car designers tell us how they design a car, and every car has a face of its own. When a car designer is designing a car, he or she thinks about the customers, whether customers use cars only when customers need the cars or when the customers need to represent themselves. Car designers have to consider all these elements and put them into one emotional energy, which is the audience needs to see others expressions.   

Henry Ford has mentioned, “Every object tells a story if you know how to read it.” And this idea has been spread over the entire film. From the Japanese toothpick to the car design, it is true that every object tells a story. And the job of designers is to improve our daily lives without us knowing it.

Unity

Gestalt theory was mentioned in the class as an important theory for designers to understand, because this theory helps designers to predict how the viewers comprehend a design. Gestalt is a Germany word for “form”, and "unified whole," and is also used in visual psychology of how our minds seek unity. According to the book Design Basic, they define unity as “a congruity or agreement exists among the element s in a design.” And how we look for unity is to understand the concept of perception as a process of pattern making, and self-organizing.

When we look at an image, our brain will seek out the unity naturally, such as the picture above that was shown in class and can be perceived as two different images. When professor Housefield first asked what can we see from the picture, I saw a duck, but then realized the image could also be seen as a rabbit. Regardless if we saw a rabbit or a duck, these two images cannot be seen at the same moment since our brain tends to find unity. 

Unity is always one of the main principles to apply in designing process, because it can assist viewer in understanding more about the design by pulling all the elements together. Take the famous children’s character Hello Kitty as another example. In this character, there are ears, eyes, nose, whiskers and a red ribbon, but no mouth. However, because of the unity, self-organizing, it is enough information for our eye to complete the shape, which is a cat, though it does not have a mouth. Unity help viewer to receive message correctly, thus it is essential for designers to understand unity and how unity works.

Compare and contrast

      Before becoming a design major student in Davis, I struggled on deciding which emphasis of art or design to major. First of all, between UC Davis and UC San Diego, I had a hard time choosing  which school to attend because they are all related to art in a sense. Despite the difficulty, after I went over both majors’ curriculums, I found out that classes required for design and for art studio are completely distinct of one another. Therefore, I have realized my image of design and art as the same subject was wrong. Although Design and art to share common knowledge and techniques, they are considered different entities.

       In the world of art and design, some people often combine art and design together and state the two are interchangeable. Even though both art and design share the same knowledge base and methods and carry aesthetics senses within themselves, the purpose of art and design is not the same. The basic purpose of art is to express one’s feelings or emotions through the practice, and sometimes describes the current environment experienced by the artist. In other cases, art can even serve as a tool for mental-recovery. Furthermore, art sometimes requires more interpretation than design. Art in many cases are not meant to be understood by the general but by a few chosen individual.

       On the contrary, most designs intend to serve a specific purpose. Designers use the same technique as artists such as drawing and painting; however, unlike art, design is less personal and more genearal. The purpose of design is to convey messages to others by using the same skills or medium art uses. In addition, design has a clear purpose. For example, looking at FedEx iconography, the design tells people that the FedEx company is reliable and fast. Therefore, in order to send the right messages to viewers, designers create designs tangible to that specific purpose along with aesthetic sensibility, enabling  the correct message to be send out.

Design as conversation

All the time, I have heard from many people that design is similar to conversation.  In fact, during the last session in Design 1, this topic regarding design as conversation was brought up and discussed in small groups. The question was how do one consider design as conversation and why. Throughout the group discussion, I stated that design as a form of conversation can be considered as a language that designers not only created for themselves but also for an wide range of audiences coming from different part of the world. Design, like conversation, can be used to convey one’s message to another person through visualization.

To further explain this idea, conversation means to communicate messages, such as one’s thinking or feeling, between two or more people. In a similar fashion, design  carries the same purposes, passing on one’s thinking or feelings, compare to that of conversation; however, unlike speech conversation, design visually conducts a conversation. As a result, design can be categorize as a form of conversation like languages. Visual communication, visual identity design, animation, and web design, are some of the many examples proving that design is conversation. 

One of the evidences that design can be considered a form of conversation is visual identity designs such as brand logos. Brand name and logo, a visual representation of one company, are the fundamental building blocks of a company. Each company’s unique brand logo represents its characteristics, missions and values. Logotype, a part of brand design, communicate a company’s ideology to the audiences and grabs the audiences’ attention. From the graphics to the typeface’s color, texture, and medium, audiences can acquire information such as the company’s function, concept, and the style of business through its logotype.

For example, the logo FedEx, one of the most renounce logotype designed by Lindon Leader in 1994, had won more than 40 awards and claimed worldwide recognition. This logotype with its Futura bold fond and the word “Fed” in purple is straightforward and simple. As for the design of the word “Ex,” which its color depends on the division it represents and ranges from orange, blue, green, to red, is clever at the same time convenient. For example, the division of ground is in the color of green, which can relate to the ground as green grass. Furthermore, the logo contains a hidden message that most people cannot realize unless someone points out for them. If one look into the design more carefully, one will notice an arrow in the negative space between “E” and “X”. This arrow represents the speed of a continuous forward movement and the main vision of the company. This hidden message is brilliant in that it subliminally communicates its vision to the audiences. Moreover, a hidden message in design is the same as a whisper during a conversation, the message will mostly likely be instill in one’s memory .  

For a company it is important to have a good logo design because a logo design serve as a bridge that connects the company and the customers. A logo design tells what customers could expect from the company and what the company’s vision are. In conclusion, one can state for sure that since logo design is a form of conversation, design has to be a form of conversation as well. 

Creativity from without

Last week in Design 001 lecture, Professor Housefield showed us a short film that relates with creativity. It is a film about a designer, Lisa Hoke, who creates her designs from things that surrounded her. In the film, we could see how she designed art for a gallery by using plastic cups that she had collected from her daily life. Regardless of the cups’ age, color, shape or texture, she gathered them and transformed them into prismatic art pieces on the gallery wall. From the video I have also noticed that Lisa Hoke did not have any drafts or plans for her created pieces, instead she spontaneously created the pieces outside herself by using those plastic cups. Finding inspiration or creativity is essential for every designer. The way Lisa Hoke find inspiration is by connecting to the daily world around her, such as tissue paper or plastic cups. To me, I would say creativity cannot completely come from “without,” but it also tends to encompass the things we had once encountered and experienced as its fuel. For example, inspiration can come from things such as an action of a friend, an image in a book, a sound from the park, or a sign in a restaurant. Creativity can be acquired from everything in our society and may happen to anyone at anytime. It is something like what we did on the Stone Soup activity last Tuesday, where no one can predict what the final piece would be like. On the other hand, everyone just let the objects lead itself into its final form while inspiring one another to complete the Stone Soup. In another case the same idea was shown in another film from design 1 class, where designer Andy Goldsworthy find inspiration for his creativity outside of himself through nature surroundings.  

Lisa Hoke, Blue, 2007 plastic, paint and hardware 25 x 27 x 3 1/2 inches

Lisa Hoke,Boxed Sets, 2008 match boxes, paint, rivets 14 x 12 x 10 inches

 

Photograph and sculpture by:Andy Goldsworthy

Photograph by Andy Goldsworthy

Typographic portraits

Typography is an art of writing represents in different illustration technique. It is used everywhere around the world, for example from our textbook to the billboard on high ways. The design of typography requires immense specialties and usually involves people such as typographers, graphic designers, art directors, and comic book artists. In the modern era, typography has become an important key element for graphic designers in our digital society.

When I was browsing on the Internet today, I came across portraits consisted not with typical lines and drawings but with variety of typefaces in different colors, sizes, and fonts.  I was surprised that typeface can be used to such an extent, rather than just letters for writing and explanation of designs. The set of portraits are a series of typographic illustrations of different musicians made for Grammy 2009. The portraits of the artists’ face were produced by musicians’ song titles, and each of the song title was colorfully integrated in to the musicians’ portrait.

Because we live in a digital era now, font designers have became more and more popular. Some designer has developed typefaces to create visual designs such as the portrait posters for Grammy 2009. Typography designers use fonts and apply them into images by changing the colors, textures, or size of the fonts. With this approach, the designers can create with fonts a picture similar to that drawn with typical elements such as lines and shadings. In this distinct form of font design, designers can help viewers to understand more in depth about the purpose of design by integrating that correlates to the meaning into the design. For me, I have learned that one can use anything possible to create and one needs to think out of boxes as much as possible. 

photo resource:http://musicisart.ws/grammy-typography/

Stone Soup

(http://www.healthykidsideas.com/march-2010-beyond-stone-soup/)

On Tuesday’s Design 1 class, we participated in an activity called Stone Soup. Prior to the activity, Professor Housefield had a talk about the origin of Stone Soup, which is an old tale in children’s book that inspirits the idea of creating out of nothing but with collaborative work. Following the activity, everyone was asked to bring any objects that are recyclable for our Stone Soup’s materials.  

In the beginning of this activity, our group sat in a circle and our mentor Catalina asked us to throw out everything we had brought to the middle of the circle. There were varieties of items: plastic bottles, magazine, wrapping papers, cardboard boxes, fake moss, tapes, and acrylic paints. After gathered all the things we brought, we did a quick brainstorming. Then, we shared different ideas with each other on what can be created and started to combine each other’s ideas together. Finally, we agreed upon our first decision, which was to use cardboard boxes as the base of our design, and a few ideas to follow up with.

During the Stone Soup activity, my group members and I learned to respect different opinions from each individual and cooperate with others to achieve an ultimate goal. Furthermore, we also learned to created things with limited resources and spontaneous thoughts during the process of adding objects on to the cardboard little by little. In part of the design, we painted the paper plates by using acrylic paints to make the plates look like petals. Then, we wrinkled up pieces of wrapping paper in to balls to mimic the looks of pistils. At the same time, we learned not only to create but also to compromise for secondary materials when we lack the primary materials. For example, when we ran out of tape, we used iron wires as a bonding material.
Basically, in this activity, we learned how to cooperate, shared ideas and create. And most importantly, we learned how to find inspiration out of ourselves; we tried to find our inspiration from the recyclable materials.   Although putting ideas together at the beginning was tough, it was worth the time. As each of the team members’ ideas combined to gradually shaped out the final piece, we all felt a sense of accomplishment. With no rules and pressures, but with loads of ideas, we finally created a spectacular art piece consists of combined creativities from each individual.       

      

Perfume design

Perfume is one of the beauty inventions that enhanced scents for human body. The origin word of perfume came the Latin word "per fumus", meaning “through smoke.” The history of perfume dates back to over thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt for ceremonial purposes.  However, in the past few centuries perfume has evolved and integrated into our culture as an essential need for many people.

http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/health-and-beauty/clinique-happy-perfume.asp

One of the first perfumes I had was the Clinique-Happy perfume. In the beginning, I was merely attracted by the scents, which are the refreshing smells mixed from flowers and fruits. Then gradually, I noticed the designs of the perfume bottles and have become intrigued by the variety of shapes from bottle to bottle. For the Clinique-Happy perfume bottle, simple and clear are the best ways to describe this perfume design. The bottle design does not contain any fancy decoration or complex graphic, but the simplicity of this fragrance bottle with its brand name in white and perfume name, “Happy,” in orange stands out above all else . The simplest design that correlates the names with a sense of freshness is an easy and straight forward design that  tells people “this perfume can make you happy!”

Nowadays, rather than just the scents of the perfume, bottle designs has became an increasingly important aspect of how the perfume is perceived. Each bottle design can briefly explain the scents and the characteristics to the prospective customers. In my view, a good perfume considers not only the scents but also the bottle design. Like the perfume in the bottom of this picture, the perfumes’ caps are carved into the shape of a bear’s and rabbit’s head, and the body in light blue and pink. These design elements may recall one’s childhood memories such as the time when one use to play with is teddy bears and stuff animals. Furthermore, the usage of a soft and light color can be associated with children’s naïve characters. With all of the characteristics, this perfume strongly shows that it is made for children, and the smell of this perfume should have a very light sweet and soft scent like that of baby lotions.

http://www.kaloo.com/kaloo2008/parfum.eng.htm

What is Design?

What is Design? This is a term that many people may have hard time defining. It is also a question that can be explained with variety of answers such as design is a process, design is how something works, or design is a visual communication. From my perspective, design is a way of communication for people to transform their ideas or feelings into spectrums of concrete objects. The process of design and the actual design object represents exchanges of information through behavior and sign. Design maybe similar to languages, but it is a designers’ language that we do not have to learn in order to understand it. Every design depends on the designer, or the creators. Each design has its own way of conveying messages to others. Design is a widely understandable language, which one can use everywhere around the world. Designers create designs from what they have absorbed or discovered through their eyes, and exhibit the information and message in forms that others can understand. We do not have to know a certain language to understand design, so there are no doubts that design is the most extensive form of communication.

Furthermore, although design is a way to communicate with people, due to different backgrounds that a person came from, the message from a  design may be view differently by different individuals. 

http://www.completely-coastal.com/2010/08/lisa-givens-sea-shell-finery.html

For example, this decoration made from seashells, for me, is a very common home decoration because I grew up in a home that is fill with seashell decoration. However, for someone who came from a different surrounding, they may portray this decoration as an expensive decoration sold in malls.  

We are surrounded by many designs; for example, whether the no picture taking signs in museums or the no smoking sign in the restaurant. It is a simple design that can easily convey the correct message between the audience and the designer.

                        

by Nymagirl Photography love VI

http://Nymagirl.deviantart.com/art/Photography-love-VI-109772893?q=&qo=

Looking at the photograph above. A simple message is send to the audience by the photographer. A photograph that contains a camera and a strip of film made into a heart shape reveals that the photographer maybe  trying to show his or her love for photography. 

First encounter with design

( http://www.preciousaccents.com/010005-p-swarovski-figurines&show=500.html)  

(http://www.crystal-fox.com/index.cfm/2008_swarovski_introductions.htm)

When I reflect upon my first encounter with design, the first image that comes to my head is my mom's Swarvoski animal figure collection. I have always remembered the day that I discovered this fascinating set of jewelries in my mother’s shelf and became attracted to the design and the details of the collection. The collection was made by faceted clear crystal and sculpted into different kinds of animals such as bear, swan, tiger, and elephant. When these figures are placed under a white display light, sparkles with various color emanated from the figures is absolutely breath taking. Out of all the figures, a small swan about the size of 6 inches in height and 3 inches in length seems the most elegant. The stunning details presented in the curvature of the swan’s neck and on its body make it extremely vivid. Moreover, not only did the details grab my sight, but also the pose of the swan, which reveals a sense of grace and nobility.  When lights are blasted directly at the crystal swan, the gradual alteration in the swan’s color intensity as I modify my viewing angle captured all of my attention with every stare. Because of this collection, especially the crystal swan, I have developed an interest in design, and my first picture drawn was actually of the crystal swan. Although I have uncovered many other crystal sculptures that are more delicate and defined, the crystal swan still serves as an essential design to me. It not only is the first inspirational design to me but also a design that guided me with its glistening lights when I feel lost.