Lite-Brite Analysis

When it comes to children’s toys design is extremely important.  Inventors cant just make any toy, they have to make one that is designed well and is fun and easy for kids to play with. If you’ve been alive anytime in the past 40 years, then surely you’ve played around with a Lite-Brite at least once or twice.  The Lite-brite board was a commonly used childhood toy to let kids imagination flow.  It was a toy that allowed the buyers to create their own designs as well as follow patterns from the manual.  The designs from the manual are asymmetrically balanced so that the human eye will see an equal visual weight. The designer who came up with the patterns made them that way so that the designs would stand out even more.    The way the litebrite board is composed is quite interesting. There is a black board with equidistance circular holes every quarter inch.  The holes are there for the placement of the colored pins. The pins can be placed in any hole, and can create any pattern or design your heart desires.  When the design is finished there is a light switch that you turn on and it causes all of the colored pins glow. The design turns itself into instant pop art.  The design you have created becomes the focal point of the board and the extra black space turns into the negative space of the image. The designer’s goal of this particular product was to find a way for every person to be able to express their designs through something as simple as a black board and colored pegs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQz04NjXlX0

OBJECTIFIED

           It’s interesting how the movie’s form is designed by its content.  It is quite ironic yet confusing.  Throughout the movie “Objectified” it shows many different designers all over the world and their perspectives on design.  When the designers are talking they are presenting to the viewers many common household items and giving the answers to many questions they might have.  Those questions might be:  what is it going to do? How much does it cost? How well is it going to perform? 

         

           The Designers all talk about what process they go through to make the products that they make.  They talk about what form it will be in, what materials it will be made out of, what will be the perfect design for that particular product and how will it be showcased.  In all reality that is exactly how this movie was designed. Designers had to come up with how they wanted to put this movie together. They needed to see what parts would go together, what would be the best environment to shoot the scenes in and how to use the equipment to make the movie.

         

           Design is ubiquitous, it is unavoidable because everything used in your daily life had to be designed by someone at one point.  In this movie people end up explaining design by using the principles of design. The film contains designers explaining how specific items are created and what work went into making each individual product. But at the same time, the form of the movie and the way it was filmed had to be designed by using the same process.  The director put a lot of thought into the design of the movie to represent the idea of design. Design is hard work, it does not just happen.  

Myspace VS. Facebook

            It seems like it was just yesterday when Myspace was the rave. Users could customize their own backgrounds, add music and videos and write on each others’ pages. Yet with the rapid growth of Facebook, there have been many controversies over the layouts and designs of the two social networks. Though they are both social networks there are many similarities and differences between the two sites.

           On Myspace every profile page follows a predefined structure, which makes it easy for users to get used to. MySpace allows the user to change both design and content on the profile page. The profile pages you can add videos, move graphics and add different fonts, text-sizes and colors to create your own page.  On the other hand Facebook uses a well-balanced design plan, with an obvious choice of color, the white and blue. The layout of Facebook profiles are well set up and neatly organized and it’s easy to navigate through the profiles to find the information you want.

         Both MySpace and Facebook let you upload videos and they both have their own flash player. MySpace will let you have a video on your profile but you can only post videos to Facebook. On MySpace the only way to know if a friend added something new to their profile is to go look at it, and the only way to know if you made a new friends is to look for the person. Facebook has two feeds. One tells you what’s new with you, such as who accepted your friend request or your posted items, etc. The other feed tells you what’s up with all your friends, like who they added and what groups they joined. They both have a place where people can leave messages on your profile and they both have a basic mail system.

            One of the major reasons for joining a social network is to reconnect with old friends or classmates. Facebook makes this really easy because the whole site is organized by schools and mutual friends.  MySpace lets you search for school friends, but doesn’t put the emphasis on real friendships. Facebook makes it really easy to hide info from certain people and to not show information that you want to be kept private. So, if you only want your close friends to see you contact info, it only takes a second. MySpace has privacy too but it is much more complicated. 

           Even though they are both commonly used social networks, on the outside they may seem like like they have lots of things in common, but when you dig deep into the layouts and the minor details they are quite diverse.

Analyzing Design as a Conversation

"Design is only ever one tool in the mix, but it brings something very special -- from an ability to help people articulate their problems to a focus on ingenious solutions.” These are the words of Hilary Cottam, founding director of Participle, which is a social design business launched originally in Peckham England in 2007 with a dotcom entrepreneur, an industrial designer, an innovator and Hilary who is a social scientist.  Over the past 3 years Participle has opened other offices throughout England.  The goal of the company is to bring designers from different disciplines together to identify and offer design solutions to problems faced by modern society.  The problem could be as simple as how to keep senior citizens involved and active in society without having to leave their own home to looming social and political issues of how to design effective water delivery systems in Africa.

What is surprising is that Participle isn't a traditional group of social workers, it is a design team. The company includes anthropologists, economists, entrepreneurs, psychologists, social scientists, and others driven by design techniques. Cottam who is 42 has used her design  strategies to solve problems like the ineffective health and school system in  England.  The company’s favorite kind of design has to do with making people's lives better, many times taking routine daily concerns and designing effective modern day solutions.  The senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Paola Antonelli, says. "Her projects not only work, they give people a sense of hope and strength." 

I think Cottam and Participle are a great example of Design in Society being used as conversation.  In fact, one of her methods is to have her clients “draw” their problem on paper.  It is a great way for a client to communicate their needs to a designer.  This “conversation” between designers and clients helps identify the design issue and sometimes even presents the solution by the time the problem is drawn or modeled.

               

Companies like Participle seem to be part of a new wave of designers who are trying to speak to the world and change it for the better.   They speak to their society and the people in it through the projects they design.  These companies believe that many of the institutions and systems set up in this century are failing and that design can help to identify the failed systems and to build new ones better suited to the demands of this century. Failed systems include the increasing amount of people who live at the poverty level and looming environmental and ecological catastrophes.  Solutions include self-help systems for poor people to sustainable materials used to construct buildings, make clothing, fuel cars and much more.  The important concept is that design is not the only tool needed to solve social issues but it can be very effective particularly when designers from different disciplines come together to attack a problem.

     http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/130/mission-critical.html

                                             http://www.participle.net

Fashions Come and Go

Clothing styles and popular apparel fashions are constantly in flux, and the fashion world is continuously inundated with runway innovations and fly-by-night fads. Over the last century, fashion in the Western world in particular has experienced continual upheavals and major changes. From 1900 to 2000, popular fads have included such fashion statements as rear-enhancing bustles, short flapper dresses, wide-leg bell bottoms, and deliberately ripped jeans. Even though there are a lot of changes in fashion, that’s what gives the decades diversity.

Though the ages have changed and the people have moved on, some styles have come back and that’s what reminds us of the times past.  The fashion runways are usually where the world gets re-introduced to an old fad.  If an old style has been brought into a new decade it is updated and re-polished. But when fashion moves from one decade to the next, it rarely stays the same.  Most people have a really hard time adjusting to new styles that are put out because they are so used to the “old” ones.  When the style gets an opportunity to be re-introduced to a new era it usually skips a few decades before it gets the chance.  Such as the rocker grunge look from the 80’s or the high-waisted skirts and dresses from the 40’s.  When a fashion is re-introduced it needs some time to get completely washed out of style. If you bring a fashion back in a decade where it is not accepted yet… it will completely contrast with the time.

                                            Watch video on You Tube

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrmbwThy3Iw&feature=related

Design through Conversation

               "Design is only ever one tool in the mix, but it brings something very special -- from an ability to help people articulate their problems to a focus on ingenious solutions.” These are the words of Hilary Cottam, founding director of Participle, the self-described "social business" launched originally in Peckham England in 2007 with a dotcom entrepreneur, an industrial designer and an innovator. Over the past 3 years Participle has opened other offices rapidly throughout England.
             What is surprising is that Participle isn't a conventional bunch of social workers or do-gooders, it is a design team. The company includes anthropologists, economists, entrepreneurs, psychologists, social scientists, and a military-logistics expert, but it is driven by design techniques and headed by Cottam, 42, who has used her design strategies to tackle the shortcomings of Britain's school and health systems. The company’s favorite kind of design has to do with making people's lives better, often taking account of routine daily concerns. Senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Paola Antonelli, says. "Her projects not only work, they give people a sense of hope and strength."
             I think Cottam and Participle are a great example of Design in Society being used as conversation. They seem to be part of a new wave of designers who are trying to speak to the world and change it for the better. We might call them design evangelists. They speak to their society and the people in it through many different facets of design. They believe that many of the institutions and systems set up in this century are failing and that design can help us to build new ones better suited to the demands of this century. Other design innovators speak with their society through design innovations that help poor people to help themselves. Still others see design as a tool to stave off environmental or ecological catastrophe.
                            http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/130/mission-critical.html

Neo-Crocker 2010

           Today I went to lunch with my cousins that live in Sacramento. We went to a local sandwich shop only looking for a good lunch and nothing else.  On my way out I saw something that stood out of the corner of my eye; it was a brochure.  At first I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be for, but after a little bit of reading I realized it was for an art event.  It’s called the Neo-Crocker modern culture party, it is held every year at the Crocker Art Museum in Down Town Sacramento.   On a normal day at the museum you would see art works by Albert Bierstadt, Xavier Martinez, William Keith, and Thomas Hill.  But on the night of the Event the atmosphere of the entire museum changes. It transforms from an elegant place of art to a young modern party scene.  This party is unlike any other art event that is put on.  They set up the entire museum with djs, strobe lights, bars and you can even paint all over the walls! It is a very unusual event but yet sounds like such a blast.  Without that advertisement that caught my eye I probably wouldn’t have ever known that this event existed.  This proves the point of design and that it truly does matter.  If the museum had made these flyers out of regular white paper with black ink I would never have picked it up.  They made it so eye-catching that I couldn’t resist.

http://www.neocrocker.com/

Junk into Art

Creativity from without.  What is it…?  It is thinking outside of the box and being able to come up with something fantastic in your imagination.  While searching online about someone to blog about, I stumbled upon an artist.  His name is Joe Pogan he is a sculptor.  He has a very interesting way of creating art.

He likes to collect pieces of scrap metal and make masterpieces out of them.  Pogan’s pieces are so intriguing and eye catching.  They are something that you would never see anywhere else. The whole sculpture is like an I spy game, there are so many items that are put into making one piece that it makes the whole sculpture so interesting.  Pogan definitely uses his imagination to the fullest when it comes to his works.  He specializes in creating animals out of scrap metal. By the time he is done its no longer considered scrap metal, it is truly art. 

 “I create animal sculptures using various "found metal" objects like old watches, sprockets, nuts and bolts. The stranger the piece of metal the better, since the end goal is an eye-catching, fascinating amalgamation of metal with odd nooks and crannies you can explore for hours.” He has much passion in what he does as an artist and loves every second of it.  He makes theses sculptures for the pleasure of others in hoping they will find the same enjoyment out of them that he does.

Here is Pogans Website that shows many more amazing sculptures like the one shown below. http://www.joepogan.com/home.html

Stone Soup

The story of stone soup is an old children’s story.  I remember this story was read to me as a child, and it has now been re-introduced to me on a whole new level.  The point of stone soup is for everyone to contribute to make something marvelous out of all ingredients instead of keeping their own items.  In my design class a few days ago we had a project titled “Stone Soup”.  We were split up into groups and we all had to bring something creative and design related. When we had all of the contributions we were then supposed to make a masterpiece. 

Everyone in my group had so many great ideas that we couldn’t come up with what to create. We ended up making one large sculpture of random shapes of cardboard that included everyone’s designs on it.  It was a great way to go about the project.  It is a lot harder to come up with one central idea than it seems.  I feel that this project was a great learning experience for many people in the class.  It showed us how to work and communicate between one other, not just as students but also as designers.

When ingredients, tools or ideas are contributed and shared with the group it will make the end product so much more creative and in depth than what it would be alone.  I believe the point of this assignment was not just to re-teach us about the story of “Stone Soup” but also to prove to all of the students that communication as a designer is a huge part of this career path.

Meaning of a Jelly Bean

When you look at a bag of jelly beans ask yourself what you see. Most people see it as just a bag of candy that is there for you to enjoy. But a bag of jelly beans can be used as a step stool for deeper thinking.  If you look at a bag of jelly beans and think about what I just said, you will see what I mean. 

Every year UC Davis has a book of the year. Something the school reflects on and this year it is “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting in the Cafeteria?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum.  The book talks about the issues of racism and racial identity.  Tatum tries to make people realize that even though people may look different and have different ethnicities we are all still the same on the inside. College is a great example of her book it is one big melting pot full of diverse kinds of people.  That’s where the similarities of jelly beans comes in.  If you look at a bag of jelly beans do you notice how not one jelly bean is exactly identical to another. They all have different designs they are unique in their own way. A jelly bean might be red, purple, green, yellow or orange but yet they all have a slightly different shape and yet they all taste different.  The beauty of the candy is the diversity of the design and being able to look past the shallow outside.

What is Design?

          What is the greatest controversy in the world of design?  It is very  likely that it is the definition of design itself. What is Design? Is it a noun or is it a verb?  The true answer is… that there isn’t an answer.  It is a ubiquitous controversial topic for a reason.  I believe it is left up to one’s personal opinion.

          Design, as a verb, could be the act of actually creating the design, imagining it or building it.  As a noun, it is seen as the physical product.  If you think the word design should be used as a noun, you’re correct.  If you think it should be used as a verb, you are also correct; but if you were to use both a noun and a verb to describe design is perfectly acceptable as well. 

        Since this controversy has no right or wrong answer everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Even though I have just stated that design can be perceived in many different ways, personally, I believe that design shouldn’t be split up.  Separating the word takes away from the full meaning of the word.  Design is about looking at and thinking about the big picture.  When you put the two sides together you create the whole, the final product.   

Design from a Childs Point of View

Thinking of my first encounter with design was an easy thing for me to come up with. Since I was two years old I loved dolls, but in particularly Barbie’s.  That is what sparked my first experience with design. 

Playing with Barbie’s and dressing them up was not just a hobby, for me it was part of my everyday life.  Everything about Barbie’s had always interested me. I was fascinated by the way they looked, being able to change their clothes and being able to take them places.  Having all of the accessories that go with Barbie’s was a huge plus.  To me Barbie’s were not just toys.  When playing with Barbie’s they always had to be perfectly matching. Their bags had to match their shoes and their outfit had to have nice fabrics and colors.  The Barbie lifestyle did not stay contained in Barbie land for long.  Shortly after I discovered my love for the Barbie life, I decided to live it.  Almost every day I would dress up and pretend I was one. I would hold fashion shows with my friends at my house, and I had to make sure that everyone matched and had the best designs. .  Doing all of those things in my childhood created great memories for me as an adult.

Design has always been a part of me and I am still intrigued by it.  From a young age it was apparent that I knew what I wanted to be when I was older.  I wanted to be a designer, and that is still true to this day. I still own most of my Barbie items and dress up clothes from my childhood, I have held on to them because they hold great memories.  But some I have passed down to younger family members to hope that they will find the same joy in them that I once had.