Design as Conversation

            I have always thought the coffee table book was a good idea.  The book was designed to be placed on the table, and spark a conversation when company comes over.  However, in today’s times the coffee table book has evolved into a video of a subject that we probably would have never seen otherwise.  I have discovered such a video, and it brings up the question, “What sparked the inspiration for this refreshingly new take on art and design?”  The video captures an “underwater society” if you will.  The artist Jason deCaires Taylor created life size, life-like sculptures and added a twist.  He placed them all on the sea floor, and titled his creation, “The Silent Evolution.”  This artist is expanding the design world to include the marine aspect of Earth.  It is quite easy to guess Taylor’s motivations of creating sculptures of local villagers, but why placed them on the ocean floor?  I believe the artist wanted to take something so familiar, humans and place them in an environment that is largely unfamiliar.  In doing this, it creates a sense of faith and hope to the people that there is more out there than you already know.  Also, to look at the peacefulness of these sculptures among the marine life is also a vision few have seen.  We have only seen humans adorned with scuba equipment swim amongst the fishes.  This piece is different, it looks like these people, and these sculptures belong.  I feel like Taylor wanted to create a feeling of belonging.  Taking something out of its environment, putting it into another and belonging just the same.  When design is innovative it is delightful.  Design is where an artist creates a piece you have never seen before, but you completely agree with it and feel it.  I agree and feel Jason deCaires Taylor’s piece, “The Silent Evolution.”  Inspiration breeds creativity, and creativity fuels life.

Check it out: http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/21169/artist+brings+undersea+world+to+life+with+surreal+reef+project/

Intensify Me Now

            I am a sucker for epic movies.  I completely fall for them like a teenage crush.  I enjoy a well-produced cinematic adventure.  I enjoy when the musical score matches the intensity of a scene, or the despair of a character.  I especially like historically epic movies, such as war or the ancient times.  I wonder how much effort is put into creating an epic movie as opposed to a regular action movie that doesn’t build up suspense as much.  It makes the movie-viewing experience that much better when you know the filmmakers were visionaries.  One day, I want to create the most epic movie ever made.  I want my audience to connect with my characters like they connect to their family members.  I want them to feel the same pain as the characters, and be moved when they flourish.  I am going to be very particular about my musical score.  This is because I feel music is a very strong aid to a movie of epic proportions.  The sounds and beats heard in an intense movie are on a different level than those of generic action movies.  Also, most importantly are the plot and the cast.  These two things are essential; I can’t have one without the other.  My cast has to believe in the plot and be able to submerse themselves within its borders.  I want it this way because that’s how I would act in an epic film.  The special effects and digital editing will also be important because I want to create everything fantasy and reality as if you’re seeing it person around the corner from your house.  I love epic movies, and I would love to create and/or act in one.

Comparison and Contrast: Chairs

            When is a chair not a chair?  When I’m standing on it to reach that can of pasta sauce?  When I throw at my friend because it’s just been one of those nights?  What about when my chair has feet?   Or when my chair looks more like a military vehicle than a place to put my bum?  If you want to argue and I’m game then my stance is this: a chair is never a chair, a chair is DESIGN.  I dare you to Google chair and find a standard basic chair.  No dice? That’s what I thought; each and every chair has some sort of design.  However, I want to compare and contrast a “basic” chair to a chair that has obviously been designed above and beyond.  A basic chair has four legs, a back, and the seat.  A designed chair may have any number of legs, partial to a full back or a curved back, and any variation of seats possible.  It all comes down to functionality.  If the chair feels good, and you’re not sitting on the floor then you’re probably happy.  Some are not happy with just this however; some people want to sit in style.  There is always the thirst for a different variation of a basic product.  Think of lighting, there are millions of different ways to light your home.  My eyes lit up when I saw musician Pharell William’s take on chairs.  He designed a chair that I feel like he stole from my mind.  It was very creative but basic, which is what the consumer wants right now.  There isn’t a minute when you are looking at your chair when you’re sitting in it, so why waste time designing something.  People love to feel valued, if their chair is crafted greatly or made of fine materials, it propels their ego.  King Tut’s throne was made of gold, and I doubt he used it for anything other than sitting down.  It is all about how you make your customer feel, and that is why I love Design.

Cupcake This

I think people who create a product or brand that has a large consumer following is a very special entity.  It takes a lot of gusto, brains, and creativity to do this.  A man that goes by the same name created street wear brand, Johnny Cupcakes”.  He is an entrepreneur who created this whole brand from scratch.  He gives back to his community and his fans in unique ways.  He packages small random keepsakes in with your order.  He has pop up shops around the nation where you can get your hands on his product.  He boasts that everything he creates will never be created again.  Therefore, all his items are limited edition.  This promotes a slightly hysterical fan base, which is a good thing.  He makes shirts, jackets, hats, umbrellas, pins and many other things.  His logo is an ingenious play on the skull and crossbones motif.  He replaced the skull with what else, a cupcake.  He even sometimes gives out a cupcake with every purchase at his stores.  I am personally a fan of his accessories.  I like the key chains, and especially the pin designs.  He uses a lot of different ideas that impress his fans.  More and more street wear brands are on the rise, and Johnny Cupcakes is one of the innovators.  He is very popular on the West Coast and in New England.  I hope to have the business savvy and guts that people like he has.  I feel like he had a dream and went for it.  He did that and succeeded with flying colors.  He does it his way, no one else’s and I can raise my cupcake to that.

Creativity From Without

This is Banksy. No, really it is.  This is his self-portrait and yes he created a pixelated image of his face.  The media did not censor it.  Banksy is a guerilla street artist from England, or so it's perceived.  He specializes in what seems to be the impossible.  He creates propaganda and controversial artwork in the most public of places.  He once hung his own adaptation of the famous Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre museum in Paris, France.  It was not immediately discovered.  He works with stencils, which enable to work fast and avoid detection.  he has spray-painted his moniker on a rock inside an animal enclosure in the zoo on several occasions.  What he does is never expected nor unexpected, it all makes sense but it brings more questions than answers.  If the television show, "Lost" was a human being it would be the mysterious Banksy.  He's known for smiley-faces and twisting popular culture.  His art or vandalism, whatever your views are depicts a surreal sense of value.  Once you notice his piece, you immediately notice who created it.  He has a great sense of humor that seems to be at lost at times in the world today.  I personally am in awe of his work, and I think it's a refreshing medium to use public property and give the world an alternate view.  Many claim his art is nothing but graffiti but Banksy disagrees.  he was once recorded as saying,” Graffiti doesn’t always spoil buildings, in fact it’s the only way to improve a lot of them. “In the space of a few hours with a couple of hundred cans of paint I’m hoping we can transform a dark forgotten filth pit into an oasis of beautiful art.”  I hope you all take at least a quick glance into the work of Banksy.

Stone Soup

Stone Soup is a story by Marcia Brown with a valuable moral: help one another and the final result will reap its rewards.  The collaborative process is a necessary one because not one human being is the same.  We all bring something new to the process.  For this activity, my group mates and I all brought unwanted materials for the purpose of creating a design.  The first moments were rough as we didn’t know where we wanted to go with this, and what we wanted to construct.  As we gathered our materials and looked upon our site of proposed construction, we decided to use the tree as a mechanism in our design.  The lamp I brought was going to serve as the beginning of our piece, and it was going to emit a spiral around the tree.  We also created paper bouquets that spiraled around the base of the tree to further implement the idea of circular motion.  Glasses were used to represent the humanity of recycling and to bridge the gap between nature(the tree) to human consumerism (lamp, glasses, etc.).  We also thought of a creative way to bring a human presence with the materials we had gathered.  We had a medium sheet of aluminum foil and placed it over my face.  Once that was done, my classmate pressed down on all the imprints of my face.  We then attached it to the spiral around the tree.  My favorite part of our design was the lamp that began the whole design was plugged into the tree!!! We added yellow bottle cleaners and construction paper to emit “sparks” from the plug.  That small design was to show that recycling does help power our world.  My group as well as myself truly enjoyed Stone Soup and I suggest everyone give it a try with a few friends.  You’ll be surprised with what you collaborate on and create.

House Casa Hause Maison Bayit

Photo Courtesy of: http://abduzeedo.com/beautiful-houses-house-garden-texas

            A new house is synonymous with a new beginning.  It is a place where a lot is invested in, and it is valued more and more as the years go by.  I personally feel that a home is a place of comfort, and I feel so blessed to come back to comfort after a long day.  I have had dreams of the interior and exterior of houses.  I feel like it’s a certain craft to design a functional, yet aesthetically pleasing household.   I came across the house above, and I felt like it encapsulates today's design as well as a comfortable place to put your feet up.  It's rare to see a house and be hard-pressed to decide on what looks more beautiful: the outside or the inside.  Well my friends, this house in Dallas, Texas is one of them.  I implore you to click on the link below the picture above, and check out the ins and outs of this dream house.  I took notice to the landscape and how it frames the centerpiece, which is the house and pool.  I also like the living room; it reminds me of the old lumberjacks of the past, yet it's a modern room.  To me, the pool looks like an Apple iPad placed into the ground, which is really cool for fans of futuristic themes.  What draws me most to this place is that it looks like a piece of art, but it is also completely functional and inhabitable.  This is the definition of Design.

Photo Courtesy of: http://abduzeedo.com/beautiful-houses-house-garden-texas

Initial Impressions

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.strictlyfitteds.com/blog/2008/05/happy-anniversary-hall-of-fame/

                   Four years ago was when I really became engrossed in the concept of design.  I noticed it everywhere, from hotel bathrooms to billboards along the 405 and the 210 freeways’.  I love unique designs and new ways of thinking.  I appreciate people who go against the grain, and battle social conventions.  I was in heaven when I walked into the store, "Hall of Fame" on Fairfax boulevard in Los Angeles, California (above).  It was a very simplistic boutique that was sleek and hard at the same time.  The wood floor is always so shiny that it resembles marble, and the iron staircase and upper floor suggests modern architecture.  I love the back wall display, which displays an array of hats in a glass enclosure, and the granite check out block is a thing of beauty.  Every time I make a purchase, I feel like it’s a block of ice I put my money upon.  I like to shop as an experience; most times I enjoy the visual over the material I may have just purchased.  Another store's interior design that I am enamored with is "The Hundreds" store on Post Street in San Francisco, California (below).  I have never been inside but I have read about it, and seen many pictures and it looks great.  From the bombproof front door, to the reflecting water look, it is a really great interior.  I hope some day that I can put the images on my mind into real physical entities, ranging nightclubs to my family's backyard.  When I do, I want all of you to experience it, appetizers and cocktails on me.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.fivefourclothing.com/post/march-blog-2008/hundreds_sf

5 years old: My first meeting with Design

                                               Photo Courtesy of: http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0854/

          Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a popular cartoon show in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. This is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cereal bowl.  The bowl was constructed so that the actual turtle is the bowl!  How ingenious, that the designer didn’t just phone it in, and put a logo on the bowl or just paint a regular bowl green.  On one end of the bowl is one of the four ninja turtles: Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, or Donatello.  Along the edges of the bowl are the turtle’s hands and feet.  This further encapsulated youth during this time because what is one thing all children do beside brush their teeth and put on their pajamas?  Eat Cereal!!!!!!  So why not come up with a design that implement the most popular cartoon show for kids and their favorite pastime, eating cereal?  This bowl was not all aesthetic however, its shell (literally) was very durable, and it was also dishwasher safe.  The bowl could hold a fairly large amount of cereal for a child, and with every spoonful it engaged the child’s visual senses.  In most households, having your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bowl was more important than the cereal that was in it.  This cartoon was a merchandising machine, and this is just one of many examples of such.  However, it felt that the designers of the merchandise really cared about the fans of the turtles and not just of making a quick buck.  That is an important ideal of design; create for people and for the world, not for monetary reasons.  Money can’t write a letter and express gratitude for the design of a particular object, or go and support an art gallery or exhibit.  Invest in people and thus they will invest in you, and if that doesn’t work grab a bowl of your favorite cereal in one of these turtle bowls.  I promise you will feel better after that last slurp of milk.