This week, we watched NPR TED Radio Hour’s episode on The Power of Design. Before listening to the talk, I was excited to listen to it as I felt it may give me some design tips and a deeper understanding of design. But after listening to the talk, I found myself falling asleep and bored as I found many of their analogies and ways of describing to be very confusing. However, there were points I found interesting.
One point I found interesting was when they were discussing the effect that digital media has on the relationship between humans and architecture. In the talk, he explained how posting a selfie with a building versus reading about a building's architecture in a book produced different feelings and carried different weights. I feel this concept is also applicable in design especially if we focus on the perspective we are looking at the design from. A law firm looking to produce a website would definitely want to exude a different feeling and weight than a dance club trying to produce a website. Each place would look for different elements and would interpret different colors and stylistic elements differently. Elements on each of their pages would need to convey a different weight and undertone, therefore leading them to look towards different design elements.
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This week we watched Abstract Art of Design’s episode on Cas Holman’s Design for Play. This episode primarily focuses on toy design and the life of Cas Holman. Before watching this episode, I thought I would not really be interested in the episode. But, after hearing Holman’s story and design processes, it quickly turned into one of my favorite Abstract episodes.
My favorite part of the episode is Holman’s personality and the way she sees the world and approaches design. She has such an open way of looking at the world and I think that translates very well into her designs, especially the Rigimajig toy that she designed. In the episode, she talked about how she wanted toys to not have a definitive way of play, but rather allow creativity to engage in the learning process. When her idea was shot down, she didn’t give up on the idea, but began to get it into production herself. She also did this with Geemo, another toy she invented; her amazing drive and energy are something I am definitely personally striving for. Another part of the episode I really enjoyed was when Holman talked about how she wants her designs to speak to “the weirdos.” As someone who could be considered weird and to have a weird way of thinking and doing, that spoke to me. Wanting to talk to those people who also don’t fit into the traditional way of doing things and show them there is a place for them in this world means a lot to us weirdoes. This week we watched Abstract: The Art of Design's episode on Platon's photography. Prior to watching this episode, I did not think I would be very interested or connect to it in any way. But, after watching the episode I did find bits and pieces I found were very interesting.
One part I really enjoyed was when Platon compared former President Bill Clinton to the Acropolis building in Greece. He talked about the immense power they both hold and how he needed to capture that same essence in his photograph. Another part I found interesting and applicable to all artwork was when Platon explained the artwork his father used to do. His father, being an architect, drew these simple black and white images of buildings and their surrounding areas. The part that really spoke to me was when he talked about stripping the image down to its core and only drawing what needs to be there for the artwork to make sense. I feel like that is applicable in all areas of art, especially in design. With popular design following a more clean modern look, simple, yet impactful, designs have taken the world by storm. These designs can likely be formed by following Platon’s words. For this week’s podcast on the Secret Life of Color by Kassia St. Clair found on 99percentinvisible.org, I have conflicting feelings. While I do see how the associations she made with colors make sense, I also feel that they are unnecessary.
My personal opinion is that one does not need to know anything about the origin, technicalities, or associative traits of a color in order to appreciate and utilize it. I would bet that most artists, especially the ones not from the modern era, did not know color theory, color associations, or color history, yet they were able to shape what we know about art today. All an artist really needs to know about a color to use it is how it looks. I believe that as long as they are able to see the color, what they could do with it is limitless. One thing I did agree with is when the author compared color to tectonic plates ever shifting, always changing, and “constantly being redefined and argued over.” In history, different colors have always represented different things depending on the era we are looking at. There is no definitive definition of color as it holds a different meaning and emotion depending on the perspective each person looks at it from. I found “Building a Visual Language” very informative and easy to understand in terms of what a design language system is and how it is used. Having a design language system just makes sense, especially for bigger companies. As a company grows, they will want to maintain and update their designs while still having some semblance of their old design roots. “A unified design language should not just be a set of static rules and individual atoms, but an evolving ecosystem.” That’s where the design language system comes into play.
Under the “Laying a Foundation” part of the article, I found that the foundation of a design language system is similar to a brand design guideline. They both identify color, font, and spacing. Another similarity is that a design language system and brand design guideline is that they both are meant to be a “structure” for designers to build off of, but not too structured as to limit their creativity. The point of both of them is to create a “unified direction” that allows designers to “work individually.” As someone who is interested in brand design, I found it interesting to read about design language systems and how they are almost like a bigger, more complex version, of brand design guidelines. In this week’s episode of Abstract: The Art of Design about Ilse Crawford’s interior design, Crawford talks about the many projects she has worked on. I found that this week's episode heavily reminded me of Ralph Gilles’s automotive design episode as both of them made me realize the astounding level of detail found in every field of design.
This episode was not my favorite. When Ilse was explaining how many projects she did, I wish she would have explained more in detail about the steps involved in each process instead of just giving an overview. When talking about designing the Ikea restaurant, she talked about how design can be used to influence kids into itching healthier. I found her talking about this topic multiple times, but never actually explaining how this could be done. I found the episode repetitive, as if she was just reiterating the same things over and over. Instead of the episode taking the approach that it did, I wish it had been something more similar to Ian Spalter’s episode on digital product design. In that episode, Spalter explained every step of the design process for Instagram focusing on one project’s journey instead of giving an overview of many projects. This week's episode of Abstract: The Art Of Design about Ian Spalter's digital product design journey was probably my favorite episode we have watched in the series. The episode takes its viewers on an in depth journey in the design process of one of the most influential apps of our time.
One part that stood out to me was when Spalter was telling the story of how he and his team redesigned Instagram. He talked about how he had to go hole up in a room somewhere for three months coming up with hundreds of iterations for the new Instagram logo. I thought it was clever how they had everyone in the team draw the original Instagram logo from memory as a way for them to see what was important in the logo. I still remember when Instagram first changed logo designs. Like everyone else, I hated it. But, overtime, I grew to love its sleek simple educational look. I had always wondered why they chose to use a gradient as a background for the logo and felt it was a bit tacky, but after hearing about how it derived from the rainbow bit from the original Instagram logo, I had a moment of realization and felt it was actually very smart. In this episode of Abstract: The Art of Design, Ralph Gilles explains his process for automotive design in Chrysler. Prior to watching this episode, I had never even thought about automotive design in my life. After seeing this, I realize how many elements of designing a vehicle mimic design for other cases. Through watching all these Abstract: The Art of Design videos, I realized how basic design fundamentals can be applied to every walk of life as a designer.
My favorite part of the episode had to be this quote: "If you don't get the bones right, you're never going to have a good design, no matter how hard you try." This can be applied to everything in design and everything you learn in the world. Without a strong foundation, you can never truly succeed at something. Another part I liked was when Gilles was talking about how a dying company could be rebuilt and reborn through new design and engineering. I completely agree with this and his team clearly did too. They built an amazing electric car that resembled a sports car, but was not one. They worked on crunch time to design a new sleek vehicle for Chrysler that not only surpassed all current automotive designs, but represented the company in a new way. I really liked this episode of Abstract: The Art of Design focusing of Paula Scher and her work on typography and graphic design. This episode stuck with me because of how she showed that design is not an office job, but rather an on going process where inspiration can come from anywhere and strike you at any time. One particular quote that stuck out to me was "if you're not in a state of play, you can't design."
In the episode, Scher also touched upon her childhood and how she would go to art classes instead of football games growing up. I relate to this a lot. Growing up, I spent every weekend either creating art on my own or going to art classes trying to improve my skills. It never felt like work, but rather something I was just meant to do, much like how I imagine Scher felt. My favorite part of the episode was when Scher talked about missing the physical element of art when it came to design. She showed us these large paintings that she would do that combined the physical sense of art with the organizational aspect of digital art. I never realized it was possible to do that. Coming from a painting background, I always wondered if there was a way to do what I love-painting-while still maintaining that same process of thinking that digital art requires. I think she may have just given me the answer I had been looking for. After watching Abstract: The Art of Design: Jonathan Hoefler: Typeface Design, I realized how much effort actually goes into making typefaces. Prior to watching, I had never given typefaces much thought and never wondered where they originated from. I never knew designers like Hoefler had to go through so many iterations to create the perfect typeface.
One thing he mentioned that I found particularly interesting is when he said that making typefaces actually gets harder as you go on because it is hard to create something original each time. Not wanting to repeat himself or create a typeface too similar, Hoefler must work harder each time to create a unique typeface referring to this process as "like a puzzle." Another thing I learned from watching this episode is that you have to consider how the typeface will look on every application. A typeface originally designed for screens may not work for print and a typeface designed for print may have to be reworked to fit for screens. I always thought all typefaces would work for every media, but I neglected to consider the factors Hoefler mentioned in the episode. They’ll do things like change proportions of letter forms, take gestures that are prone to congestion at small sizes and open them up, change the spacing of a typeface, and so much more. |
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December 2020
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