Holiday Sparkle Time!

It’s easy to talk about this time of year being awesome.  Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, winter solstice, or Festivus, there’s something for everyone to like.  Big, rich food.  Chilly weather (that you’re not totally sick of yet), and a warm house.  Sparkly lights.  Parties.  Thick sweaters.  Music that reminds you of childhood.  Don’t act like you don’t sing along to Rudolph full-voice in the car.

It’s also the only time of the year where you can feel like a child when you walk into a well-decorated room.  It’s fun!  You can go waaaaay overboard on the decorations, cookies, and snowman sweaters, and everyone loves it.  The word for this time of year is “wonder”, I think.  Child-like faith and wonder is paramount, and sometimes, it’s nice to stop feeling like such a grownup.

Spots & Stripes & Scales, Oh My!

We do love our animal prints.  Leopard, tiger, cheetah, giraffe, peacock, cow, snakeskin, alligator, zebra, it doesn’t matter.  I’ve always wondered why some patterns make it into textiles and others don’t.  At first, when people wore animal skins, it made sense.  A person would wear leopard fur, so leopard print cotton was a natural extension of that.  But I sincerely doubt anyone wore peacock feathers woven into fabric, so that’s a bit more random.

Other animal texture/patterns I would love to see in textiles:

Feather striations

Butterfly wing

Sharkskin

Turtle shell

Calico

…Suggestions?

Simplicity

I missed you guys, out here on the webspace.  What have I been thinking about the last couple of months, you ask?  Simplicity.  In graphics I’ve been doing all that is humanly possible to simplify the visual.  Design is all about messaging, and the more basic the message, the clearer it is.  Because really, who wants to suffer through visual bullshit?

I was thinking of writing more, but I think stopping here kind of makes my point.

Glee-ful Design

I don't know if you've heard of a little show called "Glee".  It's a couple years old now, and follows the misadventures of a ragtag high school show choir and their personal and group triumphs and defeats.  Watching only an episode or two, it may come across as very "High School Musical", but if you watch a few, you see that they have tackled, very sensitively and very intelligently, controversial topics affecting young people.  Wow I sound freakin' old.  "Young people", who says that?!

"How does this apply to design?" you may ask.  Well it doesn't, really, not exactly.  I think it is reflective of a deeper orientation (no, not THAT kind!) in our broader culture right now, which tells us how design should respond.

Entertainment says a lot about a person.  When you have nothing to get out of an activity but joy, it displays what makes you happy.  With the popularity of “Glee” with young and old alike, what we’re learning is that what makes the public happy is… happiness.  While the underlying themes can be very serious, the show is overall a simply joyful excursion into high school, music, and silly humor.  With the dark economy, world turmoil, and so much uncertainty, who doesn’t want to escape to a playful, tongue-in-cheek TV show?

That is America asking for a pick-me-up.  Designers need to respond.  With the limited creative production happening right now, it’s more important than ever that we express a little bit of whimsy and thrill in every design we create.  We can bring people the happiness that they so desperately need.  Isn’t that why we became designers in the first place?

Like A Sore Thumb

And now, time for your favorite design princple and mine: contrast!

 (image courtesy of homemanifest.com)

Contrast makes so many points for us.  When putting opposite things next to each other, each heightens the qualities it doesn’t share with the other.  Each strengthens in intensity.  Basically, they highlight what’s amazing in one another.

Seattle is a great example of this.  We live through 10 months of grey skies, chilly temperatures, and rain, culminating in 2 AWESOME months of sunshine and warmth.  I grew up in a sunny region, lived in California after graduating college, and always hated sun.  It was non-weather, and the same thing every day.  Then I moved to Seattle.  When you never get sun, there is nothing more spectacular.

No one appreciates sun when they get it all the time, but the population of Seattle seems to triple on nice days.  Everyone is out.  The experience of sun is fresh, new, unusual, and aggressively enjoyed by all. 

Designers know how to employ this same concept to their work.  Contrast is one of the primary concepts in color theory, spatial progression, surface textures, light use, and volume balance.  In fact, design elements and principles do nothing more than guide designers to create spaces and objects that replicate natural phenomena. 

We so often turn to nature to inspire design, but once in a while, you learn to see the design in nature.

Nose Ninjas!

Spring brings smells.  Every day now when I walk out the front door of my office to go on my lunch run (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), I get a shot to the nose of some fantastic floral scent.  I don’t know where it’s coming from, there are no flowers or flowering trees at the entrance, and that’s what’s so fantastic about it.  Spring is full of happy scent ghosts standing in invisible pockets of surprise excellence, waiting to be stumbled upon.

 (image courtesy of www.maileable.com)

It makes you wonder why more people don’t use scent to enhance experiences.  You’ve probably heard the example of movie theatres that pump the smell of popcorn in through the air vents to make you want to buy popcorn.  But think also of Starbucks.  You wouldn’t be there unless you already wanted coffee, so how great is the experience of walking in and getting that first hit of coffee smell?  How fantastic is walking out your front door on a December night and getting that cold snow/wood fireplace scent?

Smell is a crucial part of any experience whether or not we notice it.  Makes you wonder why more designers don’t use it.  Obviously, we don’t want churches to be so bathed in incense that we can’t breathe, but a light scent wafting through the air could be a fantastic joy ninja, coming from nowhere to heighten any experience, only to disappear in a flash.

Anyone want to go huff some trees with me?

--Becky

Useless Hipsters Unite!

Why won’t hipsterism ever go away? Consider that technology (facilitated by capitalism’s emphasis on efficiency; i.e., consider the assembly line a technology as well as the internet) is stripping people of what has been traditionally defined as “useful” or “legitimate” or “meaningful” work, and thus stripping meaning from their lives. “Nothing productive left to do since the robots came; better make my consumption more flamboyant and self-announcing!” 

 --(courtesy of http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/137272-/ )

Ahhh, the modern urban hipster.  Everyone loves to mock them (including them… self-awareness is crucial to a hipster’s repertoire), but it sounds like, for those of us who are not destined to invent the next printing press, we’re screwed for finding meaningful pursuits.  This author goes on to explain that the resulting path is “designy-ness, creative-class hucksterism, culture industry” as a means of insisting upon one’s own importance and value.  While it would be easy to be offended by that, I actually agree.

The creative types in the world seem to be finding new, more innovative ways to express… what, exactly?  That they’re new and innovative!  That they’re a force of creation and ideas!  Don’t think I miss the irony, here.  I know full well that this blog is a perfect example.

Perhaps that’s why this article struck a chord with me.  Design and creative expression seem to be the only way to feel relevant in our mega-tech, soft-skill culture.  When you design a building, clothing, a website, there is something permanent in the world that is a monument to its creator.

Egotistical?  Totally.  Real?  Also yes.  Important?  Nothing moreso.

--Becky!

Design limited.

I don't like rules. I am a self-proclaimed free spirit who would prefer to live spontaneously, particularly when it comes to design. I love to be creative in a way that stems from my passion and love for art and design. However, I have learned to embrace the fact that rules and limits in design are imperative in the creative process. Some common limits off the top of my head are: budget, codes, time line, client preferences (dear God, no!), and product availability. I have finally learned that design without limits, although it sounds UH-mazing, is chaos and more often than not a more creative design is birthed out of the harsh limitations of reality.
I have a great example. Check out The UN Journal (http://uniformnatural.com/journal/?p=771). This link will take you to the post titled "Limits" in which an architect professor outlines this very concept. She creates a simple illustration by discussing an art project she assigned her 4 year old son. He was given a large canvas on which to paint, this way the child was challenged in scale and was forced to take more time with the assignment, and a limited color palette of gray, black, yellow and red. The limits on the color palette enables the child to think more about composition and the relationship between these colors rather than just using every color in the rainbow per usual. (You will have to check out the link to see the end result. That's right, I am FORCING you to check out this blog). We designers just have SO MANY great ideas, that they can consume us. A little limitation and maybe some rules can get us focused on the true design problem and usually create a more satisfactory result. Embrace rules.

Oh and, HAPPY MONDAY people!
-Anna

Just a little reminder.

C'mon millennials, let's be sure we sound intelligent, particularly when our opinions are out there for the WHOLE WORLD to see. Google if you have to, and throw in some dictionary.com while you're at it. (print from i love typography. found thanks to design is mine)

Your Money's No Good Here

“Anything that benefits only one individual is almost useless; the society of the future will admire what is useful to everybody.”—Henry van de Velde: Sauberung der Kunst, 1894 lecture in Brussels from: Kunstgewerbliche Laienpredigten, Leipzig, 1902.

Henry van de Velde was a visionary of the Art Nouveau design movement, but I ain’t here to talk about history.  It is incredible that in design, we manage to have the same argument for centuries and never come any closer to real answers.  Do we design the best we know how to do, or do we create what a (paying) client dictates to us?

Van de Velde’s famous desk.  Thanks for the image, russegold.tripod.com!

I’m sure many reading this would say “Hey now, there’s no need to draw lines in the sand.  Compromise!” which is the best that any designer can really do.  To remain realistic, but still maintain some manner of professional integrity, this is always drawn into balance.  I’m not disputing that this is the most practical way to go about it.

I AM saying, however, that tailoring design to a client’s whims is designing for one.  If that one person is literally the only person who will use the library/chair/can opener/bicycle, then fine.  But if there is even a chance that this object will be used or viewed by another human being, it is the designer’s job to assert his or her design expertise on behalf of that second person.

This is a very un-American idea.  In this country, we are Individuals.  Each one of us is just as worthy and valuable as a small country.  If I pay an architect to produce my house EXACTLY as I draw it, then that’s my right.  I am accountable to no one: not my neighbors, the architect, the next person who owns it, or Good Design.  It’s my house, damn it! 

Our friend van de Velde was European (the socialists!), so of course he has a group mentality!  There was no hiding from the public.  However, he was also a damn good designer, and I’m sure was often told to follow convention.  The genius of his work must have been a constant uphill struggle to express.  His “Must be good for the group, not just the one” would have opposed every design he presented until Art Nouveau was a commonly accepted style.  It would have taken a bold designer to believe in both things at once.

You know what?  I dig it, though.  Creators of anything, be it web pages, buildings, or coat buttons (hey, someone designs those), owe it to Everyone to make it worth using and experiencing.  If not, we’re basically just using a ton of resources to make garbage.  Garbage doesn’t need the help; we’ve already got plenty.  But do not let the voice of the common reign in bold ideas.  Bold ideas keep design interesting, even if it meets resistance at first.  You and I owe it to Everyone to give the best our universe has to offer.

Design responsibly, gang!

--Becky the Socialist Designer

Urban Planning According to Arcade Fire

If you’re an interior designer, architect, urban planner, or hippie environmentalist, you have heard endless discussion about suburban sprawl.  This will not be a new or surprising topic for you, but you WILL be expected to gravely nod your head while I talk about it (that way everyone who sees you will know you’re already clued in).  It occurred to me that other people might notice the patterns of negativity in suburbia when I heard the song “Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains” by the Canadian band Arcade Fire (and if you haven’t heard them, stop wasting your life and give them a listen right now.  You’re welcome.).  Part of the chorus goes:

Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
They're calling at me, "come and find your kind."

Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl,
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains,

And there’s no end in sight.

Now, let me be clear about a few things:

1. All teenagers hate growing up in suburbs, and resent their parents for being so lame that they chose to live there.  This does not a legit argument against suburbs make.
2. Many wonderful articles have already been written on suburbia and the vacuity of culture that results from a place not defined by its physical location.  I wish I could just compile a list of these great articles and force you to read them, but alas, you probably have a life.
3. I would never contend that no good can come of the suburb.  It simply annoys me that the positives are assumed absolute truths and not just considered design failings of urban areas.  Frankly, everything that a suburb offers, such as green space, safe play areas for children, and convenient transportation, SHOULD be available in a well-designed city.  Buy why spend the money on an efficient, well-designed urban center everyone can enjoy when you can lazily plop down box buildings wherever in a suburb?

(image from www.city-data.com)

What I would really like to point out is the visual that these song lyrics invoke: an endless landscape of dying buildings, a void of life, beige monuments representing nothing.  It always makes you sad to see an underused strip mall or empty box store, but those are actually quite creepy structures, like an empty shell of a dead crustacean.  What’s more is that these lonely outposts of commerce are always surrounded by what seems like dozens of square miles of unused parking lot, which only adds to the visual blankness.

I suppose my goal here is to give Arcade Fire props for seeing this and giving me a metaphor I can use in later discussions around suburbia.  The mountain ranges of design-less architecture that exist in the world do everyone a disservice, even while promising convenience. 

We deserve better buildings, a better daily experience of our world, and have settled for mass-produced cinderblock and asphalt.  Shame on developers for pushing it, and shame on us for accepting it.

--Becky

The Switzerland Scheme

When people talk about color, the discussion always seems to circle around the rainbow: reds, blues, yellows… I blame our familiarity with Lucky Charms. I’ve recently become completely obsessed with neutrals, however, all starting with the purchase of a nail polish.

I honestly wouldn’t have looked twice at it if it hadn’t been for the name of the color: French Lingerie. I picked it up, looked at it,  thought, “Hey that’s nice”, and put it down. But seriously crew, I thought about it for days. I eventually went back on my lunch and bought it. Upon buying it, I immediately put it on and stared at my fingers for days. It’s a hypnotic flesh, beige-y hue, with tones of pink, yellow, gray, purple.

This got me thinking about neutrals. In any color composition, be it interiors, graphics, art, whatever, neutrals are our powerhouse. They quietly ground the scheme, standing, stoically pointing to the colors we’re supposed to be looking at. They slip and slide out of view, always redirecting your attention elsewhere, shifting the undertones you see when you finally manage to pin one down long enough.

And that is the magic of neutrals: subtlety, levels, trickery. Seriously, look for neutrals today. I bet it’s almost everything you look at on a daily basis, but never notice the color. Most everything you see is brown, beige, white, gray, but we never notice it. I for now say screw color, at least until another nail polish catches my eye.

--Becky!

Typophilia

Leave it to Becky and Anna to analyze the aesthetics of fonts. Are you surprised? Well, get used to it. It's what we do. 

 
I can't help but notice we are not alone in our affections. Text is everywhere. We are becoming less and less vocal and more visual with our interactions. Way to go Generation Y. 

Who am I kidding?! I love me some visual communication. I see typography as an opportunity to not only improve a composition aesthetically, but also represent the context and/or the writer in a more definitive way. I am all about engaging the reader/viewer by appealing to their unique personal identity (kinda fundamental to design if you ask me). And typography can (and should) be a MAJOR factor in this endeavor.

Fig. 1.1 I am normally a fan of the sans-serif, but this tote may very well change my mind. (image from littlefactory.com)

Fig. 1.2 A simple flowchart to help you make the right decision. In all you type, please refer to Fig. 1.2. (image from buzzfeed.com)

Fig. 1.3. Had to. (image also from buzzfeed.com)

-Anna

Type what you mean

Fonts: I don’t think there’s a lamer, more generic thing I would want to talk about. But I really do. If one super interesting thing has happened in the last 10 years, it’s the mobilization of technology (forget international terrorism, the first biracial president, or economic meltdown).

Before laptops and internet-capable phones, computer technological advancements stayed exactly where we left them: at home. The internet was an incredible advancement in the 90s, but we all had dial-up. Our huge desktop computers with their fancy schmancy internet stayed plugged into the wall of the office, and we went about our days in peace. Now, the instant access to internet and everyone we know via Facebook on our iPhones… there’s no escaping it.

That makes a hugungous proportion of our communication, and therefore our lives, existing in typed writing. 90% (total guess) of my daily social interaction is on Facebook, email, or text message. That brings us to the importance of the visual representation of that communication. Whether we’re talking to someone face-to-face or in writing, the way the visuals comprise the message is half the message itself.

Which brings me to my primary assertion: fonts require far more consideration today than ever before. San serif or serif, bold or italicized, simple or ornate, fonts speak just as much to our ideas as a jumble of silly words.

So next time you’re writing your “OMG I was soooo drunk” email, choose your font carefully. Let the letters talk as much as the words… you may be amazed at the layers of meaning you’ll achieve. Or how much you’ll embarrass yourself when you accidentally send it to your grandma.

--Becky

The Matching Game, Picasso Edition.

What kind of immature, unprofessional know it all goes into the Picasso exhibit at an acclaimed art museum and turns it into a childhood game? Becky and Anna, duh.

(we welcome any other matches if you want to play too)

I’d have to say that Picasso surprised me a bit. It seems he had a few tricks up his sleeve, little revelations for us to find after he left us. One of these nuggets for me was his love and appreciation for the works of his colleagues. Now, I have studied art through college (minor in fine art/art history) and for the most part it seems that artists think their shat don’t stink. Ya know? Like their work is the best type of art there is and will EVER BE. But it seems like Picasso, based on his personal collection of work, admired other artists to the extent that he would occasionally channel them, both in application and in context. Take another look at the matching game. Picasso emulates Van Gogh, Renoir, and even Duchamp?! I was floored. I still am.

Now, maybe we can learn a lesson from Picasso and admire one another from time to time, shall we?

-Anna

Images from: Jacqueline with Crossed Hands (Picasso), June 3, 1954, Oil on canvas, seattlepi.com, hollywoodteenmovies.com, Reading (Picasso), January 2, 1932 Oil on canvas citysbest.com, firstladies.org, Village Danse (Picasso), 1922 seattlepi.com, interagir.com, connect.in.com, Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 (Duchamp), beatmuseum.org, abcgallery.com, The Night Café (Van Gogh), artchive.com, Still Life on a Pedestal Table, March 11, 1931 Oil on canvas hiptravelmamacom, spongebobworld.com, La Celestina (Picasso), March 1904 Oil on canvas, seattlepi.com, contactmusic.com.