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!