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Week 15 - Final Thoughts

After 15 weeks of talking about design, I got somehow a clear idea of what the future of design might look like. I believe that in the future, more and more designs will be related to technology in some way. Below are just some of my thoughts that I see happening in the future, and which are, to some extend, happening today already.

For example in the world of architecture, I think that more and more houses will become „smart houses“. It is hard to describe completely how that might look like, but when I think of it, I imagine a house which is completely accessible to everyone, and which would know individual desires of everyone living in it. The technology in the smart house would know your behavior and would be able to adapt to it. It would turn the lights on and off for you, prepare your breakfast and coffee, inform you about the recent news, park your car for you etc. Also, these houses will be completely resistant towards any natural disasters.

When it comes to architecture, I also see every workplace becoming a home in a sense. Because people spend most of their time during the day working, I can imagine an office being a little house with work area, kitchen area, nap area, and an area related to individual interests, just as we saw in one of our classes.

I also see the 3D printing becoming more widely available. For example in a store, everyone would become their own designer and could customize a product for their individual wants and needs. This would be highly effective for companies, because they would no longer have to worry about designing an item that would not be popular- a consumer could actually alter anything on his own and get it right away with an advanced 3D printing technology.

Week 14 - Your Choice

In today´s post, I am going to mention the one thing that raised different opinions in me than those that I previously had at the beginning of the semester. To be honest, I was surprised how much time in class we have spent discussing typography, and what a big part of our book discussed it as well. Before we started learning about it, I had no idea that typography was related to the design whatsoever. I never paid extra attention to it, except that I chose fonts that I liked for school presentations. My knowledge about this subject was so limited, that I thought that typography just somehow appeared, maybe was accidentally invented with the help of a computer software. Because of this, my first reaction was that I do not care about this subject and imagined it to be very boring.

However, learning about many different designers and how much time they had to spend when creating a single font that we use nowadays really expanded my knowledge about the subject. I started to realize that typography really is a part of design and most importantly, a part of our everyday life. Different fonts had different stories behind them, with sometimes small differences that distinguished them from other, similar fonts. What I liked the most when reading about typography was the process of developing a new font and the approach of the designers.

I think there is still a lot more into typography than what we got to cover in the class. It might not be the most interesting subject in the world, but I think that making it a part of the class is essential to make students realize what typography really is and how it is created, as I surprisingly met many students who shared the same ignorance as I did before, especially when it comes to the world of typography.

Week 13 - New Media

In the book for our course, the „digital aesthetic“ is defined in various examples take have taken place throughout the time, listed below.

Wired Magazine Found in 1993 in San Francisco, it embraced the belief in technological utopia. The magazine aimed to use a visual style that would signify the upcoming of technological age. Using scanned photographs, Adobe Illustrator, and QuarkXpress, the designers were able to create richly chaotic image in flourescent colors that caught the eyes of the viewer (Eskilson 391).

Typography A number of typefaces were released that also embraced the technological outburst. „For example, Electrance, a sans serif with unstressed letters, features horizontally proportioned forms and smooth regular curves. U and V are almost identical except for the addition of a squared corner on the latter“ (Eskilson 392). This way, the science and technology are presented as stylish, the opposite of chaos presented in the Wired Magazine. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 As already discussed in the previous post, the Web experience has changed ddramatically in the recent decades, transforming from a boring read-only to an interactive and entertaining experience for the user.

Advertising The interactivity of contemporary marketing campaigns shows the dramatic changes that have happened in the advertising industry (Eskilson 405). Beyond what was mentioned in the text, I have an experience that I came across just recently. I was playing a free game to kill the time, when an interactive add for the Jelly Belly popped up. I was instructed to choose a face form four subjects and then give the subject a jelly bean of my choice. Based on the subject´s reaction I saw whether he liked or disliked the jelly bean. I think that this form of advertisement that engages the user is far more successful than a plain video commercial, although I can only image how annoying it might get after some time. Bibliography: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012.

Week 12 - New Media

One of the things that connect us with the interactive design is the Web 2.0. This term describes the release of a new software, in this case a software that brings interactivity to the user’s experience. The wide availability of Adobe Flash as an interactive web platform truly revolutionized the field (Eskilson 397). As described in the book, “Flash is a web-authoring tool that has the advantage of storing graphics not as pixels, a technique that consumes memory while putting limits on the kind of screen that can view the result, but through the vector process. The latter technology works by creating a mathematical description of an image- rather than the image itself- that can adapt itself to the specifications of just about any individual desktop computer” (Eskilson 397).

It is obvious what a huge difference Flash has brought to the usage of Internet technologies. Its availability made the user´s experience much more interactive than the read-only Web 1.0, without any extra requirements on the side of the user. Flash is the technology behind showing videos on YouTube, products´ promotion through animated banner advertisements, and the interactive games. Since released in 1996, it has been installed on over 90% of computers worldwide (Eskilson 397).

This only shows the eagerness for interactive and entertaining experience which users seek on the Internet. However, as the user becomes more and more eager with time, a further development of the Internet experience is expected. The Web 3.0 might become an artificially intelligent platform with virtual assistants, which are already emerging today. Only time will tell what exactly can be expected from Web 3.0, but it certainly will be a technological breakthrough.

References: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012. https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-web-3-0-3486623

moma

On Permanence in Transit, January 18

Tickets are now on sale for On Permanence in Transit, a conversation on January 18 with writer Ben Rawlence and Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design. In conjunction with the exhibition Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter, this discussion is part of the Citizens and Borders program series, addressing how areas of displacement are impacting architecture today. Tickets.

Week 11 - Graphic Design

The citizen designer is a professional who attempts to address societal issues in addition to his or her commercial work. This idea goes all the way back to the 19th century England and the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris believed that a high quality design could become a social force that would reform the ills of the industrial age (Eskilson 425).

For me, as a Sociology major student, this concept is especially powerful. Because I have been interested in art and design since a young age, I have visited numerous exhibitions and I can tell that some of them have left a mark on my soul, maybe even shaping the idea of what I would end up studying in the future.

As we see right now, there are numerous of campaigns advertising for different social beliefs. I think that it has become essential for every designer to shape the mind of the society in some way, both good and bad. I certainly do agree that a good design has the power to move the masses, to leave a mark on people, and to make them realize some important issues that they might be missing out on. Because what we see usually influences us the most, a great design- something that people will remember and will feel obligated to learn something more about, can make a difference in the world.

I think that an exhibition as "Massive Change” mentioned in the book would definitely carry these attributes. The exhibition itself would probably leave an impact on everyone who has seen it, hence contributing to a future research and curiosity about what was the purpose behind the exhibition, targeting the social issue in its bare form.

Bibliography: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012

Week 10 - Graphic Design

In this post, I will expand upon some of the ideas that were mentioned in our typographic readings. The Origins of Type and Typography The first appearance of typography can be found in the Gutenberg’s Bible. This work consists of 1,282 folio pages of 42 lines. There were fewer than 200 copies printed, because even though they were produced using movable type, they were subsequently rubricated by hand. The textured look in this Bible uses a gothic script called Textura. It is an example of blackletter type, which means that the letters strongly resemble the calligraphic writing of medieval scribes. The text of the Bible is symmetrically balanced in two columns. High aesthetic was especially important- to compete with richly decorated manuscripts that dominated the market at this time (Eskilson 15).

Nineteenth Century Type Sans Serif, invented in the 19th century, has remained influential to the present day. It was released for the first time by William Carlson IV in 1816. This type is characterized by its uniform strokes, unlike other contemporary roman Modern faces. Its main use became advertising, because the letters worked well in extremely large sizes. Carved in wood, it became an inexpensive typeface (Eskilson 46).

Both Sans Serif and Slab Serif faces became known as “Egyptians”. This name arose because of the fascination with Egypt that was present in Europe. This way the name became a fashionable marketing device (Eskilson 47).

In the United States during the 1880s, the mechanization of typefaces occurred. There were two industrial machines, the Linotype and the Monotype. “The Linotype could produce an entire “line of type” set and justified, while the Monotype used two separate machines to produce hot type character by character, which allowed easier corrections” (Eskilson 48).

Bibliography: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012

#typography

Week 9 - Industrial Design

ABOUT BROOKS STEVENS

Brooks Stevens was a designer born in Milwaukee, who had the passion to build and design from a very young age. With the help and motivation from his father, he challenged himself through a childhood illness and became one of the most influential designers in Milwaukee. His first intentions were to study architecture at Cornell University. This became his only time that he lived outside of Milwaukee.

He left Cornell without a diploma and returned to Milwaukee to work as an inventory manager, first for a pair of soap companies, and then for a grocery supply firm. He persuaded the head of the company to let him redesign some of the product labels. He also won a contest to redesign the company logo for his father’s employer. These opportunities were the first step towards Stevens’ career as an industrial designer. While he had numerous opportunities to live and work in New York City, he decided to stay in Milwaukee, “where the business was”.

He opened his first office in 1935, which had over fifty people in the following five years. Later, when he got married, he and his wife built their own ultra-modern house in Fox Point, which stands today as one of Milwaukee’s most significant examples of modernist domestic architecture. Later, Stevens began delivering slide lectures on “Industrial Design and Its Practical Application to Industry.” These talks invariably stressed his main selling point: that design would pay for itself many times over.

Stevens argued that “an industrial designer in today’s business world should be a business man, an engineer and a stylist, and in that direct order.” He sought out high profile commissions and relationships with Milwaukee’s most prominent manufacturers, including Miller Brewing, Allen-Bradley, the Outboard Marine Company, and Harley-Davidson. In 1947 he unveiled a design for a new train called the Olympian Hiawatha, which was one of the last of the great “streamliner” trains that roared across America. Stevens also became the only Midwestern founder of the Society of Industrial Designers (SID), and the first industrial designer ever to be honored with a one-person museum retrospective. His show at the Milwaukee Art Institute, in 1950 was more than successful. Stevens later created his own Auto Museum, which displayed both vehicles of his own design and those that he admired. His words “planned obsolescence” became a recognized aspect among the industrial design.

Stevens did not have a favorite design of his. His argument was that “every one would have to be restudied for the tastes of tomorrow.” By the time he retired, had helped to shape approximately 3,000 products for almost 600 clients over the years.

WHY MILWAUKEE?

I think that the reason why Stevens decided to stay in Milwaukee is because of the possibilities that were just to be discovered in the area. He could have gone to New York City and become just one of the other designers. However, he decided to stay in Milwaukee and challenge not only his potential, but also the potential of the entire community. As seen above, his achievements became crucial in the making of Milwaukee. One of the resons why is because he was there just at the right time to take the initiative in the development of industrial design. His influence can be seen in Milwaukee up to this day. He worked with the local people and companies, which gave him the possibility to build a name for himself in the community. The more people recognized him, the more possibilities he had to challenge the views of the locals and to contribute to the development of Milwaukee. It is hard to say if his name would be as prominent as it is if he had gone to work elsewhere in the United States. His passing just as said in the text, was the end of an era. Many of his contributions to design history are only beginning to be measured. References: Museum, Milwaukee Art. “Brooks Stevens Biography .” Milwaukee Art Museum -- Collection, mam.org/collection/archives/brooks/bio.php.

#brooksstevens #milwaukee #industrialdesign

Week 8 - Industrial Design

These are all examples of the industrial design that I found in my dorm room. Industrial Design has become such a huge part of our lives that we would probably not be able to get through a day without at least one of its products.

I got a Go Pro camera this year, specifically to take videos of the scenery while riding my motorcycle. I was immediately amazed by the quality of the final video and various other options and setting that this little camera provides.

This is a mini fridge that my roommate brought to our dorm. It is convenient in size and allows us to keep foods in our room that would otherwise get spoiled. That means less cafeteria food!

I got this electric kettle so I can make tea or other hot beverages in my room when it gets cold outside.

A desk lamp is very convenient, especially when working on homework late at night. It provides enough ligth, but does not bother my roommate. It can be also easily transferred from one spot to another.

This is my old phone that I used back in the 2013. I currently have another one, but I keep this one for my international SIM card, as I do not use it that often.

A laptop is essential in every student’s life. I use mine for doing homework, watching series, or just browsing the internet.

A few years ago, I was very into the photography and got this Nikon camera. I used it to take pictures of the scenery, but I also took pictures of people in clubs for a local company.

This is my old iPod mini that I still use these days to play music while traveling.

A fan is very useful in the dorm room, especially during hot days when there is no AC.

It is sometimes impossible to get through the day without a hair dryer, especially when having long hair.

#industrialdesign

Week 7 - Architecture

There are 7 principles of the Universal Design all together. In this post, I will state two of them along with some examples of them in every day life, including objects and environments that surround me. One of the principles is a flexibility in use. This means that the design can accommodate a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. It does so by providing the user with a choice of method when using the design. This is for example the case of right and left handed people. The design should also be adaptable to the user’s pace and facilitate the user’s accuracy and precision. The examples of these are left and right handed scissors, interactive ATMs for visually impaired, and the choice between an audio or a reading tour in a museum.

Another principle of the Universal Design is a low physical effort. A good design should be used efficiently and comfortably with a minimum of fatigue. It should also allow the user to maintain a natural body position, use reasonable operating forces, minimize repetitive actions, and minimize sustained physical effort. The examples include door handles and faucets, touch lamps, escalators, automatic doors, and street signs at the eye level.

Resources: https://projects.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/pubs_p/docs/poster.pdf

Week 6 - Architecture

Milwaukee as a city is really rich in different types of architecture. There are examples of many time periods and architectural styles. In the pictures displayed you can see some of my observations.

Schuster Mansion The Schuster Mansion was built in 1891 and it has the elements of German Renaissance Revival style. It is notable for its bright red color palette. It was commissioned by George J. Schuster and designed by the firm of Crane and Barkhause. It has attained historical significance as one of the earliest and most flamboyant of the German Renaissance Revival style houses. Its style was quite popular during the 1890s in Milwaukee. Today the mansion is a popular bed and breakfast, though the it can also be visited during their once-monthly "high tea" events.

Gesu Church Built in 1894, the Gesu Church is a Milwaukee landmark. It has prominent twin Gothic spires and exquisite stained glass windows. This Roman Catholic Church is the spiritual center of the Marquette University campus.

Milwaukee Public Library The Milwaukee Public Library is considered to be the 89th largest public library in the country. The floors of the grand entrance are tiled in Tessara tile by local Italian craftsmen. It is a small tile of marble or limestone. The building was designed by Ferry & Clas in a neo-renaissance style combining French and Italian influences.

Basilica of St. Josaphat The architecture of St. Josaphat is based on a Polish style Cathedral, modeled after Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica. The interior decorating includes oil paintings of biblical scenes on the dome and walls, stained glass windows imported from Innsbruck, Austria, and gold-leaf columns. St. Josaphat was designated a Milwaukee landmark on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory Completed in 1967, the conservatory is located in southern Milwaukee’s 61-acre Mitchell Park. The original conservatory, designed by Henry Koch, was constructed in 1898, along with greenhouses for plant propagation, which provided plants for the conservatory and other parks and boulevards. In 1904, the Sunken Garden was constructed, featuring extensive parterre gardens, fountains, and a large water mirror.

War Memorial Center Eero Saarinen’s innovative design for the War Memorial Center was influenced by the abstract geometry of modern French architect Le Corbusier. He incorporated many of Le Corbusier’s ideas, for example lifting the bulk of a building off the ground on reinforced columns; eliminating load-bearing walls to allow a freeform façade and open floor plan; and using plazas, courtyards, and rooftop terraces to allow an interaction between internal and external spaces. The building, a concrete, steel, and glass cruciform floating on a pedestal, included three major components, as Saarinen described: “One is the base, which builds the mass up to the city level and contains an art museum; the second, on the city level, is the memorial court with a pool…. The court is surrounded by the polyhedron-shaped piers, which support the building and also make frames for the breathtaking views of the lake and sky. The third part is the superstructure, cantilevered outward thirty feet in three directions, which contains the meeting halls and offices of the veterans’ organizations.”

Clock Shadow Building The exterior design is infused with warmth and familiarity through salvaged materials such as cream city brick, weathered wood siding from former pickle vats, and rusted steel panels. While the design uses these materials to contribute to the building’s character, they do not dictate the style; instead the design juxtaposes these historical materials with a contemporary, elegant facade that expresses both the solidity of the building and texture of the surrounding environment. Resources: https://www.tripsavvy.com/historic-homes-you-can-tour-in-milwaukee-2363125 http://www.visitmilwaukee.org/media/architecture/ https://libraryarchitecture.wikispaces.com/Milwaukee+Public+Library+-+Central+Library+-+Milwaukee%2C+WI+-+Building http://uwm.edu/mkepolonia/basilica-of-st-josaphat/ https://tclf.org/landscapes/mitchell-park-horticultural-conservatory https://mam.org/info/details/warMemorial.php http://www.continuumarchitects.com/project/clock-shadow-building/

archatlas

PeBe’s latest series illustrates London’s famous museums and architectural landmarks

PeBe‘s tribute to the city of London and its architecture is depicted through a series of colorful and minimalist illustrations. the OXO tower, designed by Albert Moore in 1928, was largely rebuilt to an Art Deco design and has won the RIBA Award for Architecture in 1997. Herzog and de Meuron’s TATE Modern Museum is Britain’s National Gallery of International Modern Art and is one of the largest museums of contemporary art in the world.

breathtakingdestinations

Korčula - Croatia (by Jan Stefka)

#architecture

Week 5 - History of Design

In the pictures, there are a few examples of how history of design correlates with the design around us that we see on a daily basis. From technology, through architecture, to graphic design, we can still find examples that refer to a specific period in our history. More about these examples can be find in the citations bellow. Industrial products "Tatlin sought to use the everyday materials of the industrial world, including iron, rope, copper, and wood scraps, to explore abstract beauty. These materials are clearly suggestive of industrial products, while the forms of his sculptures have often been compared to the products of modern industry, such as airplane wings. Tatlin’s Constructivist Counter Reliefs signify an important shift in his attitude to art; he conceived of art as directly tied to the industrial world and thought that artists should approach their work with the logical planning of an engineer.” (Eskilson 2012) Glass walls “The most dramatic element of the structure is the “curtain wall” of glass that encases the wing housing the workshops. Treating a wall as only a barrier against the weather, Gropius demonstrated how modern materials allowed for new forms, as the glass walls of the Bauhaus are possible because they are not functioning as part of the load-bearing structure. Only the steel frames of the buildings are necessary to support their own weight.” (Eskilson 2012) Movie posters “The robot woman that is at the center of Lang’s narrative hovers in the foreground, confronting the viewer with a steady gaze. However, the chilling Expressionist vision of the future in a technologically advanced society was contested in Germany by artists committed to the belief that the machine would help Europe build a more just and equitable society.” (Eskilson 2012) Bibliography: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012.

#historyofdesign

Week 4 - Found Object

During today´s walk I came across this business card from a tattoo shop. It was lying on the ground outside, so I decided to pick it up because I found it to be an interesting example of design. A business card solves the problem of how to provide people with essential information about a business or an individual with providing them with useful information. It´s design is small so it can be practically put into a wallet or a card holder. After doing a little research, I found out that these little cards were first used in China in the 15th century to announce an important visit. In the 17th century there was the first use of a business card as we know it today- during an agreement of a trade or during a meeting. This business card from a tattoo shop is in yellow and pink colors and includes the name of the tattoo shop and a sketch of a flower tattoo. This indirectly shows that the tattoo artist is a woman and may prefer to work on girly motives. On the back of the business card there is all the important information- the address of her tattoo shop, a blank rectangular place to write an appointment on, and also her business email including the social media signs, which indirectly tells people to ask questions and look up her artwork online. I decided to look up this artist online and see if my assuptions were true. On her Instagram account, the descriptions says she likes to make ornamental, floral, and American traditional tattoos. Majority of her pictures are of flower tattoos, which proves the original assumptions. This shows what a handy and useful piece of design a business card is. If designed well, it can be a really good promoter of a business. Other examples of handy designs are in the sketch. They also provide people with necessary information without taking too much space.

Week 3 - History of Design

The topics I would specifically like to refer to in this week’s post from the assigned reading are photography, bicycles, and the arts and crafts movement in design. All of these are also represented in my pictures. Why photography? Well, without the invention of it, I would not be able to complete this assignment. In addition, as mentioned in this week’s reading: “Photography was an important technological development during the nineteenth century that would later prove crucial to the evolution of graphic design.” (Eskilson 30). There is no doubt about this quote. Photography became an essential part of design. In the reading, this is especially represented in the various newspaper campaigns. During a trip to the art museum, I had the chance to compare various designs of the 20th century which are also represented in the pictures. Amazed by the rich exhibition of chairs, I decided to include some of them in the post, also with the idea raised in the text related to the decorative arts. According to Ruskin, objects which primary function is utilitarian are the supreme exemplar of artistic production, because they combine artistic creativity and design skills (Eskilson 50). Examples for this are handmade goods instead of mass produced goods which were according to Morris ugly. This way, even people with lower income could afford visually pleasing pieces of furniture. The last thing I would like to mention is bicycle. The sketch was made from a picture I took during an in class activity. The bicycle was, when it comes to transportation, a faster alternative to walking. However, I have never thought about how innovative a women bicycle was. As mentioned in the text, Stearns bicycle was apparently the first safe bicycle for women, because it was set lower. This was revolutionary in the case of women emancipation (Eskilson 72). Bibliography: Eskilson, Stephen J. “Graphic Design: a New History.” Graphic Design: a New History, Yale University Press, 2012.

Week 2 - Design Thinking

After reading “Design Thinking” in the Harvard Business Review, I would define design as the process of developing ideas from inspiration, through ideation, to implementation. In this process, it is necessary to take in count many possible outcomes and think about the usage of the product, as well as about the target group. I was very surprised about what all takes into account in design when reading the article. I acknowledged how many products that I use daily have been designed the perfect way to make me satisfied with their usage. For example, the computer I am writing on right now has been designed the ideal way for me to take the work anywhere I go. Or a desk lamp that does not need a cord and includes a pen holder is very convenient and does not take unnecessary space on the desk. Talking about the desk lamp, it is actually much more than a simple source of light. It has raised from the inspiration to make an ecological lamp that does not need an electrical power. During the ideation phase, the designers came with the idea to make it in a form of a plant, because you know, it is ecological. The implementation phase resulted in a lamp of compact design, in the shape of a plant, with three levels of intensity, a pen holder, and a matching USB cord to power the battery when it runs low (Harvard Business Review 88-89). What I found to be most significant in this reading is the way designers think and develop ideas. I think that if I want to be successful in a course that teaches about design, I should be able to think as a designer. I realized that design is really everywhere around us, in many forms that may sometimes go unnoticed.

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