Universe of Possibilities

delve into the discoveries of a curious mind

[tasneemhussain]

Design Blogging

This is a collection of my thoughts on how technology affects time and vice versa and how it influences me and my profession and choices as a designer. How do we use technology in interior design. How time has an effect on many different aspects of our designs. It's a little bit of everything basically.

This blog also represents me. Am I a feminist? An animal lover? Do I promote sustainability? My religion? My country? My identity not just as a designer but most importantly as a human being of this world.

Some of my favorite design blogs to follow and a great source of inspiration are

http://thedsgnblog.com/

http://fortheloveofid.tumblr.com/

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Lost Art Form 3

Navajo weaving- these blankets and more recently rugs are handwoven by the Navajo people of the Four Corners, United States. Weaving is a highly important aspect of Navajo history and culture. These blankets hold a strong symmetrical and geometrical design and are very rare and expensive as only a few originals remain, most modern ones mass produced and imitations of the original.

Here is a short video explanation of what Navajo weaving is.

The skills and philosophies of weaving are taught to Navajo girls by their mothers, grandmothers, and other older women. The fine details of weaving are seldom taught to non-Navajos (since some feel that would dilute the value of their weaving).

Some of these rare historic rugs sell for thousands of dollars at auctions

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Lost Art Forms 2

Jake Weidmann- the last master-penman to be certified in the past few years and the youngest. He works with many different mediums such as wood and granite to sculpt, paint and canvas for drawing, painting, illustrastions and calligraphy to create intricate works of art.

This video can explain his art in a brief way

This next video is a culmination of all my thoughts on technology, time, fonts, nature and my love for this art form. Jake Weidmann says it all in this TED talk. As designers or artists or any creative people, we still use our hands to express our emotions and thoughts through sketches and script because the direct connection from our brain to our hands is not mimicked by anything else in the world.

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Lost Art Forms 1

Bellerby & Co Globemakers- one of the last to make bespoke handmade and custom globes in the traditional way of stretching the paper to a spherical form base. Now a small team of trained globemakers create high quality, hand made globes that Bellerby & Co. has come to be recognised for. From the stand, to the artwork, the painting and map-making, each piece is expertly crafted using traditional and modern globemaking techniques, and is lovingly produced in their North London studio, works of art in their own right.

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these images of ceilings of mosques in Iran are captured by photographer Mehrdad Rasoulifard. 

these images below in particular are 900 years old

Architecture and religion go hand in hard since the beginning of time. It's sort of a way to respect and pay homage to a higher power

These ceilings have been made somewhere between 900-50 years ago. The designs consist of domes and indents adorned with symmetrical and geometric layouts. The fractal tiling and intricate designs executed only by human ingenuity and without the technology we have today.

 What's perhaps most interesting is that, without context, one may not realize that Mehrdad's photographs zero in on ceilings. On their own, these incredible snapshots look like elaborate mandalas and some even appear as though they're the inside of a kaleidoscope.

The feats of mankind and what we can achieve. These are just a few pictures that inspired my thoughts on what we can accomplish from the beginning of time. From the times of the cave men and Egyptian pyramids to current technology used to find cures and help people. The idea that community can accomplish anything in these trying times. Everyone is facing their own challenges in life. Whether due to a natural disaster or wars, I just want to spread one more message of peace and community. When community comes together it can be so strong and its impact can last like these structures have through the ages.

you can check out more of his amazing work on his instagram

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Frame with a reverse E is not a traditional interior design magazine. it contains the most out of the box and innovative ideas and sources. It explores the newest technology and the most unique designers and their latest projects finished. It also explores other fields of design, innovation and inventions to inspire the readers.

Due to the heavy quantity of work they publish they only publish every 2 months about 6 times a year but their magazines are twice as large as traditional ones so I don’t mind. By far my favorite source of inspiration and a fantastic read!

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when cable management is such a hassle.. why hide it!

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As designers we use many software's to help us explore our ideas and express our creativity.

This is a series of multiple videos showing you how to model spaces and objects on Sketch Up. I personally find these tutorials extremely helpful to learn from as it lets you learn at your own pace with the instructions provided in an orderly step-by-step manner and a practical demonstration happening live in the video that you can watch as many times as needed to understand.

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Tom Dixon

Lighting!

Furniture!

Kitchen accessories and dining!

What doesn’t he do?

An award-winning, self-taught designer has a collaboration with IKEA for a modular bed that  "explores notions of adaptability and future-proofing". Delaktig is a bed and sofa that can be modified into different styles of furniture not limited to external outside party add on.

"Delaktig is an experiment that challenges the conventional methods of creation and distribution of furniture and explores the notions of adaptability and future-proofing," Dixon said

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The Japanese Art of Kintsukuroi

The repairing and honoring of the broken ceramic object and making the imperfect crack a part of the new aesthetics of the object. Each small and separated piece painstakingly put back together and then even more value is added to it than what it started with by using the gold dust and lacquer to highlight the seams where the cracks were. This adds a dimension of beauty and asymmetry that wasn't there before and reaffirms the philosophy that broken things can still have value.

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This documentary series called Abstract- the art of design available on Netflix is an 8 part series focusing on 8 different design fields and exploring how these incredible people design amazing works.

My favorites are episode 1 with Christoph Niemanns illustrations speaking for him and episode 8 with Bjarke Ingels explaining his perspective of the world and the thinking behind his designs.

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Pantone

A standard color matching system used internationally so everyone whether it be primarily for printing purposes or otherwise has the same color (identified by the code number) to base their work on.

Every December the Pantone 'Colour of the Year' is released. These colors are the culmination of results from the political, social and economical scene of that year. It represents a story of our world in the language of sight.

Last years was a first of its kind dual colors; pink quartz and serenity (AKA a light pink also called millenium pink and a soft baby blue). A combination of a warm tone pink with its cooling and calm counterpart blue these colours represented the society and its moving towards equality and fluidity and so much more.

This year of 2017 the colour is 'greenery'. My understanding is the world's shifting towards more carbon footprint conscious products and choices now than ever before. Everyones recycling and trying to reduce their wastefulness. Another thought is that in trying times and so many wars and terrorist attacks its pleasing to get back to earth and our roots to feel more at home and safe and that is what this colour represents to me

These colours of the year help the markets understand what is trending and before long you will see it everywhere. From billboards and clothes to television and social media, it dominates your life when you take the time to notice.

At the time of this post I looked at my phone screen to check the time to realize this was my pre-chosen screensaver. Without even knowing anything about it I had subconsciously chosen it as it was pleasing to the eye and it had a balanced feel to it between the 2 colors. This is a default wallpaper by Apple you can choose from.

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A firsthand account of my experience of the paradise road villa in Bentota, another work by the renowned Geoffrey Bawa, didn't disappoint. One interesting feature I noticed only because this was my second visit to a Geoffrey Bawa creation was the fixed seating that many of his works have in common. Even if there was a movable seating if you were to displace a chair or table from its position by a small fraction immediately the space would feel off balance. You couldn't picture a better setting of furniture in the space than what is already there. There was a very strong structure and rigidity to where he wanted the furnishings to be placed and his designs and fixed furniture reflected that

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This is Lunuganga, a garden estate in Bentota, Sri Lanka. The lifes work of Geoffrey Bawa, a Sri Lankan architect, the use of existing nature and its structures and clever manipulation of the space to allow different areas to exist in the same vicinity. With its lush rolling hills and the namesake salt river adjoining the property it creates the ideal spot for a getaway serving its intended purpose. Currently it hosts visitor tours and reserved accommodation through the Goeffrey Bawa Foundation 

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TED talks are an amazing way to gain a new perspective

This video made me think about how little changes make a big difference. How we get so ingrained into habit we don’t even realize there is a problem and maybe viewing it in a different angle will help us see where the possibility of change lies in everything. 

This perspective is so important to have as a designer as your constantly trying to solve a problem and find a better final result. The root of getting a better solution to these problems lies in our thinking. Change that and you will get a whole new world of possibilities to explore.

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Reflective Summary- My First Retail Project Experience

Ending my first semester of interior design school with this project was an eye opening experience. Our first real project with multiple deliverables or parts  of the assignment having to progress together and  move forward simultaneously. It showed me what a real project would develop like in the field. It starts when you first get your assignment brief. My first move was to strategize and create a game plan for how to progress as many aspects had to advance at the same time. By peeking a glance into our seniors works I got a brief idea of what was required.

We had to first decide on a brand. My chosen brand was Cartier as I was interested in the aspect of it being the first store of its kind in Sri Lanka and how this would affect the community and how the community could also benefit from them. I had to interpret this brand and come up with a design concept on my own for their store. I was very excited to be able to explore and came up with an idea for this high fashion brand to interact with the local community. The first stage to do that was research. The research stage is important as it allows you to make better informed decisions further along the design process. A study tour excursion to three different stores at three different price points gave us invaluable understanding of where our brand stands in the market and how they are currently represented. This is where I faced my first obstacle. My perpetual need to perfect a task before moving on to the next stage was a hindrance in the overall assignment. It caused me to push forward but also at times fall back a few steps as I needed to go back and complete or do additional work for the previous stage of the project. This constant jumping back and forth between stages and making additional changes wasted a precious commodity I did not have called time.

This brings me to my second obstacle, time management. A habit of procrastinating and not paying enough attention to what requires it and more time spent on the little things that don't matter as much on the longer run cost me. It was really hard to express my thoughts creatively in a time constraint. In a process of improvement I learnt along the way how to overcome both these challenges over a period of time. Good time management and a practical and realistic time scale with a small dose of strong determination and perseverance allowed the work to be completed in time. This is where one of my lectures on Gantt charts really helped me. It helped to put the entire development process into a simplified perspective of which components of the project have to work together while considering the timescale.

A constant time constraint kept you on your toes and the need to move forward and progress was automatic due to the frequent reviews held by the lecturer for critique and to check on our progress. It was difficult to come up with a concept that encompassed all of Cartier's brand identity and my own vision for the store into one. The thought eventually came from  the people. My final concept was 'involvement', to involve themselves into the Sri Lankan culture and how their jewelry and watches also represent a form of involvement from the brand to the customer to wear the pieces customized to you and affixed to your wrists from their signature love collection.

The next phase was finding an appropriate realization of the concept  into the physical and keeping the reality of the retail project in mind. Understand the real life application of the design concept was a new and unique experience. Not just the material choices but even how people walked around the space was influenced by the concept. This was the third phase of the project. This kicked into high gear all the other deliverable components. Material sample collection and hashing out the final details and kinks in the plans so that the final stage of presentation could start. The reviews with our lecturer were a real help during this stage. A little knowledge of technical drawings and a lot of help from the lecturer helped complete this stage of the project. One thing that I really took to heart was that the customers and employees felt comfortable here. Everything was catered to their needs n requirements while keeping an element of sustainability and ergonometric in mind. Of course this design proposal for Cartier opening a first of its kind store that fully immerses itself in a host nations culture was going to gain international recognition. They have never done this before. So to involve the people into the process was also a crucial step. At one point in the design process, my design consisted of an automation of gears representing the brands watches and also the concept of 'involvement', very soon into actualizing this concept with a concept model and technical plans I realized what I pictured in my imagination and the reality were two different things. To remedy that I went back to the drawing board and came up with a better way to execute my ideas and it worked out well after that.

The final leg of the project was the most stressful period. The nerves are frazzled, tensions are high, sleep is at an all time low. The pressure was minimized by breaking the remaining work into small segments of time and finishing accordingly instead of getting overwhelmed by the bigger picture. The model required a level of precision that I was not expecting. The lectures that coincided with the project were very helpful. For example the lecture on presentation boards and grid lines helped me get a better  understanding on how to go about making one that was balanced and visually appealing. Then it was just a matter of finishing touches and the project was done. The satisfaction you get when you see all your hard work in front of you is incomparable to anything else. My final thoughts at the end of this experience and moving forward are to work harder, gain knowledge from my mistakes and experiment even more with the next one.

[tasneemhussain]