November 2009
8 posts
Simplicity
Looking about the world wide web for inspiration, I recently stumbled upon designer Albert Exergian’s blog (http://exergian.tumblr.com/). It’s filled with his own take on poster designs for popular television shows. What struck me the most is how simple the work is and yet it still encapsulates the particular show’s essence. He uses simple shapes and bright colors in a very...
Speaking of Sustainability
Nathan Shedroff, author of the new book Design is the Problem, lectured on one of my classes this past week and talked about sustainable design. At the beginning of his lecture, he asked us three questions:
1. What’s a more sustainable world look like?
2. What’s a more meaningful world look like?
3. What’s a post-consumer world look like?
He never fully answered all of...
Objectified
I recently saw the documentary Objectified, by Gary Hustwit, an exploration of the design process of several designers. The movie interviewed several designers from different fields asking them about how the process affects what the end product looks like. The movie explores design aesthetics ranging from Ikea and Target, to Apple computers.
Further into the documentary, Hustwit makes a...
Let's Talk Gaga
What does a pop star have to do with a love of good design, you ask? If it was any other pop star, then absolutely nothing. But when it comes to Lady Gaga, good design has a lot to do with her chart-topping success. Lady Gaga is a package. Her music is catchy, but alone they are only slightly better than most of what’s already been done. The beauty and genius of Gaga comes with her...
Is It Really That Green?
Color is one of the most important tool in a designer’s arsenal. As visual creatures, we humans respond to colors so much, whether it be the color of the next fashion garment or the color of the new leading website. For designers, it’s difficult to pick and coordinate the right colors for your design. Personally, I use Adobe’s Kuler website (http://kuler.adobe.com/) to help...
Good Design for Evil Purposes
I hate to be the one to say it, but Walmart has significantly improved its image in the last year. I personally think that Walmart is an evil, homophobic corporation that oppresses its employees. That said, who can honestly turn down their low low prices? I certainly can’t.
In the past year, Walmart has definitely classed-up its image with feel good television advertisements that are...
Can you turn that down, please?
I was going through the pictures that I took from the African American Quilts exhibit at the Nelson Gallery and I came across one particular quilt that deserves mention. Strips of contrasting colored fabrics were juxtaposed to create a pattern that, from far away, can immediately be associated with music. The evenly spaced vertical bars are reminiscent of sound waves in a recording device while...
Gay Zombies
In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to watch a queer cult zombie film called Otto; or Up with Dead People a few days ago. Otto is a gay zombie that came back to life and was discovered by a director working on a political documentary called Up with Dead People, the scenes of which were interspliced throughout the film. Written and directed by Canadian indie filmmaker (and pornstar) Bruce...
Quilts and Things
Until December 13, 2009, the Nelson Art Gallery in the UC Davis campus is hosting the African American Quilts exhibit. The space is filled with vibrantly dyed quilts hanging on the wall with materials that even include repurposed jeans. I was, however, immediately drawn to one particularly colorful quilt called Slave’s Popcorn Quilt.
Scraps of fabric were twisted into little flowers...
October 2009
10 posts
Audrey Kawasaki
Audrey Kawasaki is an emerging Los Angeles artist known for her wood panel oil paintings of young, adolescent girls often in very eroticized positions. I have been in love with her work ever since I stumbled upon them on a random art blog online. At first I was very intrigued by the expressions of the girls she is portraying which is a mix of youthful apathy and sensual hubris with a touch of...
Design & Social Media
Almost everybody I know in my college owns and operates their own Facebook profile pages with the means of staying connected. The website has become so prevalent that the general population outside of college has started using it. I remember Facebook back in its prime, when one had to have a college email address to register. Back when it looked like this:
It’s hard to imagine that...
Viral
As I was driving away from San Francisco this past weekend, I was intrigued by these billboard signs advertising nothing in particular. I spotted three of them on the freeway and they all follow the same template: a plain white background with the word “you” written in different types.
The design itself is really simple. Just one word written on the left side of a blank canvas...
What is Inspiration?
The creative process begins with the flashing of a metaphorical lightbulb above the designer’s head. A moment of pure enlightenment in which the designer finally realizes what needs to be created, what the world is lacking. To encourage the process, designers seek inspiration from any and all imaginable sources. Nature is the most convenient, it’s all around us. We’ve seen...
Alexander McQueen Spring 2010 Collection
For someone who, at the age of three, drew his first fashion sketch on a piece of bare wall where the wallpaper has peeled off, Alexander McQueen has come a long way. His reputation for conceptual fashion shows and shocking designs executed beautifully has earned him the nickname of “l’enfant terrible” in the fashion world. So it is no surprise that his new collection, which...
What is Design?
Design is everything. From the smallest insect, to the tallest skyscrapers, design is a huge part of this world. Everything in nature was designed by millions of years’ worth of evolution and progress. Everything man-made was created by theoretically the most evolved creatures in nature: humans.
At the bottom of it all, design is an inherent human ability to create, alter, and give...
Speaking of Typography
Successful visual communication requires a typeface that people can process easily, almost automatically. Helvetica, a typeface developed in 1957, has proliferated in our society as the most widely used sans-serif typeface as a means of communication. Companies like AT&T, Target, American Apparel, BMW, Jeep, and Microsoft employ the use of the font in their commercial logos. The U.S....
The Hangul Exhibit
The UC Davis Design Museum is currently showcasing a work exploring the beauty and function of good typography. The Hangul exhibit, which is open until December 6, 2009, is a collection of paintings in which typography is the main inspiration. According to the design museum website, the exhibit:
…presents the work of two designers whose typographic roots began in Hangul, the native...