Design in Society

We live in a society where many of our items have to be plugged into the electrical outlets in order for them to work. The electricity we use to power these electronic items comes from the combustion of fossil fuels at power plants which in addition to energy, produces chemicals like carbon dioxide, hazardous to the environment if produced too much. What design aims to improve society in its effort to solve this dilemma? Solar panels. The fossil fuels being exhausted for their energy have been a concern for the global warming theorists who claim that the emissions are trapped by our atmosphere which raises global temperature. Many people do not realize the problems being created in our environment from using electricity for our homes and gas for our cars to drive. We use more energy now, now that we have all these technologies designed for a more ”enjoyable” lifestyle including watching television, playing video games, and conditioning our air.

How do solar panels aim to improve society? Solar panels transfer solar energy into electricity which powers our appliances working all around the home and workplace. Solar energy can be used for many purposes: charging batteries, heating up water, and running many appliances. Instead of using carbon to fuel our appliances which can increasingly affect the environment, it uses silicon which helps keep the environment clean. Solar panels not only can help with saving money in the long run but improving air quality for our society because there are not carbon byproducts. 

Design is Dangerous

Have you ever wondered how a chair can be dangerous to humans or society? I hadn’t. After listening to my Tae Kwon Do instructor give a mini presentation about how chairs are dangerous, it got me thinking. Many of us do not consider a chair being dangerous.  Besides short term effects like stubbing your toe on the corner or bumping your hip bone on the side of the chair, a simple chair can have a great impact long term effects including limiting your flexibility, discussed later. 

What is the function of a chair? They provide a place to sit. Imagine a couple thousand years ago when people used to hunt for food and gather wood for shelter and warmth. These people walk and are always on the move, doing countless activities not thought as exercising. They were always moving out of necessity. Instead of that, what do you see now? People are always on the computer and sitting in chairs; people in lecture classrooms are sitting in chairs; people playing video games are sitting in chairs. Most people sit in chairs for hours each day. This takes a toll on flexibility, and exercise ability, which can lead to pulled muscles; reaching for items on shelves, and twisting around heavy furniture. The chair is definitely a very convenient and well thought out product with great intentions. The idea of it being dangerous to society in the long run was not imagined. Because of the chair and sitting too much, we find our society in such poor condition and bad shape compared to earlier years of American society. Many of us are not exercising any more or staying active and flexible the way our society did back then. All because of a simple inanimate object like a chair.

Color Transforms

Lights. Beautiful, colorful, pretty lights. During Halloween and especially Christmas. The time of Christmas brings so much joy to me not only because of awesome presents and family gatherings but also because of the gorgeous decorations, lit up trees, and the exteriors of homes. In his book Interaction of Color, Josef Albers says," it is impossible to see color by itself and not interacting with its surroundings." I agree. All of the marvelous colors blend so well giving so many homes a different style and personality. Color shapes design and can be such a deciding point in obtaining and luring in clients. Let’s face it, looks do matter, and color plays a huge impact upon it. When you come home from fall finals, you come across so many different decorated homes. Each decorated home represents so many different personalities. Each home can say a lot about a family. Some homes use the typical yellow lights, just that one color. Others use green, yellow, and red. Others go all out using blue, indigo, and many other colors. Those homes are the ones that capture your attention the most. You think about it and come up with an idea about that family. The decorations bring out character and reflect upon the family that designed it. What distinguishes a house with just one colored lights from one with extraordinary, beautifully decorated homes? Color. That’s why prizes are not given to the blandest home. Prizes are given to the most brilliantly decorated homes, usually one with many different colors.

Classroom chairs

Some are hard. Some are soft. Some are comfortable. Some are just plain obnoxious. In the documentary objectified, it shows everyday items explores from how they are made to what goes on in making the project, the creative process. I know a lot of thought goes on in making the product, but sometimes I think to myself, Really?

Going back to chairs… the chairs in our Des001 class are quite comfortable at times. It contains a cushion for your bottom and a cushion for your back. Once you leave from the chair, the bottom element folds up. How fun. Just kidding. It is oh so comfortable, but not when you stay in it for almost 2 hours of lecture forgetting to take your break during class because you are sooo focused on design. Although the chairs are quite comfortable, the desk needs a little bit of work. It’s so far away and so small that you can barely fit your 8’’x11’’ notebook on it, but that’s a different story. The chairs in my design class are definitely a lot better than some chairs used in other classes. For example, my art class has chairs, wait, I mean stools to sit on. It’s like, ok, you want me to sit on there for 3 hours? No thank you. Not being an art major, it is hard to stay comfortable on a piece of metal. It’s hard and flat, with no curvature whatsoever. Science labs are the same way. They have stools. Very uncomfortable. Although we do not sit down most of the time, after moving around and doing physics experiments, a soft cushion, relaxation oriented chair would be nice to sit down on.

Of course, the designer did not focus on the individuals of the science class and the comfort they want for a mere 15minutes, when creators designed this chair. They were more focused on an inexpensive chair, easily made product, made for an individual who should focus on their task at hand; the science experiment, instead of how comfortable they feel in a chair.

Sony DSC-TX9

Looks vs. quality. Amateur vs. professional. These are the types of customers I stereotypically encounter while working at Fry’s Electronics as a camera saleswoman. Many customers I come across that want to purchase a camera tend to have a basic knowledge of what a camera does. With that in mind, they come in wanting a camera that has basic capabilities; point and shoot, something easy to use, produce decent quality pictures, and something that works. What are they really asking? They want a camera that does an all right job of taking pictures that looks the best and is fairly inexpensive. The major component is INEXPENSIVE. I analyze the customers that come in. I can see they check for the durability of the camera, many want the modern technology, the one and only touch screen pad, and the compact and sleekness size of the camera. These customers tend to not care about what specific features the camera has to offer. They usually pick up the camera, play with it a little, pointing it and shooting it. They look at the quality of the photo produced on the screen of the camera not knowing the picture shown on the screen does not necessarily reflect what will be produced on a photograph. A camera I tend to sell a lot that not only looks sleek but has great features is the Sony DSC-TX9.

Many companies want to produce a product that covers 5 basic areas of ergonomics: safety, comfort, ease of use, performance (productivity), and aesthetics. The Sony DSC-TX9 will be analyzed using these criteria.

                Safety. What’s not safe about this product? It is a little heavy for its size, but nothing bulges out. Unlike many cameras, the lens does not protrude out, where children can get hurt by its concavity. It is a square piece of metal that does not have any sharp corners. Each corner is slightly curved. The camera is safe.        

Comfort. This camera is a sleek point and shoot camera that easily fits in your pocket. It can be easily held. It is a square object thick enough to sit on your hands. The texture is quite smooth, so roughness is not one of the flaws that this camera has.

Ease of use. This camera is an easy to use camera once you get used to it. Like most cameras, once you look though the menu and features, what it has to offer, you will understand how to operate the device and be able to shoot different pictures depending on your preference and environment.  There are tons of features on this camera that are a touch away. Sometimes, if you want to make a few changes to the scene or background of your picture like the ISO, it is only a few touches away. Many people might find it difficult to use the 3.5’’ touch screen because they are not used to sensitivity of the screen, but getting use to it is the key. It should not take too long.

Performance. Of course this is not the best camera in the world that takes every single kind of picture a professional wants, but it has a lot of awesome key components to the camera. Its rapid 10 frames per second speed burst that can capture action and sports shots and its 3D seep panorama capability where it takes pictures of buildings and even a moving crowd or bicyclist as a single long strip of picture, it’s amazing with what it can do. It has 1080i high definition video resolution video, recording about 12 minutes of video on an SD card or a memory stick pro duo, either or. With its 12MP camera, it takes crystal clear shots in the dark and places where the lights are dim. This camera is an improvement from the Sony DSC-TX7. Differences include a 12MP instead of 10MP; the glossy screen is enhanced adding an extra layer of film for better protection, and 3D instead of isweep panorama. Although this camera lacks in the zoom department containing only 4x, it contains a handful amount of cool features than most.

                 Aesthetics. It is definitely sleek and stylish. That’s what the consumers see first. As much as many people hate to admit it, appearance does matter. After taking the camera home, these consumers are later shocked with the features they later explore.

Companies want to show off a good performing camera where their consumers would like to show off and brag about. The Sony DSC-TX9 does just that. Not only does it look sleek and is pocket sized, something many people enjoy, but  it also contains some of the features you typically see in a dslr camera.

What Else Can We Do WithToothpicks?

When one thinks of toothpicks, what comes to mind? I think of it as an ephemeral object, an object that is not meant to last. After you eat dinner, you use a toothpick to pick out the gunk between your teeth. That’s it right? Apparently not. A toothpick can be used for other purposes—in this case, art. For example, in 1977, Scott Weaver recreated the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge exclusively using toothpicks and Elmer’s glue. He loved it so much that he turned down a $40,000 offer to purchase the sculpture by Ripley’s Believe or Not. There is so much detail in this masterpiece that took him 3,000 hours to build.  This 20-pound, 9-foot piece contains great elements of composition and contrast.

Another example is Saimir Strati’s mosaic called Relentless Spirit which contains 1.5 million toothpicks that he worked on for 40 days. Such patience and detail are put into this endeavor, it’s tremendous. The length of the different parts of the horse gives it texture and contrast. It makes the horse look three dimensional and makes it look alive instead of a static image. Even the simplest items at home, such as a toothpick, can be put into other uses like art.

Toothpicks, we tend to think of them strictly as items that we use to pick our teeth with. To some, however, it is another way to design things.

Word and Image

Author Brian Fies of the comics, “Mom’s Cancer” and “Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow” emphasizes how comics transcend words and drawings. He say s that words and pictures coming together is art. He says images serve as metaphors so they can portray words as a feeling and relatedness. For example, his book Mom’s cancer is about his mother’s struggles with cancer and chemotherapy. Fies wanted to tell his mother’s story and make the readers understand what she went through.

To the left shows his mother tightrope walking while balancing a pole over a pool of crocodiles. Now, the mother did not literally do this but Fies used this metaphor to express how and what his mother was mentally going through. The mother is trying to balance on the rope in hopes of no falling into the pool. This shows her battle with chemotherapy. For people who do not know what chemotherapy entails, they have a better understanding of what is would feel like. As one can see, the process of chemotherapy is a dangerous and rigorous battle. Without the images, we see the words chemo which one would know refers to chemotherapy. Without looking in a dictionary, what does that mean? Some readers do not know, maybe would not look up in the encyclopedia because it takes too much time. Fies uses imagery in his comics very nicely to convey what it metaphorically means. He does not tell us straight up that it is a treatment for a disease by killing cancerous cells. He does not go in depth with what it is but allows the readers to imagine how scary it is, like tightrope walking over a pool of crocodiles.

Words and Images

According to Brian Fies, comics transcend words and images. Each can express half of the meaning, but each does not mean anything without the other. They must come together and collaborate in order to provide meaning. There are many ways words and images work together. One way is that images serve as an illustration of the word. In other words, many people may not understand what the words are trying to express. The image provides an example of what the author is trying to come across. Same with the word explaining what is going on in the image. Some may come across an image and merely see it as a drawing. The words provide a storyline or a narrative that explains what is going on in the drawing.

In the image to the right, without the words, one might guess that a woman is again losing hair. This does not tell you why she is losing hair or what is going on. Adding the texts to the images gives one a sense of story. The Fies’ mother smoked for 45 years which is what he says. Throughout the panels, it shows what the mother is thinking, “I know I did this to myself.” She takes full responsibility in one panel. The next panel, she blames on the fumes of the woods she used to burn. She shifts the blame. Without the words, we would not have known what was going on. Reading the texts without any images, one might see the jumps in thoughts. They do not tend to connect. Adding the images gives it a little more feeling. Words and images need each other to get a point across to the reader. If they do not come together, meaning is pointless, not understood, or is forgotten.

The Pouf

Where did the pouf come from? I don’t know. Many people do not know but know one person that made it popular, Nicole Polizzi, Snooki from MTV’s hit show Jersey Shore. I’m sure the pouf has been done before, but it wasn’t considered fashionable until Snooki showed it off and continued to wear the do. Bigger is better is one of her catch phrases from the show. For her, the higher the pouf, the better. If a random person wore that do before Snooki did or a celebrity that was not as popular wore it, it would not make the news and would not be on anyone’s mind. Why is that? I feel it is because of the person who is wearing it. Snooki is a short, outgoing, never-embarrassed, self-proclaimed “guidette” born and raised in Chile but adopted by Italian parents. She is a breakthrough performer from the show and known across the country as the girl with the pouf. The pouf is so popular that the website shows you the step by step process of building this hairdo. It is also so popular that the pouf, yes the part of the hair that is raised can be a Halloween costume. I guess it is that serious. Ellen DeGeneres wore this outfit on her show this weekend. It contains a Cabbage Patch baby doll with the hair being the actual costume that Ellen is in. She is the pouf. Like I have said in many blogs before, anything can be design. If it were anyone else, the pouf might not be so popular. The dramatic pouf is backed up by a dramatic person, Snooki. I guess bigger is better.

Interaction of Content

Content plays a key role in many situations. Content is the subjects and ideas behind the design. This is the expression and material behind the art work or design.  Everything has content. Talking to a friend about how the day has been or what they did over the weekend is content, leaving a comment on myspace or facebook is content, talking about why someone is wearing out of date clothing is content.   Anywhere there is a conversation, content is being expressed. Content can be expressed in many different ways, whether through word of mouth, email and chatting, or items in a store. This propels conversation between people, creating interaction. Artists can use colors and sizes to explain their content while contrasting or complementing each other by carefully selecting how each is assembled and is significantly and purposefully placed.

The artwork that designers make can stir up conversation and debates about whether their designs can be considered art. For example, Twombly’s 4 Season, A painting in Four Parts: Autumn stirs a little controversy and people wonder if it can be considered art. Was a lot of time and effort put into the piece or did it look like kids were playing around just throwing whatever they wanted on it? Either way, debate is being created, conversation is put on the table, and there is interaction about the topic. There was consideration between the art, what the designer used, why he picked the medium, what colors he used and why he used them. Content is a key element behind a design that stirs up interaction on why such content was used.

form in OBJECTIFIED

In our Des001 class, we watched the documentary, Objectified by Gary Hustwit. Objectified contains interviews of many different designers, their design process, and the products these designers creatively work on. Instead of looking at the objects as merely objects, we considered the relationship between the objects and its relationship to design and form. In the film, I noticed something different thanto what many documentaries tend to do. Usually, documentaries follow an individual around while the individual is talking about what is occurring at that moment or what he/she is seeing as the camera is capturing the images. We see this a little with Objectified but not as much. Instead, the camera records the designer’s thinking process and he/she talks about them and capturing a room full of the designer’s art while the designers give commentary. This captures the designer better and shows a realistic approach to these designers’s interpretation about their work and their views of world in general.

 Objectified makes us all think about the process behind creating a design. When you see a chair, what do you think of? For the most part, you think of it as something to sit on, it’s purpose, and that’s usually it. Watching Objectified forces you to think about the designer and how he/she went about designing the chair, why he/she created it that way from shape to size, from color to texture. Not a lot of people look at things that way. Like biology and anatomy, or more specifically, the heart. You normally don’t think about the heart and the different organs in your body until you actually dive into the subject and consider its true form and function. The circulatory system is truly an amazing design. Design is everywhere. There are a lot of items in your room. It usually does not come across your mind about the hard work that goes into the process of design. It is very similar to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics where he emphasizes the depth that goes behind the comic world and what each detail means, while many people see comics as a toy.