FINAL Week

Social Design


Sometimes I feel like there is a lack of communication between the student body and the school administration. This is especially true for art students. Bus routes, for example, have removed Mason Gross entirely as a bus stop. At first, getting off at George Street was adequate, but when George Street closed for renovation, the closest stop was Rockoff or C-Town (depending whether you're coming from College Ave or Douglass). The EE bus to get there appears less frequently than the other buses, and leaves more quickly at the Rutgers Student Center. Scheduling classes also had some issues. In my sculpture class, the class times changed from this semester to an entirely new time, which made the class impossible to schedule because of campus conflicts (Sculpture is located in the Livingston Art Building). Fortunately the class time was changed back when almost all the class complained to the professor. I'm sure there are many events that happen just like this that can end up helping or hurting a student, whether in Mason Gross or any other school at Rutgers. It can be an issue with the school or a change that students don't like, and perhaps the student can't or doesn't have to time to formerly complain to the administration, or even if they do, have a minimal or zero impact. Sometimes this phenomenon is known as the "RU Screw," and sometimes the student has done nothing to create this problem he/she is now facing.

While it is probably impossible to prevent this occurrence, a solution to alleviate this and to provide students information is to create a Rutgers community website, perhaps a forum, that is run and moderated by the University. Overall, I feel that this solution will benefit both the university and the students. The University could post polls on recent changes in the university and see whether students like the change or not. Then the University could look at the overall response and react accordingly.  The University could also ask whether or not certain changes should be made before they make a decision. This could even be separated by category, whether is a university-wide change or a internal school change. I feel this would be much more effective than the occasional poll the university e-mails its students, or changes a student isn't even notified about. In the email questionnaire, students are being asked to fill something out they may not be interested in or care about. This is also made obvious by the random gift drawing for a iPod or something similar that a student may win by filling out an e-mailed questionnaire. It's basically saying the student needs some kind of external motivation to fill out this survey. However, with a something like a forum that is integrated as a university service, students will want to know what's going around Rutgers. They can respond effectively to polls that they care about, and feel that it is making more of a change because the experience isn't as removed as a random impersonal e-mail from the university. This forum could even have ads on the the side to generate revenue as well as create jobs for students to moderate the board. There could be another part of the forum where students can ask questions ranging from general to specific, like what buses is there to take or where the satellite computer lab is located in College Ave. This would also help create a general sense of community within Rutgers. The university has so many people, and I think this would be a good way to use the information that everyone knows to help everyone else out.

A request to fill out a survey, its appeal has to be buffeted by chances that you may be rewarded, which actually only takes away from the view that the survey is actually doing anything.

Active football forum for Rutgers, imagine what it would be like if it was for the whole university and not just football, and if it was more integrated within Rutgers similarly to how people use MyRutgers or Sakai or WebReg.

Week 13

Research Assignment: Design biography

Jonathan Ive

Jonathan Ive is a product designer and currently the senior vice-president of design at Apple. Also known as Jony, Ive was born on February 1967 in Chingford London. Ive studied Industrial Design at the Newcastle Polytechnic (now known as Northumbria University) starting in 1985. At school, he was already very well recognized, and won two awards for design from the Royal Society of Arts. Another designer, Clive Grinyer, remembers Ive's "sheer focus to get it perfect," when visiting his flat and found "it filled to the rafters with hundreds of foam models of Ive's final project."  After graduating, Jonathan Ives joined Grinyer in a London design consultancy called Tangerine. Ive states that while he learned he wasn't good at building a business, he learned much by designing a wide range of products "from hair combs and ceramics, to power tools and televisions" and by finding out that he was really only interested in design. From there Ive received an offer to join Apple in California. Apple's values and history appealed to Ive and he assumed he would be working independently, so Ive decided to accept a full-time position there.

Ive is most known for his work at Apple. However, Ive's first few years of Apple were frustrating (before Steve Jobs came back to Apple). Apple was in a state of decline and Ive felt that Apple "seemed to have lost what had once been a very clear sense of identity and purpose." While Ive had a bit more control over the design process, he felt he was "only marginally more effective or influential than" when he was a consultant. This also applies to designers everywhere. Many times designers end up being used only as a tool, especially at companies that are in competing industries and have lost a sense of identity. If a company only thinks about costs, than the company is already losing their target market. Design is no longer important.  However this changed for Ive when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Jobs was able to steer Apple on its own path different from other companies. This can be seen in Ive and the Apple design team's work.

First is the 2008 iMac. This was a revolutionary change to the computer industry, because computers never before had been so brightly colored, let alone transparent. There is also the G4 Cube. Because the computer core is held up in between plastic, air will naturally cool the computer through the bottom without any fans. Ive however is most known for designing the iPod and the iPhone. The iPod redefined the digital music player and is now a standard other companies compare themselves to, design-wise and quality-wise.

Ive and his design team have also embraced new technology in order to produce products like the iPod. The iPod is completely sealed by twin-shot plastic, a technology almost only exclusive seen with iPod and iPhone products. However, not much of the iPod or iPhone is really applicable to sustainable design. In order to create such a densely packed piece of technology, there really is no thought to how it would affect the environment or how it can be recycled. However again, the iPod is something that is easily thrown away either.

Jonathan Ive has won many awards for his designs, including receiving a Commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE), winning Design Museum's inaugural Designer of the Year award in 2002 and 2003, awarded the MDA Personal Achievement Award for the iPhone, and other awards.

sources:
http://designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-ive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002414.htm

Week 11?

note: I have no idea what week it is now.


Modernism and Movies
This week we will be examining the films Monterey Pop (1967) directed by DA Pennebaker and Playtime (1967) directed by Jacques Tati.


Compare and Contrast Monterey Pop and Playtime
At a first look, these two movies are completely different and seem unrelated. For most part, this is true. Monterey Pop is a documentary about the Monterey Pop concert while Playtime is clearly a commentary on the failings of modernism. This modernism is in the sense of the international style, mostly propagated by the Germany Bauhaus School. A crucial aspect of modernism was universalism, the way of designing something so that it is timeless and not as attached to culture, because it appeals to everyone. However despite differences in content, these movies both offer reasons why the concept of modernism fails on a personal and human level. Monterey Pop is filmed in the midst of counterculture, a determined movement against corporate and sameness, while Playtime exhibits what it would be like in a (almost) completely modernist society, where everything is universal and blends together in a world of gray.

Playtime doesn't have so much as a plot and is more of an exploration of a modernist world. This is made up of situations that occur within this world, and is made to point out how far modernism is removed from humanity.  Monterey Pop doesn't have a plot either, and is just a series of shots documenting people in the event and some of the bands that played during the event. However, the scene in each movie is very different.  Playtime features tall gray buildings with many glass panels. There is a scene in the movie where Monsieur Hulot, a character in the film, gets confused as to how to get in the building because there are so many glass panels. This shows how modernist design is not meant for human interaction and the design only ends up confusing. In Monterey Pop, everything is mostly open and outdoors. People are lying on the grass, sitting in chairs listening, or eating at their leisure. Everything seems relaxed and happy; it is a nice sunny day, whereas the sky is hardly seen at all in Playtime. All the scenes in Playtime seem to show why modernism fails, whether it's a character confused as to why something was designed this way, or the design is unintuitive and unnatural. This never appears in Monterey Pop; there are even times when people enjoy the sort of messiness and disorganization within the show.  People are able to spread themselves out, while in Playtime people seems to be stuck in boxes or running into things.  The way things are in Playtime seem efficient and fast, but are cold and unsympathetic; another example is when Monsieur Hulot is looking for the man with the folder, and is lost among the cubicles, while the man gives files to another person in another cubicle after calling him from another cubicle.  It feels all very extraneous but tight, and very impersonal.  This is completely the opposite in Monterey Pop when a band is playing. Here music is broadcast directly to a large crowd, and no matter what someone is doing, whether sitting or getting food or talking to someone else, the music can always be heard.

Overall, countless examples and difference can be drawn between both of the movies, and some more differences at listed below in the bullet points.

• Monterey Pop
• Space
• Open park, Crowded with all kind of people watching the concert, picnic setting
• Events
• Concert, Sleeping in tents, food, partying
• Clothes
• "hippie clothes," one piece gown/dresses, jeans, casual suits
• Objects
• guitars, drum set, plastic chairs, tents, blankets
• Colors
• browns, greens, oranges, blues, reds, very colorful in general
• Materials
• plastic, cloth, fur, fabric, metal, denim, nature
• Playtime
• Space
• organized, empty or crowded, same
• Events
• meetings, tours, waiting, attempt at dinner/party
• Clothes
• grey or black suits, grayish clothes
• Objects
• chairs, glass doors, garbage/ashtrays, machines, umbrella
• Colors
• greyish colors, limited other colors
• Materials
• metal, neon lights, glass, plastic, vinyl

Week 8

Design and Technology

This week's reading includes Museum Piece, an article focusing on April Greiman by Todd Hays and Pixel Perfect, an article focusing on Pascal Dangin by Lauren Collins.

Museum Piece
In this article, Todd Hays talks about two posters that April Greiman has done for The Modern Poster exhibit at the MoMA.  What is so innovative about Greiman's work is that she has used the computer to make both of her posters. A program she uses, called Graphic Paintbox, can draw, paint and photocollage on the computer. Greiman mentions how you can see the pixels when you zoom in to retouch details in the poster, and how it is unfortunate that there is no way to get pixel patterns out of the computer systems.  The article also talks about how the programs layering function allows elements to fade in to another, a technique only possible on the computer. The article concludes with Greiman looking at the new possibilities of technology and how it is well received by people willing to accept new technology. Overall I was pretty baffled when I read this article from 1988 since now most graphic design is made using the computer. Techniques described to achieve certain effects can now be easily done.  Many fonts have been created that are only on the computer.  Reading the article makes me realize how much graphic design as a profession has changed.  The computer did more than anyone probably thought it would. Everything now has been simplified.  It is now easier to create something on the computer and to print it.  Perhaps since now computers can do so much, maybe it is better to limit ourselves when creating design.

• Exhibit at MoMA called The Modern Poster featuring around 300 posters 
• April Greiman has two posters in the exhibit
• Greiman was influenced by Swiss design
• April Greiman, Inc has four Apple computers, both posters and type created using the computers
• Program called the Graphic Paintbox used to draw, paint, and photocollage
• print process using various colors and in a certain order

Pixel Perfection

Lauren Collins examines Pascal Dangin and his work as a fashion photograph retoucher. Many people rely on him for retouching, like photographers, magazines, and celebrities. Dangin can also be seen as more of a re-interpretor of the photograph.  He can draw out possibilities that may not have been obvious, and makes sure each photograph is perfect. Collins goes over Dangin's process in one of his meeting to retouch a model. All the corrections are marked with a grease pencil.  However, the actual retouching is done afterwards by Dangin himself. There is also a lot knowledge that goes behind retouching photographs. Dangin require that his artists take in house classes on anatomy.  Prospective hires need to take a fifty-six question quiz ranging from computer science to art history. Overall, this article revealed that it takes much more than knowing how to use Photoshop to become a retoucher for fashion photographs.  The computer is just a tool, it is still up to the individual to use the tool effectively and efficiently. Without prior knowledge, the touch-up could just end up looking fake or mediocre. However this technology has also given viewers an unrealistic sense of beauty.  The retouches output a perfect model, but not a "realistic" one.

• Pascal Dangin is the goto guy for photograph retouching
• many people call him for help to retouch their photographs, including photographers, magazines, and celebrities
• Pascal Dangin is more for just removing blemishes, he can re-image an entire photograph
• started as a hairdresser
• worked long enough until he was sure his retouching skills were up to par
• admits retouching may give an unrealistic expectation of beauty, but doesn't distort the skeleton or disfigure the body
• today's computer programs have reduced quality of photography because the photography can be fixed
• Dangin attends photoshoot and is there for every step of the process to make sure the image is realized

Week 7

Art and Design

This week's readings include Rick Poyer's "Art's Little Brother," M/M's (Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak) Royal College of Art discussion with David Blamey, and Kees Dorst's "But is it Art?"

Art's Little Brother
In this article, Poyer's discusses design's relationship with art.  In most examples and instances he cites, art seems to have a higher status than design.  This was true even in instances where design and art seemed to mix, like a design gallery or magazine featuring artists, not graphic designers.  The article also goes into how different people confronted the differences between art and design, with some people like Judd keeping them completely separate, and some people like Arad who tried to combine art and design.  Poyer also mentions how art doesn't necessarily have to beautiful but design usually is.  Personally for me, I feel that design is a sort of functional art.  While I guess I do prefer beautiful art and hence beautiful or good design, there are many ways to go about designing something, and all of these possibilities could be beautiful.  Different designs will come from different people, just like art.   I know there is some distinction between art and design, but I feel it is similar to how painting would be different from illustration.

• design was seen lower than art
• however the line between design and art are getting more and more vague
• There are instances in media where art draws from design but art still seems dominant
• design is for practicality and function while art is for the artist's own vision
• Greenberg: "closer to furniture than art"
• Examples of artists/designers
• Donald Judd: kept art and design seperate
• Ron Arad: art in design
• Hella Jongerius: blur art and design
• Tord Boontje: decorative motifs in design
• Stephen Bayley: art can elevate design
• Dunne & Raby: flexible
• Art may resist beauty but Design embraces it

Royal College of Art discussion with David Blamey
In this interview, Blamey interviews M/M about their positions as graphic designers in the art world. M/M don't mind mixing in with the art world, in fact they embrace art and find they it just happens that they are designing in the art world.  They state that art and design should respect each other, and recount a story about how their names were erased from a gallery invitation that they designed. M/M discuss some examples where designers would claim they are still doing design even though it looks like they could be artists. They also talk about how the division between art and design is recent and mention Michelangelo. Michelangelo was a designer and artist for the Sistine Chapel, though M/M also say he would be called an artisan during that time.  Blamey sums up the interview, declaring some art is as bad as design and some design as good as art.  While reading this article, I felt that both parties made sure to make it clear that neither design nor art was better than the other. However, I felt that Blamey did slip up a little, claiming art is as bad as design and some design is as good as art. Why couldn't it be "as bad as art" or "as good as design"?  In the last statement he makes he seems to inadvertently favor art.

• Always graphic designers, but in a different setting
• relational aesthetics could be a definition for design
• art and design should respect each other
• design relates more to reality, art can relate or create their own reality
• some designers won't admit they are artists
• division between art and design is recent
• some art is as bad as design and some design is as good as art

But, is it Art?

This article by Dorst quickly mentions design existing in the artist's process and art existing in the designer's process.  Once as artist decides what he or she wants to do, their self challenges are like a design problem, while over a period of time a designer can look back and remember their thought process and can see how now to make it better, similar to an artist. I agree with what Dorst has to say, and that design and art must always exist in each other.  They are more intertwined than science and math.  While their goals may be different, the process towards that goal is still extremely similar.  

• art education in the west is focused on personal development
• artist must find his or her own goals
• but once goal is found very similar to a design process
• border between art and design is permeable
• designer can develop his or her goals like an artist
• just a different medium

Week 6

Sustainability Exercises

Ten Ways Graphic Designers can use paper responsibly

1. Not use paper at all: a graphic designer could just do web design or design relating to things on the computer.  This way paper wouldn't even be used.
2. Research types of printer ink or toner. Find printer ink or toner that is most environmentally friendly.
3. Research types of paper.  Find the paper that is most environmentally friendly.  Find out how the paper is manufactured and if it is recyclable.
4. Set a budget. Limit how much paper you use in general.
5. Reuse scrap pieces of paper.  Print again on the back of used paper to make the most of it.
6. Use up all the space on a paper. Design things that take advantage of the space on the paper in an effort to use as much of the paper as possible.
7. Start a campaign about using paper responsibly. A poster, for example, would say where and how it was made and why it is sustainable.
8. Design a project in a way that it can be used more than once.  A poster, for example, can be perforated and distributed as business cards.
9. Calculate how many "trees" you've used and plant new trees to replace them and incorporate it in a sustainability project.
10. Before printing something, mix your own inks to match the project's colors as to not waste default colors that you don't intend to use.

Sustainable Graphic Design

Something that I see everyday that has been thrown away is gum.  There are always black spots of gum stuck on the sidewalk.  This problem could be solved a variety of ways.  The hardest way would to make gum decomposable, since that would entirely change how gum is made.  Other efforts that could be made is to direct the user to throw the gum away properly, either in the wrapper or in the trash.  This problem of litter may still persist however, but it would be easier to remove than if the gum was actually stuck on the wrapper instead of on the ground.  

Some sketch ideas:

Week 5 Response

Vernacular Design

This week's readings include We're Here to be Bad, by Tibor Kalman and Karrie Jacobs, and Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design, by Gerry Beegan and Paul Atkinson.

We're Here to be Bad
The authors in this article comment on the majority of advertising design and denounce it, ranting on how designers have lost focus on design as an art and have sold out to big companies.  Kalman and Jacobs claim that design has reached a point where designers can choose a safe design that appeals to everyone, instead of choosing to design something that questions the company and and viewers.  Big corporations also support "safe design" because they would prefer not to take risks with their advertising campaigns where money is involved.  The authors also mention that designers have become cogs in a machine, that design sometimes fades out into business.  They turn their focus on vernacular design, telling us that good design is design that isn't noticed on a daily basis.  I feel that this point is a bit contradictory since everyday design could be affected by today's culture anyway.  Just because big corporations or a marketing department isn't involved doesn't mean that recent trends in design don't affect local design. However, overall I generally agree with the authors.  A good design (or bad in this case) isn't design that follows the guidelines of what is good or imitates another professional's work, but design that works to solve the problem or communicate an idea.  This design could challenge a client, but I feel that it doesn't necessarily have to either.

• all good design isn't good
• make an effort to be bad, to challenge the conventional
• Designers have been sucked into the process and are cogs in the machine
• Designers have sold themselves out, using their skills for money instead of art
• Images that corporations churn out fools consumers, whether rich or poor
• Best design takes place outside of the profession: vernacular design
• Need to forget what we learned in design school and need to inject art into commerce

Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design
In this article by Gerry Beegan and Paul Atkinson, the changing positions of design are examined.  One of these changing trends are the relationship between the amateur and professional and how various people reacted to the DIY (do it yourself) movement.  Steven Heller, for example, argues that by making design easier, it closes the gap, and professionals lose their elite status that give them credibility.  However Ellen Lupton counters with the point that credibility should come from the design's relevance to everyday life, and that everyone can design something for themselves whether big or small. The point is made that not only do professionals influence amateurs, but amateurs can also influence professionals because of their ability to work outside the closed system and provide new ideas.  Architecture is also referenced in terms of design, where an essay by Edward Prior, he states that architecture started focusing on architecture itself instead of the people inside the buildings. The "ghosts" of the profession were the workers that worked with the master architect since only the master architect is credited. In this case this could also be seen as amateur designers, who can silently influence a professional's work. Some of these influences can include vernacular design and dilettante design.  For example, while vernacular design can be seen as good or bad, these judgments clearly dictate that there is a decision on what is good or bad design and thus what can be used for good design.  Dilettante design can also bring new ideas from other disciplines despite people's opinions that dilettantes spread themselves out too thinly over many activities.  Overall I think this essay is a good examination of how non-professional design can affect professional design and that design is evident everywhere. We can always draw our ideas from many sources because design exists in so many forms and places.

• Perhaps amateurs also affect professionals
• Similarities between architecture as a profession and design as a profession
• ghosts could be seen as amateurs
• Vernacular design
• Various names of Italian vernacular architecture suggest ways the vernacular relates back to the culture
• Dilettante design
• The Miriskusniki's approach - knowledgeable about theatre, ballet, and opera
• both viewer's and creators
• Amateurs
• various examples - self-building, web design, etc
• Vernacular modernism - generative principles of the modern condition
• The designer is connected to the user