[That essay was not as short as you said it would be...]

Seriously? That essay was twenty-four pages long! That's not a "very short essay" in my book. I mean, it's not a "horridly long essay" Or a "almost killed me essay" either, but still. Don't lie, it's a sin.

Also, may I note that that essay was as pretentious as you can get? I swear, it's like he wasn't even speaking english sometimes. Admitted, it is fun to write big words sometimes, but it's not fun to read them. Jeesh!

Anyways, where was I... Ah yes. The essay.

As I struggled through this essay, two themes struck me: one being the perception that a photograph is an objective capture, and two being the ethical abuses of the photograph. What is it about the photograph that has caused it to leave such an interesting history? What in it's nature shapes our thoughts as such?

Let us look at the nature of the first photographs. They were grainy. They had no color. If the subjects moved or the camera shifted, the images would come out blurry. So what shaped the viewers mind to see the photograph as "objective"? Great painters were able to render masterpieces with an almost lifelike aesthetic, but photographs earned the title of objectivity.

Let us compare the photograph to the painting; the key difference we see is in the presence of the artist. In a painting, even the most finely rendered paintings, we can see the hand of the artist in the medium. We can see the strokes no matter how well hidden they are. In the photograph, however, the artist is invisible. The essay talks about (in its horribly overblown English) how people don't think about the photographer-they rather think of the camera. This gives the picture the appearance of being self existent, created ex nihilo by the situation itself. Thus people think them to be interpretations of real life.

Which leads to my second observation: the unethical use of photography. In the essay the class was barbarically forced to slave through, I observed many instances where humans were photographed and organized, the soul purpose being to note their flaws and categorize them into a certain "level of human". What about photography brought about such inhuman categorization?

If photography does not offer objectivity, it does offer something that is often mistaken for objectivity; verisimilitude, or the appearance of reality. Where an illustrators hand would be apparent for a scientist, a photograph gives him the feeling of actually being there with his specimen. With a photograph, he can closely observe his subject as if they are a frozen specimen. He can note the height of their height, length, width, and expression, taking careful note of every detail without actually being there, which leads to the root of our issue; because photography offers the appearance of reality, the scientist or observer feels he is in reality, and that the photograph is the whole of the reality of his subject. Thus, he only knows what he sees. He does not see the man playing with his children or speaking to his wife, interacting with friends. All he sees is the man with the stick, standing naked.

One photo that stuck out to me in that ostentatious essay was Front and Profile View of Malayan Man by John Lamprey. We see a naked Malayan man, holding a staff in front of a grid, rigged up for the photo. The nature of the photograph tells us, "This is all that there is to see. This is the whole of the man." But what we forget is that we have pulled the Malayan man out of his home and under the microscope. We forget that he is a man, and not just a specimen.

Ok...I didn't actually hate the essay. I just get overdramatic sometimes.

[It's late.]

This is a very quick prototype to check size, layout, and pullout tab placement. 

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[Type]

Text is one of those things we take for granted. Since the invention of the computer, the printer, and the odious free-font website, text and type have become so much apart of our world and simply blend into the background, the art of type making all but forgotten.

Ah, but what a rich history to forget! So full of painstaking exactness, mind-numbingly precise measuring, and of course, a grandiose lexicon of pulchritudinous nomenclature for your edification.

I could go through such codification, listing off hither and thither the anatomy of type, but alas, these appendages are much easier shown than explained. Thus, I will attempt to rationalize the reasons for us to understand type and its apportionments.

Letters (and most every object in our world) exist in two different realms: the realm of the Signifier, and the realm of the Signified. Charles Sanders Pierce, the propagator of these two terms, said that every object in our world has "Meanings"; what the form of the object suggests, the realm of the Signifier, and what the culture surrounding the object suggests, the Signified.

Now the realm of thought that we initially recognize letters as placing themselves in is the realm of the Signified; rarely do we consciously recognize letters for their form, but rather we recognize them for their meaning. When looking at a curving path, we are more likely to comment that it looks like the letter 'S', thus putting our focus not upon the form of the 'S', but rather the cultural significance we have associated with that shape.

However, as designers, we cannot divorce the realm of the Signifier from the realm of the Signified. We must have the two hand in hand as we traverse the treacherous terrace of typography. We must readily accept that the Signifier, the form of the object, will affect the Signified, the understanding of the object.

To give an example, let us turn to signs. Why is it that for more serious signs, we use capital letters? Look at the form of the CAPITAL letter: It's size implies a certain austerity. There is a lack of roundness it its form; it appears far more geometric.

This is but one example of how the form affects our understanding. And so, as designers, attempting to portray a certain idea, it is important to understand the parts of fonts, so as to better understand their form, and thus, so we can create the proper response from our viewers.

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[Oh look, its been a while...]

Well, this is embarrassing.

Here's some photos from the accordion book project.

Since iPhone photos are of such low quality, I wanted to find a way to present them as higher quality. So I pasted them to a clean white wall. In order to get a clean white light, I used a computer screen light, and used a very long exposure time (30 seconds), giving the photos a crisp, neutral look.

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[A definition]

Subtraction: (verb)

1.to take away by or as if by deducting.

Merriam-Webster

[process book preview]

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[how we see]

Every second, we encounter a hundred different little images. Shape, color, line, space, dimension, and value bombard us. We are in a culture where we can print anything anywhere, and we take great advantage of this, plastering our thoughts, and things we sell everywhere. 

Look anywhere and you'll see a symbol. Glance at a wall, you're bound to see a word. What is it about us humans and our need to produce shape and text? What attracts us to it? 

Lets take a look at comics; a series of pictures, ranging from fairly realistic drawings to highly abstracted caricatures that tell a story in sequence, mostly mixed with words. Why are we drawn to these? In Understanding Comics, our abstracted tour guide explains that as we shift the human form to realistic to abstract, it allows us to see ourselves in it. Realism allows us to look at the beauty of the outside. Abstracted form allows us to look inside, and "see" something inside of us. Abstraction reflects, and sometimes in reflects things we didn't see before. 

[Just a thought]

I've been thinking about objects and our uses of them. I've also been studying the art of cinematography (for those not in the film world, that's the art of setting up three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional plane for film). One idea echoed by cinematographers is that if a cinematographer is doing his job right, you won't know he did his job. Rather you'll be so engrossed by the storytelling that you wont realize the technical.

I think design of objects should be similar. We don't make objects to enjoy them; rather, good design ignores itself and helps us enjoy life instead. 

Thats what I think anyway. 

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[prototypes]

Hey look- Prototypes!

Here's the first of the prototypes. Single-prong with the bendable light.

The second is a much smaller duo pronged fixed light.

[thoughts on The Writer's Toolbox}

So true to form as we're talking about thinking and ways to write down stuff, I'm going to write this article from the top of my brain using that one method Jack K used, I can't sseem to remember the exact name right now (that's one of my problems, I don't ever remember terms) Freewrighting! That's what it is! So this post will be freewritten, so I appologize for it's obvious lack of coherance. Anyways, writing is an essental part of the designers life. Why? Cause not everyone thinks visuallly and not everyone can understand our silly little thmbnail drawings we do. Ya know, they can be darn impossible to understand at times. My old Design Prof used to say "explain as much as possible with words so the client knows what he's getting" or something like that. Anyways using words helps us to plan things out and make them clear, but even then it's hard for us. I mean, we're visual people even if we like writing (like I do). So we have to do stuff to get our brains stimulated, like mindmaps. Mindmaps are what I find most helpful when I'm doing design stuff cause they allow me to just explore ideas without hesitations, to get down every last thought about an object as fast as I can. Then I can go back and see different threads and where they lead and connect. Then there's that other one that's like mind mapping, but for more organized thinkers (you know, people who's brains work like a classical piece of music-my brain works like Jazz on drugs) anyways, you basically start with your topic and then use phrases like "works with" or "reacts to" to map out how your topic reacts to certain actions.
Freewriting is my personal favorite for story telling, cause you just write. You let every little thought flow from your brain to your fingers without any worries of misspelling s and crap like that. I mean i really don't give a owls hoot about spelling and grammar and stuff. we don't talk in propper spelling and grammar, so why should we write like it? I guess that's why I write scripts. Not important, anyways, this method allows you to quickly list down your most raw thoughts about a topic. This is often best followed by taking a pen and circling or underlining cool things your wrote.
Then you can do things like lists, or Brain expressing (I think that's what it's called-for the introverts) You have people write down the problem, and come up with a sort of chart for them to write stuff on so they don't have to talk.
The most important final step is peer review, and it's important cause you get an outside source telling you what is great and what sucks about your ideas and stuff, so it's pretty important. There are many different ways of doing this, but the key thing is to stay positive and be kind. Remember, these are people too, and to designers, ideas are like their children, and you don't want some idiot raggin on your kid.

Just saying.

[mind map]

Our mind map for the tape measurer. I was really amazed how many diseases we came up with without even toutching the tape. 

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[a little illustration]

A birthday card for my mom. 

[design makes us happy]

[scribbles]

Nothing like tracing paper. 

[dreams in color]

 

From my notebook

[sooo]

This is pretty fun.

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[Color Police 2]

These two illustrations are examples of both limited color palette and analogous color schemes. Personally, I think they're pretty good, but they are my illustrations so I am biases. 

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[color police]

This delicious pizza (made by my mom) is an excellent example of dominant chroma. The crust and cheese are a low chroma, making the minority of high chroma pop. (Note this pizza was reheated. It looked even more beautiful fresh)

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[crit day]

Critique of preliminary posters. 

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[the poster]

The poster of ideas. 

[thoughts on the reading]

Thoughts from my journal. 

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[Colors]

Here's a selection from my color group photos.

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Who Could That Be at This Hour? - Dominance (Hue)

Most of the book is blue, which makes the orange square around the title 'pop' (orange & blue are complimentary colors). While the blue is the same chroma as the orange, the surrounding grey gives the appearance of a lower chroma, which could almost make this an example of Dominant Chroma.

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Death of a Salesman - Softening Contrast

In this book cover, the two colors use two light value colors to soften the contrast. The colors are also not as pure and low in chroma, giving them a more natural appearance.

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Oliver Peoples Glasses Rag - Keying the Color

This rag uses a light yellow tint across the whole picture. This diffuses the chroma, giving the image a more sophisticated look.

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"Expresso/Americano" - Use of Neutrals

This image uses a total of two colors, and they are both a brown, natural color. Because their hue is not instantly detected as "warm" or "cool", it makes the image easy for the viewer to maneuver through.

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Paris versus New York - Limited Pallet

This uses a very limited color pallet, allowing the eye to quickly understand the information.

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"FADED" by Evan Kolacny - Transition in Hue

In this image, we see a transition from a purple hue to a blue hue, allowing our eyes to flow with the colors.  - http://ekolacny.tumblr.com/ -

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"Blunderbuss" - Harmonious Hue

The whole album color is made up of a blue hue except for the white and black (which are tinted cool as well).

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Press Here - Harmonious Chroma

While this image uses multiple hues, they are all of the same, high chroma.

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Headband - Harmonious Value

This headband uses various hues, but they are all of the same value.

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Shorts - Contrasting Hue

Red and orange are opposites on the color wheel, so these show very opposite hues.

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Plaid Shirt - Contrasting Chroma

This shirt uses the same hues, but changes the chroma to create contrast.

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"Animals" - Contrasting Value

This image uses the same low chroma throughout, but the variation between light and dark gives us the information of the factory.

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[ode to sleep]

Working on project 1.

-thumbnails-

I have a love for hands on photo manipulation


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[Ram's design principals & thoughts]

Thoughts from my notebook

"What is shown in Ran's design principals is that design is good when it makes way for the purpose of an object: not simply in a utilitarian/pragmatic way, but in a deeper, perhaps more spiritual way. When we design or make, we do so with purpose, which reflects our own longing for purpose. Despite each objects unique path or purpose, it can only be useful or 'good' if it follows a  "path of good design". To stretch a phrase, in the same way that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", the fear of design is the beginning of purposeful objects.

{SDG}

[Five object of good design]

1. Sony headphones, for their superior sound quality and durability.

2. This coffee mug, which has a base small enough to fit into most car cup holders,

but not small enough to easily knock over.

3. The iPhone, for its innovative technology and aesthetic design.

4. The Chaco, for its durability and simplicity, allowing it to outlast fads.

5. The Flosser, for its simple yet intuitive design.

{SDG}