"Who Would Say that Pleasure is not Useful?" -Charles Eames

In the popular 1972 film Design Q&A, Madame Amic asks designer Charles Eames "Is [design] able to cooperate in the creation of works reserved solely for pleasure?" to which he answers the title of this blog entry.  Fashion design, while appreciated by many is also found to be a frivolous activity by others.  But fashion design is an art form created as a vehicle of expression and for pleasure on multiple levels of clothing design.

The feeling of textiles on the skin is a sensual, pleasurable one and to see how they move in various constructed forms down the runway is a pleasurable sight for many.  It is also an artistic showcase.  Charles Eames' implication is correct.  Pleasure is useful because it activates positive feelings and catalyzes some of the best artistic thoughts and inspirations.  

Here are some photos of the late Alexander McQueen's runway designs:

Sources:

http://fashionbride.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/red-perfection-alexander-mcqueen/

http://www.viecouture.com/alexander-mcqueen-spring-2007/

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/JMn-yD-XHsT/Alexander+McQueen+Paris+Fashion+Week+Ready

The best fashion designers make people want to wear their clothes because donning their creations would make the wearer happy and feel an immense amount of pleasure.  McQueen's designs not only produce this by the use of textiles or through unique construction, but also with the design's inventiveness.  Fashionistas love to wear clothes that make them stand out.  This gives them pleasure.  Wearing these types of clothes is desirable for several men and women.  This inspires or prompts manufacturers to make similar clothes to fulfill this pleasure for consumers.        

Throughout the Design Q&A film, Eames talks of the relationship between design and purpose. One of the purposes of design can certainly be to create pleasure for the wearer, viewer, "experiencer", etc.  In addition, working within the constraints that is involved in every design process can be intellectually pleasurable for a designer.  This can challenge the designer to come up with the best and most creative designs. 

The designs photographed above are luscious, luxurious, and, the word of the moment: pleasureful.  Even in a still photograph, one can tell these clothes move brilliantly.  To make something look so effortless, yet inventively complex is fantastic design.  To invoke such pleasure into the viewer is also fantastic design.

For more Alexandar McQueen pleasure, visit http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/
To watch the Design Q&A film, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8qs5-BDXNU

Design as Conversation: Disneyland

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disneyland_plaque.jpg

Disneyland is magical. Disneyland is happy. Why? Because the design of it is magical and happy.  What the Disney plaque above says is true.  Once entering through this archway, visitors are suddenly somewhere else where one can escape into a place they never deemed imaginable.  A place where "acting like a kid" is permitted for people of various ages.  This past weekend I visited Disneyland for the first time and I overheard an abundance of conversation concerning the design of the entire park.  

Amidst all the rides, Peter Pan's Flight will be my main focus where conversation is used in the ride's design.  Riders load into miniature galleons that "lift" off to fly over rooftops, over London, through the stars, towards Neverland, and through movie scenes bought to life by audio-animatronics.

The first room riders fly into!

All Peter Pan's Flight Photos Taken by Me!

This ride greatly uses perception and perspective.  The galleon is suspended from the ceiling as riders swoop over a lighted miniaturized London with the largest focal point being Big Ben.  The position of the galleon and city make riders feel as if they really are high up in the sky.  From there riders are bought into a galaxy surrounded by stars.  I must say that I never fathomed traveling to "space" without paying Richard Bronson $250,000.  After the ride was over, I overheard fellow riders converse about how amazing the ride was and inquire how certain things were accomplished by the creators.

I discussed with my own group how they made the stars appear so close to us yet we couldn't seem to touch them.  How is it timed it so that each rider sees Peter battling Hook?  How mini or how large is the miniaturized London?  Similar questions were asked about all of the rides where holograms, projections, and audio-animatronics were skillfully and creatively used and timed.

Not only did the ride's design cause conversation, but used it.  The repetition of lines from the movie, Hook and Peter arguing, Peter saying "Come on everybody, here we go!" at the start of the ride all contributes to its fantastical qualities.  Using conversation in design pulls viewers in, involves them not only through sight but with their ears.  Involving viewers makes design more exciting, inviting, and successful.

Great design creates conversation and uses it.  Similarly, great design holds secrets and keeps an air of mystique so that the conversation is full of creative hypotheses and open-mindedness.  

Let's Compare and Contrast Hand Dryers

Products like the Dyson Airblade and motion sensor towel dispensers have been popping up in several public restrooms, changing the way hands are dried around the world.  Nifty machines like these are reducing the sights of garbage cans overflowing with barely used paper towels.  Most effective are the electric hand dryers.  Hand dryers have been around for some time, but older machines, like the one seen below are not successfully designed.

Most people opt to use paper towels over these older machines because these machines take forever and seem to never turn off.  Drying a shirt after cleaning off a food stain seems like the only plausible usage.  However, the innovation of the newer machines along with the elimination of paper towel usage is exciting.  

With the old machines, water would drip onto the floor creating a slippery puddle which created the need for more paper towels or cleaning products to dry up.  The Dyson product reduces this problem with motion sensor "sheets of air travelling at 400mph to scrape water from hands like a windshield wiper" (www.dysonairblade.com).  The usage of one paper towel equals drying off 22 pairs of hands with the Dyson Airblade.  The product also uses up to 80% less energy than warm air dryers and removes 99.9% of bacteria unlike the old dryers which would leave hands damp and more susceptible to bacteria.  

Not only does the Dyson Airblade and other similar products reduce carbon footprints, but it also looks sleek, modern, and interesting.  Like the Airblade, good design combines aesthetics with practicality, innovation, and, especially in the modern day, with environmental friendliness.

The only thing that may vamp up this design even more is some creative imagery:

Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Thailand

Art Director: Noppadon Shinkhem

Photographer: Chubcheevit

But perhaps a more pleasant design geared toward going green, and one that does not add to the advertising clutter of today!

For more information, visit www.dysonairblade.com

For more information on the Mitsubishi Jet Towel, visit http://www.mitsubishijettowel.com

(all images from websites listed above)

And Getting to the Getty...

Photos of the Getty, taken by me!

This past weekend, I embarked on a strange journey. And though the reasons for said journey were atypical, it was, simply, an enjoyable trip down to Los Angeles. During my down time, I visited the Getty Center, a beautifully designed museum which houses several antiquities of the past. What is immensely interesting about the Getty is the juxtaposition of the contemporary architecture with the antiquity that the architecture helps to exhibit.

Visitors must take a short trip in a tram up to the museum. This isolation of the center makes visitors feel as if they are traveling to a different world or to a different time, capsuled by the large buildings that sit before them upon exiting the tram.

The Getty has a truly unique appearance. The unusual curvature and sharp edges of the buildings can be seen in the photos above. Shallow pools of water edge the stairways and can be found in several nooks and crannies. Pathways are not done in a completely systematic matter which keeps the visit exciting. Visitors simply follow the pathways to run into another section to enjoy. Gardens are not restricted to the ground level but are also on the upper floors. As extensions of the buildings, the gardens become a part of the Los Angeles shrubbery and skyline.

So, visitors, while being air trammed into modernity, are simultaneously being taken to the past.

This juxtaposition beautifully showcases the beauty of the art more so than if the art was standing on its own. The antiquities' modern housing is almost overwhelming due to the buildings' massive scale. This overwhelming feeling can cause visitors to yearn for something from a simpler time and this desire can be easily fulfilled by entering one of many exhibits. For instance, viewing Monet's calming Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning (1891) inside a thoroughly modern building strongly emphasizes the beauty in the old and the new.  This large scale contrast can elevate a visitor's appreciation for the housed art.

The Getty Center shows that juxtaposition, when utilized well, can make a design extremely successful and, in this case, can enhance a visitor's experience.

Creativity from Without: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Christo and Jeanne-Claude
The Umbrellas, Japan - USA, 1984-91
Photo: Wolfgang Volz ©1991 Christo

Not creativity from within, but creativity from without.  Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude find inspiration outside of themselves while working in rural and urban environments.  Specifically with the project The Umbrellas, urban development of two inland valleys, one in Japan and one in the U.S. served as inspiration.  As stated by the artists themselves, "This Japan-USA temporary work of art reflected the similarities and differences in the ways of life and the use of the land in two inland valleys...creating an invitational inner space, as houses without walls, or temporary settlements and related to the ephemeral character of the work of art"(http://www.christojeanneclaude.net).

Christo and Jeanne-Claude use their projects to emphasize certain characteristics of the surrounding environment as elements of the valleys affected the artistic choices of The Umbrellas.  Because the Japanese rice fields are cultivated with water year round, the umbrellas were blue.  Because the Californian uncultivated grazing land was covered by dry blond grass, the umbrellas were yellow.  The umbrellas, large and open reflect the availability of the land and the land's usages through color and placement.  Umbrellas were placed alongside roads and highways, adjacent to barns, temples, churches, gas stations, schools, habitations and cattle.

All of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's works are temporary installments.  They do this because they have love and tenderness for things that do not last, like life and childhood.  Finding inspiration in temporal qualities encourages them to endow their work with this love and tenderness as an additional aesthetic quality.  The land that they work with is also temporal as nature is always changing and going through its own cycles.  Here is one of my favorite Jeanne-Claude quotes:

      "The fact that the work does not remain creates an urgency to see it.  For instance, if someone were to tell you, “Oh, look on the right, there is a rainbow.”  You will never answer, “I will look at it tomorrow.”

This urgency also draws attention to the land and methods used by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.  The artists often restore and care for the land they use.  In addition, after removing installations, pieces are recycled and reused.  These activities influence people to care for the environment, to appreciate the beauty in it and the magnified beauty of it through the artists' work.

While finding inspiration outside of themselves, Christo and Jeanne-Claude serve as an external inspiration for myself.   

Another work entitled: Wrapped Trees,  Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park; Riehen, Switzerland, 1997-98

Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Wrapped Trees, Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park,
Riehen, Switzerland 1997-98
Photo: Wolfgang Volz, ©Christo 1998

For more Christo and Jeanne-Claude, visit: http://www.christojeanneclaude.net

A Stone Soup Tree

 A Stone Soup production

Photo by Samantha Schneider

For those who know the folk story Stone Soup, the sprouting tree sculpture above was a temporary creation for a project which encouraged the behavioral philosophies of cooperation and collaboration emphasized in the short story.  Cooperation and collaboration.  These are two fantastic nouns that helped our group's project manifest into a success of recycled goods in one very time efficient hour.  The most inspiring thing that I pulled from this was that our level of communication was almost telepathic in nature.

Upon viewing the materials each person bought, we all agreed with the second suggestion: to make a tree.  We discussed colors, the roots, and basic construction.

Vicky started spray painting the box gold while Tobias and Jose collected fallen leaves to stick onto the paint.  Jose had also tied hemp pieces together by knotting them at the top while Eric and I wrapped the soda bottle in brown paper.  Alice, Linda, and Christine began making paper flowers and  branches.  I then wrapped each string of Jose's knotted hemp to create the roots.  After the roots were connected, everyone began creating small additions.  For instance, Vicky made bird nests and Tobias made leaves.  Our finishing touches were adding the branches, smaller creations, and garnishes to the tree.

What was fantastic was that people did not ask for permission to do something.  It was truly collaborative without authority.  It was a common understanding to let people work and have it all come together in the end.  This is what I mean by telepathic.  A personal example is when I made the roots.  I saw Jose tying the hemp together but didn't know what he was doing it for because it was before Tobias suggested making roots.  When I saw that roots needed to be done, I used Jose's string and began rolling brown paper around each string.  While I held the string, Samantha had come over and checked with me that the strings were going to be the roots.  It's as if we were all communicating without verbally communicating.

My Awesome Group

Photo by Samantha Schneider

It was a great experience to work with my group to create a tree which is representative of many concepts such as growth, development, and connectivity.  In making our little creatures, flowers, leaves, etc. we created a community contained within our tree which embodies what we are doing each class period in our groups.    

Unlimited Resources Can Be Limiting

Photos from Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester

The people of design are not limited to professional fashion designers, architects, graphic designers, landscapers, or to design students.  They can and are the nomadic children of the Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo Valley.  Design is none of their professions, they simply wish to express their "innate artistic sense" (Publishers Weekly, April 2009).  These photos are undeniably striking and magnificent on the eyes.  The book of images is very popular and a must-buy for many.  Why do these photos intrigue people so greatly?       

Apart of the intrigue is the creative usage of nature's materials.  Another part is being introduced to a world that many would not have known or seen otherwise.  People have seen the high fashion designs of the designer capitals trickle down into the ready-to-wear stores, where designs are becoming painfully redundant to the point where design isn't there, but rather, replication is.  Finally with the natural tribal fashions of Africa, something fresh, inventive, captivating to look at!  


It has been stressed that it is important to know the people of design. However these children are not exposed to the well-known designers who many others look to for inspiration.  They do not have museums to view the popular works of the past.  Of course they are exposed to the best creators of their own tribe but it is almost as if this limited access to these materials and sources triggers the most imaginative and resourceful designs.  The paints on their skin is from powdered volcanic rock.  Grasses, shells, horns, and much more are utilized for adornment.


This brings us to the thought that perhaps, paradoxically, unlimited parameters can be limiting.  Many resources are available to designers in developed countries.  With so many available materials, will we pick the correct materials to work with? Will we get to know the materials as well as the Surma and Mursi children understand nature's materials? As a note, I am not downplaying the tribal creations in the slightest.  Their creations are the work of genius and I am merely making an observation.


Limitation such as the one's discussed really get the mind thinking creatively so that the designer's mind can extend or erase their mind's own parameters.


To purchase the book of these gorgeous photographs, visit this link!:
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Fashion-Tribal-Decoration-Africa/dp/0500288054?ie=UTF8&tag=inforfarm-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969

Open-Mindedness: "Why Be Scared of a Hat?"

Design is a word whose meaning cannot be precisely pinpointed, though this is precisely part of the beauty of the word.  I inquire if the illustrations above are design.  These are drawings by the fantastic author Antoine Saint-Exupery, who attributes them to a character in his novella: Le Petit Prince.  Now comes a truckload of questions.  Is a simple drawing a design or is it art?  Or is it neither? Is there a proper or improper way to use the term 'design' if the definition is not clearly defined?  These questions can never be definitively answered as language is arbitrary and as people's perceptions greatly differ.  I am not quite decided myself if this drawing is a design.  However I can think of additional factors that would cause this drawing to be commonly agreed upon as one.  For instance, if it was a concept for a future creation or to go on a t-shirt, it would be called a "t-shirt design" or a "design concept".  But on a piece of paper, with no additional factors, it is commonly considered to be just a drawing, not a design with the variable being the element of planning.  It could well be considered art, but the differences/similarities of art and design is another conversation. 

However, the illustrator had to plan and construct this image in his head, for design, functioning as both a noun and a verb is a process and the end result of that process.  Design, according to Kostas Terzidis, is about conceptualization, imagination, and interpretation.  A message addressing what can be missed due to a lack of imagination or open-mindedness can be derived from these images.  Interpretation can go several ways.  On the top it is a snake.  The adult characters in the Le Petite Prince see it as a hat when the illustrator intends for it to be a snake who has eaten an elephant.  The viewer needs a bit of an imagination to think of this.  Does possessing these three qualities qualify this as design?  

I can not answer my own questions. But they are food for thought.  What I can definitively say is that design requires open-mindedness just as needed for the top illustration above.  Open-mindedness in design and in the analysis of design and its meanings, for the debate of its definition will go on infinitely.   

Sequined

Photo Identification- "Epiphany of c. 1995: Costumes are Designed Objects"

by Tracey Lindsay Chan

2007 

The represented epiphany above occurred in Chinatown, San Francisco.  Though I had been wearing these types of costumes since the age of three, not only till a few years later did I recognize them as designed objects. I mark this event as one of my earliest and most positive experiences with the impact of design.

Prior to my realization, I was aware that the costumes were shiny, intricate, stunning, and possessed transformational qualities as I wore them while performing.  When I began to think of the costume's functional qualities in addition to its aesthetic qualities, I began to understand what elements contributed to its good design.

The costume was comfortable. The satin felt cool on the skin, which I was especially grateful for while under the lights which hotly illuminated the stage.  The costume top slid easily onto my arms, an essential component for quick changing from a monkey to a maiden of ancient China.  The pants were loose, like pajamas, yet looked classy and appropriate due to the sequined hems and fabric choice.

Kostas Terzidis wrote that "design is about something we once had, but have no longer".  The costumes are almost fantastical as they are used to refer back to a time period long gone.  They are not pieces that people would wear today, due to its appearance and limited accessibility.  Because of this, they demand stares of awe and happiness as the costumes are something special and rare.  They are blinding spectacles that are enjoyable to look at.  It takes the starers to a place that is inaccessible in the real world.  Because of this, the costumes possess transformational qualities for the wearer.  After all, which well designed costumes don't?

I relate costume design to clothing design.  Successful clothing design should empower the wearer and make them feel good about themselves.  These costumes empowered me since a young age and I thoroughly appreciate the impact these well-designed costumes have had on me and on my attitude towards design.  Good design melds aesthetics and functionality seamlessly. So not only are these costumes beautiful to observe, they serve a practical purpose and capture the elusive essence of ancient China.