The MoMA

On thanksgiving break break this year I returned home to New York City and revisited one of my favorite museums: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In addition to featuring temporary exhibits, the MoMA provides a great overview of modern art. I was surprised to find just how present design and elements of design were in the fine art that was featured in the museum.

The MoMA usually features examples of effective and sometimes iconic product designs such as like Gebrüder Thonet's Rocking Chaise with Adjustable Back, or works of graphic design like posters by Jules Chéret. However, I was most interested in viewing the artwork that blurred the lines between art and design, or works that looked like product design but were intended to be viewed and interpreted as art or fine art.

For example, the MoMA featured works by Andy Warhol like his Campbell's Soup Cans and his Brillo Box sculpture. By removing the function for which these designs were intended (through displaying them as works of fine art, rather then a product intended for use) the MoMA brought my attention the the fact that an effective design, in addition to performing a practical function, can be admired as a work of art.

An example of a sculpture by Marcel Duchamp:


Andy Warhol is not the only artist featured in the MoMA who brought my attention to design. Jeff Koons made a sculpture called New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker that presented a vacuum as a work of modern art and Marcel Duchamp produced In advance of a Broken Arm, a sculpture that was essentially an example of a product design (it consisted of a hanging shovel). Even the artist On Kawara presented elements of design in his paintings because he produces paintings of dates. By literally painting the date of a particular day, the artist is not only brought my attention to that day but the text he chose to use in his work.

An example of a painting by On Kawara:


I suppose I like the like the MoMA in part because I think that the museum has a very accepting view of art. This flexible mindset allows the museum to highlight the importance of both fine art and design, and the effect they have on a viewer or user.

LA Auto Show

I went to the LA auto show on thursday to see what types of new concepts they had for this year. After seeing Objectified, I looked at design from a completely different perspective. No matter what the design, car, shoes, or just everyday materials, I feel that design is something that makes the world. Well, for my experience at the LA auto show, as I walked around the futuristic vehicles on displayed, I can really see what it means to be a designers. Take for example the BMW vision efficient concept( the picture). As I examined this car, I actually feel what the ex- BMW director Chris Bangles was talking about. Cars display our emotions. It, by itself, has a lot of emotions already. For example, all the curvatures it has portrays a very fast and aggressive emotion. In objectified, it also talked about the front and the rear of the car looking like some type of facial expression. In this vision efficient concept, I see it, the agressive shark looking from end, and the almost angry face in the rear. Having never seen car from this point of view, I was astonished to discover so many new characteristics of car. To me, this car also is like an avatar for the person driving it. This person would be someone opulent, fascinated with car, and like to speed. Not only does it correlate with emotion, but it can go with harmony too because of the way it curves. The way the wind flows when driving the car is really harmonious and somewhat in a way can be describe as a melody. Overall, the video really did show me the world of design in a different scope, one that I didn't look from in the past.

Extra Credit Assignment Painting Review

For one of my extra credit assignments, I decided to review a piece by one of my favorite artists, Stanley Donwood, most recognizably, the artist for the band Radiohead. The piece is called ‘Manhattan’ and is similar to the painting on the cover of the “Hail to the Thief” album. The painting is composed of a black background, and depicts a cut out of what appears to be a cityscape filled in with words that suggest sensations within the human mind. There is almost a stream of thought like quality to the painting because of the spontaneity of the choice of words. The painting suggests an overall corruptness of society and living through simplifying the life of a human into little phrases—“TIME IS UP, CLEAN IT UP, SAD, EAT, NO WAY OUT, POWERCUT, CLEAN IT UP, STEAL, BUNKER, DISASTER, TRESPASSING, PHONE” etc. Each word is contained in its own little sector of a misshapen box, within the outline of the city. The color of the text and box varies in each sector and is colored sporadically utilizing a seven color palette—there might even be some boxes where the text appears as if it is missing because the box and text are the same color. The color scheme is very unique and vibrant, yet it still gives this overlying feeling of depression and pointlessness to everyday life. The colors used in the piece are grey, orange, yellow, blue, red, black, and white; they are extremely repetitious which adds to the feeling of isolation and being stuck in a pointless world. Donwood stated that the actual reason for him using these colors were because he explored the city and on logos, billboards, and whatever he saw he noticed a basic palette of seven colors. The words that he chose to put on the painting were taking both from the city, and from the Radiohead album itself. I believe he does an extremely good job of taking the complexity and vastness of the city and life in general, and simplifying it into simple shapes, words and colors. The series of works did a great job of carrying out its main purpose which is representing the “Hail to the Thief” album. The band’s lyrics tend to reflect a common theme of corruptness and complexity within politics and society through very vague statements. The propaganda - like piece and lyrics match well together and certainly are successful in their purpose of being on the cover. Additionally, the words are all written in capital letters, which greatly intensifies the effectiveness of the piece because they are so stagnant and strong—just like the ideas behind them. 

Logo Design

An aspect of design I decided to research is logos. A logo is an ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon or sign that with a logotype (a unique typeface) form a commercial logo. They are made for quick recognition and association with a brand. The shapes, colors, fonts and images set it apart. Ideograms may be more effective than just a typeface. Branding attempts to have cross language marketing, for example the Coca-Cola logo. Color can be used to express a certain emotion that the designer of the logo wants to convey, or for people to associate with the product. For example, red attracts attention, red white and blue patriotic, green is health and hygiene, light blue or silver is diet foods. Subdued tones and lower saturation can communicate reliability, quality, relaxation. Logos can also be dynamic, meaning that they are able to change for whatever the company wants. For example, cartoon characters can be shown doing different things such as eating or playing sports. MTV and Google have also used similar techniques.

Objectified

Recently I watched Objectified, a documentary on design by Gary Hustwit. The film focused on effective designs and innovative designers. Objectified explored the creative vision behind successful designs of the Twenty-First Century. The documentary refered to renownd designers like Jonathan Ive, Rob Walker, and Davin Stowell to bring to light the factors that contribute to producing successful designs in addition to looking at the significance of design in contemporary society.

I particularly liked watching the interview with Jonathan Ive (Apple's senior vice president of industrial design). Perhaps this was due to the fact that I am surrounded by apple products, (like the computer I am using to write this post) and was therefore interested in understanding the views of a designer that has a large impact on my everyday life.

I thought it was interesting that Ive felt that the purpose of product design was to help a product/tool perform the function it was created to perform. In other words, he did not stress the concept of design as being a utilitarian version of art. Instead, Ive communicated that the function of design is determined by the function it is trying to fulfill. Designs that distract viewers, and by bringing attention to the design aspect of the products design as separate from its function, Ive's argues, are generally intrusive and ineffective. This of course caused me to think about the question stressed at the beginning of the semester: the difference between art and design.

I also liked that the actual film was well designed. For example, the films use of iconic design silhouettes to spell out "Objectified" in the films intro. I suppose that as it provides a commentary on effective design, the documentary itself has a responsibility to display a creative design scheme.

Extra Credit - Hammer Museum

I went down to the Hammer Museum near UCLA to look at some of the exhibits being presented. Since every Thursday, admission is free, I thought it was a good idea to go check it out. The facility was very modern, and huge. I was impressed just by the architecture when I first stepped into the museum. Then I walked around and visited the Adam and Eve exhibition by R. Crumb. The room itself was almost a maze, with every wall in the room filled with his drawings of the Old Testiment: The book of the Genisis. It was like a comic book illustration but each page was framed individually and put up against the wall. R. Crumb's interpretation of the Old Testiment was created as a comic book format and took him over five years to complete. There were over 200 framed illustration throughout the exhibition, each page had about six panels of comic drawings. All the drawings were in black and white and the frames covered all 4 sides of the walls and continued onto a wall-like circular divider in the center of the room. In the center of the room (inside the circular divider), were modern couches, with a coffee table in the center, displaying R. Crumb's comic presented in a book format. This version was fully colored and it was interesting to see the contrast from the ones displayed on the wall to the actually book.

What really caught my eye during this exhibition was the style R. Crumb had on illustrating such characters. Although they were very stereotypical comic-like illustrations, I noticed that his way of drawing females were portrayed as very masculine. The body type was very similar to the male drawings in the story and in a way, distracted my attention of art as a whole. I was really trying to read the story and his intake on the popular Adam and Eve story; however, the way the women were drawn really distracted me from doing this and in a way bothered me. With that said, that was my only criticism of the book. I do admire him for his consistency of the overall look of all the comic panels over the five year period he spent on this project. I give him respect for the patience he had to complete this piece.

Ecodesign

I recently read an article about ecodesign, which is designing with concern for environmental impact within the span of the products usage and disposal. It is also called sustainable design. With global warming and environmental issues being pushed to the forefront as of recent, eco design has become even more of a presence within the design world. Ecodesign is a reaction to global environmental crisis, the rapid growth of economic activity and human population, depletion of natural resources, damage to ecosystems and loss of biodiversity. Designers are making products, and architecture more environmentally friendly. Ecodesign can range from totes made out of recycled goods to a solar powered buildings or city planning. Ecodesign can also be applied to the fields of architecture, urban planning, engineering, and fashion design.

The three most important things to consider for ecodesign is 1) consumption of resources (energy, materials, water or land area) 2) emissions of air, water and the ground in relation to humans and the environment 3) miscellaneous concerns such as noise and vibration. The life cycle of a product is divided into procurement, manufacture, use and disposal. Designers should use low-impact materials, keep in mind energy efficiency, quality and durability, design for reuse and recyclability, renewability.