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Design in the Post-Post-Modern Age
April 12th 2009
Outlined bellow are some thoughts on design, they are ideas and that is all.
Design in the twenty-first century, an era where we are past the modernist principles of structure, past the rebellion of fighting against these principles and now entirely free to do whatever we want, so long as someone is willing to fund it of course, puts the designer in an ever more confusing position. The designer is expected to be both a creative talent and a restrained character, free to create unimaginable and boundary pushing work, whilst being restrained by ideals of budget and function.
Some, many in fact, would argue that it’s impossible for a designer to fulfill their creative potential when placed in these metaphorical box. Perhaps they are right, but in all honesty, it depends on how you define creative potential. It is very creative to presume that jumping off a ladder with a tin of open paint may produce a mark so beautiful in it’s abstract nature that the entire commissioned project could be based around it, however this would never be considered as part of a designers billable hours, mainly because it’s daft, but also because it would quite probably lead to the injury of the designer in question. It is unprofitable and in my eyes, not creative potential, but simply irrational behaviour justifying itself as “creative”.
What then does a design for a product, a poster, a advertising campaign, truly need to do? In essence, shock and awe. Good design within todays expectations and market place needs two important factors to be truly successful. The first is “shock”, in other words the design has to attract instant attention, for whatever reason, by being particularly beautiful, or daring, or minimal. A wow factor is what is needed. The second and even more important necessity is “awe” either through use, or extended exposure to the design. An appreciation of how smooth and perfected the design is, how well balanced, functional and in most cases, enjoyable to use the creation is.
This of course, all sounds a bit absurd, long winded and impractical to use in day to day creation of work. So I will outline my case with the design hero of the hour, Apple. Apple’s products tick both of these boxes as well as any current consumer electronics product can. Shock, apple’s designs always attempt to surprise and amaze their consumers, wether it be by perfectly sleek lines, lack of buttons or overly engineered packaging. Awe, every product created by apple also has long staying power, impressing the user by the layout of buttons, the ease of use and solidity of the product. Follow these two principles and I’m sure they will bring you much success.
Posted in: Design Rants | Comment
The Blakes
April 2nd 2009
Here’s another poster I created for the seattle club Chop Suey in capitol hill, which all you Seattlites should check out by the way. As usual (unfortunately) this was a very short project and a quick mock up and creation exercise than I’d like. I usually prefer to research into and play with ideas before creating work, however there wasn’t any time for that, so this is a quick sketch and execution of ideas. Colour palette was limited, with the only colour (if you exclude white) being provided by the coloured paper.
Version 1.5
April 2nd 2009
All the changes should now be completed and the site should work without a hitch. If you happen to notice any bugs, be nice and leave a comment so that I can fix them!
Updating
April 2nd 2009
Today I will be updating the layout of the blog a little, more evoloution than revoloution. If however, things look a little messed up, bare with me and it should all be up and running at some point today.
Posted in: Life the Universe and Everything | Comment