Somber Design

Unity. Rhythm. Scale and proportion. Pattern and texture. Illusions of space and motion. Design encompasses all of these terms, and every work of art displays them in some way. One powerful work that comes to my mind when these properties are mentioned together, however, is sobering yet unforgettable, and that is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. The topic may be horribly depressing, but the very fact that it has stuck in my mind since I studied it over a year ago shows just how much of an impact even images of it makes on its viewers.

An overview of the memorial show a view which not many are able to experience:

What the average visitor would see would be something more on the lines of this:

(Images both from Wikimedia Commons)

The memorial is composed of hundreds of concrete stelae. There is no writing on them; they are simply large, thick, grey, and unyielding. Although on a grid and of similar shape, their height varies, creating an undulating wave of somber motion. People are expected to pass through the grid but the stelae were placed so close together that any movement is an uncomfortable squeeze, especially when the height of the stelae climb above eye level. It was designed by Peter Eisenman, who built it to purposefully feel awkward, for it both to loom over you than sink into the ground. It’s meant to be uncanny, to give the viewer the feeling that something is wrong without screaming in their faces how atrocious the Holocaust was. It represents both the people who were lost, who sank down into the fog of war, as well as the literal feeling of being trapped in a strange and awful situation. It forces the viewer to feel at least a shadow of the horror of the Holocaust.

Certainly, it’s a somber memorial. But it’s also simple and abstracted with its grid and hundreds of concrete stelae, and this simplicity makes it universally identifiable. Everyone can relate to the serious mood, whether or not they were effected by the Holocaust. Everyone can relate to it, because it was built to drag out the emotions for remembering such an event. This monument reminds us that design can used not only for fashion or graphics, etc. but is mainly meant to illustrate an idea. Good design can be found even in the most serious of settings, but as a society, this design is essential so that we are able to remember what should never be forgotten.

African American Quilting: An Underappreciated Niche

The Nelson Art Gallery is currently running an exhibition titled, “African American Quilts.” The subject is self explanatory, the gallery was covered in hanging quilts, all of them similar in size and all apparently, as per the exhibit title, created by African Americans.

I hadn’t known such a niche existed in quilting, but upon further reading learned that quilting is a traditional art form of African Americans (mostly women), who for most of history could not be part of “high-style” art such as oil painting. Quilting, sewing together patches of worn cloth which could no longer serve their original function, was their art form. And the variation amongst the quilts showed that yes, there is definitely creativity involved with quilting alongside what must have been an intense and laborious process.

The first quilt I photographed was Black Man Burden, created by Hannah Wilcox and Lucy Wilcox, sharecropper and slave, respectively:





Spanning 81” x 74”, it was made circa 19th century from workman’s cotton twill denim pants, raw cotton batting, and feed sacks. The identification card further elaborated that it was created at the Wilcox Corner Plantation in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. I chose to photograph this one in particular because it was made to be a functioning quilt. It is not deliberately an art piece; it’s made of workmen’s old clothes and feed sacks, and yet it shows a certain rhythm and pattern which is unorchestrated but well-designed.

There is a rhythm to the choice in colors; the dark blue patch on the left is balanced by the varying blue hues on the right. It was a planned design, shown by the fact that no strips of the same blue touch. The two strips of sky blue at top and bottom frame the pattern of vertical stripes. Clearly, the Wilcoxes were working with what they had: they worked well with what they had. It is a work of art from necessity.

In direct contrast to Black Man Burden is Piano Keys, made in 2009 by Avis Collins Robinson:


Though similar in size, 108” x 77”, this quilt was made not with necessity but with art as priority. Even the materials show this; it was made with hand-dyed cotton corduroy and hand-dyed muslin for a backing. Black Man Burden reused old cloth, but the cloth for Piano Keys was painstakingly hand-dyed. In attempting to keep it home-made, Avis Collins Robinson missed the point that old quilts were made with scraps instead of specially-prepared strips of fabric.

The rhythm and patterning in this later quilt, however, is much more dramatic and well-planned. Avis Collins Robinson still alternates colors, but the fabric strips are even in width and smaller, so the rhythm seems quicker and more expanded because more strips could fit into the quilt’s frame. Simple blocks have become a rainfall of colors, the vividness of the contrasting blues, yellows, reds, and blacks suggesting much more animation than Black Man Burden. The unified size of the strips makes the pattern more solid and obvious than on the older quilt as well. Aesthetically, it’s more pleasing because of this unity; it’s easier to perceive the balance and flow of this work than the former.

It is impossible to say which is superior though, because they are so very different. They were made for different purposes, the cornerstone of designs, and as such have different inherent values. They are however part of the same community, part of African American art, and it is interesting to see how it grew from humble origins to become a recognized art form.

Extreme Design Thinking

These days, good design is the product of group collaboration rather than a single individual. The focus has been put onto the creative process, on the prototypes and products rather than on which individual made them. Design thinking is a group effort; businesses are now encouraging different perspectives and ideas to come together from the beginning.

There is, among the newer businesses, a trend to encourage employee creativity through an interesting workplace. Because of the fact that many of these new companies have been founded by young workers, are staffed by young people, and geared toward producing items for a young market, these workplaces can, at extremes, often look more like grown-up playgrounds than everything else.

One such workspace is JMP Creative, a company located in Santa Ana, CA which develops products, publicity stunts, toys, etc. Their website states that they have “created promotional programs for hundreds of major motion pictures and entertainment properties.” Aside from their great range of capabilities, the extraordinary part of this company is the environment they create in. It is so amazing that it was in fact featured on Travel Channel’s “Extreme” series for being an extreme place to work.

Here are their cubicles:

http://jan.freedomblogging.com/tag/jmp-creative/

It’s a dizzying array of colors and images on the wall. It’s hard to imagine that so much would be conductive to any sane creativity but apparently it works for the employees because the action doesn’t stop there.

This:

http://jan.freedomblogging.com/tag/jmp-creative/

This is their conference room, designed into a flying saucer and decorated inside and out. It is lifted up to the top of the room, a walking space underneath it, simulating that the room actually is floating. They have another room which they call the “submarine think tank.” It’s the place where they get together and develop ideas but it is, as one might suspect, literally decorated up to be a submarine.

By taking the time to create a fun space, where employees are encouraged to play and goof off, those employees think of innovative new designs. This kind of environment really seems to work for these small yet multi-talented companies. Especially those companies focused somehow around entertainment or products geared toward children. It allows the designers to get into the right mindset, they become playful enough to get their imaginations working; deadlines would be softened by less pressure. To some, this sort of design firm might appear to have too much play and not enough work, but I think that if it stimulates the right sort of results, perhaps this is the new way to treat your employees. This sort of small and fun workplace is an appealing model, and may come to replace large corporations.

Good Design Knows no Era

In my last post I centered around the Gestalt theory, where the human mind can organize and make sense of images. I was reminded of ancient art, Greek and Egyptian art in particular, where bodies were often reduced to idealized shapes and elements and portrayed in very geometric, unnatural positions. One example from Greece is the Athenian bilingual amphora seen below:

Athenian bilingual amphora, black-figure side, clay, painted by "The Andokides Painter," c. 525 B.C. (Antikenmuseum, Munich)

Similar to Egyptian art, the eyes are shown frontally yet are on faces in profile. The Hermes figure on the far left also has odd posture; his feet are perpendicular to the picture plane while his torso is parallel to it, something that cannot be achieved in real life but is acceptable in this medium. Somehow our mind equates these discrepancies into a figure that somehow makes sense. When we look at that figure of Hermes, we see nothing wrong with him. The couch the middle figure is reclining on has been abstracted to two legs, but viewers assume that those legs either extend back into the picture plane or have a matching set directly behind them. The stability is unseen, but it’s assumed, because that’s what makes sense to what we know.

Ancient Greeks had great mastery of the visual arts. The main subject, the reclining figure in the center, is clearly make the focus point because he is larger than everyone else. He occupies the center of the frame dictated by the handles of the amphora. Likewise, the servant on the far right is smallest because he is of least importance. The repetition of the floral pattern above and on the handles draws the eye upward and keeps the scene from being too heavy on the bottom. The characters on the right, the gods, though larger than the servant on the right, are balanced because the right is made heavier with the standing pot and grapevines. The two sides are asymmetrical yet equal. Perfectly balanced yet lacking the unyeilding symmetry which Greek architecture was so known for.

The Greeks developed many things which later generations used, most notably their architecture. Hopefully, however, this post showed that their other forms of expression, here, pottery, were looser than their famous building style, and that their contributions to western art far exceed what many give them credit for. This amphora displays a clear focus, balance and repetition, and even tells a story. The subjects and composition set standards which society today still emulates.

The Gestalt Theory

The Gestalt theory is a great premise for interesting design. The Gestalt theory is that the human mind unifies and tries to organize compositions where there may not be any unity to begin with. This is how we’re able to make sense of images made of halftone dots; even when we zoom in the human mind can, up to a point, still see the image. The use of negative space also ties into the Gestalt theory; artists feel free to leave some places blank assured in the fact that their audience will be able to pull that negative space into the overall composition.

Though the Gestalt theory can be used in the most formal and intellectual of environments, I also appreciate more playful examples. One of the most well known is the old woman/young woman image. Depending on where you focus on the image, and how your mind makes sense of the lines; you can see either an old woman, young woman, or both if you look twice:

Another traditional image is the vase/faces image, where depending on how you look, you see either two faces pointed at each other or a vase in the center of the image. This is a take-off on that sort of image which I've never seen, but whick I really enjoy. These columns are wonderful works of architecture. I would want them in my house except for the fact that they'd startle me every time I walked by! One thing I love about these illusionary images though is that you don’t have to be educated to look at these pictures; it all depends on how your mind works, how it organizes what you see.

http://www.moillusions.com/2008/04/people-columns-illusion.html

The Creative Process: 3 Simple Steps to Infinite Possibilities

The creative process is different for everyone; there are multiple paths toward the same goal of developing a final product. It’s interesting that while teachers, students, and professionals of design alike often say that the process is more important than the product, there are no set rules as to what the process is. Maybe that’s why it’s so important. Unlike the final products, it’s hard to describe and harder still to do both efficiently and creatively.

Though every creator has their own process, their own way to generate and execute concepts, a few helpful people have developed hints about how to get started. In Design Basics, Lauer suggests a seemingly obvious and unhelpful three-step program: Thinking, Looking, Doing. He then goes on to say that these can be done in any order. I thought, “Well, thanks Mr. Lauer; you brought me back to square one.” But on reflection, I realized that those three things really were the basis for all creative processes, the essential building blocks that every creator needs to keep in mind.

You can think and come up with ideas, but if you don’t look outside yourself, you won’t know if your idea is novel or overused. Looking itself is a good way to start, but you’d best put a little of your own creativity into the work, otherwise it’d be a direct copy of something else. Legal battles over copyright infringement aren’t explicitly conductive to the creative process. And, of course, you also have to do. Whether that’s making models digitally or manually or actually getting down to paint that painting, an idea can’t come fully to light unless it’s brought to its final stage of production. Having the thing in your hands also alerts you to whether or not there are any errors in the design; it’s like the final draft, almost polished but with a few kinks to work out still. Technically, you could also just start off your creative process by doing. You can start throwing paint randomly on a canvas or start globbing clay together for a sculpture. I find it hard to believe that it’s possible to start doing without any thinking or looking steps before that though. If it is possible, let me know. I’ll start reassessing my thoughts on some modern pieces.

Inspiration Outside Design

Creative inspiration doesn’t just have to come from other artists. It comes easier from other artistic expressions, for instance, we can easily look at a painting and feel the desire to design something off of it, but there are other options. Science can be a good source of inspiration, be it from astronomy, biology, psychology, etc. Knowledge of physics and engineering, communications or Medieval Latin, for that matter, can greatly change your ideas. In fact looking to different disciplines usually not associated with design can produce something more interesting than what artistic perspectives can. Mathematically determined perspectives ushered in a new era of Renaissance painting. The study of optics influenced modern painting movements like Pointillism and Futurist works. Concepts of psychology push modern comic book artists to play with their brushwork.

Good designers understand that inspiration can come from outside traditional artistic resources. Design is a part of society and so must draw from society in order to be universally interesting, to expand its boundaries. College is a good time for design students to experience disciplines outside the design major, because so many choices are offered to them. They should take science, literature, history, or language classes; whatever interests them. Joining clubs or Greek houses, getting a job, or volunteering would be other options, anything to talk to non-design people. Not only would it give them a unique perspective to add to their design, but it would help them better in touch with the rest of the world. That way, they get to know their clients better; after all, they’re designing for all of society, not just other designers.

International Inspiration

Most creators find inspiration outside themselves. There are a few, usually modern artists, who insist that their creations come completely from within but that seems hard to imagine. Is it even possible? Even Picasso was inspired by African masks in museums, though he denied the connection to his paintings.

Personally, I believe that all inspiration comes from outside forces; we are built from our world. Being in the modern world makes it easier to get inspiration from others, which I think is a good thing. With the internet, television, and other international modes of communication, we are sharing ideas from around the world. We can now take the best that everyone has to offer in order to improve our own designs. And in return, we’re expected to share our designs with others, either for critique or with the goal to make others think, to be the inspiration. Deviant Art, an on-line community of artists, is a great example of this. Artists of every kind, from writers to painters to sculptors, upload their work for the world to see. If something is good, if it’s popular, you see a lot of inspired works come after it. Deviant Art serves as a database for creators who want to see what their fellows are doing, and allows them to span countries and cultures in a way that few other communities can offer. It opens our eyes to perspectives or concepts which we would have never considered on our own.

Of course, other international websites offer the same sort of universal inspiration. YouTube, for example, has some promising videos. Given, there’s a lot of junk to sort through, but once and a while, you end up with something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

It’s simple, smart, and offers a world of possibilities. Kind of makes you want to design, doesn’t it?

Exhibits and Design, Part III

This is the final planned post about the Schulz Museum, and this time, it’s going to cover the “Language of Lines” exhibit itself. At first glance, the exhibit doesn’t seem entirely exciting. The vast majority of the pieces are black and white comic strips. It takes a long time to go through and read them all, and that’s only if you have either patience or interest in the pieces. However it becomes interesting when the mission of the collection becomes clear; that these pieces were chosen to somehow represent the great variety of characters that have been produced in the last century of cartooning.

The panels strips on the walls range in dates from the 1920’s to cartoonists currently in syndication. The exhibit compares strips which only have a handful of characters ever shown, such as Calvin and Hobbes, to strips like Doonesbury which have an immense number of characters. It shows different relationships common among characters; often they’re part of a single family, or work at the same office, or are part of any sort of community which has to go through daily life together. The exhibit does a good job showing how much cartoonists need to think about their characters. It takes a lot of work to design characters that both have their own individual personalities yet are universally identifiable.

Interestingly enough, cartoonists have been so consistently good at this character design that the comics from the 1920’s can appeal to the viewer just as strongly as the modern ones. They’re still funny. Considering how much culture has changed through the decades, that’s quite an achievement. The true test of a cartoonist’s good design isn’t just whether or not their characters are universally identifiable among all the readers, but whether or not they are universally identifiable through time as well.

Exhibits and Design, Part II

This second part isn’t necessarily going to be about the exhibit, “Language of Lines,” but about the Charles M. Schulz Museum itself. A lot of the design went into the building, all of it to reflect not only Mr. Schulz’s personality and the art of cartooning.

Charles Schulz was born in Minnesota from a middle class family. He was always fond of the warm, homey feeling. Because the designers wanted to honor this aesthetic, they actually built the museum to look more like a house than anything else. That started with its small scale. The museum has only two stories and two interchangeable exhibits, leaving it very intimate and personal, perfect for displaying such a personal art as comics. Most of the lighting comes from skylights and windows, bringing the warmth of natural light into a museum experience. The atrium and great hall are tiled with slate, and the exhibit floors are herring-bone hardwood, both mediums native too and reflecting Schulz’s roots in Minnesota. The walls are also regularly painted to bring color and life to walls filled with black and white cartoon strips. It even has a backyard, technically called the courtyard, filled not only with sculptural works but plenty of grass to play on.

Existing hand in hand with the domestic feel of the museum is its homage to the art of cartooning itself. The exterior of the building looks modern with its smooth planes, but the white panels refer more to comic paper than any Modernist style. The colors that are on the outside; yellow and teal, represent the CMYK color combination found in newspaper printing.

Not every element is noted by every visitor, but from my experience as a volunteer, they all feel the same overwhelming sense of comfort. The design of the museum explains Mr. Schulz’s personality better than innumerable words could, and envelops you much more thoroughly. It shows just how much design can implicitly communicate, how architectural choices can speak so loudly.










The Charles M. Schulz Museum.
http://www.schulzmuseum.org/

Exhibits and Design, Part 1

My first few posts will be about a current museum or gallery exhibit which I have recently visited, namely, the "Language of Lines" exhibit at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. In the spirit of talking about “design in society,” this subject will divided into three different posts. This first one is going to deal with the design of an exhibit itself.

I volunteered for the Schulz Museum this summer and actually had the fortune of helping to assemble their new exhibit titled, “The Language of Lines: How Cartoonists Create Characters.” It’s a great exhibit, itself part of a three part series containing cartoonists from different eras and styles spanning at least a century, but that’s for next time.

Designing, and constructing, an exhibit is complicated. It’s a simple fact, but it was only when I actually saw part of the process that I realized just how many elements have to be considered. My part in the process was mostly grunt work. I helped to clean off walls from the last exhibit, stick on labels for the new one, and clean the glass as a finishing touch. I watched though, as my bosses considered where the lighting was going to hit the walls, how the pieces were going to be displayed on the wall, where to put the labels, etc. A lot of work went into the process, and not all of it was intuitive.

For example, when they were arranging the lights, the focus was not on lighting everything properly, though that was of course important, but instead was on breaking up the wall. They had to do this because the pieces on exhibit were all comic strips, black and white, and the walls were all solid colors. Having a homogenous light would have washed the wall out entirely and made it unappealing to look at. By breaking up the light however, they created drama, designed as such to capture people’s attention and draw them in to the works. It’s interesting that though people coming to the museum would be expecting cartoons, the museum staff made sure to increase the interest. For the workers, the effort was equal parts exhibit material and equal part presentation. Perhaps because the design of the exhibition hall increases drama, the design also determines how memorable a museum is. It’s not enough just to have the comic strips up on a white wall, a great inventory is not the only thing a museum needs. The work needs an appropriate frame, or else it won’t be noticed, no matter how exciting or interesting the original intent of the collection is.



copyright Schulz Museum, 2009.
More information about this exhibit can be found at http://www.schulzmuseum.org/