The "Designerific Method" - happyslip

One form of design is finding the solution to a problem of something in our society, i.e. a design to create the next generation car, or designing advertisements to catch our eye. The key to any good design is its form fitting the function, for the final product to be able to address and solve the problems and requirements listed all adhering to the constraints (usually money and size). The 6 general steps to creating a finalized product through design by IDEO is:

1. Field Research (finding a problem)
2. Identified Problem (stating the problem in a definite form)
3. Ideas (coming up with possible solutions)
4. Prototype (the first draft of a solution)
5. Feedback
6. Repeat



A guest of honor - the creator of "happyslip" (http://www.happyslip.com/) came by to grace us with her humor and her words of advice. She found a creative outlet to share with the world her unique sense of humor, and in some cases point out design flaws in commercials, such as the unrealistic alarm system advertisement in which the actors had completely unrealistic reactions to a burglar. The creator, Christine, used social networking on the internet to distribute her works, and in a way utilized the IDEO "designerific method" to help her improve upon the next video. To parallel the "method" with her latest video- "freak out" (http://bit.ly/3F8QQM ), you could surmise the creation as:

1. Field Research (finding a problem) = Unrealistic commercials
2. Identified Problem (stating the problem in a definite form)= The burglar alarm commercial, specifically.)
3. Ideas (coming up with possible solutions) = parody the commercial with her own rendition
4. Prototype (the first draft of a solution) = produce the video/scripts (in repeat stage, this would be editing to fit time, etc)
5. Feedback = Critique after the work is published, or actually self-critique during production, asking for feedback from her family and friends. After the "final draft", this would be feedback such as comments on the youtube page, etc.
6. Repeat

Christine emphasized the important of step 5 - feedback. To be a good designer, you must be able to handle criticism, good or bad, and learn from it to improve upon your design. In this way, you are able to progress as an artist/designer and continue to create new works, each better than the last.

B Here- Hepatitis B Awareness display

Viral networking is a powerful tool in today’s society. The “Will You B Here” hepatitis B awareness event at UC Davis wouldn’t have gotten my attention if it wasn’t for viral networking. One of the guests, David Choi, posted on his youtube account about the event and from that I followed and was interested, and spread the word to my friends. In my design class, the professor mentioned a comedian, “happyslip”, who would make an appearance at UC Davis, at the same event as David Choi. In this way, not only myself, but also the 180+ students of the design class were informed of this event. On Tuesday, there was a display in Freeborn hall, featuring the above video, and also showcasing hepatitis B awareness-related artworks. Featured artists were Eric Ok whom works in the special effects industry and created a realistic “progressive” liver that at various stages of hepatitis B infection. He also created a realistic baby in mother’s arm (I assume out of resin cast) and written on the arm of the baby and continuing onto the arm of the mother was “Hepatitis B can be transferred from mother… to child”. This sculpture conveyed a message in the sentence used as well as it is noteworthy to mention that only the arm of the mother was made, but our mind completed the body in search for closure, seeking the whole from just the arm. Another artist showcased was Ly Nguyen’s predominantly typographic works. In his works, Ly used many different ways of grouping various symbols, text, and iconography to form the stencil art-like (these reminded me of the OBEY GIANT stencil art > ) silhouette of various Asians. In the first artwork shown, a female Asian’s face is shown to be composed of an electron microscope picture of the hepatitis B virus. In the 2nd artwork shown. A male Asian’s face is formed but the clustering of “B”’s. In the 3rd artwork, an Asian male’s portrait is formed from typographic questions about hepatitis B. In the 4th artwork, an Asian mother and child is formed from symbols of pills. These simplified faces fall back on McCloud’s statement of how simplified (cartoon) faces become more universally recognizable and easier to relate to, and also because of the stencil-art like method, our minds are forced to fill in the gaps- closure to complete the face. The artwork of this display conveys hepatitis B as a “silent killer” by the subtle use of the messages of “be aware” embedded within all the artwork to impact the viewer in an efficient manner. In this manner, did the design of the works convey a strong message effectively to the audience.

Amazing Wonders- Quilts by African Americans Exhibit (Feature: Avis Collins Robinson)

Avis Collins Robinson’s’ “Sharecroppers Masterpiece”

The current exhibition event at UC Davis’ Nelson gallery features textile patchwork quilt works created by African Americans from the late 19th century to 2009. The majority of these quilts feature patterns and repetition used in a way to give a pleasant optic impression on the viewer. In Robinson’s’ “Sharecroppers Masterpiece” she uses the unifying theme of warm pinks, violets and reds to unify the colors and uses repetition and pattern to please our minds by creating a uniform even appearance that our minds enjoy. Parallel to her "Crazy Pockets” (2008) work, Robinson employs the use of a few gestalt principles. The predominant one of these works is of similarity- alternating orientations of vertical and horizontal stripes in a grid checkerboard pattern, and with even scale and proportion relative to the other sections, Robinson gives these quilts a visual focus that spreads across the whole quilt evenly. This deviates from her other quilts, like “Annie’s Blue Jeans” (2007) which is a central square pattern that repeats continuously until the edge of the quilt. It is because all the squares emanate from the central square, so our eye is automatically drawn to the origin/center and from there our eye wanders from that central point. Another noteworthy point to Robinson’s works is her re-use of material of old blue denim jeans. (Crazy Pockets and Annie’s Blue Jeans) Rather than dispose of old tattered jeans, Robinson is another artist who perpetuates the theme of “going green” that is seen in recent artists and their artwork.

Pollock is full of bollocks

Pollock, Jackson "Lavender Mist" (1950) ; Oil on canvas, Oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas; 221 x 300 cm (7 ft 3 in x 9 ft 10 in); National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Jackson Pollock, while a figure for the abstract expressionist movement, is a figure that I cannot deem of great importance to the art community. While I give him credit for being the first to be predominantly known for his abstract works its more so of the critics and analytic of his works that I find pretentious and find no relation within. Critics like Greenberg had merit in saying his works were “action paintings” because you can feel the energy embedded within each splatter, but at the same time, critics of his “Lavender Mist” proclaimed they saw a message of “terrorism” or of “communism” within. To this I thought they were ridiculous, just critics who wanted to seem like they knew what they were talking about by somehow telling us about “hidden meanings” from the artwork based purely on the social and historical context of the time the work was made. His works, like Damien Hirsts, make me wonder, “why would they do this?” and “why would you pay millions of dollars for this?” I digress. I can see Pollock have some aspects of the Gestalt in his works, a unity in the colors used, as best illustrated by the above work, "Lavender Mist", the muted purples, and just the repetitive splatter of the paint, these do create a sense of unity I believe Pollock was the first to utilize. It’s the very process by which he creates that bothers me and wonders if he truly did put effort into his work, or was it all about just splattering paint everywhere. As a 2D artist, Pollock is able to give us a sense of "interaction" with his works, in which the splatters make our eye follow them from one to another, wandering and moving about the entire work, seemingly endless, infinite movement. In the end I find Pollocks' works rather difficult to digest at first, but looking deeper I can appreciate the action and energy that lies trapped within his works- and thus it is the energy, not abstraction of Pollock that I feel makes him a worthy artist.

Two Artists... One... million cups?

Hoke, Lisa. "A Drink of Color" (2008) Donovan, Tara. "Untitled" (2003) Styrofoam Cups, Hot Glue



Two Artists, One… million cups?



Lisa Hoke vs Tara Donovan, two of the greatest “cup” artists of our time. Lisa Hoke’s cup works (above left) seem to still be bound to the wall, while Donovan’s works (pictured above right) try to break free and move into dimensional space. Hoke does venture off the wall, but primarily does so with purely abstract shapes while Donovan keeps to tight geometric, or semi-geometric masses/forms. In this way does Hoke and Donovan distinguish their 3D works from the 2D abstract artists, like Pollock. By using a 3D medium, it allows for interaction by relation of space to the audience- a different experience, to allow the viewer to experience the work with both haptic and optic senses. In this way I felt like I was in a bubble bath, staring at suds forming along the ceiling. With Hoke, her works invoke a surrealistic feeling with such vibrant colors and pattern that move your eye, making it follow the cups along the wall to an eventually end, but sometimes due to the scale, the works seems like it goes on forever. These artists seek the Gestalt with their uniform use of plastic cups, unifying their works in materials, and create works that have a soft curve to them, forms and shapes that please the eye. Hoke had to take time to find that one special kind of cup with the right color and pattern before making her work. Hoke and Donovan didn’t have a strict blueprint/battle plan before starting their work, they let the work guide them in shaping their artwork. These two artists found inspiration in their materials, letting the material guide them to create the art, in the sense the material used the artist to become art in of its self.

Andy Goldsworthy

Browsing through Goldsworthy’s works, I noticed that not only does he draw his inspiration and use material from nature and the environment from around him, but that he favors spiral or circular patterns/shapes. I think there’s a certain beauty to his works because he doesn’t use man-made materials such as paints and plastics. Also by doing this, he’s driving the modern idea of conservation and “going green” forward in a way that the Junk artists never could- with biodegradable materials. This would be based off of the natural form of fractals, in which nature naturally has her creations grow in a branching, circular form, one in which the main stalk of the organism separates into smaller and smaller parts, like body into arms/legs into fingers/toes. Goldsworthy’s artwork mirrors this in the sense that the central parts of his works ‘branch out’ into smaller forms, and makes the center the focus of attention. He also places natural art forms and structures as public art in unnatural places, i.e. the cities and museums, but by doing so he brings nature and his art closer to us. His works not only use nature, but mirror them as well, showing the beauty of natural forms not made, but simply arranged by the hands of a man.

Junk Art in 99 cent form

Plasticdragon by ~toge-NYC on deviantART

In today's design world and the industry, a key factor is "sustainability" and also a new factor in the more recent years has come to be the idea of "going green" with our designs and art. The Junk artists of the 60's touched on this by using discarded material and "recycled" them in a way so as to reinvent the objects together into "art". In the same way does this artist take plastic (cheap) utensils together to create a work that is stunning to look at, but at the same time something that shows good form and composition and also creative use of material. While the work itself isn't made from "green" material i.e. leaves, recyclable paper, etc, the artist makes use of material that would normally be discarded by the average human without a thought of recycling it in any form or manner, especially not as art such as this. The artist made this without an already planned form/framework, and practically worked from scratch- such imagination and ability to make such a thing without planning it out impresses the viewer. A private project, the artist would do well in continuing such endeavors with creative materials such as this to create more works that showcase a "return of the junk art". And if you ever needed a spoon you could just grab it off the statue. Though doing so would be ill-advised.

Inspiration in the Games of Yesteryear

There’s a new industry which is having a direct effect on the design and art industry- the Entertainment industry. In a modern civilization, we live relatively long and comfortable lives, and when we have free time, we turn to entertainment pop culture or games. We immerse ourselves in virtual worlds, an escape from reality into the fantasy, where if you fail, you can simply restart. This is an idea completely unrealistic in reality. In Antoinette J Citizen’s “Landscape” she took the virtual reality of the Mario Brothers video game series and brought that to life in an interactive installation. Antoinette took inspiration from the 8-bit world of yesteryear- the years of a generation who in their childhood would spend hours playing and enjoying, collecting coins, fighting giant dinosaur-monsters, and having fun with friends. In such a way, Antoinette drew upon this nostalgic theme to bring that same delight that we had as children with the game, but to make it “real” in a sense. Her inspiration came from outside herself, in pop culture, in the video games that she played as a child. By using this, Antoinette was able to share that delight in a room that shows the virtual world in reality that is enjoyed by people who visit.
for more photos and info, visit: http://antoinettejcitizen.googlepages.com/home

Typographic exploration in Hangul (2)

In my second analysis of the exhibition, I noticed a distinct difference between Choo and Lee’s works- while both portray emotions and an idea through the design of the work, each artist has a unique “flair” discernable to their own hand that exhibits a slightly different thought process to the use of the same medium/material- i.e. printed typography. There were quite a few works in which the artist took inspiration and meaning from traditional Korean poetry or songs, but each artist interpreted this in a different way. For Choo, the works are more monochromatic and bold font face, there is a stronger sense of movement in his works, like the “Letters From Korea” in which many of Hongul fonts burst from a letter, where the message is the hope for Hongul to be able to travel the world and share its beauty with that world. Lee’s works take more “soft” tone, with the use of muted colors, but still having a “light airy” feeling that is reminiscent of brush stroke through her works that portray flowers, where each “stroke” of the character of Hangul represented, although created on a computer, show the movement that was the original origin for that line when the character is written with a brush. It’s all about aesthetics in these works, as their design keeps what is pleasing to the eye in mind, all the time keeping their messages and ideas intact.

Typographic exploration in Hangul

The Typographic Explorations in Hangul exhibition at the UC Davis design museum
In Scott Mc Cloud’s graphic novel, “Understanding Comics”, McCloud describes words (typography) as the “ultimate abstraction” in which the appearance of what the word represents is gone, but that meaning is still there, i.e. the world “door” looks nothing like a door, but when read we translate it as “door” itself. In the works of Hyunju Lee and Phil Choo shown at this exhibition, we see the use of typography as the “ultimate abstraction”- it is because for those who cannot read Korean, we see the characters more as the form and shape as well as its role in the composition of the work. In Lee’s two works entitled “Hieut”, the character “Hieut” has a double meaning- either happiness/joy, or sadness. With such contrasting meanings, the only way to discern in speech or writing the use of the word is by the context. Lee takes this idea and uses the character “Hieut” (shown as “ha ha ho ho”- the characters for laughter) to portray happiness/joy by using many of the varying sized characters sporadically placed about the page, along a “smiling” arch of vibrant colors and seemingly bubble composition and overall feeling. In contrast, “Hieut” that represents sorrow (use of Huy/huk characters for crying) the work is muted, greys and blues, with a flat background line and the characters spaced apart, no contact, just “dripping” like tears. The key to these works is emotions conveyed through the work by the use of the Hangul character, meaning, and expression. These works show the use of design to convey a message of emotion through the work by the use of the typography and of colors.

For more information, check out the website: http://www.designmuseum.ucdavis.edu/ and come visit, it's in the design museum in Walker Hall.

David MacDowell (2)

Macdowell’s works shove our societal flaws into our face with our own pop culture icons- each of his works is a pleasure to see and search for every pop culture innuendo no matter how small. One could spend hours finding all the faces and detail in some of his other works. An analytical point of his use of Disney characters in some of his works is that we perceive Disney to be rather innocent with the sweet cartoon characters and their do-good movies with happy endings. What Macdowell does is take that and shove it in our faces in a warped fashion each of his works showing the flaw with an aspect of society- whether family values, politics, or flaws in the celebrities themselves. The meaning behind this portrait was one that I viewed to be the idea of how the parent, no matter how twisted or corrupt the child is, will still think of her as “daddy’s little girl” and a sweet little angel that can’t do harm. Macdowell is most comfortable with his medium of acrylics on canvases, almost as if he has a fear of other mediums whether it is the success of using such mediums or the fear of his audience accepting such a change. It’s due to a lack of experience and knowledge in the digital medium that Macdowell’s works are all traditional, acrylic being his tool of the trade. Despite this his use of acrylic bring out an almost watercolor like feel to his faces but his props and backgrounds are detailed and realistic. Macdowell will put a twist on the reality with his works, whether it is with his use of vivid colors in others or the angle or the focus of his perspective. Macdowell is truly a model for this modern age of art that is still bound by the traditional medium’s allure and ways.

Check out more of David MacDowell's work at his website: http://www.macdowellstudio.com/

David MacDowell (1)

David Macdowell’s style cannot be better described by his own artist’s statement: “Dave Paints Acrylic on Canvas in the Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism movement. His focus is on Childhood Fantasy and our Contemporary Cultural Nightmare.” With the work “Parents Just Don’t Understand” David has used the acrylic medium to show both with the inclusion of pop culture references and our “Contemporary Cultural Nightmare.” The painting shows Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” movie (the pose of the characters and the scene is from the movie as well.) reading a rather “inappropriate” children’s book (with the image of the classic children’s show icon, Howdy Doody) to possessed child, Regan, from the Exorcist movie. While Atticus is thinking of Mickey Mouse and Disney’s values, the child is thinking of no one other than Charles Manson.
The use of a somewhat muted purple background helps to outline that characters and the foreground more, but that isn’t to say the background isn’t important- the inclusion of the mysterious shadows on the windows. Macdowell actually was trying to make this picture a nighttime scene but due to lack of the knowledge to so do. “Its blues and cool purples because I didn’t know how to make it look like a night time scene-and then I figure just make the fore ground action all warm browns and pinks etc.” He compensated by making the purple cool background and the rather warm (excluding Regan) foreground. It’s the use of such colors that portray his knowledge of design, and his overall composition only emphasizes this.

Introduction

Design student blog
UC Davis fall 0 9
Thank you for reading.