Don't Forget Your Camera Battery!

So I just got back from a wonderful, short trip to Europe! I went to Amsterdam, Köln (pronounced Cologne ... in Germany), and all around Switzerland. I had quite an exciting time, but my only problem was ... I forgot my camera battery!! I arrived early on the morning of the 13th in Amsterdam and it wasn't time to check into the hotel, so I decided to stroll about the town and visit some well-known museums ...

Van Gogh Museum

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_Gogh_Museum_Amsterdam.jpg) 

... I took out my camera to snap a photo of the beautiful canals that line the roads and realized to my surprise it wasn't working! I thought; 'oh no my battery must not be charged, oh well I will have to charge it when I get back to the hotel.' So I put my camera away and continued about my day. When I returned to the hotel I plugged my charger into the wall (with the special European adaptor) and yet the light didn't turn on ... I left the camera battery on my desk in my room!!

It was a horrible feeling knowing I had come alllllll this way and was now unable to take photos. I searched in a few electronic shops for batteries, but no luck. With the exchange rate being so bad I couldn't afford to buy a new camera, so I finally came to the conclusion that I would just have to take a lot of mental images =(

So the lesson is learned now, DON'T FORGET YOUR CAMERA BATTERIES WHEN TRAVELING ABROAD!!!

Where I went:

(Amsterdam)

(I AMsterdam)

(Köln, Germany)

(Basel, Switzerland) 

(Bern, Switzerland)

(Balsthal, Switzerland) 

(Luzern, Switzerland)

(Zurich, Switzerland) 

[Thanks to GOOGLE for the images]

Snowboard Evolution

    

Burton Custom X snowboard

       In 1965 the first “snowboard” was designed by Sherman Poppen, called the “Snurfer.” Jake Burton Carpenter later redesigned the “Snurfer” into the modern day snowboard in the 1970s.  As time went on boards progressed boards began to be made out of fiberglass, with metal edges and high-backed boot and binding systems for extra control and comforts, which then evolved, into the high-tech materials used today. The best thing about snowboards is the variety of colors and wild graphic designs that come on the board. From crazy arrays of lines, organized pictures, swirls, cartoons and so much more.  Snowboard are bright, embrace color and new attitudes of design. They break away from the traditional and are a wave, creating the future. Whether you are a 10-year-old boy or 20-year-old girl I guarantee that when you go out and search for that snowboard of your dreams you will find something or many something’s that suit your interest. With popular brands such as Burton and ROME SDS come creative, innovative designs that “pack a punch.” With the growth of the sport over the last 20 years has also come a growth in popularity of becoming a snowboard graphic designer. There are even competitions around the world exclusively based on snowboard design. The designs of the boards are not only inspiration but also lend motivation and empower the riders riding them.

[Photos from: http://www.coolershaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/snowboard_evolution.jpg, http://www.ltcconline.net/wallace/LTCC%20Snow%20Riders%20Club/snurfer%20ad.jpg, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://snowboardreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/burt-custom-x-2009.jpg&imgrefurl=http://snowboardreviews.com/burton-custom-x-2009/&usg=__l7wFzYqjQdj_oObl92K9UXEkDQY=&h=300&w=254&sz=12&hl=en&start=15&um=1&tbnid=p1r-tgiAyXWZGM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dburton%2Bsnowboard%2B2009%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1]

Nathan Shedroff - Sustainable Innovation

     

     

      On Wednesday November 18^th, 2009 I heard Nathan Shedroff  speak on the UC Davis Campus in California. His major theme of his lecture was “sustainable innovation.” There are three main ideas that are key in creating sustainable innovation: Design – Sustainability- Business. Overlapping they lead to meaningful connections and experiences that are key. Nathan started off the lecture by asking some questions that are nearly if not impossible to answer. The first was “What’s amore sustainable future look like?” Although we cannot answer this question at this time we can look to other countries, which are moving toward or already are living a more sustainable life such as Brazil and Cuba. Currently Cuba is the most sustainable nation on the planet currently. Brazil is leading the way in making changes toward a more sustainable life. The second thought provoking question Shedroff asked was “What’s a more meaningful world look like.” This is a question that we may never be able to answer. Interaction and meaning define the world we live in. The next question was “What’s a post-consumer world look like?” One way Brazil has cut back on their “visual clutter/noise” was by outlawing any outside advertising. Although we don’t have the answers to these questions, that is what design is good for – helping to answer them.

      Nathan Shedroff’s lecture was communicated very effectively. I thought he spoke well and he articulated his speech. His PowerPoint demonstrated ideas without being over cluttered with words, but mainly focused on images. In addition he had ideas that seemed to be new and enlightening. I personally was excited that this wasn’t just another lecture on “how to be green.” It was actually quite the opposite, it was more about how we can all make life changes toward a better future. He asked though provoking questions, that made the audience wonder about what our future will hold. 

[Photos from: http://estimulo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/nathan.jpg, http://2009.dconstruct.org/images/speaker-badge-nathan-shedroff.png]

OBJECTIFIED

     










The film Objectified; a documentary film by Gary Hustwit, portrayed a series of artists and the objects that they created. It showed a complex array of various designs with modern ideas. The objects featured ranged from MAC computers, to sofas, potato peelers, and even toothbrushes. The relationship between form and content was inspiring. Artists would take old ideas or objects and reinvent them, they would take old ideas and make them new; usually making them better and more eco-friendly. It was interesting seeing the evolution of these objects, because most of them were objects or pieces of objects that one wouldn’t normally think about or give a second thought to. Maybe that is what makes these objects so great, their ability to adapt or be adapted by anyone. In the film they said “almost everything has been designed in one way or another.” I think this quote is great because most people don’t normally think of their toothbrush being “designed.”  One artist also said that, “in every design there was a design and decision made about that object.” However small the object may be, meticulous thought has actually gone into making that object better and more pleasing to us, so maybe we won't judge them as harshly or even notice them as much - because “we make assumptions about objects in seconds- how much it should cost, weigh, etc.” One example of an object you wouldn't normally think of is a toothpick, which was designed for the tip to break off and be used as a thing to rest the toothpick on.
     The film overall communicates an argument about contemporary designs and designers by showing how these designers are taking the everyday and making them more superior so they can stand up in the harsh society that we live in today. They are also taking into account our current world situation and how we are in need of preserving natural resources, by making their objects use materials to their full capability –while helping the environment. Taking old objects where “form followed function” to new phases of formal design. They are focusing on what will happen not what has happened. They are changing their designs to match that of our changing views of how we look at the world, getting rid of everything that doesn’t maximize unity and harmony.  They are designing by simplifying.  

[Photos from: http://www.typeneu.com/v2/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/objectified.jpg, http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/kindle2/Objectified-Poster-Large.jpg, http://givemefreestuff.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/mac_book_air3.jpg]

Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell was born in 1903 and died in 1972 at the age of 69 years old.  He was an American born artist and is very famous for his sculpture and collage. Some of his most recognizable pieces were his boxes created from objects he found or had, such as pipes, photographs, and old love letters.  The boxes are simple and usually have a glass front. They are interactive and portray an irrational juxtaposition of different objects. He combined constructivism of the boxes along with Surrealism (a European art movement that emphasized dreams and poeticism in the 1920s and 1930s). It seemed that objects that were once beautiful, loved, and precious fascinated him.  The boxes evoke feelings of nostalgia and one who is viewing them can find them recalling a past event, object or moment they once had. Or at least that is how I felt when I saw his exhibit at the San Francisco MOMA a few years back. In a book about Cornell called “Joseph Cornell, Navigating the Imagination,” we find that Cornell’s aim of his artwork was not only to explore art, culture, and science but also to inspire others to voyage into the imagination. Cornell was an artist driven by curiosity and creativity rather than by theories or formal art training. 

[Photos from: http://www.baseballreliquary.org/images/JosephCornell.jpg, http://openreflections.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/joseph-cornell1.jpg, http://www.johnbailly.com/edu/projects/Cornell.Medici.jpg, http://z.about.com/d/arthistory/1/0/j/Z/jcni_13.jpg]

Josef Albers

Painting by Claude Monet: Impression, Sunrise (1872)

 

Josef Albers was born in 1888 and died in 1976 at the age of 88 years old. He was a German-born American artist and wrote books such as “The Interaction of Color.” He was a very accomplished designer and excelled in multiple areas ranging from photographer to poet. But, he is best known for his work as a painter. He also worked as a theorist, coming up with new ideas about color theory. In his book “The Interaction of Color,” Josef observed many different ideas and interactions of color, one of which was optical mixing.  He described this as the “pulling” or “pushing” of colors into different appearances. Two colors which are juxtaposed and perceived simultaneously are seen by the human eye as one new color; the two original colors were annulled and replaced by a substitute called optical mixing. The findings that our perceptions change when our eye mixes the colors led to a new painting technique. This technique is one of the best representations of optical mixing and is called impressionism. Impressionist artists, such as Claude Monet used small dots, or sometimes "globs" of different colors and place them close together so when viewed from afar they mix and not only become a new color (optical mixing!) but also add movement and drama to a piece. 

[Photos from: http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/72/13572-004-595D9C39.jpg, http://23.media.tumblr.com/aHyNHMV3lechplzahjxsS0sko1_400.jpg, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brown.edu/Courses/CG11/2005/Group161/signacHarborofSaint-Tropez.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brown.edu/Courses/CG11/2005/Group161/History.htm&usg=__3b865F3mkVALSVGQwXivjT9geKc=&h=600&w=473&sz=135&hl=en&start=13&um=1&tbnid=nIWoi1HIe0QfgM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=106&prev=/images%3Fq%3Doptical%2Bmixing%2Bimpressionist%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1]

Color Theory

     Color Theory is the set of principles, which are used to guide and make harmonious color combinations. From color theory the color wheel was developed, aiding artists and designers and the public alike as a tool, defining basic relationships of color. Almost all of us at some point in our lives had to make a color wheel, so we’ve all had experience with how color interacts. The origins of color theory evolved from primitive colors, now known as the primary colors; red, yellow and blue. The theories on the qualities of how these colors were blended enhanced when “complementary” colors, or colors of opposing hues  were produced.  These color observations were summarized in the findings by Goethe in the “Theory of Colours” in the 1800s. The goal of color theory is to find and mix colors that work well together. However the ideas of how the colors work is up to interpretation. The Juxtaposition of colors lends to produce strong contrasts and tension some say, while they also produce harmonious color interactions as others say. Whatever the opinion, color theory is always used in society by designers and individuals alike to produce or evoke certain emotions. Whether creating the next ipod for Mac or a crayon drawing for your parents, playing with complementary and contrasting colors, or working with the differences in warm and cool colors; color theory will lead you to your final destination. There is no right and wrong in picking colors, it is simply your idea of what looks right and wrong when producing your work. 

[Photos from: http://www.the1948timemachine.com/portfolio%20graphics/PORTFOLIO%20NEWBIES/avian-color-theory.jpg, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://goldtent.net/wp_gold/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/color_theory.jpe&imgrefurl=http://hasan11.seesaa.net/article/131390169.html&usg=__hK4UYOJ-pzT4JH96RKJd61h-i9s=&h=880&w=980&sz=1017&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=-sxK11lL-SkReM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=149&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcolor%2Btheory%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/GoetheFarbkreis.jpg/180px-GoetheFarbkreis.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.answers.com/topic/color-theory&usg=__lh3ZIcKJxl0DeXsFBrHOQJxZEn0=&h=188&w=180&sz=19&hl=en&start=35&um=1&tbnid=mG5lu8ZI8wrJlM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgoethe%2527s%2Bcolor%2Bwheel%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D21%26um%3D1]