Dangerous Designs

Propoganda is a form of design which served as a communication that is aimed at the attitute of the community toward some cause and position. It is a dangerous designs because propoganda influences the human's mind, create unrealistic figures and image in order for the creator to gain the viewer's support for their either right or wrong cause. This has been used for political warfare for centuries due to the manipulative power espeicially during WWI and WW II periods. Propoganda is generally appeal to emotion, not intellect; thus encourage the viewer to response to their impulsive emotion rather than rational reasonings. This method was used by the Nazi to recruit and provoke young people to become Nazi. This designs were create to crop an unrealistic image of power, conquer, fear, and destruction in viewer's mind; and since it can portrait pretty much any type of image, it has great influnces of one's opinion in religious, political and moral's view.
In modern day, propoganda is used for more neutral purpose such as public health recommandations, encouraging message to fight against crime...etc.

Design to improve Society

Park was first invented only for royalty and aristocratics, specifically their deer hunting sport. It usually surrounded with tall and thick wall to keep the game in and people out. In modern time, park has transformed into the public property where everyone can come and enjoy it. The design often included a vast landscape which consists flowers, rock, soil, water, plants and wild animals. Some was constructed specifically for protecting wildlife animals, especially the endanger species such as elephant, gorrillas...etc. Hence, park became an essential element in any big city, citizens could come to the park and enjoy the leisure times here. It detached away from the noisy, busy streets, encouraged the visitors to bond with nature and their inner self.

Colors in Designs

Since ancient time, colors painting were used to decorated the plain cave habitat. In present day, colors have became essential to the modern design. In the movie which was shown in class, illustrate the different perspectives of sky color through the sky project. Each person project different colors into the sky; thus, as the matter of fact, the sky has no colors the illusion was caused by the sunlight hit the atmosphere and create and effect to human's eyes.  This explains Albert's theory of colors can be deceiveful; since our perspection of colors changes with different people and the influence of the environment.  With the modern technology, we were able to produce new colors under the precise measurement of mixture of different colors; thus, our confusing perception of colors enhanced

Colors are not only essential in evaluate one design's works and mind, but also define the culture influences and emotion expression of ones. Color effects works both way, we define and gave names to colors and colors help design our mood and emotions. Designers takes advantage of color to bring out our emotions which influence our decision. Mc Donald logo can be the evidence of this scheme; designers applied bright red and yellow to stimulate our hunger and inspire the customers to make quick decisions in buying the products.

The website belowed allowed us to experience the color illusion with the combination of primary, complimentary and secondary colors. We also learned the relationship of each colors with culture, religions and emotions. In the movie options, we were be able to learn the different emotions which colors inspire. This is a useful site for beginner designers as we learn the basic affects of the essential element of design, colors.

http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/colors/Colors.html2

Art & Design works as political tool!!!

Recently, I have done a research paper upon the Colosseum of Rome, a great, terrific large scale architectural structure which were built purely for political purpose. During my research, I found out that the Colosseum was not only the symbol for the strong empire, but it works as the good will and generosity  from the new emperor to the citizens of Rome. This was illustrated through the location of the Colosseum which situated above the ruin of the palace of the Nero emperor. This good will image gained the new emperor the trust of the citizens. The Colosseum also is the place for the emperor to meet with his subjects.

 We can see many other rulers used similar method. King of France, Louis the Fourteen used extravagant fashion designs and architectural to keep the economic of France running. By having an extravagant lifestyle, Kind Louis were able to provide jobs for large number of artisans and musicians. This way he can spread the currency to all the citizens, to avoid the ceased of the flow in currency with the traders and merchants. This way he can bring back the power to the noblelists and minimize the control of the country by the merchants.
Thus, designs are powerful and has great influence on the subjects which or whom created.

Roman Architectural

Roman architecture has a great influence on modern architecture because we can see many designs in the Colosseum reappearing in our buildings today. For example, many basketball court and stadium designs are based upon the arena structure. They also use the barrel vault shape for its entrances. One great invention the Romans used in the Colosseum was concrete. This durable material is now still being used widely in architectural design. Even with their limited technology, Roman architecture still leaves us speechless today. These achievements have left a great impression upon its decendants. Its influence has been widely incorporated into many modern buildings, such as the Oakland Coliseum. Through the design of the Colosseum, we understand more of the culture and social context of the Roman civilization, and how it impacts our lives today.

My SPECIALTY!!

As a design student, I have come to understand that the design world is always up to date. The idea which I have today which may already develop by another designers. Through out the history of design, we can see the repetion or return of the old style/design, though none are completely alike. It is common for similar idea being develop by two different designers. For example, Palladio architects designed his vacation home, called "villas", followed Greece/Roman architecture style. Although, it is a repricate design, but it was magnificent and unique on its own. The design took on the name of the perfect building. Palladio was able to revive the lost culture and also added his own unique design which brought more to this significant style. The emotion and feelings which the designer put into their design can't be replace or repricate.

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The Simpler The Better

I remember when I was younger, too young to know how to read, I would read my older sister's comic book without any help from the adult. Recently, Pixar entertainment introduced a new animated movie called "UP". It was my favorite animate movie of the year. It has a very inspiring, in-depth plot about life, love and reality. I was curious as the movie was labeled as PG-13, because I think a little boy or a little girl would not enjoy and understand the story line; but as I looked around movie theatre, their little eyes flickered and glued to the screen. I suddenly realize how powerful the image is to be able to tell a story.

The best way to communicate universally is not through word but image. Artists and Designers are the translators; they create and collaborate images to make people understand each other without verbal conversation.

We, human, use Visual Communication all the time without realizing it; from billboards, digital images to media, images help to express ideas\thoughts that word cannot. The commercial, film industry depend on this special brain interaction to image to create a entertain stimulation in the viewers.

Color

We depend on color, shape and texture of an object in order to identify and to label it. Color also influence our mood and impression of an object, for example: red is alert, green is envy or yellow is happiness... As result, the commercial industry used this method to catch the attention of the customers to purchase their products. For example, Mc Donald's restaurants is decorated in red to trigger the hunger and encourage the customers to eat more hamburgers. This also explains the changes of color trend in fashion design due to weathers. By studying the color differences, and the interaction of human's brain toward color can help us have a better understanding at the role of color in design.

Color is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, blue and others. The study of color has been going for a long time ago.The birth of new colors open the horizon of designing. The birth of machine has heavily influences to the modern design, this did not only influence the shape and the texture of object and material; it creates a variety of color option. New color was create by new technology; with the help of the machine, human was able to create new color with precise amount between mixture of primary colors or secondary colors.

Objectified

Objectified is a documentary directed by Gary Hustwit. The movie focused on complex relationship between manufactured objects the people who design them. It evaluates the creativity at work behind many objects that we take for granted every day.  From toothbrushes to tech gadgets, designer re-examined old products and re-invent these manufactured project to fit our daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through many footages in the movie, we discovered the creative processes of the some of the world’s influential product designers. These designers also follow the important steps of Design Process:

1.     Field Research

2.     Understand the problem

3.     Ideas

4.     Prototype

5.     Feedback

6.     Repeat the steps

And, we saw the example of how designer redesign the tree trimmer. As they discovered the problem of the handle which required more forced and less efficiency, designers came up with a curve handle which require less force put out. As the creative processes of manufactured objects influence  by the consumers’ needs, we can learn about who we are, and who we want to be from the objects with which we surrounds ourselves.

Early Chritinality architectural

Early Christian architectural were faced with problem of finding an architecture appropriate for the religion, that has not existed before. The earliest meeting places were the catacombs, underground burial galleries beneath the streets and buildings of Rome. Later period, when Constantine authorized the building of a large church in Rome that would house the shrine of St. Peter. The Old St. Peter in Rome were not highly exterior decoratedl however the interior were overlaid with lavish application of precious materials. The evolution takes a long period until churches were known as those gothic cathedral as we known today. The architectural design were also different in regions and culture of the local. The Early Christian and Byzantine styles-along with the Romaniesque, Gothic, and Islamic styles-surfaced between the classical world and Renaissance. Both of those eras are distinguished by beauty achieved through the exercise of logic and the exalting of human accomplishment

Ancient World vs. New World. Compare and Contrast

In the present time, we are proud of the luxurious way of living which were provided by artificial materials and machines. We were impressed with our own history of evolution; thus, people often confused the ancient world as savage which people only rely on strebuild ngth to gain basic daily needs. However, the archeologist have found evidence to prove otherwise. At much earlier period, ancient world already possessed great skill and supreme intelligent; they already learned a way to live a luxurious life.
 According to the book Interior Design & Decoration  by Stanley Abercrombie, the Minoans architectural skill were far more advance then our present world had believed. The Minoans invented the sewer system which keep the city clean from trash and dirty water. The public utility were important; thanks to the sewer sytem, many public restroom and bath were build to serve upper classmen. They build water system to allow water deep in the mountain into the city; thus, public fountain provide water for the whole city.

A Picture Tells a thousand words-Design as Conversation

The comic world has been around since the cave men period; at first picture were used to record everyday activities because the dynasty of words does not come until much later period. However, pictorial sequence art had found a better way to fit into the society. For decade, comic has been used in books for education purposes noted primary in early level of education. According to Comic book by Mc Cloud, human mind tend to fond to “universalized” image, in other world we can relate to the image easier as the simpler picture is. The image communicates with our mind and as our mind reply to the image we identify the image with a different identity and meaning, often with our own identity. As children when we read a comic books or watch cartoon, we experienced the thrill of the action and the event in the story because we identify the simplify cartoon character as ourselves; thus the feeling of impersonate an image and imply it as our own become an attraction to all of us. This explain the comic’s thriving industry in the early ‘30s, the era of the Great Depression and World War II; comic superhero character which possessed great power and ultimate strength became popular with not only children but also young adults. People prefer to see a strong image whom they can relate and fantasized about. It is a form of interaction between readers and comic.
Although it is wrong to say that we can only relate to comic because we are being heavily influenced by the commercial industry in everyday basic. However, comic is the simplest form of a image; here, we can analyze the reaction between an image and the receiver easier. Image were designed to communicate with receivers either for recording history or just a simple form of entertaining; our mind interact with what we sees in the end human mind work its wonder and allow us to expand our imagination from a simplest form of picture.

The Evolution of Design

I was sitting at the waiting room at the hospital of Stanford University, I noticed the bright open space hall way. The interior design of the hospital mostly depend on natural daylight; thus create an illusion of bigger space area. This does not mean the design lacks of electrical light, but the light have the same soft shade as the natural light; thus to minimum the constracsion and give out a friendly, soft vibe in the hallway interior.
 This remind me of the first construction of hallway by Minoan civilization from Crete. The Minoan’s special room called megaron room which designed to serve rich upper classmen. The room was constructed with surrounded corridors which was the first example of hallway and corridors. In ancient world, our ancestors already know a way to luxurious live. They led a luxurious life where human comfort were put before human basic needs. This idea became a motivation that triggerred the construction of many famous, breathtaking design in history.

Stone Soup

Last session in my Design 1 introduction class, we explored the stone soup tale of a three hungry and tired soldiers who used their wit to earn the villagers’ trust and cooked a feast for everyone. The story leaves behind an important moral that it is important for a college student to know that is by working together, with everyone contributing what they have to achieve a greater good. Professor Housefield used the idea base on this tale to make an assignment which require the corporation of students working together. The student came together share ideas and material to design a creative model which share each student’s imagination idea. These products is a combination of unique ideas; they represent
 My group decided to combine the human-made material and human element; this contradiction relationship between the destroyer and the destroyed subjects creates greatest expression in the model. The alien element of manufacture material such as cardboard, ribbon, paper…were hung on a tree trunk, a natural element. Our idea came in spontaneous form which allowed us to have most creative combination of ideas.
 In my opinion, this is a great exercise which gave the new generation of designers a chance to experience field work with a group. A designer needs to learn how corporate with each other, to combine ideas to polish the final product. We were not only simply sharing ideas but also learning from each others as for new technique, skills, and experience.

The History of Chair

Every object has long, untold history behind it and over time, their true value slowly diminishes. We can discover great history behind a simple object such as a chair. The historical background of chairs can unravel back for thousands of years. For many centuries, chairs were more of a symbol of dignity and power rather than an article of ordinary use. In Egypt, chairs are an iconic symbol of great riches and royal glory; the chair was often carved out from wood with significant and vivid details and were entailed with gold and precious gems. Animal figures and mythical creature were trendy fashion design at that time. Legs of beast or the figure of captives signified the power of the owner; this trend of fashion was most popular with the pharaoh royal family. In China, to portrait the power of the owner the location of the chair in a higher position symbolizes status; thus the chair usually carved with a dragon, a mythical powerful creature which Chinese believed to have descended from heaven. They believed that Kings of each dynasties are powerful dragons that descended from heaven in the form of a human. However, in the west the chair has less value and become a standard item of furniture for anyone who could afford to buy it in an earlier history. Today the chair has lost its true value significantly and has become a very common furniture within every household. The chair’s designs are a lot simpler which cost less to manufacture and also due to the discovery of new material which cost less and allow mass production; thus chairs have lower market value.
 Many objects that we take for granted today were once of great value and held much status in the past as well as moral value. From a simple chair to a grand mansion, the design of each object has a long history of evolution; by looking into the history we can see the different role of each object.