Certamente Tableware, Konstantin Grcic

Certamente Tableware, Konstantin Grcic

September 24, 2020

Grcic’s salad server set is an investigation into lines and planes. Being made with only one continuous piece of thin metal wire, this salad server features a minimalist tone with decorative elements created from the curves and pointed edges the line is bent in. The functionality of the salad server is still kept intact while the tool itself uses less material than say a traditional serving spoon. This salad server is part of an entire set of tableware called Passami il sale, meaning “pass the salt”. The set was created with the skills from local craftsmen from the north of Brescia in northern Italy. With such a simple yet complex design, Grcic has created tableware made to be appreciated but also to be used effectively.

Vintage Animation

Vintage Animation

September 15, 2020

I found some interesting vintage cartoon gifs over the weekend at a blog called “The Gypsy Astronaut”, taglined “coming to you from a place in space”. According to the tags, the clip here was animated by Chuck Jones in the 1950s. There’s so many things that suck you into this image. First, it’s so uniquely weird and surreal – we all think fleeting thoughts about a lot of strange things, but for some reason, walking glasses feel so out there that you wouldn’t even dream of it. Probably because in real life, glasses frames are very stiff and certainly don’t bend that way, but in toon world, things stretch and warp so expressively. That’s certainly part of Jones’s animation style, especially in Bugs Bunny.

In addition, the repetition is so pervasively hypnotic. It’s in the sidewalk, glasses, and the repeating frames of the gif. The pastel pink and turquoise against a soft, dark background are very relaxing to look at – the pink against navy blue and the rhythm of the gif’s movement actually caught my attention before I even realized they were glasses. And the questions leave you wondering – why should pairs of glasses march so purposefully? Where are they going? The highlights in the glass suggest they’re heading towards a light source. The curvature of the ground makes the glasses feel massive, like they’ve taken over the world. I just can’t look away.

Woke

Woke

September 15, 2020

Recently I came across the Hulu series, “Woke”, a show that utilizes elements of shape and design to communicate powerful messages about race, inequality, identity, and culture. The show is inspired by the life and work of artist Keith Knight, an African-American cartoonist whose work is humorous and universal in appeal, though also dealing with political, social, and racial issues. The reason this show is relevant to our design class is twofold: firstly, the series utilizes graphic design elements by bringing inanimate shapes and objects to life. These objects and shapes are animated to “speak” to the protagonist, Keef Knight, encouraging him to be “woke”. This notion rings true to our discussion question, “do shapes feel?” In this case, yes!

Sharpening Our Design

September 15, 2020

I’ve been trying to learn more about what design is exactly (I know, a little sad considering I’m in a design class). No disrespect to Bang or Dondis but over the past few days I’ve gotten a better understanding of design and the fact that it is kind of all around us. I was searching for applications of design and stumbled upon what I think is a simple yet amazing site: sharpen.design. It automates a two-part prompt to serve as practice for professionals and students alike. The prompts are fairly simple — “Animate an icon for a pizza shop in Peru” and “Design a new logo for a hot sauce brand in NYC” are some of my personal favorites. There is also a STEM tab that focuses on designing prototypes of inventions as well as illustrating/painting. In the future or just in our free time, I think the site could be a really fun tool to get in some practice conceptualizing and creating art, and even getting more experience with Illustrator and Blender. I’ve personally been in a bit of a creative funk, and this has been a perfect cure to my block. I’m also curious, what do you all do when you have any kind of creative block?

Indonesian Batik Clothing

Indonesian Batik Clothing

September 14, 2020

Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to a whole cloth, which originated from Java, Indonesia. The word Batik is derived from the Javanese word ‘amba’ which means write and ‘tie’ which means dot. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ‘tjanting’ (pen-like tool used to apply liquid hot wax) or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a ‘cap’ and then dyeing it. The parts covered in wax resists the dye and remain in the original colour. This process of waxing and dyeing is then repeated to create more elaborate and colourful designs. After the final dyeing, the wax is removed and can be worn. I have tried making Batik before during my middle school trip. It is harder than it looks and takes a lot of patience!

Simply Cooking Simply

September 14, 2020

I want to talk about cooking. I did a lot of cooking before coming to Penn, but I obviously couldn’t keep that up while living in the Quad last year and I sorely missed it. However, one of the few silver linings of this pandemic has been that I’ve been able to cook every day, and I still enjoy it as much as I used to, but I’m enjoying it for different reasons. When I first started cooking in high-school I used to try to test myself by attempting technically difficult or complex dishes and I found that process really satisfying and exciting. When I started cooking again once classes went online last semester, for a variety of different reasons, I didn’t have the luxury of being able to devote that much time to cooking. So, when I was cooking, I was cooking purely to provide a meal in the fastest and most efficient way possible for myself and whoever else was hungry. And that was the majority of the cooking I was doing in high-school as well, but then it was at a much lower volume and it was interspersed with exciting projects to look forward to. I enjoyed it then too, but I preferred the challenges to the everyday stuff. That completely flipped during quarantine – I was cooking pasta dishes one after the other until I could whip them up in 12 minutes flat from opening the cupboard to having the dishes washed and food on the table. And I was getting just as much satisfaction out of making these marginal gains with simple dishes through cooking them over and over again, as I used to from baking a decent batch of profiteroles. And I think if anyone has somehow made it this far without exceeding their pretentious cooking chat threshold, “profiteroles” has almost certainly finished off the job so I think I’ll leave it there.

-John

Album Receipts

Album Receipts

September 14, 2020

An Instagram art designer I follow creates these receipt artworks that have music albums on them. There is something so post-modern about these designs that I love. There is an irony in taking something redundant, ubiquitous, and kitschy like a crumpled up store receipt and combining that with the work of iconic artists. All I can wonder is how this artist creates these designs and mimics the texture and fonts of receipts so perfectly. If only store receipts were this fun… (especially CVS receipts, am I right?)

ByBorre Fashions Future

ByBorre Fashions Future

September 13, 2020

Byborre is an Amsterdam based design house that specializes in textile design. Founded in 2010 by Borre Akkersdijk, Byborre pushes the limits of garment form and function, being one of the few design houses that literally makes its own textiles and fabrics. Innovative design technology can be seen in all their designs from unique weave patterns to ergonomic textile composition allowing for an unconventional approach to design. Byborre has full control of their entire design processes, from the yarn up.

Byborres most recent collection shows these very design elements in full effect, showcasing bizarre textures and patterns on all their garments along with complex weaves that leave the audience curious and eager for me. With fashion becoming more and more popular its refreshing to see a design house truly pioneering a new path in fashion innovation.

 

This week in design

September 13, 2020

This week was a big one for my design brain! Last week, my high school’s newspaper advisor passed away. As a former editor and someone who was very close with him, the news was incredibly sad but it also gave the old staff an opportunity to commemorate him. The current editor, another former editor, and I reached out to dozens of people our advisor, Mr. Lowe, had worked with over his 31 years at the paper. We ended up curating a 16 page newspaper full of memories and art dedicated to Mr. Lowe and as the only person with access to the necessary computer program, I designed and laid out the entire thing. It was an incredible experience to design the paper as a way to honor the incredible man Mr. Lowe was but it was also a really great way for me to channel some of the design elements we’ve been working on and discussing in class. The one I think of first is the element of color and relation between objects. On one page, which I do not know how to share here but I’ll link the paper here (the pages with this design are pages 4 and 5). I used the image in black and white and typed the first parts of the headline (Rodney K.) in black with the final word (Lowe) in a bright blood orange so that it popped off the page in relation to everything else. The way in which the words interacted brought the entire image together and helped ground the pages by using the story itself at the bottom of the overall image.