Tag: design

Occupy Design – Building a Visual Language for the 99 Percent

Occupy Design – Building a Visual Language for the 99 Percent

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Occupy Design is a grassroots project that connects designers with demonstrators in the Occupy Together movement. The goal of the project is to create freely available visual graphics around a common graphic language to unite the 99%.   A common set of used universal icons, logistical signs, and infographics can help support the communication of the movement’s messages and the data surrounding them across the world.

The Occupy Design site has a gallery of existing designs, a how-to guide for demonstrators, a graphic toolkit for designer who want to contribute graphics for the project and a interactive form for the community to suggest ideas for designers.

The project was created in less than 24 hours in October by a team of designers, programmers, artists, and demonstrators in San Francisco as part of three concurrent creative hackathons across the country to support Occupy Together. During the planning process, the team spoke with demonstrators who described their needs.  The three main areas of the project are infographic protest signs, logistical signs, and visual icons around social justice themes. The focus on infographics is to support bringing graphic representation of statistical evidence to the front and center on the ground – rather than just on computer screens.

Currently the magazine/website GOOD has partnered with Occupy Design to encourage designers to create a design, icon, or infographic that shares the unifying spirit of the Occupy movement.   Individuals and organizations can participate.

All submitted designs will be voted on by the online community. $750 from the GOOD Fund will be used to support Occupy Design to print and distribute the winning design, and the winner will receive their design printed on a vinyl weatherproof sign, several 11×17 prints, and get an Occupy Design t-shirt.

In addition, you can download the Occupy Design Design Toolkit which includes digital templates, logos, and fonts.

Are you a designer and part of the 99%?  Take some time today and get working on a graphic for Occupy Design today.

Image Source:
Occupy Design

Links:

Occupy Guide for Designers

Occupy Design

Call to Design: The GOOD + Occupy Design Challenge

Occupy Together

 

 

Every felt stuck? The Book 344 Questions Might Help

Every felt stuck? The Book 344 Questions Might Help

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Ever felt stuck?  Really stuck?  As in.. what am I doing and does this really matter?  If you are having doubts – or maybe just need inspiration Stefan G. Bucher’s book 344 Questions: The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment (Voices That Matter) might be helpful – or at least amusing to read.  The book has hand-written illustrated flowcharts, lists, and more than 344 questions to provide a glimpse of where you are going (or should go.)  Stefan Bucher is a designer, author, and monster maker (on his website the Daily Monster he animates monster doodles, and monster apps.)

The book begins with the Stefan G. Bucher stating “Let’s be clear: I want this book to be useful to you. There are many great how-to books and biographies out there, and even more gorgeous collections of current and classic work to awe and inspire. But looking at catalogs of artistic success won’t make you a better artist any more than looking at photos of healthy people will cure your cold. You’ve got to take action!”

The questions in the book are designed to help you examine your life and career, where you want to be, and how to get there all done in Stefan Bucher’s unique, quirky, hand-lettered style. Can you name 10 things that reliably stress you out? What are the five things that are most important to you in the work you produce?  Do you need inspiration? Are you a virtuoso?  Would you like to be a virtuoso  What would be fun about it for you  What would you have to give up in exchange  How can you walk down two streets at once?

The book which is meant for you to write in and use as a workbook has flowchart boxes that you can write and draw in.  The book is about the size of your hand – and Bucher did most of the writing in the book – but he also has over 38 creative people contributing pages of questions and flowcharts.  These contributors include Arem Duplessis: Design director of the New York times Magazine, Patton Oswalt: comedian, writer, and actor and Stefan Sagmeister: designer.

Are you a creative person?  Are you searching? In life? In the bookstore? In the web?  As the cover says- this book might be for you – and as Stefan G. Bucher says at the beginning of the book – make sure you get a pen or pencil  and write in the book as you go.

Image Source:
Stefan G. Bucher

Links:

344 Questions: The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment

344 Design

Stefan G. Bucher

 

 

 

Think[box] 1.0 – a Place for Tinkering and Ideas

Think[box] 1.0 – a Place for Tinkering and Ideas

Posted on by Kbaumlier

On the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH is the beginnings of a Think[box] 1.0 – a place for ideas and “tinkering.” I visited Ian Charnus, who is Operations manager of the new center last week – and got a tour of the current facilities.

The center will be a place where engineering, design, arts, science, medical and business communities can interact in one location and will be a place where educators, advisers, mentors, and facilitators can assist students and faculty into becoming entrepreneurs and technology leaders.

Currently at the entrance of the Glennan bulding on the CASE campus is a display from the  “What’s in your think[box]? Contest, a contest where student teams from CASE created design proposals of what the entrepreneurial activities in the new space will look like, and what activities it should house.

The proposals included plans for these activities:

  • traditional and distance learning courses
  • fab labs and tinker space
  • digital and traditional manufacturing
  • creative design
  • formal and informal meeting areas
  • multi-media conferencing
  • relaxing and eating space
  • student competition space
  • performance facilities
  • gallery display areas

One of the proposals has a large whiteboard space, a lego building area, and a giant pool of balls.  These types of fun activities might seen frivolous – but many of the high-tech technology industries provide fun and game areas at the workplace, since it encourages employees to think creatively and also often gets people to stay at work longer.  All of the proposals had “green roofs” and a cafe/coffee space.

The announcement of the winner of the contest will occur soon, and the winners will get $2000.

Charnus has been hard at work ordering and setting up new equipment for the center which is currently located in the downstairs of the Glennan Building on the CASE campus.  A 3d printer, laser cutter, new computer workstations, an impressive workshop with every size of nuts, screws and bolts and new worktables and chairs are in the space.

The center is in its infant stages – but there are big plans. Case Western Reserve University received a $5 million gift from Joseph B. Richey II and A. Malachi Mixon III , founders of Invacare Corp. to support a building to house the university’s “think box” programs—a collection of initiatives that seek to support Case Western Reserve University and Northeast Ohio’s culture of innovation.

Some of the current and planned facilities include the Prentke/Romich Collaboratory to support prototyping and translating concepts into products, the Sears Undergraduate Design Lab to support electronics, the Reinberger Design Studio with high powered computers and a mini-milling center, the Bingham Student Workshop which will support undergraduate courses and will have machines and equipment to support wood and metal work, and the Virtual Worlds Lab, which has high-powered gaming machines and gaming/interactive development.

Charnus has experience with innovation.  He has done his own projects which include the Tesla Orchestra:a high-voltage fusion of music and technology using a tesla coil, the waterfall swing” an interactive waterfall swing set, and other projects.  He is an alumni from the Engineering program at case in 2005.

Charnus talked about how the center is meant to be a exciting place of collaboration. A dynamic place where students and community members, engineering and design, and innovation are fostered.

Got a great idea or just want to get inspired? You’re in luck – Think[box] 1.0 is coming our way.

Links:

Think[box] 1.0

Video about Think[box}1.0

Tesla Orchestra Project

 

Write an Ode to an Object: Akiko Busch

Write an Ode to an Object: Akiko Busch

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Last night I attended a talk by author Akiko Busch at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  Busch writes about design, culture and the natural world and her books include Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live, The Uncommon Life of Common Objects: Essays on Design and the Everyday , and Nine Ways to Cross a River.

In her talk, Busch talked about the relationship of language to how we engage with things. The first part of her talk focused on how writing about an object gives a new rich perspective.  She shared numerous examples and citations from literature, poetry, which included the book Robinson Caruso, John Steinbeck’s Log of the Sea of Cortez, and writings of Pablo Neruda.

Busch continued to talk about the value and power of describing things – and about the relationship of making and writing.  The history of this idea came from a course she taught a number of years ago in which students had to make various objects including a bowl and door handle – and they had to write an ode to each object.   The students learned how writing is a way to understand and connect to the object, making the subject larger and richer.

“The material and lyrical are mutually informative and are two different ways to get to something,” Busch said.  She continued to describe how making is thinking – and how making and writing work well together to expand perspectives.

She described how the haptic experience takes precedence over other experiences – and talked specifically about doors.  She had observed at libraries and other buildings that there is sometimes a written sign would be posted that warns visitors that a door can open suddenly, to push or pull, or some other written instruction.  She also observed that people would continually not read the sign – and would push or pull the door, or try to enter the wrong doorway.

She described how she spoke to designer Michael Bierut about this – and he shared his perspective that the physical cues override others (such as the written sign.)  She went on to share that any written sign on an object is an admission of failure, and that any visitor is going to usually ignore the sign – and push the door, go in the wrong door etc. – since we hang onto the expectations that things announce themselves.

“We think with the objects we love and we love with the objects we think with,” Busch said in her closing comments.

She then urged the audience to spend time writing an ode to an object, or a “recipe” about the object – in order to better understand the object that you are working on.

I am currently working on some creative resistance umbrellas for my  Stretch Your Paycheck interactive performance – and plan to write an ode to the umbrella before I start on the design of the graphics for the  orange and red umbrellas in my studio.

An Ode to an Umbrella…

 

Links:

Odes to Objects Examples– from Akiko Busch’s class Reading Design

Akiko Busch

Interview with Akiko Busch: on The Uncommon Life of Common Objects

 

Redesign the Supermarket

Redesign the Supermarket

Posted on by Kbaumlier

The magazine and website GOOD which offers articles, commentary, design and videos and comics on culture and society which describes itself as “for people who give a damn.”

Each month the site does a 30-day challenge about how to live better. For June the challenge was to redesign the supermarket . Supermarkets are designed to get you to buy more than you want. The stores spread out staples like milk, eggs, and bananas so that shoppers will end up buying more than they need.

GOOD challenged readers to redesign the supermarket to promote healthy choices and discourage impulse junk-food buying.

The winner, Alison Cross created a grocery store design that has a circular structure, lots of bike racks, shorter aisles, community tables, and an on-site garden.

Check out the winning design and other submissions at the project website –http://www.good.is/tag/redesign-the-supermarket.

IMAGE SOURCES:
Alison Cross
Lyza Danger

LINKS:

GOOD Redesign the Supermarket

Article: Secrets of the Supermarket Layout that Grocery Store Chains Don’t Want You to Realize