Technology
Glass? When asked to find the most "out there" interactive technology experience I trawled through many videos, blogs, google searches and books yet nothing caught my imagination quite like 'Glass'. Its innovative, yet not so perfect, response to a problem allowed me to see things differently. What we cannot imagine doing or using now, is something we will almost probably be, in one form or another, doing and using not too far into the future.
Through a series of three videos I present to you... Glass.
1.
Here I created my own video clip, communicating how I found out about 'Glass'. The videos ends with the start of Video Two (as shown below).
1.
Here I created my own video clip, communicating how I found out about 'Glass'. The videos ends with the start of Video Two (as shown below).
2.
Glass? Click the link below to watch the video that answered
all my questions.
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| Click image to watch Sergey Brin talk about Google Glass |
Sergey Brin's talk on Glass at world famous TED conference 2013 made me consider above all the importance of finding the problem and then taking the first radical and very risky step toward solving it.
The final product is interactive in every sense of the meaning, it requires full user participation and yet allows the user to complete several other tasks at the same time. By analysing the mobile phone and noting how it can be improved Google has come up with a some what 'out there' and radical approach to a first solution.
A Piece of Design I Love AND Hate
Rodchenko,'Books', 1924
Rodchenko designed this photomontage for a Moscow publisher, the girl featured shouts out 'Books' in Russian. The aesthetic is based on the official Soviet art of the period which was also used for political journals and propaganda, it was believed a clear aesthetic and easily accessible image would best communicate communist ideas of the time. Because of the political routes and clear reason for chosen aesthetic I have always been a fan of constructivist work and love this piece of design.
Mathew Cooper, Franz Ferdinand Album Cover Design, 2005
Many designers of the 21st century have been inspired by the constructivists visual vocabulary. It has been used and re-used over and over again. Patric Burgyone of Creative Review suggests this is because "It has been easy to nick the style and dump politics", for example Matthew Coopers 2005 album cover for Franz Ferdinand. I found this whilst researching album cover design earlier in the summer. The aesthetic itself links nothing to the band or their ideas or messages but rather rides on the iconic aesthetic of Rodchenko and the Constructivists movement. Essentially this makes the design meaningless and therefore a piece of design I hate. What Cooper's design work has shown us is that for a design to be iconic or indeed like Rodchenko's work, famous, it must first have an impactful meaning or strong links to what was happening in society at the time. Therefore it must be relevant.
Design Finds
Design Finds
Initially it may not seem obvious as to why I have chosen a Dutch road sign as my first design find, after all sign posts are found all over the world and are quite possibly one of the most common pieces of design. This road sign in particular caught my eye. At the time I did not realise why but after doing some research I began to appreciate the craftsmanship and inteligence that goes into such an understated piece of design and why therefore it should catch my attention.
Types faces, colour and shape are used differently all around the world depending on the country you are in and the type of road sign you are looking at. More recently in Europe the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic tried to unify all the road signs across Europe to make them easier for foreign visitors. Although to an extent many changes have been made the use of type face in each country has not been made universal. Take for example the Dutch signage above, a new type face used by the Dutch is ANBW- Uu designed by Gerard Unger which appears on most if not now all non-motorway signs. The idea being that the type can be moved closer together and made smaller to fit a standard sign size without becoming less visable.
This research therefore made it obvious that what really caught my eye was its notable difference from all the other road signs I had seen during the trip to Amsterdam. The sign's type was closer together and slightly taller than others I had seen. It was this observation that made me curious enough to research the topic and discover a wealth of craftsmanship and knowledge behind these very important pieces of social design. Never before had I even considered a road sign a piece of graphic design, therefore it became a Design Find.
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| Logo for Denham- A popular clothing boutique in Amsterdam |
This logo appeared frequently on doors, walls, in corridors and on shop fronts all around Amsterdam. 'Denham' a growing chain of small and simplistic yet chic boutiques through out Amsterdam. What attracted me to this logo was that it is instantly recognisable with or without text. The use of the iconic jean texture mixed with the visual of tailors scissors made the logo's message easy to read and therefore an excellent example of visual communication.
What made this logo stand out for me as a 'design find' was the places in which the boutique choose to display it around the city. Instead of using the classic approach to advertising the owners used the logo as an almost 'street slogan'. Placing it on lower parts of walls, down alley ways and on pavements. They made the logo hard to ignore as it popped in to view at the oddest angles, therefore making it unexpected and so memorable. Meaning, when I first saw it, I felt as if I had found it rather than it had found me. Therefore it was a design find.
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| Examples of street slogans found over the summer. |
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| Examples of street slogans found over the summer. |
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| Examples of street slogans found over the summer. |
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