Archives For Design

The passing and loss of (Lee) Alexander McQueen today is beyond description. There is nothing I can say that has not already been said, I did not know him but I loved his work. Here are a few of the write-ups in the papers and some of his work that has inspired me over the years:

BBC News
CNN
Daily Mail
Financial Times
NYTimes
The Times
2001 Times article
Vogue
The Wall Street Journal
The Washington Post
Wikipedia

“People don’t want to see clothes. They want to see something that fuels the imagination.”
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Images: Style.com

When I was an undergrad in design school , I was one of the weakest drawing students among my peers our freshman year. My professors, patient and inspiring though they were, seemed to remain concerned about my weaknesses in the fields of drawing and craft; it was the final pin-up discussions at which I shone.

When the second semester of my freshman year came along and my drawing skills still fell short of my peers, one of my professors, who held a master’s in drawing, pulled me aside and gave me some advice. He gave me a few tips on how to improve the quality of my work, but above all advocated simply for practice. One of the exercises he recommended was to draw simple shapes over and over again– to draw until they were coming out of my ears. By so doing, I would be training my hands to be more skilled at quality of line and form. So for weeks I drew obsessively– circles, squares, cones, pyramids, triangles, lines, lines, lines; it was the mad hatter’s geometry and it was exploding inside my sketchbooks.

By the time I graduated with my BFA, I was selected as the designer of the year, so something must have clicked along the way; the mad hatter’s geometry had pushed me further. Today, simple forms like those from my professor’s exercise tend to creep into the margins of my sketchbooks and meeting notes– an unconscious habit, it now seems.

When I came across the above video from the Design Council, one of the first things that came to mind was that exercise of drawing simple shapes over and over and over.

Why be good when you can be better? What do you wish you could do better, dear readers? And how do you plan on getting there?

Building on my recent talk of sketchbooks and organizational systems, now seems like an appropriate time to share a series which outlines a week in the lives of thirteen artists, designers and thinkers. Organized by I.D. Magazine to demonstrate the versatility of Moleskine’s new folio collection of sketchbooks, the series was exhibited this past April during the 2009 Milan Design Week.

Here are a few of the sketchbooks from the series:


Designer/illustrator, Marian Bantjes


Fashion designer, Han Feng


Graphic designer and author, Jessica Helfand


Industrial Designer, Ayse Birsel

What would a week in your life look like, dear readers?

For the last two days, or evenings really, I’ve been reading The Barnbrook Bible as my break from work. It has been an absolute delight, leaving me further inspired by and in awe of Barnbrook’s work and perspective. I had the good fortune to spend some time with him at Grafic Europe in Berlin 5 years ago, but tried very hard not to be THAT person at the conference– the annoying fan who asks really specific questions about old work, celebrity clients and odd hypothetic situations.

Earlier this morning, I decided to catch up on what I’ve missed in the Virus Fonts and Barnbrook Design universe online. In so doing, I came across a number of his motion pieces from the last few years, here is one of the latest breathtaking pieces:

A Half-Rememebered Sentence from The Quiet Man

Here are a few pieces from a series of political pieces he did in 2004:

This is one of a series of three pieces produced in 1995 for BBC Radio Scotland:

See more of Jonathan Barnbrook’s amazing work here on his studio’s Web site.

Building on an earlier theme of friends and former classmates, today I thought I’d share the fabulous work of another buddy from my college days at Carnegie Mellon. When I think about it, the CMU connection theme could easily become a feature unto itself on AmandaMuses, but we’ll just see, I guess…

Anyway, Josh Urso, another product of the Carnegie Mellon Design program, produces stunning furniture in his New Jersey studio. Since the opening of his design studio in 2002, Josh continues to produce items that explore the limitations of material and structure. His work, inspired by mechanical processes and new materials, inspires curiosity and a playful enjoyment of daily life.

I love his Ant Farm lights and Knoop tables, and of course the incredible Specter chair– I remember Josh’s prototype senior year in college watching the evolution of this amazing object come to life. He took limp cloth and made it live with resin and sheer inventive brilliance.

It has been many years since I have been in touch with Josh, but from the look of his Web site, he is doing splendidly.

Images: Josh Urso Design

Good Design

21/05/2009 — Leave a comment

“Really good design is an object that makes you think about how we behave and our social conventions but still really works”

Ellen Lupton is quoted as having said that during a visit to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair last week in an article yesterday by Penelope Green in the NYTimes.

I can’t help but agree with her. I also liked Penelope’s summary of another of Ellen’s thoughts, that design is “critical thinking married to action.”

And conveniently, yesterday’s article included a nod to the new book Ellen wrote with her sister, Julia, Design your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things.

Pattern

12/03/2009 — Leave a comment

My love of Alexander McQueen continues, strong as ever – his Fall 2009 collection, Horn of Plenty, is gorgeous. I’m especially awed by this beautiful pattern marriage of houndstooth and magpies:
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“People don’t want to see clothes. They want to see something that fuels the imagination.”

The world is a little darker without one of the most brilliant contemporary American designers… He made things better, beautiful and fun… He was an incredible artist and designer..

Nomads

04/05/2007 — Leave a comment

Looks like Future Design Days is going nomadic… what are the chances of meetings outside of Sweden, I wonder.. Italy and Asia seem like likely possibilities, but we’ll just see i guess..

Have been spending a lot of time lately with Nick Bantock’s work – which has triggered two things in me – wanderlust and a desire to spend exorbitant amounts of time making art instead of my day job…