Fwis has published their second annual review of bookshelves on their covers blog.
a lectern attachment for the ikea billy shelf.
and here are some interesting "concept shelves," i guess
I like these as modular furniture that doesn't feel obligated to snap together or fasten in a modular way. here's a detail of the colors on the insides:
house-as-giant-bookshelf
could be interpreted as either heavy-duty bookends or "books-to-go"
i actually think that this would be great in action. say you were organizing your library by fiction vs. nonfiction, every time you picked up something or added something, you would have immediate feedback on the balance of your literary diet...
I started with the challenge of building a better desk lamp, with my main intuition being that I wanted something wall mounted and discrete to be more economical about space on a work surface. However, that quickly evolved into the question of what was important when it came to task lighting.
Why can't "task" be gratifying? Why can't it be stimulating? My lamp design evolved into a design challenge of bringing gratification to a useful, pragmatic object.
I took a lot of inspiration from things i'd seen recently:
1. the gratification from the changing colors of Michael Hayden's light installation at chicago o'hare airport.
2. the olafur eliasson exhibit at sfmoma:
the changing gradients of color...
and the transformation is built into the bridge entering the exhibit...
(it's the same bridge... just uses polarized material that is silvery from one angle, i.e. entering, and brilliantly colored from the other, i.e. exiting.)
Some personal reflection (i need to get this down somewhere...):
Part of the assignment was to develop in an object a personal statement, i.e. a personal point of view on design and functionality. i was surprised to find that this did crystallize something for me... i was able to articulate four things, four words really, that were essential for me in designing this lamp. Gratification and stimulation were both part of that; contextual was another-- i'm obsessed with context and all the complex baggage that comes with it-- and the last word is still a bit unresolved... "dimensional" maybe? "enabling"? as words, none of those mean too much, i guess, but it's all part of... something more important. priorities. something that doesn't change about me-- not over time, space, or whatever else.
i felt-- amongst other presenters in my class-- that my design was ultimately about a sort of intellectualism. that it was a considered object. it was important to me that the lamp have a context. that it have use in a particular situation, but that the design itself was able to expand and empower that context-- to make it better, more compelling, or else to enable one to progress in some way. i think the other side to this is that it is all meant to be a part of someone's life, which is inherently complicated, emotional, variable, etc.
i like bridging the exercise of rationality with the tapping into something more human. and i think gratification is the right word for that, because unlike "pleasure," there is some sort of efficacy to gratification. something mental occurs in the user in order for an object to gratify, rather than just please. and yet gratification, like pleasure, inspires some degree of positive feedback, which is empowering and transformative if employed correctly. maybe it is all coming back to "transformative" and what a designer can transform. objects? experiences? expectations? societies?
well... today i'm a bit tired. but tomorrow, or soon thereafter, i will remember to post about rainy days/negative feedback systems, and i will put up my vision statement. which may help all of this make more sense.
a full-size, 374-page reproduction of the entire 2007 IKEA catalogue, reduced & abstracted to only averaged color & lay-out structure.
"with an estimated 175 million copies distributed in 2006, the IKEA catalogue is thought to have surpassed the Bible as the most published printed work in the world. this group of 3 projects (374 Farben, Field Guide to Style, and Color & Catalogue) transforms that ubiquity of design into "varied pure color arrangements"."
"surpassed the bible," is thought-provoking. i was in ikea this past sunday night and felt very zen during my two hour visit. ...was looking around for illuminated object insights and observed myself walking strange, labyrinthine paths around the store... bringing objects from all over the store to hold up against all types of lights... like bizarre offerings to lampshade alters. spent over a hundred on prototyping materials and impulse-purchased idea for a cork board substitute. and if that's not religious zeal, i don't know what is.
i will put up a picture of my cork board curtain later when i'm at home. i'm very happy with it; but will be happier once i get the paperclips that i want.
SDesignUnit is a collective of designers based in seoul. their manifesto: "we are designing the undesigned through observation." their site has a few of their works and a huge collection of observational photos-- lots of information graphics, urban/public design/architecture, foodstuffs. they take a really wide-eyed, playful approach to what is essentially needfinding.
their enthusiasm for anonymous design reminds me of kiosk, a great store in nyc that i checked out this past summer. kiosk features "humble design" products from foreign countries visited by the store owner; the store features products from just one country at a time. currently, it's finland, the summer was germany. it's a great concept for a store, although i'm hardly the first one to have praised it. i got andreas's birthday present there: two kaweco sports pens from germany.
here's pictures of some items from kiosk's online store, along with some explanations.
Red Stripe Staples
Metal 2.5" x 3" x .5"
The concept behind the staples is simple, why pull out a staple when you can break it apart? The red stripe is the breaking point and the graphic makes things pretty clear.
Lottery Tickets
Paper and Metal Wire 5" diameter Eslöv, SWEDEN
This type of lottery is called American in Sweden - the concept is enviously simple: Each ticket is perforated in the middle so that you easily can tear of one part and give to the loser winner. When you have expensively sold out of hope, you can easily break open the seal of the metal ring and get the stubs off for mixing. These types of tickets have been around forever. In Sweden you have to get a permit for each lottery you arrange unless you are a registered sports-club...
below is a book cover. sorry if white on white = confusing.
"No Cause for Indictment: An autopsy of Newark": a book on the newark riots.
this cover reminds me of the artwork of julie mehretu. she's one of my favorites; i was lucky enough to see one of her paintings in person for the first time two weeks ago. first thing that strikes you: they're huge and have both incredibly sweeping gestures and really intricate details. it was mind blowing.
"The Best Creative Nonfiction": good, surprising front/back cover treatment by Rodrigo Corral.
