BLOG POST 3
WHAT IS DESIGN?
Okay I’m going to have to admit this reading was incredibly hard for me to get through. While interesting, the matter of fact tone in the reading was quite off-putting. I understand where the author was coming from, saying that the cavemen figuring out they can use their hands as a drinking device created the ladle and then created vessels as we know them but also including clothing but it felt a little ridiculous and far fetched. Makes sense, for sure, but I do not understand why the author felt the need to talk about all of that for 4 pages. I usually am not the one to rag on people or their works but seriously, what is the sentence, “The concept of design…was the backlash of aesthetic sensibility against the dullness and immaturity lurking in the industrial mechanism that was so violently changing man’s living environment” even supposed to be telling me? I will admit I find it quite interesting that these two dudes were in a way rebelling against the super machine/ mechanical era they lived in by trying to “revive” the era of craftspeople who actually possessed a manual skill instead of someone just standing next to a machine making sure it is doing its job. I think it is a bit biased that this author believes design came about just because of Ruskin and Morris. But now as I continue reading the author has decided that the first people to really accept the idea of design are the artists from Bauhaus in Germany who worked in molding plastics. I can see how a designer might have a deeper understanding of this article and find it to be more of a productive read but honestly I am just so lost in the author’s attempt at a creative writing approach to what seems to be stories of historical happenings leading up to what we consider design. It was pretty interesting to read about the different countries approaching design in their own ways and seeing design grow into something that can be personal to a country or a brand.
Tag Archive | tdiaz1
VISU1311.02 BLOG POST 2
JOURNAL 2
High Concept, High Touch
This reading was probably the coolest reading I have had to do since beginning college 4 years ago. The author discusses the changes that America has gone through in the last 150 years, bringing us up to date. It was incredibly cool and exciting to hear that our nation is getting to a point where a creative outlook on life and our jobs is something valued and even necessary. One thing I found super interesting is the consensus that the whole world is realizing we need to move our focus from just being scientifically and mathematically literate to still having a strong value of those things but realizing it is no longer sufficient to be lacking emotional and compassionate knowledge. It’s really great to hear that artists are coming up as a commodity in today’s society instead of the old view of artists being “jobless bums” or freeloaders or hippies or what have you. The fact that even the biggest manufacturing company in the nation, General Motors, is talking about their new R-directed way of approaching products and economics. I am also incredibly impressed and excited to hear that medical schools are requiring their future doctors to take classes and have experiences that will give them the ability to feel more empathy for the patient. Many older doctors tend to have terrible bedside manner and explain your heath diagnosis to you as though you’re a computer with a virus. No emotional softening when giving bad news, and what I have experienced most is if you have questions or get emotional around those doctors they almost stiffen up and get even colder. This next wave, “The Conceptual Age”, has such positive and productive promise I can’t wait to experience it as we see it come full swing. In addition, I can’t wait to see what happens with The Rainbow Project. The idea to give a standardized test that turns out to not be so standardized is an incredible plan and can promote students who have a hard time with math and science but have so much more to give to actually strive to bring that “so much more” to the surface. I can assure everyone that I will always remember my horrible ACT experience and how much stress and pressure the test caused me. I’m a problem solver, but math equations go straight over my head. I would have loved the experience of being tested on that sort of knowledge, the math and science stuff, while also being able to show my strengths in a test more along the lines of The Rainbow Experiment.
VISU 1311 BLOG POST 1
As I read The Photograph, I really found myself quite perplexed about every three lines or so. I had to read, and re read, and read again a handful of times but I feel like I finally got a pretty good handle on what was trying to be brought to our attention.
If I understood correctly, the author explains that most people look at a photograph and think its only purpose is to capture the world or the state of the world that it was at when the picture was taken. What I think the author was trying to say is that we have to ask ourselves deeper questions when we are observing a photograph.
My response to everything that I have read feels more confused than anything but I understood it to be telling us that as observers we should be embarking on a philosophical journey when we are studying a photograph. We need to realize that it is more than just color or contrast; these photographs are saying something that we need to dissect. Where I got ridiculously confused is where the author began to talk about the camera lying to us when it shows the green of the field where as if we were to see the same picture in black and white the green of the field would be more truthful because it is something we create within our own minds based on the tones and values of grey and black within the field, whereas the color photograph has this green field but the green color is not actually green but the camera’s concept of green…?
In conclusion I really think that I understand the big picture of what the author is trying to relay to us, I just feel like I wish I had an interpreter with me to put the whole article in layman’s terms and cut out all of the examples and metaphors. As an artist I have found myself being much more compelled by black and white photos than color ones whereas I used to feel the opposite. When looking at a black and white photo you almost feel like you stepped into a time machine and I notice myself guessing what color everything was and feeling more satisfied by that entire process than I feel looking at a brightly colored photograph.