Designblog

Mr. Henk just loves his iPhone. Mr. Henk just loves books too, but soon there will be the iPad. The iPad may mark the end of the book as we know it. So all good things must go, and in a few years graphic design won’t be the same. Guttenberg’s Galaxy has stood out for centuries, with the printed book as the ultimate vessel for information, but through cyberspace we enter a different world.

It’s kind of sad, but inevitable, or is it?

“It just doesn’t matter,” Mr Henk replies.  “A book is an iPad is a volume. Period.” I’m a bit surprised by Mr. Henk’s reply. I thought in graphic design you had those I-will-only-work-in-print-and-I’d-rather-die-than-do-websites-people. But apparently Mr. Henk likes the feel and smell of paper just as much as he is touched by his iPhone.

I picked up You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers from my McSweeney’s bookshelf as my favorite object.

“Now did it become an illusive project from the start, as you selected a book as your object?” Mr. Henk continues.

Well, I don’t know…

Apparently, you have those you-shall-only-design-from-pure-form-and-only-that-product designers that don’t use text. I don’t mean to be rude, but the pure forms that come out of that won’t get Plato out of his cave. They are forms without ideas. You get the usual design stuff, like vases, chairs, lamps. Stuff you can get at Pols Potten, right?

Now, if you add text, you might get good concepts as well. You might get design I really might get attached to, just as Mr. Henk loves iPhones.

So then I read Timothy McSweeney had died (who is: The Ballad Of T. McSweeney). To me – one who still reads and runs – the form became all too clear. A book is a volume is a box and so is a body: they’re both volumes of content. So I chose to make a box out of cat litter because it resembles the ashes of the deceased. Ashes to Ashes becomes form to form, quite cradle to cradle that is, closing the circle

the stand is not straight under the globe this gives it a strange dimension, it looks out balanced/    crooked. It changes its and it can not move like it could with out the stand, now it is directed and only has one possibility. it can not move like a ball can, because a ball is not held  in position.

I made a lamp or a clock, it doesn’t give light but shade. It makes use of light by creating shade , the same game a lamp plays.

it makes use of something else to function. shades change.

It’s no longer a circle, I made the ball flat and changed it’s possibilities in an other way than the stand does, it can not move like a ball.

It refers back to the ball but isn’t the ball,  this is the same for the globe.

Organic form, double-sided symmetrical, built by thread, and spheres of different sizes.

It is an open structure, because of the flexibility of the thread the object is deformable but the structure remains the same.

Handmade Chinese decoration for your mobile phone ore key ring, i like that it is handmade.

What i don’t like about the object has nothing to do with the shape, only that it has no function, only decoration, useless for me.

What i find interesting is how the excisting shape is build and has a structure that can grow or deform.

What wanted for my design is that it must have a function, that the shape has also a structure that can grow or deform,

After having seen Edward Burtynsky’s “Manufactured Landscapes” which contain some pieces about abandoned products, it inspired me to juse trash as material and make a trashcan, i went for two days around the city looking for trash.

Part I

The object in which I’ve stumble upon, has no more than refined curves. The sensuality that carries its shape generates pleasure to the eyes. It invites you to caress its smooth curves and smell every inch of its pronounced surface. Once you’ve done it you will not want to be without it.

Part II

After having looked at the different characteristics which I found interesting in my previous object, I’ve decided that I will be translating these into a chair.

It’s simple, smooth and distinguished contour seems to be a match to the outline of the human body, as if it was the missing piece need to complete a big jigsaw puzzle where the body was the main feature. Such complementary piece seems to be a perfect fit for the curves that characterise the human body. Extrapolating this figure to a seating device for the human being seems a natural step as it adopts the forms of the human body providing an anatomical chair, which provides natural and resting support to the body.

I like boxes. Small boxes, big boxes, secret boxes. The fact that I can put something inside, hide it, and get it out again is magical to me.

This particular box is my favourite. It is a small tin one made in 1980 to keep your cigarettes from crushing.

I like the worn out look, faded gold paint and the scratches. The old and nostalgic look and feel of the little box. The very simple shape, a flat container part and a lid, all made out of one material. The only part that is not made out of tin is the pin that connects the lid to the box.

That connection part is simply some bent tin and that little metal pin. And it works really well, for 30 years already. I also really like the curled edges of the lid, that make it seem fragile, but actually make the box more practical.

The way the tin is bent to get the square shape reminds me of the bending of an enveloppe, or a sheet of paper. I think it’s nice that such a solid and sustainable, decorative and unnecessary little object has such a humble and straightforward feel and look to it.

From these points of liking I decided to make a suitcase, with a similar simple feel to it – exists out of one part (except the handle) – deals with the way an enveloppe is bent or folded – is clearly a suitcase – and doesn’t look so very new

I designed a suitcase with the size and the handle of a traditional attaché case as we all know. To the opening and closing of the suitcase  I applied the aspect of the bending of an enveloppe which I like about the Sonny Boy box.

Because of  the bending-instead-of-lifting opening system the suitcase could be made out of one part, and in order to open the suitcase you unfold it.

Form did not follow function.

This exercise device that is designed to keep your waist in fantastic condition is visually something that could be an illustration or of decorative means in its most minimal way by being almost two-dimensional.

Its rounded corners on the edges and the repetitive voluminous circular lines add a wavy aspect to the object and give it air and continuity.

Taking the two above mentioned aspects and consequently use these principles as a departure point, designing headgear seemed utterly natural. The sort of headgear that would follow the shape and size of the head, but eventually alter its original state.

Shapes contain shapes.

This pipe is a monument.

The company designed the pipe to be feminine. An infinite triangle, with an elitist and delicate exterior shape, but at the same time graphic and geometric. Frail but strong.

A woman.

The pipe contains more shapes in the shape. Pipoo 8 has three shapes. The lower dark trapezium made of briar, the transparent upper part made of acrylic and a black plastic cylinder.

We can admire her. How two different materials become unified shapes that contain inside the black cylinder, making a unity of one strict object. There is no possibility to change it, I must accept how it is.

About 15 cm long, it can become part of your body but you can also compare it to a Bic, looking like something alien.

It’s gorgeous.

This is not a vase. It is Carnival.

The vase contains more shapes in a shape. It has three shapes. A wooden rectangular with sharp edges leaning 8 degrees towards the right. A fluorescent green rectangular with rounded corners made out of cardboard, whereas its centre has a phallic transparent glass.

Mike Kelley once said: “With my work I not only want to reach the most educated viewer, but the most lazy viewer as well”.

About 44 centimeters high. Screaming for attention. One cannot avoid the sight of this illuminating green situation.

It’s a glossy disaster.

I chose a bike. A bike which colours I find hideous, leaving me no option but to rely on shape alone.

Trying to get something out of it I tried to draw the bike over and over again, varying sizes or distance between the individual elements that construct the whole. Then I did a gestural drawing of the bike.

My eyes constructed the shape in front of me, following the bike around it’s wheel, to the seat, which pointed ahead at the handlebars, which steered me, because of the slant of the bars, back to the wheel and the cycle continues. They don’t flow into one another; the elements point, circle and swing constantly towards each other.

The design literally becomes “eye-catching” not allowing me to escape; I have to analyse the object. Even an attempt at escape is  useless as I would only slip back into the shape because of its properties.

An intriguing notion, an object that makes one look, if even for a second longer.
This principle I tried to follow, to arrive at a functional design, but before I completed it, something different happened.

I became intrigued by shape.

The object wasn’t eye-catching, it became different.

It showed so many possibilites, so many open doors that were immediately closed before a new one was opened.

I tried following the same idea, but in this case, I wasn’t intrigued by how the shapes were relating to one another. It offered something new; instead of the shape immediately telling me of an object, this one was like a puzzle. Or like kaleidoscope. Or even like a mirror.

I projected on it. It was telling me stories.

Shape as language- If shape has its own language then what does it communicate?

By zooming into the details of my Shu Uemura’s Eyelash Curler I discovered that the flow of the object is both practical as aesthetic. For example the flow of wire suggests that the least material was used making it a practical decision. However the screws with its specific smooth curved heads also reinforce the flow of the object making it not merely a practical choice.

Analyzing the flow of the object and sketching its shapes from different angles lead mine pen to the final shape of a shopping cart. I tried to apply the elegant design qualities of the eyelash curler into this new shopping cart by creating a flow with the least material.

It was interesting to use shape as a tool. In this manner the concept behind the shopping cart follows the shape and qualities of the eyelash curler. Furthermore by putting the object in its environment the concept behind it begins to speak for itself. In other words what you see is what you get.

At the end what does the shape of this shopping cart communicate? I would say consume less because the basket is twice as small as a regular supermarket shopping cart. Also the shape of the handle makes it not possible to lean on. Thus people will unlikely stroll in the supermarket and get less seduced by products that are not on their list. In this way consumers rather use the supermarket instead of the other way around!

Sound.

Heads turn.

What arrives?

What passes by?

Research.

Male tango shoes.

Makes sense.

Quite feminine, though.

Androgynous.

Turkish shoemaker fixed them.

20 euro’s.

Cheap.

“Beautiful, around thirty years old.”

Leather, black, a hint of wood.

Ten little holes.

Thin black laces.

Simplicity.

Simplicity.

Starting point.

Sound transformed into visuals.

Black.

Second hand leather.

Ten small holes.

Covering skin.

New necklace.

New scarf.

The Casio F-91w is a watch that intrigued me in the first place because of his simple structure. It’s not heavy, easy to wear and no unnecessary elements. The watch explains itself. With this I mean that the shape shows the function, which is something many designers don’t do anymore these days. Other aspects that I like are the geometric shapes, colours and the simplicity of the sound and buttons.

The longer you look at the watch, the more you will find out that the square with cut edges is repeated many times in different ways like a form stretched to the edges at the end of the watch. The designer did not only repeat this square, he also repeated other elements like lines and typography.

Since this watch turned out for me to be mainly about repetition. I chose to use this aspect in my next design, which turned out to be a bridge for bycicles.

In the technical drawing you can see more clearly how I repeated the geometric forms as much as possible. For the bridge I also chose to use the form of the bracelet from thick to thin into the pilars of the upper-middle side of the bridge.

The object I brought has a function of a noserinser. For most people it strikes as a sexual object due to it’s shapes. I think this is interesting.

It is egg shaped and there is a fallic shape growing out of it. It’s made out of ceramics and has a nice glaze. The colour is white with some small imperfections in the glazing. Even though it’s hollow it has a certain weight to it. It looks simple, but it has some interesting details such as the rounded endings and the transition from one shape to another. Another practical detail is the measuring line up to where you fill it with water. It is just a seam but it’s not carved in, it must have been made directly on the throwing table.

The object attracts to touch, and looks easy to grab. I also think it refers to some kind of artifact, it could maybe be a water can, wine carafe, tea pot or something completely else. I find it interesting in it’s simplicity.

From the start there were a lot of ideas of what to make of the shapes. Finally I decided to make a table. The size of the original table would be 90cm x 90cm x 50cm, this would be a good size for a table in the hall. Preferably it would be made of ceramics.

I kept some of the shapes I liked or was interested in from the original noserinser, such as the endings and transitions from one shape to another. The measuring line was also an important element which I kept and presented at the top of the fallic shaped legs.