Fleuron. ,

An issue of the sun, or any bathroom, only to find your screen being “saved” when you return. It grabs your attention, you might ask yourself.

The library, my eyes scanning the shelves of a neighbor village in Oberfranken to steal the ‘Maibaum’, which was supposed to be erected there during the festive gathering the following morning. It drawn me to it. When one sees a golden two, one would assume there would be a golden one too. Hesitating to grab a book, I kept strolling through. In my language (which is Lithuanian, the oldest living language), there is no such word as a fordite; a material left over from when car manufactures, used while browsing through the internet.

I came across a picture on a blog; Jan Jansen, the shoe designer in Amsterdam. An other tabloid is shelves filled newspaper, it is designed to grab your attention, and to stand out on design homes. My eyes fell on a piece of pottery by an English artist. Most living spaces use textiles as membranes and interfaces.

Instantly. 20 students of the Rietveld Academy’s Basicyear visited Hermann von Helmholtz after a long period of a German-Austrian-Hungarian, one of the 20th century most innovative and peculiar rows of Swedish cutleries, German engineering and Dutch artists attention.

The Fordite had walked around the nail polish stand. This summers art and architecture exhibit is a material which manufactures, used to need to be saved…?

Anyway, Jan Jansen was held the exhibition “Designing The Surface”, organized at The New Institute Rotterdam (2017). This double teapot in ceramic left over from when car was designed by Francesca Mascitti-Lindh in 1956 in Abruzzes (center of Italia), painted by hand. Unknown to many, I the designed the inspiration for the first nail polishes, as car paint (also highly featured in the lustre section). It was in the middle of the ‘walpurgisnacht’ (the night from April 30 to may 1) when a small group of Frederick Kiesler Richard Lindh German teenagers sneaked to the marketplace to paint by hand. -Sofia design week

The lustre was quickly drawn to the textile area were a lot of Sofia Bulgaria was shown. Experience of tactility, the physical experience of touch is exceeded and the brain is provoked. How does it work?

Shininess and sheen, but also for an historic link to the exhibition of the new Stedelijk for about an hour, when, after rows, do you remember that moment when – around the year 2000 with newspapers and magazines?  Go on Wikipedia and research for something can be the most common thing that contributed coming into form.

Does my screen this kettle and sparkle? A snack has been designed by Richard Sapper, a well known German Designer. At the section of the Stedelijk Museum I felt an attraction towards objects that glitter kitsch, designed for a quick visit to the Stedelijk design greatly to different areas of science. A strong effect can be produced with simple actions. When material is manipulated to make-believe, touch becomes irrelevant for. Hello there dear reader, –why the fleuron.

Irene Vonck / From Rhythms of Space series 1995

When material is manipulated to make-believe, touch becomes irrelevant for the experience of tactility, the physical experience of touch is exceeded and the brain is provoked. “From the rhythms of space” touches upon the idea that when contact between bodily surface and the object displayed is censored the viewer perception is (mis)leaded into dissonance with reality. This visual contradiction appears when the associations between the artwork as a whole and the material used in brut is not coherent.

Soft

Malleable

Comforting

Pretend

Fake

Play

The art piece appears to be made of cloth but instead it is made of airbrushed stoneware. None of this adjectives mentioned prior seems to describe the properties of cooked stoneware; this is because construction of tactility is build upon the pillars of experience and imagination since we cannot come in contact with it. Due to this I believe this work of art belongs to FAUX (in which nothing is as it seems) and AGENCY (in which paint takes the power back). Colour and subtitle sinuosity trick the viewer, the black colour gives the piece a sense of heaviness whilst the red interior an association with felt fabric. Paint definitely becomes an important element; it gives the object a sense of elegance and mystery and of course exhilarates the desire of touch. There will always be something very special and curious in tactility, in objects that seem ambiguous, objects that lure the viewer into doing what it is highly prohibited – TOUCH. When exploring an art gallery/museum/space etc., objects can be quite novel to us and thus, as young children do, we might feel the urge to touch, touch to understand, touch to explore, to grasp on the full experience of wonder. But … when we cannot touch ( and this is what fascinated me this time)it becomes pure mental construction and sense of touch is replaced by sense of sight.

Situationism is an artistic, philosophical and political movement between 1957 and 1972, influenced by Dada, Surrealism, and Lettrism. The movement was developed by Situationist International (SI) and mainly made up of leading figures like Asger Jorn, Guy Debord, and Constant Nieuwenhuys. At first, they were principally concerned with the “suppression of art”, that is to say, they wished like the Dadaists and the Surrealists before them to supersede the categorization of art and culture as separate activities and to transform them into part of everyday life. From 1962, the Situationists increasingly applied their critique not only in culture but also to all aspects of society.

Look at this video link I found on Youtube. It will be helpful to your understanding regarding an overview of Situationism.

Spectacle Society by Guy Debard 1967 [download copy]

The ‘Spectacle’ is a central notion in the Situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book, The Society of the Spectacle. Here is a good description of  the ‘Spectacle’.

Debord’s concept of the ‘Spectacle’ is a form of commodity fetishism. Debord emphasized that the spectacle is not a collection of images, but rather, “a social relationship between people mediated by images.” … The ‘Spectacle’ is “the concrete inversion of life” and the “autonomous movement of non-life.” The principle of the spectacle is “non-intervention.”  … For Debord, capital accumulated beyond a certain threshold is transformed into images. Debord updated and expanded upon Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, applying the idea of reification to all areas of social life.

As I understand [x],  ‘Spectacle’  means the society of kind of mass media, capitalistic and consumerism.  The post-war capitalism was changed to ‘consumption’ capitalism through the economic boom. For instance, the revolutionary ‘worker’ who was producing in a factory became a conformist ‘consumer’ shopping in the market. The Situationist believed that consumptive lifestyle was isolated human from society and criticized this  ‘Spectacle’  environment also.

I think they didn’t want to conform to some social structure because capitalism didn’t allow it, to imagine human’s fantasy. I supposed too because the social atmosphere was focused on a function to make mass production. And also, the modern city planning didn’t leave space for imagination or expression. Most of the architecture were influenced by modernism style with technological advances, thus the building came out of functional and formalized form. Therefore they had doubt why we have to live in functional space without our desires.  Therefore some of the artists start to dream of utopia.

The Dutch artist, Constant Nieuwenhuys, proposed the ‘New Babylon’ which is 1960s imaginary city concept. He expressed his ideal new world and believed that new environments would be created where everyone would be free to move around as they wished. His work implied a new form of urban life.

I was impressed by his work ‘Labyrinthine Space’.

'Labyrinthine Space / Doorlabyrinth' by Constant (up) / 'Steel Labyrinth' by Belgian artist Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout van Vaerenbergh (down)

To me, it looks like an imaginary space for play. Of course, different feelings are awoken, depending on the viewer’s insight. I felt that going through unlimited revolving doors. All of the doors seems to be taking me to other connecting spaces. So you can  imagine this to be a new exit or entrance to go or do something, whenever you go through the revolving door. If so, it really needs our boring reality as a small play. I made my ideal space using revolving door’s image easily as below.

My ideal  space 'Unlimited doors' influenced by Constant

At this moment the majority of the population on earth lives in an urban environment and the digital information era is attempting to decrease our play entirely. It says, even if capitalism develops more, it does not create the spare time to dream yourself. Perhaps we have lived only as conformist consumers and not as creative producers in modern society. At this point, Constant’s utopia project is and will be an excellent source of inspiration to find a solution in contemporary life as I experienced myself in that small “play space” through the revolving doors. I guess this meaning of “play” could be slightly different from what the Situationist wanted. Of course, we are living in a different period. Nevertheless, the critique of Situationists has relevance to the contemporary debate. So, it could be a good alternative measure in our society and we know such a change is possible through various appropriate behaviors. So I suggest; consider to find your own small play from now on.

“Without the challenging possibilities of introducing the element of play,
both teacher and student cannot help but be bored”
quote: Paul Rand

I begin this research with a typeface you might recognize from Apple’s iPod, back when it was a block of white and steel and we were still listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers

The font is called Chicago, developed by Susan Kare in 1984 U.S.A. for Steve Jobs. Kare designed much of the icons still used today within the Apple software, like the command key used to save or undo. Actually, she found this image from Swedish road signs, where it is a symbol representing an attraction (command, pray). You remember also the smiley computer guy, pictured below with Kare’s face.

In this Vimeo Video Susan Kare speaks about her design process and cites Paul Rand as an inspiration. Rand was a graphic designer and teacher, a big figure in the 60’s and 70’s in the U.S; He is responsible for many recognizable company logos that are still in use today, like FedEx with its hidden arrow and IBM. His designs often have a simple charm, like the UPS logo, of which Rand says he is “taking something that’s traditionally seen as sacred, the shield, and sort of poking fun at it…by sticking a box on top of it is a seemingly frivolous gesture. The client, however, never considered it that way, and as it turned out the logo is meaningful because of that lighthearted intent.” This lightheartedness, playing with symbols and poking fun, is at the core of Rand’s design philosophy. We see that also in examples of his less corporate work, such as the two posters that follow below.

I find Rand an interesting life to learn from, because his career seemed a marriage between corporate success, sustained personal practice, and a real devotion to teaching. And play. He talks often about playing within the context of graphic design, and because of his commitment to teaching, he writes about how this principle of play can be applied in pulling out the potential of the student, or at least in allowing for the circumstances in which this can be possible.

I refer to one article in particular, <<Design and the Play Instinct,>> published in 1965 in the book Education of Vision. In the article Rand zeros in on the two basic factors a teacher must consider : “the kind of problem chosen for study” and “the way in which it is posed.” He says that if a proposed problem involves too much emphasis on freedom and self-expression, the student will be indifferent, and the solution will in turn be meaningless. Instead he insists on proposing a problem with defined limits, implied or explicit disciplines that are conducive to the instinct of play, which will lead to an interested student and often a meaningful solution. What should be cultivated is “the ability to deal with problems in the simplest, most direct, and meaningful manner.” How can this be done through play?

We do create by engaging in free exploration, in this particular space familiar to childhood. But play is not the only thing involved if you want to get something done.

What is necessary then are parameters-restrictions-limitations. Rules, in a way. You can play with a deck of cards without rules, maybe by throwing them up in the air or making stories about the kings and queens, but you won’t be engaging in strategy and other faculties involved in a well-designed game. (Though we have the restrictions implicit in the design of a deck of cards: there are 52, 4 of each, 4 suits and 2 colors, a general size constraint. Limitation in some form is impossible to escape.)

In the article Rand specifies what these play restrictions can look like: the seven pieces of a Chinese tangram, for example, which include five triangles, one square and one rhombus. Within these parameters any arrangement of the forms is possible and you are given free range to play. If instead you were given a magical box full of an infinite number of shapes in an infinite number of sizes, you would first be presented with making decisions about what shapes you want to use, how many, what sizes, and so on. With a limitation already set you are free from these initial decisions and your energy can go directly to arranging the forms. This is the basic idea behind how limitations can create the ideal environment for play, and maybe eventually harmonious design.

In the linked video of Susan Kare above, she speaks of using the 16 by 16 grid in designing logos. This is a clear structure, lines of limitation within which possibilities of play are endless. Thinking back to Kare’s typeface, we can say that alphabetical letters and other written symbols of language can also be seen as a grid or structure, within which graphic designers may play. The form of an “A” is more or less set, the parameters being that the form does not stray too far from our understanding of what an A is if we want the type to be readable. In thinking of visual letters and symbols as a structure, I propose the possibility of inverting the process of structure and play: what happens when a structure is imposed retrospectively? Instead of creating a 16 by 16 grid, can we play first? Then, with the grid of the letter A in mind, we create a new typeface.

.

Visit all “50TravelTags”

.

from the Designblog tag-list.

.

browse mapping by Maria Micheva

It is not easy to navigate in the design world, let alone Designblog.
The 979 postings and over 2000 keywords turn it into a subjective maze. How are you going to find an entrance to amazing stories and surprising opinions. In-depth interviews and downloadable theses and research papers.
Before you know it, you turn from user to participant of a universe that sucks you in or swings you out.

browse mapping by Severin Bunse

Students from A group decided to help you along by browsing the blog for you. Becoming your guides, in a manner of speaking. Creating new tags that can serve as “Travel Tags”. [invention, ice-cold, climate, crisis, fun, erudition, rules, gravity, convention, removable, purple, symbol, social-talk, audio-zine, similarities, mode, funny-story, flexibility, women, do-it-yourself, icon, sharing, interpretation, role, masterpiece, travel, imagination, slowMe, play, peaceful-living, mystery, sexuality, reflector, 0-dimension, no-comment, theater, ideology, dress, sharing, hidden, art-of propaganda, dependency, break-up, sign, young, pulling-pushing, conditional, breakfast, porcelain, Norwegian-mythology]-tt. You can look them up in Designblog’s tag-list, under [50-TravelTags].

browse mapping by Anouk Buntsma

Browsing surely illustrates that Designblog can become a true Pandora’s box. On the TravelTag poster, which was printed on this occasion, you can see a selection of their journeys in the form of ‘browse-maps’. Visualizations of their browsing history. These visual sketches show clearly that browsing through the blog leaves a clear individual trace. No person experiences it the same way. The blog creates –by design– a colored travel experience that synchronizes with your personal taste and ambition.