Design in Society: My middle name is Danger

Design often strives to create something that will improve society. That was the first sentence of my latest post, where I analyzed a piece of design that aimed to improve society. But what about something that often is harmful to humans and society as a whole. Whether intentional or not, harmful design was STILL designed. I want to look at weapons, specifically guns. And let's be honest, the intention with gun design is clear. Guns are not unintentionally harming humans or society. Guns are literally designed and manufactured to harm human beings (and animals). But what I find really interesting is that there is a $2 billion a year gun industry that deals with everything from the design to final creation of these killing devices. Engineers spend so much designing new and improved weapons each year, considering things that are design basics: everything from aesthetic appeal to efficiency of use. These are things we learn about as typical and important aspects of design. But rather creating a more comfortable chair there are people who are creating a more comfortable hilt for a gun. A gun truly is a great achievement of engineering and design when you consider what it does and how long ago it was first created. But at what moral cost? These designs bring up complex questions of ethics, how could an engineer create something that is to kill other people? And even today modern guns are a great engineering feat, with new material that creates lighter handguns for our soldiers and police officers. There are excellent resources and great design being put into the gun industry. Speaking on weapons in general I find it interesting that often the newest and most cutting edge technology is coming from the military. As a government, as a country we put more resources and money into engineering and design for military research and development than just about anything else (medicine may be the exception). It's a bit ironic that we spend billion of dollars to design better weapons to kill people every year and billions of dollars on medical research to save people every year. Ethics and morals are tricky and this a touch subject, but design has the power to truly improve society, but it also has the power to destroy it. 

Utopian Design

Design often strives to create something that will improve society. Though this is not always the case, every week I analyze movie posters and I don't believe those designs are really striving for a better tomorrow. I think a good example of a company who strives (though may not succeed) to make for a better society is Apple. Apple is constantly putting out products with taglines that promise to change our world and change the way we look at computers, or tablets, or music...etc. All of Apples products come with that promis to revolutionize something, but today I'd like to focus on the iPhone. The iPhone set out to change the way people thing of smart phones. It changed the way text messaging worked, it created an easy to use interface that was incredibly user-friendly, and it created the "app". Apple encourages companies and developers to design new apps that will increase the functionality of the phone. The tagline "there's an app for that" suggests that with this phone life will be easier and this phone can accomplish things that no other device has been able to do. It's an all-one-device that has phone, SMS, email, internet, and fun games all in one device. The goal of the iPhone is to create something with limitless functionality that allows users to be creative with the way they use it. But the iPhone also sets out to be something incredibly easy to use. The design of the interface is really where the iPhone shines. A single touch screen that controls everything and is easy enough for anyone to use. It is aesthetically pleasing but also has incredibly functionality. It's a beautifully designed machine that is very clearly aiming (though probably not actually creating) to create a better society.

Color Transforms: Design in Film Posters 7-'The Birds'

It's the last edition of 'Design in Film Posters'. It's been a fun quarter getting through all of these beautifully designed posters. This last entry is all about color and how simple, skillful use of color can make a poster that much more effective.

The Birds
Courtesy of www.smashingmagazine.com

The movie is The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock's classic scary movie about what happens when crazy birds swarm Bodega Bay and then kill people. This is an interesting poster because it's the first one that I've looked at all quarter that is actually not an original for the movie. This particular one is a redesign that was recently done, but I like the design of it so much that I'm going to use it. It is an incredibly simple poster, divided into three sections, the two red areas on either side and the white feather down the center. The focus is on that feather, which is really the focus of the film, the birds. But what I really love about the design is the great use of color. Three colors here: red, white, and black. The stark contrast between the red and the white add so much to the way that feather pops off the poster and catches the eye. That contrast is really what makes this such an interesting poster. Though why red? The great contrast could have been achieved through a variety of bold, bright colors; anything from a bright green to a hot pink would have worked. But the red here is especially effective because of the connotations and ideas that are so often associated with red (especially when complimented with black, as is the case here). Red is the color of blood, and when birds attack people, there will be blood. Even some of the way the red shows through on the middle of the feather feels as though it is alluding to images of blood drops. The whole image comes together in a very simple, yet very effective way. It evokes feelings of suspense, terror, and violence with three colors and a single feather. Very well designed.

Ergonomically Correct

An interesting way to analyze the design of something it to look at it critically from an ergonomic standpoint. Ergonomic comes from the Greek word ergon (work) and the Greek word nomos (laws), and it is an idea that is concerned with the ease of use of a product. There are five areas of ergonomic research and looking at each are makes the basis for design criticism. Today I'm going to analyze something that I use everyday: my car, a 2006 Kia Sportage.

Design in Film Posters 6-'Inglourious Basterds': This just may be my masterpiece

This week's poster comes from another Tarantino film: Inglourious Basterds! Don't let the title fool you, they speak a lot of french in this movie, so you know it's fancy.

If you were to ask me to sum up Inglourious Basterds in a few words, they would be: bloody nazi fun. This is a fun movie, that borders on too self-aware the entire time. It knows it's a good movie and it revels in that. I love this design of this poster because there's real simplicity here (as simple as a bloody bat can be), but at the same time the poster makes a pretty bold statement. It's a fairly violent image, and by putting everything out there in this single image the designers are letting the audience know what they're in for. The tagline "Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France..." alludes to old spaghetti westerns which was a huge stylistic influence for the film, again setting up audience expectations. The color scheme of the poster is understated and works really well, the gray tones of the helmet and the clouds really help the blood on the bat stand out. The layout of the title and tagline (slightly slanted) matches well with the slant of the lines in the helmet and the bat. The match of all the lines helps add movement to the poster and keep from having the poster become boring. The iconography of the swastika also add so much to this poster because it is a symbol that is immediately recognizable and thus sets up another important part of the film.  It's a dynamic image that really captures the spirit of the film.

Word and Image: Lemon.

1960s Volkswagon Print Ad

We're talking about words and images and I often think of Magritte's "This is not a pipe" drawing as a perfect example of how these two ideas come together. Something else that came to mind today as I was thinking about words and images was a classic advertisement for the Volkswagen Beetle from the 1960s. The ad consists entirely of two things: a single image of the car and a single word "Lemon." In the ad the word "lemon" refers to the shape of the car, which as you can see in the image is shaped just like a lemon. But the genius of that ad comes from the fact that the word "lemon" is often used to refer to cars that are broken down, old, and don't work. The ad is a play on the meaning of the word, as if saying: we know what lemon used to mean, but this is what it means now. It's that irony of using a term for a crappy car to advertise your new brand that effectively sells this product. It is completely reminiscent of the Magritte drawing that I mentioned earlier, it's almost saying "This is a Lemon" while the picture clearly shows a new car just like the phrase "This is not a pipe" is written below a well drawn pipe.  This ad is a perfect, simple example of how words and images come together to effectively convey the purpose behind the design. It's such a simple design, one word, one picture, yet this ad revolutionized the advertising industry. It's clever, it's smart, it's simple. Without that one word all we'd have is a nice looking picture of a car, but anyone could do that, any ad man or designer could take a picture of a car and put it in a magazine. And, obviously, without the image of the car the word is meaningless, you'd have no idea what it was advertising. But the two come together and word and image create very effective design. Words and images make for great design.

Word and Image: Logos and the like

Nike

The idea of design using words alongside images is not a new one. Design (specifically advertisements) have been using words with images for hundreds of years. I want to look at modern advertisement and logo design and think about how words function as part of a logo in modern society.

First, there is the Nike Swoosh. Arguably one of the most famous and recognizable logos in modern society the swoosh is so simple: not a word or letter, one solid colored, single mark. It is beautiful in its simplicity and so effective. Words are not needed to identify the brand, yet fancier logos have far less recognizability. Does this logo lead to the question: is design better without words? I don't know that it's quite saying that, but I think that simplicity is the most effective. Another logo in this same vein that comes to mind is the uber simple Apple logo.

Google's logo

On the other hand there are incredibly effective logos that only use words. Take for example, the Google logo. They basically picked a font (a simple one), typed their name, and colored each letter. That's the whole logo, their name. But it's immediately recognizable as Google's logo, not just their name. But there's nothing more than words here. No fancy swoosh or image, just a single word. It's great design, and I wouldn't dare argue with the world's most popular website. Another logo that I think uses a similar technique effectively is the Coca-Cola logo, again just the text, stylized a bit, but very recognizable. The dichotomy of the two different logo designs presented here illustrated the interesting uses of words and images together (or apart) in design.

Design in Film Posters 5-'Raiders of the Lost Ark": Why'd it have to be snakes?

More movies posters! Today's is Raiders of the Lost Ark, another favorite of mine. Maybe this whole Design in Film Posters series was really just an excuse for me to talk about my favorite movies in a Design class...hmm...

Raiders of the Lost Ark

There's some really good simple design in this poster. No cutesy, clever image; no cliched tagline; just a fun poster. Every week i talk about how movie posters attempt to capture the spirit of a film in a single, static image. I think that's the fundamental principle behind movie posters, and I think that, better than anything I've looked at previously, this poster perfectly captures the adventurous spirit of Indiana Jones. The font used for the title is simple, yet evokes feelings of old comics and serials from the 40s, Jones' own era. Somebody thought the font was so effective at conveying that Jones feeling that they used it for all the titles and advertising for Duck Tales (which basically was my childhood). Beyond the font there's the great composition of the images. In the center is Indy in a class action pose and all around him are smaller images of key characters or key action sequences from the film. Plus the iconic image of the Ark of the Convenant across the bottom of the frame. This poster had action and adventure in every inch of it. There's a bit of mystery in there as some characters are shadowed or some are holding giant swords. All of that put together and then stylized to appear as a painting or image on an ancient temple wall comes together to create a perfect Indy experience on print. It's a great poster for a great movie. Good, solid, simple design here. I love it.

Objectified: Form and Content

This past week I watched the documentary film Objectified, a film focusing on design and how designers work. A good portion of the film was focused on the idea of "form and content". An important distinction between most designers and artists is that designers are often commissioned to work within parameters to come up with a product. It is this intersection of form and content that the real issues of design start to form. Form and content is the difference between, essentially, functionality and artistic design. A designer may be asked to design an object, and this object has to look a certain way. In this example their parameters are more focused on form (what the object will look like) rather than specific functions. The other way of thinking is that a designer may be asked to design something with very specific functions (content) and the form (artistic design) follows that. I think of my MacBook computer, a machine that is designed for content but has a very effectively designed form around those parameters. An example from the film was the Japanese toothpick that had a perforated end that acted as a signifier of use and as a stand for the toothpick. In that case form followed content, as the designer had a specific goal (a toothpick with the function of a stand) and had to figure out how to form it to those parameters. Form and content, one usually follows the other.

Design of Mass Production: My Mac

Mass production is all around us, just about everything that we come in contact on a daily basis has been designed for a specific person and for a specific consumer. So for this blog, when I started thinking about what mass produced object I would write about, the answer came quickly; I'll write about what I use to write: my MacBook.

The film Objectified spent an entire segment devoted to Apple and the design of their products. Apple is a company that is, seemingly, first and foremost concerned with the look and design of their products. But beyond looking pretty the design of their products actually adds to and compliments the functionality of the object. The power indicator light was highlighted in the film as a functional piece of design. Another that comes to mind quickly is the use of the magnetic power cord port. This solved the problem of people breaking their computers because someone would trip on a wire and the whole thing would fall. Now if someone trips on the wire, the cord immediately releases from the computer. Cord comes out but the computer remains unmoved. The sleek body and white color add to the overall look of the computer. Apple designed not just a computer that functions but something that looks pretty and that people want to be seen with rather than some big, clunky, black Toshiba laptop (I realize this is sounding a bit like an advertisement for MacBooks, but i really do just love my computer). What is important in the design of this machine is that every in the design has real function and is important to the overall machine. Essentially, less is more here because as more things are added with no real value or even a feature with very little value, the design starts to get too weighed down with unnecessary parts and utilities. It is a well designed machine and in every part of it a consumer can see the care that Apple really puts into the aesthetic and functional design of their products.

*photo from apple.com and my desktop

Design in Film Posters 4-'Jaws': We're gonna need a bigger boat

Design in Film posters is back! This week I'll be looking at the poster from another of my all time favorite movies: Jaws, just in time for Halloween!

The Jaws poster has become an iconic one in cinema. It is immediately recognizable with the famous picture of THE shark and the vulnerable image of the woman swimming. The great, simplistic design of the poster is really what has made this image last and be so recognizable after 35 years. There are many design elements and simple techniques that really make this poster. First I love the use of scaling and perspective in the framing and contrast of the shark with the woman. The image of the shark is scaled way up in proportion to the rest of the poster so as to seem even larger and more menacing in contrast to the woman at the top of the frame. Next is the great, subtle use of color throughout the whole poster. Framing the actual picture inside a black frame helps create a darker overall tone, as does the use of red for the title of the film. The water itself is uses a blue gradience across it to add a sense of depth to the ocean, but also a darker ominous tone to the area around the shark. Finally there's an effective use of the space in the frame to keep the eye moving and create a sense of movement across the composition. The pointed figure of the shark seems to actually be moving up the poster while the much smaller woman seems stuck in her position, helpless from the shark.

This is a great poster that still, 35 years later, inspires fear into the minds of those who went and saw that very first summer blockbuster.

The Iconography of a Standard Deck of Cards

Iconography is "the visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a person, cult, or movement"(New Oxford American Dictionary). The example of iconography we drew upon in class was the example in the images of Adam and Eve. We did not need to be told who the people were in the images, but based on the iconography used we could immediately identify Adam and Eve. An interesting example of iconography, to me, is that which is almost universally used on playing cards. The design of standard playing cards has gone roughly unchanged for hundreds of years, especially the look and of the face cards: Jack, Queen, and King. I love playing cards, I constantly use them whether its a card game or doing magic tricks for friends I'm always around this iconography. I'm really interested in the fact that these images have had little to no change of hundreds years. Millions and millions of people have played with cards that look exactly the same all over the world for generations. That amazes me. The design of the cards themselves are interesting, and I'm sure there is plenty of meaning and significance in those designs. I think it is so interesting that the meaning and recognizability of these cards surpasses language even.
This summer I went to the Dominican Republic and lived at an all boys orphanage. A deck of cards became my best friend, especially those first few weeks while I was getting used to using Spanish again. I never had to say anything, they'd teach me their games, without needing words, and and we'd play or I could do a magic trick on one of the boys with the cards and I didn't need words to explain what I was doing. He'd see the King of Hearts, I'd slide it in the middle, snap my fingers and then he'd see the King of Hearts on the top of the deck. They loved it and it's that common, recognizable iconography of the cards that make that possible. They play with cards all the time so they know exactly what it all looks like. It's a simple, yet affective design that has created the iconic images of our standard playing cards.

Compare and Contrast: Design in Film Posters 3-'The Good German'

Design in Film Posters! Round 3!

The Good German

This weeks poster comes from a more recent film: Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. The Good German is set in post-WWII Germany and deals with the aftermath of that war. The film was shot in black-and-white and was meant to pay homage to the noir genre of the 1940s. I haven't seen the film so I can't comment on the quality of the movie itself but I can talk about how much I love this poster. The poster is meant to be a very obvious callback to the Casablanca poster of 1942. The composition of the photo used and even the fonts between the two posters are similar.

Casablanca

The film itself is a nod to film noir in general but what is so great about this poster is that they capture that spirit of film noir genre in a single shot by making audiences and consumers think back to the iconic Casablanca poster, arguably the most famous noir film ever made. This poster very well sets the film of the movie, a noir-ish film and all the elements that come with that. Even Casablanca was set during WWII and dealt with nazis. The iconography of the old-style movie works very well with this 2006 movie. By calling back something incredibly famous movie, and famous for very specific things (romance, war, exotic locations, intrique) some expectations for the new film have already been set and their tapping into a specific audience. The poster works very well to capture the spirit of a genre using old school iconography.

Design as Conversation: "Give us back our serifs!"

The original logo

Design is often said to be a conversation, a give and take or dialogue between people or groups about design. But who is this conversation between? I immediately think of the recent debate over the Gap logos. Gap is a clothing retailer that has been around for many, many years, and for the last 20 years Gap has been well branded by the famous and recognizable blue box logo.  Two weeks ago, without any warning, Gap rolled out an updated website with a brand new logo. The internet exploded and apparently the apocalypse was upon us because Gap changed their logo. Bloggers all over the web started screaming about the new logo and Gap's facebook page had thousands of comments against the new logo. Both logos are very simple but Gap went sans serif and everyone freaked out! Gap's original plan was to launch the new logo on their website and within the next month to redesign all their in-store advertising. Within a week of releasing the new logo there was so much criticism surrounding the logo that Gap completely scrapped it and went back to their original. Who knew there were such passionate feelings over a store's logo.

The updated logo

This is a great example of design as a conversation and in the case the sides of that conversation are very clear; the consumer and the designer. Gap spent a great deal of time, resources, and money redesigning their logo only for it to have been met with distaste. Something was designed and the people for who it was designed for did not respond well and because of their response the designers have had to back to the drawing boards, so to speak. It's that give and take, back and forth, of conversation that made up this Gap debate. Gap would have been foolish to keep their new logo knowing full well that their very own customers hated it. It would have been bad business and maybe the whole reason for listening and taking part in the conversation was strictly for business but the design still lead to that conversation. What makes this whole situation even more interesting is that had a long-standing company like Gap redone their logo in a similar situation twenty years ago there would have been no real chance for this conversation. A decision would have been made and everyone would have stuck with that. But in today's world with the internet and the prevalence of social networking sites a conversation can happen very quickly and many, many people can be involved. Thousands of people logged onto their facebooks and commented on Gap's own page about the logo. That's a large conversation that can happen and it can have real influence over large corporations. That's the power of design and, specifically, design as a conversation. Conversation got that logo changed, it's powerful stuff.

*Photo Credit:
jmorganmarketing.com
www.zimbio.com

Creativity from Without

Often art is seen as something from within. Within the artist comes expression and creativity. Art allows people to work through emotions and inner feelings, but what about art and creativity from without? This idea I think of as something along the lines of inspiration. What inspires us to create? As I've mentioned before my hobby is photography and I think that photography is an art form that most often deals with creativity from without. When I get out my camera and set out to take photos and "be creative" (whatever that means?) I find what inspires me and photograph that. This is nature and people; things that I have very little control of but things that inspire me to create.
This past summer I spent two months living at a boy's orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Everyday I was inspired by what was around me whether it was  the sunset over El Morro in Monte Cristi or the joy on a little boy's face after he poured water on someone's head. These things inspired me and everyday I had my camera around my neck ready for what I would see. Everyday was beautiful, the country, the people, the emotions. But none of that had to do with me or anything inside of me. What I saw and experienced from outside of me inspired me to create. It was a beautiful two months.

Stone Soup

This week my Design 1 group took part in a project called Stone Soup. We were tasked with doing an quick art installation out on our campus with materials that we all brought and whatever we could find outside. This was a fascinating project because it really teaches how to work in a community with each other but it also forces us to ask the question: what is art?

We began stone soup with a pile of supplies that included an empty cereal box, a copy of TIME magazine, lots of construction paper, and, of course, glitter glue! After a few minutes of brainstorming each group member quickly began working on something. It was an interesting group dynamic to see us all working on our individual small things before bringing them together for the final product. Each of us not only contributed supplies to the project but we all worked on our own section. This was great because each of our unique styles was able to come out and really be seen in a group art project. We worked really well as a group, all of encouraging each other and we all really wanted to work everyone's style and creativity into the final project. It was a great environment to work in, especially considering how easily this could have become all about one person's vision.



Stone Soup was a great team building exercise, but what does it say about art? Is something thrown together in such a short amount of time art? Is it art if, only minutes after finishing it, we began tearing it down? Was Stone Soup even art at all? To me it was art, it was creative and thoughtful, it was something to look at and it was something to experience. As we were finishing work on the project we noticed we had a whole cardboard box left unused and we thought we should somehow incorporate into our design. Maybe we were out of ideas, or out of time but we quickly just stuck the rest of the project on top of the cardboard box and called it a stand. But we wanted it to be something more, maybe decorate it too. One of said that we didn't need to do that and we should just leave it as a pedestal for the project. So we road "pedestal" on the box because that's what we do with art, we, often as a society, put art on pedestals and honor it. Then someone offered the word "altar" on the other side of the box because not only do we honor art, but we use art to honor something else (I think of religious art to honor God). Then someone thought of "soap box" for another side of the box because many artists use their projects as places with which to preach a message or an idea. And finally we used "launch pad" for our fourth side, mostly because our project looked like a really cool and out there space ship. But I think, beyond that, that art projects, and especially a project like stone soup can be a starting point (or launch pad) for ideas and creativity. Pedestal, altar, soap box, launch pad. It was art.

Design in Film Posters 2-'Pulp Fiction': A Sensational Magazine Poster

It's time for round two of movie poster design fun!

This week I'm looking at the theatrical poster for my favorite movie of all time: Pulp Fiction. The film is an epic, interwoven story of the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, complete with gangsters, a hit man or two, boxing, and, of course, Uma Thurman overdosing on heroine. What more could you want from a movie? Quentin Tarantino, the film's director, was inspired by pulp magazines from the first have of the twentieth century. These magazines were cheap to make and featured weekly stories often involving crime, drugs, and violence, much like the film itself. The film makes reference to this as it opens with a definition for pulp ("popular or sensational writing that is of poor quality") so right from the start we know what we're in for. What follows is three intricately connected stories that tell the tales of crime and violence.

Now what does the poster tell us about the movie? This poster is one of my favorites, just like the film; it is so creative, simple, and completely effective in what telling us about the film. It's been designed to look like an old magazine complete with a ten cents price graphic. The corners and sides have been seemingly torn and crumpled to further get across that poor quality of product. The actors credits look like typical teases as to what's inside the magazine. With so many names listed we have a preview of all the different stories within the magazine, or film. And then, of course, there's that picture of Uma Thurman. In a single, static shot we see the femme fatale of the film, dressed all in black, while smoking, reading a trashy magazine, AND holding a gun. I love it. The poster owns up to the trashiness of it all just like the old pulp magazines were self aware of their quality (or lack thereof). Once again, this is a perfect example of how good design can do exactly what a movie poster needs to do; convey the spirit of the film in a single static image. This is a great poster that plays on the conventions of the film and pays homage to Tarantino's inspiration. Even in a photo of Uma Thurman smoking with a gun can be great creative design.

First Encounters of the Design Kind

This one took a bit of time for me. I really had to search for a time, early on, when I was conscious of design in something that I was using. And then it hit me, and as silly as it may sound, when I was younger I was all about video games and I can clearly remember the design that went into the games I was playing.

Design in Film Posters 1-'In the Loop': Zeitgeist for Hope and Change!

As I've mentioned before I am a Film Studies major and movies are a big thing for me. The last few days I've been thinking about how I could incorporate that passion for film into this blog about design. This is the first entry of what I am planning on making a weekly tradition about film posters and the design behind them. I'll be taking posters from some of my favorite movies and some posters of movies I've never seen (like today's poster) but I understand and really like the design behind them.

Movie posters are, on a very basic level, advertisements for the films. But beyond that I think that posters are really artistic pieces, I have quite a few of my favorite posters hanging on my walls. What makes these pieces so interesting to me is that a poster must, in a single static image, convey the spirit and feeling of the film it advertises. Many posters are simply images or stills from the movie with a title and a release date thrown on it. That works when your movie is "Clash of the Titans" and your poster can be a still from the final action-packed climax. But take, for example, a movie like "Dr. Strangelove", a black-and-white film made when color was the norm, and a movie that mostly takes place in rooms where men talk. A still shot from any of that would not attract an audience, thus comes in the designed and stylized film poster.

Today's poster comes from a British 2009 comedy called "In the Loop". A comedy about the American President and British Prime Minister who through mistake end up in a war that they never wanted to have in the first place. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

The poster from "In the Loop" is a zeitgeist, clearly referencing and parodying the now iconic Obama "Hope" campaign poster. Here we have the "In the Loop" poster that has the British Prime Minister looking aloof and unsure compared to the often distinguished and pensive Obama. The slogan for the movie further parodies Obama's campaign slogans such as, "Yes we can!" and the ideas of Hope and Change. The poster immediately sets the film up as being a political satire but also being something current and relatable. The film, like the poster, will play off of people's expectations of government and politics, in fact the plot of the movie is a direct satire of the circumstances surrounding the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. This poster is simple, using modern iconography. A simple play off of a very famous poster from current events. But in its simplicity it is able to capture the essence of the film in a single, static shot. It's an incredibly effective poster that not only advertises the film but works as a great piece of design.

*Photo courtesy of 4outof10.com

Introduction to Intentional Design

It's my first blog of Design 1 and I thought the best way to get things started would be to simply talk a little bit about me and then what design means to me in my life.

My name is Matthew McCleary. I am a fourth year Film Studies major here at the University of California, Davis. Movies are kinda my thing so expect plenty of blog entries about film and design. I love photography. For being a creative person I can't draw to save my life, but I can take a good photo. One of my favorite feelings is that of taking a picture and knowing it's a great shot without even having to look at the digital camera's screen or the final print. And finally, and this is where design is most present in my life, I am the Tech and Media Coordinator at my College Church group.

My biggest project right now as the media guy for my college group is the complete overhaul and redesign of our group's website. The current site (eremedy.org) was designed six or so years ago and it hasn't been updated in over two years. It looks like something that's ten years old and has very little intuitive functionality. I get a knot in my stomach when I have to look at it. For the past month or so I've been slowly working on a complete redesign (the only reason the new site isn't live yet it because I've got to move through leadership and bureaucracy as if I worked for the US Government. My design (eremedy.org/beta) is simpler, cleaner looking, more streamlined, and actually useful. It is still certainly a work in progress and we need a new logo (though I'm not allowed to change that right now...).  When I look at my work and what I think is important in the website (or any website in general) I'm getting at what is important to me in design in general. I hate things that have been over-designed (this does not necessarily mean lots of elements in the design). I hate things that have been designed and have little functionality. Simplicity and functionality, to me, are incredibly important to design. My goal in my position is to create some consistency in the design and look of the College Group. It's all about design and I love it.