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.