...Reusable.

Some of us are gifted with the ability to make something worthwhile out of what someone else may consider a hunk of trash. This is a great way to become more sustainable. However, not everyone has the creativity or interest to do this. Why not make this concept more readily available for people of all skill sets? Why not design products that are intended to be reused when their original intended use in through?

I’m not the first person to have this idea—several designers have, in fact, already put this plan into action. Shedroff gave the example of Maille Condiment Jars. When finished with the Dijon mustard or Italian olives one is left with a classy drinking glass (see above). This prevents the condiment jars from ending up in a landfill and encourages consumers to not buy their glassware in a store (thus causing manufacturers to produce less, and waste less).

A similar idea is portrayed in the movie Objectified. In the documentary, IDEO, a design and innovation consultancy, focuses their attention on making toothbrushes more sustainable. As we know, the easiest way to make an object more sustainable is to make it reusable. At first, the idea of a reusable toothbrush sounds like a serious hygiene problem. Afterall, the dentist suggests replacing your toothbrush every six months. That is two toothbrushes a year per person—a very unsustainable statistic. However, it isn’t the entire toothbrush that needs to be replaced every six months. It is really only the bristles that become worn down and unhygienic. So why are we throwing out the entire toothbrush? How do we make the toothbrush more reusable and thus more sustainable? This is the question that IDEO took on. Their answer? A detachable handle that can be reused year after year (see prototype above). The idea is that a person would buy a toothbrush handle and a separate piece with the bristles on it. When it comes time to get a new toothbrush the person would simply replace the bristles as opposed to the entire toothbrush. This may seem like an insignificant change in the sustainability of the toothbrush, but consider how much of the toothbrush is made up of the handle—more than half. Therefore, designing a reusable handle cuts toothbrush waste in half!

Good design isn’t limited to creating new objects. These two designs are proof that good design can also be simply improving an existing design. Some objects have been around so long that we assume they must work well and need no improvement. Once again, these two designs are proof that this is false. Although, condiment jars and toothbrushes have probably received very few complaints over the years, Maille and IDEO took on the challenge of transforming them. The outcome? Better design through sustainability.

...The Problem.

What's a more sustainable world look like?

What’s a more meaningful world look like?

What’s a post-consumer world look like?

We don’t know. We need to know. According to Nathan Shedroff, that is what design is for (or should be for).

Nathan Shedroff is the author of Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable, and also a man whose lecture I had the pleasure of sitting in on today. We’ve all heard the saying, “if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem.” In this sense, design IS the problem. And the problem is the lack of sustainable design. Design has a huge impact on the produced world and designers need to learn how to harness this power in order to create a solution for our flawed world of consumerism instead of adding to it.

There is no such thing as sustainable design. All good things must come to an end eventually. There is, however, such thing as more sustainable design. In order to get to this state of more sustainable design a few things must happen, the most important being the necessity of designing for use. “Useful” is a word that most of us believe goes hand in hand with the word “design.” It should. The problem is when this is not the case. Shedroff gave the example of a particular Nokia cell phone that was designed with a circular keypad (similar to a rotary phone). Not only is there no use for a circular keypad over a rectangular keypad, but the design actually proved to be downright confusing and ineffective. Thousands of people returned the phones within the next few days, and eventually they were all removed from the stores (to go sit in a landfill most likely).

It is imperative that designers don’t fall into the same trap that Nokia did and don't design things today that make tomorrow worse. If they heed the advice in Shedroff’s book (which includes looking to the questions seen above) it is possible for design to not only not be the problem, but be the solution.

Shedroff’s lecture, Sustainable Innovation, communicates effectively for several reasons. Shedroff is very funny and personable. He includes humor and personal experiences into his lecture, thus making it enjoyable to listen to him speak. However, the most effective way that Shedroff communicates with the audience is when he urges us to step away from the idea of “going green.” Shedroff believes that design is made up of three domains: ecological, social, and financial. “Going green” focuses on the ecological domain, however, entirely ignores the other two domains. Furthermore, the idea of something being “green” has a very specific connotation for most people. For many, this connotation consists of images of protesting hippies that have chained themselves to trees (and as Shedroff said himself, “dirty feet”). Although “going green” has had some success stories, it unfortunately conveys this image that very few people can relate to on a personal level. It leaves people thinking that if they aren’t one of those hippies then they clearly can’t be part of the solution and should just stop trying all together. It is almost more discouraging than encouraging. Following his own advice, Shedroff steps away from the idea of “going green” in his lecture and instead speaks directly to us—the designers of tomorrow. Shedroff places the well being of tomorrow in our hands. This feeling of responsibility makes each of us more likely to do our part in making our world more sustainable.

...Objectified.

Objectified is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit that brilliantly reminds the audience of the importance of design in society—past, present, and future.

The film is made easy to relate to through its use of familiarity. The film puts design in everyday things. For example, Hustwit focuses on Apple products, cell phones, and digital cameras. These are objects that have become so immersed in our daily lives that people relate to them on an almost personal level. On the other hand, if the film documented the process of making parts of a rocket ship, something that very few people have actual contact with, I don’t think the message would have been delivered as clearly.

The film is made intriguing through its use of novelty. Although the film focuses on familiar objects, it presents them in a way that is unique to the audience. For example, I’ve probably seen/used hundreds of toothpicks in my life. However, I became acquainted with the toothpick for the first time when I watched Objectified. The decorative grooves at the end of the toothpick allow the toothpick to be broken off to indicate that it has been used. The stub also provides a rest to keep the soiled part from touching the table. I had never even thought about toothpicks in this way, but the film explains that this is because design aims to improve everyday life without ever thinking about it.

After engrossing the audience in the world of design, Hustwit pitches the message. Hustwit urges the audience, contemporary designers, and future contemporary designers to focus on what is going to happen—not what has happened. Design should be as ever changing as the times we live in. Just because something is a good design doesn’t mean that that will always stand true. It also doesn’t mean that good design can’t become better design. Take the camera for instance. Camera design has been limited within a rectangle for a few hundred years. Initially, cameras were designed this way to leave space to hold the film. Film has now become a thing of the past…so why are rectangular camera still very much a thing of the present? This room for film is unnecessary, and thus should be eliminated from future camera designs.

Good design is meant to make functionality understandable. If a part of the design isn’t functional then it is not good design. Implementing design properly will make objects more understandable and thus more useful. More useful objects will make objects more sustainable (less nonfunctional pieces to throw away, and more desire to hold on to an item one has become attached to). And more sustainability will better suite all of society. Like the film says, “Good design is as little design as possible.” The sooner contemporary designers realize this the sooner design will truly become contemporary.

...Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus was an inter-disciplinary school for architecture, design, visual and performing arts that existed in Germany only between 1919 and 1933 when the Nazis shut it down. However, the Bauhaus movement still had a huge influence on modern design. Even if you don’t know it, you probably are familiar some of the Bauhaus products, its iconic building, or some of the people who taught there, including Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

The goal of the school was to form a universal designer that would be able to work in any number of design fields: architecture, handcrafts, graphic design or industry. It was a time when “new art forms were developing so quickly, art and craft were still valued on a moral and philosophical rather than just a commercial level” and there was a real optimism about the positive impact good design could make on people's life.

Take Bauhaus furniture for example. Bauhaus furniture (almost always designed by famous architects such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe) is a good example of mid century modern furniture. The form is made of clean straight lines but still provides the consumer with the comfort of traditional furniture. It manages to be affordable while not making compromises on style.

Bauhaus furniture designers were intrigued by the use of metal. The inspiration for moving away from traditional furniture material? Metal and tubular steel was light, cheap, and less bulky and more hygienic than the traditional upholstered furniture. The idea behind this “new aesthetics was to build cheap beautiful homes, where the cool and durable materials of the furniture would create a new type of beauty.” The Bauhaus furniture movement provided a more functional and sustainable type of beauty than the traditional style of furniture that the world had settled for. The Bauhaus is one of the best examples of how good design can have a positive impact on the consumer. Yes, traditional furniture can be beautiful, but the modern furniture created during the Bauhaus movement gives the consumer the option of beauty AND usefulness (something that few designs had accomplished at the time).

Credits: http://www.dezignare.com

...Color (And Its Surroundings).

Color change can occur drastically through lighting differences, but it can also occur more subtlety. For example, the elements surrounding a color can influence how the color is perceived. Even in the same light, a color will appear different depending on the colors that are adjacent to it. This is significant because it is very rare that we see a color by itself. It is much more likely to see a color in juxtaposition with another color.

The first picture depicts a paint chip of a white hue. Say you were looking to paint a room white…this selection would be as good as any. Afterall, white is white. Right? Wrong! This paint chip may appear white, but that perception will change entirely when the paint chip is shown in different surroundings. Next to a hundred other “white” paint chips (the second picture) it is obvious the white paint chip is, in fact, just one of many whitewashes (as they are called). When viewed by themselves all of these paint chips appear to be the same color as the next. However, when placed in juxtaposition with each other it’s true color becomes much more salient. These “whitewashes” are actually very light values of different hues. For instance, the color in the first picture is actually a very light value of red. When viewed next to the other whitewashes its true pink color is visible.

Understandably this is an interesting phenomenon, however one may wonder just how useful it is in design. You may ask the question, if I were not juxtaposing different whitewashes next to one another, why would it matter which whitewash I chose to paint a room? To answer this question, consider a room that is to be painted white. There is a window in this room and outside the window there are green bushes lining the exterior wall. If you selected a white wash that was actually a very light green hue (or even if you selected a white wash that was closer to a “true” white) the green bushes would reflect green light onto the wall. To your dismay, the room that was painted white would appear green.

Therefore, understanding how color interacts with its surrounds is a useful way to avoid design disaster. However, this knowledge can also be used to solve design disasters. So you don’t want a green room, AND you don’t want to do away with the landscaping? Now that very light red hue (the whitewash in the first picture) will come in handy. When not juxtaposed with other whitewashes this paint will appear white. Furthermore, it will not be affected by the reflected green light because red neutralizes green. Design problem solved, and you end up with the white room that was desired.

...Color (In Theory).

Color is a property of light. This is to say that objects have no color of their own but merely have the ability to reflect certain rays of white light, which contain all the colors. For example, green objects absorb all the rays of light except the green ones. These unabsorbed green rays of light are what are reflected in our eyes. Notice how I chose to use the example of a “green object” as opposed to selecting an object that we perceive as green, such as grass. This is because grass is not entirely green, or at least not all the time. Yes, grass is green the majority of the time, but what about in the middle of the night, in the early morning, or at dusk? Light is different at all these times of day and so is the color of grass. Considering this, grass can also be hues of blues, grays, and yellow-greens. It is clear that as light changes so does color.

This is a very important concept, especially for an aspiring interior designer like myself. Selecting colors is a large part of designing an interior space, and it must be done correctly and by someone well educated in color theory. The task of choosing a paint color isn’t hard just because of the abundance of options of colors these days but also because of the many design parameters that may alter each option. Not only must one consider the hundreds of colors displayed in the paint store, but also how each option will look in the intended space.

The lighting in the store makes the colors appear one way, but the light in the intended space can make the color appear an entirely different way. One must consider the amount of daylight in the intended space, whether or not incandescent of fluorescent light will be present, and many other lighting factors. These factors may seem rather insignificant but make very significant difference. For example, in the first picture we see three different hues of white in daylight (simulated daylight). In the second picture we see the same three hues of white under fluorescent light. The colors look entirely different. If an interior designer didn’t have this knowledge of color theory, imagine how disappointed the client would be when the white hue they agreed to appears as an entirely different hue all together.

...Our Sense of Touch??

Texture and Pattern are very similar terms that are hard to decipher from one another. A pattern is typically defined as "the repetition of a visual element or module in a regular and anticipated sequence" (Lauer). Texture, also repeats, however usually with less regularity. Defining what is or is not "regular" can be incredibly ambiguous. Therefore, a better explanation must be made. I went in search of this explanation. 

Inspired by Harry Clarke's Illustration to Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination," I employed the concept of pattern to Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding. With tracing paper, I traced the main shapes constituting the famous painting. I then attempted to fill in the shapes with motifs that would give the impression of the original painting (i.e. more bold motifs where the painting had placed emphasis and more subtle motifs were the painting had placed little emphasis). I was hoping to evoke a similar depth perception as the actual painting. Instead, the outcome is a very "flat" and "smooth." The outcome immediately triggers something in my brain that says "this is a pattern."

In the second photograph you will see another piece of my work. This one is a graphite rubbing. The trees were created by rubbing a tree, the pine needles by rubbing pine needles, and the dirt from rubbing dirt. The outcome was very different from my first experiment--it looks a lot more like texture than a pattern. 

Both pieces are made up of shapes filled with some form of motif. Then what is the difference?

In my version of the Arnolfini Wedding the repeating motifs I chose are very regular and high in contrast. It appears as though they were just stamped onto the page. They are an example of a pattern. In the second piece the motifs are much less regular (although still repetitive) and have less contrast (gray on white instead of black on white). They appear to have a 3D quality about them. This impression of substance on a flat smooth surface is an example of texture-- visual texture to be specific. 

It appears that the key difference between pattern and texture has to do with whether or not our sense of touch (that 3D quality) is aroused. Patterns appeal to our eye whereas texture appeals to another one of our senses--touch. Patterns are viewed as a 2D element. Decorative? Yes Appealing? Yes Something one wants to reach out and touch? No. However, any suggestion of a 3D quality (i.e. shadows) will lend to texture. Texture can even employ a concept called trompe l'oeil (French for "to fool the eye"), in which it so perfectly employs the use of texture that the viewer actually is fooled into thinking that whatever is depicted, in fact, exists in front of them. Visually interesting? Yes Appealing? Yes Something one wants to reach out and touch? Yes. 

Credits: Design Basics by Lauer and Pentak

        Artwork and photographs by Kaitlyn Pratt :)