...HappySlip (And She Didn't Even Know It).

"Build it and they shall come." Or should I say "she?" Christine Gambito that is. Christine Gambito is perhaps better known as HappySlip. She is an Internet personality, actress, and comedian. She has one of the most subscribed to channels on Youtube. She was in my DES 1 class last Wednesday!

After a class effort (mostly on Professor Housefield’s part) to get HappySlip to speak with us we were rewarded with her presence. Ms. Gambito showed up as a request of many emails, however she had no idea how she was connected to a design class. This is because she has never thought of herself as a designer. In fact, very few people have probably ever linked the idea of HappySlip with the concept of design. Whether you consider the Internet sensation that is HappySlip a form of design or not, Gambito has lots of advice for us designers.

A very wise man once said “If you want to be a great designer, you have to be unfashionable” (Professor Housefield). Gambito reiterated this concept in her own words.  She grew up as the family comedian, always making funny imitations of her parents and relatives. However, she had no idea if she would be funny to anyone outside her family. An even bigger concern was if she would offend the Philippine community with her humor. “I had the idea but I had never seen anything quite like it before, “ Gambito said in reference to her plan to make and post skits of her comedy on Youtube. She had nothing to reference and no idea what the reaction would be but still chose to create and produce. The feedback she got was great! This gave her the confidence to continue to create what “lights her up,” despite what the current trend is. Gambito encourages everyone to constantly produce and put themselves out there, and reminds us to get back up and try again if we happen to get knocked down. With her last parting words, and after we sang "Happy Birthday" to her mom, Gambito reminds us that “[we] are our own promoters.” There couldn’t be more truth in that statement. Gambito's use of social media (Youtube) to produce her work puts a lot of pressure on her. If she doesn't make herself heard, no one will listen. Likewise, as designers we have to have enough faith in ourselves to put our own ideas out there for the world to see, and enough confidence to back ourselves up. After all, if we don’t support our self, why would anybody else?

Gambito is a perfect example of someone who made her dream a reality, and listening to her speak was a great experience. Hopefully now she too considers herself a designer—after all, she has created something amazing that thousands can enjoy.

Credit: Photo from HappySlip website www.happyslip.com

...Rhythm & Blues.

Blue jeans that is. Avis Collins Robinson's Annie's Blue Jeans is a quilt in the African-American Quilt Exhibition in the Nelson Art Gallery at UC Davis. The quilt is almost entirely made of patches of blue jeans--specifically blue jeans having belonged to Annie Ruth Collins. It was this unique medium that first attracted me to the quilt. It is common for one to think about buying new blue jeans, or throwing out old blue jeans, but quilting blue jeans?? That isn't something the average person ever even considers. 

Once lured in by the unique choice of materials, I began to examine the quilt more closely and I found a sense of rhythm about the quilt. Rhythm is a design principle that is based on repetition of a particular motif. The reoccurring patches of Annie's jeans supply repetition, and a thus a form of rhythm for the quilt.  It is as if the jeans provide the beat for the quilt’s composition. And what is a beat without a tempo? That is wear the repeating square motif comes into play. This is an example of a more specific type of rhythm –progressive rhythm. This type of rhythm also involves repetition, but repetition of a shape that changes in a regular manner. The progressive variation in the size of the square is what makes it an example of progressive rhythm. The change in color is just another varying element that makes up such a rhythm.

Digging deeper still, there is yet another type of rhythm present here. This rhythm is less of a design concept and more of something I just happened to pick up on on a more personal level. The use of a specific person’s blue jeans (Annie’s) gives each blue jean patch a history. Each blue jean patch has a story behind it, a memory from a specific time in Annie’s past. As the viewer’s eye moves from blue jean patch to blue jean patch he/she is, in a sense, moving through history. Moving from moment to moment in Annie’s life—through Annie’s memories. And If Annie’s memories can be considered a motif, then the reoccurrence of her blue jeans would be considered to be a repetition of said motif. And presto…we have rhythm.

The blue jean beat keeps our eye moving from blue jean patch to blue jean patch—it is a steady beat through Annie’s life. The squares work as our tempo. A slow a steady tempo near the borders of the quilt gives the viewer time to admire the details of the blue jean patches (coincidentally that is also where the majority of the blue jean patches are sewn). And then, as the progressive rhythm of the squares draws our eye in closer to the center, the tempo picks up; it continues to speed up until we reach the very center—a pocket of one of Annie’s blue jeans. A pocket that holds a piece of Annie’s history inside it.  

...Outside The Box Thinking.

"The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities- Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Design thinking is a process that results in creative—but practical—solutions of problems or issues that are in need of an improved future result. The process is based around the building up of ideas. The reason for design thinking, say instead of analytical thinking, is to eliminate the fear of failure and thus encourage maximum participation and “outside the box” thinking.

I first learned of design thinking in reference to IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm that is making an impact by implementing design. I was immediately impressed with the idea of design thinking and chose to share the concept with my family over dinner that night. It was then that my older brother, Trevor, surprised me by telling me that they use design thinking at his job. Trevor works for Kaiser Permanente, and I thought it very strange that a medical facility would implement a concept intended for people who work in the design field. Surely he was mistaken (isn’t that how we all feel about our siblings?). Later that night I visited IDEO’s website, http://www.ideo.com/, to do some research on the subject (mostly, I admit, to prove my brother wrong). Come to find out, Kaiser is, in fact, using design thinking. They have begun using the approach to increase the quality of patient care by re-examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change.

It was then that I realized design thinking is a method intended for all businesses, all corporations, and even all people (yes, you too). Looking more closely, I realized that I had actually already been implementing design thinking in my own life. In another design class, a course on day lighting, I have been assigned to create a scale model of an interior. 

            How I Applied Design Thinking:

1.    Field Research- I first went in search of an interior to use based on a list of criteria it must meet.

2.     Understand the Problem- I then made note of everything I would have to model, and what I could exclude from the model and why.

3.    Ideas- I brainstormed what materials I could use to model the miniatures that I intended to make and I made countless trips to craft stores to walk up and down the aisles, hoping for inspiration.

4.    Prototype- I began the model making process. Assembling tiny nightstands and sewing tiny bedspreads.

5.    Feedback- I shared my products with my classmates, asking if they could recognize what I had made. Asking if it looked like the real thing. I even took photographs with my camera and received visual feedback that I could assess on a more personal level.

6.    Repeat- If the miniature didn’t pass the feedback stage, I tossed it and went back to try a new technique.

The opportunity for improvement after a failure encouraged me to be a creative as possible. As a result, the model is done and looking nearly identical to the real-life interior. For the moral of the story: Design thinking isn’t just for the use of designers at IDEO, or designers at all general. Design thinking can transform the problem-solving process for anyone seeking a solution. And this is how design thinking inspires innovation

Credit: Photograph taken by Cody Torgersrud, my model-making partner in DES 137

...Balance.

Humans seem to be born with an innate sense of balance. We seek out balance in our everyday lives--it is comfortable. Balance has to do with the distribution of visual weight within a composition. This definition makes the concept seem rather complicated, but even small children have the ability of knowing when something is balanced or unbalanced.

As we observe the world around us we subconsciously assign vertical axis and expect to see an equal distribution on either side of them. Take for example, the shelving in my apartment (shown in the two photographs above). I am willing to bet that within the first glance you have already assigned a vertical axis to the composition--and you did it with out even knowing that that is what you were in fact doing. Am I right? Just to be sure we are on the same page, the vertical axis runs through the end of the top shelf and the beginning of the second shelf. It is on either side of this "line" that we are expecting to see a visual equilibrium. 

To make the shelving a visually pleasing part of this interior space it needs to be balanced. Seeing as the items going on either side of the axis are not identical we aren't looking for symmetrical balance (a balance in which one side becomes the mirror image of the other side). Instead, we are looking for an asymmetrical balance. This is when balance is achieved with dissimilar objects that have equal eye attraction or visual weight.     

In the first photo we are left rather uneasy and dissatisfied. This is due to the uneven visual weight either side of the vertical axis. On the left of the axis there are two large items and one small item. On the right of the axis there is only one large item and two small items. The shelving is clearly unbalanced.

In the second photograph I balanced the shelving composition by placing a large item, a mirror, on the right shelf, and thus on the right of the axis. Now the left side of the axis contains two large items and two small items. The right side of the axis has one large, one extra large, and one small item. The extra large item makes up for the lack of a second small item. 

Visually, both sides of the vertical axis weigh the same. Neither side of the axis demands more attention from the viewer's eye, neither does one shelf look incomplete compared to the other. The shelving composition is balanced, and the viewer innate search is achieved. 

...Quilting.

The word quilt usually connotes a grid work of fabric squares. And this, in fact, is what I expected to see when I visited the African American Quilt Exhibition in the Nelson Art Gallery at UC Davis. Thus, I was taken aback when I saw this quilt by Rose Ella Kincaid--Untitled.

At first glance the quilt appears to be a haphazard array of fabric scraps. But if the latter is true, then how (I ask myself) does the quilt “work?” To answer my question, I stopped to examine the quilt. It didn’t take long to realize that the quilt isn’t haphazard at all—actually, it is very unified. It can’t be denied that there is something visually pleasing about Kincaid's quilt. 

Kincaid creates this unity in several ways. First, visual unity is achieved through the use of repetition. After looking closely, the viewer notices that some of the scraps of fabric used are actually not scraps at all. Instead, we see that Kincaid uses fabric to make a figurative representation of a woman, wearing a dress and hat, and a house. This motif repeats in various parts of the quilt and relates the parts to each other, thus unifying the entire quilt.

Second, Kincaid insures that the viewer’s eye is guided smoothly from one element to the next by implementing the idea of continuation. The viewer’s eye sees the thread of the quilt as a kind of implied line that continues throughout the entire piece. The viewer’s eye follows this line and bridges the gap between the dramatic color changes in fabric

A third way that Kincaid unifies the quilt is through balance. The different colored patches have been strategically placed in order to stabilize, and thus balance, the quilt. For example, the green color appears in (roughly) all four corners of the piece and once in the center. Equal visual weight has been given to the entire composition. This allows the quilt to be seen as one unifying piece instead of many separate pieces fighting for space.

It should now be clear why quilts should no longer be thought of as a simple grid work of fabric squares. They require much thoughtful design, as does a painting on canvas, or a building in Ancient Greece , in order to become a successfully unified composition. Thus, this quilt, the other quilts in the exhibit, and many other quilts in our everyday lives, are a form of design. 

...Functionality.

The goal of design is not just to be visually pleasing. It is to make FUNCTIONALITY that is visually pleasing. Design is not without purpose. To lose sight of the purpose is to fall prey to bad design.

For example, today it is raining "cats and dogs" here in Davis, and my class is held in an off campus classroom with an aluminum roof. Needless to say, the professor's lecture went unheard and the students left uneducated. Bad design. 

From the outside, the aluminum roof complements the building well. Visually, the design works well--year round. However, the designer lost sight of what the space functions as. A classroom. You don't need to have a design degree to know that one of the most, if not the most, important elements in a classroom are the acoustics. Students need to hear the professor, and a classroom that doesn't allow this is not a functional classroom. While skies are clear, the design functions well. However the climate isn't static, and when it takes a turn for the worse, unfortunately so does the function of the design.

A designer is not only responsible for the visual outcome of their creation, but for how it interacts with society—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

 

...More Beautiful Than It's Counterparts.

We are socialized into thinking that art is something that hangs in a frame in a museum exhibit. While many pieces of art do hang in frames in museums, many do not. Similarly, many pieces of art are not painted, or drawn, or sculpted from marble. 

Some art is a representation of a cityscape made entirely of cookware.

Art is, in my opinion, an outcome of a process. Design is the actual process. Art can be defined, in the eye of the beholder. The design process, however, can't be defined. Sure, it can be broken down into general steps, but the design process is so unique to each person that it would be impossible to pin down--accurately anyway. For example, not everyone would be inspired by the use of cookware as a medium--although many are impressed with the outcome. 

Art, the outcome, is or is not. It is art. It is not art. Design, the process, is the true experience. Design takes inspiration from all aspects of life and transforms it into art (or not art). The ability to look at everyday cookware and see its potential for art is a remarkable talent--and a rare one at that. As humans, we are socialized into seeing things for what they are. If we are shown a spoon, we see a spoon. It's an effortless connection the brian makes to a familiar object. It is very effortful, however, to be shown a spoon and see a skyscraper. One must learn to step outside of their socialized selves and seek out the beauty in our everyday lives.

....About Interaction.

I've made the point that design is much more than just architecture. However, walking through campus today reminded me of a wonderfully designed building that I'd like to share my thoughts about-- The Social Sciences and Humanities Building by Antoine Predock. Antoine Predock is an American architect as well as a landscape architect and interior designer. He designed the Social Sciences and Humanities Building at the University of California, Davis, in 1994.

The building is constructed of cement and aluminum panels, and cuts into the Davis horizon. It is nearly impossible to tell how many floors the building because of its drastic angels.  With the exception of where the building meets its foundation, there aren’t any visible right angels anywhere on the building.  The windows that speckle the building are not of continuous size or shape, and become nothing more than large irregular-shaped gaps cut out of the walls of the building’s towers. The spatial elements of foreground and background become interlinked and confused with each other. A tower in the foreground is connected to a tower in the background—depth seems to be contorted or exaggerated in some areas, and eliminated in others. Everything the viewer knows about perceptual space is discarded as the eye jumps from one architectural element to the next.

Most architects aim to make a building inviting and comprehensible. However, Predock attempts to accomplish the exact opposite with the Social Sciences and Humanities Building. Many buildings make use of a portico to show visitors where to enter the building. There is no portico at the Social Sciences and Humanities Building. There is no general meeting area. There is no interaction with the landscape around the building that draws the visitor to a particular location. In fact, there is no definite entrance for the Social Sciences and Humanities Building.  Visitors are first taken aback by the irregular skyline of the building, and then confronted with the problem of how to even approach the building. The adventure begins at first sight. 

The Social Sciences and Humanities Building is built to be confusing—very unlike the typical purpose of typical architecture. However, the building proves to be anything but typical. Predock didn’t place the building on a grid. It is because of this that the offices and rooms of the building lack any order and seem to have no organization behind them. Predock created hallways that crisscross but never meet, rooms that are next to each other but not adjoined and catwalks that lead to what seem to be illogical destinations. 

The confusion of Predock’s Social Sciences and Humanities building is not without purpose however. This confusion is not like anything seen in architecture before. This confusion, more importantly, is not supposed to be like anything seen in architecture before. This is meant to catch the audience off guard. Without familiarity one has nothing to reference in order to make sense of such a building.  And if one can’t make sense of the building they are forced to go and discover it for themselves—forced to evaluate a building through experience instead of past evaluations.

Predock’s building is about interaction and sensation—not about architectural elements. Predock isn’t attempting to convey the idea of quintessential architecture through his building. He is neither trying to make a statement about the past of architecture nor trying to make a statement about the future of architecture. Instead he is attempting to transmit an overall sensation from the building to the audience—something that will be interpreted differently by every individual. 

...@ UC Davis.

Hyunju Lee and Phil Choo are two Korean designers featured in the UC Davis Design Museum exhibit-- Typographic Exploration in Hangul. 

Hangul is the native script of Korea (created in the fifteenth century). Both Lee and Choo represent life in Korea through the exploration and manipulation of these Hangul characters.

The artwork introduces the form, pattern and emotion of Hangul as an expressive medium. My two favorite pieces in the exhibit are examples of how design can relate to society on a personal level--an emotional level.

 The first piece, Huk Huk, (top) represents sadness. The second piece, HaHa HoHo (bottom), represents laughter and happiness. Both pieces are constructed of the same Hangul character and the same lines. Both pieces are printed on a white background, and are the same size. There is much in common between the two pieces, in fact, they are side by side in the exhibit. However, each piece evokes entirely opposite emotions within the viewer. Even despite their juxtaposition, the viewer's emotions follow suite with the pieces. Sadness to Happiness in a matter of seconds. Huk Huk uses a cool color palette and straight, lifeless lines that seem to stretch on for eternity--sadness. HaHa HoHo uses a warm color palette and swooping, energetic lines that send a figurative electric current through the piece--happiness.  

This goes to show that design isn't just "making a pretty picture". Design connects with a person on such a level that simply changing color and the angle of a few lines can make one do an emotional 180!

...Necessary.

Everything is design, but not everything is good design. Good design gives us a blueprint to help lead us through the world around us. It speaks specifically to people’s needs and wants.

Graphic design uses knowledge of the way a person physically sees something to adjust how well they perceive the message being delivered. Good graphic design draws our attention to information that we need to know and allows our eyes to move quickly through a composition in order to retrieve a message. Without well-designed traffic signs the world of automobiles would be considerably more confusing and dangerous.

Interior design uses visual cues to tell us what a room is used for, and how one is to behave in the space. Good interior design can make us feel comfortable in places that we are meant to stay and linger, or make us feel uncomfortable in places that we are meant to be alert and on our toes. If jails appeared to be the most comfortable places in the world, what would our motivation be to stay out of them?

Fashion design uses psychology to show us what we want or "need" to wear. People have the desire to fit in, and good fashion design leads us buy items that make us feel as though we have achieved this.

They sound trivial. And perhaps they are. But without these clues we wouldn't know where to look to for answers. GOOD design is necessary for society to function well. 

...Everything.

“You’re a design major? So, are there lots of job opportunities in that field?”

“Yes.”

Most of society tends to think of design as a narrow category only consisting of architectural achievements. However, design is much broader than just the interiors and exteriors of buildings. Design is typically divided into three categories: architectural, fashion, and graphic. It is sorted into just a few categories, but design actually reaches to infinite realms of our society. So, yes, design IS the interiors and exteriors of buildings. But, design is also so much more. Design encompasses the simple things that we encounter in our everyday lives as well as the famous buildings of ancient Greece.

Design is the alarm clock you wake up to in the morning, the bed you reluctantly roll out of, the fresh clothes you put on, the room you leave behind on your way to the office, the car you drive in, the freeway you drive on, the billboard you wiz by, and even the chair you sit down in.

Design is an interactive part of our society and yet remains invisible to the large majority of it. All of these things were designed by somebody—in fact, everything has been designed by somebody. Design is the result of someone’s plans being converted from thought into a reality. Design is everywhere. Design is everything.