Monday, December 15, 2008
Motion Graphics Designer- Lyle Owerko
MTV Speaker -Nusrat Durrani
Nusrat Durrani, the Senior Vice President of MTV World came to give a speech to our class. He is originally from India where there wasn't much choice in terms of work except for doctors. He worked in electronics which gave him business experience and in Dubai he was hired by Honda as Marketing Manager. It wasn’t until 1993 when he first saw MTV. He saw a David Bowie MTV video which he was fascinated with and it led him to research MTV. He traveled to New York but was denied a job so 6 months later he quit his job in Dubai and came to New York where he enrolled in a masters degree in media. He went back to the same interviewer in MTV who was shocked and told him to consider taking an internship and enter the company that way. Mr. Durrani took the internship and was offered a job, 14 years ago , and he has been at MTV ever since.
He showed us MTV IGGY which shows all different international bands. He said IGGY stood for Intelligent Graphication for Global Youth. His typical workday is very busy with many meetings and working on projects. He also makes deals with business developers and partners. He was a very interesting speaker and taught us a lot!
Term Paper - The Life of Paul Rand
Peretz Rosenbaum was an orthodox Jew born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914. It was later on that he changed his name to the world recognized Paul Rand. Growing up Rand painted signs for his father’s grocery store and also any events at his school. He attended the Pratt Institute from 1929-1932 and the Art Students League from 1933-1934. He also taught ‘Design’ at Yale University at multiple periods during his life. Rand was mostly a self-taught designer and read many issues of European magazines such as ‘Gebrauchsgraphik’. He was particularly interested in the works of Cassandre and Moholy-Nagy and eventually transformed many European styles into his own unique designs.
The beginning of his career saw Rand working part time creating stock images for various newspapers and magazines. One particular cover page which he was acclaimed for was the 1940 December issue of ‘Direction Magazine’. The cover showed a barbed wire cross across a package with a casually written ‘Merry Christmas’ tag. This image represented the contradictory aspects of mans behavior. Such emotional and thoughtful images are present throughout Rand’s work. At the age of twenty three Rand accepted a full time job as the director for the Esquire- Coronet magazines. He was offer the job a year earlier after his talent was noticed in an ‘Apparel Arts’ magazine, but decided to decline the offer feeling he wasn’t ready. Later on in his career Rand left the field of editorial design and moved to the more challenging field of advertising. It is his work with logos for large corporations in the 1950’s and 1960’s that Rand is most recognized for. His 1956 IBM logo was his first big success in corporate advertising. In addition to designing their logo, Rand designed packaging materials and posters for IBM. United Postal Services original logo was designed by Rand where he acknowledges the incorporation of humor into his work. ‘..To take an escutcheon- a medieval symbol which inevitably seems pompous today –and then stick a package on top of it, that is funny.” The UPS logo has been changed to the more futuristic design we see today. This caused much agitation amongst much of the designing community. In an interview with Steve Forbes the inventor of Apple computers, Forbes stated that Paul Rand was a very unique person to work with. He claimed that Rand would not offer any options to Apple for their logo. Instead he would provide a single ‘solution’ which he figured would best suit the company, and any alternatives can be obtained from other designers. Forbes admired Rand’s business-like attitude as well as his designing abilities. Besides these corporations Rand also worked with Ford Motors, ABC news and Westinghouse. He published many articles and publications during his career but possibly the most influential to the design industry was his 1946 text’ Thoughts on Design’.
Paul Rand’s creative perspectives seem very simplistic but they repeatedly prove that with equal form and context, even the most simplistic symbol can have several layers of meaning. In his own words Rand says ‘Art is when context and form are indistinguishable.’ An interesting point which he makes is that design cannot have too much content. If it does then it will get boring very quickly and the form has to be just right to capture the imagination. Many logos which are being created by young designers fail because they place too much emphasis on aesthetics. Rand argues that logos must be designed with restraint in order to be successful. The creative perspective which Rand used was also influenced by collages by Picasso. His designs have been known to illustrate a great deal of artistic freedom which makes them unusual and interesting. Even though he had many staff working for him Rand did the vast majority of the work on all his designs, using his staff to organize meetings and set dates etc. In another interview Rand was asked what he likes most about Graphic design and his response was ‘Problem solving’. He claimed that he enjoyed using graphic design to solve realistic problems. This is very true in relation to his logo for Apple computers where Steve Forbes has said that the company was in much need of a universally accepted logo. The unique perspectives from which Rand created his work are still very influential to this day and many of his logos are still in use.
Just prior to Rand’s death in November 1996, Steve Forbes labeled him “The greatest living graphic designer”. He enjoyed challenges and managed to become an iconic figure in the world of graphic design. There is no doubt that Paul Rand contributed greatly to the visual language industry and his additions will be admired for generations to come.
Sources:
The Art Directors Club : http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/1972/?id=300
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rand
‘Conversations with Paul Rand’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzVyL_OpSI
1993 Interview with Steve Forbes :
http://www.logodesignlove.com/all-about-paul-rand
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Slipstreamz!
These Slipstream ear covers allow the athlete cyclist to listen to music whilst cycling, without any wind interference. The inventor, Lonnie Tiegs, noticed that his ears rang from wind noise after long, fast bike rides and this inspired him to invent something to fix the problem, what he came up with was 'Slipstreamz'. As well as keeping noise out, these earpieces also help to keep your ears warm on cold days and they are specially designed to fit ipod earpieces. This simple yet great invention only costs $13!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Globus Workstation
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Ducati 696!
HYABUSA 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
USB camera wrist strap
Portable fireplace
Bornrich.org
Knight XV
Bornrich.org
Thursday, December 4, 2008
unusual tea kettle
The Design Blog
Business card
Sphere Hotel
Amphibian airplane
'Akoya' is an amphibian airplane made by LISA Airplanes, it has been designed to fly from airstrip to yacht to ski slope with ease. Peopl have already began to place orders for it with an initial deposit of 10,000 euros. The delivery date is not yet disclosed but it seems perfect for the yacht owners. The company has recently announced its partnership with Danish Yachts, with an aim toward combining superyachts and light aircraft to expand their horizons. THe wheel on Akoya are retractable wheels and it also has retractable skis to enable you to land on solid ground. This plane is an expensive piece of equipment but if you have the money it is a very nice design and addition to your yacht!!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
A New design of Paddleboat!
Link: New Paddle Boat
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Gyro Car
Gyro Car
Luminous Christmas decorations
Mobile home for trendy nomads
Friday, November 28, 2008
EXPENSIVE Home Theatres!
CEDIA (the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) chose this room as its top theme theater
Kim Banducci and custom installed by Future Home of Los Angeles, California, Price unknown
music engineer, producer Jeremy Kipnis, $6,000,000
built by builder Aaron Vitale of Vital Building & Enterprises in his own home $100,000
Ferreri F40 Executive desk
This Ferrari F40 office desk is a cool addition to the racing enthusiast's office. It features a Rosso Corsa painted aluminum frame with carbon fiber support rails and a floating glass top. The top glass features a center mounted wire access hole, which is the actual dash vent from a Ferrari F40! It costs $7,500, which includes a custom color of your choice. I thought this desk was pretty awesome, I like the way it was designed to look and feel like the interior of a ferrari, definately something to brag about!!
Born rich.org
This Citrus-Powered Digital Clock from Florian Dussopt & Julie Girard is powered by electrolysis and the citrus juices of a lemon or orange. My science teacher had one of these and i thought it was cool. There are two spikes (one copper and one zinc) which are stabbed into the fruit and this produces a current using the juice as a transport medium. One slice of fruit can power the clock for a week!
The Design Blog
New Rescue device for sea bearers 'Ocean Rescue'
The orange ‘Ocean Rescue’ is a device that refines the salty water of the sea and makes it potable to drink. This greatly increases the chances of survival for shipwreck victims. Not only that but the Ocean Rescue also helps the lifeguards in locating the victims by emitting light at night and colorful smoke during the day. With increases visibility and drinkable water while stranded at sea the 'Ocean Rescue ' is one device which every deep see fisherman should have. It's simple design makes it durable and reliable. I think that this device is very clever and should be required on deep sea boats. It was designed by Seol-Hee Sohn, Seung-Hyun Yoon & Cheol-Yeon Cho.
The design blog
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Restoring an Underwater city
In the 1940s, archaeologists discovered the ancient city of Seuthopolis in Bulgaria, the capital of the Odrysian Kingdom beginning in the 4th century BC. Unfortunately, after the destruction of a nearby dam the valley was flooded and the city drowned. Now over half a century later, a project proposed by Bulgarian architect Zheko Tilev would restore the city by building a huge circular dam (1,377 feet in diameter and 65 in height) around it and draining out the water. If this project is completed it would prove to be a marvelous success and a huge tourist attraction to Bulgaria.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
From Blueprints to Databases
Lansdowne Road- Ireland Pipe Planning using BMI
economist.com
Building Information Modeling (BMI) is a new software used by architects in the construction of buildings. It allows one to see the proposed structure in 3 dimensions instead of the usual 2 dimension hand drawn drawn blueprints. One neat function of BMI is that when an architects changes and object on the building ( such as the size of a window) then the program automatically changes the structure of any relating objects ( in this case the surrounding walls). BMI makes it much harder to make the common mistakes which most architects make and it also allows traditional 2 dimension drawings to be generated. BMI allows one to predict the amount of materials required for the structure and therefore more accurate construction costs. allows architects and engineers to study their project's and work together better than ever before. Where traditional 2 dimension blueprints are often complicated, new BMI simulations allow you to see the entire building from many angles, inside and out. This new technology is going to require more advanced computer skills in upcoming architects but it will no doubt improve the creativity and possibly safety of our future buildings.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Amsterdam to build an underground city!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578139/New-underground-city-planned-for-Amsterdam.html
Amsterdam's city council has approved the construction of an underground city to begin in 2018.
Overcrowding and soaring property prices within the city acted as a catalyst for this 7.4 billion sterling pound project. The new city is to have one million square feet of leisure centers, retail outlets and parking lots. Dutch architects from 'Zwarts and Jansma' have decided to build underneath the clay of the famous city canals. Along with construction company 'Strukton', project 'Amfora' is proving to be a huge engineering feat. This futuristic project is quite remarkable and it is very interesting to see how it will turn out. We've already built gigantic skyscrapers above sea level, will we soon see similiar buildings underground ?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Studying brain activity.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Human Genome
This blog was about the human genome becoming the next form of 'blood test' or 'urine sample', the next upgrade to our already advanced technology. It was interesting to read the predictions of the cost changes in this technology, reaching a mere $100 by 2012. Obviousely the information received by such a process is far more detailed than today's blood tests. The result will show complete hereditary sequences and gene allocations. We would be able to see why we have certain traits (eg. brown eyes, long fingers) ect, but would this be too much information for the average human? I have no definate answer for this, some people are already paranoid about their appearance. What would they do if they knew exactly why they look that way?On the other hand the genome could be used to identify susceptibility to diseases and develop preventative treatment! There are many medical advantages to studying the human genome, but should it be made public to the massses?