This blog has moved!

Please follow the new link:
http://tushargupte.posterous.com

Thanks.

Chamber Music – Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal

"While the return to idea-based design might have begun as a necessary attempt to purify design of self-indulgent noise that risked obscuring the message, the outcome today is a smooth and predictable set of visual procedures that pose few challenges to client or viewer. "

– Rick Poynor. Agency or Studio? The Dutch graphic design dilemma. Design Observer.

Less Equals Peace – John Pawson

Plain Spaces Exhibition at the Design Museum 
September 2010 to January 2011

Ambiguity and Perception.

I'm starting to think that to remove ambiguity and demonstrate clarity, visually, is the single most challenge for a graphic designer. There will always be people who will interpret everything, in spite of given rationale and meaning. Something will always look like something it is not. People's mood, current state-of-mind etc will have it's effects. But a good designer would know how to reduce that gap, if not completely make it go away (that is also possible).

Ambiguity and Perception are human qualities, the designer must learn to work with them intelligently, and not be threatened by it.

Notes from the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art


1. Textured background, smooth surface for text area in a vertical rectangular block. Use of lines to communicate separation of two continuing or different messages/information. (Egyptian hieroglyph on stone)
2. African ritual sculptures - immediate, highly effective, powerful. Other worldly, of the spirit world, mythological
3. Greek / Early Roman sculptures - indulgent, sensual, appreciative, giving realism to mythological stories. Gods that look like perfect human beings.
4. Roman mosaic - stones with their inherently different colors are used to create color gradations, borders, forms. How many types of stones are being used? How do they all come together as one magnificent mosaic? They must love the stones as much as the images they created with them.
5. Ancient Greek terra-cotta domestic objects: vases, jars, plates.
Everything communicated with the use of only one color—black.

Sonya Dayakova

Design from the truth up.

Rethink, not redesign.

The recognition and understanding of the need is the primary condition for the creative act. When people feel that they have to express themselves for the sake of originality, this tends not to be creative. Only when you get into the problem and the problem becomes clear can creativity take over.

— Charles Eames

Distinctive Identities - Hermés.

Menehould de Bazelaire, the present Director of cultural heritage at Hermés, told this story to Dana Thomas, who wrote it in her (brilliant) new book "Deluxe - How Luxury Lost It's Lustre"

In the late 1930s, Émile-Maurice bought Mi Colline, a villa in the hills above Cannes, not far from the Criosette shop. During the Nazi Occupation of Paris, most of the family fled to Colline. The Hermés store on Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré shut down for four days and then reopened to keep the employees working and receiving wages, however small. Émile-Maurice's son-in-law Jean Guerrand took over the store and distributed potato soup to the workers because de Bazelaire said "everyone was starving.". As in many stores that remained open during the Occupation, there were often signs in the Hermés window - "Nothing for Sale", due to shortage of not only material but also the will to sell to Nazis. General Hermann Göring ordered a big picnic trunk from Hermés, but there was no leather and no motivation and it was never produced. Paper, cardboard and other sorts of packaging were scarce as well; the only color available was vibrant orange. Hermés used it for boxes and bags. Almost overnight, it became the house signature color. 

In 1945, Émile-Maurice adopted the company logo based on a drawing by nineteeth-century artist Alferd de Dreux of a groom standing before a horse and open carriage. The picture still hangs behind his desk in the museum.

—

This is how identities are born. It is the designer's job to find out what the identity of a company or an institution really is, and give it a honest, visual expression. It is always about "them" and less about "me". Designers' egos can only mess things us.

"Technology, which reduces human exchange to an electronic signal, impoverishes and mutes this multifarious nonverbal language with which, when we are together in close proximity, we continually and unconsciously communicate. This unspoken language, moreover, the language of facial expression and minute gesture, is infinitely more sincere and genuine than the spoken or written one; it is far more difficult to tell lies without words, to conceal falsehood and hypocrisy."

– Ryszard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus.

Giulio Cittato

"I consider myself a visual communicator. Art should be the culmination of earlier graphic communications, after these communications have lost their initial utilitarianism. If it was art to begin with, when it loses it's function it will remain art. I also consider my work precise, yet emotional; geometric yet spiritual; mathematical yet feeling. I believe that the environment should be an expression of a higher, well ordered and complete dedication to the well designed. And by environment I mean all that surrounds us. Trains and roads, packages and toys, buildings, doorways, clothing and refrigerators."

Distinctive Identities - The North Carolina Museum of Contemporary Art.

On the surface, and by which I mean, by looking at it on a blog, this identity designed by Michael Bierut looks interesting, but one may quickly pass by it while browsing due to the amount of visual stimulation one receives each day through various design blogs that deliver eye-candy. I completely missed it. Until now when I read about it, and then saw it again.

This to me is a lesson in removing ambiguity from a design solution. There are far too many logos based on abstract forms that are "inspired" by something but communicate something else, if at all, that is, and leave a wide margin for personal interpretation. Perhaps this has to do something with graphic design's current obsession with contemporary art. I have designed some logos like that myself, so I'm as guilty as anyone else.

I'm just starting to think the Pentagram founders were onto something though, and I keep returning back to what they said, especially in a book called Visual Comparisons, by far one of my favorite books on graphic design:

"Unlike painters, who should have a personal handwriting, designers are often anonymous, but their work still achieves a vivid personality. Their identity is maintained by a consistently high standard of problem solving rather then by consistent technique or style.

Ofcourse there are always some impossible clients, but they know that the ultimate responsibility for a bad job rests with the designer and not with the client, however hardheaded and obstreperous. After all, they reason, there are many ways to solve a graphic problem. If one solution is rejected, another must be found.

Each job they do represent a search for new methods of making ideas and images come alive on the printed page; they have enquiring minds and they are not afraid to make mistakes.

They know their craft and use the technologies of the graphic arts creatively, rather than being subdued by it. But above all, they never limit themselves to current tastes, or to formal rules of layout, typography and color."

London, 1963

"Good designers do something amazing and repeat themselves throughout their careers. Bad designers reinvent themselves every six months."

– Marcello Minale

That the design approach should be towards
...




1. Being appropriate: The quality of being specially suitable. 
(source: princeton.edu)


2. Being relevant: Relevance is a term used to describe how pertinent, connected, or applicable something is to a given matter. A thing is relevant if it serves as a means to a given purpose.
(source: Wikipedia)


3. Inherently imaginative: also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not (yet) perceived through sight, hearing or other senses
(source: wikipedia)

Don't Think. Look.

Jules Bastien-Lepage at The deYoung 

Les foins

en 1877

huile sur toile

H. 1.6 ; L. 1.95

musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

©photo musée d'Orsay / rmn

For the love of stillness.

Photography by Nadav Kander.

(via Booooom!)

Intelligence in Lifestyle

This is an example (and a lesson) in authenticity in graphic design that can be achieved by combining the old and the new in a fresh, exciting way. There is no need to be "old school", there is no need to be obsessed about the "new" either.

The result is truly contemporary.

from OpenStudio:

"Under the creative direction of Francesco Franchi, Intelligence in Lifestyle, an Italian magazine and supplement to the Il Sole 24 ORE newspaper, uses a strong structured grid and nicely combines illustration, logo design, typography and plenty of amazing info graphics."

and from Mark Porter:

"...a combination of influences from the classic magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, and the best of contemporary news design. It’s a wide-ranging magazine full of serious writing and reporting as well as softer lifestyle and feature content. They use very intense typography, infographics and some lavish photography to create a really unique magazine with tons of personality; it’s a bit like a kind of Monocle on steroids, but infinitely more exciting (and with a sense of humour)."



(images via Colorcubic and Francesco Franchi's Flickr)

Notes from the book Change by Design by Tim Brown.
HarperBusiness © Tim Brown. ISBN 0061766089
––
This was an excellent read. I have not taken so many notes from a book in a long time.
–– 
Pg 18
The willing and even enthusiastic acceptance of competing constraints is the foundation of design thinking. The first stage of design process is often about discovering which constraints are important and establishing a framework for evaluating them. Constraints can be visualized in terms of three overlapping criteria for successful ideas: feasibility (what is functionally possible within the forseeable future); viability (what is likely to become part of a sustainable business model); and desiresbility (what makes sense to people and for people).

Pg.27
Many designers who are skilled technicians, craftsmen, or researchers have struggled to survive in the messy enviornment required to solve today's complex problems. They may play a valuable role, but they are destined to live in the downstream world of design execution. Design thinkers, by contrast, cross the "T". They may be architects who have studied psychology, artists with MBA's or engineers with marketing experience. A creative organization is constantly on the lookout for people with the capacity and — just as important — the disposition for collaboration across disciplines. In the end, this ability is what distinguishes the merely multidisciplinary team from a truly interdisciplinary one. In a multidisciplinary team each individual becomes an advocate for his or her own technical speciality and the project becomes a protracted negotiation among them, likely resulting in a gray compromise. In an interdisciplinary team there is collective ownership of ideas and everybody takes responsibility for them.

Pg.37

Just as I am challenging companies to incorporate design into their organizational DNA, however, I want to challenge designers to continue the transformation of design practice itself. There will always be a place in our dizzying world for the artist, the craftsman, and the lone inventor, but the seismic shifts taking place in every industry demands a new design practice: collaborative but in a way that amplifies, rather than subdues, the creative powers of individuals; focused but at the same time flexible and responsive to unexpected opportunities; focused not just on optimizing the social, the technical, and the business components of a product but on bringing them into a harmonious balance. The next generation of designers will need to be as comfortable in the boardroom as they are in the studio or shop, and they will need to being looking at every problem — from adult illiteracy to global warming — as a "design" problem.

Pg.39
For design thinkers, behaviors are never right or wrong, but they are always meaningful.

Pg.42
The evolution from design to design thinking is the story of the evolution from the creation of products, and from there to the relationship between people and products, and from there to the relationship between people and people.

Pg.50
We build these bridges of insights through "empathy", the effort to see the world through the eyes of others, understand the world through their experiences, and feel the world through their emotions.

Pg.71
Individuals, teams, and organizations that have mastered the mental matrix of design thinking share a basic attitude of experimentation. They are open to new possibilities, alert to new directions, and always willing to propose new solutions.

Pg.77
A culture of optimism.

Optimism requires confidence, and confidence is built on trust. And trust, as we know, flows in both directions.

Pg.78
Rules of brainstorming;
Defer judgement.
Encourage wild ideas.
Stay focused on the topic.
Build on the ideas of others.

Pg.85
In the "The Opposing Mind", Roger Martin argues that 'thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution enjoy a built-in advantage over thinkers who consider only one model at a time'. Integrative Thinkers know how to widen the scope of issues salient to the problem. They resist the "either/or" in favor of the "both/and" and see non-linear and multi-directional relationships as a source of inspiration, not contradiction.

Pg. 91
Prototypes should command only as much time, effort, and investment as is necessary to generate useful feedback and drive an idea forward. The greater the complexity and expense, the more "finished" it is likely to seem and the less likely it's creators will be to profit from constructive feedback—or even to listen to it. The goal of prototyping is not to create a working model. It is to give form to an idea to learn about it's strengths and weaknesses and to identify new directions for the next generation of more detailed, more refined prototypes.

(hence) A prototype's scope should be limited. The purpose of early prototypes might be to understand weather an idea has a functional value.

Anything tangible that let's us explore an idea, evaluate it, and push it forward is a prototype.

Pg.94
Another considerable value of scenarios is that they force us to keep people at the center of the idea, preventing us from getting lost in mechanical or aesthetic details.

Pg.121
Four Seasons Hotels are famous for their quality of service as much as the luxury of their properties. They are also  recognized within the industry for having a staff-training system in which staff members learn how to anticipate the needs of their customers and build on the ideas of their colleagues—essential qualities, as we have seen, of design thinkers.

Creating an experience culture requires going beyond the generic to design experiences perceived as uniquely tailored to each customer. Unlike a manufactured product or a standardized service, an experience comes to life when it feels personalized and customized.

Notes: things I remember of my experience of four seasons, which could  otherwise may had been frustrating:

1. We were served dinner from the restraunt in the bar itself, because we prefered to eat at the bar.
2. I was given a drink at the bar even after they had officially closed the bar
3.I was given water when I sat on the pool bench (I was thirsty, yes) without me asking for it.
4.four seasons Miami was steeped in the culture of the city: miami art, Cuban staff. Very local.
5. Our bags were held after we had checked out, they knew we won't like to carry them around.
6.Taxis were arranged without us having to try too hard.
7. We were taken straight to our rooms, and since we reached in the morning, breakfast was sent to the room.

Pg.134
To design an interaction is to allow a story to unfold over time.

Pg.141
There are other reasons why 30-second spots no longer serve as an effective vehicle for new ideas, including what the Swarthmore College psychologist Barry Schwartz has identified as "the paradox of choice". Most people don't want more options: they just want what they want. When overwhelmed by choice, we tend to fall into behavorial patterns used by those whom Schwartz calls "optimizers"—people paralyzed by the fear that if they had only waited a little while longer or searched a little harder, they could find what they think they want at the best possible price. That was not a problem in the days when "automobile" meant a black Model T or "phone company" meant AT&T.

The other camp is populated by "satisficers" who have given up on making consumer decisions and will put up with whatever works.

Pg.149
Design can help to improve our lives in the present. Design thinking can help us chart a path into the future.

Pg. 177
An organization that commits itself to the human-centered tenets of design thinking is practicing enlightened self-interest. If it does a better job of understanding its customers, it will do a better job of satisfying their needs. That is simply the most reliable source of long-term profitability and sustainable growth.

Pg.183
Service companies that use innovative technology but do not innovate to improve the quality of people's experience are destined to relearn the bitter lesson of the companies of the industrial age: that past innovation is no guarantee of future performance.

Pg.215
Aravind, IDE, and Acumen Fund offer examples not just of well-designed products but of design thinking applied accross the entire spectrum of a problem: the product, the service in which the product is embedded, the business model of the enterprise that provides the service, the investors behind the enterprise, and more.

Pg.223
The Ormondale teachers have now developed a set of tools based on a shared philosophy of "investigative learning" that engages students as seekers of knowledge rather than receivers of information.

Pg.227
The tools of the design thinker—getting out in the world to be inspired by people, using prototyping to learn with our hands, creating stories to share our ideas, joining forces with people from other disciplines—are ways of deepening what we know and widening the impact of what we do.

Pg. 237
Good design thinkers observe. Great design thinkers observe the ordinary. Make it a rule that you will stop and think about an ordinary situation. Take a second look at an action or artifact that you would look at only once (or not at all) as if you were a police detective at a crime scene. Why are manhole covers round? Why is my teenager heading off to school dressed like that?how do I know how far back I should stand from the person in front of me in line? What would it be like to be color blind? If we immerse ourselves in what Naoto Fukasawa and Jasper Morrision have recently called "Super Normal", we can gain uncanny insights into the unwritten rules that guide us through life.

Pg.238
Ludwig Wittgenstein was the most cerebral of twentieth-century philosophers, but his motto was "Dont think. Look."




—From the book: Change by Design by Tim Brown

" a work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable. When they are in synthesis. In other words, when they fuse."

- another quote from Paul Rand

"The vocabulary or the language of aesthetics.

order
unity
variety
contrast
symmetry
asymmetry
rhythm
harmony
disonance
rhyme
interval
regularity
coherence
tension
balance
proportions
scale
weight
texture
line
mass
space
shape
light
shade and
color

When you talk about form this is what you're talking about. and that's why form has nothing to do with style."

From an interview with Paul Rand.

Goodbye United.

Designed by Saul Bass, 1965.


"Beneath theory and rhetoric, and well beyond technique and jargon, the reason for design is to speak to people in a language this is familiar, but also new, to entice people to understand an old thing in a new way, or grasp a new thing in an old way. "


From AIGA / Saul Bass

What makes a Designer


Have you ever wondered, when given the same problem, why do some designers come up with brilliant solutions and some don't?


I wanted to really find out what the reasons may be and that led me to sketching this diagram on my notepad (and then into Illustrator).


There are various factors that influence/affect the quality of a designer's output, but I think there are four major areas: Understanding, Experience, Skill and Imagination. 


Some designers are extremely good in one or maybe two areas (because that's where they've been focusing their attention towards) and hence below average in the rest of the areas. 


Brilliant designers are the one's who are strong in in all four areas, while having a core foundation based on common sense, simplicity, visual elegance and clarity.

— click on the image to view a large size.



Although this may not be perfect and may even be incomplete, it helped me get some clarity towards my own growth as a designer. As with everything else, striking the right balance is what is important.

—

This was originally posted in November 2007, but somehow I felt the need to re-surface this particular piece as I've been thinking about it for some time now.

"
How can we write about light, a thing so great that because of it's beauty is so close to the image of God?


How can we talk about something that to which our very existence, our birth and our death are linked?


How can we talk about light, when everything would be darkness, and perhaps is, in the places and in the time of time?


How can we talk about something that, when it varies, takes on all the gradations of feelings?


About something that crosses time and space, to arrive where human mind cannot arrive?


I cannot, I am too small and superficial and I do not have either the mental strength or the words to express a concept that makes me dizzy at the mere thought of it; the source of light lies in darkness, where life has it's origin.


In Sufi philosophy light has the same texture as the spirit; I can only, barely, understand that it is a thing so precious, so delicate, so high that it must be treated as the most sacred and transcendent thing that as humans we can perceive.


"


— Michele de Lucchi


- From the book "Dopotolomeo" by Silvia Suardi © Skira Editore, Milano, Italy. 2002.
- Image source - Faces of Design

"To paraphrase Goudy, the problem is not any more that the old-timers stole all the best ideas, but that the old ideas are in danger of being re-discovered from scratch."


From an excellent, and rare, article of this caliber:
A Few Things I've Learnt About Typeface Design by Gerry Leonidas

An Interview with Ettore Sottsass.




_____


what is your best moment of the day?
never or all day.


what kind of music do you listen to at the moment?
classical or pop.


do you listen to the radio?
no


what books do you have on your bedside table?
a book on the philosophy of the vedas. (ancient hindu texts)


do you read design magazines?
rarely.


newspapers?where do you get news from?
usually I read la repubblica, although in general I avoid reading newspapers because they scare me.

do you notice how women are dressing? do you have any preferences?
in order to understand a woman first I look at her eyes, and then how she is dressed. we all have our preferences, they correspond to our conception of life in general. for example I don’t like diamond jewelry, because I think that life is about other things.anyway, let’s drop it.


what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?
I never dress formally, and this "french" fashion is sort of snobby. during the beatnik years I used to go to new york often, we used to wear old clothes, but now those big department stores full of men’s clothes, military and sailor’s clothes don’t exist anymore, so I go to armani.


do you have any pets?
no.


where do you work on your designs and projects?I think of designs when I am in the bathroom, or on the phone, or sitting at any table. i don’t have any particular place. but everyone has a place they like more than others, where you feel calmer, which is home. I don’t design at my studio. there are too many people there.

who would you like to design something for?
for a while I have been describing myself as a designer/architect/theorist. I’ve been trying to understand what architecture can be. any subject is good, from a public bathroom, to a hospital, to a sky scraper. but nobody ever asks me to design a sky scraper, precisely because I am very interested in architecture, not in sky scrapers..


when you are working, do you discuss or exchange ideas with your colleagues?
outside the studio? no.


describe your style, like a good friend of yours would describe it.
I truly believe that our duty as an architect or a designer is to design things which attract luck, rooms which protect people... I don’t design things in any style, even less so in any fashion style, I design things for life states.

from 'poltronova' to 'olivetti' to 'memphis' to your latest works with sottass associati, can you give us an idea of the evolution of your philosophy?
at the beginning, when I was young, full of presumption, theoretical, very aggressive, I was very tied to turn of the century functionalism, to the idea of functional style. but gradually I left that behind, because I found a new source of inspiration. from then on I began to try to figure out what I could be in terms of this society, the people, the necessity which surrounded me. ‘memphis’ was a sort of exercise in design, so was ‘olivetti’. they asked me to set up the design of the electronics division. at that time, electronics meant big closets... it was impossible to understand. besides the functionality, which i am still interested in, there was this mystery of electronics. I wanted to show that electronics were mysterious, that is the relationship between design and functionality, a more extensive functionality... a description of a certain conception of existence. this relationship has been and still is central in my work.

which of your projects has given you the most satisfaction?
and which do you like the most?
I don’t know, life is a permanent project, its a passage from one thing to another.


is there any architect or designer from past you appreciate a lot?
le corbusier. the idea of functionalism with a mediterranean touch (a swiss who discovers the mediterranean): the walls are slightly sensorial, you can touch them (you can intervene), they are not like gropius’ german ones where you can’t do anything with them. he put toilets in bedrooms, you could see them, he understood that functionality was not only ergonomics, not only rationality, but something which went beyond them. it was functional to be a human being and to live. and then there’s also aldo rossi, certainly one of the most interesting architects.


what about colleagues, are there any particular ones you appreciate?
there are a lot of architects, we’re all good.


you have spent a lot of time in asia and you know the spiritual values of those cultures very well. do you think that they tend to fuse with our wasteful western culture, or do you think there is another possibility?
the thing about asia which interested me wasn’t so much the spirituality as the sensorial approach, the rituals...there is nothing spiritual in spirituality. the word spirituality was invented in the 19th century. I hate that word... it is finding a way to forget the existential disaster, it is a series of rituals, which correspond to the cosmos and they are rituals which depend on your social class, the weather, the relationship to animals-- this interests me. I think that any attempt to integrate into the modern world can only be "pay attention to life", existence, but not afterlife.


what do you think about the spreading of knowledge via internet? do you consider it as a tool for sharing knowledge, or do you think it is a sort of ‘big brother’?
I used to think of it as ‘big brother’: it is the most widespread form of colonization that has ever existed. internet in essence is western culture. anyone can have access to it... poor countries don’t even have the tools to enter into it. you sell the tools, who gains? and so on. the news is censored, it belongs to our idea of current western existence. the american way of life. if you put forward another idea, either they don’t listen or they don’t understand or they don’t tell you. on the other hand I’ve also thought that this is the destiny of an industrial society: to survive it is necessary to sell, to sell you have to create desire, you have to create a culture willing to buy that stuff... internet is there. what we can do is see to what extent we can use it, I think it is interesting that information is spread over large sections of society, but does the quality of this information change? ...the quality has always changed, from the great religious empires to... I’m sick of people making rhetoric about these machines. the future is going to be wonderful, shining, happy, because of internet.

on the news they said that italians are afraid of unemployment, criminality and pollution. what are you afraid of regarding the future?
I think that the future doesn’t exist. what we think of today as the future isn’t the future. people are always afraid of the future, and the future has always been a disaster. like the present is a disaster. but rhetoric about the future bothers me, because almost everything we do today we say we’re doing for the future. the future is here now, let’s try to get organized now. I don’t care about the future at all.

– from DesignBoom to include it in this collection. You can see the original post here.

Just type is not enough

So much of graphic communication now seems to be about type and typeset on grids, especially with grotesk sans-serifs like Helvetica. While Joseph-Müller Brockmann's visual communication methods have been applied successfully to Corporate Design, it has also become a stylistic trend since the last few years. There is a need to question why one should apply the standard 6 or 8 column grid and heveltica to every conceivable design project.

With the new A5 Series by Lars Müller Books and 'newspapers' from Unit Editions, some of the brilliant and relatively unknown designers' works are now been brought to our attention. It's time to stop and take notice.

The Zen principles of Aesthetics are derived from the Buddhism beliefs of Anicca or Impermanence where “everything, without exception, is constantly in flux, even planets, stars and gods”. (Wikipedia)

THE PRINCIPLES:

FUKINSEI (imbalanced)
Asymmetry, odd numbers, irregularity, unevenness, imbalance is used as a denial of perfection as perfection and symmetry does not occur in nature.

KANSO (simple)
Elimination of ornate and things of simplicity by nature expresses their truthfulness. Neat, frank and uncomplicated.

KOKOU (austere)
Basic, weathered bare essentials that are aged and unsensuous. Evokes sternness, forbiddance, maturity and weight.

SHIZEN (natural)
Raw, natural and unforced creativity without pretence. True naturalness is to negate the naive and accidental.

YUGEN (subtle profound)
Suggest and not reveal layers of meaning hidden within. Invisible to the casual eye and avoiding the obvious.

DATSUZOKU (unworldly)
Transcendence of conventional and traditional. Free from the bondage of laws and restrictions. True creativity.

SEIJAKU (calm)
Silence and tranquility, blissful solitude. Absence of disturbance and noise from one’s mind, body and surroundings.

via Swiss-Miss

A Creative artist often reaches maturity only when he has learnt so to use his conscious craftmanship in the expression of his thoughts as not to silence the promptings of the imperfectly co-ordinated whole, which is called his personality.

- Graham Wallas, The Art of Thought.

Wrist Watches are descendants of Clocks.

Sometimes it helps to state the obvious.

If you can't find the solution, 
you haven't found the problem.


— John McConnell

But Does It Float
http://butdoesitfloat.com/

Christian Liaigre

Website | Showroom (New York)

Photography is a way of telling what you feel about what you see.

— Ansel Adams

Old yet New
Masculine yet Feminine
Funtional yet Poetic

Beauty is the universal in the particular

City Hall Clock, Arne Jacobson, 1960

Months before his death in 1971, Arne Jacobsen reflected on his career. "The fundamental factor is proportion," he concluded. "Proportion is precisely what makes the old Greek temples beautiful...And when we look at some of the most admired buildings of the Renaissance or the Baroque, we notice that they are all well-proportioned. That is the essential thing."

Do something you haven't done before...

Surprise Yourself

The photograph does not fit to the book, the book fits to the photograph.

Irla Ó Lionárd on Tradition

people observe tradition from different perspectives, some people see tradition as a very static thing. but the reality is that all tradition changes, and is changing. and when you relax about that and when you think that's okay, you can test the boundaries of the tradition, without feeling bad about your self.

We beleived that we could acheive the outcomes that our clients desired by avoiding formulaic responses. What do I mean by this? If, for example, a client comes to us and shows us the work that their competitors were doing and suggested that we do 'something like this', we'd politely suggested looking elsewhere for a starting point. We explained that our philosophy was to find new ways of doing things. We'd point out that there was more leverage and greater benefit to be had by going for calculated difference rather than sticking with generic sameness. 

—The editors of StudioCulture

It would be so awkward having an intern in the studio. We really feel we have to do everything ourselves: DIY. To have somebody do all the "dumb" work for us would make us feel terrible, For example, if we came up with a solution that forces us to spend days on kerning, we feel we have to do kerning ourselves. We came up with the solution, so we have to suffer the consequences, even if it involves days of boring work.

— Experimental Jetset, From StudioCulture

A design is a plan to make something. Something we can see or hold or walk into. Something that is two dimensional or three dimensional. It is always something seen or sometimes something touched. And now and then by association, something heard. It is often a single item and just as often a mass-produced product.

– Living By Design, Pentagram

A while ago, I had noted this from a book on Graphic Thought Facility:

"one visual problem has infinite number of solutions; that many of them are valid; that solutions ought to derive from the subject matter; that the designer should therefore have no preconceived graphic style."

I have been working consistently in this approach, and it has not only lead to client's that are happy, but I too have felt very happy by the outcomes. Because in this approach there is least resistance, less or no ego, and more understanding and clarity to really create distinct and unique solutions.

Fletcher/Forbes/Gill were onto something. and GTF is one of my favorite design agency.

Magnificent Photographs from LIFE magazine archives, now free to access on Google Images.

search criteria: french fashion source:life

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old fims, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, lights and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 

'It's not where you take things from– it's where you take them to.'"

– Jim Jarmusch

FORA.tv, the site I designed, is TIME Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2009

Avoid going for the glaringly obvious solution. For example: if you are to use a photograph (even if it is a good photograph) use painting instead. Create new surprise.