J02 (really really late, sorry!)

Textures

The first texture that caught my eye is my rug in my room. It is a thick, itchy rug that is good for rubbing the mud off your boots!

This is the fabric on a bin I own.

Here is another rug, this one is a large one in the foyer of my building. 

 Ceiling tiles! A very rough texture, plastered up there and chips easily.

 This is the sandstone (I believe) around the front entrance of Taylor Tower. I think it is sandstone because the grains are very small and not very course. It is also the right color to be sandstone, a light tan-ish.

 MUD! I couldn't go without some of nature's best! It looks juicy and, well, muddy! Sticks and ice chunks add to the texture also.

This texture is interesting because it is a mixture of snow and ice. It seems as if the snow started to melt and then refroze into a solid, chunky sheet of ice. It was very crunchy under my feet!

 I intended to capture the ice on this walkway because it looked as if it could have the texture of water. Nevertheless, it was a frozen puddle.

 Here is my favorite blankie! It is super soft, as it has been hugged by me every night since I was born! (:

Lastly, this is the shag rug in my bathroom. Both furry and soft, it is a retreat for the feet after those cold, early-morning tiles! 

J04 :)

CR04

This week in class consisted of the accessibility lecture and the scavenger hunt, as always a very interesting class! After hearing the information on accessibility and universal design, I am noticing all of the door handles, entrances, curb ramps, and other details for the handicapped or disabled around campus. For instance, on the second floor of Hayes Hall, there are lockers stacked on top of each other. The bottom left one has a handicapped sticker slapped on it (probably because it is low and has room to the left of it where the wall ends), and also who knew the first seats on the bus (the sideways ones) are reserved for the handicapped!? It's not often we come across someone who is disabled and when I do it reminds me of how much they suffer. My uncle lived without one of his legs his entire life, and died of cancer at only 33. I often think of what he had to endure in his life in order to live normally. He could never run or keep up with us young nieces and nephews. Even though he had to walk the long way into entrances with his crutches and I'm sure had trouble navigating his wheelchair, never did he complain. He was so happy and friendly every time I saw Uncle Tony! I hope that I can someday design for people like my Uncle Tony.
Also this week we had the scavenger hunt. At first I was really nervous about leaving the classroom from a total stranger going about campus to who knows where! But it was really a lot of fun and I made a new friend! It opened my eyes to all of the designs on campus that I would normally have walked by without noticing. Now I can tell my family and friends that I tour around campus that the Mathematics Tower was designed by Philip Johnson(:

RR04

I must admit, Heskett's chapters 7 and 8 seemed very dry. It was hard to pay attention! The chapter on systems seemed like common sense to me. It basically said a system is a group of elements that form a collective entity. It went on to describe maps and signs and how they need to be easy to read and functional. I feel like just by growing up in our society we should have noticed that our signs are simple and easy to read! I guess there are people out there that don't notice visual stimulations as much as I do though. The previous chapter on identities was more interesting because it talked a lot about the logos of brand name companies and products. It's amazing how people attach so much nostalgia to inanimate things, such as the British telephone booth. And also how enraged people get when the identity of their object changes. For instance, everyone gets so angry when facebook makes a new layout, but after a few days, no one seems to be able to remember what the old one looked like! Although, I do feel a little twinge of regret when a company gets a new or updated logo. I remember stocking the new Pepsi cans when I was working at a convenience store one summer, thinking "well these just suck! What is the world coming to!" However, when I look back at old family pictures where I am sitting with a vintage Pepsi can in front of me, I smile. It was a different time back then and I am reminded of those young days, so long ago. Plus, the new Pepsi can isn't so bad, it kind of has a little smile in it, which grew on me of course. And when Pepsi changes it again, I'll have new memories to be nostalgic about. (:

                           

old pepsi cans                                                                    new pepsi cans

A02 (part three)

Alvar Aalto
Alvar Aalto was a Finnish architect from the 1930's. Born on February 3, 1898 in Bothnia, Alvar grew up as a very creative child. He was the oldest of three boys and a girl. The Aalto family fostered a love for nature and forests. He suffered from dyslexia but overcame his difficulties to earn the highest grades in grammar school for both of his German and Finnish classes. He apprenticed to an architect, Salvero, who discouragingly advised him, "You wouldn't make a good architect, but go ahead and try becoming a newspaper editor!"
After Studying at the Helsinki Institute of Technology, he worked as an architect, establishing the Alvar Aalto Office for Architecture and Monumental Art in a basement of a hotel in Jyvaskyla, Finland in 1923. Here he published texts for the newspaper along with designing buildings. He soon met Aino Marsino who would become his wife in 1925. The couple was inspired by Italy and the Mediterranean and thus their design has hints of Italian style such as their furniture. It is rumored that Aino and Alvar actually resided in a nudist camp!
Alvar is noted for his designs of the University of Jyvaskyla campus; dorms at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology; his residence the Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, Finland; the Institute of Technology in Espoo, Finland; Pedagogical University in Jyvaskyla, Finland; the town center for Seinajoki, Finland; and the Church of the Three Crosses in Finland. These are just a handful of the many amazing and fabulous buildings Alvar constructed in his lifetime.
Alvar Aalto's style was very modern for the 1930's. He was part of the genre "Nordic modernism." His design style progressed through three stages: functionalism, experimentation, and monumentalism. He also designed furniture, lights, and lamps. One particularly remembered chair design is covered with reindeer fur! Additionally, Alvar was always careful to include interesting and unique door handles in all of his masterpieces.

Villa Mairea House

MIT Dorms

Summer House in Aalto's experimental phase



Sources: Aalto by Louna Lahti. Taschen, 2004; Germany.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar_Aalto

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/aalto.html

http://www.scandinaviandesign.com/Alvar_Aalto/news/aaltohouses.htm

A02 (part two)

Gio Ponti
-Italian architect, furniture designer, publisher, and industrial designer.
-Originally from Milan, Italy. Born November 18, 1891 and died September 16, 1979.
-Very popular and loved by the public.
-His main characteristic is "fantastic visual eclecticism."
-Designed the Denver Art Museum and Taranto Cathedral in the last 10 years of his life.

 (Denver Art Museum)

(Taranto Cathedral)
-Started the magazine "Domus" which touches on architecture, art, and design.
-In addition to architecture he also created printed fabric, studies car bodies, and painted.
-He is quoted saying "architecture is a crystal. When it is pure, it is pure as a crystal-magic, close, autonomous as a crystal."
-another interesting quote Gio stated in his life is "nothing exists in reality which has not already existed in dreams."

Sources:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/robinson10-16-06_detail.asp?picnum=14
Gio Ponti. Edited by Aiko Hasegawa.

A02 (part one)

In order to research three designers for this assignment, I wandered Knowlton library's shelves and picked out the most colorful or interesting books I could find. (I definitely judged by the cover!) I tried to come up with interior designers only, but it was really hard to find literature on that profession! Thus, this is how I came up with my short list of designers.


Andre Poitiers
-German architect
-He studied at the Technical University in Brunswick and also served in the military at Kiel.
-Poitiers' style consists of a lot of glass windows and geometric shapes.
-He designs in modern style but without the arbitrariness or carelessness.
-He is noted as being very experimental.
-His mantra is the famous "function follows form"
-Poitier has designed churches, banks, town halls, educational centers, housing, sports halls, environmental stations, and town harbors.
-He is very interested in industrial design also.
-He designed a sports hall for the city of Halstenbek, Germany. Unfortunately it collapsed twice during construction and demolished seven years after it was built.
-It was a very modern domed building with the sports courts and fields submerged slightly below ground level. The dome was glazed with insulating solar glass.

Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knick-Ei 
Objects in the Territory by Andre Poitiers
       editors Andrea Ruby and Kristin Feireiss
Andres Poitiers by Ulrich Swartz. Published Weisbaden 1996.

J03

RR03

In Chapters 4-6, Heskett covered objects, communications, and environments. I thought those were neat words to describe the three majors at Ohio State's design school: industrial, visual communication, and interior design. The chapter on objects was really interesting because it told how inventors design furniture according to human size and shape. I feel like this would be an obvious statement but it is probably difficult to make everything ergonomically right for humans, such as the aeron chair on page 49. Also, this chapter made me think about the quality and uniqueness of designer products. They make their designs extremely limited so that they can preserve their idea and make a profit off of it. Now I feel kind of bad for saving money on copies at the local walmart!
I most enjoyed reading the environments chapter regarding interior design because that is the field I wish to get into. Its amazing how different our society is from that of Japan and how we take for granted all the space we have. They have to squeeze so much into one space all their technology is much more advanced than ours. I wish I could travel to see these tiny spaces where washer and dryer are all in one and where cooking appliances are located in the cupboard. I feel like these inventions and ideas would be very good for dorm rooms or other tight living quarters in America that have non-advanced technology. Perhaps lower income housing like the could be designed cheaply with less space and better appliances. Although, the chapter also said that Japanese household equipment was much more expensive.
All in all these chapters were rather interesting and informative about the three major fields of design.

CR03

This week was a short week for classes, thanks to Martin Luther King Jr.! We spent the majority of class over viewing the design cycle and processes. Although there is a long process with many steps to come to and result, "design is never finished." There is always more you can re-evaluate or fix up. Once a product hits the market, you begin redesigning it or starting the next best thing. This may seem a bit tiresome to think about, a field with no solid finalization. However, it is rather amazing! An area of human culture that is always evolving! Our brains must be so intelligent that we are never satisfied until we can create the next best thing.
Also in class we watched "the Deep Dive" where I recorded a number of useful ideas, such as "a playful person is an innovative person" and "enlightened trial and error is greater than the lone genius." I loved the inventors' work spaces with toys and gadgets everywhere along with the wall of ideas full of sketchy post-it notes (which were invented by mistake!) I hope to make my work space like that someday! Although, I will definitely need to keep focused and not play with all the toys...

URGHHH! Technology!

Hello again,
this is Kara. I originally wrote this blog under the web addresss "love laugh buckeyes" until Blogger decided to DELETE IT!! So I lost my first two weeks of entries for my design 200 class! Grrrr.... Hopefully, this new address doesn't delete itself!