Entries tagged 'objects' ↓

Here’s what I am currently reading. I know it is a bit trendy to post a photo of a book stack, but I have yet to find an easier and better way. So here we go.

• Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
• The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
• The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
• ZAG by Marty Neumeier
• Special Assignments by Boris Akunin

I’m hoping to read a lot this summer, so I will post more soon. Stay tuned.

One evening a couple of weeks ago, I was glancing through the shelves at an A.C. Moore store when I came across some wooden cubes of various sizes in the craft department. They immediately reminded me of an article I read about 17-18 years ago in a science magazine, about a wooden puzzle. At the end of the article there were instructions to build one from scratch, but you needed a certain number of wood blocks, cut precisely into cubes. For years this little project had occupied a corner of my mind, without ever becoming a reality. But here I was, looking at these nicely cut pieces of wood, and I knew I was closer to building my own “Soma cube” than ever. Of course I didn’t even know that it’s called a Soma cube then. At least not until the next day. Continue reading →

Recently there have been some heated discussions (1, 2, 3) in the online design community about the similarities between Apple’s product line and Braun’s product designs from the 60’s. Instead of adding more to the controversy, I would like to take a moment here and concentrate on Braun’s design aesthetic from those years, which is still impressive by today’s standards. During an era that is known for its stylistic trends and visual icons (space age, plastic/fiberglass bubbles, Sgt. Pepper, op-art, psychedelic forms, etc.) Braun approached product design from a purely functional angle, and focused on core design principles, such as innovation, endurance, honesty, usability, and consistency, that resulted in great products with timeless design. Continue reading →

If you live in the north like I do, then this should be a very familiar sight to you: cracked asphalt. Basically, when moisture enters a pavement crack, it slowly works its way down to erode the base. Add to that the freeze/thaw cycle of our tough winters, and you get fissures in the asphalt, typically on large surfaces such as parking lots in strip malls. These cracks then need to be sealed with a hot rubberized crack sealant which is a flexible material that extends the life of the surface, for maybe another year or so. Now, let’s go back to the title of my post: asphalt art. Continue reading →

I just read this post (with great comments) by Steven Heller on designobserver.com. So the premonition is that every book is going to become something like this? Or are we saying book, as a concept, is no more? Will the future generations be getting their non-fiction from the internet, as snippets from a blog or some other online source? And fiction will be solely visual; be it a movie, or some kind of a game, as in “interactive fiction”. Books, the original “readers” with their tactile interfaces, are going to linger around for a while as dusty objects, reminicent of a romantic past.

I guess I’ve already answered my original question.

In his 1971 movie THX 1138, director George Lucas tells us a story about a future society, where no one possesses anything. In one scene, the main character THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) purchases a functionless, red object that looks like a plastic polyhedron, and promptly disposes it when he gets home. Like everybody else in that society, THX 1138 is driven by an unseen force that creates the impulse in him to buy an object he doesn’t need or want. Continue reading →

This is my first tuning slide post, and what could be a better topic than my art pencil, which just turned 20 this month? For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, the art pencil is a leadholder, manufactured by Rotring in Germany in the 80’s. It’s a close cousin of Rotring’s well-known art pen calligraphy fountain pen. I got mine in 1987, when I first started design school. It was one of the first drafting devices I have owned, and even though I have collected many pens and mechanical pencils throughout the years, the art pencil has always been a favorite of mine. Continue reading →