Entries tagged 'opinion' ↓

Just wanted to share my reaction regarding John Maeda’s recent appointment as president of RISD. I believe we are witnessing a historical turning point in art and design. Not exactly in the form of an artifact as the catalyst – such as the Sistine’s ceiling, or Duchamp’s “Fountain” – or a memorable public act, such as Beuys’ “How to explain pictures to a dead hare”. But I think this agreement simply marks the beginning of a transition to a new, progressive era in creative thinking; the results of which we have yet to see. And John Maeda has the will, knowledge, experience, energy, and vision to see it through.

In his “Notes from a director’s laboratory”, Sergei Eisenstein once said:

The most important thing is to have the vision. The next is to grasp and hold it. In this there is no difference whether you are writing a film-script, pondering the plan of the production as a whole, or thinking out a solution for some particular detail.

You must see and feel what you are thinking about. You must see and grasp it. You must hold and fix it in your memory and senses.

And you must do it at once.

Good luck John Maeda. And godspeed.

I heard MIT is suing architect Frank Gehry’s firm, alleging design flaws in the Stata Center in Cambridge, MA. I haven’t seen the actual facility yet, and I will definitely stop by the next time I go down to Boston, but from what I have seen in the photos, it is a typical Gehry structure, and looking at its unconventionally angled walls one can easily see how its design might lead to some drainage problems and leaks. I’ll stop here without further comments. This post is supposed to be about my interpretation of the cliché phrase “thinking outside the box”. 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 →

I just read a quote from Marc Gobé, who is a world-famous authority on Emotional Design and the author of Brandjam, along with some other branding related books:

Design is to branding as jazz is to music.

I love this statement! I am not sure I fully understand what it actually means, but I like the fact that someone finally observed the correlation between design and jazz, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Being a devoted follower of both concepts, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of parallels one can draw—only not here or now, maybe in a future post. I do want to talk a little bit about the title of this post though. Continue reading →