BGSU BFA/MFA ART SHOW

Overall, it was amazing to see the talent that lies at one’s very own school they attend everyday. I see names of friends and fellow classmates on the walls next to all of the wonderful artwork and hope that one day mine will be exhibited like this and viewed in awe by others like me now. One of the first pieces that stood out to me was Erin Gortz’s Tetra Identity System and Website images as well as POP images. It was fascinating to see this project successfully finished, since I am working on similar projects this year as well as last. The website communicated very well with the identity system/stationary. This project showed great Graphic Design skills as well as Web design skills. Another piece that stood out to me was Brittany Laghlin’s Frieda’s Habanero Peppers. The cut out letters really caught my eye and was a simple yet successful way to render her idea for the packaging system. On a less my major-graphic design note, I found the Theory of Evolution of Love Animation by Lory Neil to be very interesting and entertaining to watch. On a Typography note, the “Whiplash” really captured a ”whiplash” feel with an almost art nouveau style, giving it elegance as well as energy. Ken Horn’s posters were also powerful and fascinating to view with the many thoughtful layers involved. The show was wonderful and I recommend everyone, art student or not, to really check it out while it is still here!

Website Concepts

1) A website that sells only “green” products; such as: recycled paper, boxes, packages, wood, bottles, car parts, computer parts, phones, etc. The site would sell anything that has been used before and can be reuseable in some way.

2) A website that accesses all sorority/fraternity philanthropic services. Every Sorority and Fraternity has a philanthropy, which is the act of donating money, goods, time, or effort to support a charitable cause. A website would access all of the different philanthropies and different ways to donate to them.

 Does anyone have other ideas to stem from these and if not how do these sound. Can they help change the world?

“Action/Reaction”

I read chapter two: “Action/Reaction” of Becoming a Digital Designer. This chapter not only describes Steven Heller and David Womack’s definition and meaning of interactive design, but it also looks at the basic concepts of using technology, which to me was very intriguing and even enlightening at some points.

I always tagged the term interactive design with animation, programs like Flash, and various other programs used to create interactive websites everywhere. Never once did I think that thirty-six flowers that lit up a street in New York City were considered interactive design.

In the beginning paragraphs of chapter two, a story is told of interactive design in a very unique way. Large, five-foot tall, blue neon flowers lit up as people walked by 5th Ave New York. It was as if the flowers were following them. This design was greatly noticed and in a way almost impossible to go unnoticed.

I found this story to be a very interesting way to start out a chapter about interactive design. It gave a great example of one of the million different types of interactive design. As programs change and technology advances there will always be something that stops people in their tracts in amazement; it is our job as designers to create these break-throughs and let people realize there is always something more. The moment a new break-through is made in some brand of technology it is copied infinite times by every other competing brand until the next brands creates something better. There is never one solution to anything, but there is always a great solution to something.

This middle section of the Chapter, known as “Characteristic that Define Interactions” is very interesting and uniquely defined. Obviously if one were to look up any of these terms in a dictionary they would not find these definitions that Heller and Womack give standing next to the term. Instead, the authors of Becoming a Digital Designer, give their own enlightening descriptions. For example their definition of Causality is, “the relationship between what you do and how the object or system responds. In the case of the Power Flowers, it took a while for people to realize that they were causing an effect, and that element of surprise is part of what made the project work.”

Now, in my opinion, I thought these definitions are a bit vague to the audience of college students and maybe more understandable to experienced designers. However, I do not believe I would understand the main point of these definitions without the reference to the beginning story of the flowers.

The most interesting and useful definition, to my self at least, was Repeatability, which was defined in a very personal manner. The definition starts with “If you learn how to do something once, you should be able to do it the same way again.” One may learn a program and every single detail and shortcut to it, but what does that do for the designer when a new program, a more technologically advanced and improved program overrides the old? The answer is nothing. The only thing that can come out of the old programs are the basics and standards they have. It is more important to understand the basics/principles than to know the details of the constantly-changing programs.

Besides the definitions, I do enjoy the random break-ups within the definitions. The small sections in blue located at the bottom of one page and the side of the opposite, facing page, titled: “Telling Stories: All Abuzz” and “Retro Tech” also prove very interesting points.

In the first section in blue, “Telling Stories: All Abuzz” a great point is made when Heller and Womack prove that designers have truly become their own storyteller and author. With the creation of the internet and digital tools there has been a complete change in the standards of design, “some for the better, but not all-so why not accept that it’s changed the definition of designer? The designer as a storyteller extending the idea of the designer as author, is one of the great attributes of the new media revolution,” quote the authors of Becoming a Digital Designer.

This chapter ends in the encouraging story of two graduated college students exploring the real world of design in their own way and finding themselves as designers and as human beings along the way. One of these college students said, “there is no absolute truth to design” I would have to agree- there is no wrong or right answer to design, nothing is made on accident, and I cannot control everything. Design is messy and there is no real truth to it.