The Contextual studies section at uni has changed this year. This blog, as well as where I keep track of any creative progress (not sure how much has been made, but yeah ><), is also where I kept up summer illustration brief for my course. Now, it's also contextual studies work. So any time I begin a post with 'DD2000', it will entail reviews of design related shows, videos, modern illustrators, so on. Just a warning.
Design Discourse: Review 2 talks by contemporary practioners based on talks or interviews on the following websites or blogs. 600 words total.
Okayyyyy
I found this after I saw a Stefan Sagmeister video on gestalten.tv, and searched the short film director who made it. Hillman Curtis has made a series of short films called 'the artist series' and naturally this one caught my eye :) I thought it was great, because of the informal way the illustrators (Christoph Niemann, Steve Brodner, Viktor Koen and Robert Grossman) talk mainly to each other in an informal way, as colleagues and friends, and also talk to the camera as if were a member of the group. The kitchen, the bagels, the piano music in the background, set a very relaxed atmosphere. But behind all that atmosphere, the transitions and text made it structured and informative. It was like Q&A without a trace of being authoritative or pretentious. Not that was what said was pretentious at all. They firstly covered the experience of working with famous art director Steve Heller. That was different but interesting as an aspiring illustrator, to hear professionals talk not about the process but the little things, like observations about his style of interviewing and working, things you only know from experience. The discussion also turned to illustration as a way of changing attitudes, and the very natural occurance of disagreement arose. It is unusual to have that in a presentation, granted, but in this setting you just kind of listen to the two opinions and take both into account. The part where they chatted about life as an editorial illustrator was very relevant topic for me. It is clearly not an example of a prepared presentation, like my next choice. It's essentially a selection of clips from a recording of four people at breakfast. But the title 'Four Illustrators' suggests nothing more. And I found the style of the short film to be just as beneficial to design students, and much more enjoyable, than a presentation regarding one set topic.
Richard Seymour's lecture on the formula behind beauty in design is from TED Talks, and personally I loved it :) In this video Seymour is intriguing and yet calming to listen to and funny, two things which I think makes a great public speaker.
I loved the part where he showed a child's drawing, then asked the audience whether the context behind it - it was the last ever drawing by a child who died of cancer - made it more beautiful. It was moving, though honestly a better question for it to answer would've been whether the context made the drawing more valuable, since at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a talk about design. In the same way, he describes how we find ballet more beautiful when we realise how much pain goes into practice and performance, and how technology such as motorbikes are more beautiful as we understand the maker, how it's made and what makes it special. BUT as Seymour acknowledges later, designers are working to attract consumers to their product out of millions of products in our daily lives. In this day and age we make our selections in a 'matter of milliseconds', in which context is either ignored or has to be known prior. So talking about the relevance of context behind beauty is really not very relevant to those working as designers. In this way, the parts in which Seymour brought up the idea of association (e.g. how we associate the fading out lights in BMW cars with the excitement of cinema, which makes us keener on it) was very interesting, and also the idea of symmetry (he refers to an experiment conducted testing whether symmetrical features are truly 'more beautiful' that a beautiful asymmetrical face) was something I thought was a useful question for design students like myself to hear discussed.
Whichhhhh brings both these to over 600 words.
At home home, just listening to Secret & Whisper, and my dad struggling to fix the kitchen tap. Finished my editorial work for Friday and persevered with the drawing elective before, so with all this progress made I feel justified in chilling with tea, pointless sketching and reading more 1Q84. New work to follow. Um...that'll be all :)
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