Don't say "green"

As part of a lecture on sustainability in design given on November 18th at the UC Davis campus, Nathan Shedroff warned those in attendance not to use the term “green” when pitching sustainable design ideas to people in business.

“It’s an impediment to the conversation,” said Shedroff.

He presented the image of a bulls-eye to illustrate the relatedness of financial, social and ecological capital. It was like a ven diagram: the financial circle nested inside the social circle, both nested inside the green ecological circle.

What happens when you say “green”? Shedroff clicked to the next slide, where the green ecological circle eclipsed the other two inner circles. People only think of ecology when the term “green” is used. It’s harder to keep your clients’ minds on the benefits of financial and social sustainability, which is what one must do to convince people to fund your design.

Shedroff offered very useful, concrete advice on form: make sure you use terms that don’t obscure vital content, so your concept can be well-received.

On my Christmas wish list...

In the film Objectified, a designer for Apple computers talks about Apple’s design strategy as “getting design out of the way.” He said that the finished product should feel UNDESIGNED. The user would ask themselves, why would this product be any other way?

He uses the example of the iPhone. The product is all “about” the screen: taking pictures, watching video, and touching the screen to manipulate graphics to use the phone. So, the form of the product is basically a framed screen. Form follows content so closely, that it seems totally intuitive. Why would they design it any other way?

Wired

Diana Dich is an 18-year-old Sacramento native who makes portraits with wire. I can’t decide whether to call them “drawings” or “sculpture” because her work seems to balance on a tightrope between the two.

Her artwork has an engaging haptic element to it. The physical line of the wire is far more engaging than a drawn line on paper. When no one was looking, I couldn’t help myself and slightly pressed one of the portraits’ noses in, then released and watched it spring back, causing the piece to dance on the wall for a few moments.

The shadow cast on the wall behind the portrait is a –perhaps unintentional, but nevertheless interesting- element of this type of artwork.

When I found out her name and did a google search, I found a wire working website with a mini-bio on Dich. The bio said she thought her creations weren’t that great until she started hearing compliments from strangers. So, when I found her myspace I decided to send her a quick note from a stranger (me). Hopefully the power of social media can encourage her to cultivate her craft!

Seasonal colors in my Facebook picture

Many people I know use facebook to communicate with friends and colleagues and stay abreast of the goings-on in their communities. Facebook is also an online presence for people, a place to make a representation of one’s self and share it.

Pictures on facebook tell other users much more than merely what one looks like. It’s also a mode of communication about the user’s personality and style. It’s a statement (even if you don’t realize it when you’re doing it) about how you think you fit into a bigger context.

I chose this picture of myself hugging a huge pumpkin for my most recent facebook profile picture because it reflects the season and some of the quirkiness of my personality. I think the color in the photo is attention grabbing and interesting, because the value saturation of my blue sweatshirt more or less matches that of the orange on the pumpkin. Also, the orange and blue are side-by-side complements and increase each others’ intensity, creating an eye-catching juxtaposition.

Iconography in Telephone Pictionary

In an earlier post I explained the rules of the game Telephone Pictionary. After spending some time staring at the segments from one of the games that I posted on my refrigerator door, I realized that, in Telephone Pictionary, meanings tend to skew towards ideas that are easily conveyed with well-recognized images.

In one segment, the semi-nonsensical phrase “DANKY HOLIDAY QUESADILLA” turned into the phrase “Phantom Pizza Christmas” because the Christmas tree was used as an image after the first turn and it survived a couple translations. A Christmas tree is a potent symbol.

When successful translation occurs, it points to the fact that the players are part of a shared visual culture.

In another segment, the ad slogan “Great Cheese Comes from Happy Cows, Happy Cows Come from California” is translated successfully from word to image, back to word, because all of the players were familiar with that TV ad campaign from a few years ago.

Somewhat unsettling is the fact that even if we want to think of ourselves as media-savvy and less susceptible to mass marketing strategies, we still communicated with each other successfully BASED ON our shared knowledge and memory of that ad campaign. It got to us!

Nelson Gallery Quilt Exhibit

Right now at the Nelson Gallery there is an exhibit of folk quilts. I visited the exhibit and saw a large quilt there that was made entirely of small pinwheel circles of cloth delicately sewn together to create a vast rectangle that looked almost like a huge doily. That piece in particular reminded me of a similar project that I’ve done.

The quilt maker (or makers) composed the elements of the design in such a way as to give a visual rhythm to the piece. The pinwheels are all the same shape and size, but they are made out of various colors of fabric and arranged in a predictable pattern of large blocks of light wheels framed by a grid of purple pinwheels.

The repetition of the pinwheel element and the tedious effort it must have taken to complete this quilt struck me. I was reminded of a project that I made, a hammock woven out of plastic grocery bags. Both forms used a “folk” mode of production – using what’s on hand as the source material. In both cases the material was on its second (or third) use. According to the placard next to the quilt, scrap fabric was used.

The chicken coop saga continues…

In an earlier post I described my conundrum with the roof of my chicken coop falling down during a storm. Even though the structure failed, I still felt a sense of progress in my development of coop-building skills. Recently I undertook the task of rebuilding the coop in a manner that was more respectful of the powers of rain to warp wood and bring things crashing down. But, unfortunately, the coop saga isn’t over yet.

I used part of the old frame of the first coop to prop up the new structure, but I improved on the roof by halving its size and reinforcing it with narrow boards to prevent the roof from bowing with moisture. Taking note of my chickens’ preference to roost off of the ground at night, I built a raised platform under the roof. I also added a hinged door to the front of the coop (with a latch) for easier access to the chickens and their eggs. To cover the area that the new, smaller roof didn’t enclose, I put up a tarp.

The day after I finished the new construction, it rained. The chickens looked cozy on their platform under their roof (which totally held up!). Smart One, my favorite chicken, laid an egg on the platform the next morning. I lifted the shiny new latch on the door and swaggered in to retrieve it. I was proud of myself.

And then the wind picked up.

The tarp that I hastily zip-tied down flew off of its supports in the wind. The most adventurous of my chickens (Roberta, the troublemaker) managed to flap out of the coop, on to my newly-improved roof. Her less adventurous counterparts followed suit, and the next thing I knew I was coming home from work and there were four chickens perched high in the tree next to the coop. The next morning they came down out of the tree on the opposite side of the fence, and according to my next door neighbor, somebody laid an egg in the bushes in his driveway. How embarrassing.

It seems that my chickens still prefer the setup that mother nature provided, but I have ways of catching up. The next coop improvement will involve the construction of a nesting box, and the addition of perch bars made out of a tree branch that fell into the backyard during the same winds that blew the tarp off.