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.

Perler Bead Pixels

My friend Randi Famula made these cool coasters. They’re two kinds of nostalgia fused into one design, like so many tiny plastic cylinders under the hot iron of Randi’s creativity.

First of all: the subject. Nintendo characters from a version of Mario that was introduced in the time of our childhood. Sure, I’m only in my mid-twenties, but it’s not too early to yearn to recreate images from my innocent, idealized past, right? Does anyone else know the Greek etymology of the word “design”?

Secondly, and my favorite: the medium. Randi chose Perler Beads, a craft that many of my cohorts probably remember from around the time they were getting acquainted with those Nintendo characters. (Back in my single-digit days, I cranked out many a Christmas tree ornament with that craft.) In Randi’s design, she used the beads to impersonate the pixeled appearance of the characters on the clunky old game systems. The outcome is a design that looks more like the characters as we remember playing with them than how they’re “supposed” to look (say, for example, as they would be drawn). The clunky pixels, which were probably considered by the game designers to be the outcome of the constraint of not-yet-advanced-enough graphics technology, are actually lovingly reproduced and remembered here.

I can’t help but wonder what present-day design constraints are going to be fondly recalled in fifteen years by today’s little kids.

KDVS Sign Repurposing: rolling with the punches

sad kdvs sign
Originally uploaded by like radium

When I first moved in to my house, a giant upside-down KDVS billboard dwelled in the back patio. I liked it there, because it was good for blocking the autumn breeze when you were hanging out back there, and it served as a sturdy structure to lean your bike against.

Its original purpose, though, was a tad more grandiose. It was constructed with the intention of posting it next to Interstate 80, so passing drivers might take notice and tune in to some great, freeform non-commercial community radio. My roommate Elisa, who was at the time KDVS’ publicity director, told me the sad story of its ill-fated conception. According to her (if I remember this correctly), once all of the resources were collected and the manpower was organized, and they finally completed it, someone realized that the regulations for posting signs next to the freeway were such that they would not be allowed to erect it there, and they would expose the radio station to citations if they went ahead with their plan.

So the sign resigned to live upside-down in our patio for a while. Four heavy cement feet, originally made to prop the structure up, kept the sign company.

But Elisa is a creative one, and a good design thinker. She rolled with the punches. A few months after I moved in, when she decided to start hosting live music in our backyard, she gave the sign a new lease on life. We righted it, leaned it against the telephone pole near the back fence, and it served as a nice backdrop to performers. The four cement feet gladly lent themselves to the task of holding up a wooden platform in front of the sign, and we had ourselves a stage.

A Dysfunctional Chicken Coop

It started with an idea. “I want to have chickens!” So I knew I had to build a coop for the dual purpose of keeping the elements off of them and their food, and keeping predators out.

But then, somehow, foolishly, we skipped to the last step of the design process: surface.

“The landlady’s coming over. She said we’ve gotta move the coop to the other corner of the yard so it’s regulation-distance away from the neighbor’s house, but I feel sick today. Let’s just dismantle it, move the pieces over there, and prop it up so it LOOKS OK when she comes over.”

And then it rained. And the roof bowed, and then fell down. And the chickens stood on their muddy feet, all drenched with rainwater.

So now we’re at the roof-fell-down stage in the design process of the chicken coop. Perhaps I’ve learned more about the constraints of the materials I used than I would have if I’d followed someone else’s blueprint and built a sturdy coop the first time around. I’ll be more proficient with a drill than I was before, after building the coop a second time. And I’ll have a better sense of what structural form is more reliable after going through the experience of seeing the old form fail.

Telephone Pictionary

Telephone Pictionary is a game that plays with semiotic slippage using images and words. In the game, a stack of paper is passed around a circle of players. The first player writes a phrase on the first sheet of paper in the stack, then passes the stack to the second player. The second player reads the phrase, flips the first sheet of paper to the back of the stack, and then attempts to pictorially represent that phrase on the second sheet of paper. After the second player is finished drawing, the stack is passed to the third player. The third player must attempt to understand Player 2’s drawing without looking at the original phrase written by the first player. On the third sheet of paper Player 3 writes a new phrase based on Player 2’s drawing. The stack is then passed on to Player 4, who reads Player 3’s phrase, flips to the next sheet of paper, and attempts to pictorially represent Player 3’s phrase. Thus the stack goes around the circle, eventually coming back to the first player. When my friends and I play this game, everybody in the circle starts their own stack and the stacks are always passed at the same time in the same direction, so everyone in the circle is engaged in either drawing, or image-deciphering.

Sometimes the final paper is very similar to the first player’s desired meaning, and sometimes it’s hilariously off the mark. What’s great about this game versus the spoken-word game Telephone is that in Telephone Pictonary there is a record of exactly when and how the misinterpretation took place. You can count back through the sheets of paper and see who misinterpreted whose drawing. (“You thought that was a donkey? I drew a unicorn! See, look at its horn!” “No, to me that looks like a donkey ear!”) It’s fun flipping through the papers and seeing where misinterpretations (based on rushed drawing or misunderstood symbols, or even bad handwriting) take place, and what new direction the stack evolves toward, based on that misinterpretation.

You can imagine a phrase like “no smoking” being easily translated from words into picture, back and forth around the entire circle. Among my friends, a stack that alternates between the cigarette-in-a-circle-with-a-diagonal-line-through-it image and the phrase “no smoking” would be considered a boring outcome. We usually try to come up with less obvious phrases, and sometimes there are players who act as intentional obfuscators for the sake of making things more interesting.

Hello Kitty, How Are You?

hello kitty on a bike, on a nintendo ds
Originally uploaded by like radium

Even though Hello Kitty is not my favorite anthropomorphic cat, when I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday a couple years ago I stuck her on there because I think she's pretty cute.
... Or maybe because, in actuality, I think I'm pretty cute.

Three simple shapes, two dots and an oval, comprise this universally recognizable and highly profitable visage. But when I look at her face, something far less simple is going on.

My brain easily knits together a face out of the three shapes, as it is hardwired to do. But beyond recognition, the act of looking at Hello Kitty’s face also involves transference/transposition. Because her face is so simple, it has a universal quality to it that allows me to more easily identify myself with her. Her lack of a mouth especially allows me to transpose whatever emotion I happen to be feeling on to her, because it doesn’t specify happiness, sadness, or anything. Looking at this mouthless Hello Kitty on her bike, it’s easier to imagine that she feels the same way about riding that bike as I feel about riding my bike. Seeing myself as her, or her as myself, makes me identify with and like her more.

be brave and read about a reusable menstrual cup

It seems to me that the manufacturer of the Diva Cup is hoping ethical considerations will outweigh the potential “gross” factor a consumer might have about a reusable menstrual cup. Because the Diva Cup is a durable, reusable product, the consumer creates less waste when they use it, versus conventional menstrual products.

There is also a claim that the product is potentially less damaging to one’s health than tampons. They say that the material used, silicon, is less reactive with your body’s chemistry than the material used in tampons, which are most often made of bleached cotton.

On a less soapboxy note, I like using this product because it’s cheaper and easier for me to use than tampons.

I paid for this product once, and I get to use it for at least a year. Compared to disposable products, which I have to buy over and over, the Diva Cup is a one-time investment of my meager wages.

And not only did I have to fork over cash for tampons again and again, I also had to remember to fork over cash for them. Shopping lists are not my forte. Neither is leaving the house with all of my essential tools for the day. If I can barely get out of the house with my keys, lunch and notebook in my backpack, I’m lucky if I remember to bring along tampons also. With the Diva Cup this is not a problem, because if I’m on my period I’m already bringing it with me.

By meeting simple day-to-day constraints and appealing to an ethical consideration that I already value, the Diva Cup has found a loyal consumer and Divavangelist in me.

The Artery, and a Handmade Bag

I stopped in to visit a local art gallery called the Artery last Saturday morning. The Artery, located at 207 G Street across from the G Street Pub parking lot, is a cooperative, meaning it is owned and operated by the artists whose work is exhibited.

The Artery has more of the feel of a store than other galleries I’ve visited. Many pieces are tagged with price tags, and most of the art objects in the gallery (like small figurines, or scarves) seem like nice gifts to buy for someone on a special occasion.

My friend Sara Helen Yost is one of the artists who owns and operates the Artery. Her medium is textiles. She makes vests, purses, pillows, and other such objects out of recycled fabrics. She gave me one of her bags as a birthday present.

This bag, like all of Sara Helen’s bags, is made out of fabric that had another purpose in a previous life. That the bag is made of repurposed material gives me satisfaction, because I think it’s clever and ethical to find handsome, functional ways to reuse materials instead of throwing things away after their first use. When I wear the bag I feel a little bit like I’m a small part of a conscious cultural movement away from a disposable paradigm.

Aside from the holier-than-thou attitude I get to cop when I wear the thing, I also happen to simply enjoy looking at it. The earthtone colors, nubby textures, and nature-inspired design of the fabric give it a handmade aesthetic that I like. I also like the addition of the heart, which seems to beckon the viewer to like it. According to Sara, she sews one on to all of her designs as a tribute to her mom, who taught her how to sew.