Color transforming a single design

for this blog, i want to compare different types of photography. in particular, i want to compare and contrast black and white to color photography.
in Alber's book, the interaction of colors, he stated that color photography deviates still more from eye vision than black and white photography. blue and red are overemphasized to such an extent that their brightness is exaggerated.though this may flatter public taste, the result is a loss in finer nuances and in delicate relationships. white rarely appear white but usually look greenish. 

more commonly we see color photography than black and white today. there are options in our cameras or our cell phones where we can change the setting to black and white and enjoy the antique feeling of the photography, but typically, color photo is the way to go for just about anything.

as Albers states, color photography deviates from the eyes more than black and white. it captures the image the way it exactly the way it is, which gives the viewers a sense of feeling as if they were at the setting where the photography was taken. Color does transform a single design. it gives a sense of realism, attracts our eyes, and allows for the viewers to analyze and have a sense of expectation of the meaning that the photographer is trying to send to the viewers.
the picture above of eiffle tower is in black and white and portrays different shadows from light to dark. it is clear to see the lighting in the tower and know what to expect, but its also dull in our eyes as well.

here is a color version of eifffle tower.  with the same setting and same angle, our eye is automatically attracted to the tower with the dark background contributing to our eyes.
without color, the feeling and the meaning of the picture can be lost.

Missiles: Dangerous Design

picture from: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRGi4otfzFmGiah3cz4dzsdBiYMPZD-ChzKcnciZHhxL3u1j0o

            There are designs that are made to support us to live an easier and less complicated life and there are designs that are designed to cause hatred and trouble.
            Some of our current events today are related to how some designs in our society can lead to dangerous situations. On November 23rd, North Korea attacked South Korea with over hundred missiles. It was much uncalled attack and wasn’t expected by South Koreans at all. These missiles used in the attack of South Korean island were designed to destroy homes and military bases.
            Missiles are an important object in the modern warfare. Missiles are able to allow military to attack in long distances, target precisely and cause a huge level of destruction. The process of missile design follows these components: size, drive, type, guidance systems and warhead. The size of the missile design determines amount of explosive component and destructive level that one missile can carry, the drive determines the length that a missile can be shot to attack and guidance systems can guide where the missile is headed and control over them. The bigger the missiles are, the stronger it is. Missiles are mass-produced object of industrial design in many countries today. For example, North Korea is known to produce mass amount of nuclear weapons, which puts our world in fear and causes hatred between countries.
            Missiles and nuclear weapons are form of designs that are used for defense and attack purposes in our society today. These are some of the designs that are dangerous and harmful to our society. Missiles are made to destroy cities at a time, killing hundreds and thousands of people even. It makes it dangerous with its explosiveness and harmful material used to make the missile itself. Missile designs aren’t exactly the first thing that comes to our mind when we think of the term, ‘design.’ But missiles in fact go through multiple levels of designing and careful testing in order to make sure it fulfills its purpose of destroying objects.
Here are some of the examples of missile designs I have found on this website about missile design:  http://homepage.mac.com/cheethorne/Palladium/missiles.htm#design

·  Anti-Armor Missile:

Anti-Armor missiles are designed to be used against heavily armored vehicles, such as tanks and large robot vehicles, at relatively close range. As such, they have a larger warhead section and a considerably smaller engine section. Many groups throughout the megaverse use this missile design with their armed forces.

• Missile Size: Short Range Missile, Medium Range Missile, and Long Range Missile.
• Missile Drive: Any
• Missile Type: Air-to-Ground, Multipurpose, or Surface-to-Surface only
• Missile Guidance Systems: Any
• Missile Warhead: Any
• Modifiers: Increase warhead strength by 25% and Weapon Rating by +1, but decrease range by 50%.
• Cost Modifier: Increase the cost of the missile by +10%.

·  General Purpose Missile:

All missiles must have a design and for many groups, simply have a missile is enough; such groups use the general purpose missile design, which provides no modifications to missile's basic package.

• Missile Size: Any
• Missile Drive: Any
• Missile Type: Any
• Missile Guidance Systems: Any
• Missile Warhead: Any
• Modifiers: None
• Cost Modifier: None

There are several hundred of different types of missiles that are available in our society today. In a semi-reliable source Wikipedia, this list of missiles can be seen. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missiles)

picture from: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2010/11/23/1290515107842/smoke-plumes-Yeonpyeong-i-007.jpg

            Why are missiles designed in the first place? Our society has developed into a place where power portrays a symbol of importance. In order to gain power, missiles are used by countries and their military to attack the weaker ones. The dangers caused by missiles are completely intentional at all times unless it was told that it was an accident. There are hundreds of various designs for missiles and even though the world may seem peaceful today, anything dangerous can happen due to these designs, like how it happened to Korea just a couple days ago.
            In conclusion, the purpose of missiles and its design does cause danger to our world and our society has developed into a place where design can’t be just used to create convenience and happiness for our society.

Brita: Utopia

Water filters

Its so easy to buy a plastic bottle of water and carry it around at your convenience. But water bottle is one of the objects that destroy our environment. The design of water bottle is very unique and convenient for our hands and it just fits everywhere, from bags to car drink holders. But in order to reduce the usage of water bottle usage, its easy to see water filters being installed at homes and usage of Brita water filters. Brita is very common amongst families and students. Just by adding tap water to the filter, the water is filtered and we are able to enjoy fresh water in matter of minutes. Without spending lot of money each month to purchase the heavy water bottle packages, Brita saves money and the environment. it just looks like a jug in a kitchen, but its very convenient, light, easy to carry and easy to use. This design is a definition of utopian because its helping the society by giving clean water to everyone and reducing the number of people purchasing bottled water. In addition, by having filtered clean water at home, more people can purchase the tin can bottle to fill up with water and re-use it to save the environment as well. Water bottle cans are known to save the amount of water bottle purchases as well, but with Brita on its side, its impact on society is greater.

Skullcandy Headphones

We love to listen to music, dance to music, sing along to music and sometimes even rocking out to music. there are SO many genres of music that we like and every individual has their own unique taste in music and preferred style of music. today, music has became a huge part of everyone's lives since its surrounding us all the time. for example, music can be heard while driving on the radio, from a Ipod, or a mp3 player, CD, cassette tape and many other ways. in addition, we can listen to music through our computers, as well as music systems at our homes.
lets take a look at a important object that is one of the most important object in relation to music:
Headphones

headphones is essential object that is necessary for each and every individual to have in order to not disturb others as well as to be captured in our own world filled with joy, happiness, sadness while listening to the song thats suitable to the mood you are in. headphone gives a sense of comfort where each individual has their own privacy without being judged by what type of music they are listening to.

today, there are so many different types of headphones out in public that are available to us. i mean there are of course, regular headphones that comes with the purchase of a Ipod, just like this one

 

and there are headphones like THIS  

one of the most popular components in music for many younger generation is how LOUD the music is, and how bumpin the music is by determining how much bass there is in the music itself. sometimes, the bass can enhance the favoritism of a music to an individual too. 

skull candy is one of the most widely known and popular headphones that young people use today. it has its own uniqueness with its design and color incorporated to the headphones.one of the ways many people are attracted to skullcandy headphones is because of their unique design and wild colors that gives a sense of visual hierarchy like atttraction. with its aesthetic  features, it attracts costumers. 

there are earplug headphones like this one

and there are other types of headphones like the one shown previously to this picture. one of the main features that skullcandy provides is the ear plugs that fit perfectly to your ears, in a deeper position than regular headphones may allow.it gives a sense of comfort because typically what happens with the typical earplug headphones is that it will fall out because it isnt made to perfectly fit all the way in your ears. in addition, skull kandy is  also  known for their bass feature in their headphones as well.

the performance level of the headphones is very amazing. it feels as if the music is drilled into your head and you are in another world and out of the zone.

in the aspect of safety,  these headphones are not the best choice. many young people today are already proven by many studies are deaf in partial ways due to listening to music with high bass and in loud volume level.

Visual Hierarchy

visual hierarchy,
its a process that we, as individuals engage in our everyday lives. its a process where it is used in page designs to help the viewer process the information. when we view a specific page design or any design, there is one part or specific area that usually grabs our attention. it can be described more specifically as the order that most people will see and identify objects
the way visual hierarchy works is the automatic focus that your eye catches onto due to the standing out color, or bigger. with the usage of bright colors, its easier to notice and focus all attention to that right away. in addition, bigger font or the size of the font grabs attention and stands out as well. after being noticed in the beginning, it becomes a smaller and less noticeable thing as the viewer moves on to the smaller details in the page. the objective of visual hiearchy is to attract the viewer's attention, but lead onto more important facts and details and bypassing the attention grabber. graphic designers usually use and incorporate the aspects of size, color, contrast, texture, shape and position as the techinque.

here is an example of a vitamin water ad that serves as a visual hierarchy example

It has great visual hierarchy. i can see the color, the description of what the drinks are called, find out what flavor it is, and stories about the drink for few. the color is the first thing that attracts our attention, it leads onto the other drinks following the first one on the left and onto the description part. 



here is an example of  a visual description of how visual hierarchy works

our eye is attracted to few top materials in the page, followed by additional information and onto the entire page.

in the case of this poster, the name of the special appearance guest is bolded and is extra large compared to other information provided on the poster. that automatically grabs our attention, followed by when the event is also in a slightly less larger font than the name and other information following.

as a designer of page spreads, its natural and a conscious technique to use visual hierarchy

Word and Image Interaction---Google Logo

one of the most commonly used internet search source is Google. just about anything and everything can be found from google, from maps to educational articles that we can use for class.
one of the notable things that we as users bypass most of the time is the unique logos that google creates on regular basis along with different styles of logos for different holidays.

using the word "Google," their company name, they create a unique interaction of word and unique images to create many unique logos.
here is an example of one of their Martin Luther King Jr. day  logo that was presented to the public in the year 2009.

(copyright google)

here is another example for new years logo they created in 2009

for any special occasions or holidays, just a way of celebrating the world and embracing other cultures, google uses their designs in combination with the words in their trademark logo to create these logos.
the word interact with image very well in ways of spelling out the logo,  (allowing the audience to know the name and the logo and the site very well) but spreading the meaning, idea and the concept of the day they wish to share with the world.

Word and Image Interaction in Nike Ads

Word and Image Interaction in Nike Ads
One of the most widely known sports merchandise company today is Nike. Nike is a huge market itself creating various merchandises from tennis shoes to golf clubs and many more with its trademark logo in every product. In addition, they are sponsoring basically majority of major athletes from each field, which includes Tiger Woods in golf, and Michelle Wie in LPGA. Nike is best known for its unique and simple symbol that is recognized by everyone around the world. its one of the most widely known symbol and its trademark saying, ‘just do it.’ those three words are crucial to Nike and its success because of the way it interacts with the symbol (Nike logo) in its ads.
Its typical to see Nike logo on a plain black background with the logo and saying in the middle in white. Its extremely simple, yet it catches our attention and it stays in our heads.

who knew just three words can be such a strong and motivational saying?

Logos

From businesses to a government to a country, there is a symbol that represents each group that represents them even without any type of word or saying attached to it. These things are called logos.
Logos are a huge part of everyone’s lives. It’s a way of understanding our surroundings with a common understanding with others. Logos are symbols that have a meaning attached to it. for example, the apple logo, it may just look like just a plain apple with a part of it gone on the side, but its widely understood as the symbol and logo for Apple company.

These logos are designed to establish a understanding amongst people to get a company well known by others for businesses. Without any additional summary or words attached to it, a logo can allow the consumers and audiences to understand the meaning of the business and what they are about. More commonly, governments and countries have their own symbol and logos as well. For example, for United States police, its logo usually has a seven point star. This star symbol can be seen just about anywhere across united states on police cars, badges, offices, papers, and a lot more. In addition, a logo for the country is known as a flag.
A flag is to symbolize a country in its own unique way with different colors and designs and history. An example would be American Flag. Our flag represents many different things and contains rich history behind it. It’s America’s logo and way of representing the first thirteen colonies, our fifty states and the three colors, red, white and blue that we represent as a country.

Why is the logo design so crucial in our society?
The way logo is designed is the way we understand the world. Each logo has a meaning, history, symbol attached to it which allows us to understand the world in much simpler form. Like the examples I’ve given above, flag for the country, without the unique design of the flag, we wouldn’t be able to recognize which country is which just by hearing the word or the name of it. Along with the word and the name, we automatically think of a logo or a symbol that represents that word which makes the connection and reaches its understanding point.
Without logos for various organizations and people and country, understanding the world would be much complicated.

Objectified

for design 001 on thursday, we watched a documentary objectified. this documentary titled, OBJECTIFIED BY Gary Huswit is one of the most interesting and successful documentary where the form of the film is very well in interaction with its content. the documentary is about the complex relationship we have, as human beings with manufactured objects and the people who designed them.  objectified had a unique beginning where it shows people's hand and their days as designers. one of the important message that i got from the film was that we take things for granted. there are so many uniquely designed objects that are part of our daily lives like plates, pans, utensils, post-its, but we arent consicously really aware of the fact about how each of these objects were actually designed.  these objects are created for our daily purpose, part of daily routines and it becomes so natural in our lives. its created for us to use without any sort of thinking or hard work trying to learn how to use them, it just becomes natural. the natural reaction we get from the objects is the goal that each designer focuses on to make sure their design becomes useful in daily lives of everyone.  in addition, the film talked about the meanings we put to inanimate objects, for example, like a magnet that symbolizes your family.

Lower Thirds

When we're watching a show on the television, whether it is a tv show or a local news, we see the lower thirds on the bottom part of the screen telling us what channel we're watching, the description of the show we're watching and the information we need to know while watching the certain show. even from a youtube channel, its easy to see the lower thirds being used to credit an event or certain individual with its unique design.


Lower third is a graphic that is placed in the lower part of the screen in the broadcasting television shows. particularly in america, along with many other countries, lower third is a uniquely designed graphic that is commonly used in formal news or any other type of television shows to credit the show and different individuals. they may also appear in documentaries as well to describe the show and give the viewers more in depth definition or meaning to the scene they are viewing. 


lower thirds are one of the most common design that is used in the broadcasting society. we usually just bypass lower thirds often. its is so common that even though our eyes automatically end up seeing these graphics, we often dont realize what it is called or the type of design that is used to create this graphic.

here is an example of lower third from a CNN news coverage. CNN news coverage
in this lower third, it is describing the protest at UC Davis and in the bottom section of the coverage it states
"ireporter at university protests" in the navy blue background lower third at the bottom of the screen.
lower third is usually created to attract the readers to the bottom of the screen to give more information. the style and the design of lower third is different across many different videos throughout the media field.
here is another example of a youtube reporter who created her own lower third for her youtube show.
nickisun
she used her personal logo along with transparent white and red combined with some yellow to attract the audience as well. nicki is using the social media to use her personal lower thirds to allow viewers to see her work of reporting in various fields.

there are many different lower third designs that we see on daily basis.  but most of the time these lower thirds go unnoticed. in order to design and create this lower thirds, a countless hour of designing with adobe photoshop, along with final cut pro and adobe illustrator is required.

Ipod: mass-produced object of industrial design

one of the most common mass produced object that can be seen today is Apple products.
Apple is presenting our society with many different types of electronics, including Mac computers, laptops,iPod (nano, shuffle, touch, etc) and many more. its really common to see people with apple products just about anywhere we go.
industrial design is a combination of applied art and science. the designer of industrial design is creating a unique design that creates solution towards problems of form, sales, and usability.


iPod is becoming one of the necessities that everyone must have today. music is a huge part of many people's lives that importance of ipod became much greater.  from hip hop to michael Jackson, from r&b to Beatles, all the genres of music create the necessity of a portable music player. Ipod is transforming the lifestyles of people.

on october 23, 2001, ipod launched their first portable media player, iPod. this industrial design created by Apple soon became one of the mass produced object of industrial design. 

today, there are many different generations of each iPod designs, which includes video and recording as part of its functions. ipod is definitely one o f mass produced object. its a way of describing social media, where it becomes an instant conversation and communication topic between people, its functions definitely connects people with one another. also this is a form of visiual marketing as well with its ads on tv and internet.

Visual marketing for Ipod: ipod has its own unique commercials that attracts the audience to become a consumer of Apple. here is an example of a commercial for an ipod http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHUz99l-eo


<sup>with the silhouette of people dancing with the ear plugs and a ipod, it portrays a visual marketing idea of the importance of music in our lives, which attracts consumers to buy the product. 


another aspect we can look at is the various colors and shape that the iPod is designed with.</sup> 

<sup>iPod Nano for example gives the convenience of having a smaller portable music player that is made very thin and colorful. the color and its size attracts the consumers. also the function of a nano is same as a regular ipod with less music storage space, which makes it even better. this is a example of visual marketing where the designer used its design and color to attract the consumers to buy the product. 




in conclusion, ipod  is definitely one of the most widely known mass produced object of industrial design with its amazing storage amount of music and its numerous functions and colors to attract the consumers.</sup>

Design as conversation : duck tape

Urban Dictionary:

	duck tape
	A multi-purpose, strong adhesive tape which will bind just about anything together, well-known for it's durability. Common uses include: -Taping people's mouths shut. -Binding people's hands and feet together.          Duck tape is known as a tool or an object we use to tape things like boxes and papers together. But duck tape is more than just a tool, its a design.  along with the classic duck tape colors, clear, black and grey, there are creative colored duck tapes today such as hot pink, blue, turquoise and even leopard print duck tapes.          Amongst college students, duck tape has been the number one object for themed parties like anything but clothes party.  With duck tape, basically any type of clothing item can be created. vanessa jeanhttp://www.vanessajean.com/ for designers, duck tape became an object of creativity and remarkable ideas. here is an example of duck tape designer i have found: Vanessa Jean. Vanessa Jean is one of the notable duck tape designers. She creates variety of duck tape works, including a belt for male, purses and cute wallets for females. Her passion for duck tape is very strong and she spends time creating these unique designs and created her own business website just based on a duck tape. Repetition is the key to creation of duck tape designs. Duck tape is  a polyethylene, reinforced, multi-purpose pressure sensitive tape with a soft and flexible shell and pressure sensitive adhesive. Even though its reinforced, its not thick enough to function as any material type of object (purse, wallet etc.) so repetition is the key. When designing for a duck taped designed object, wrapping around the same spot continuously to get the thickness is important. With thickness from continuation of duck tape rapping, it is possible to get the sturdiness and more realistic form of it. Duck tape design is one of the best ways to carry a conversation. Duck tape is so common, yet so random that any type of design created with it can carry a long conversation. The color, the shape, and the realistic features that the design carries resembling the actual object (like t-shirt, purse, etc) can create a laughter and interest amongst people.

Unity

In one of our lectures for Des 001, Professor Housefield mentioned an amazing work that received a nobel prize this year. It is called Graphene, a one atom thick sheet by Hanns- Peter Boehm. Graphene is made out with combination of graphite and graphene together. Its made out of carbon atoms and their bonds and its one atom thick sheet.

In our discussion about graphene, HF mentioned that from doing the stone soup experiment, these men were able to create this remarkable object and earned their title as nobel prize winners. Reflecting on the stone soup experiment done in class, it was basically the most amazing experience. design is definitely something that exist anywhere with any combination of objects and ideas.

Design is all about unity, congruity or agreement among elements in design and harmony, which has a similar idea as unity. Graphene is definitely an example of Unity. the combination of carbon atoms and their bonds form a unity and created a unique sheet.

 another example of Unity is Van Gogh.

van gogh is a well known arists who was well concerned with unity amongst his paintings. a great example of unity in his work is starry nights.

in this painting, his combination of colors are in a unity form in the surface to make sure the audience gets the feeling of unity while viewing the picture. the brush strokes as well is well lined which makes it more unified as one.

overall, unity is  something that is crucial in design and without its existence.

then and now

I am a magazine spread designer. May be the title of being a graphic designer would suit my position better. For last six months, I’ve been working as a magazine spread designer for a Korean American magazine called, Dong Po Journal. My job as a designer is to create colorful spreads with pictures and variety of colors to attract the readers. Ever since I’ve got this job, I spend countless hours researching and studying other magazine covers and designs. That’s where I came across my topic for this blog, past and the present.

My personal favorite magazine is Vogue.  Its intriguing with infinite amounts of gorgeous women filling up each page, especially with the cover of the magazine each month. Vogue has been around for a long period of time and is still standing as one of the top fashion design magazines in the world.

Here is an example of Vogue, 1960.

Vogue features models and  celebrities in their cover each month with intriguing beauty by their models. Back in 1960s, as you can see in the picture, women were portrayed for their beauty and their feministic quality rather than the sexual appeal that the cover portrays today.

Here is an example of Vogue, 2010.

website

the vogue cover today portrays more of the sexual appeal from the models in the cover. In order to attract the readers to read the magazine today, various tactics have been used. if we were to compare the four magazine examples shown above, couple of changes can be seen. first, the color of the magazine cover to attract the readers have changed. the bright astonishing colors in the magazine can be seen today.
second, women are a lot more conservative in the covers for 1960s compared to today. the so called "sex-appeal" attracts the readers more today. lastly, the size of the texts in the cover has changed as well. with more vibrant color, larger sized words, definitely attracts the readers to build their interest.

the similarities between the the two eras is that the style of the title remained the same, which shows the originality of the magazine for a long period of time.

creativity from without

In Design 001 lecture, we talked about Andy Goldsworthy and his creative works. there are many artists and designers who can create a master piece of work from without, but i couldnt think of anyone better for this perspective than Andy Goldsworthy.

in our class, we watched two short clips of his works by using garlic leaves and him laying down in the pouring rain and creating a unique piece of art work from scratch.

Andy Goldsworthy is a sculptor, photographer and a environmentalist and his specialty is creating works in natural and urban settings. he uses natural and found objects to create unique and temporary piece of art work. just by going off of the materials in the nature, basically from without, he creates these amazing works that inspires other artists. He uses leaves, flowers, mud, pinecones, snow, rain, and other natural materials.

photography plays a crucial role in his art work since his works are natural and are temporary. capturing the work at the moment it was created is crucial because it captures all the color, design, and uniqueness for others to see.

design is something that can be created from nothing. like the "stone soup" experiment we did in our class, by putting unknown ingredients together, we created a work of art that combined everyone's creativity together. Andy Goldsworthy is definitely a best example of an artist who uses stone soup method everyday of his life and creating inspirational work from without.

the meanings behind

After the stone soup experiment, i wanted to search more deeply about the meanings that different designs carry. there are many art works that carries a deeper meaning, from love to a art work that tells a story. design is definitely something that can be interpreted in many different ways. by analyzing and studying these works, we're able to understand the work as well as the world in a better view.

one of the example that i found  was lady gaga's meat dress from VMAs this year.
Lets look at her outfit and interpret her meaning behind her outfit concept. she quotes on the Ellen DeGeneres show that the meaning behind her costume was tied to her protest against U.S. military's Dont ask, Dont tell policy toward gay soldiers. Lady gaga is known to be very out of the ordinary and has sort of weird sense of style. but this is a great example because the design of her dress is carrying a deeper meaning that she wishes to spread out to the public.

as designers, creating a work requires a lot of creativity and different perspectives. each individual has their own way of viewing things, which leads to every design having a unique meanings behind it.  i think thats what makes designers more special and important. without the meanings behind the design works, it may be harder to understand the world.

so overall, design is really important part of our lives and it helps us to live a better life and makes everything more simpler and our life more richer.