Last day of class

In class we uploaded all of our pages onto the computer and got them from each other. By the end of class I had a pdf file of my book ready to go to jayhawk ink and print.

Bio and cover page

title page and table of contents

Refined spread

4 page spread

I made 3 versions of my four page spread and designed in based on simplicity. I decided on class on one and am tweaking it to make it better. I kept the text in the red box and placed a few pictures of his work around. I made the text black gray and light gray based on how important it was on the page.

Text Component for book

Dieter Rams is an industrial designer that has made large contributions to the world of design. He has being influential by his ten principles of good design to his recent book titled, Less and more: the design ethos of Dieter Rams. Dieter Rams was born May 20^th, 1932 in Germany and studied architecture at the Werkkunstschule Wiesbaden. Once Rams got on his feet he started working for Braun and became the chief of design there for over thirty years designing products of all kinds. He retired in 1998 but still remains active in the world of design.

The ten principles of good design are based around the “Weniger, aber besser” which means “Less, but better.” The principles explain to designers what to do in order to make a successful design. He makes points regarding innovation, and how since technology is always moving forward there is always room for innovative design. He explains a balance between making something look aesthetically appealing, and still making it a useful product. A design should be simple enough that it reads well with the user and is easily understood. If a design is good enough it will still be around many years to come. He even touches bases on the environment and how design should not end up creating waste. Mostly he explains design as only the essentials and that there should be as little of it as possible.

In Rams retirement, with the help of Gestalten Books, he has worked on and came out with a book, Less and More.  This thick book outlines Ram’s design philosophy with a numerous amount of fascinating designs and sketches by Dieter Rams, most of which from his days with Braun. Rams did a lot of work with audio equipment making record players, radios and other recording devices. He designed household items like a pencil sharpener, coffee makers, calculators, and a computer mouse. Furthermore, he designed furniture like chairs and a beautiful universal shelving unit. Regardless of what Rams was designing its clear he kept his principles and believes in mind every step of the way.

 The simple and understanding designs he created will stay around long after he is gone because they live up to his principles. New designers, and even designers who have been around for a while, can learn for Dieter Rams and can continue to create good design through his teachings. A confused designer having trouble finishing a design can start with Rams belief in less but better and make their way towards ensuring they create a good design.

Book project

The industrial designer i chose for my project is Dieter Rams, I was drawn to him because his work is simple and very effective. He wrote ten principles of good design that i agree with and find very helpful. The class found pictures of our designers works and presented them to the class. One of my favorite pieces i found was this universal shelving unit that can be fully customized and expanded

Process Notebooks due

I was able to complete my process notebook in the lab and am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I turned in my box and process notebook today.

Completed box

I completed my box and it works great. I made a hole in the top to make it easier to use and so that you could see into it and get a good idea of what is inside. I used the drill press to make the hole. Before trying the drill press i tried to use the hand drill and it nearly started a fire, the wood was just a little too thick. Now all that is left is to make my process notebook in indesign. Unfortunately my computer broke and so i have no way to work from home or anything to take pictures with. I will just have to work in the lab and borrow someones camera.

nearing construction due date

I finally got my lower box where i wanted it tuesday and made my slide but still have a lot of work to do today in order to get my box done on time. I need to make the mid and top boxes and then glue the three box's together. I been using the belt sander to speed sanding up where i can, which is helpful.

InDesign and beginning of sanding

We had a tutorial in InDesign because we are using it to make our process notebooks. I built the bottom box and my cube and my cube was a little too tight inside. I spent the whole class period and quite a bit of my day sanding down the inside by hand and now it fits but could still use more sanding. I now know what to try and avoid with the other two cubes i need to build

Beginning Construction

I decided my box would be difficult to build by gluing blocks together and cutting it out. So i decided to build it up instead. i started construction on the bottom cube, which is the largest and has indentions for the slide at the bottom. To cut the individual rectangles that make each box i am using the table saw then moving to the band saw for any other modifications. I chose to make my box out of maple wood.

Favorite Idea for Rubik's box

My design that i came up with has the three cubes stacked vertically with the smallest on top. the box is a tiered tower with an opening in the bottom. it comes down on top of the stack of cubes and a little slide at the bottom shuts and holds the cubes in place.

Chosen object

I have choose the rubik's cube to construct a vessel around. to make it more practical, my box will hold the not only the traditional 3x3 cube but also the lager 4x4 and 5x5 cubes.

Intro to wood shop and David Pye readings

We started learning about the band saw and learned different techniques to use around the wood shop.
We were also asked to write a reflection on a reading by David Pye tiled nature and design.

End of chair project

Today i turned in my chair project including both chair designs and perspective drawing in my process notebook. We were introduced to the next project which i am equally excited for. This project is another Industrial Design based project. We will be building vessels for objects we decide on.

Final idea for perspective drawing

My perspective drawing of my chair will be a slightly off set view on the back giving it some perspective and and idea of the side of the chair while focusing in on the organizer and cabinet in the back. The chair will be stocked with supplies and snacks. Their will be a laptop on the deck and a drink in the cup holder. The chair will be facing a tv with an x-box a little further back in the view.

Perspective Lecture

In class we had another drawing teacher come in and teach us some things about realistic drawings and perspective to get us ready for our final turn in of our chairs in their environments. I am currently in a drawing for design class with Lance rake and learning a lot in that class about realistic perspective and shading. It was interesting seeing a different teachers approach to teaching perspective and i was able to take things from the lecture and add it to what i was already learning.

Perspective chair drawings

Now that the chairs are built we are to start making perspective and orthographic drawings of the chair leading towards a final perspective drawing of the chair in a suiting environment.

My final chair

The final construction of my video game and study chair. the chair has a removable laptop deck, cup holder, snack and supplies storage and a cabinet that holds a attackable footrest.

I heard about sketch-up by google and decided to download it and model my cardboard chair in the program. it was pretty fun and useful for what it was but i still prefer AutoCad.

Designing final duality chair

I started design on the final chair that has less restrictions then before. I can still use no fasteners, but i can use as many sheets of cardboard as i would like. I started design on my chair and its going to be a video game and homework chair to suit my friendship with my best friend i wrote my essay on.

Essay on duality

The Second Chair we are making is supposed to center around a friendship you have and we were asked to write a essay on duality.   

       

  I have known my best friend Matthew Mueller since we both started school as four year olds at Belinder elementary. Are parents houses have been two streets away from each other out whole lives. Our friendship started on the soccer field in kindergarten, and we continued to play soccer together until freshmen year of high school. Our friendship grew more as we had more classes together. First grade we were in the same class and that is when I would say we became best friends. Lots of time spent together at recess and playing outside of school took place as well. Things like soccer and recess always bring back good memories for the two of us. Matthew started off at KU last year as my roommate, and although he now lives back home 40 miles away, we still hang out on weekends. We have both played the same online game since middle school, and still see him on and talk just about every day. Matthew and I have a very similar sense of humor and are interested in a lot of the same things. Too many things can bring us back to a story we have had together its hard to choose one. For example, recess makes us think of running around in a line with as many people who would join us pretending to be the harry potter cast. We would zoom around groups of people trying to play basketball on our nonexistent brooms. Sophomore year we both started working at Einstein Brothers bagels, which has made many memories. Although I work at the Einstein in Lawrence now, I can still transfer to my old store to work with Matthew when classes are over. I feel both Matthew and I would be very different people if we had never met and grown up together. I hope as life goes on he remains my best friend and we stay in touch. It is weird to see how my parents don’t keep in contact with anyone from their younger life. I do not see that happening with Matthew though.  The longer you have known someone, and the closer you become, the more fun it is to be around him or her. Nothing has to be said and you both know what you could be doing to keep from being board.

Beginning of Chair Project

We were told to make a chair with a 4 foot by 4 foot piece of cardboard that could support our weight. We had to use the whole thing, it all had to be in one piece and we couldn't use anything else to help fasten the cardboard. This was my solution. 

End of photo project

This project taught me how to think before taking a photograph. Usually when I take photographs I hardly think about it at all because it is its own picture. However, when these photographs are meant to fit together with others, it makes you think about what your doing a bit more. This made it challenging sometimes to get things the right size, I had to reshoot the same thing multiple times to get it how I wanted it in some cases. It was interesting tackling the size issue I had cause I wanted my images to get larger as you went from the inside out. I realized once I made it through my spectrum of colored pencils that my project was still quite small and needed something else to it. Seeing that I had run out of colored pencils to choose from I had the idea to change instrument to sharpies. I ended up really liking the border that the sharpies made around the colored pencils. I don’t own a camera and didn’t have money to get one so I made due with my laptop which presented it self all kinds of challenges. Setting things on the ground and taking up close pictures of them with a laptop is not as easy as it seems. I had a lot of fun doing this project and it made me think out side the box.

Written response to ‘Ways of Seeing’

This movie that we watched in class was a bit dated yet was very interesting to watch. He talked about the different way we see things, and how our eye puts everything into perspective. Shows how photography has become messages of information. Talks a lot about different works of art and how they are different to photography. I enjoyed watching this video in class and would watch it again.

Written Response to Errol Morris on Photography

Errol Morris talks about how photographs have a connection to the world. He shows how photographs are sometime set up for dramatic effect. He uses a war photograph as an example with some displaced cannon balls. Morris thinks that photographs aren’t tainted this way and can still be honest photographs. He doesn’t think they can be honest or dishonest because they aren’t people. This video game some nice incite on different photography views through Errol Morris.

Written Response to Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’

            The reading starts of describing how pictures have been taken documenting history since 1839. Before that it is hard to know what things looked like before. Photography has made great impacts on how the world remembers it self after time has passed. ‘To collect photographs is to collect the world,’ is a quote from the reading that I really liked. It made me think of our project, and making one huge collage of the world.  Unlike drawings and paintings, photographed images aren’t statements of the world but pieces of it. The reading also illustrates how far cameras have come to the first daguerreotypes to present day were everyone has a camera in their mobile phones. This reading had some interesting sentences that got me thinking about photography.

Written response to Roland Barthes’ ‘Camera Lucida’

The reading starts of by questioning who is more responsible for the invention of photography, Painters or chemists. The reading seems to think chemists are a bit more responsible and I agree. Without realizing that silver halogens were sensitive to light it would not have happened. Because of photography people are able to stay around in images after their death. In this sense, photographs are certificates of presence. This reading was interesting and talked about more abstract views and ideas of photography.

My four test collages

Stuffed animal frankenstein

 Rubik's collage

 electronics

colored pencils

Begging of photo project

We got our first project, we are making collages with pictures we are going to be taking. i started brainstorming and want to work with pictures of rubik's cubes or electronics.