Archives for category: Structure

ideas_forms_finctions_on_colour

This has been adapted form short film I appeared in for Innovations at Work. Originally published as a short film here.

What was the first major breakthrough in terms of using colour in design?

I think that the major moment in designing with colour is the leap to the reproduction of colour photography. Most brilliantly made relevant by the fashion mags of the early fifties and paving the way for all modern editorial and advertising. It was particularly influential on advertising. The ability to represent products in full colour had an incredible influence  over how we communicate ideas about products and their places in our lives. It drove consumerism on in a way that is hard to imagine now.

John Berger said “Seeing comes before words”. How is this useful as an idea? Colour photography it is the most information in the quickest, most primal form. More than a headline or a column of text.

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hack-day-4

I was brought right back to art college ethic of “make lots of things quickly and see what happens” yesterday at the fantastic Dennis Hack Day. Craft, analysis and iteration can come later – there has to be a place in the process where you just do stuff quickly and see what things you make. Yesterday was just that – amplified and accelerated.

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colour-1

“In visual perception a colour is almost never seen as it really is — as it physically is. This fact makes colour the most relative medium in art.” Joseph Albers

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henrion_

Every now and then you get given a picture of a great leap of progress; there was a time before say, Picasso or hot metal, and then there is everything that came after it. Listening to Adrian Shaughnessy’s talk on FHK Henrion (St Bride Printing Library, 15 January) he pitches him as a pioneer of many things but I was particularly drawn to him leading the way in system based design. I was trying to imagine “the time before” but in this instance I couldn’t. I am not sure we can call it design if it is not system based.

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cyclist-grid-for-web

It was very nice to see one of my projects up on stage at the EDO talk this week – Cyclist Magazine App. It was being used an example of how well considered design can create strong templates in HTML products. Or as Ant Miller of Clearleft said in his post: “It’s structure heavy, technically, but this is just a scaffold for some really beautiful design.” Thanks! That is what I want people to think when they see my products. (http://clearleft.com/thinks/pointstopixelsatedo/)

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architectural-drawing

 
This is the most succinct description of good design I have heard in a while. Rather typically it came from a book on architecture. If you can make something as simple as a logo achieve this or something as complex as a page use it as a principle that helps guide you through it you have really achieved something.

structure_1_square

A colleague asked me if there is anything I always do when I approach a project. Initially I really wasn’t sure what to say. After some thought the closest I could get to an answer was this: I am always looking for – and at – structure. Before any project begins you have to find its potential structure. That will allow you to build it… or reveal it.

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