Design is Dangerous: Knives

    Designs of every invention is made to make life easier and more efficient for everyone. Most designs are created and expected to make things better for everyone, but there are inventions that are considered dangerous as well such as guns, knives, and even automobiles.
    Knives are created to make it easier to slice and cut things into pieces. It is efficient especially for chefs and those that cook because its main purpose is to cut and slice food. Although it is used to slice food and whatnot, knives are also very dangerous. The weight of the knives are portable enough to store anywhere and easy for anyone to use because it is light. This also gives it a reason for it to be more dangerous because it is portable enough for people to carry around. It is also easier to pull out when people want to use the knives for dangerous purposes. The knife crime rates are not as high as those of other weapons, but this design plays as an easily accessible weapon that can be easily obtained. Guns and other weapons need a permit to bare weapons, but knives are household items which makes it that much easier to access to. Its easy-accessible factor makes it more dangerous because many could use the item for the wrong purposes, or even accidentally cut themselves or someone else.
    The design of knives are still efficient with its special hand-held grips for comfort and easy-handling. Knives also have different shapes and sizes that gives it a different purpose for cutting different types of food items. Even with its efficiency, the design can also act as a dangerous invention.

Design In Society: Airplanes

     From walking to biking and automobiles to trains, it lead to the invention of airplanes. Prior every invention that was ever created, many utopian ideas were formed and brainstormed to see if it could be an improvement to our world or society. As for airplanes, Orville and Wilbur Wright enjoyed the sport or hobby of creating flying objects which lead to the creation of the first “flying machine.” The Wright brothers believed that one day man could fly and with that mindset, they were able to create the world’s first “flying machine”: the Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.
    Since then, airplanes have been a very efficient and helpful invention in our world. It went from an utopian design to a useful life design. People all over the globe are able to utilize an airplane because it helps goods, people, and almost anything get anywhere the fastest way possible. We are able to live an utopian lifestyle because the help of an airplane could help us bring cargo we need in our lives to and from far places as quick and efficient as we desire. Without the invention of the airplane, we would not be able to receive our goods on time, people would not be able to exchange business ideas and expand their businesses, provide plenty of jobs, and also provide space for those that want to travel from one place to another quicker.
    Airplanes are also safe to travel in. Despite the attack on September 11th, the transportation of an airplane is quick and safe. Planes provide seat belts, oxygen, emergency exit doors, and everything that is efficient for a quick exit or assistance when in danger. It also provides passengers with water and food for a comfortable ride. Airplanes and the workers are able to provide passengers with whatever they need aside from water and food, like blankets and pillows. Airplanes provide people and cargo with the best service and comfort.
    The design of an airplane provides the most efficient transportation. There is no traffic and accidents that happen as often as cars and bikes because in the sky the airplanes do not come across that situation. Also, the passengers just relax and enjoy their ride to their destination. With the design of an airplane from 1903 until now, the style has changed a lot but it still fulfills its purpose as an efficient and safe transportation for people, cargo, etc.

Color Transforms

    Colors on any single thing in the world can change someone’s thoughts or perceptive of something instantly. A slight touch of color could easily persuade one’s eyes to see illusions and different types of feelings toward the art piece. Although a sepia colored art piece gives the image a western, olden days appearance, adding regular color to the piece could bring back life and realism.
    As for these images I specifically selected, they each have color in them to give the illustrations a sense of realism. The hue and value of a specific color could also add some life to a drawing because it is not one solid color. For example, the drawing on the right of the hand and ball does not use any colors to differentiate that the hands are drawing the ball when in real life, the hand is within the drawing as well. The hand in the drawing is drawn, colored, and shaded using different values of gray to give the hand a three-dimensional look and feel to it so that the audience could see the illusion of the hand being a three-dimensional illustration when it is only two-dimensional.
    On the left is a similar illustration of color bringing a two-dimensional drawing into a three-dimensional one. The illustration focused on making the hands realistic using color to bring the hands into life, as if they are real hands drawing the picture. Color is able to play tricks with one’s mind because a slight change in color could throw a person off on their perceptions. The hand is even drawn with colored arm hair to make the two-dimensional hands more life-like and real.
    For the last example I have chosen, the shading and color is carefully selected to make the illustration’s illusion successful. As you can see, the person in the back of the illustration is real and he stood next to the masterpiece as if the bottle of whiskey is embedded into the ground to trick the audience. You can tell that the colors of the whiskey is carefully selected so that the whiskey would look real and it would be shadowed in to give it more of the three-dimensional effect.
    Colors brighten up a picture, bring life into a picture, and give illusions to a picture. It is able to play tricks with one’s mind, as well as, bring something to life. These art pieces I have chosen show the importance of color and value because it is able to bring forth the realism in a person’s two-dimensional drawing to an illusion of a three-dimensional masterpiece.

One Idea, Different Designs

Everyone has a symbolic image that comes to their head when a word is given to them. My favorite animal, pandas, have a certain symbol that pops up in people’s minds and are interpreted in many different ways. Illustrations of any animal, object, or even food could have a stereotypical way of how it is drawn and represented, but there are different designs that can stand for one thing.

Using the example of my favorite animal, I can type in panda in the Google search engine under images and many different sorts of interpretations would appear. Pandas can be hand-drawn or digitally created which makes it come out different many of the times. Everyone may have a sense of what a panda looks like, but when taken from the mind into a piece of paper or on a computer, the design of the panda may come out to be completely different. This also depends on what the person created in their mind before they placed their idea down.

On the left side, there is a digitally created panda which is a completely different design than the one on the right, which is hand-drawn. The design on the right is a cartoon of a panda as well as the digitally created one. The one on the left has a larger white part in its eyes and the one on the right has a white dot inside the black, which has a smaller amount of white. The digitally created panda has gray paws whereas the panda on the right does not have the gray paws. They are significantly different, but at the same time, you are still able to tell that they are pandas of different designs.

Ergonomics

The designs of new inventions have to fit many criteria to suit the title of a successful invention. There are five areas that a good invention are criticized towards to make it a purposeful invention: safety, comfort, ease of use, performance (productivity), and aesthetics. The design I have chosen is a doorstop shaped like a little person that is attempting to stop the door. This doorstop design is successful in many ways making it a useful invention, but it also has its flaws.

The doorstop poses as a safe invention. They are there keep doors opened so that they are not a hassle to constantly open the door as well as keep doors from closing on people. At the same time, it can also pose as a safety hazard because people can trip over it because it is larger height-wise and width-wise than a regular doorstop. Although people may see it and walk over it, those that miss it, this doorstop is high large enough to trip a person if it is not out of the way from a person's walking path. Still, the doorstop is useful and does what it's designed for.

As for comfort, this doorstep does not pose as any comfort for people. It may possibly be useful enough for people to stay comfortable with whatever they are doing without having to hold a door open. The doorstop could also be comfortable for the door because it does not leave marks or scratches on the door. It helps the door keep in position for however long it is needed to.

This invention is very easy to use. It does not take too much effort or time to utilize. The ease of use is really efficient because the doorstop is just placed at the correct location and it simple does its job. The doorstop does not require supervision or work because it does what it needs to and save the trouble for people. Also, the invention does not take a genius to know how to use it, so its ease of use is easily understood by many. 

The performance of the doorstop is quite efficient and useful because it gets the job done. The doorstop was created to stop doors from closing or to keep it opened saving people the effort to doing so themselves. It performs just the way it needs to and have to. The invention is able to hold the door in place for however long it is needed to.

Aesthetics of this invention is highly attractive. It caught my attention right away because it has a clever design. The design is of a little person trying to push the door to stop closing or to keep it opened. It is an unique idea because that posture of the design is like a human's position when they are using their full strength to push something. It also comes in different colors for those that prefer another color other than black. The doorstop is also small enough to not take up too much space when stored away or when in use. The design is a simple stick-figure character, but the creator was able to utilize that idea into a doorstop, which makes it a useful design.

This invention has its pros and cons, but its pros outweigh the cons. With this attractive design, it is able to easily capture the interests of people of all ages. Although the invention may not be all safe and provide physical comfort for a person, it is able to perform what is is designed for as well as have a clever aesthetic.

Jersey Designs

 My favorite basketball team, the Golden State Warriors, have recently came up with a new jersey for their team. Their previous design are of the colors orange and blue with a symbol of a thunder to represent the Warriors. The team decided to change their design because the thunder symbol also represented for another team, the Oklahoma City Thunders. Comparing the previous jersey to the current new jersey, there are many aspects that has significantly changed.

The previous Warriors jersey design were of the colors blue and orange, like the image on the left, for away games. At home games are the same colors but with an orange base. Knowing that the symbol represented both the Oklahoma City Thunders and Golden State Warriors, I feel like their new design for their jerseys are more significant to the team. The new design is presented on the right, and they have a new symbol to represent their team. The Warriors are from the Bay Area and representing the team, they use the symbol of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is more significant because the bridge symbolizes the Bay Area instantly to anyone, because many associate the bridge with San Francisco, which is part of the Bay Area. Another significant feature of the new jerseys would be the golden color on the bridge as well as on other parts of the jersey to represent the golden of the team name and the bridge name. Although the team's logo design is not represented with the warrior symbol, the bridge design of the golden state significantly represents my hometown and supports the fact that we have warriors on our team.

Words and Images

Words itself plays as an image too. A word itself plays as a signifier for an object. For example, what does the word "table" bring to mind? Most could possibly say that it is brown, has four corners, has four legs, etc. Many words are able to bring forth an image of what it looks like to a person. Words have become a symbol for an object that could actually be anything.

The picture on the left is a good example of what images we see pop up in our minds when we see the word. Most of the time, when people are presented with the word "red,"they are most likely going to picture that color in their mind. Everyone in the word would associate the color red with the word red, but when presented with a picture such as the one on the left, people tend to pause or say the wrong word presented to them. It is because it falls out of their regular schema of what the word is suppose to symbolize.

As a designer, we are challenged to think outside of the box. We need to remove ourselves from what is hidden within language to design what we can to improve or better our world. So the next time we are presented with the word "table," we are to think of something outside of the box such as a table with three corners instead of four, with three legs, the color teal, or that it is thirty feet long. This way, new and different images would be present in your minds when the word comes across.

Design in Fashion

Everyone has their own sense in style with their appearances. The way someone dress can tell a lot about how a person may seem to like because it is like a quick glance of a first impression. Simply with an accessory or jacket, it could give people many impressions of how they may seem. For example, like a track jacket, it would tell that they may be athletic or laid-back, whereas a pea-coat may give us the impression of a business-like or a 'dress to impress' occasion. There are also 'looks' that have names like the 'Hong Kong' look (like on the picture), the Punk-Rock look, Business or formal style, the athletic attire, and many more. Different ways of designing your outfits everyday help give the world outside a sense of what kind of person you are. People may dress differently each day due to special occasions, but when walking down the street with a 'type' of attire gives off that first impression of who or what you really are for others to see. For example, someone who dresses up in business attire could possibly be going for an interview and needs to look professional and proper to impress those that are trying to hire them, It could also be the office worker style for those that work in large corporate building or even in a bank. Different looks could help others narrow down the type of person you are with just a quick glance, too. The way a person designs themselves in the morning with their personalized clothes collections help people express a sense of who they are when they wear it out the house in the morning for the world to see.

 

Mass-Produced iPhones

One of the largest company by the name of Apple, created a huge hyped for the invention of the iPhone and iTouch. This successful design is a product that is mass-produced and demanded by many people. With their smart marketing skills, they were able to make the iPhones seem limited so people would want it more and in result, almost everyone has an iPhone, iTouch, or an iPod. The invention of the iPhone and iTouch were carefully designed and critiqued for it to reach the stages it is at today.

The designer is trying to show viewers and consumers that their designs of their product, the iPhone, especially with its appearance and efficiency. The balance of the shape of the iPhone makes it easy for everyone to handle and  the look of the screen is balanced. All the applications on the phone are programmed to look balanced for viewers with the menu button and hearing piece evenly balanced at the top and bottom of the phone. The composition of the design is simple and easy for consumers to hold and use. The screen is also large enough for any finger-size to use the product. The equilibrium of the weight and size of the phone also makes it more attractive to the customers. The design of the iPhones and iTouches are visually, physically, and technically effective to the eye of a consumer.

Interaction of Content and Dorm in OBJECTIFIED

 

Objectified, a documentary film written by Gary Hustwit focused on how everything around us is designed in some way or another. The design industry, especially those  that focus on the industrial designs of products are constantly improving products and modernizing them to fit the use for consumers today. This film helped me realize that everything around me did not just come up off the top of someone's head, but thoughtfully brainstormed and drawn out before finalizing the product for sale for efficiency and appearance to capture consumers' attention.
One product that stuck out to me in the film were the peelers for vegetables and fruits. The designer decided to recreate the handles for the peelers because he recalled someone complaining about the handle of the peeler being too painful to hold when using it. This scene stood out to me because I never realized that a simple gadget like a peeler would need research and careful thought placed into it so that consumers would want to purchase it for its efficiency. The peeler on the left was the peeler that was complained about, and the end result is the peeler on the far right. The appearance had to also be appealing to people as well as have a comfortable grip for people to use. It was interesting for me to see the many varieties of handles they went through before finding one that was perfect to solve the problem and make it a seller.

This documentary helped me notice that literally every thing around me has been carefully thought out before being finalized into a product. I can sit here on my bed and look around the room discovering that each item had a designer or designers envision the appearance and usefulness of the item before making it. Every single thing around us has a story behind it and are made the way they look for a reason and to simplify our lives.