Small silvery living spaces

14 August 2011 by 1 Comment

In the past year or so I’ve become somewhat fascinated by the idea of owning an Airstream travel trailer. This is new for me. At some points throughout life I may have given brief and cursory consideration to owning an RV, but until recently never serious consideration. They cost too much, you have to store them, maintain them and so on.

This began to change last summer when friends visited on their way home from Washington state. All of the camping sites near town were full, so they parked their little camper on the slab in our backyard for a night. Something clicked at that point that allowed me to more seriously consider life with a camper.

Backyard shed with potential

This new thought was furthered this summer as I started a backyard project, building a shed, in order to gain room in the garage for a wood shop. As I got into the project, I began to imagine the possibilities in the lumber I was using. The possibility for a tiny house, living in a tiny space. Or a studio.

I’ve always loved the challenge of designing for small spaces (as do most architects, apparently, smaller than skyscrapers anyway). There’s so much less room for error than in a large space. It demands a higher level of organization — not that larger spaces shouldn’t also aspire to a high level of organization — and the client and designer have to know exactly how the space will be used.

The shed project — combined with Facebook photos from a friend refurbishing an Airstream, milling his own lumber (mesquite) for the flooring — brought me back to these sleek, aluminum houses on wheels this summer, to living in small spaces.

I still don’t know what I’d do, exactly, if I owned an Airstream trailer though. First off I’d have to buy a vehicle to pull it, then have somewhere to go often enough to warrant ownership. The practicality of it still nags at me when I remember some RV parks charge as much to park your trailer as it costs to stay in a hotel.

But the idea of being able to take your house with you somewhere, sleep in your own bed when you travel (to a degree) use your own kitchen on the road instead of having to eat out so much, these are happy thoughts (even considering how often I lament the transient nature of our American culture).

And of course, come Scissortail it could function as artist quarters as well.

Filed under Architecture, Basis for designing well, Christian art retreat, Interior design, Sustainable living

The economics of color in local culture

13 July 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading a bit more on distributism at The Distributist Review. This quote captured my attention last night:

Local production for local consumption is a policy enabling the flow of an extensive variety of goods and services created by and sustaining the very community that makes them.

Mass production makes for very little local color. Everywhere, America ends up looking the same. Local culture looks like the variety of goods and service created by the locals. A Grand Island, Nebraska craftsman might use a different lumber, different joinery and different finish — in response to the land and weather around him – than one in Tennesee. Objects coming out of a factory respond to one thing by comparison: Market potential.

Haven’t we been here before, Rocky?

Filed under Buy local, Consumerism, Craft, Design, Disposable culture, Handmade, Mass production, Modern culture

A primer for print design . . .

7 June 2011 by 1 Comment

I wrote an article for a blog called Transpositions — a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews — that went up today. Read it here. Look there tomorrow morning for a post from architect and occasional aesthetic elevator Matt Pearson.

Filed under Design

Show, don’t tell: Numb3rs

24 April 2011 by 1 Comment

Lately the wife has been watching the crime fighting television program Numb3rs.

Numb3rs seems to me a fantastic example of telling, not showing. The dialog in parts of the first season that I’ve seen with her is almost comically overt at times. It almost sounds like an advertisement for mathematics.

It’s somewhat appropriate that I found this clip for The Aesthetic Elevator. Despite being poor at math in general, the Golden Ratio has fascinated me as an artist and designer since high school.

Filed under Aesthetics, Basis for designing well, Beauty, Criticism, Design

Fundamental flourishing

11 April 2011 by 1 Comment

Creativity is fundamental to our humanity and a beautiful space is fundamental to our flourishing.

Amen.

Via Transpositions.

Filed under Aesthetics, Architecture, Basis for designing well, Beauty, Interior design

The psychology of wastefulness

10 January 2011 by 2 Comments

Dan Phillips addresses wastefulness — and some of the psychology behind it — via the building industry in this TED talk.

Watch the video embedded below if you have time. If not, here are a few excerpts.

What causes waste in the building industry? Our housing has become a commodity.

Human beings have a need for maintaining consistency of the apperceptive mass. What does that mean? It means for every perception we have it has to tally with the one we had before or we don’t have continuity and we become a little bit disoriented.

It does no good to be responsible at the point of harvest in the forest if the consumers are wasting the harvest at the point of consumption, and that’s what’s happening. So if something isn’t standard it goes to the dumpster . . . I feature all those warped things.

Filed under Basis for designing well, Disposable culture, Environmental stewardship, Mass production, Modern culture, Restoration, Salvage, Sustainable living

On Design Theft: Riffing on a sea urchin

13 December 2010 by Leave a Comment

This is a response to an article titled Drawing the Line on Design Theft from the Wolfie and the Sneak blog. I know this won’t be a popular sentiment among artists, but keep in mind I’m only exploring observations here and not drawing conclusions.

I’ve been thinking the past few years about this kind of thing [design theft] in graphic design — I may have mentioned so on the blog before — since that’s where I spend a lot of my hours. Every so often I hear about a startup’s design, almost always a logo, being contested by some existing business for infringement. One such incident, from three years ago or so, involved Red Hat’s Fedora Project and a startup who unwittingly incorporated the universal symbol for infinity in their brand new branding. Fedora also uses the infinity symbol.

Thing is, a lot of these cases aren’t blatant copying (the copying problem seems to be more prevalent in contest entries from what I’ve read). The aforementioned startup’s new identity was not copying Fedora’s icon.

There are only so many shapes that comprise simple designs, which is good logo design, and only so many different configurations for said shapes. I don’t know what the solution to these kinds of run-ins is. I’m just making observations at this point, although I will decry any overly eager litigious reactions, which are unfortunately almost inevitable in this country.

Now, looking at the Wolfie and the Sneak post, I’m wondering how often the same kind of entirely incidental copying — which isn’t the right word since its not intentional — happens in other realms of design for the same reason (I will note, however, that it’s pretty clear Cody Foster & Co, highlighted in the Wolfie and the Sneak’s post, is blatantly ripping things off.). The first example in the post reminds me immediately of a sea urchin, as it would do for a lot of people. Aren’t such observations from nature available to any creative person who wants to riff on them? It’s easy for me to see how two people, one on the East Coast and one on the West, were both inspired after observing an urchin to craft a clay candle holder that emulates the spines of said urchin. Should one be punished, so-to-speak, because they were the second person to have the idea? Even if they are, say, just a teenager when the first one finds such inspiration?

How many of these occurrences went unnoticed pre-internet? Or pre-telegraph? Or pre-printing press?

Filed under Advertising, Art, Design, Modern culture

Designing a . . . board game?

9 December 2010 by Leave a Comment

Growing up I played cards. After moving to Arkansas I began to learn board games since that is what my friends played. Some of the titles we challenged each other with include Empire Builder, Acquire, Settlers of Catan, Power Grid and Robo Rally — for starters. Puerto Rico is a more recent favorite. Monopoly is not one that we play.

However, a year or so ago when a new online version of Monopoly was released I gave it a whirl. It had potential the simplistic and random tabletop version lacked. Unfortunately it didn’t deliver, and I ended up trying to fix the game’s problems in my head.

And then on paper. I got the bright idea to create my own game as a way to rectify online Monopoloy’s issues. I started with the same general premise, a game focused on real estate, but took a more literary approach, so-to-speak. I infused a story.

The story of a railroad town. I grew up in railroad towns on the American prairie, grids laid out perpendicular and parallel to the life-giving steel rails that stretched quietly from horizon to horizon. Instead of a community anchored by a town square, the railway station served as the visual nexus for many of these places.

While visiting the in-laws for Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law provided some invaluable help working through some more of this idea. I’d really like to finish the game some day, although it still needs quite a bit of work at this point — cleaning up game-play and then actually designing the many pieces. Creating a strategy game employs a different kind of thought process than playing in some regards, at least for me, and I enjoy it. It’s a different kind of design.

If and when this project gets to a point of completion, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Filed under Central Nebraska, Design, Grand Island

Intentional Observation: Obligatory fall foliage photo

8 November 2010 by Leave a Comment

I’ve always loved a cypress. Caught this one with the cameraphone while walking the dog, who is one year old now.

Filed under Color, Intentional observation

Book Blogger Appreciation Week’s [un]official mascot

13 September 2010 by 2 Comments

I am not a book blogger.

My wife is. She blogs about her many reads over at Word Lily, 80 or so last year, and is involved in numerous other bookish related community events on the interwebs. The community among readers on the internet is really quite incredible from what I can tell. One of their events is Book Blogger Appreciation Week, happening now.

The abbreviation for Book Blogger Appreciation Week is BBAW. When I see BBAW, I must pronounce it like a word, phonetically. Buh-baw. And when I pronounce it I just must lengthen the last syllable so that it sounds to me like the call of a strange bird.

Which made me think, “This event needs a mascot.” [Click for clearer image; WordPress is rendering it poorly here.]

So there it is, the [un]official mascot of Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

I do read some, about five or six books a year on average. This year I’m behind. I’ve read a few of the Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton, started two books I received for Christmas but haven’t looked for since we moved, and in the past month started two more books: The Hawkweed Passive Solar House Book and The Bones of Plenty, which is about the Great Depression and supposed to be better than The Grapes of Wrath (according to writer Kathleen Norris).

I wish I read more, but I’d rather be working with my hands. Or designing things to make the world a prettier place. If you need a designer, email me.

Filed under Design

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