The Whimsical Designer
DISCUSSION:
It fascinates me how artists think. I am one of those folks whose so-called left brain and right brain skills are fairly evenly balanced. Over the years, I made a special effort to enhance the “artistic” side of my thinking. Of course I don’t apply these skills every moment of every day: Redesigning everything I am seeing in front of me would be disorienting, tiring and a sure path to madness!
When imagining a so-called inanimate object as being alive -- as some members of some “primitive” societies do -- one finds that it is possible to identify with it. One can try to picture that it “wants” to squeeze itself smaller, stand taller, lean over, crawl away, expand, show off, replicate parts of itself, or make self-deprecating jokes about its morphology. It can seem to be acting as if it were alive and spunky. Nature, a clunky term for what it is that seems to be “out there” that has its own plans and desires, appears to show great eagerness to thrive and survive. Sometimes it is possible to see Nature as having a sense of humor. When designing objects, one can take clues from Nature. See how within a few minutes of drawing, I allowed a chair to evolve a variety of new shapes.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Sometimes it’s useful to think of an object/product as alive and able to evolve along lines of its own desires
WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS SHORT PROJECT?
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1.All I have done is work with a few variables, ignoring other possibilities such as size, texture, color, angle of chair back, purpose (formal dining vs. TV watching), posture advantages and disadvantages (ergonomics), chair feet/rug interaction (will there be feet dents in a fine rug?), and so forth. Even with a few variables, many possibilities were found.
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2.Simple, crude sketches are adequate for this kind of assignment. Hint: I prefer to draw in ink on a newsprint pad, where the ink is absorbed fast. That forces me to work fast, and discourages me from stopping to draw tightly and carefully.
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3.Pencil work vs. ink work will produce different results. I like to work in ink for these thinking exercises, because it forces me to declare a shape definitely, without ambiguity. And it is easier to see what I drew. But sometimes pencil use is necessary as a preparation for drawing in ink.
A chair starts out in life feeling complacent and ordinary
It starts to feel rakish
It is now simply acting silly
It is feeling literally puffed up and proud of itself now
It devolves
PROJECT: ALLOW A SINGLE OBJECT, SUCH AS A CHAIR, TO EVOLVE
In the example below, notice how a carefree, whimsical attitude is taken, and the object changes shape as if it had “attitude” or was participating in its own evolution. The drawings are sketched quickly from left to right:
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