How does color transform design?

How does color transform design?

Color as a design element has its significant power to control and change the entire completion. There are many theories and rules about the study of color, but professor Albers suggests people to learn how color works by experiencing. Along with this idea, designers could try to leave the theories and rules of the color systems behind, instead, observing colors by the visual experiment.

Color Study #1. BW VS. COLORED

The experience of seeing black and white pictures compare to colored pictures would help designers knowing how color can transform a design. For example, there are two pictures with same contents, one is in blank and white, and the other one is colored. The out come is they would deliver a vast of distinct feelings to the viewer. Historically, the development of film or animation started with black and white. Later on, as the technology improved, color produced. But what does this change effects people’s thinking is that people automatically receive the concept and understanding of “color represents time”. This also becomes a reason of why do we still have black and white pictures and films today. Color has the ability to create the atmosphere and environment of the old time. As a result, This is the understanding of color for every body by their visual experience.

Color Study #2. When varieties of color mixed together.

The short film “Logorama” is an example of how different colors join together and create rhythms and harmony in design. In the film, the producer used hundreds of well know logos to present a story. As an illustration, logo design requires simplicity and clearness; a logo design usually does not have too many colors. The main reason is these simple styles would easy for people to remember and recognize. Thus, by presenting hundreds of logos on one picture, the design would become more dynamic. A single logo will no longer like when it normally displays, instead, each logo becomes a part of the entire picture, like the building blocks on a structure. They play their own roles to reflect the idea of unity. Meanwhile, by zooming out, there are rhythms and harmony interpreted and built up a wonderful design. This is extremely the fascination of color in design.

Design Utopian...

A design utopian aims improve the society.

The term “utopia” originally addresses the idea of “a dreaming world”. According to its etymology, “U” means “not”, and “topos” refers to “place”. What does “ no place” mean? The interpretation might be some idea like an ideal place, or it could also be associated with the word “perfect”.

When this term uses to descript a design, it essentially denotes a perfect design that contains idealism and unassailability of its design in both aesthetic value and functional usage.

To detail it, mobile phones are the examples of utopian design that improve the human society. If somebody throw a question like “what can cellphones do?” there would be a long list of the answer answered by almost every human beings who lives on earth today. Mobile phone design has a long history of its development. There was not too much design on its shape when it was first invented. The earlier cellphone models were designed in very basic geometric forms, with plain color, mostly were black. But as time goes on, especially nowadays, more and more people start to pick on its aesthetics. Mobile phone design in the 21 century is becoming a lot distinguished than it was in the 90s. Today, cellphones are not only for making calls, but instead, it shows fashion, conveys performing functionalities. We can see the change of color, shape and materials of its design, and these changes have evaluated and improved day by day. As a complex design, mobile phone also requires the perfectness of design ergonomics as well. Consequently, it truly does improve the society, makes people’s lives more and more convenience. Predictably, in the future, cell phone would get more use in different ways because our designers will deliver the concept to a real completion to the world soon.

a DaNgErOuS Design.

A dangerous design

In the field of design, there is not always success. In fact, Failure designs exist. After learned the design ergonomics, I can somehow use it as a tool to measure a design whether succeed or fail in the five areas (safety, comfort, ease of use, performance and aesthetics).

The examples which could be sometimes considered as failure design are women’ dresses. Women love beautiful dresses is a common understanding upon the human civilization. Fashion designers normally tend to show their brilliance and passion when designing a lovely dress to attractive the audience’s eyeballs. Due to these reasons, sometimes designers are too focus on the beauty but lack the genomics on one entire design. For instance, some women’ dresses look good by the audience, but they are not truly comfortable for the person to wear. Furthermore, some really bad design could even cause danger to people’s health. I’ve read some reports about women who wear a 12 inches high-hill for a certain while and get their vein pressured and been sent to emergency. Also, there are some performers who wear a fantastic dress but got themselves exposed by unaware. The well know singer Lady Gaga, who always love to wear some crazy gears when she is performing, also reported by news about the defective design of her clothing that caused her some health problem.

Accordingly, dangerous designs are produced by the lack of ergonomic concerns. Designers should not only focus on the one part of a design, instead, a well considering of design ergonomics would help designers to succeed. This also can be associated with the idea of “gestalt”, the design criticism is to view a design as a whole and try to avoid focusing on one part.

Cell Phone Case Design.

As technology develops, cellphone become an essential to every of us. For fashion needs or asserting individualities, many people like to customize their cell phones in order to be different and unique from the others. Thus, a type of product: cell-phone case is getting more and more popular lately.

Cell phone case is design. It is type of art conveys expression form the creators. There are many artist have their work on the cell phone cases, it on one hand gives people varieties of choice to pick the one work they like and show their interest and taste. On the other hand, it also gives the designers self a chance to introduce and present their work to the world. This is somehow reveals the impact of design in the society.

In addition to its artistic values, cell phone case also can be designed personally and private, Then, for some people who like to have a memories storage, they would make a case with a family picture on, for this propose, the design can be considered as a monument. Thus, design becomes the happy element in people’s lives.

Another example is there are some gaming fans that would like to design a case as an icon to represent their team and show off their support. Those cases with logos and flags would tell other people the owner’s passion and sprit, which has also demonstrate design as a conversation. As a result, a cell phone case is a design that has capacity to tell a story. It moreover becomes a design media in human relationship, contains art, human interest and personality.

Five [五] Areas of Ergonomics in Design.

The topic “Basic of Design Criticism” requires five areas of ergonomics in a design or product, they are:

1. Safety

2. Comfort

3. Ease of use

4. Performance (productivity)

5. Aesthetics

These five areas of ergonomics would help define what is a good design and what is a failure. They are listed in this order because safety is always the most important point for a design to pass the quality certification and get into industrial production. Then, we start to measure a design from its comfort through how it looks.

A great example that reflects this theory is the iPod. By this year, Apple already has their iPod series into the 6^th generation, and the entire line is in its 10^thyear of production. The consumers have witnessed the changes and evolution of the iPod product for a decade, and who also has enough authority to experience iPod in the five areas of its design ergonomics. The result is, at some level, the huge demand of iPod on the market tells that iPod is a good design that meets the design ergonomics in the five areas.

First, the iPod media player is satisfied with the safety issue. It is built up with ordinary industrial standard materials like the other electronics. In addition, because iPod uses metal as the material for some parts, the design of its form is seemed very considered and proper, for instance, the design avoids the sharpness edges of the materials and with some parts of frosted surface as well; this also directly transfers into the second point: comfort. For a handy portable electronic device, iPod is well designed to handle, especially for different ages. Designers have also reduced the weight and size of the iPod through the generations in order to meet the comfort standard. For instance, the oldest version is about five times thicker then the latest one. Then, the “use” part, moreover, can be associated with its performance. The simple way to control and setting the iPod is an extraordinary experience compared to other similar products; Both the classical “Wheel-Control” circle on the older models and the modern touch screen gives users a convenient feeling, likewise its performing functions. The iPod today is not only a Walkman; Instead, it contains many functional abilities for entertainment. The designer creatively made the small piece of metal as a media player with Internet accessing, gaming, camera and other functions in a one, which is one of the biggest successes to make a design to attract customer’s desire. Finally, the discussion goes to the aesthetics of the design. Color seems to play a big role in this area because of many reasons. The most significant usage is how the color would give the costumers a variety of choices, which helps the product get a good number of the market share. As a result, the designer helps to run the economy by designing a popular product.

In conclusion, the ergonomics in a design is influential. Each of the points needs to be scrutinized carefully, then the all of the five areas can predict whether a design succeeds or fails in the consumer market. Designers should always remember the ergonomics of design as a criticism rule.

How Words and Images work together in a Design setting?

There are many design forms applies the combining of words and images. A good well know example is the comic books.

Comic book is a media or design form that existed in our lives for a long time, the history about comic books are from long ago, it has discussed in McCloud’s book. When Egyptians created the wall paintings, the concept of juxtaposed images had born. Then it has developed upon time. Until people discovered that by using juxtaposed image with words, the combination has a chemical reaction for an importance use which is “story telling.”

Our guest Brian Fies has a speech about his works and design experience in class. He introduced to us how he uses comic books to tell his own story (which is his first book about his mother’s cancer, it is very a private family story he shared with people by using comic as the media) and also the design process he has had. He stated that comic “transcends words and drawings” in order to “illustrate things” and most specifically, it “tells stories.” Thus, I have found reflection to our earlier topic, “design is a conversation.”

Comic is a design form and also as a conversation, it uses simple drawings in a juxtaposed way with few words to tell the readers a long and complicated story. The exchange of message between the creator and the readers is successfully built a conversation. In this setting, images and words are the elements to fill-in the design structure or form (the book), and then the completion (comic) becomes the media to deliver the message. This is how words and images work together and have a fascinate impact.

LOGOs.

If we look around and pay a little attention to our dally lives, we can find that the logos are around us everywhere. Logo is a type of design that not only affects but also as a part of people’s lives. As a design, logo could tell a lot more then what we see within the essay geometric shapes, by thinking deeply, I discovered many things about it in behind.

First, logos are simple because it asks for. Companies use logo to show their brand in an essay way for people to recognize, this would also help people to remember. For instance, the world well know fast food company McDonald’s use its capital letter “M” as its logo, it is almost a pure form of letter without any decoration, but it is enough for people to recognize and remember.

Secondly, logo is a design form of visual communication; still, McDonald’s example would interpret this well. Drivers on freeway would always find and stop by the restaurant when they see the “M”.

Thirdly, logo requires two important design elements, shape and color. This is a study lesson for designers rather then the viewers. Besides McDonald’s, there are still many companies use letters or words as their brand logo. To show the individuality and unique, designers have to design the font or the shape of the letters, in the process, there might be hundreds of plans based on the very few letters. This is the potential of design, which is to seek possibilities. In addition, color is also important, especially in a logo when a design with very limited usage of elements. Color has different temperatures; these temperatures create emotion and feelings. Designers have to choose the right color to make a logo that represents the company and products in a proper way.

In conclusion, I think logo is a tough design subject. Although the completion is simple, but in fact, there are meanings, representation and other design concern in behind. Designers have to think about the stories and learn the way to manage elements from the successful logo designs.

Learn Color in Design

The Christmas ornaments and decorations are good examples to show the significant usage of color in design. During the holiday seasons, we can see these kinds of carnival look design in many places, there are colorful and vivid in order to build a happy atmosphere over people.

Color is a big subject in design, and also an ordinary substance in our lives. In the book “Design Basics”, Lauer states, “our world today is marked by bold uses of color in every area of ordinary living. We can make color choices for everything from home applies to bank checks.” Therefore, color absolutely plays a role during the holidays. For instance, red and green are always the primaries for Christmas, in addition, orange and black are automatically lead people into the Halloween atmosphere.

If we question that why and how can color tell season and holidays? I think it is because the ability of color can affect our visual understanding and feelings. Color has temperatures in order to control our emotion through our vision. There are basic three categories of color, warm, cold and neutral. Different degrees of color would put people into different mood; for instance, red gives a feeling of passion and blue would create calm. However, designers have to learn and study color because color is a big matter of visual communication. To make a successful design, the color selections are a concern for designers to interpret. In other words, designers should use the right color form the field to meet their needs, and to present it effectively.

How Form n Content Interact? in "OBJECTIFIED".

There are many designs around us in life which hold both functionality and aesthetics. Rather than just being an object with dutiful practicability, a good design has to have a fine surface too; this is why people study design.

The mass-produced industrial design I have found from the film is the Macbook computer form Apple. As we know, Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world, especially at nowadays; their products sweep into people’s lives in many aspects. If we think about the reason of the huge demand of Apple products by consumers, we will find that they are wonderful designs work in the ways of both functional and aesthetic; in other words, Apple smartly knows how to use materials to build up their design form in order to present the content, which means the daily usage of a computer.

There is an interview of Jonathan Ive, who is the industrial designer of Apple Company, in the film. He talks about the design of Macbook during his interview. According to him, the idea of his laptop design is to let people feel it is “undersigned” and just “naturally in this way”. He than explains how he choose the materiel and put them into the producing process. This interview shows how Ive think and care about the form of design. Fortunately I’ve got a latest model of the Macbook Air days ago, which is also designed by Ive. I have found another interview of him talks about his new work in the introduction video. The Macbook Air is the thinnest laptop in the world today; this accomplishment has made this laptop a lot distinguish from the others. To be more specific, in this case, the content of design is very simple, a laptop, which ordinarily uses by students to do their home work, or for businessmen to do their management. On the other hand, the form of design is the appearance, the look of a laptop; it is about the materials, the color, the shape and even the weight. Consequently, the form becomes more important of presenting the content in here. When a designer conceits the form cannily, the distinction is oblivious.

In conclusion, I think the form of a design is a very significant element works for the content. At the time when it presents the content of a design, it also makes a design special; much more interesting, it would asks more views to love a design.