andDESIGN

The Pixar Story Inspires Animators

2012-01-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

The documentary film, The Pixar Story, came out in 2007 and tells about the creation of the animation production company Pixar from Luxo Jr. in 1987 to Cars in 2006. Pixar, of course, went on to continue producing hit animated films like Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), and Up (2009).

Pixar is a CGI-animation production company now based in Emeryville, California that has earned twenty-six Academy Awards, five Golden Globes and three Grammys. It was started by Ed Catmull (left), Steve Jobs (center), and John Lasseter (right).

The Pixar Story is a must see for any student or adult interested in CGI-animated films produced since the cel-animation techniques made famous in early Disney movies. The documentary tells the trials and tribulations of becoming the top animation company in the world and what it takes to stay on top.

Imagine being Pete Doctor, a first-time director, trying to match the incredible early success of Toy Story 1 and 2 and A Bug's Life. Docter directed Monsters, Inc. in 2001 which was also incredibly successful so the young Andrew Stanton was called up to keep the string of successes going. He directed Finding Nemo in 2003. Brad Bird was next and he directed The Incredibles in 2004. How long could Pixar keep this up?

This documentary (available online and through Netflix) tells this gripping story in the words of the people who were actually there creating it.

Click on the heading above to watch The Pixar Story.

Creating Spaces for Design in Schools

2012-01-28T07:57:00.000-08:00

As more schools add "Design" to their art and technology programs, classrooms will need to be rethought to accommodate the needs of the design curriculum. Some new considerations include:

1. An Ideation Lab (right) - plenty of space for white boards, foam core, post-it notes, and markers for teams to collaboratively generate and clarify design problems.
2. A Visualization Lab - spaces to brainstorm, draw, post, share and discuss possible solutions to design problems. Drawing tables, computers, tracing paper, places to pin works up for group discussion and revision.
3. A Fab Lab - workshop spaces to make prototypes by cutting foam with hot-wire cutters, sawing wood, building structures, making architectural models, etc.
4. A Presentation Room - a boardroom-like space to present and critique ideas for discussion, evaluation and implementation with interactive white boards, projectors, presentation easels, etc.

Make Space : How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration (left) by Scott Doorley & Scott Witthoft, is a new book based on the work at the Stanford University d.school and its Environments Collaborative Initiative. The book explains how space can be intentionally manipulated to fuel the creative process and then offers over 120 specific strategies that can be employed in endless combination to foster collaboration, creativity and innovation.

Click on the heading above to see a video of the creation of the cover for the book.

Designers Nominated for Oscars

2012-01-24T06:07:00.001-08:00

While the general public clamors for the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director Oscar nominees, designers look at categories like Best Animated Film, Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Set Design, Costume, Makeup, Special Effects, Editing and the other categories for designers and visual thinkers.

The nominees for Best Art Direction this year include a sure winner - Laurence Bennett for "The Artist" (left) - and a strong contender in Rick Carter for "War Horse" (right) who was also nominated for "Avatar" and "Forrest Gump" in previous years.

Movies are a visual medium requiring strong visual communication skills and should be part of a comprehensive visual education program whether approached from production, history, criticism or aesthetics. The Academy Awards nominations in January and awards ceremony in February provide an excellent opportunity to highlight the design of films and the film designers who are among the best in the world.

Many people mistakenly think that watching movies is a passive activity compared to the active thinking associated with reading but recent brain research proves that old way of thinking is wrong. Visualization is an active function of the brain which calls upon long-term memory and predictive abilities activated in numerous locations in the brain.

Have your students look at the list of Oscar nominees and research nominees in each of the design categories. Who do you think will win? Who do you think should win? What can we find out about their past work and how they go about their work?

Click on the heading above to see the list of other Oscar nominees.

Understanding Design is as Important for the Customer as the Designer

2012-01-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

Most students will not become professional designers but they need to know something about design simply to be wise consumers and informed citizens. Media Literacy is the name of the field of study that looks at how images and ideas are presented in the media and how we react to them. Design is the field of study in which people learn to use visual communication to create and communicate ideas.

People look at advertisements showing super-models who have been expertly made-up and then Photoshopped and feel inferior and inadequate. Our sense of self-esteem is undermined by our unfair comparisons to these "ideal" examples. People can exaggerate, boast, lie, and deceive with images just as they do with words and numbers.

Click on the heading above to read an article by a photographer who calls himself Darlo D. who compared the images of fast food in advertising with the actual food you get in real life (left and right). There are some regulations to protect consumers from false advertising but the best protection is to be educated about the role of images in our lives and their power over the way we think and behave.

We are quick to blame media designers for being unethical but we must look at our own attitudes that allow them to influence us. Many people deny that they are fooled by media portrayals but we are still accustomed to think that someone driving a big car is more powerful and successful than someone in a smaller car. A recent study showed that a person holding a large soft-drink was perceived as more powerful than someone holding a smaller soft drink. That's our problem not the media designer.

Media designers provide the stories we like to hear. If we want to see changes in the future we need to change the stories that we carry in our heads.

Visual Communication Helps Us See the Unseeable

2012-01-14T20:29:00.000-08:00

Scientific animators combine their passions for science, art and computers into rewarding careers. Scientific animators work with computer software similar to that used to create special effects and animated films in Hollywood but, instead of creating creatures and explosions, they use research data to bring molecules and cells to life on screen. Drawing upon dozens of research papers, scientific databases, microscopy data and other resources can take months to show how a molecule or cell moves or interacts (right).

Visualization can be a research tool used to develop, test and refine biomedical hypotheses, not just a method of communication. Scientific animation is used by the drug industry, publishers, medical schools and teaching hospitals, and even for lawyers involved in malpractice lawsuits that require visuals as legal evidence. Medical-device, biotech and pharmaceutical companies use animations about their latest products in sales, marketing and educational materials. Visualizations also end up in museum exhibitions, classroom teaching tools, digital textbooks and documentaries, and on journal covers and websites.

Illustrators and animators working full-time earn about $52,000 at the start of their careers, $65,000 in mid-career and up to $150,000 as seasoned veterans. Many animators also work on a freelance basis with incomes between $79,000 a year up to $250,000.

Drew Barry (left) is a medical animator and winner of a MacArthur grant. Having a background in design and visual storytelling is essential for scientific animators. Some basic training in lighting, color and composition to enable visual expression through drawing or other media is key to success. Employers tell whether an animator has the necessary skills by looking at their portfolio, website, or demo reel, which often showcases only about a minute's worth of animations.

Click on the heading above to see Drew Berry's presentation about scientific visualization at a TED conference. While you're at the TED site also look at related presentations such as that by scientific illustrator David Bolinsky.

Ten Principles of Good Design from Dieter Rams

2012-01-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer who was chief of design for the influential electronic devices manufacturer Braun for almost 35 years. Rams and his team designed many iconic devices ranging from record players to furniture to storage systems.

Dieter Rams is associated with the memorable phrase “Less, but better”. He used graphic design, form, proportion, and materiality to create order within his designs. His work does not try to be the center of attention, rather he allows his work to become part of the environment through precision and order.

Here are his famous "Principles of Good Design":

1. Good design is innovative: Innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
2. Good design makes a product useful: A product is bought to be used and has to satisfy certain functional, psychological and aesthetic criteria.
3 Good design is aesthetic: The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being.
4. Good design makes a product understandable: Design clarifies a product’s structure and at its best, is self-explanatory.
5. Good design is unobtrusive: Well-designed products are like neutral and restrained tools that are neither decorative objects nor works of art.
6. Good design is honest: Good design does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
7. Good design is long-lasting: Good design avoids being fashionable so it lasts many years and never appears antiquated.
8. Good design is thorough, down to the last detail: In good design nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance and it should show respect towards the consumer.
9. Good design is environmentally-friendly: Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment, conserving resources and minimizing physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
10. Good design is as little design as possible: Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

Dieter Ram's work has been a big influence on others such as Jonnathon Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple. Phaidon publishing released a new book on Dieter Rams in June, 2011 called Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible – with a foreword writen by Jonathan Ive.

Click on the heading above to watch a clip about Rams from Gary Hustwitz's film "Objectified."

Car Design is a Star in Mission Impossible

2012-01-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

Movies provide good opportunities to point out the role of design in our lives. BMW's state-of-the-art hybrid, and other models, are prominent in Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol starring Tom Cruise (left).

In the latest Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, says to his team, “Wait until you see the car”. The reference is to the i8 concept, a next-generation supercar from BMW, which helps Cruise and co-star Paula Patton race through Mumbai traffic. The car’s appearance highlights the BMW brand’s return to Hollywood after a hiatus of more than a decade.

BMW’s role, its first in a big-budget film since a Z8 roadster was cut to pieces in the 1999 James Bond feature The World Is Not Enough, is a reminder that Hollywood is now a mandatory destination for marketers. With DVRs and on-demand programs allowing consumers to skip television ads, becoming part of the content is key for brands to get noticed.

The winged-door i8, a plug-in hybrid that accelerates to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour in 4.6 seconds and can get 78 miles per gallon, will be introduced in 2014—but gets center-stage placement in the film. At the movie’s European premiere at the BMW Welt product showcase in Munich on Dec. 9, the i8 was prominently displayed at the end of the red carpet. The automaker is believed to have spent $10 million promoting the film.

Click on the heading above for a heart pounding clip from the movie.

Auto Companies Have Eyes on Design

2012-01-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

Auto Shows are coming to major cities to showcase the latest ideas in auto design. One of the most famous is the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) held each January in Detroit, Michigan. As part of the show, this year running from January 9-22, 2012, there are awards presented for auto design called the EyesOn Design Awards. The 2012 award winners will be announced on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 and can be watched live on the site by clicking on the heading above.

EyesOn Design Awards honor the most significant automotive designs on display at NAIAS 2012 as determined by the North American and global leaders of design from automotive manufacturers, along with academic chairs of transportation design programs and design leaders from other fields.

These awards recognize the skill and creativity of today's most gifted designers in the areas of Aesthetics and Innovation, Concept Implementation, Functionality and Spirit of Industrial Design. Awarded in production and concept categories, the EyesOn Design Awards are coveted by automotive designers as validation for exceptional design, as determined by the leaders of their field.

Presented by the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology (DIO), the EyesOn Design Awards serve as an extension of the DIO's annual EyesOn Design automotive exhibition held each June to honor and celebrate the past, present and future of automotive design. In addition to recognizing major design achievement in the automotive industry, funds raised by both EyesOn Design events support the DIO's mission to assist and educate the visually impaired, help preserve vision by public and professional education and support research related to the eye.

Click on the heading above for more information on EyesOn Design Awards at the North American International Auto Show.

Saving the World Through Compassion and Discernment

2011-12-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

In preparation for making meaningful New Year's resolutions I just read an important book I recommend to all my friends of any religious, agnostic, or atheistic beliefs. I am not a Buddhist myself but the fourteenth Dalai Lama has a new book out called "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World" that is wise, considered and surprising.

The first surprise of course is the title, "Beyond Religion," coming from someone who is considered to be one of the World's great religious leaders. The book shows that the Dalai Lama is more of a universal spiritual leader than simply a spokesperson for his Buddhist religion. The message of the title is that the problems facing the planet will logically require a more universal viewpoint that goes beyond the limited beliefs and practices of any one religion.

A second surprising argument is that ethical and moral values do not require religious faith. Ethical and moral actions exist outside of religious faiths as well as in them and these values can and must be learned and assimilated by anyone regardless of religious training or not.

Other surprising elements include the Dalai Lama's statement that if science finds new knowledge that calls into question ideas put forth in religious teachings, we must be willing to change our minds and adopt the new knowledge. This enlightened approach is not held by many faith-based religious adherents so it is worth reading about how he has arrived at this startlingly sensible stance.

The main message is that we must actively engage in compassion and empathy toward everyone and everything on the planet if we ever hope to see peace on Earth. And secondly, we must practice discernment because the right path is not always clear and uncomplicated but requires thoughtful decision-making in which either course of action might have positive and negative effects. Practicing careful discernment is the only way we can determine the better path.

Click on the heading above to hear the Dalai Lama's ideas voiced by the actor Martin Sheen. I wish us all compassion and discernment in the New Year.

Holographic Television May Be Coming Sooner Than We Think

2011-12-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

Holographic imagery, while successfully demonstrated decades ago, is taking a long time to become technically and commercially viable so people have understandably become skeptical about claims for holographic television appearing any time soon. Although claims for holographic TV have long been touted as the next big thing in the distant future, a Leuven, Belgium-based R&D lab for nanoelectronics has come up with a process that might bring holographic images closer to realtime (left). They already have images approaching the futuristic holography popularized in the Star Wars movies (right).

Researchers believe that holographic images are the answer to resolving the eye strain and headaches that go along with present-day 3-D viewing. The research lab Imec, says “Holographic visualization promises to offer a natural 3-D experience for multiple viewers, without the undesirable side-effects of current 3D stereoscopic visualization (uncomfortable glasses, strained eyes, fatiguing experience).” They hope to construct the first, proof-of-concept moving structures by mid-2012.

Researchers at MIT have also said they are closing in on holographic TV by building a system with a refresh rate of 15 frames per second, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) completed a five-year project called “Urban Photonic Sandtable Display” that creates realtime, color, 360-degree 3-D holographic displays.

Although the technology is developed enough for scientists to know holographic TV is possible if not inevitable, there are many details to be worked out concerning things like frame rates, angle of viewing, resolution and color-correction.

Click on the heading above to watch a video about the future of holographic television.

Perception is a Powerful Activity

2011-12-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest drawbacks to successfully transforming education and enhancing student learning is a persistent but mistaken idea that visual thinking is not as important to human learning, thinking and communicating as are reading, writing and mathematics.

Many people maintain a mistaken idea about the role of visual perception in human learning. For example, many people mistakenly think watching a movie or looking at a picture is a passive activity while reading is more active. Students are often admonished for watching "too much" TV, movies, videos, video games or other images but are seldom told they are reading too much. This is because of a story we have mistakenly told ourselves that the brain is more active when reading than when looking at something. This is a bad story that has held back learning for generations.

Current scientific evidence shows that rather than being a passive state, perception is an active process fueled by predictions and expectations about our environment. Memory is a fundamental component in the way our brain generates expectations and predictions that precede perceptual experience.

Recently, researchers in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford showed how Long Term Memory optimizes perception by varying brain states associated with anticipation of spatial localization in the visual field by devising a method for integrating memory and attention. The scientists used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to trace a neural network involving a number of areas of the brain likely to be active in the predictive use of memory in the visual cortex (the occipital lobe shown in dark blue on left).

Click on the heading above to read about the research showing how long term memory and perception are intertwined.

Visualizing a Stone Age Ancestor

2011-12-28T14:14:00.000-08:00

Strong visualization skills are important in science as well as art. Using scientific tools and strong visualization skills, two Dutch reconstruction experts, Adrie and Alfons Kennis, have created a new version of the appearance of a stone age man referred to as Ötzi based on examinations of a mummified body found in the ice and knowledge of what the faces, hands and skin of modern-day people who live mostly outdoors look like.

Ötzi, named after the Ötztal Alps in Italy where he was found, was a weather-beaten and muscular man who died 5,300 years ago. Ötzi the iceman is Europe's oldest natural human mummy and has been reconstructed more accurately than ever before, based on data obtained from CT scans, X-rays and DNA analyses. Ötzi died in a high mountain pass in Italy and was covered by ice. He was buried for millennia until two German hikers found him in 1991.

Ötzi stood 5 feet 3 inches and was around 46 years old when he died after being wounded in the shoulder by an arrow. The Kennises chose to portray Ötzi bare-chested to show how muscular he was, though in reality he was dressed for the harsh weather of the Alps when he died, wearing animal hide, a cap and an insulating grass cape.

Click on the heading above to see part of a documentary showing how Ötzi might have lived and died.

Holiday Wishes from Dreamworks

2011-12-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

I just received my online Holiday Wishes card from Dreamworks Animation and thought people might enjoy seeing some of their favorite animated characters from six of Dreamwork's animated films wishing us all a Happy Holiday.

Dreamworks SKG was founded with three divisions - Film production headed by Steven Spielberg; Animation headed by Jeffrey Katzenberg; and Music headed by David Geffen. The music division was closed in 2005. The company was founded following Katzenberg's resignation from Disney Enterprises Inc. in 1994. At the suggestion of a friend of Spielberg, the two made an agreement with long-time Katzenberg collaborator David Geffen to start their own studio. The studio was officially founded on October 12, 1994 with financial backing of $33 million from each of the three main partners and $500 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Click on the heading above to see the video greeting card from Dreamworks Animation.

James Gurney Integrates Science and Illustration

2011-12-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

Art teachers are often looking for ways to integrate the arts with other subject areas. With the addition of design to the curriculum there is no need to make up superficial ways to integrate with other subject areas because integration is a natural part of the process. An illustrator like James Gurney (left), for example, integrates science in a variety of ways even in his fantasy illustrations of dinosaurs in his popular "Dinotopia" book series (right).

Gurney's knowledge of real science is so strong that he is often called upon to provide illustrations for Scientific American magazine. In addition, he applies scientific principles of visual perception in his work to gain the most compelling visual effects. Our eyes are often fooled by the variation in colors seen in shadow, sunlight, or different colored lights. Gurney has made careful studies of these effects.

Click on the heading above to see a video of Gurney talking about creating an illustration for Scientific American. In the video he describes his process for doing an illustration depicting a 90-million-year-old scene of dinosaurs becoming trapped in mud. Students should be aware of the amazing amount of background research Gurney does to create his illustrations. In art class we often jump right to the finished product without the research, preliminary studies and exploration necessary for high quality results. If students are interested in scientific illustration, James Gurney is one of the masters.

What Will the Future Bring in 5 Years?

2011-12-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

For the past six years, IBM has been issuing their 5 in 5 reports that present their vision of what technologies will mature in the next 5 years and become commonplace.

Their list for 2011 (left) includes innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and interact during the next five years. This year's five in five are:

Energy - People power will come to life; in addition to smaller, longer life batteries we will capture more of our own movements, the water in home pipes, bicycles, and ocean waves to convert it into useable energy.
Security - You will never need a password again; Biometric passwords like retinal scans and voice recognition will become more common so we don't have to remember a dozen different passwords.
Interfaces - Mind reading is no longer science fiction; Keyboards, the mouse, and voice recognition will be joined by another way to interact with computers - tapping into our own brain waves and transforming them into commands.
Access - The digital divide will cease to exist; 80% of the 7 billion people on the planet will have access to technology in the next 5 years.
Analytics - Junk mail will become priority mail. Our devices will gather and use information without our having to ask for it. Booking events, changing our schedules based on the weather, and even online purchases will be done for us automatically based on our known desires and preferences.

The IBM 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from IBM's research labs around the world that can make these transformations possible. You can find earlier predictions online to see how accurate they have been in the past.

Click on the heading above to see IBM's video announcing this year's 5 in 5 forecast.

'Tis the Season for Gingerbread Houses

2011-12-22T05:43:00.000-08:00

Building gingerbread houses for the holidays provides an opportunity to introduce a bit of architecture education. It is not the best example because most people see gingerbread houses as objects (3D) rather than enclosures of space (4D) so there is a bit of mis-education by confusing 3D product design (a gingerbread house) and 4D spatial design (an architect's model) in people's minds.

There is a term in architecture called "gingerbread" which refers to elaborately detailed, lavish and often superfluous embellishment on Victorian houses popularized in the late 1860s and ’70s (right). After the Civil War it was fashionable to have every surface of buildings decorated with fanciful hand-carved wooden latticework to signal affluence. There was later a general reaction against that practice when architects like Louis Sullivan decreed "Less is more."

When we talk about gingerbread houses at the holidays we mean the baked cookie variety in which any style of architecture can be attempted from William Van Alen’s art-deco Chrysler Building; Charles and Ray Eames’ modern Pacific Palisades Case Study House No. 8; Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House; to Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome. Click on the heading above to see these examples.

In the example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (left), the brick façade is depicted with stacked SweetTarts and creating the unsupported cantilevered decks is as much a problem in gingerbread as it was in the original. (The secret in both is concealed i-beams with sufficient tensile strength.)

Jane Jacobs Shook Up City Planning 50 Years Ago

2011-12-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

2011 was the 50th anniversary of the hugely important book by Jane Jacobs (right) (1916-2006), "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961) (left). Jacobs is one person every student should learn about in schools because she influenced the development of New York City and, in turn, shaped ideas about city planning across the country. Urban planning is part of 4D spatial design which also includes architecture, landscape architecture and interior design.

Some of her key ideas included:
Cities need to be walkable. This means that cities shouldn't be disrupted by freeways, large parks and big plots that break the pedestrian's ability to walk through the city. Isolated housing projects, large super blocks surrounded by isolated landscapes or parking such as large shopping centers and industrial sites surrounded by parking; large hospitals; and even large university campuses.

Cities need to resist gentrification by not automatically demolishing old buildings and building high rises, but by going into depressed areas and regenerating them. Jacobs did not say don't do new buildings, but she said keep a mix. Avoid scraping away all existing context, in exchange for new, untested, and out of scale projects.

Density of people is a valuable characteristic of cities, but is not an end in itself. Cities must be wary of single-variable solutions, like "skyscraper cities." Sheer aggregations of people massed together – or separated by "open space" – is not the goal but connections and everyday encounters between people. Compact, walkable cities can provide these connections, including big cities and smaller towns.

Cities are creators of knowledge that create economic prosperity that starts at the pedestrian scale. Lack of diversity creates socio-economic stratification. The capacity to solve our problems rests with the informal web of creative and regulatory relationships cities have – their culture – and not with specialized "experts."

Jacobs said that urban planners broke cities and the built environment but they can fix it. Planners have the power to make walkable, thriving cities and towns, and to erase the disastrous course of suburban fragmentation cities set themselves on several generations ago. The problems of cities can be solved – if we understand it, and learn from the past.

Click on the heading above to read an article by Michael Mehaffy on Planetizen.com.

Macy's Windows Inspire 4D Spatial Design

2011-12-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

Many schools have underutilized glass-fronted display cases that are excellent places for students to try their hands at 4D spatial designs and 5D interactive designs because they have enough depth to have foreground, middle ground and background objects.

The Holiday window displays at places like Macy's (left and right) in New York City provide inspiration for creating fantasy displays with inexpensive materials, moving parts and colored lights. The displays in schools can be on any theme and any time of the year. They should be captivating and enchanting as are the Macy's windows every year.

As with any design project, students can begin first with ideation - what will be the theme of their window? This can be a collaborative team project. Next they should do some research on their theme and do many sketches of possible designs to include. Then they should make some small models to try out their ideas and work out any technical problems that might not have shown up in the sketches. Finally they are ready to create and install their works. Students can use cardboard, colored lights, and small motors to enhance their designs.

Click on the heading above to see a video of the Macy's windows in action.

Documentary Film About Designers Charles and Ray Eames

2011-12-18T14:47:00.000-08:00

There are many important names in design history that should be known by students as much as they recognize artists like Andy Warhol or Keith Haring. Among these are husband and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames (right).

A documentary film called Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter premieres nationally Monday, December 19, 2011 on PBS as the 25th anniversary season finale of American Masters series. American Masters presents the first film made about America’s most important and influential designers, Charles and Ray Eames, since their deaths in 1978 and 1988, respectively.

Narrated by James Franco, Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey’s definitive documentary delves into the private world the Eameses created in their Renaissance-style, Venice Beach, California studio, where design history was born.

From 1941 to 1978, this husband-wife design team helped shape the second half of the 20th century and remains culturally vital and commercially popular today. Best known for their beautiful and functional, yet inexpensive furniture, most notably their signature molded plywood “Eames chair,” and their ubiquitous molded plastic chairs (left), Charles and Ray’s influence on significant events and movements in post-World War II American life – from the development of modernism to the rise of the computer age – is less widely understood.

Click on the heading above to learn more and see a preview of the film.

Growing Need for Visualization Skills

2011-12-16T06:14:00.000-08:00

Our access to information has increased so much that it is beyond the scale at which we can humanly cope with it. Visualization is one of the ways in which we deal with the inhuman scale of massive quantities of information. More than half of our brain is dedicated to processing visual input so words and numbers alone simply can't convey information in a way that is as digestible and memorable as visualization.

Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language (2011) (left) is a book about the growing need for people with strong visualization skills in reporting news, understanding science, explaining geography and coping with the modern world (right). We need more people like John Venn, inventor of the Venn diagram; Winsor McKay, pioneering animator; Otl Aicher, creator of the simplified figures used on signs at the Olympics; Harry Beck, designer of the London Underground map; Edward Tufte, author of several books on visualization; Nigel Holmes, infographic designer for Time magazine; Richard Saul Wurman, inventor of the phrase "Information Architect", and many others.

In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in the use of visualization to present ideas and facts. Graphic language is growing so extensively that it is becoming a universal language. Our brains find it easier to process information visually than through words and numbers alone. Looking at numerical data takes a great deal of mental effort but information presented visually can be grasped in a few seconds.

What was called "Visual Art" in the schools in the past, has grown beyond mainly creative self-expression (Art) to now include Visual Communication, Design, and Visual Culture. Visualization is as critical to human growth and development as reading, writing, and math.

5D Immersive Interaction Design with Light

2011-12-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

5D immersive, interactive, experience design is one of the newest design domains. New York based Light Harvest Studio designs and creates large-scale 5D immersive works in multimedia.

Light Harvest says, "Architectural, site-specific, video installations have taken the beloved art of the moving image and released it from the confines of the traditional viewing environment. From concerts and parties, to fine art galleries and museums, content is now free to travel, interact and respond to the environment."

Their work has been commissioned by Universal Studios, Diesel, The United Nations, The Guggenheim Museum, Adidas, Daft Punk, NASA, Kenji Williams and many others.

“Immersive Surfaces” was a publicly presented video projection installation onto the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn during the Dumbo Arts Festival from September 23 - 25, 2011. The multi- part video projection, created by over 20 international artists and curators, covered over 30,000 sq. feet of the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage, Archway and the surrounding cityscape, through the use of cutting-edge video mapping technology.

Immersive Surfaces explores ideas of “crowd art,” and the meaning of surface as a media platform in a specific cityscape. Presented in three phases, Immersive Surfaces presents 18 works in a more traditional video art format, on a projected, Op-Art background, which animates itself in the second part of the program before leading into the climactic third section of the show:

“As Above – So Below,” is the featured piece which the image above is taken from. It consists of a video mapped projection installation, conceived and created by a group of six artists, Simon Anaya, Farkas Fulop, Richard Jochum, Johnny Moreno, John Ensor Parker & Ryan Uzilevsky. With significant sponsorship from visual production company Senovva, Light Harvest Studio, and others, the artists developed a site-specific, multi-perspective 3D installation specially designed to the scale of the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage in Brooklyn.

Click on the heading above to see the amazing immersive experience.

Let There Be Light

2011-12-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

The Holiday season is a good time to do lessons about lighting design. Click on the heading above to see an amazing light show set to music.

Light is a key element for 4D Spatial Designers so they are aware of changing lighting conditions during the day, the seasons, changing weather and the time of year. North light is typically sought for studios because it is more even and less likely to shine directly into windows. Southern, Eastern and Western exposures will have some times during the day when the light may be too bright.

In our classrooms we should make use of four levels of lighting:

1. Outdoor Light (windows, skylights, shades, stained glass, scrims, modulated colors and patterns with gobos, cookies, filters, etc.)
2. Fill light (ceiling lights, fluorescents, etc.)
3. Focal lights (track lighting, under-counter lights, lights over sinks and work areas, display lights, etc.)
4. Sparkle lights (a string of colored lights, a lamp in the corner, projected lighting patterns, a lighted aquarium, etc.)

Look for lighting sources and modulators such as Holiday lights, unused projectors of any type, colored cellophane, translucent paper and other materials, etc. Think about bounce lighting, indirect lighting, reflected light, filtered light, colored light, color temperature, patterned light, etc.

Some lighting projects:

a. Student pencil drawings can be run through a copying machine onto transparency film and then hand colored to make projected backgrounds for holiday concerts and displays.
b. Classroom windows or display cases can be transformed by using colored film and patterns cut out of paper or cloth (gobos, cookies).
c. Overhead lights can be modulated with color, reflectors, etc.
d. A display case can be concealed by a scrim until light is shown on the background which becomes visible through the scrim.
e. Plain white walls can become colorful by putting colored bulbs in some lighting fixtures.
f. Students can learn the additive color system by mixing projected lighting primary colors (R,G,B)
g. Students can learn 3-point lighting to improve studio photography
h. Translucent material can be used to modulate the color, intensity and pattern of light whether it is coming from outside or inside the room.

Students can come up with other lighting ideas in the ideation lesson.

Simple Game to Learn About Kerning

2011-10-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here are the simple instructions for an addictive online type design game:

Your mission is simple: achieve pleasant and readable text by distributing the space between letters. Typographers call this activity kerning. Your solution will be compared to typographer's solution, and you will be given a score depending on how close you nailed it.

There are ten words with the first and last letters fixed in place. The challenge is to arrange the internal letters to balance the spaces between them in the most pleasing arrangement. You get a score for each attempt and a final score. You can try as many times as you want to raise your score.

This game is a great way to introduce students of just about any age to the concept and skill of "kerning" which is a basic skill for graphic artists.

A few minutes playing this game will etch the term "kerning" into the minds of students forever, give them practice in being good kerners, and open up a whole new world of noticing the multiple examples of poorly kerned signs, menus, and printed materials that surround us.

A poorly kerned word stands out to designers the way a misspelled word stands out to regular readers. A few minutes playing this game will change students' perception forever.

Click on the heading above to try your hand and eye at kerning.

Pumpkin Carving is a Good 3D Learning Activity

2011-10-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin carving isn't "Art" but it is certainly a long-standing part of our Visual Culture and so it has a place in a complete Visual Literacy curriculum that includes (1) visual communication, (2) design, (3) visual culture, and (4) art. Pumpkin carving is a holiday folk tradition that is part of visual culture carried on by people for recreational purposes.

Students can use the design process to develop their pumpkins.
(A) Ideation: Identify and clarify the idea behind your pumpkin design. Research other pumpkin designs. Look at your pumpkin carefully to see what designs are suggested by the particular shape of the pumpkin. Perhaps you will see a completely different viewpoint (left) than the traditional jack-o-lantern design.
(B) Visualization: Do a bunch of thumbnail sketches to find as many possible pumpkin carving ideas as you can. Remember that the first ideas will usually be common and unoriginal so keep sketching until you start to get some really creative ideas.
(C) Prototyping: Before starting to carve, do a life-size sketch and apply it to the pumpkin to see how it works. Take some pumpkin pieces and practice using the tools to see if you can master techniques before working on the finished product. Explore different tools that will allow you to get special effects. (right)
(D) Implementation: Then go ahead and carve the pumpkin using your best craftsmanship skills, but don't stop there. What kind of setting, lighting and special presentation techniques can you design to really make your pumpkin stand out.

Click on the heading above to go to the Pumpkin Gutter website with a complete tutorial on carving the most amazing pumpkins.

Storytelling is the Theme of November School Arts Magazine

2011-10-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

The November, 2011 issue of School Arts magazine (left) is about storytelling and teachers are encouraged to teach students how to read, understand, and create their own visual stories.

Visual stories can be found in history books, geography texts, documentary films, magazines and even safety instructions in airplanes (right). People make their livings as visual storytellers in comic strips, comic books, children's books, storyboarding, movies, TV, animation, advertising, video games and a growing list of visual media outlets such as the iPad.

Telling a story with images uses the elements of good storytelling and good visualization in such a way that the information is often easier to understand, more compelling, and useful for people who read and write in different languages. The instructions on the right for putting on an oxygen mask uses the Western convention of reading from left to right and top to bottom. The convention for visual storytelling in Asia is often the reverse. Manga, for example, uses the Eastern convention of right to left and bottom to top so, to Western readers, it seems like you start at the back of the book.

Click on the heading above to see a page on Telling Visual Stories from School Arts magazine.

Students Can Learn Techniques to Tell Better Visual Stories

2011-10-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Tony Caputo's book Visual Storytelling (left) is available for free online in its entirety, complete with illustrations. Caputo created the original book with sections by the writer Harlan Ellison and illustrator Jim Steranko which are not included in the free download. Click on the heading above to see the entire book - chapter by chapter.

There are twelve illustrated chapters covering each step from creating a panel, developing a scene, to different levels of visual storytelling. Other chapters cover topics such as drawing techniques, composing images, establishing mood and lighting (right), visual design rules, and turning words into pictures.

Visual storytelling is used in comic strips, comic books, movies, animation, TV shows, video games and an increasing variety of media. Some things might not seem like visual stories to us at first but, a map, for instance, is a visual guide for planning a trip with a beginning, middle, and end, just like any other story. Drawings in a science book showing the growth of seeds, or metamorphosis of a caterpillar, are visual stories. Assembly instructions that come with furniture from IKEA are visual stories as well as the safety cards in the seat pocket of an airplane.

Students can use visual storytelling to help learn and communicate ideas about any subject matter. They can learn how to combine words, pictures, frames, connectors, and a variety of other visual conventions to tell clear and compelling stories for a variety of purposes.

Halloween is the Time for Costume Design

2011-10-08T07:07:00.001-07:00

Lesson Idea for Costume Design: Create a costume out of cardboard, paper and cloth that transforms the shape, size and configuration of your body. Make a costume in which you look taller or shorter, have more or fewer arms and legs, and the head is not where you would expect it to be.

These costumes (left) will give you some ideas. Can you figure out the construction tricks that make the optical illusions? Also look at the animal costumes designed by Julie Taymor for the stage production of the Lion King. The giraffes, hyenas, and other animals have extensions on arms and legs that change the shape and posture of the human body into a magical new form. The details of patterns, creative design and exquisite craftsmanship also contribute to the overall effect (right).

October is the perfect time to teach costume design just in time for Halloween. The knowledge and skills students develop are applicable to fashion design as well as costume and makeup design for stage and film. When the Academy Awards come out early next year, do another lesson motivated by the nominees and winners in the make-up and costume design categories for movies. Learn about some of the top costume designers and how they work.

Students will be tempted to choose costumes based on characters from popular culture and these are understandably very appealing because the originals were designed by some of the best designers in the industry. Students can also be imaginative and think of unusual costume ideas of their own. Costumes can be made from inexpensive materials that are easy to work with.

Click on the heading above to see a video with a Disney costume designer showing how to make your own pirate costume. The trick to a good costume is attention to detail, craftsmanship, and design.

Steve Jobs, Champion of Design, Dies

2011-10-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs (right), who co-founded Apple, the world's leading tech company, died Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at the age of 56 (1955-2011). He was one of the world's leading executives who understood the importance of design for businesses to remain competitive in global markets.

Under Jobs, Apple pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating by clicking onscreen images (icons) with a mouse. Jobs introduced the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet which changed how designers present content in the digital age. The iPad is changing the face of publishing as magazines and books are going online and becoming interactive. The concept of interactive infographics is seeing a huge boost to meet the content needs of iPad users.

Jobs introduced computer users to a selection of fonts rather than the typical blocky digital lettering common at the time. He said he was inspired to seek more readable and pleasing fonts because of a calligraphy class he took in college that helped him understand the importance of well-formed letters and careful kerning (adjusting spaces between letters) in words.

Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive (left), head designer for Apple, together lead the technology industry by producing brilliantly conceived and designed products that placed competitors in the position of having to always keep up with Apple's lead. Under Jobs and Ive, Apple products entered the history books as some of the most important designs in history.

Click on the heading above to hear ABC's account of the greatest executive of our time.

Data Visualization is a Huge New Design Opportunity

2011-10-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

We now have more data being created each year than in the entirety of prior human history combined. Data visualization is a method to interpret, and extract knowledge from this information.

Data visualization (left) now figures prominently in design curricula, conference programs, and the media. Adam Bly says, "Design is no longer the domain of a few. It is perhaps the language of all of us." Visualizing.org is a community of creative people working to make sense of complex issues through data and design. It helps connect the proliferation of public data with a community that can help us understand this data and with the general public.

Visualizing.org is a place for designers to showcase their work, get feedback, ensure that their work is seen by more people and gets used by teachers, journalists, and conference organizers to help educate the public about various world issues. Designers can share and embed their work using the Visualizing Player.

For teachers and schools, Visualizing.org is a place to exhibit the collective work of students, organize assignments and class projects, and help students find data for their own visualizations. Students of Academic Partners are eligible to participate in various design competitions such as the Visualizing Marathon 2010 in New York. Students are also eligible to compete in online challenges.

Click on the heading above to see a short video: How Design Can Make Sense of Data Overload including comments from Richard Saul Wurman, founder of the TED conference (right), Adam Bly, Lisa Strausfeld, Edwin Schlossberg, and others.

Richard Dawkins Promotes "The Magic of Reality".

2011-09-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

I often come across people who don't want to know the truth about some things because they are afraid that knowing too much about something will take away its magic. There is sort of this attitude that, if we don't know too much about some things, they will remain more magical and interesting and if we learn too much about them it will somehow spoil the mystery and the fun.

The desire to be consciously not curious about something is a decidedly anti-scientific stance and misses the fact that reality is much more fascinating and engaging than mythology or mysticism.

The British geneticist and evolutionary biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, had it right when he said, "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

In The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True (right), coming out in October 2011, another British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, (left) writes that while magical explanations of natural phenomena are twaddle, the laws of science and reason can be "magical": that is, "deeply moving, exhilarating: something that gives us goose bumps, something that makes us feel more fully alive."

Dawkins is well known for books like The Selfish Gene (1976) and the controversial The God Delusion (2006). The Magic of Reality is a comic book written by Dawkins and illustrated by comic artist Dave McKean. It is not just for children, but for adults as well.

The book is also available in an interactive iPad version.

Click on the heading above to see a short video of Dawkins talking about "The Magic of Reality."

Big Business Understands the Power of Design

2011-09-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

The October 2011 issue of Fast Company magazine demonstrates just how important design has become in the economic survival of nations competing in a global economy. The lead article by Linda Tischler is "The United States of Design" and other articles cover 30 design-driven companies and 50 most influential designers.

Tischler says "From GM to 3M, in boardrooms and on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and on Madison Avenue, design matters more than ever. Around the globe, American designers have never been more influential. Welcome to an unexpected and inspiring moment."

Tischler points out that design can be a critical competitive advantage if American business seizes this moment. America's openness to anyone with a big idea makes the place a magnet for the world's talented designers including Apple's Jonathan Ive (British), graphic-design guru Stefan Sagmeister (Austrian), industrial designer Yves Behar (Swiss), product designer Dror Benshetrit (Israeli), and MoMA curator Paola Antonelli (Italian).

Tischler asserts that In the U.S., there is no official support for design, no high-priority government programs or national design initiative but people like Bill Moggridge, head of the Cooper-Hewitt, the country's national design museum, are trying to change that.

There are many influential individual design organizations in America (IDSA for industrial designers, AIGA for graphics folks, DMI for design managers, AIA for architects, and many more). Tischler says, "Each strives to make the case for design, but they do so in their own silos. The result is weakened influence."

Around the globe, however, countries are investing in design and integrating it into their business climate. The Chinese have expanded their base of design schools from 20 to 1,000 over the past decade and now has more than 1 million students in the system. South Korea is similarly motivated, and Singapore is placing big national bets on design.

The U.K.'s Design Council promises to "place design at the heart of growth and renewal in Britain" and has launched the Design for Growth Fund. In Spain, the DDI, the state agency for the development of design and innovation, promotes the role the former can play in boosting competitiveness. In the Netherlands, Premsela, jointly funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the City of Amsterdam, works to support and advise people in the design industry. Some nations even partner with one another: In April 2010, the India Design Council joined with the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization to develop related skills in both countries.

Click on the heading above to read Linda Tischler's article in Fast Company magazine.

How Do We Handle the Economy in Schools?

2011-09-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Here's the dilemma - we want students to go to school so they can be successful in life but we don't want to talk about being successful in business. As a result, it is very difficult to talk about real-world design in schools because most designers work for businesses. We don't know how to handle the economy in schools.

We are ambivalent about how to treat businesses in education. Many teachers will say they are opposed to helping students get jobs because the real mission of education is to become a well-rounded person and schools should not be about getting jobs.

How does an enterprise like education, which is basically non-profit at its core, do justice to the for-profit world when we think it is the root of evil? How do we help students become productive citizens in a global economy when we think selling things for profit is filling the world with stuff people don't want or need?

There are many role models in the design world who are attractive, bright, wealthy and successful but we don't tell students about them because it's impossible to talk about the people without talking about the companies they work for. David Butler (left), for example, is a handsome young man who heads up global design for Coca-Cola. Young people would die to have David's life and job. In schools however, Coca-Cola is a bad thing. We know Coke isn't a healthy drink and we try to keep it out of schools.

And who wouldn't want to be Jonathan Ive, head designer and friend of Steve Jobs at Apple - the coolest company anywhere (right). How do you talk about design without talking about the companies that have the best designed products in the world?

You see the problem? How do you talk about the importance of design in shaping the global economy in schools where teachers often feel businesses are bad? If we talk about advertising in schools it is usually to point out how bad advertising is and how it gets people to buy and do things they shouldn't. If we talk about product design it makes educators think about our overly materialistic culture of commercialism.

So do educators continue to ignore, or even denigrate, trying to be competitive in the global economy in favor of instilling loftier virtues and education for education's sake? How can schools do justice to the need for our students and our nation to be competitive against the growing economic powers in China and India?

The Power and Importance of Doodling

2011-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

Sunni Brown (right) is one of a growing number of professional "doodlers" or visual note-takers. They draw real-time visual representations of speeches at conferences using text, graphics, arrows, sketches, bullets, frames, and a variety of other visual devices that visually capture and preserve presentations (left).

Brown recently presented a defense of doodling in her presentation at a TED conference. Her presentation addressed the underlying bias against visualization in "serious" scholarly works which respect only words and numbers. This is a huge hurdle we must overcome in schools.

There is a systemic prejudice against visual images as a way to understand, process and communicate important ideas and information. Publications with more images are assumed to be less reliable than those that are dominated by text. Seeing, or visualization, is not considered an important basic skill in any educational system from Kindergarten through college.

Our battle is much deeper and more insidious than the effort to preserve Art in schools. We are battling for the value of visualization in any form as an important way people perceive, think and communicate.

Click on the heading above to hear Sunni Brown's defense of doodling in her TED presentation.

Study Classic Animation With Release of "Lion King" in 3D

2011-09-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

The release of a 3D version of Disney's 1994 animated film "The Lion King" (left) for a limited two-week engagement provides an opportunity to introduce our students to classic animation in the Disney style. If you missed the re-release of the film in the new 3D version in a movie theater chances are your students didn't. This is a perfect opportunity for them to see how animated films used to be developed through a series of drawings from rough sketches (right) to finished animation cels.

Animated films are made in reverse with the sound track created first and the animation done to match. Rough storyboards, more detailed drawings, and rough pencil tests precede the finished colored animation cels. Click on the heading above to see a pencil test of the hyena scene in the elephant graveyard done in 1993, a year before the original film was released. Show students the development stages of a typical scene in a traditional animated film.

Students can try their hand at concept designs for characters, turn-arounds (showing a character from front, side and back), storyboards, rough pencils, in-betweens, inked pencils, colored cels, and finished animation. All of these are demonstrated in this short pencil test scene from the original Lion King.

DC Comics Starts Over With 52 Iconic Comic Books

2011-09-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Even if you aren't into comic books, the audacity of a recent move by DC Comics should catch your attention. On Wednesday, August 31, 2011, DC Comics launched a historic renumbering of the entire DC Universe line of comic books with 52 first issues. In other words, they redesigned all of these iconic characters, provided new story lines for their characters, and just started renumbering the line of comic books at #1 - almost like the previous decades of stories about these characters never existed.

Imagine the creative risk here - redesign costumes for iconic and well known characters like Superman and Batman and create new lives for them. I particularly enjoyed a meeting between the Green Lantern and Batman in the new first issue of Justice League when Green Lantern incredulously realizes that Batman has no superpowers (he can't even fly) but is just a normal guy dressed up in a bat suit.

Jim Lee (right) is an incredibly talented comic artist who became the new co-publisher of DC Comics on February 18, 2010. He not only oversaw this monumental and daring re-visioning of 52 comic books but he actually pencils the Justice League series (left) himself. This alone is full-time work for most mortals (22 pages each month).

Click on the heading above to watch part 2 of a 4 part series with Jim Lee showing how he draws a character.

Four Steps to Comprehensive School Design

2011-09-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

When schools are designed, much of the focus (and budget) is usually placed on the first three steps (1. site selection, 2. facility design and construction, and 3. furnishings). Neglecting the integration of the fourth step, program design, in the design process often results in the failure of the schools to ever become true learning environments.

1. Site selection is important and determines views, quality of light, landscaping possibilities, parking, playgrounds, entry ways, and a variety of other factors that determine the experience of the school by students, teachers, administrators, parents and visitors. How many schools have beautiful entryways but students and teachers enter from the side or back through poorly designed areas often cluttered with dumpsters and maintenance materials? (left)

2. Architectural design and construction provides the spaces for learning and the many other functions that make up schooling. Decisions made at this stage determine whether the site can be appropriately used and what is possible inside the building. Good designers go well beyond considerations of space allocation, hallways, (right) heating, lighting, and plumbing - some don't. Too often, the walls, halls, and rooms are finished in such a way that student work can't be displayed and exhibits are difficult to add or prohibited completely.

3. Furnishings such as cabinets, storage, tables, chairs, smart boards, etc. come from a third budget and determine to some extent how classrooms are arranged and how the learning environment will work. Since furnishings come from a different budget and are often selected by different people, there is often a mismatch between the possibilities created by the building design and the needs of the teachers and students.

4. Program Design (the teaching and learning that takes place in the school), should be a guiding consideration all the way back to step 1. Can the teachers and students go outside for learning experiences? In urban settings can roof tops or playgrounds be maximized as learning opportunities? Can students and teachers reconfigure learning spaces to accommodate a variety of learning activities? Does the design of the facility encourage and enable student and teacher made exhibits and interactive displays (like in children's museums) that enhance learning? Have maintenance, safety, and security issues been poorly resolved so that learning opportunities are inhibited rather than enhanced? Are teachers and students treated like "renters" and discouraged from using the facility to its full advantage?

Landscapers, architects, and interior designers who work on educational facility designs need to start with an understanding of the teaching and learning that takes place in the school. Schools need to be designed to maximize the learning environments and the productivity of teachers and students rather than the efficiencies and economies of landscaping, construction and maintenance.

Getting Serious About Being Playful in School Design

2011-09-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

Fast Company's online site Co Design (left) has an article about What Schools Can Learn From Google, IDEO, and Pixar.

The article points out that the country's strongest innovators in business embrace creativity, play, and collaboration -- values that also inform their physical spaces. When we are about to build or rehab a school, however, we create checklists of best practices, looks for furniture that matches the school mascot, and order shiny new lockers to line the corridors.

According to the article, what makes the Googles of the world exceptional begins in the childhood classroom -- an embrace of creativity, play, and collaboration. 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number-one leadership competency in the global marketplace.

The article maintains, "We can no longer afford to teach our kids or design their schoolhouses the way we used to if we’re to maintain a competitive edge. In looking at various exemplary workplaces such as IDEO, Google, and Pixar, we can glean valuable lessons about effective educational approaches and the spaces that support them."

"What would it mean for schools to have a culture centered on design thinking and interdisciplinary projects instead of siloed subjects? What if the process of education were as intentionally crafted as the products of education (i.e., we always think about the book report or the final project, but not the path to get there). What if teachers were treated as designers?" There are some schools out there that are doing just that, including High Tech High in Southern California, and the Blue Valley Schools Center for Advanced Professional Studies (BVCAPS).

The article also points out that "Pixar, arguably the greatest digital storyteller of our time, is an easy source of school-environment inspiration: Its studio is a place where magic results from a potent blend of art and science, work and play, digital and analog."

The giant technological company Google realizes that valuable innovations are born from serious play, deep teamwork, and a holistically engaged (and cared for) staff. A playful strain runs through Google’s office culture.

We are challenged to imagine what might happen if students had the same power to edit and make their own spaces within the school environment as employees do in "serious" players in global economic markets.

The article maintains "There is much to learn from our innovative corporate giants, and some schools are already taking note. But ironically, the true genius of these work spaces is how they’ve been inspired by lessons from children. (The ability of top executives to incorporate playfulness and internal strategy has even become a topic of discussion for major corporations.) Yes, school designers and leaders should make learning environments that reflect dynamic workplaces. But school leaders would be remiss if they didn’t critically re-examine (and support) the power of play and creative arts that these leaders have gleaned from them."

The writers of the article, Steven Turckes, leads Perkins+Will's global K–12 design practice and is the director of the K–12 Education Group for the Chicago office, and Melanie Kahl is an educational design researcher in Perkins+Will's global K–12 Practice.

Click on the heading above to see the whole article.

Teaching Visual Strategies for Learning

2011-09-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Here is our dilemma - we know we should be teaching students skills in visual thinking but we have little training in this area and, frankly, we just like "Art". "Visual Communication" bores us to tears. It all seems so "scientific" and not very creative. We can even convince ourselves that this will in some way actually do harm to a student's tender psyche and destroy their humanity.

It's time to suck it up. Students need to learn visual literacy including visual communication, design, and visual culture as well as visual art. We can no longer justify only providing a portion of a complete visual curriculum to our students. Imagine if English teachers only taught poetry.

There is a book coming out in April 2012 called Visual Strategies: A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists and Engineers by Felice Frankel and Angela DePace.

The prepublication description from Yale University Press says,
"Any scientist or engineer who communicates research results will immediately recognize this practical handbook as an indispensable tool. The guide sets out clear strategies and offers abundant examples to assist researchers—even those with no previous design training—with creating effective visual graphics for use in multiple contexts, including journal submissions, grant proposals, conference posters, or presentations.

Visual communicator Felice Frankel and systems biologist Angela DePace, along with experts in various fields, demonstrate how small changes can vastly improve the success of a graphic image. They dissect individual graphics, show why some work while others don't, and suggest specific improvements. The book includes analyses of graphics that have appeared in such journals as Science, Nature, Annual Reviews, Cell, PNAS, and the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as an insightful personal conversation with designer Stefan Sagmeister and narratives by prominent researchers and animators.

Felice C. Frankel is a research scientist in the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and the recipient of numerous awards and honors for her work in visual communication. Among her previous books is Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image. Angela H. DePace is an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, where her lab studies the mechanism and evolution of gene regulation. They both live in Boston. Stefan Sagmeister, a leading graphic designer and typographer, has a design firm in New York City."

Click on the heading above to read what design writer Steven Heller says about the book.

Interactive Infographic of 50 Most Influential Designers

2011-09-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Fast Company magazine (right) has long been a good source of information about contemporary design from a business point of view. Their site currently has a useful interactive infographic with their take on 50 of the most influential designers. The matrix (left) tracks designers from the virtual (websites and information) to the physical (cars and even spaceships). Thinkers wield influence through writing and leadership, while makers exert it through their work.The Infographic was designed by Kristina Dimatteo.

While everyone's list of influential designers would include different people, this infographic is a good way to get caught up on what is happening in the design world. Click on the heading above to go to the infographic. Click on the names of the designers to activate information about them.

Fast Company is a leading progressive business-media magazine, with an editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethonomics (ethical economics), leadership, and design. It is written for, by, and about progressive business leaders. Co.Design is a visual tour of the intersection of business and creativity, from architecture to electronics, consumer products to fashion.

Design a Car for the Future

2011-09-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Product Design Lesson Idea: Transportation

Design a car for the year 2020. Do it in 4 steps:
1. Clarify the idea. The greatest need will be a car that works in crowded, congested places rather than open roads. Study the technology that will be available at that time. Search the internet for loads of ideas people are already developing - keywords "future, car".
2. Visualize the possibilities. Start doing lots of drawings. Purge your mind of the common, first ideas that come to mind until you start coming up with some truly innovative ideas.
3. Make a prototype. Make a quick prototype (model) of your car using inexpensive materials. This will reveal new possibilities and perhaps some problems with your design you hadn't noticed.
4. Present your idea. Using presentation skills, drawings, models, presentation boards, concept drawings, etc. present your idea in a way that inspires the audience and makes them say "Yes, I want that car!"

Some things that car designers predict in future cars.
1. Autonomous cars. Less of the driving will be done by humans.
2. Drive by Wire. There won't be fixed steering columns but steering will be done more like a game controller freeing up design space in the interior.
3. Skateboard Chassis. That hump that runs down the center of today's cars will be gone because each wheel will operate independently and a drive train won't be necessary.
4. Engines in the wheels (left). Rather than one large engine taking up space in the front, it is likely that each wheel will have its own electric motor.
5. Carbon-based Bodies. New moldable materials that are stronger than steel will allow more transparent spaces (bigger windows) and integrated lights (LEDs placed wherever you want them.
6. Smaller, easier to park cars. The City Car (rignt) is small, city friendly, easy to park and stackable (a bit like carts in a grocery store) so it takes up less space.
7. Tethering Cars. Cars will be able to connect to each other on highways so they function like a train or a bus and can safely move faster and take up less space on the road.
8. Interchangeable Bodies. You can put different bodies on your car for different needs - transporting more people, more storage, etc. by simply unbolting one body and popping on another. You will also be able to design your own car body.
9. Reconfigurable interiors and exteriors. There will be a great deal of freedom and ability to customize your car. Steering can be done from anywhere in the car. Panel controls can be configured however you want them.

Type in keywords such as "car of the future" to see lots of videos of ideas people have.
Click on the heading above to see a video of a car of the future that exists today.

A Book About Type Fonts for the General Reader

2011-09-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

There are lots of books about typefaces for professional designers but Simon Garfield (right) has written a book about fonts for general audiences. Garfield has written many non-fiction books on a variety of topics and it is significant that a seemingly obscure topic like the origin and impact of typefaces in our lives is now something general audiences are willing to buy. Just My Type (left) is a book of stories about fonts. It examines how typefaces like Helvetica and Comic Sans became known around the world. The book explains why we are still influenced by type choices made more than 500 years ago and about that key moment in history (1984) when fonts were loaded onto computers and typefaces became part of the consciousness of people beyond type professionals.

The computer's pull-down font menu with names we are starting to recognize like Helvetica, Times New Roman, Palatino Gill Sans, Bembo, Baskerville, Caslon, Bodoni, and Verdana takes the average citizen beyond Gutenberg's printing press and beyond the age of the typewriter. There are more than 100,000 fonts today and typefaces are now 560 years old. This is no longer only the domain of the professional designer. New technologies have put part of the responsibility for clear, concise and compelling visual communication in the hands of average citizens. We have a responsibility to learn to use these tools well and wisely.

Type designer Matthew Carter is one of the recipients of a National Design Award at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum during National Design Week in October.

Click on the heading above to see a motion graphic promoting "Just My Type" that illustrates the thousands of choice we make when communicating with type.

Design Festivals Signal Public Awareness of Design

2011-09-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

Design is a fairly new concept. The growth of Design Festivals around the world is a sign that people are starting to recognize what design is and why it is important in our lives and work. One of the biggest design festivals, the London Design Festival (left), is only in its 9th year and this year opens on September 17. On September 26 the first Chinese design festival (right) opens with Beijing Design Week.

There are over a hundred design festivals around the globe. Countries like China, the US, the UK, Japan, and Korea are recognizing that the old economic model of a manufacturing nation is no longer sustainable. The aim of the Beijing Design Festival is to shift the identity of its industry from "Made in China" to "Designed in China". Innovation and design are now as important as price and quality to remain competitive in global markets today.

National Design Week in the US has activities in cities across the country with many of the main events taking place in New York City through the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Events range from exhibits and lectures to a $1,250 a plate Gala (design for the other 10%) featuring the US National Design Awards.

Click on the heading above to go to the Beijing Design Week site.

Frederick Law Olmsted: The Father of Landscape Design

2011-09-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Frederick Law Olmsted is still the most influential landscape architect in America. Justin Martin's new book "Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted" (right) recounts his achievements in landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park (left) to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, but also tells the story of Olmsted as an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War.

According to Martin's book, Olmsted didn't simply create places that were beautiful in the abstract but, most of all, he was a social reformer. Olmsted's work is even more relevant now than it was during his lifetime. Olmsted's designs survive to the present day and inform our urgent need to revitalize cities and our yearning for green space.

Students should know about Olmsted's influential ideas and engage in activities to help them understand 4D spatial design. In his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Howard Gardner used the term spatial to refer to visual intelligence but few people have any training or education in spatial design because our visual education usually stops with 2D image design and 3D object design. Designing a 3D object is very different than designing a 4D space or place.

Click on the heading above for a lengthy discussion by Justin Martin about "Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted".

School Arts Magazine Looks at Responding to Nature

2011-09-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

The October issue of School Arts magazine focuses on "Responding to Nature". It is available online (http://www.schoolartsdigital.com/schoolarts/201110) and will be arriving in subscriber's mailboxes soon. This issue will also be featured in the Davis Publishing booth at state art education association conferences across the country in October.

For design educators the topic of responding to nature opens up opportunities to learn about spatial design. Most traditional art education programs concentrate mainly on 2D images and 3D objects. Most art educators have had little experience with 4D spatial design or 5D experience design. Architects, landscape architects, interior designers, urban planners, set designers, and exhibit designers are people who design spaces and places in which people move around, which takes different sensibilities than designing 3D objects.

Two iconic examples of 4D spatial designers are the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Wright is famous for being responsive to nature in his designs such as the Kaufman House (Fallingwater) (left) and Olmsted (right) is the father of landscape design whose works include Central Park in New York City. Much can be learned from the work of both of these famous 4D spatial designers and there are many resources available about them and many others like them. A good book just out this year (2011) is "Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted" by Justin Martin.

Click on the heading above to see the digital version of School Arts magazine.

Maurice Sendak's Work Preserved at Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia

2011-09-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Original drawings, papers and memorabilia from the prolific life of famed illustrator Maurice Sendak are maintained in a little known museum and library in Philadelphia, PA. The Rosenbach Museum and Library is the sole repository of Sendak's original artwork and a foremost authority on all things Sendak. Sendak chose the Rosenbach to be the permanent home of his work in the early 1970s thanks to shared literary and collecting interests. The Rosenbach's Sendak collection is the largest collection of Sendakiana in the world, with over 10,000 preliminary sketches, final drawings, manuscripts, books, and ephemera.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library Traveling Exhibitions Coordinator, Patrick Rodgers (left), has created a traveling exhibit (right) highlighting Sendak's work that is currently at the Rohrbach Library on the campus of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania through Ocotber 14, 2011. As a result of his research into the collection of Sendak's work, Rodgers has collected numerous anecdotes and video conversations with Sendak in his home in Connecticut.

In addition to Sendak's original illustrations, the Rosenbach collection includes James Joyce’s manuscript for Ulysses and:
• Bram Stoker: notes and outlines for Dracula;
• George Washington: more than one hundred personal letters;
• Lewis Carroll: more than 600 letters, his rarest photographs, books, and more;
• William Blake: original drawings and books;
• Cervantes: an extremely rare copy of the ﬁrst edition of Don Quixote and documents in Cervantes’s hand;
• Phillis Wheatley: ﬁrst editions of the ﬁrst book published by an African American;
• Thomas Jefferson: an inventory of his slaves;
• Charles Dickens: the largest surviving portions of the manuscripts for Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby;
• Joseph Conrad: manuscripts for two-thirds of his literary works, including Lord Jim, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent;
• Mercedes de Acosta: letters, photographs, and ephemera relating to cinema and lesbian history;
• Dylan Thomas: the manuscript and typescript for Under Milk Wood;
• Girolomo da Carpi: more than 150 drawings from his Roman sketchbook;
• Fragonard: original drawings for Orlando Furioso;
• George Cruikshank: over 4,000 caricatures and book illustrations, many of them signed;
• Samuel Yellin: a pair of elaborate grillwork doors; over a dozen drawings.

Click on the heading above to see an interview with Sendak produced by the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

Maurice Sendak Still Drawing at 83

2011-09-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

The irascible Maurice Sendak (right) has a new children's book called "Bumble-Ardy" (left) coming out this month (September 2011). Bumble-Ardy evolved from an animated segment for Sesame Street that aired in the early 1970s about a mischievous pig who has reached the age of nine without ever having had a birthday party. That changes when Bumble throws a party for himself and invites all his friends, leading to a wild masquerade that quickly gets out of hand. Bumble-Ardy is the first book illustrated and written by Sendak since Outside Over There in 1981.

Born June 10, 1928, the 83 year old American writer and illustrator of children's books is perhaps best known for Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. Sendak has illustrated over 90 books in his long career including 20 he also wrote.

Sendak's illustrations are intended to not just mirror the text but to add something in his own voice - to create a second deeper story than that which was originally written. His illustrations add something unique to the story of which the writer may not have even been aware. Sendak's illustrations hide another visual story within the written story. The entire text of Where the Wild Things Are, for example, is only 39 words but his illustrations created a rich visual world around the sparse text in the 1963 book which sold over 19 million copies and was turned into a 1980 opera and a 2009 feature film.

Click on the heading above to hear an NPR interview with Sendak in 2005.

First Design-Based Middle School Opens in La Crosse, WI

2011-09-01T07:20:00.000-07:00

The first design-based middle school in the country opened in Fall, 2011 in La Crosse, WI. La Crosse Design Institute is a project-based learning school that focuses on the importance of authentic student-centered learning.

The school is designed to help students become more accountable, better problem solvers, and more informed citizens as they work through the design process to complete individual and group projects. The school's integrated curriculum and hands-on approach to learning will focus on technology, engineering, architecture, manufacturing and science. The teachers, administrators and community partners have a passion for fostering high-level thinkers.

The La Crosse Design Institute will teach students 21st Century skills including communication and presentation skills, organization and time management, research and inquiry skills, self assessment and reflection skills, and group participation and leadership skills. The school's project-based learning approach requires content mastery and critical thinking while incorporating essential project management skills valued by today's global industries.

The school features:
Project Based Learning through a solution-based inquiry in authentic tasks.
Expeditionary Learning where students spend concentrated amounts of time in the community working on design projects.
Interdisciplinary Learning that blends the core specialized areas of the curricula so students experience authentic learning.
Personal Learning Plans through which students are held accountable for their individual learning through continuous progress monitoring, student portfolios and finished design pieces. Parents are active participants in monitoring their child’s learning and attainment of standards.

La Crosse Design Institute introduces creativity and the importance of imagination using basic design as the catalyst for delivering the district’s high quality middle school curriculum. The school’s integrated curriculum and hands-on approach to learning will focus on technology, engineering, architecture, manufacturing and science. The teachers, administrators and community partners have a passion for design.

Click on the heading above to see a video about the La Crosse Design Institute.

Drawing to Learn

2011-08-31T08:25:00.000-07:00

Education has for too long failed to recognize the importance of visualization in the way people learn. School districts and universities don't list visual thinking as a basic skill alongside reading, writing and math but it is clear that, even in science, visual thinking is important for learning, understanding and communicating complex ideas.

Russell Tytler (right) from Deakin University in Australia is one of the researchers who published "Drawing to Learn" in the August 2011 issue of Science magazine. His research shows that drawing in science class helps students grasp science concepts, be more motivated to learn, and helps them communicate what they have learned.

Professor Tytler says their study shows that visualization is integral to science learning and that drawing can help engage students in science lessons, allow them to generate their own representations of common scientific diagrams, assist in the communication of science concepts to others, show understanding of concepts, and help them learn material.

The Drawing to Learn research is part of a three-year study funded through the Australian Research Council on the role of Representation in Learning Science (RiLS).

Click on the heading above to see a 4 minute video of Professor Tytler explaining the study and its results.

The Importance of Drawing in Science Education

2011-08-31T07:22:00.000-07:00

The August 2011 issue of Science magazine has an article about the value of drawing in science education. Authors Shaaron Ainsworth, Vaughan Prain and Russell Tytler say that "Certainly making visualizations is integral to scientific thinking." Diagrams, graphs, videos, photographs, scientific illustrations, sketches, etc. are used by scientists to make discoveries, help them understand complex information, and explain their findings to others.

The article explores the value of drawing in science classes to enhance engagement, represent scientific information, improve reasoning and thinking skills, communicate ideas, and improve learning. Representation in Learning Science (RiLS) is a project that shows how drawing can be a central part of hands-on, multimodal learning in science. Preliminary results show that students who do drawings in their science education programs are engaged more in class, discuss at a higher level, and perform better in workbook activities.

The research shows that not only drawings but all forms of visualization (photographs, videos, animation, models, etc.) help students learn and understand complex science ideas. More research is being done but the article says, "...what is clear is the growing interest in drawing as it reflects new understandings of science as a multimodal discursive practice, as well as mounting evidence for its value in supporting quality learning."

Many visual art teachers are realizing that their field is really more about the "Visual" than the "Art" and that, just like English teachers help students learn anything through words, and math teachers help students learn anything through numbers, art teachers can help students learn anything through visual images, objects, spaces and visual experiences.

Click on the heading above see the article in Science magazine.

"My Design Life" Premiering August 24 on TV

2011-08-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Lisa S. Roberts (left) is the star of a new reality TV show called "My Design Life" beginning August 24 on the Ovation network. Ten 30-minute episodes will air on Wednesdays with back-to-back episodes at 8:00/7:00c and 8:30/7:30c.

The new original TV series is a collaboration between Ovation (the only TV network dedicated to arts and culture), Lisa S. Roberts (author of "Antiques of the Future") and Nancy Glass Productions. A special My Design Life marathon featuring all 10 episodes will air on September 21 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

Lisa S. Roberts was an architect who switched to product and graphic design. In the early 1980's, she began collecting contemporary product design objects which became the basis for her book, Antiques of the Future. Roberts has been featured on HGTV and The Today Show, serves on the Executive Committee of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and is a trustee of Philadelphia's Museum of Art.

My Design Life follows Roberts and her team as they visit museum exhibitions, trade shows, retail stores and designers' studios gathering ideas and inspiration for Roberts' upcoming book, "DesignPop: Popular Trends in Contemporary Product Design".

Episodes include visits to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the design studios of Harry Allen and Tony Wurman; retail stores such as Design Within Reach and Moss; and restaurants, including David Rockwell's Pod (right) and Christine Liaigre's Buddakan. Viewers will learn about the history behind designs and the designers and manufactures who created them.

Highlights from My Design Life include:

Episode 1 - Premiering Wednesday, August 24 at 8:00pm ET/PT --- Lisa and her team visit the NY International Gift Fair and discover a new garlic crusher, a piggy bank cast from a real piglet, Kaktus and balloon stools, the hands-on salad bowl, and a biodegradable umbrella called the Brelli, which they test out at The City University of New York.

Episode 2 - Premiering Wednesday, August 24 at 8:30pm ET/PT --- This episode features designer Karim Rashid, who gives Lisa an exclusive tour of his home; preparation for a party Lisa is hosting in Philadelphia; and a controversial photo shoot for the book, including a Garbo can and a provocative female model.

Highlights from upcoming episodes include a visit to CerealArt, designing your own shoes, the Snotty Vase, a visit to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, a hunt through New York City for condoms relating to the NYC Condom Campaign, and a segment featuring design products from Michael Graves and Debra Alder for Target.

Click on the heading above to go to the My Design Life website. For more information and schedule, visit ovationtv.com or mydesignlife.tv or follow Lisa on twitter @ mydesignlife.

Could Your Students Become Identity Designers?

2011-07-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Students (and too often their teachers as well) know very little about exciting opportunities for creative lives in the many fields of design. Identity Design might be just the right fit for some students if they only knew about the possibilities. Let's take a look at a designer who has made a living helping companies develop and improve their public image.

Su Mathews (right) is a senior partner in design at the brand strategy and design firm Lippincott. She has 20 years of experience in the creation and development of branding, identity systems, publications, interactive media, annual reports, way-finding and promotion projects for global organizations. At Lippincott, Mathews has led the creation of a select service brand called Hyatt Place. This branding initiative included positioning, naming, logo design and a sensory identity system with a signature scent and soundtrack.

She also helped lead the development and launch of Walmart’s brand revitalization, a massive repositioning that required making the brand more contemporary while retaining the values of its legacy and heritage. Elements of this program include a refreshed visual identity, an enhanced customer experience in-store and online, an award-winning employee brand book, and an overall alignment with the retailer’s new brand essence, “Save money. Live better.”

Her clients have included The Art Institute of Chicago, Chick-fil-A, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Disney, Financial Engines, Hershey, Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotel Group, JPMorgan, Liz Claiborne, Loews Cineplex Theatres, New York Public Library, Peddie School, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, RadioShack, Random House, Tauck, the U.S. Department of State, United and Walmart.

Click on the heading above to learn more about what Lippincott does in the world of Brand Strategies and Design.

Identity Is Often Created Through Symbols

2011-07-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Angus Hyland (right) and Steven Bateman edited a book called "Symbol" that just came out this year (June 2011). Symbol is a catalog of symbols, a visual dictionary of more than 1,300 images, each of which conveys different meanings to different groups, cultures and nationalities.

Hyland and Bateman packed 300 pages with a classification of symbols, grouped together in categories and sub-categories identified on the basis of their visual characteristics. For every one of the categories they provide a detailed description and several examples of how the image is applied and used.

Books about logos, trademarks and symbols are popular and plentiful in book stores and online. Hyland and Bateman's book look at symbols only, so there are no typographic and image marks like UPS; Dole; MetLife; Exxon or Coca Cola.

The 1300 symbols in the book are divided into two sections: Abstract and Representational that are subdivided into categories like stripes (fifteen examples) arrows (twenty-five) radiating/circular (twenty-three) sun (fourteen) birds (thirty-two) or hearts (twenty-two).

In the photo on right, Hyland physically demonstrates how the iconic Woolmark logo is a Moebius strip. Considered one of the best logos in the world, the Woolmark accreditation mark was designed by Italian graphic artist Francesco Saroglia, and launched in 1964 in Britain, the US, Japan, Germany, Holland and Belgium. There was a need for a single universal image for wool quality and the Woolmark symbol can only be used on products made of 100 percent wool.

Identity Design in School Arts Magazine

2011-07-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

The August/September issue of School Arts magazine (left) is just out and features an article about identity design. There is a field of design called Identity Design that often includes “branding” which means creating the identity of a specific, product, service, business, commodity or cause.

A brand might include an identifiable name (Band-Aid), logo (Coca-Cola), sign (the Nike swoosh), symbol (the Apple apple), color (UPS brown) or slogan (“Got Milk?”). Identities and brands represent the personality of a product, company or service. They try to create an ideal image in the mind of the public.

The School Arts article suggests helping students become aware of the ubiquity of identity designs all around us. Students can have fun trying to remember color schemes, lettering styles, symbols, slogans or songs associated with companies, products or services they know. They will be able to identify brands by simply seeing a portion of the accompanying logo. They will remember slogans, songs, and sounds identified with brands.

The article also suggests some design education lesson ideas around identity that go beyond "self-identity" which is often the focus of traditional art programs. There are many opportunities for students to develop brand identities for real organizations, services, causes or events in their communities. By trying to solve real needs, identity projects can become more than just a class assignment and give students real-life experiences in meeting the needs of others.

What worthy event, group, organization, or cause could be helped through better branding? How could students help them increase their recognition and identity in the community?

Click on the heading above to go to School Arts magazine online.

Letting Go of Reality

2011-07-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

In the past, let's say until about 10,000 years ago, I guess life was still pretty "real" but, even then, there were already examples of simulated reality in the form of cave paintings dating back more than 30,000 years ago.

Today we are used to living in a variety of "realities":

(1) Reality is the real, physical world (RR) that includes nature and the built environment.

(2) Augmented Reality (AR) is the real world enhanced with traditional or digital information like trails and text panels in nature preserves or apps on your iPhone. The SixthSense augmented reality system lets you project a phone pad onto your hand (left).

(3) Simulated Reality (SR) like theme parks, museum exhibits and themed restaurants. The photo on the right is a yacht that has a simulated island on the top deck so you can take your paradise with you.

(4) Virtual reality (VR) in which a digital world is substituted for the real world such as in a flight simulator or video game.

Whatever combination of realities you prefer, designers have had some hand in creating them. Schools, and the whole learning experience, are being transformed by an increasing use of the full spectrum of realities. Some students still dissect real frogs in biology classes and others learn the parts of a frog through simulated or virtual dissections.

Imagine what the experience of schooling will be like when students have access to a full panoply of Reality, Augmented Reality, Simulated Reality and Virtual Reality through design and design education. Then school will no longer need to be one of the "unhappiest" places on Earth.

Click on the heading above to see more views of the floating island yacht on a site called TechBlog. What kind of simulated paradise can you and your students create in your school?

Corning Shows the Future Potential of Glass

2011-07-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Click on the heading above to see a visionary video showing some concepts for new types of glass being developed by the venerable Corning Glass Company. With a long and lustrous tradition of producing fine historic and traditional glassware, Corning shows it isn't afraid to adapt to the new and emerging potential of incorporating digital electronic displays into their glass products.

On the left is a bathroom mirror that helps you check your messages and get your morning started while brushing your teeth. On the right is an interactive bus kiosk that lets you check bus schedules and routes and them transfer the information to your personal device. These are just a couple of the dozens of ideas shown in the video.

Many of the computer applications shown in the video we have already seen imagined in movies like Minority Report and Total Recall and in real life with Microsoft's Surface computer tables and Apple's iPad, but seeing how these innovations would play out in our regular lives is pretty inspiring.

In this video some creative people have imagined how display technologies can be developed in the near future. What have they left out? What other applications can your students think of? Using drawings, collages, or Photoshop, students can present their own ideas about how these new and emerging technologies can become part of our everyday life.

Interactive Digital Children's Books Are Coming

2011-07-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana has produced an interactive children's book for the iPad. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce, is an interactive digital story based on an award-winning animated short film of the same name.

The iPad version sells for $5 from the App Store so it is marketed as an "app" rather than a book. The app begs the question of whether it is a book at all because it is based on an animated film not on a book and a traditional print version was developed afterward.

Each of the 27 pages (screens) offers the reader a chance to interact with the character Morris. From the opening tornado scene where you can change the speed and direction of Morris tumbling through the storm, to a screen where you help Morris repair some books, the progress of the story requires the reader to take action.

An options bar on the side of the screen allows you to listen to the story with or without text, read it without narration, or turn on the accompanying musical soundtrack.

Each reading of the story will be unique, since it is influenced by the reader's interaction with the touch screen. The creators call it the reinvention of digital storytelling.

Click on the heading above to get the back story on the creation of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

Changing Our Minds About Cities

2011-07-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

We live in a time when we can observe a paradigm shift taking place in the way people think about cities. Until now, cities were often thought of in terms of crowding, congestion, crime, garbage, noise, concrete, pollution, and honking cars. The ideal living situation was the suburbs with two-story houses, tree-lined streets, ample parking, private garages, green lawns, picket fences, hedges, and back yard barbecues.

That is changing. Since 2010, for the first time, more people now live in cities than in rural areas and are loving it. Edward Glaeser (right) has a new book called "Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier" (left). He presents data asserting that people in cities are smarter and make more money, live happier and longer lives, and leave less of a carbon footprint on the environment than people outside of cities. That is a completely different story than the one which with we grew up.

Because this is a time of transition in our thinking, these ideas are controversial. Glaeser advocates for vertical growth - we need to build taller buildings and stop putting height restrictions on buildings. We need to replace rather than preserve older buildings that inhibit access to housing in order to keep housing costs down as people flock to the cities. We need to stop subsidizing single family home ownership and highways to allow tall buildings and public transportation to fairly compete. You can see how his message might appeal to developers and enrage preservationists and environmentalists.

Glaeser points out that cities are actually more environmentally friendly than suburbs. People who live in cities use, on average, 40 percent less energy than those who live in the suburbs.

There are at least two major lessons to explore here. One, of course, is the changing role of cities in our future and the other is the opportunity to examine how we respond to disruptive change. There aren't many times when we are aware of a paradigm shift taking place while it is happening. This awareness often only happens afterward. But here we can see a clear paradigm shift from a previous negative view of cities to a new positive view of cities as vibrant and attractive places to live. Here is a clear opportunity to examine how we respond to a new and emerging paradigm while we still hold onto an historic and traditional set of beliefs.

Click on the heading above to see Glaeser talk about the book.

The Future is Shaped by Landscape Architects

2011-07-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Landscape architecture is not just about creating pretty gardens and back yards. Landscape architects are taking a leading role in shaping cities along with architects and urban planners.

Landscape architects are shaping the future by reclaiming abandoned urban spaces and transforming them into new public spaces. Rather than looking only at natural environments and deciding how to reshape them, landscape architects are also being asked to help reclaim abandoned waterfronts, collapsing factories, and neglected river systems.

The High Line in lower Manhattan is a good example of an urban renewal project done by landscape architects. It was an unused elevated train line once used to transport goods that has now been converted into an elevated city park. The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980.

The High Line is now an elevated linear park with plantings and viewpoints along the route. It is located on Manhattan's West Side and runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. Section 1 opened to the public on June 9, 2009 from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street and Section 2 opened June 8, 2011 between West 20th and West 30th Streets.

Lesson Idea: Landscape Architecture is a 4D spatial design field. Even though students will do planning using 2D drawings and 3D models they must learn to think spatially like architects and landscape architects.

Ideation: Have students identify areas in their communities that involve landscape architecture. Also identify areas that could be improved by being redesigned by landscape architects. Study other landscape architecture projects like the High Line and many others in cities around the world. Learn about Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture. Have students select a problem area in their community that could be improved with better landscape design.

Visualization: Do lots of sketches to explore possible solutions to the landscape architecture challenge selected. Put the sketches up for everyone to see and build off of each other's ideas. What will need to be included in any successful solution? Safety? Cost? Maintenance? Aesthetics? Innovation?

Prototyping: Start building quick models of possible solutions. Which ones are starting to show some promise? Build a scale model of the site and possible design solutions. Show changes in elevation levels and include human figures to indicate scale and usage.

Presentation: Show the model to others and make a presentation explaining the features of the design solution - what problems it solves and why it is important. Who are the decision makers and stakeholders that should be included?

Click on the heading above to learn more about the High Line.

Cy Twombly Made Drawing an Art Form

2011-07-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Cy Twombly, whose childlike scribbles made him one of the era’s most important artists, died July 2011 of cancer in Rome at the age of 83.

Twombly's work (left) wasn't quite Abstract Expressionism, toyed with Minimalism, and foresaw Conceptualism, He was a contemporary and friends with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. His work was controversial and subversive but elementally human. Each line he made, he said, was “the actual experience” of making the line, adding: “It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization.” He said “It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture.”

Twombly's work often had to be defended because it looked like "a child could do it". His drawings were more "marks on paper" than "drawings" as we typically think of them. Helping people understand the subversive and challenging conceptual motivations behind his work is an important path to helping them understand art today.

Twombly's work is important as art because it challenged and subverted commonly held ideas about what art is and helped up-end traditional conceptions of drawing as representation and skilled craftsmanship.

This approach to drawing as "Art" can be taught alongside drawing as visual communication, drawing as design, and drawing as visual culture. It is easy to see the contrast and difference in intent in a drawing by an illustrator like Peter de Seve (right) or a drawing done on a napkin just to capture a thought or idea.

It will be hard to argue that Twombly's drawing is better than the others - they are each done for different purposes and with different intents. Each has a place in our curriculum because our field is the study of visual literacy including visual communication, design, and visual culture as well as fine art.

Lesson Idea: Design the Next Cell Phone

2011-07-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

A company called NVIDIA that develops Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), along with the Computer Graphics Society, has been presenting design challenges for several years that provide great lesson ideas that can be adapted for K-12 schools. This year (the sixth), NVART 06: Moving Innovation, the challenge is to design the next generation of cell phones.

We know that the current phones which require you to hold the device up to your ear is not only cumbersome but dangerous (right). The technology is getting smaller, thinner, and lighter every year. Developments in technology allow for a variety of alternatives - on your wrist like a watch or a bracelet; in your ear like ear buds or behind your ear like a Bluetooth; in glasses (left); in a pendant or necklace; in a ring; etc.

This is presented as a design problem rather than an engineering problem and assumes the technology can be created to fit whatever visual solution is designed but it still needs to be user-friendly and practical - not science fiction. It's always a good idea to create drawings plus prototypes to try out features and see how useable they really are.

There are many examples of possible solutions already submitted that can be used as motivation to start a lesson or part way through the lesson to spark more innovative ideas.

The NVART 06 artwork (left) is by Franz Steiner. Click on the heading above to see other examples of designs already submitted. Look back at the previous years for ideas about additional design challenges.

Developing a Comprehensive K-12 Design Education Program

2011-06-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone interested in helping to develop a comprehensive K-12 design education support system is invited to contact Rayala@Kutztown.edu.

"Comprehensive" can be interpreted in several ways:
1. Producing designs, understanding design, design history, design criticism, design theory.
2. 2D graphic design, 3D product design, 4D spatial design, and 5D experience design.
3. Design Thinking - problem-solving, ideation, visualization, prototyping, implementation, evaluation.
4. Interdisciplinary design - technology, art, computer science, mathematics, engineering, marketing, illustration, robotics, social studies, etc.
5. High and Low Design - comic books, pulp illustration, theme park design, video game design, children's animation, etc.
6. Historic, traditional, contemporary, new and emerging design.
7. Design in Japan, India, China, UK, US, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, etc.
8. Elementary, middle and high school levels.

Others?

What is needed to support K-12 design education?
Lesson plans, curriculum, standards, professional development, a conference, a social network, a publication, design teaching exemplars???
What can you contribute?

Tomi Ungerer Illustrates Children's Books

2011-06-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

When Tomi Ungerer lived in Greenwich Village in New York City in the 1960s he and his friend Jules Feiffer both did edgy, sometimes sexually explicit work for the Village Voice and Playboy magazine. Both now also do charming children's books of a much friendlier and tamer nature. Ungerer, who has lived in Ireland for the last 25 years, came to NYC in 1956 at the age of 25 from his home in Alsace, France. With little formal education Ungerer nonetheless speaks, reads and writes books in English, German and French as a result of growing up in Alsace. He writes all of his children's books in English even though many are also printed in other languages.

In an impromptu drawing demonstration with some excited children (right) at the Phaidon Book Store in NYC, Ungerer used a small pair of scissors (held up by his thumb) to form the eyes and beak of a bird he completed with marker. He had already demonstrated the differences between drawing an elephant and a pig by changing the tail, feet, ears and nose. Cutting off the elephant's trunk to form the pig's snout created little sausage slices that then became the nose and eyes, and even the buttons, of the pig. The lowest button is a bit different because, as the children guessed, it is a "belly button". In the center is a little pig on the bank of a river in response to a request to draw a "piggy bank". (click on the image to see the details)

Tomi Ungerer is the only living French artist to have a museum dedicated to him. Musée Tomi Ungerer/Centre international de l’illustration is a museum in Strasbourg where he was born. Opened in November 2007, it displays 8,000 graphic works of all kind by Ungerer and some of his most famous colleagues (Saul Steinberg, Ronald Searle, André François...) as well as Ungerer's large collection of ancient toys.

The museum is spread over three floors of a French villa. The ground floor is dedicated to Ungerer's work as a children's book illustrator, the first floor is dedicated to his work as a political caricaturist and satirical cartoonist. The basement—not accessible for children—is dedicated to his erotic and semi-pornographic drawings.

Ungerer and his colleagues are often referred to as cartoonists but somehow their work doesn't seem to fit that description. They are sometimes referred to as satirical or political cartoonists. Ungerer was impressed by the work of Saul Steinberg because the work conveyed humor and imagination without the use of words.

Click on the heading above to see images of the collection at Musée Tomi Ungerer/Centre international de l’illustration.

Get Schooled by Super 8

2011-06-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

On the surface, the movie Super 8 is an enjoyable summer action flick but, for students interested in making movies of their own some day, it is also an excellent textbook on the language of visual story telling techniques.

Super 8 is a movie in which a group of young people are trying to make their own movie. Their amateur efforts are set alongside the real movie directed by J.J. Abrams which, as they say, has "production values." The movie Abrams made is an homage to Steven Spielberg and his life-long love of film as a story telling medium. Abrams (on right in photo on left), an exceptionally gifted story teller in his own right, channels Spielberg (on left in photo on left) in his selection of camera angles, crane shots, slow zooms on faces, constantly moving camera, extreme point-of-view shots, tight editing and fast-paced story points.

Students interested in film making should be encouraged to study every frame of this move - every shot - every edit - every pan - every scene - every lighting treatment - and every sound. It is not great art but it is workman-like film making the way students would like to be able to do it. This is simply solid filmic story telling in the hands of an expert giving tribute to one of the masters.

An epic train wreck early in the film is overly long and over the top to heighten the contrast between "production value" available to film professionals and those available to amateur film makers. Abrams is saying "I'll show you production value." The point is brought home humorously again at the end (don't leave before the credits roll) by bookending the film's opening train sequence with the students' own attempt to simulate a train wreck in super 8.

Throughout the film, Abrams and Spielberg demonstrate how to frame a shot, how to manage the movement of the action and the camera, how to transition from one scene to another, how to do a reaction shot, how long to hold a shot, and everything else one should attend to when telling an effective story with film.

When Super 8 comes out on DVD it should become part of your film library so students can pause and study each shot and each scene to help them internalize the rhythm of film.

Click on the heading above to see the trailer for Super 8.

The Challenge of Pulp Art

2011-06-20T14:01:00.000-07:00

“Pulp Art: The Robert Lesser Collection” is the current exhibit at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. Ninety pieces from the Lesser collection are currently displayed at the Society of Illustrators.

Lesser (left with his Bride of Frankenstein collectible) is a pulp art collector and author of the book by that name (right) that recognizes pulp art as a valuable part of American cultural heritage while some find it offensive garbage. Pulp Art is definitely identified more closely with Visual Culture than it is Art.

Lesser was a pioneer in recognizing the value of pulp art with the collection of original paintings and the corresponding printed publications he started in the 1970s. He now has the most comprehensive collection of pulp art in America. Pulp art, which was often destroyed after it was created, is now an extremely rare highly collectible commodity.

Pulp art, along with folk art, needs the qualifying first word to distinguish it from "fine art" which often is referred to simply as "art". Much confusion would be minimized if "art" always had a qualifying term like "pulp", "folk", or "fine" to clarify the categories. Pulp Art is often thought of as the working man's art, a true American art form, with no European, high society pretensions.

Lesser is unapologetic about his love for Pulp Art, even while revealing that many of the painters themselves refused to sign their own work and never expected it to be of any value. Thinking about the art world's low esteem for such work provides a good opportunity to draw clear distinctions between Visual Culture and Fine Art and helps us clarify the strict rules and requirements established by the fine art world.

New Book on "Design Thinking" by Nigel Cross

2011-06-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

Nigel Cross, Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at the Open University, UK, has a useful new book called "Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work" that is a good introduction to design for K-12 teachers and undergraduate students.

Anyone who is interested in understanding how designers think and work will find this small, accessible book useful because it reveals what designers do while they are engaged in designing. Using case studies of designers at work, interviews, experiments, simulations and reflection, Cross helps us understand, often using the designer's own words, their creative processes and strategies for developing design innovations.

This is not a "how-to" book but it provides commentary and advice based on design research, case studies, and interdisciplinary observations from fields such as architecture, product design, engineering and automotive design. Design today includes activities like drawing or modeling done prior to and sometimes separate from making things.

Cross finds that designers share common strategies such as taking a broad, systems approach to a problem rather than accepting narrow criteria; framing the problem in distinctive ways; and design from "first principles" that attend to the problem goals, framing the problem, developing solution criteria, and conceptualizing a solution.

Cross says that we all design to a certain extent and can develop our natural design abilities over time through education and experience from neophyte and novice to expert and master.

2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize Announced

2011-06-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

Eduardo Souto de Moura, a 58 year old Portuguese architect who has worked mainly in his native country, has been awarded the 2011 Pritzker Prize. The Pritzker Prize is considered the highest honor an architect can receive - it is like the Nobel Prize of architecture.

Souto de Moura (right), who lives and works in the northern Portuguese city of Porto, is not as well known internationally as many previous Pritzker winners but is highly respected in Portugal. He is the second Portuguese architect to win the prize; the first was Alvaro Siza in 1992. Souto de Moura worked for Siza early in his career.

Souto de Moura work includes his 2004 stadium in Braga, Portugal, a 2007 office tower in Porto and his design for the Paula Rego Museum in Cascais, Portugal, completed in 2008.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama (left) presented the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize to Souto de Moura at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC, June 2. The Pritzer Architecture Prize is awarded annually by a jury to a living architect who has made “significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” The winner receives a $100,000 grant.

With his tendency toward angular designs using steel, glass, granite, and marble, Souto de Moura is often described as a “neo-Miesian” (Mies van der Rohe). Souto de Moura does not define his work as "green", but takes care to pay attention to sustainable building elements. At a forum in 2004, he said, “There is no ecological architecture, no intelligent architecture, no sustainable architecture — there is only good architecture. There are always problems we must not neglect. For example, energy, resources, costs, social aspects — one must always pay attention to all these.”

New Documentary Film Explores Motion Design in NYC

2011-06-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Graham Elliott (right) directed a documentary film called New York in Motion that explores the industry of motion design in New York City. The hour-long documentary is a distillation of over 100 hours of film featuring about 50 of the top motion graphic designers in NYC.

Elliott has been working in Motion Graphics himself for many years and teaches motion graphics at the School of Visual Arts. He realized that even though it’s all around us, his students did not really know what Motion Graphics actually was. He believes Motion Graphics is definitely the next big thing in the creative arts.

He wanted to find out what the people who are actually creating the Motion Graphics in New York City have to say about the field. Richard Wilde, dean of the SVA Graphic Design & Advertising department that also heads a fast-growing Motion-Graphics division, supported the film as Executive Producer.

Elliott felt that the digital revolution has brought with it an era of digital democracy. Accessibility and affordability have put the creators in much more control, as opposed to ten years ago, when you really had to be part of a large company to have access to the tools and distribution networks to produce motion graphics.

Click on the heading above to see the trailer for New York in Motion.

Television Loves Motion Graphics

2011-06-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

Chris Scarlata (left) is one of the almost 50 motion designers featured in Graham Elliott's documentary film "New York in Motion" showing some of the top motion graphic designers in New York City.

Chris is a Design Director for Comedy Central, the TV network that features hit comedy shows like South Park, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Comedy Central has design departments for their print, web and TV departments. Chris is a Design Director and Brand Creative in the TV area and has been with Comedy Central for 12 years.

In addition to managing the brand logo for Comedy Central, designers In broadcasting create commercial bumpers, ident bumpers and break bumpers usually simply referred to as bumps. These are usually two to 15 second motion graphics placed between a pause in the program going into and out of commercial breaks.

Even though he is a Design Director for one of the hottest enterprises in television, Chris secretly would love to teach! He sees a need for more awareness of design in K-12 schools.

Click on the heading above to see several motion graphic promos for Comedy Central in a one minute video.

Teach Students Visual Note Taking

2011-06-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

Students can learn how to take visual notes with just a bit of instruction and practice. Once they know how to do it they should be encouraged to take visual notes in all of their classes as well as activities outside of school. Use visual note taking as a warm up or fill-in at the end of class.

The first step is to encourage students to carry a sketchbook. A small hardbound sketchbook is standard and will last them most of the school year. Fine line markers and pencils are good tools to use. Colored markers or even crayons can be used to add color.

Have students practice doing hand-drawn letters in a variety of styles. This is a skill they will find useful all of their lives.

See how many types of bullets, connectors and frames they can find or imagine. They should try to select appropriate ones to go with the content. Bullets usually refer to black circles (like bullet holes) but can be open squares, stars, hearts or anything that works at a small scale. Comic books use a lot of different frames (thought balloons, jagged "crash" frames, speech balloons, rectangles, squares, ovals, etc.)

In the list on the right "peeps" stands for people. That should include people, places and things. The goal is "Show me, don't tell me". See how many words can be replaced with images and still convey the meaning. Students can play games like "Pictionary" to practice doing quick drawings. A quick shadow on a frame, picture, bullet or connector makes it pop off the page.

Once students see the difference between dry written pages and rich visual note taking they won't be satisfied with the boring old method again.

Click on the heading above to see a comprehensive visual note taking video with some experts that could be used with your students.

Education is Biased Against Visualization

2011-05-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the list of basic skills in your university, state education agency or school district standards and curriculum documents and they will include things like "reading, writing, and arithmetic". Some will use words like "Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Mathematics". Others will say "Written Communication, Oral Communication and Numerical Communication". Still others will use words like "Verbal Literacy and Numerical Literacy". Whatever language they use it is clear that they value competencies with words and numbers and exclude all visual skills.

Try to suggest, as I have, the addition of "Visualization", "Visual Literacy", "Visual Thinking" or "Visual Communication" as a basic skill, and you will soon discover the dirty little secret that scholars and educators do not accept Visualization as a basic skill for learning about the world, processing information, or communicating information and ideas to others. There is no university, state education agency, or school district in the country that includes any form of visual thinking in their list of basic skills for all students.

The omission of visual thinking in the list of basic skills is not accidental or due to an oversight. The exclusion of visualization as a basic skill expected of all students is systematic, intentional and universal in education circles.

Barbara Maria Stafford, a professor at the University of Chicago, has written several books exploring the reasons for systematic biases against visualization in the education world. She says, "Not enough attention has been paid, I believe, to the marginalization of imagery of all kinds in our society as an intellectual form of communication."

Visualization involves 4 domains:
2D images (pictures, photos, graphs, maps, etc.)
3D objects (models, prototypes, dioramas, manipulatives, etc.)
4D spaces (topographies, landscapes, structures, urban environments, museums, etc.)
5D experiences (video games, virtual reality, interactive infographics, immersive environments, etc.)

Together they make up half of the tools (intelligences) we use to learn about the world, process information, and communicate ideas to each other. (The other four are words, numbers, sounds, and movement.) Our brains have four lobes and one (the Occipital Lobe) is devoted to visual processing.

The first step in advocating for art, design or visual culture in schools is to convince people that visualization itself is a valuable way to understand the world around us.

Are Your Thoughts and Memories Narratives or Images?

2011-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

Terrence Malick's new movie, "The Tree of Life", has little narrative or dialog but is highly visual. Those who seek stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end, combined with lots of action and dialogue, will find the film long, boring and pretentious.

Imagine this - there is a day in your life that has made such a disturbing and lasting impression on you that, every year on that day, you find yourself thinking back all those years and pondering what it all means. You think about everything that happened before that fateful day, wonder why it happened, question your life choices, and even vaguely begin to think about the meaning of life itself. These thoughts don't pour out in a nice complete narrative but come out piecemeal with snatches here and there and one thing making you think of another. That's what this movie tries to capture.

Sean Penn (Jack) appears in glimpses as the older version of a troubled boy (played by Hunter McCracken) whose younger brother died at the age of 19. They were part of a suburban Texas family with three young boys growing in the 1950s. The film shows Jack, as he apparently does every year on the anniversary of his brother's death, trying to make sense of it all (left). Thinking about their lives together as boys. Reflecting on his parents' grief at the loss. Wondering why his gifted and angelic brother (right with Brad Pitt as the father) died before him.

'The Tree of Life' is being compared to Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' because of its epic scope and evocative images. The film captures the pall of tragedy and its aftermath years later, combined with a coming-of-age story, questioning life choices, and exploring everything from the existence of God and why bad things happen to good people to the glory of nature and modern disillusionment.

Young Jack questions God along with the stern parenting style of his father (Brad Pitt), and eventually realizes that the contrasting ideologies of his father and mother will forever wrestle inside him. We are animals but also something more - the film presents two opposing ways through life: brute nature and spiritual grace.

Click on the heading above to watch the trailer.

Teachable Moments: Are All Oil Paintings Art?

2011-05-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Since the introduction of photography, painted portraits have taken on a different role than they did in the days of Rembrandt and this provides a teachable moment for students and the public about the different domains of visual literacy including Visual Communication, Design, Visual Culture and Fine Art.

A portrait of Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, was recently unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The painting (left) was done by Jon Friedman and is on display in the museum's "Recent Acquisitions" exhibition. It was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery and is part of the museum's permanent collection.

The portrait includes both Bill and Melinda and emphasizes the Gateses' humanitarian efforts, which are conducted through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (The screen behind them in the painting reads "All Lives Have Equal Value.") The artwork makes no direct visual reference to Microsoft, the software company that Gates founded with Paul Allen in 1975.

The Gates painting joins other portraits of prominent businessmen who are featured in the museum's collections such as Ted Turner, Malcolm Forbes Jr., Rupert Murdoch and Hugh Hefner. A spokeswoman for the National Portrait Gallery said that the museum features portraits of "individuals of all backgrounds and careers -- it's a matter of how significant you are in American history." (An illustration usually tells us about the subject matter in the painting and a work of art tells us more about the artist.)

Writing for the Daily Beast, Blake Gopnik asks "Is this art?" Part of his answer is "... it isn’t functioning as art at all, any more than the picture on your driver’s license is. It was commissioned by a history museum in honor of its subject—“someone of national significance, someone our audience is interested in,” as curator Brandon Fortune explained—not by an art museum to honor its artist." (click on the heading above to read the article and see reader comments.)

This is an opportunity for teachers to help students and others develop more precision in the use of language regarding the visual world. Since 80% of the American population has less than a 6th grade education in visual literacy it is no surprise that they get easily confused. They can't distinguish between a painting for scientific purposes (Visual Communication), an illustration (Design), a work of popular culture (Visual Culture), or personal expression with no other intended function (Fine Art).

People make mental errors like "Famous artists made oil painting on canvas, therefor all oil paintings on canvas are art". The image on the right above is an illustration done in oil paints by Tom Fluharty that is not intended to be Art. Illustration is an area of Design done for very different purposes than Art. That doesn't make it of lesser quality or somehow "failed" art. It is simply in a completely different domain.

A painting can be Visual Communication (Audubon's bird paintings), Design (the cover illustration for a magazine), Visual Culture (Rosemaling on a wooden trunk), or Fine Art (Monet's Water Lilies). They can all be original, creative, skillfully done, aesthetically pleasing, and worth a lot of money. That doesn't make them all "Art".

Even a photograph can be Visual Communication (a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper photograph), Design (a Fashion shot on the cover of Vogue magazine), Visual Culture (your vacation pictures), or Fine Art (Ansel Adams, etc.).

Practice using more precise language when referring to the Visual World. Say "illustrator" or "painter" rather than "artist". Call something a painting, an illustration, or folk art, rather than calling them all "Art". That doesn't mean they are not pleasing, well-done, valuable, or important. It just means they are done for different reasons.

National Design Week is October 15-23, 2011

2011-05-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

National Design Week is the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s largest education initiative that aims to draw national attention to the ways in which design enriches everyday life. Launched in 2006, National Design Week is held each year in conjunction with the National Design Awards program. In addition to offering free admission for all Museum visitors, Cooper-Hewitt's award-winning Education Department hosts a series of free public programs based on the vision and work of the National Design Awards honorees. National Design Week culminates with the National Design Awards gala ceremony.

National Design Week also reaches schoolteachers and their students nationally, both in the classroom and online through the Educator Resource Center. In recognition of the importance of design education, organizations and institutions across the country sponsor design events throughout the month, which are promoted through the Design Across America year-round online resource.

As part of National Design Week, the People’s Design Award was launched to provide the general public with the opportunity to nominate and vote for its favorite design. The winning design is announced live at the National Design Awards gala ceremony.

Click on the heading above for more information.

12th Annual National Design Awards Announced

2011-05-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum has announced the winners of the 12th Annual National Design Awards. The award recipients will be honored at a gala dinner Thursday, Oct. 20, at Pier Sixty in New York during National Design Week.

Cooper-Hewitt’s sixth annual National Design Week will be held Oct. 15–23. Educational programming surrounding the 2011 National Design Awards includes the Educator Open House, the Teen Design Fair in New York and the Teen Design Fair in Washington, D.C., sponsored in part by Target.

The National Design Awards were launched at the White House in 2000 as a project of the White House Millennium Council to promote excellence and innovation in design. The awards are accompanied each year by a variety of public education programs, including special events, panel discussions and workshops. First Lady Michelle Obama serves as the Honorary Patron for this year’s National Design Awards.

The 2011 National Design Award recipients are:

Lifetime Achievement: Matthew Carter (right)
During the past 50 years, Carter has designed some of the most recognizable typefaces used today. He is a principal of Carter & Cone Type Inc., a foundry that designs and produces original typefaces for the retail font market and for clients, including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Yale University and Microsoft, for which Carter designed the screen fonts Verdana and Georgia. Named a MacArthur Fellow for 2010, he teaches type design at the Yale University School of Art.

Design Mind: Steven Heller (left)
The Design Mind Award recognizes visionary individuals or firms that have affected a shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship. Steven Heller is the author and editor of more than 130 books on graphic design, satiric art and popular culture.

Corporate and Institutional Achievement: Knoll
Knoll was founded in 1938 by Hans Knoll on the conviction that good design enriches lives.

Architecture Design: Architecture Research Office
Architecture Research Office, a New York-based firm has work that spans from strategic planning to architecture and urban design.

Communication Design: Rick Valicenti
Rick Valicenti’s founded Thirst, a Chicago-based design collaborative devoted to art, function and real human presence.

Fashion Design: J. Mendel
J. Mendel is a fifth-generation luxury brand established on the principles of high quality, style and craftsmanship was inducted into the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2003.

Interaction Design: Ben Fry
Ben Fry is principal of Fathom Information Design in Boston that develops software, printed works, installations and books that depict and explain topics from the human genome to baseball salaries to the evolution of text documents.

Interior Design: Shelton, Mindel & Associates
Shelton, Mindel & Associates is a leader in architectural, interior and product solutions for corporate, cultural, academic, retail, recreational, hospitality and residential clients which includes the design of the Polo/Ralph Lauren headquarters.

Landscape Architecture: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, a Seattle-based landscape-architecture practice, projects include the Lurie Garden in Chicago, the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian’s Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, which houses the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the new Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Campus in Seattle.

Product Design: Continuum
Continuum is a global design and innovation consultancy that has created such innovative and successful products as the Pump line of athletic shoes for Reebok and the Swiffer line of floor-cleaning products for Procter & Gamble. Its medical innovations include the Insulet OmniPod insulin delivery system and the Nala Patient Recovery Chair and Compass Patient Room System for Herman Miller.

The 2011 National Design Awards Jury included:
•Andrew Blauvelt, Walker Art Center
•June Cohen, TED Media
•Jamie Drake, Drake Design Associates
•Terry Guen, Terry Guen Design Associates Inc.
•David Kusuma, Tupperware Brands Corporation
•Jennifer Morla, Morla Design
•Lela Rose, Lela Rose
•Billie Tsien, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
•Patrick Whitney, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology

Click on the heading above for more details.

Lighting and Projection Design are Key Elements in Broadway Musical "Spiderman"

2011-05-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark is not so much a Broadway play as it is a rock musical/aerial circus show. The music (by Bono and The Edge), sets, costumes, lighting, projections (by Kyle Cooper), and spectacular flying sequences are the focus of the show. It is an extraordinary technical achievement.

Lighting Designer Don Holder (left) and Projection Coordinator Howard Werner (right) talked about the trials and tribulations of designing the most technically challenging musical ever produced on Broadway at a Broadway Lighting Master Class in May, 2011 just weeks before the production was about to open.

The $75 million production requires 5 stage managers, over 50 ground plans, an $18,000 a week lighting budget, 1800 lighting set-ups, a one-of-a-kind 5-platform fly system using kevlar ropes, manually programmed moveable lights facile enough for every flying area in the whole theatre, and the only theater in New York City with balconies far enough away to provide sufficient space for the flying. Con-Edison had to run extra sends off the street to support the extra power needed. Adding to the expense was the need to develop all of this in the actual theatre rather than off-site which is the usual practice.

Despite all of the technical requirements Holder and Werner focussed on the basics: What is the defining idea of each scene? What is the big gesture of each segment? They focussed on the "world of the play", the "frame of the piece" which included lighting the flying sequences (requiring calculating the x, y, and z axis), creating lighting fixture positions clear of the flying ropes, lighting the entire theatre not just the stage, and still lighting the stage which included the proscenium, a goal-post back drop, side ladders, the skyscape backgrounds, and the pop-up cityscape sets which include moving 40 ft. tall, 10 ft. wide, 4 inch thick legs, as well as internally lit light boxes with translucent backs,

After four years of development and six months in previews the show is scheduled to open in June, 2011. Click on the heading above to get a taste.

Spiderman on Broadway Reworked After Hiatus

2011-05-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

The sets, lighting and flying rigs designed for the Broadway production of Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark make it the most challenging production ever produced on Broadway. There are many aspects in the production that have never been attempted before.

As part of the 17th annual Broadway Lighting Master Class (BLMC) May 24-26, 2011, 8-time Tony-Award winning Lighting Designer Jules Fisher (left) led a panel discussion (right) at Sardi's Restaurant, NYC that featured the lighting and projection design for the rock musical/aerial circus Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. The panel included (from left to right) Fisher, Vivian Leone (Lighting Manager), Howard Werner (Projection Coordinator), Don Holder (Lighting Designer), and Glen Berger (Writer).

Don Holder presented an in-depth critique of his lighting for Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, which all BLMC attendees saw on Wednesday, May 25, complete with post-show Q&A and stage tour. Holder was diplomatic about the controversial replacement of Julie Taymor as Director of the production because he considers Taymor to be a genius and a close personal friend. (Holder was the Lighting Designer for Taymor's Broadway smash hit "The Lion King".) The transition from what is referred to as the 1.0 to the 2.0 versions of the production was painful and demoralizing to many who had already put in an amazing amount of work. The production was basically re-staged, re-choreographed and re-written to clarify the story, make it funnier, warmer, less edgy, and more accessible.

Coke Designs a New Vending Experience

2011-05-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

Coca-Cola has designed a new way to get their drinks in cups. The new Coca-Cola Freestyle is a touch screen soda fountain introduced in 2009 and slowly being rolled out across the country. The main attraction is many more choices than have ever been available before. The slightly retro oval dispenser opening provides a comforting nostalgia to a futuristic experience.

The Coke Freestyle machine provides over 100 different carbonated and non-carbonated Coca-Cola drink products and custom flavors with a simple interface involving a touch screen to select your drink, a lever for ice, and a button to dispense the drink. The machines include flavors not previously available to the American market including Orange Coke which was previously sold only in Russia and the Baltics,and flavored Dasani waters. (For some reason there is no ginger ale or lemon flavoring.) Residual flavor in the single spout slightly contaminates subsequent drinks but it is usually imperceptible.

The brightly lit starting touch-screen shows 22 brands owned by Coke including Barqs, Seagrams, Minute Maid, Pibb, Dasani, Hi-C, Powerade, Vault, Sprite and Fanta as well as their own Coke variations such as Coke Zero and Diet Coke. After selecting one of those brands the next screen shows six or seven varieties of that product. If a product supply is depleted the icon is dimmed.

Without any instructions or labels on the machine, first-time users take a few seconds and a couple of trial-and-error moves to figure out how it works. First, you still have to go to the register to pay for a cup and take it to the machine. Many over-fill their cup with ice by depressing the lever inside the opening expecting the beverage to come out at the same time. A button above the opening blinks brightly and users quickly see that the beverage is dispensed separately. (Coca-Cola enlarged the overspill chute so users can experiment with flavors and pour away test drinks and added a fan to melt discarded ice-cubes.) Users usually make one quick press in case the button is the type that dispenses a predetermined amount and quickly see that you need to hold the button down until the cup is filled. Trial-and-error or watching other users only takes a few seconds and then you're good to go. (Click on the heading above to see a short video of some users experiencing the machine for the first time.)

The Freestyle machine is made possible by microdispensing technology originally developed by Dean Kamen's DEKA research to deliver extremely precise doses of drugs. Microdosing blends one or more concentrated ingredients in 46-ounce packets with water and sweetener at the point where the beverage is dispensed, avoiding the traditional 5-gallon boxes of syrup. The machine uses RFID chips to detect its supplies and to radio resupplying needs to other units and transmits supply and demand data to both Coca-Cola and the owner including brands sold, times of the day of sales, troubleshooting information, and service data.

Customers choose a base product and then an additional flavoring. Coca-Cola, Diet Coca-Cola and Caffeine Free Diet Coca-Cola are all available with vanilla, lime, raspberry, cherry or orange flavoring. Coca-Cola Zero is available with cherry or vanilla flavoring. Sprite and Sprite Zero are available with cherry, strawberry, grape, peach and raspberry flavorings. Powerade ION4 and Powerade Zero sports drinks, Fanta and Fanta Zero, which already has an orange flavor, as well as Hi-C are available with fruit punch, lime, grape, strawberry, peach, raspberry, or cherry flavoring. Minute Maid Lemonade and Minute Maid Light Lemonade are available with cherry, orange, raspberry, or strawberry flavoring. Dasani still water and Dasani Sensations carbonated water is available with lime, peach, orange, grape, strawberry, raspberry, or cherry flavoring. Vault Red Blitz energy drink is available with orange, grape and peach flavoring. Additionally, Pibb Xtra, Pibb Zero are available. Barq's and Diet Barq's root beer are available from the machines with vanilla flavoring.

New York Public Library Celebrates 100th Anniversary

2011-05-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

The New York Public Library (NYPL) celebrated its 100 year history by looking to the future and invited game designer Jane McGonigal to create a game called "Find the Future".

McGonigal spoke on a panel with Stuart Candy and Michael Specter where they talked about the future from two perspectives- How we will respond to new developments in the future and how we will change the way we live today based on our perceptions of the future. They urged participants to "Think about the future, plan for disruptions in the status quo, and be ready to go when the future arrives."

Jane McGonigal (left) has taught game design and game theory at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley and she currently serves as the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future. She recently wrote Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World.

Stuart Candy (far left) is Senior Foresight and Innovation Specialist at Arup, Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts, and Research Fellow of The Long Now Foundation. He believes our education system is "broken in a big way."

Michael Specter (right) has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998 and is the author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives.

Find the Future: The Game is a pioneering, interactive experience created especially for NYPL’s Centennial by famed game designer Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics. McGonigal says gaming is the most productive way to spend our time and urges everyone to play online games about an hour every day. Games build curiosity, optimism, pride, relationships, meaning, and purpose.

Find the Future: The Game kicked off on May 20, 2011 as part of NYPL’s Centennial Festival weekend, with a “Write All Night” event inside the landmark building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Starting in April, 500 people pre-qualified to participate.

Players (18 and older) explored the building’s 70 miles of stacks, and, using laptops and smartphones, followed clues to such treasures as the Library’s copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. After finding each object, players wrote short, personal essays inspired by their quest — for example, how would they write the Declaration? A collaborative book based on these personal stories about the future is being compiled and will be added to the Library’s collections.

Starting Saturday, May 21, 2011, Find the Future: The Game opened up to gamers across the city and the world who are able to play using their personal smartphones or computers, or on free computers at any of NYPL’s 90 locations.

Click on the heading above to learn more about Find the Future: The Game.

Art Center College of Design Teams With Bernhardt Design

2011-05-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

During the 2011 ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York, 25 young designers from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA were featured in a retrospective celebrating the completion of a series of five innovative interdisciplinary studios sponsored by Bernhardt Design. Bernhardt Design produces fine furniture designs (left). The May 2011 retrospective at the ICFF featured all the designs created over the past seven years in all five Bernhardt studios, including the debut of eight new products.

Bernhardt Design President Jerry Helling and Art Center's Environmental Design Chair David Mocarski (right), developed the course to educate students in the process of designing products ultimately viable for production. At the conclusion of each studio, Bernhardt Design selected products for introduction in the commercial market. Since its inception, the design-through-production studio concept has served as a model for other similar educational programs.

Bernhardt Design’s partnership with Art Center came about from the school's relationship with industry as well as its reputation as a leading art and design institution for more than 80 years. The studio course, hosted by the Environmental Design Department, has successfully trained students over the past seven years to design products that are visually appealing, appropriate for the commissioning manufacturer, fiscally feasible and suitable within the constraints of mass production. The products developed from the Bernhardt Design studios have not only been award winning, but commercially successful around the world.

Former Art Center students now have successful careers, from designing for Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam to starting their own creative studios to working with top-tier manufacturers worldwide. The work of 20 designers from the program are currently in production with Bernhardt Design including the Red Dot Award-winning Loft chair by Shelly Shelly, the Audio chair by Chris Adamick, and Linc tables by Chase Wills.

Core77 Celebrates "Sweet 16" Birthday

2011-05-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

As part of Design Week in New York City (coinciding with ICFF - International Contemporary Furniture Fair) the industrial design website, Core77, celebrated its "Sweet 16" birthday. Two of the founders, Alan Chochinov, Editor-in-Chief (far left with designer Josh Owen), and Stuart Constantine (right) were on hand to celebrate with the packed house at the Phaidon Book Store in lower Manhattan.

Since 1995 Core77.com has served a huge global audience of industrial designers (millions of readers each month) ranging from students through seasoned professionals. Core77 publishes articles, discussion forums, an extensive event calendar, hosts portfolios, job listings, a database of design firms, schools, vendors and services. Core77 provides a gathering point for designers and enthusiasts by producing design competitions, lecture series, parties, and exhibits.

Click on the heading above to go to Core77.

Metropolis Magazine Held Annual Conference at ICFF

2011-05-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Metropolis magazine held its annual conference, "Local Talent, Global Markets", at ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York City on Monday, May 16, 2011.

Architects, designers, manufacturers, and marketers attended the one-day global summit to discuss how local talent and ideas can enrich world markets. The conference explored how the search for the authentic, the culturally distinct, and the sustainable are leading to a new generation of products, buildings, and neighborhoods, and ways in which design invention leads to creating jobs and livelihoods.

Susan S. Szenasy (right), Metropolis magazine editor in chief and conference facilitator, introduced presenters on a variety of global design topics from Spain, India, Italy, Senegal, Norway, Germany, England and the U.S.

Eleni Reed (on left in photo on left), the Chief Greening Officer of the U.S. General Services Administration, discussed the GSA’s push to make the agency’s buildings sustainable. On the right is the interdisciplinary team that won Metropolis’s 2011 Next Generation Design Competition. They presented their proposal to convert one of the GSA’s 1960s federal office buildings from energy hog to zero environmental impact.

Click on the heading above to read more about the Metropolis magazine conference.

Six Degrees of Separation

2011-05-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

People go to Design Week and the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York City to network with others who love design, meet new people, catch up with old friends, and see what's new in the world of design.

I visited Lyn Godley (left) with her students in industrial design at Philadelphia University at their two booths at the ICFF during the day. That night, at the Core77 party held at Phaidon, I ran into Indrit Hajno (far right), a former student (6 years ago) at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design in Philadelphia, and Josh Owen (on left in picture on the right), well known designer and industrial design faculty member at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). Indrit, now graduating from college, had been an intern with Josh Owen and Lyn recently stepped into Josh's position at Philadelphia University when he moved to RIT.

Four people, four schools, and six degrees of separation over 6 years.

ICFF (Furniture Fair) Enlivens New York City

2011-05-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

North America’s premier showcase for contemporary design, the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) is an encyclopedic exhibition of up-to-the-moment designs, as well as a series of programs, exhibits and features.

From May 19–21, 2011, 145,000 square feet of the Javits Center was filled with more than 24,000 interior designers, architects, retailers, designers, manufacturers, representatives, distributors, and developers. On Tuesday, May 22, the ICFF was open to the general public, as well.

More than 500 exhibitors from all points of the globe displayed contemporary furniture, seating, carpet and flooring, lighting, outdoor furniture, materials, wall coverings, accessories, textiles, and kitchen and bath for residential and commercial interiors. This is an unparalleled opportunity to view a broad selection of the world's finest, most innovative, and original avant-garde home and contract products side-by-side, under one roof.

The ICFF hosts representatives from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and U.S.

Above right, Lyn Godley (on left), who teaches industrial design at Philadelphia University, stands with four of her sophomore students (Christian Ost, Christian Loos, Michael Shannon and Brian Celenza) who were among the students invited to exhibit projects at the ICFF.

Click on the heading above to go to the ICFF site.