Did we just design ourselves into a dependent bubble?

Kids these days with their mobile tel-lee-phone and their tweeters with their gimme-gimme-gimme-now-now-now. Lazy-spoiled brats! Back in my day...  

It is difficult to go anywhere without noticing someone on some kind of electronic device. Hell, I am on one now. I kind of need to be using an electronic device to communicate with anyone these days. I need a computer to check important personal accounts and to do my work. Even an amount of my leisure time is spent on YouTube or looking through Pinterest. We have advanced so much with technology that we're starting to not design libraries in schools (That is kind of scary to say). My most recent educational project was designing a high school. We were shut down at the hint of mentioning a library in the program. The director pulled out his smartphone saying "This is my library. I have the world at my fingertips!" Also, three to four years ago my own high school announced they were renovating the library into.... a cafe... I spent many, many minutes in that library and now it is a cafe?! The books in the library were so random and seldom relevant to anything I needed to research, but that is a tangent I should probably refrain from going towards.

(Video is of Louis C.K on Conan O'Brian talking about his plane experience )

I get it! We get information so much faster, with more choices and with great quality. Wait a couple of years and it will get even better! We also start becoming impatient because we are accustomed to instant gratification. Does instant gratification contribute to anxiety? I think so. You could make a drinking game on how many times a person refreshes a page when you're next to someone checking their Facebook on a slow connection. Any little notification 'ping' or highlight and the person is right back on the screen. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are on their phone or pad during a meal. It is fine if you're by yourself, but at least have enough respect to give your company your attention (little rant, sorry). A lot of people just don't know how to be alone with themselves. That is a pretty tough pill to swallow when you can't stand being alone with yourself. It is almost comical that if you have done something wrong in jail they put you alone with yourself as a punishment.

I suppose today would be one of the worst days to try to be independent from technology because it is the start of the work week and everyone is trying to get back into the routine. I am not saying be totally independent, but just a having little alone time throughout the day dedicated to something that makes you happy.

Pursuit of perfection

Jiro Ono, sushi master

I was suppose to be in bed three hours ago. Three and a half hours of cleaning a turkey, making a brine and preparing stock.The kitchen was freezing and there was a warm bed next to a cozy fireplace waiting for me. Could have all of that waited until morning? Of course it could. It is nearing 4 am and I am exhausted. For those three and a half hours nothing mattered and I was just focusing on achieving perfection. I never notice how I get into this meditation-like 'zone', but I know it well. It is the same unawareness I get when I am building, designing or shooting. The pursuit of perfection is what gets me up at 3:30 in the morning to get to the studio and what keeps me up hours after I was suppose to be sleeping. It is a dedication to craft and the pursuit of perfection.

Kyudo.

It is all about perfection for me. How can I do one-something as perfectly as I possibly can? Will I ever reach perfection? No, I do not believe I will ever reach perfection in anything. I could shoot an arrow everyday for the rest of my life and will probably never attain an absolute perfection. I do not believe perfection is ever meant to be attained. It feels like reaching up and trying to grab the moon. So, why bother if you can't attain perfection? I believe it is the discipline, commitment to the craft and pure pleasure that drives people to put aside their comfort to reach a higher level of meditation. It is not about doing something as quickly as you can to finish a goal, but more about having the pride to perform each individual task as perfectly as you possibly can to accumulate towards a goal. It is really easy to notice how much someone takes pride in their craft. I know I may feel (and look) like crap after, but emotionally and spiritually I feel content. This pursuit of perfection will always make me strive for better. I feel there would be nothing more to advance if I ever reach perfection. With the weekend approaching, I hope everyone gets to set aside some time to immerse yourself in something that brings your great pride and joy.

Real estate and infrastructure

By now you have probably heard me talking about begin ruined by design. It is a simple case of  'ignorance is bliss'. I can no longer walk into a space and not look-up and check out the ceiling or notice the layout of furniture. Designers are a totally different breed. Our brains are rewired differently and we all look at the world completely different from normal people -- we have to. So, for this post when I mention a term like 'real estate', I am not really talking about a piece of land. I am referring to spaces like my room, my desk, my studio or even the interior of my car. Those spaces are valuable real estate to me. I think of these spaces like they are spaces in a retail shop. In retail, if a certain product is not selling or has enough demand, then the product gets taken out or/and replaced. I believe the items in my spaces that I control should add to the quality in my life.

This is where the infrastructure part comes into view. A couple of examples of infrastructure in a city are the utilities and the streets. Infrastructure gives a city the basic needs to function as a society. The items/infrastructure I am referring to are usually tools and sentimental items. My camera, books, colored pencils, computer, sketchbook, coffee, photos of love ones -- these are the basic items in my daily life that give me inspiration, bring more joy to working and contribute to my overall efficiency. At the end of the day it is about surrounding myself with items that contribute to my quality of my life. I can't necessarily control what is outside my my walls, but I can control what is on the inside.

Behind the Design: Logo

There is now a logo! It was overdue. The logo allows for more of an identity to the blog. I am really happy with the outcome. It is simple, straight forward, no fluff and legible. There is a literal sense of a section drawing and a little play with positive/negative space. I decided not to go with a literal perspective view on the word 'Perspective' because putting more graphics on the word looked really cluttered. There is a little bit of minor tweaking that needs to happen, but for now it is pretty good and I am content.

So, what when into the making a logo?

It all starts with bringing things back to basics. Simple quick sketches will get you a long way to just getting ideas out. They don't have to be perfect (as you'll see below), they just have to be something.






















__________________________________________________________________________________________________
There is nothing buttoned-up here! It is just quick sketching to get out ideas. You have a checklist of what you want to accomplish and you work off of the needs. All of the sketches probably took no longer than eight minutes at the most. I guess I feel I should clarify that it isn't about the speed that I am emphasizing, but about the content and design process and working off tangents to clarify a direction I wanted to be guided. Ooo! **Important ramble** I feel good design is seldom about designer. The designer should act as a conduit to listen, interpret and facilitate the design process. Once you get into a zone you'll find that the design will begin to design itself. The designers roll is not to fuck screw it up with their ego (a little ego is fine as long as ego isn't the primary driver for the design).

If you noticed the process -- I began to detail the composition. There are positive spaces and negative spaces. There is also that same design 'language' with the words. Notice the word 'Section' is displayed like a section drawing cutting through a ground. I began to hatch the background of the word 'Section', but opted for more of a hatched look.

Once you have the general direction, you can begin to bring the idea into the computer and begin to refine the idea. This is where it can begin to get fun. What is shown above is the same direction -- just minor little details are being tweaked like line thicknesses, sizes, fonts, hierarchy, adding more detail, taking away details so the overall composition doesn't become cluttered. Each iteration is slightly different from the others and gives me more of a range of direction I would like to take. I think I should address the colors shown are used as guidelines for putting a perspective view on 'Perspective'. How it is designed looks very simple, but it allows me flexibility to add playful versions of the logo throughout the year to help highlight special events or days.

One of the "tweaks" I need to perform is a printed test of the logo. As designers, we all know that what is on our screen is never what gets plotted...Ever! As for now, I hope you enjoyed my rant and process.

Order and clarity

Happy new year, everyone! I hope everyone had a very fun, eventful and safe start to their new year. I'm sure all of you guys that made resolutions are off to a great start. Picking right-up where we left off in the 'restraint' post. I couldn't help but notice how much I was cleaning my bedroom and studio. Now, I am not a messy person....unlesss.... It is my personal area behind closed doors. Common areas I use are always as clean and ordered as I can make them -- I just think that is being courteous to other people. Howeeeever, my bedroom and home studio are always messy. I always seem to just save items I think I could use and seldom ever touch again. I also have a bad habit of just throwing my clothes in a corner or on top of the dresser when I get home. Anyway, I could not help reflecting on how much cumulative time I have wasted throughout the year cleaning and getting things in order.

Yeah, sure we have all heard the "put it away now so you won't have to later." speech (which never gets my attention), but It is more about being and becoming efficient. Maybe, we just need a different perspective on how all the little things add-up. Efficiency gets me out of bed and gets my attention. Efficiency, to me, sounds like I am becoming better than the competition. Wait, what competition? Where did that come into the picture? Competition is the best way to make sure your stuff gets done. Maybe it is just in my nature to be competitive, but you can't tell me next time you go into your job and your boss brings-in someone to 'help' you that you are not thinking you are getting replaced. Betcha you are going to work a little harder and shine a little brighter that day, no?

Getting to the point, becoming efficient is a way to bring order and clarity back into the elements of your daily life. If you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready and you can go on with your life rather than wasting the extra time it takes to clean-up the cleanup. Daily life shouldn't be about having big moments of wasting time doing what should have been done.Now my room and studio are clean, everything (most of everything) is easily accessible and back in order. Which means I can be more efficient and spend more time and energy on what I want to spend more time doing.