You Can Find Inspiration in Everything- Book

This book I found in the design meuseum and I think totally sums up this breif. The author is Paul Smith. The front cover reads "You can find inspiration in everything....and if you cant, look again" I think this phrase is so true and as I have been completely the breif and working on my blog, visiting different meuseums and analysing work in the and seeing how different artists work influence one another. This book obviously speaks alot of sense. The book is about a designers sources of ideas. It is illustrated with the catch phrase on the front "you can find inspiration in everything..and if you cant, look again" and this phrase is printed on eight different paper stocks and shows photographs and souviners, pull out board games and puzzels. Early editions of the book as you can see from the photo that I have taken and published on my blog, came in polystrene cases. These were designed by Jonoathon Ive.

The Design Meuseum- Super contemporary

This exhibition is running from the 3rd June until 4th October.

"The Design meuseum has joined forces with Beefeater 24 to celebrate the fearlessly progressive spirt of London's greatest creative minds past and present. The exhibition illustrates Londons pursuit of new better and braver, across architecture, industrial design, graphics, fashion and communications alike. Endless pushing at the forefront of design and constantly inventing new worlds, Londons design output is continually Super Contemporary"

The exhibition is set out in one big room, the meuseum takes you from the early 20th century right up to the current date of 2009. It shows how the economical, political and financial state of countries have a definate influence on design. It shows that to be a good designer you need to take inspiration from everything that is going on around you. If you looked at a design in this meuseum you can make an educated guess at which era it was from.

One piece of work caught my attension the most in this exhibition was probably dated to be the most recent design in the exhibition a picture is posted above. It talks about how nobodys life is private anymore and everything we do is logged and monitered! did you know we are captured 400 times a day on camera. You can see two sides to this story as as crime rates have risen, the government are stepping up the protection so everything has to be monitered and watched for our own safety, however have they pushed the limit? gone too far? Surely everyone needs a little privacy. If you read the board i have taken a picture of in the exhibiton, you will realise how much you are being watched and what you thought were private matters are actually being logged on a large database. All those things you wish to forget about (using that credit card!!!) are all logged and stored! The exhibiton piece has the copy outside explaining how little privacy we actually have you then step into a circular room filled with pictures of survielence cameras- very contempary-and very scary stuff!

Shower Tunnel -Mariscal Drawing Life

Also in the Mariscal Drawing Life exhibition, the first room as you walked into the exhibition I loved- not as much as the one below but this was my second favourite from Mariscals work. It is a dark room painted all black, four black walls, ceiling and floor and there are two archways at each end of the room with rubber strings hanging down. You can see this in the pictures that I have taken and posted. This room had hanging from the ceiling an installation of 640 illustarted ideas. In his sketchy simple style he has drawn natural sketches, iconography, illustrated alphabets, comic strips, ideograms, picograms and outlines! The pieces hanging from the ceiling have illustartions on both sides if you look from one direction (as you come out of the exhibition) they are all faces. And from the other direction an array of aspects. I like how Mariscal keeps his individal style that is so recognisable but has come up with an array of wonderful, modern and unique designs.

Mariscal- Exhibition

Javier Mariscal was born in Valencia in Spain in 1950. He moved to Barcelona in the early 1970'sand started his career. He started off as an underground comic artist. He went on to give Barcelona a graphic identity. He was firsty famously recognised for his work in the olympic games of 1992 when he created "Cobi" -a mascot, that was recognised by millions. He then went on to designing furniture, jew;;ery, bars, hotels, clothes and textiles all of them displayed his unique style of design, Mariscal is a man of many talents, he paints, makes films is a ceramic artist and a performer. He know has a large studio and have a large number of clients all over the world.

I went to the Design Meuseum in London. He has an exhibition running there with some of his work. Running from the 1st July until 1st November. HIs exhibition is called Mariscal- Drawing Life. This exhibition includes thirteen installations that explores the way Mariscal sees the world and how he uses his drawings. Mariscal explains through his drawing of work what drives him and what motivated him to creating his artwork.

I have chosen two pieces from the exhibition that i really loved. I will start with my favourite. This peice is probably has become my favourite piece of design work of all time. I have taken pictures of the work which are featured. The design is called "Joie de Vivre" the work is displayed in a room with two white walls and two black walls. Its message is supose to convey the joys of living in Barcelona and is represented by an installation of fragments from the medeterrain coastline. In the room there are little houses made out of cardboard with Mariscals famous stylr of drawing decorating them. Inside the little cardboard houses cartoon films that Mariscal had made were playing-as you can see in the picture. Background music in the room was also playing the song "Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders over and over again. This is a happy, soothing song that is very catchy! My favourite Part of this whole room I think was the little comments that had been quoted by Mariscal also featured in the pictures. Quotes that had driven his to his work and had made him motivated. I love his style of illustrative work. The drawings are simple, yet so effective and have created him a trademark style which is used in loads of products. I think his designs are best on childrens books and toys and packaging. A very sucessful designer who has built his career and created his own sucess through raw talent.

Spaghetti Fork- design

Cargo is fast becoming my favourite store! This time I found a design I thought was unbeliveable. Not for the design of it however, but I couldnt believe someone would think of it! How could anybody be this lazy! I strongly believe and I am kind of worried that in years to come all human jobs will eventually be replaced by machinary. For example you may have a job now filing papers as your summer job but in years to come, I believe now more than ever there will be a contraption or new design that will do this for you! Humans are gettin lazier and technology is getting stronger. I think that this design is a little example of this. Obviously not as an extreme case! The design I found is called the "Spaghetti Fork" the fork actually turns itself to wind the spaghetti onto the fork so all the consumer has to do is put it in the bowl and take it out again. Does the hard work for you! Half the fun of eating spaghetti is trying to get it onto the fork and to stay there!! I really dont think we need a fork that does half the eating process for us! People are just getting lazy! Soon we will have a machine that picks up all our food and puts it in our mouths for us, all we will have to do is open our mouths!!!! Ridiculous!

Vertical City- tv/film

Looking through 4od and came across this seris of programmes! I watched the first one that came up last night , which was the "Turning Torso" a truly fabulous building- very striking and cleverly designed! ( I will write about this building in my next blog) I also watched a second one tonight about a different building. Each week, the programme discusses and researchs some of the finest and most intresting skyscrapers/buildings/pieces of architecture around the world. I realised by watching these programmes how much poltics and economics there is within each design. I have posted the link to this below:

http://www.channel4.com/search/?q=vertical+city

Mocoloco- website

Another website which I came across is a design website called Mocoloco I have posted the link below:

http://mocoloco.com/

It shows fresh, new modern ideas from design today! I love looking at at the wonderful designs that people have managed to come up with combating everyday problems. An example that is from the website is shown to the right. Parents often have trouble taking their babies cots everywhere, so end up buying two cots. One for the house and one to travel. This design combines the two very simply in a bizar way! A portable crib- combining a pushchair with a crib, I think it is a money saving practical idea!!!

Tree Hugger- website

So i was just having a little browse on the internet and I came across some very cool intresting design sights with loads of frersh new modern designs in them one of them is listed below:

http://www.treehugger.com/

I have posted a design which I found very amusing, clever and innotavive. It's called an "Ibum" -it is a photocopier hidden in a chair. Therefore a multi purpose object- that saves space! It claims to be great for the home office hiding an ugly machine in a asthically pleasing chair!! Another purpose was to save embarrassment at the office parties, where employees and renound to think its halarious to jump on the office photocopier and take a picture of their bum. This chair saves that embarrassment and save people breaking the photocopier! It was designed by a japanese "interactive designer" called Tomomi Sayuda and she wrote on the website about how she got the idea of the "Ibum" :

"I was interested in the principle of the news, which is showing embarrassment without big harm for fun. For me, impact means positive and humorous reaction. I decided how to represent this principle. Finally I came up with the idea of scanning people's bum."

I personally think this is a halarious idea that is functional and very amusing!!! I am looking forward to what crazy design she posts on tree hugger next!!!

The Arc- architecture

Today I went to London- I drove into london from Reading along the A4 through hammersmith. I do this journey quite alot and there is always one building that captures my attention. I therefore decided to research into it a bit further and put it on my blog. The form of this building is visually striking and takes the form of a boat- ironically the building itself is called "The Arc". It was designed by Ralph Erskine in 1992. Researching into the building a little bit more I have found out that it is actually an empty office block. I have looked up some images on the internet and have also been able to find the inside of the building which is as striking on the inside as the out. These images of "The Arc" are shown below. My views on this building however vary a little bit. I think it is a very striking building and is defiantly a real statement to greet people as they arrive into London. "The Arc" to me reminds me of Noah's Arc and symbolizes safety as you enter London. London is a powerful city and I think this building conveys the message that if anything happens that it is there showing its safety like in the Noah's Arc story where the arc came to the rescue. However although i think the concept and idea behind the building is good I dont think it has any real use/function at this point in time. You could say that as its a statement to London therefor its form is part of its function. Although I think it would be amazing if they came up with a new function alongside its strong statement relating to Noah's Arc and made it into a zoo. This would tie in with the way the building looks, would attract alot of people to come and view "The Arc" making more well known and publicizing it to more people than just london commuters.

My Sisters Keeper- film

Two days ago I went to the cinema to see a new film that is out- im sure you have heard of it, "My Sister's Keeper". It is a film that is based on a book by Jodi Picault. Although I admit I have not read the book, this is possibly the most touching film I have ever watched! It's really a film that makes you stop to think and definatly touches an emotional nerve.

It's about a normal family which starts off as four. The little girl of the family, Kate, tragically gets diagnosed with cancer. The parents decide to have a genetic baby to try to help keep Kate alive. They name the baby Anna, she starts donating parts of her body to kate as a newborn, with no choices in her life, the story goes on as Anna gets older she serves her parents with court papers for the rights to her own body and states she no longer wishes to be put under an operating table to save her sister's life. The story is traumatic and heart wrenching. The scene that is posted by a link below (as I havent worked out how I can upload a video yet!) is one of my favourite scenes to date in films and promotes the awareness of taking things for granted and how it is essential to be appricative of the poeple around you. This particular clip sums up the whole film of how the family have struggled through their ordeal together- a beautiful scene. I definatly recommend if you havent seen this film already you do!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0P-PjhecXQ

Fruit Carrier- design

I went to Marlow today and as I was walking round the shops I wandered into "Cargo", a well known homeware store and the product on the left caught my eye. A product that solves an old age problem that has been around for years! When packing your lunch for work or uni- a healthy option is to take fruit, but I am always put off as by the time it comes to lunch time, your friut has been in your bag for a good couple of hours and is nice and battered and briused from where you have been running for the bus, accidently dropped your bag, somebody has bumped into you etc. This product "the inflatable fruit carrier"- you pop your piece of friut into the carrier, close it and then inflate the carrier by blowing it up. Your chosen piece of fruit is then protected until lunch time! When you come to eat it, it is still fresh and free from bruises. This product I thought was amazing- encouraging people to hit their 5 a day friut intake and offers a practical solution to an ongoing problem over the years!!!

Jackie Collins- books

I know you're not supose to tell people you read Jackie Collins books, but its blatent here that I do. I love the sketchy illustartions on the front of the books drawn by Jacqueline Bissett. The illustrations are evocative of fashion illustrations, sketchy and glamourous and I love the free hand element of her drawings.  The stylee of her drawings also mirror the stories in her books, glamerous and sketchy!!