Bright Minds and Beautiful Ideas by Ed Annink and Ineke Schwartz is a very
interesting and detailed book about four designers. It was a tough choice for
me to choose which two of them that I wanted to talk about, but I made the
decision to go with the Eames and Munari. For some reason, they appealed to me
the most and drew my attention the quickest.
Charles Eames first caught my
interest with his definitions and characteristics of design and design aspects.
My favorite quote of his from the question and answers section is his response
to “is design an art form?” He states, “The design is an expression of purpose.
It may (if it is good enough) later be judged as art.” I certainly agree with
this because I also believe that design should not start out as art. Design is
an action and job that is meant to accomplish something, and this
accomplishment should not try to be a successful form of art. Since my major is
industrial design, I also identified with the next question where Charles says
no to, “is design a craft for industrial purposes?” He states, “… design may be
a solution to some industrial problems.” Although he says no, I feel like he is
sort of saying that design is in fact a craft for industrial purposes, but I
think he wants people to know that is not the only goal or purpose of design.
Like many designers, I think I share
the same intentions with the Eamses: to create to improve the world. My entire
life, when I am using any sort of object or tool, I have thought of ways to
make it better. This has been an often occurrence in my life since I was in
middle school, maybe even grade school. I think I can be more successful if I
make my designs about the place and function of products rather than the form
and style, like the Eamses. This idea is very influential to me because I feel like
a lot of designers today put most of their focus on the form and style of the
products themselves, when that is not what is truly the most important. To
society, the place and function of products is what matters most. Charles and
Ray Eames were very intelligent to understand this and I am going to try and
use this logic in the rest of my career.
Ray and Charles Eames’ leg splint
from 1941 is a simple, problem-solving piece of equipment. It as an example for
a quality piece of design because it fixes a problem that people were facing in
a basic, smooth manner. Designs like this give me reasons to want to continue
providing our society with problem-solving products. I also had a positive
reaction to their wood-legged dining chair DCW. The first thing that struck me
was how elegant and simple it was crafted. It also appears to be easy to
construct, and created to be inexpensive for consumers. It incorporates design
methods that they, and also that Munari, stress are the most important for
designers. A specific aspect of the chair that I like is how the chair back
goes down under the seat, which I think would make the chair more comfortable.
This was an idea that probably did not cost more money to make, but it changed
the way the chair functioned. After seeing this chair, I really want to make
sure my design methods incorporate aspects that this chair does:
inexpensiveness, elegance, and basicness.
The first thing in this book that grasped
my attention for Bruno Munari was the first page of his section in the book
where the author listed out all of his professions when he was alive: writer,
designer, architect, graphic designer, educator, and philosopher. That is a
very impressive list and right off the bat I could tell that Munari would
definitely be a designer that could easily influence the way I go about my
work. He states that objects should be ordinary and not unnecessarily
prettified. Munari was smart; he knew that design should be simple, yet
innovative. I believe some of the best designs today are the simplest objects,
like Apple for example. Quoted from the text, “For him: progress means
simplifying not complicating.” This is just like how Apple creates new
products. His ideas are influential to me because I have always been a big
supporter of Apple, and now after hearing a great designer like Munari say the
same kinds of things, I want to create simply and innovatively. I respect
Munari for not letting himself be swallowed up by society and economy and for
not using the same tricks and methods repeatedly.
Munari’s Falkland tubular lamp is an
interesting work. I really like its style and how all the rings are different
sizes, and also how the rings have different amounts of space in between them.
He describes how the tiniest adjustments to this work could make it not
functional, and that is what makes me look up to him more. It astounds me that he
spent the time to figure out exactly how this lamp will be functional and
effective, and did this with what he calls the natural logical technique of
construction.
The machine for seeing dawn before anyone
else is a sort of humorous and well-crafted piece. It reminds me of a project I
completed in high school called the Rube Gold experiment; you had to create a
physical set of objects that all worked together to complete a task, like
Munari’s piece does of waking the person up as soon as it is dawn. The piece is
interesting and I believe that Munari must have been a smart, talented man to
draw it up in the fashion that he did. Although it is not that challenging of a
process, I think the strategy of his tactics can influence the way I create
processes because his ideas of simple design are present.
Bright
Minds and Beautiful Ideas was a great idea for us to read. It is always
good to know history about world-renowned professionals in the field that you
are studying, and I was lacking in that. I learned about what these sought upon
designers did to make themselves so popular. Almost all things in design today
have influences, and for me I can say that the ideas and works of Ray and
Charles Eames, and Bruno Munari influence me at this moment and will continue
to do so. Their logical thinking makes perfect sense and it is seen in their actions,
products, and words. I am glad that I got to look at their works and read about
themselves as designers.
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