Wood Project Summary

While completing this project, I learned how to use many of the tools and equipment in the work shop. I also learned the construction of a basic wood box, which I had never actually done before. The strengths of my box are the looks of the structure. The 5 layers of the light and dark wood switching off adds flavor and makes the box stand out. Also, the rounded edges on every corner of the box make it looks professional, and it fits better in the hand. The weakness of my box is that the two compartments, or rectangles, are not proportionally matching each other. The two compartments also do not have the most symmetrical parallel edges to each other. If I was to redo this project, I would take more time in the beginning steps of building the box, so that I could have made the structure mean a lot more to the objects inside.

Reflection of David Pye Readings

David Pye's book about the nature of aesthetics and design is a classic book about good design, and the relationship between function and aesthetics. I like the way he talks about the different ways to mold or shape an object, through melting, carving, and more. I especially appreciate what he has to say because I can tell from reading it that he deeply understands his field of work. Many people, including me, can take inspiration and wisdom from this book and use it today, even though it was written around 30 years ago.

Essay on Duality

The relationship that I will talk about is between my hometown best friend, Colin, and I. We met when we were about twelve years old through one of my other good friends at the time. The earliest event that I can recall with this friend was when we both went with our friend Jack to a professional paintball tournament. He invited both of us, and we met each other through him. At this tournament we interacted a lot through sleepovers and spending countless hours out in the hot sun watching our favorite professional teams play paintball. Colin is the same age as I and has lived in the suburbs of Chicago his whole life. We have numerous things in common, like our musical interests, leisurely activities, and goals in life. Having a great city, Chicago, so close to us has allowed us to bond more through it. We have spent days together, and with others, in the city doing anything you can imagine there is to do in a gigantic city like Chicago.

            Factors in our relationship include aspects like we are very honest with each other, and have the some views about the rest of our friends. There are too many stories associated with our friendship, and I can’t choose just one that describes us. That’s what makes us as good of friends as we are. One time his stomach burst and he went to the hospital and nearly died, and had to stay there for an entire month. This was a terrible time in our lives but we’ve been stronger ever since. It happened while he was at my house and if I did not take him home to his house so his mom could take him to the hospital, something worse probably would’ve happened. I respect him a lot. We will be friends for a very long time. When I graduate we will probably get an apartment in Chicago for a year or two with two of my other good friends. 

Statement of Purpose for Vessel

My wooden vessel contains two separate rectangular openings that are connected by the means of two offset rectangles, connected in the middle. The vessel contains a memory card in one of the sections, and a camera battery in the other section. Both of these objects are rectangle in shape, which influenced me to construct the structure in a rectangular fashion. Since the objects are different, yet similar as they both pertain to my camera, I wanted to separate them inside of the box. 

Reflection on Kendall Buster

On Kendall Buster’s website I found many extravagant works of art that seemed quite organic. I think this is because a lot of them had curved edges and fit in with its surroundings. Some even reminded me of living cells. The relationships that some of his pieces feature is just a solid feel of continuity and structure because of how the pieces have a continuous flow of object. Compared to Martin Puryear’s pieces, Buster’s jumped out at me at an increased amount because mainly contributed to the interesting backgrounds and surrounding space that accompany the art. 

Reflection on Martin Puryear

Martin Puryear’s website exhibits works of art and many of those works of art exemplify some sort of relationship. The second piece on the website shows 2 wooden sticks or shafts; one of the sticks is a semi-circle, the other is a straight stick. Neither piece could stand up on its own, but together, the semi-circle holds up the semi-circle, and itself, also. There is one with a thin wheel being held up by a long rod connected to a base. This work uses wood and weaving of the wood on the base to hold down the wheel. Unlike the first one, a mutual relationship is not shown because the base could certainly stand up with out the rod and, or, wheel. These works of art on his website are all basic, but captivating at the same time because he obviously has a reason for the way they are all constructed. Sometimes it can be easy to see, and other times it cannot. 

Bright Minds, Beautiful Ideas Essay

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.