Classic Design

I started to flip through the Phaidon Design Classics volume 1 (of 3) to kill a few moments. It turned into a momentous massacre. Wave after wave of moments falling like Persians at the hands of the Spartans. Needless to say I was late to my next appointment.

It is brilliant overview of design and filled with 'Now that I did not know' snippets with which to annihilate design poseurs at dinner parties.

Case in point - I did not know that the Citroen 2CV originally had plastic windows and a magnesium alloy chassis to save weight. Very space age for 1948.

Actually the 2CV reminds me that, above all things a design should be useful. That might seem like a doggedly modernist view, but not really. My post-modern tendencies mean that a design need not be used for its originally intended purpose. The 2CV began life as a utilitarian object that made no statement. If you use one these days it probably means you are making a statement about your own identity. I'd sooner have an old 2CV than a nasty little Toyota Prius. Better for the environment you see. I think I'd also like one of those weird Citroen delivery vans that Peter Sellers drove into the pool in one of the Pink Panther movies.

Weird huh? The antithesis of the sexy products that emerge from Apple's labs.

Buy a copy of Phaidon Design Classics for your design library from New Zealand's own online bookstore Fishpond.

Comments

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog

Classic Design

Labels

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Johnny Bunko competiton

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes