Thesis

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

It's the economy! :) GOOD Sheet

This week's good sheet, on the US economy situation

http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/goodsheet/goodsheet006economy.html

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

John Bielenburg

Potential interviewee, John's work exhibits a strong commitment to the idea that designers have the potential and perhaps a responsibility to affect positive social change. Beginning with work produced in the early 1990's exhibiting this train of thought, his ideas were (hopefully) circulated around the design community by placing in design annual contests. Most recently his thinking and efforts have been channeled with what he calls "Thinking Wrong" in which we must ask ourselves to examine every possibility in order to move forward with the best solution. The definition as posted on the Project M website reads:

The human brain tends to think along pre-determined linear thought pathways. Such linear thinking can inhibit true innovation and creative exploration. Project M will encourage, and provide techniques for, “thinking wrong” to generate new ideas and design directions to challenge the status-quo.

He manifests this, primarily for young, fresh-out-of-school designers with a studio program he began running in 2003, called Project M.

http://www.projectmlab.com/

The outcome of these workshops are design pieces that function to promote awareness, raise money, but best of all, stimulate thought.

www.thisisnotgrass.com

www.buyameter.org

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Otto Neurath..

Was amazing. Invented ISOTYPES (International System of Typographic Picture Education) in order to help facilitate the rebuilding of Germany and Austria after WWI by making the situation easier to understand for the common people so they would get behind all the plans. The aim was a more universal self-explanatory visual representation. "Neurath believed that, in the same way that the cathedral was the bible of the illiterate in the Middle Ages, his visual system would allow common people to grasp statistical data, making them more informed and better citizens." from Uncharted Kahn: The Visuality of Planning and Promotion by Andrew M Shanken, Art Bulletin June 2006 p 317

Insane collection of book and magazine scans on Neurath and ISOTYPES
http://www.fulltable.com/iso/index.htm

His ideas are similar to that of Wurman's, in that we can all be liberated if only we could better digest the information around us. Span the distance with good design!

Topics...

Bruce Mau
Russian Constructivism
De Stijl
Otto Neurath
First Things First Manifesto (both 1967 and 2001)
Wim Crouwell
prefabrication
the Vignellis
Jan van Toorn

link from k. coogan

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/teach/gardenseminar.html

gardening and design! subset of environmentalism...

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The right train of thought

http://www.plumen.com/

Combining design with an understanding of how a technology actually works to make a better product/more desirable product that is also more desirable ecologically.

http://oooms.nl/

also has some great stuff.