Final Zine

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jdoughn2/online%20final%20zine.pdf

iPod Commercials/Ads

The iPod commercials are very simple nowadays. If you haven’t seen them, they involve a person listening to the iPod and dancing across the TV screen. There isn’t much else besides a one color background, and the person dancing is actually just a black silhouette of the person dancing. Each commercial or ad usually has a silhouette of a different person and with a different background color. In the commercials you can hear the music playing, and a few lines are mentioned about the iPod, and with the ads there are just a few lines of white text about the iPod.

Although the commercials and ads are very simple, they seem very affective. Using a silhouette instead of showing an actual person is a very smart design technique. I believe this allows viewers to place themselves inside the ad. It allows people to pretend like it is them dancing along having fun listening to the iPod. Also, in each ad or commercial I have seen there is always a different background color and silhouette. This further helps people associate with the ads because people are attracted to different colors, and if one silhouette doesn’t do it for someone then maybe the other silhouette will. This design makes the statement that the iPod is for everyone.

Also, the commercials and ads are designed with a good sense of contrast. In the commercials the iPod’s are white, so they really stick out against the black silhouette and single colored background. The color contrasting basically sets up a focal point on the iPod, making you want an iPod. Also, the mood of the ads is fun and exciting, telling the viewers that you too can have fun as long as you get an iPod. Overall the simplicity of the design is the reason that it is such a powerful design.

Graffiti Art

Richard Mirando, a.k.a. Seen, is known as the Godfather of Graffiti. His paintings are all over New York subway cars and walls. Graffiti is usually thought of as a bad thing. It is closely related with gangs and they “tag there territory with graffiti. However, Seen has used his artistic abilities to show that graffiti can also be a great art form. An important concept in design is that you want it to be eye catching, and with Seen the mere fact that he uses subway cars and whole walls as his canvases allows his designs to really attract attention. He also uses many other techniques in order to transform generally frowned upon graffiti into art.

First off, his use of color schemes is very good. The colors he uses sometimes tend to be bright which is good because it stands out, but even when he uses dark colors he throws bright colors around it to help highlight the dark colors. This helps the dark colors stand out just as much as the bright colors. Another thing he does really well is using both images and text in his designs. For a lot of the subway cars the words used in the paintings is often the title of the given piece of work. The words are always big, usually three dimensional, and in the center of the artwork. A lot of times, being that it is graffiti sometimes the whole design is just his or someone else’s name in an obscure manner. Either way he always makes sure that the words fit in with the painting, which helps unite the whole design. Although it is very difficult to make out the words in some of his designs, those paintings are almost more attractive than the others just because you get sucked in trying to figure out what is going on in the design.

In all of the designs I have viewed, Seen always makes sure that the painting is balanced. The text is always centered, and he does a good job of keeping the symmetry of his designs; making sure that there is just as much stuff on the right side of the text as there is on the left side. This sense of balance gives rise to a chaos vs. order theme to his paintings. The designs are usually pretty chaotic, but because of this balance you can see that there is still order within the piece. I believe this is what makes his designs so appealing. Without this order I think that it would be quite difficult to look at his designs. Overall I think Seen does a great job at attracting viewers, and his designs are really fun to look at.

Technological Design

Technology advances everyday, and it will continue to advance faster and faster. The market is full of fancy computers, laptops, mp3 players, game consoles, TVs, DVD players, etc. As great as the advancement of technology is, I feel that the design of certain things is getting worse.

For some reason designers got it in their head that the smaller something is, the better it will be. This is true to an extent; however, I’m starting to get the feeling that designers are crossing the threshold of when things can get too small. When things get too small they become much easier to lose and/or break. For example, the new IPOD Nanos are incredibly cool looking, but due to the mere size of it I feel like I would lose it immediately or I would snap it in half if I held onto it too tightly. When I think of it though I really wonder if it is the designers at fault or are they merely reacting to what society is demanding of them. In today’s society people seem to be obsessed with the sleek new look. I admit that all these new devices are very attractive with the thin designs and all the touch screens, but is it worth it if the device can be broken or lost so easily? I think designers need to find a good balance between durability and size, rather than just focus on the size. Obviously, if they just begin designing things huge again then no one would buy that thing.

Also, technological designers are coming up with great ideas by putting multiple devices together. For example, the new iphone has the internet, mp3 capability, a camera, etc. I feel that devices are becoming too compact. Nothing is simple anymore, and the problem with this is that if that device should so happen to break, then you just lost you phone, your mp3 player, and your camera for example. It is nice to unify everything into one easily held device, but at the same time are we giving up quality for convenience? This can translate back to society, meaning that people are in such a hurry these days that we seem to be losing quality just so we can gain time. At some point the designers have to realize that there such a thing as too small and too complex.

The Bean

The Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, or the bean as I have come to call it, is a very unique piece of design. The materials used for the surface were highly polished stainless steel plates, and if you have ever seen it up close you can see that there are no seams for where the plates meet. From this it is easy to determine that the designer obviously wanted his design to reflect something. Looking at it you can see that it reflects the city’s skyline along with the clouds above. And of course if you walk up to it you can see your own reflection. Because of the shape, however, the reflections are somewhat distorted, but still beautiful. Possibly the artist wanted to bring this to people’s attention, or he just wanted to give people a new way to see the city skyline (a new perspective). Either way it seems to grab people’s attention none the less.

One thing about the work is that the shape is a little humorous in my opinion. At first glance it looks like a giant bean, and that is all I see. After really looking at it I realize that the shape is to help stretch and distort images it reflects. However, in my opinion the bean shape kind of takes away from the original idea the artist may have had for the work, and it is very hard for me to look past its shape and see the beauty it reflects back at us. This makes me wonder whether there are a lot of designs like this, meaning designs that may lose their artistic value because they are compared to other objects (in this case a bean). Although the artist probably had no intention of designing a bean, this shows that outside viewers a lot of times view a work of art in a completely different way than the original intention.

Mini Zine-Copyright Laws and Designers

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jdoughn2/copyright%20and%20designers2.pdf

Copyright Laws and Designers

Copyright laws were created to protect the work of the artists/author. When a piece of work gets copyrighted, the holder of the copyright receives exclusive rights for that particular piece of work. These rights are as follows: to reproduction of the work, sell copies, import/export work, create works that adapt to the original work, to display the work publicly, to sell rights to others, and rights to broadcast both radio and television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright). This means that if another designer/author wants to use something that is copyrighted, they need to request permission from the person who holds these rights. Without this permission the offender could face fines or prison time if prosecuted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright).

When it comes to works that have a copyright, there are a few exceptions. Depending on what one might want to do with the work of art, he/she may not need permission to use it. Reproducing a piece of work for criticism, comment, news reports, teaching, scholarship, and research are all legal ways to go about using a copyrighted work of art without having to get permission to do so. These exceptions fall under “fair use”, and the determination of fair use for a specific means of use is set by a few statutes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use). However, simply changing the formatting of a work of art, and then calling it your own is not one of these exceptions. This still violates the copyright law. For example, a designer cannot take a three dimensional piece, design it in two dimensions, and call it their own work of art (vice-versa).

Copyright laws do not have rights over public domain. Public domain is considered material that is public property, and it is available to anyone who wants to use it. Designers can use materials that fall under public domain as much as they want without fear of doing something illegal. Mere ideas and informational facts fall under public domain, and therefore cannot be copyrighted by any individual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain). This means that if a design already exists representing a certain idea, another person can come up with a different design expressing the same idea as long as it is done in a different manner. The new work of art cannot be viewed as too similar to the original work or else it would fall under the rights of the original holder. For example, although there may be many cartoons with dogs (the idea of dogs is under public domain), but as long as the new cartoon character does not resemble or remind people of previous cartoon dogs, legally there is not a problem. Also, copyrights don’t last forever so when they expire the items holding the copyrights fall into public domain allowing everyone to use them as they see fit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain).

Lawsuits filed by groups like the RIAA (Recording Industry Assoc. of America) and the MPAA (Motion Picture Assoc. of America) have helped decrease the distribution of channels to designers. Recently, these groups have been taking a lot of action to protect their copyrighted material. The main goal of these lawsuits is to dissuade people from file sharing and reproducing these songs and movies. Because of these lawsuits, the activity on file sharing websites has greatly decreased, which decreases resources for designers (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027-5113188.html). Also, before these lawsuits designers had an easy access to materials like this, but now it would be a very bad idea to go ahead and use these types of works without permission.

Copyright laws may slow down designers, but it shouldn’t affect them too much. If they want to use a certain work to help with their design, they just need to take the time and ask for permission. If that doesn’t work then all they need to do is find a way to create their image in a manner that has not been done before (without using others works).

Works Cited

“Copyright.” Wikipedia. 16 Oct. 2008.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright>.

“Fair Use.” Wikipedia. 16 Oct. 2008.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use>.

“Public Domain.” Wikipedia. 16 Oct. 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain>.

” RIAA lawsuits yield mixed results.” CNET News. 4 Dec. 2003. 20 Oct. 2008. <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027-5113188.html>.

Materiality Analysis

The artifact that I decided to analyze is the helmet of King Leonidas. The designer of this helmet definitely had a plan when deciding how to design it. The material used for it is brass, while non-royal helmets were mostly made of bronze. I attached a picture of a non-royal helmet for comparison. Notice that the king’s helmet is much brighter. Also, notice that the king’s helmet has actual hair coming out of the top, while the other helmet is all bronze, even at the top where the hair on the king’s helmet is. This is obviously done in order to show the importance of the king. Also, this probably helped the king stand out during battle, even though I don’t know why anyone would want his enemies to know exactly which guy he was during a war.

The helmet has great luminosity. The brass material gives the helmet great shine and brightness. Also, the brass keeps the helmet rather smooth. Compared to the bronze helmets, this brass helmet is in much better condition. The bronze material does not seem to stay in very good condition over the years. Also, brass has a similar color to that of gold, which helps signify the importance of the royal family.

The design of the king’s helmet seems to meet multiple needs. First and foremost, the helmet’s main purpose is to protect the person wearing it during battle. Another purpose, I believe, is to intimidate enemies. I believe this is why the helmet is so tall. The top of the helmet where the hair comes out does not seem to help in physical protection as much as it does in intimidation. This makes the king seem both taller and bigger, thus more intimidating. Also, the mohawk look about the helmet seems to give it a certain intensity about it.

Overall, the design not only serves to protect, it also helps signify the importance of the person wearing the helmet. The designer wants everyone to know that it is the king wearing that helmet.

Remediation Reading

1.  Why is it that society always wants technology faster and better, and when things do get faster, we as a society keep pushing for more?  Is it that we strive for better, or is it that as technology improves society becomes needier and needier?

2.  Which do people prefer, hypermediacy or immediacy?  In the fast paced society is it easier to not have to think about the medium used?  But, if everything continues this way will there be any media left with physical attributes about it?  Isn’t there comfort from being able to touch something?

3.  Can anyone truly say that technology has not caused social change?  I believe it has in a big way.  There are so many different means of communication now: talking on a cell phone, texting, email, IMs, faxes, letters, video messages, wall posts, etc.  Also, technology has allowed people to say things (whether it be mean or nice) while hiding behind the medium in which they used.  As things are becoming more instantaneous, they are also becoming more impersonal.

Persuasive Image Project-Thirsty?