To do...

This year I would like start off by avoiding helvetica as much as possible even though I've decided to research a modernist.

I would like to concentrate and improve more on illustrations and vectors. Vectors are a part of graphic design I'm extremely interested in due to their simplicity but their diverse use such as symbols (something I lacked last year)  Experimenting with new mediums such as clothing and unusual objects is something I think about doing but it's just finding the time and  relativity to a brief.

I would like to create more time to screenprint as I enjoyed screenprinting on the final brief last year even though it was extremely time consuming and frustrating.

I want to keep the simplicity within my work and avoid any unnecessary confusion or clutter, and constantly develop my own individual aesthetics. Entering more live briefs is something I aim to do this year and the dream this year is to be featured on a design blog.

Website/app design is something that really interests me as well as the more physical design such a laser cut. I feel like I did too many publications last year and maybe avoided prints due to the fact I was scared of filling the space.

Most of all I MUST BLOG AS I GO!!!

Ornamental Conifer

Ornamental Conifer is a British artist named Nicolai Sclater. He may be a sign painter by trade, but he takes his art further than the customary two-dimensional canvases. Employing sleek typography fonts that ode with retro aesthetics, Ornamental Conifer toys with various mediums; denim jackets, vintage automotive and garden equipment, creating unique one off objects. 

Originally Nicolai studied as a graphic designer honing his skills as a graphic designer before leaving the dependable route for the niche market of sign painting. Originally based in London he has done a collaboration with Edwin called 'Further'

This video explains a little about Nicolai, Edwin and the collaboration between the two.

Ornamental Conifer is unlike any of the other designers that I obsess over; form doesn't follow function, it isn't all precisely laid out or modernist. His work possesses a certain charm and character that I think goes back to the art, skill and origins of sign painting. What makes him jump out to me and grab my attention is the medium he uses, he applies his talent to personal interests such a motorbikes which is how I found out about him. He isn't especially well known to many people or the internet, proving it very difficult to find information on him. I learnt of him through motorcycle social media and that seems to be the only place to find bits of information about him apart from the odd article on blogs and his own blog ornamentalconifer

He emigrated to Australia in the summer of 2013 and recently toured Portland which is home to a few well known motorcycle builders, riders and bloggers where he painted a stunning hot rod

Nicolai painted a one of a kind leather jacket for Alex Turner for Arctic Monkeys upcoming  throwing his work and his designs further into the spotlight as the reputation of Alex and his style leads people to question the artist etc...

It's design features the lettering 'one for the road' a title off their latest album but features Nicoli's visual identity that features on most projects which is the love heart and bow.

Below are a few more examples of his work that I have found interesting mainly because of the way he's taken something so traditional but given it a modern feel.

Even though he does experiment with different mediums he is still commissioned to do more 'ordinary' work

The one above doesn't look too spectacular because nowadays you see designs like this everywhere because of the use of stencils, but when you look at it knowing it has all been painted with one steady hand you can really stand back and appreciate the skill involved in something so simple.

Charles and Ray Eames

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of this century. They are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts. 

Charles Ormond Eames Jr, 1907-1978 

Charles worked at the Laclede Steel Company as a part-time laborer, where he learned about engineering, drawing, and architecture. This was where he first entertained the idea of becoming an architect.

Charles briefly studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis on an architecture scholarship. After two years of study, he left the university. Many sources claim that he was dismissed for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright and his interest in modern architects. The university reportedly dropped him because of his "too modern" views. Other sources, less frequently cited, note that while a student, Charles Eames also was employed as an architect at the firm of Trueblood and Graf. The demands on his time from this employment and from his classes led to sleep-deprivation and diminished performance at the university.
Whilst in Washington he met his first wife, Catherine Woermann, whom he married in 1929. A year later, they had a daughter, Lucia Jenkins.

In 1930, Charles began his own architectural practice in St. Louis with partner Charles Gray. They were later joined by a third partner, Walter Pauley. Eames was greatly influenced by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (whose son Eero, also an architect, would become a partner and friend). Together with Eero Saarinen he designed prize-winning furniture for New York's Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition. Their work displayed the new technique of wood moulding (originally developed by Alvar Aalto), that Eames would further develop in many moulded plywood products, including chairs and other furniture, splints and stretchers for the U.S. Navy during World War II.

In 1938 Charles moved with his wife Catherine and daughter Lucia to Michigan, to further study architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he would become a teacher and head of the industrial design department and in 1941, Charles and Catherine divorced, and he married his Cranbrook colleague Ray Kaiser which is the beginning of a beautiful partnership.

Bernice Alexandra (Kaiser) Eames, 1912-1988

In 1933 she graduated from Bennett Women's College in Millbrook, New York, and moved to New York City, where she studied abstract expressionist painting with Hans Hofmann. She was a founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936 and displayed paintings in their first show a year later at Riverside Museum in Manhattan. One of her paintings is in the permanent collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art. 

In September 1940, she began studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She met Charles Eames while preparing drawings and models for the Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition and they were married the following year.


The start

During World War II, the U.S. Navy called upon Charles and Ray Eames to create a lightweight, inexpensive leg splint. The resulting design is a highly sculptural yet functional device that could be mass-produced and, being modular, conveniently and inexpensively transported. Access to military technology and manufacturing facilities allowed the Eameses to perfect their technique for molding plywood, which they had been working on for several years. In its three-dimensional, biomorphic form, the leg splint suggests the Eames' subsequent, highly influential plywood furniture designs.

They applied these techniques to their furniture design and began turning out icons. Their approach to chair design was to start with the idea of a shell as the seat, shaped to fit the body so that upholstery became unnecessary. In the late 1940s they came out with a series of reinforced molded fiberglass shells that could be attached to a number of different bases like the "Eiffel Tower," "Cat's Cradle," and one that would make it a rocking chair.

The 'eiffel tower' base

Like many modernists, the Eames believed that affordable, mass-produced, well-designed furniture and objects for the home were tools that could bring about an environment ripe for social change and betterment. Over several decades in which they were almost constantly working, the Eames took on the roles of decorators, designers, entertainers, educators and artists. Their work, and expansive work philosophy, helped define an American style, summed up by Ray as, "what works is better than what looks good. The 'looks good' can change, but what works, works." These are the reasons why I've chosen to research Charles and Ray Eames, they're timeless, functional and above all simply beautiful. Their philosophy towards design is one I share and believe in.

The Eames House is an exceptionally important work of postwar Modern residential design and construction, and it embodies many of the distinguishing characteristics and ideals of postwar Modernism in the United States. It is regarded as one of the most significant experiments in American domestic architecture. It is also significant for its association with the Case Study House Program. The Case Study House Program was a product of the many concerns regarding housing and architecture voiced in the post-World War II period. It was to be a concentrated program of commissioning houses by a select group of architects, thereby providing an opportunity for innovative architects to imagine, design, and construct the ideal home for a postwar American family. The Eames House, or Case Study House #8, is the most recognizable and most widely published of all the residences completed with the Case Study House Program. The Eames House is the property most closely associated with nationally significant designers Charles and Ray Eames. This property served as their private residence and working studio throughout their long and prolific careers as furniture designers, filmmakers, photographers, exhibition designers, and graphic artists. This property is also one of the few architectural works attributed to Charles and Ray Eames.

The video illustrates the architecture of the house but it is a slightly strange video created by the two

Dieter Rams

Dieter Rams was born 20 May 1932 in Wiesbaden, Hessen. He is a German industrial designer who trained and worked as an architect for a few years until he joined the electronic devices manufacturer Braun. Within a few years he became their chief of design, a position he held for almost 35 years. During his tenure, he and his team designed many iconic devices ranging from record players to furniture to storage systems.

He is also credited with the memorable phrase “Weniger, aber besser” which basically translates into “Less, but better”. Dieter Rams used graphic design, form, proportion, and materiality to create order within his designs. His work does not try to be the center of attention, rather he allows his work to become part of the environment through precision and order.

Work at Braun

in 1954 the Braun brothers asked the tutors of the recently founded Ulm School of Design to advise them on product design and recruited a design team including Rams. When he arrived at Braun, Rams applied his architectural skills to the design of exhibition sets and offices, but became increasingly interested in products. In 1956 he worked with the Ulm tutor Hans Gugelot on the development of the SK4 radio and record player. Abandoning the traditional wooden cabinet, they devised an unapologetically industrial metal case for the SK4 with two pale wooden sides. The operating panel was positioned on the top next to the turntable, rather than hidden away at the side. The plastic lid also gave the SK4 its nickname – “Snow White’s Coffin”.

Braun SK4

In terms of colour coding, the steel plate case of the audio units was in white or charcoal grey with an aluminium coverlid. The operating elements were pale or dark grey except for the green on/off switch. Adhering to these codes ensured that, at a time when technology was changing rapidly, consumers could be confident of learning how to use each new Braun product quickly and efficiently.

10 Design principles

Back in the late 1970s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important principles for what he considered was good design. 

• Good design is innovative-

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

• Good design makes a product useful-

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

• Good design is aesthetic-

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

• Good design makes a product understandable-

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

• Good design is unobtrusive-

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

• Good design is honest-

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept

• Good design is long-lasting-

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

• Good design is thorough down to the last detail-

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

• Good design is environmentally friendly-

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

• Good design is as little design as possible-

 Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Influence on Apple 

Jony Ive has long acknowledged Dieter Rams as his inspiration and talks about Rams designing “surfaces that were without apology, bold, pure, perfectly-proportioned, coherent and effortless”, he could equally be talking about the iPod. “No part appeared to be either hidden or celebrated, just perfectly considered and completely appropriate in the hierarchy of the product’s details and features. At a glance, you knew exactly what it was and exactly how to use it.” 

Below are examples to show comparisons between Apple designs and Dieter Rams designs for Braun

My views

I think the majority of Dieter Rams products amazingly beautiful, clean and simple and I aspire to own the snow whites coffin. When I look at the designs he did back in the day for Braun they look timeless and wouldn't look out of place in todays households. His 10 design principles can still apply to today design world, but at the end of the day they're his own opinions and I only believe in some of them such as honesty, understandability and detail. 

Dieter Rams products