Intelligent Colour, Professor Ozin

This posting is as much a reminder to pursue this as anything else.  It's something I've been trying to look into since January.  I missed this talk, by Professor Ozin at UCL on Intelligent Colour which was a really stupid thing to do.

However, his talk was filmed so you can still see Professor Ozin talking - 22 January 2008 on Intelligent Colour.

To encourage you to download it and watch it here is the blurb:

"Not all colours in nature originate from pigments.  Colour can also emerge if the microstructure of a material is fashioned into a grating that allows optical diffraction.  In nanotechnology, this 'structural colour is now within our grasp, and it is easy to imagine how it can be intelligently integrated into jewellery and artwork, vehicles and buildings.  Beyond 'static' structural colour is 'dynamic' form that could enable a full colour display, where one material provides an infinite range of colours - for use in security devices for identification and authentification, and military vehicles with active camouflage for example.  Opportunities for intelligent colour are truly boundless."

Matthew Williamson, Urbis, Manchester

(images, top digital print on tyvek 1999, examples of prints, mood board done especially for the exhibition)

The Matthew Williamson exhibition, Urbis, Manchester was originally on at the Design Museum in London in 2007 to celebrate Williamson's 10 years in fashion.  

It's a comprehensive exhibition moving from his interest in art and design at school up to the present with his plans to develop an accessories range of bags and shoes and a shop in New York.  There are lots of show cases with his dresses, drawings and sketches, furniture and information about his progress.  The colour and decoration in his fashion show how much he is inspired by his frequent trips to India.

As a student he worked for Zandra Rhodes for 3 months which he found to be very inspirational.  He used the off cuttings of lace that he scooped off the floor from the pattern cutters when he was there for his final degree show collection!  An example of sustainability from necessity!

There is also an interview which shows him to be passionate about what he does.

Notes from the filmed interview.

• If you work from the heart then the work is effortless
  
• Fashion is hard, but the cyclical and relentless nature of it makes him disciplined and gives him structure, so it suits him.
  
• He likes developing ideas and concepts into an end product.
  
• He is passionate.
  
• 100% committed to his own vision, without a vision there is nowhere to go.
  
• It's unusual to find one person with the balance of creativity and business sense, he was lucky to meet his business partner so soon.
  
• His collection would be eclectic as he is like a magpie if left to his own devices.
  
• Has a kaleidescope of different influences.
  
• Now he hopes his collection happens in a much more sophisticated and pared down sort of way , that as he has progressed they have become more polished.
  

More Videos - Hamish Morrow

Two films really caught my eye on Hamish Morrow's site:

Digital Echoes: this is fantastic and it explores the idea of virtual prints.

The second is Fashion in Zero-G, that is zero gravity.  It is set in space so as well as the technology aspect there is also the recycling element.

Alexander McQueen video

One of my tutors suggested I look at this video today by Alexander McQueen - very impressive it is too.

Tzuri Gueta- Textile Designer

Tzuri Gueta is an innovative textile and jewellery designer.  His work has very interesting use of materials with particular use of silicone.  Why I'm writing about him is his use of sound at the intro to his site.  His use of sounds really makes his site intriguing and interesting, I'm beginning to understand the point of these sensory exercises a little more.  Eventually everything seems to make "sense".

Julia Lohmann

Julia Lohmann runs the gamut of the design field from product design, illustration, graphics to photography.  Her sites, for her own work and her studio, show how varied her work is and how she questions the world around us with her use of ideas and materials. 

So often writing about successful artists/designers it sounds gushing trotting out trite cliche after cliche.  I don't want this blog to get bogged down in detail, so to spare the gushing look up the sites. 

She was in the top 50 of UK Design voted by the Guardian on 1.09.07.

Julia Lohmann

http://www.julialohmann.com

Studiobec

http://www.studiobec.com

Animation by Prada: Trembled Blossoms

This a sublime presentation from Prada called Trembled Blossoms for SS08.  Having seen this a few days ago I can really seen the benefit of an animation both artistically and also to communicate a collection.  The drawings, graphics, music and story are really unbelievable.

The animation is drawn by James Jean and he also keeps a blog.

I mentioned earlier in this blog about an animation from adidas. I can now see that animations are really useful presentation techniques.

Howard Hodgkin & Marc Newson at the Gagosian Gallery

[Howard Hodgkin's paintings - 

Top: Hello

Middle: Where Seldom is Heard a Discouraging Word

Bottom: Blushing]

Howard Hodgkin's latest paintings at the Gagosian Gallery are beyond superlatives.  They are recent paintings on wood during 2007 and 2008 and they are the first he has exhibited for a while.  The most recent exhibition of his work in London at the Tate Britain was a retrospective,which was also very memorable and affecting.

His paintings look like visceral responses in colour, but they are actually painstakingly created, or should that be "paintstakingly", many taking years to complete. 

Hodgkin talks about his paintings: "My pictures are finished when the subject comes back.  I start out with the subject and naturally I have to remember first what it looked like, but it would perhaps also contain a great deal of feeling and sentiment.  All that has got to be somehow transmuted, transformed or made into a physical object, and when that happens, when that's finally been done, when the last physical marks have been put on and the subject comes back...well, the painting is finished." 

The gallery is a perfect space and the paintings just look beautiful, if only I lived there with them.  My two favourites were Ozone and Blushing, but all were very powerful. 

The Gagosian gallery is offering a double whammy at the moment as there is also Marc Newson furniture on display.  Newson's use of materials is very clever.  Newson says, "Sometimes I start with the material, sometimes the idea.  In this case the materials were the inspiration.  Often the context of materials strikes me more than the materials themselves.  Context is new, not materials."  

You could effortlessly live with all this furniture and gaze all day with awe at the lines and shapes.  Again beyond superlatives.  

I've never been to this gallery before.  It's just tucked away near King's Cross station, it's worth making a note to pay a visit.

Howard Hodgkin: 3 April -17 May 2008

Marc Newson: 4 March - 19 April 2008

Surelight - electroluminescent wire

Surelight are a Sheffield based company that specialise in selling electrical wizardry.

They have a gallery on their site to highlight what artists and designers have done with their products around the world to inspire your creative imagination to run riot...

Apple: Professional Profiles

Apple's website has a section on professional profiles, these are 2 that I thought were particularly interesting and beautiful.

Top image is from a company called Trafik.  They are a french design company specialising in graphics and computer programming and their work is worth a look.

The bottom is image is from a photographer called Tcherevkoff and he takes photographs and turns them into wonderful creations.

Podcasting

Today I learnt how to do a podcast.  It is surprisingly simple, lots of fun but quite embarrassing.  I think it is going to be a very helpful way to present information though and think about ways to communicate...

TED talks - Norman Foster and Malcolm Gladwell

These are two talks I found interesting from TED talks.  TED = Technology, Education and Design, so these talks, of which there are 200 archived to listen to are released on a creative commons license.

1st is the architect Norman Foster

2nd is the author Malcolm Gladwell 

Malcolm Gladwell has written 2 of my favourite books, Blink and The Tipping Point.  He also has his own website, www.gladwell.com with info on these books and his archives for The New Yorker. 

Blink and The Tipping Point are aposite for our course, as we are meant to devise things that are possibly about "blink", that is, perhaps being intuitive about what could become a trend and way before the tipping point is reached.  

SDC Colour Museum, Bradford

[Photos - top - illustrating Tungsten filament test for metamarism, 

middle - spectrophotometre (enables accurate colour measurement to allow digital colour communication, 

bottom - different visions - normal, red deficient, green deficient and blue deficient.]

Finally went to the Colour Museum in Bradford today. We spent 5 hours travelling there and back.  It's quite a small museum run by the SDC and it's by appointment only. 

I hadn't realised that the exhibition is primarily aimed at school children with lots of interactive elements, buttons to press, films to watch and dials to turn to make colour very accessible and interesting.  It also covers a wide range of topics from printing colours, dye methods and printing styles. Although it was well done it was a little disappointing for me as apart from some of the tests there was nothing new.  

There was an interactive display board about Max Luscher which I was really pleased to see, but they laid it out as a game which is not really right as the book states it should be treated seriously.

The colour studies by Sydney Harry in their retrospective were particularly well done, beautifully neat and well presented.  There were also display cases about William Perkins an entrepreneur who invented synthetic dyes in the nineteenth century.

Research Planning

I was reading "Professional Practice in Design Consultancy - A Design Business Association Guide" by Lydia Lydiate ((1992) The Design Council) and thought she gave some very good suggestions about research planning.  It is so easy to endlessly carry on researching so here are her tips for research planning:

"...research must be through and systematic and must not stunt its effect by subscribing to false premises.  It is also important to remember that negative information can be valuable, and useful conclusions can be reached through a process of elimination.

A basic plan for addressing and using research could be as follows:-

• assemble, review and assess existing information, e.g. collect all available data relating
  
• establish the proposal to be investigate
  
• acquire necessary additional data - e.g. undertake primary and secondary research on relevance of proposed idea to target client groups
  
• collage and analyse data in relevant ways
  
• make decisions on the basis of information gathered
  
• decide upon required degree of accuracy in results
  
• ensure that the brief does not prejudice the selection of research techniques and procedures."
  

Building up a sashiko pattern

Children's Pictures out of pattern templates

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

A clever book printed on plastic rather than paper about sustainability.  How can we re-think our behaviour?  

This book is far heavier than a traditional book - Is this sustainable?

There are interesting ideas in this book but it confuses as much as it makes useful points and it doesn't really offer a clear way forward, but it certainly makes you  think.  For instance, natural indigo dyes create mutagens, so what is the alternative?

An index would make this book a more useful reference book.  I think there is poor page layout too with very large margins around the text.  More words per page, less plastic so it would be lighter...

Other than those criticisms there is  a lot to think about in this book.

Flock Exhibition at Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth

This is a very comprehensive exhibition about flocking at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth covering interiors, fashion, stationery, flooring, toys and fine art.  

Walking around the museum and then walking into the flocking exhibition is a shock.  The house is wood panelled and hung with early twentieth century paintings and artefacts the contrast between this and the stark harshness of the flocking exhibition is unsettling.  The gallery unintentionally demonstrates how our lives have changed in a century and how different our idea of decoration and beauty is today.  

The flocking exhibition is beautifully presented and is very well researched and displayed with anything and everything that has been flocked.