Joseph Cornell and Found Objects

Our recent visit to Seedlings reminded me of Joseph Cornell and his use of found materials and things otherwise thought of as junk. While not exactly the same as the altered books we are working on, the use of collage, memories, and found materials is inspiring.

Joseph Cornell was born in 1903 and lived until 1972. Most of his work was created in the 1940’s and 1950’s. To me at least, his work still looks contemporary today.

Via Wikipedia:
Cornell could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters, however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded, but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects he found on his frequent trips to the bookshops and thrift stores of New York. His boxes relied on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition, and on the evocation of nostalgia, for their appeal.

In addition to creating boxes and flat collages and making short art films, Cornell also kept a filing system of over 160 visual-documentary “dossiers” on themes that interested him; the dossiers served as repositories from which Cornell drew material and inspiration for boxes like his “penny arcade” portrait of Lauren Bacall. He had no formal training in art, although he was extremely well read and was conversant with the New York art scene from the 1940s through to the 1960s.

We just fell in love…with Project M

This morning Shawn and I got together to talk art + design + convictions + etc. He’s a senior at Kendall this year majoring in Graphic Design, and he is awesome. A mutual point of interest is not wanting to use our abilities to manufacture perceived needs for objects which people have no need for. Instead we’d prefer (and who wouldn’t) to use our powers for the benefit of our community. Towards the end of our conversation he told me to check out Project M, a group doing just that. It was love at first site (hehe) and after clicking around I concluded that Project M looks to be the most amazing summer experience a young creative could ask for.

“Project M is an intensive summer program designed to inspire young graphic designers, writers, photographers and other creative people that their work can have a positive and significant impact on the world.”

So, to all you young designers wanting to make a larger impact than the ecological footprint of glossy package remnants piled in a landfill somewhere I strongly encourage you to apply for their summer program! In fact, I’ll make it easy. Here’s a copy of the application…it’s due April 30. GET A MOVE ON, ALREADY!

Scott Thomas: Designing the Obama Campaign

“As the Design Director for Obama’s 2008 campaign, Scott Thomas led a now-historic political campaign, in which branding, design, and the web played a truly pivotal role. Likening the experience to “building an airplane in flight,” Scott talks about the creative’s need for triage, the crucial role of incremental design improvements, and the importance of getting back to the hand and keeping things simple.”  Via The 99 Percent

Charles & Ray Eames

The legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames made films, houses, books and classic midcentury modern furniture. Eames Demetrios, their grandson, shows rarely seen films and archival footage in a lively, loving tribute to their creative process.  Via TED.

Paula Scher

Paula Scher gives a proper defense of serious play.

Hi: A real Human interface

“Hi” is by Multitouch Barcelona, a design group dedicated to the communication and interaction of people and technology. The reality of life is that we are people who interact with technology everyday. We are particularly fond of Multitouch’s visual approach to this day-to-day interaction. Multitouch is also in relation with Suprb (Andreas Pihlstrom of Stockholm), a graphic designer producing clean work and typography.

There are always people behind the technology we use, sometimes, quite literally.

Dieter Rams

It’s safe to say you’ve done something right when Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of industrial design at Apple,  starts copying is influenced by your visual vernacular.  Dieter Rams served as head of design at Braun for 30 years (retired in 1998) and emerged as one of the most influential industrial designers of the late 20th century.  I’m particularly fond of his 10 Commandments of Good Design:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.