Posts Tagged ‘creativity’
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Award-winning illustrator and creator of book covers for novels by William Golding, Iris Murdoch, Isabel Allende and Alice Walker, Cathie Felstead has illustrated numerous childrens’ books and worked for big-name clients like British Airways, Channel 4, Ballet Rambert and Oxfam. An RCA graduate, she also teaches final year Illustration at University of Hertfordshire. She talks here about inspiration, deadlines, Angela Carter, Industrial design, Cheryl Cole and Arsenal Football Club…
Do you think you have a particular approach to illustration? There is a difference between the work I do for clients and my own work. My approach to work for clients is quite businesslike: I get a script, look through it and see if there is something interesting about it… (a good fee can make the dullest script more interesting!). The starting point of an advertising job can be less engaging, and more of a challenge. Books and editorial work are generally more inspirational and better suited to my approach…
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Tags: Cathie Felstead, creativity, illustration, image-making, inspiration, RCA, University of Hertfordshire, visualisation
Posted in conversation, inspiration, visualisation | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Functionality, clarity and rationality reign supreme in contemporary design. The Bauhaus casts a long shadow and analysis of function, distillation of meaning and removal of the inessential gives us the calm spaces, ordered structures and clear interfaces that we need to navigate our complex modern lives. It could be argued that decoration is anti-design. Style is inevitable, but ‘decoration’ is just for cakes and wallpaper, no?
There are areas of design where indulgent visual richness remains desirable and appropriate, a signifier of value and/or emotion. Decoration blooms sporadically now – our rapid cultural turnover often rendering it ‘tired’ before it can establish itself. It may not be a dirty word any more but beyond the confines of fashion and interior design, decoration often coexists uneasily with cool minimalism and rational typography. Are we are in danger of losing the art of decoration?
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Tags: creativity, decoration, decorative arts, decorative tradition, decorative type, design, graphic design, ornament, packaging, packaging design, St Germain packaging, traditional typography
Posted in blog, inspiration, typerbole, visualisation | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
© DC Thompson
Hats off to RCA graduate Min-kyu Choi, who has won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year Award.
The award – a slightly weird exercise in comparing apples with oranges (if not bananas, guava, macadamia nuts and kiwi fruit) – last year favoured Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster and this year pitted the late great Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer collection, a light aircraft and a social housing project against Mr Choi’s clever folding plug design. Anyone travelling any distance with a thin laptop will appreciate the value of his elegant solution to the problem of the ugly bulk of the UK plug when travelling. The new plug, which folds to 1cm or less, may not save lives but solves a daily irritation for potentially millions of people. Amazing a) that no-one did this sooner and b) that it is not in production already. We may now have to put up with endless ‘plugging the market gap’ headlines, but Min-kyu Choi deserves the success that will surely result from his clarity of thought and keen eye for a missed opportunity. Demos here and here.
Tags: creativity, design of the year, industrial design, innovation, Min-kyu Choi, plug, product design, RCA
Posted in distillation, information, inspiration | No Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
I put up a shed last weekend (yes, the designer lifestyle is that glamorous): two days of stressful toil lengthened in no small part by the appalling quality of the ‘instructions’ provided: 14 pages of verbal and visual redundancy, irrelevance and confusion. Well what did I expect for £99?
Most products arrive with scant, inaccurate or misleading information for assembly and use. Many well-designed consumer products neglect information as part of the product experience, leading to returns, safety issues, customer dissatisfaction and erosion of brand loyalty. This seems overwhelmingly the norm and we are accustomed to sucking up all the wasted time, the frustration and stress, and moving on with our lives. Why are ‘instructions’ such a design-free zone? (more…)
Tags: accessibility, communication, creativity, graphic design, information design, language, legibility, service design, typography, words
Posted in distillation, information | No Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
An explosion of communication and choice in recent decades has created the global climate of information overload that we are only now beginning to find ways to properly navigate. The rise of the iPhone app and the price comparison website shows the information economy at work and there is growing recognition of the value of designing access to information. But what took us so long?
In our personal areas of interest choice can seem miraculous: I can get my favourite version of my favourite song in less than 60 seconds; we can have customised trainers designed in-store; you can get your flat white-half-caff-soy-frappe-latte-cino just the way you like it in a coffee shop anywhere in the world (a distant time it was when coffee was purchased in only one of two states: black or white). But in general, relentless second-by-second decision-making is required to navigate a deep sea of visual noise. Negotiating our choices can lead to unprecedented fatigue, confusion, stress – and disinterest. As expectations rise, consumers are increasingly losing their patience. How do we solve this problem?
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Tags: accessibility, brand design, branding, communication, creativity, design, graphic design, information design, information economy, language, typography, words
Posted in distillation, information | No Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
The brief is the key to a good design outcome. Einstein said if he had an hour to solve a problem he would use the first 55 minutes to formulate the right question and the last five to solve the problem. A good design brief is the definition of that right question. In design practice a good brief is extremely rare (I recall only one genuinely complete brief – thank you Nancy Bobrowitz/Reuters!) and its importance is easily overlooked in the rush to results.
Most design briefs are only a production specification, possibly including some vague musings on the brand, but with short-term specifics favoured over direction. The missing element is usually strategy – giving direction, focus and clarity of intent to what is otherwise just a shopping list. A common reluctance to examine fundamentals makes clarifying design strategy about as easy as nailing jelly to a wall…
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Tags: brand design, branding, communication, communication goals, communication strategy, creativity, design, design brief, design strategy, graphic design, problem-solving
Posted in distillation, information | No Comments »
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