Home Decor Designed By Artist Heather Ann Cochrane

This piece is a purely visual, nonobjective piece I picked up at Home Goods to accent my home. It is designed by the artist Heather Ann Cochrane. It is meant to capture the eye and draw attention while filling a void. It thoroughly does its job.
The piece is constructed with a repetition of metal wavy pieces that alternate color to compose the design and are treated with metallic paint that appears oily. The finish is quite spectacular and, depending on where it is viewed from, the interplay of light with the curved forms is always intriguing. The cobalt and bronze alternate to form a pattern of similarity while the wavy metal pieces the colors are painted on form a pattern in their own respect.
The pieces are arranged in proximity to draw the eye up, forming 3 consecutive rows of positive arrows and one final piece at the bottom to bring asymmetrical balance to the piece horizontally. The way the pieces flow together provides a secure sense of continuation that lets the eye breeze over the entire piece effortlessly and this is in part due to the pleasing aspect of the bilateral symmetry of the vertical axis.
While the design of the arranged pieces attempt to draw the eye up, whenever I view the piece I see a waterfall of light and color that drain down the piece, giving it an endless flow of cobalt and bronze. Through Gestalt Theory, the eye and the mind automatically fill in the spaces to create a seamlessly flowing and pulsating presentation of rhythmic reflection. There really is no focal point of the piece because the entire piece is the focal point and creates an almost allover pattern.
The unity of color and arrangement really hold this piece together and make it all the more aesthetically pleasing. A truly unique piece.

The Design of Design

The design of design. It sounds like a loaded statement but it is a necessary conundrum to get at the crux of what it is to design and why we design. Very rarely is design an inert ability that spawns from itself. Design is breathed to life by inspiration. Inspiration from not only within, but more importantly what surrounds us and what we experience.
Whatever is designed, and there isn't much that isn't, is an experience. These experiences infect us and stay with us whether we are conscious of them or not. People like to think that great designs are pulled out of the air by technical or artistic savants, but, the truth is, everything has a precedent. As much as we like to think that we as humans have designed our own world as we see fit, and to an extent we have, we really have just been inspired by what has been and have set forth on an irreversible path of innovation ever since. All designs, no matter how simple or complex, have their origin in the original designer: nature. I'm not here to argue evolutionary or intelligent design, but the fact of the matter is that everything on this planet has been designed at some level. It is only natural that once we have reached the pinnacle of this design, intelligent thought, memory and craft, that we would take the torch and become the designers. Inspired by all that has come before, what is demanded of us now and the possibility of what will be.

The Nike Zoom LeBron VI "MVP" By Designer Ken Link

The Nike Zoom LeBron VI (6) is arguably the sleekest, smoothest, lightest and best looking signature LeBron James shoe yet. The shoe combines the smooth feel of the Zoom LeBron IV (4), also designed by Ken Link, and the clean layout of the Air Zoom Generation, LeBron’s first signature shoe. LeBron shoes before this were notoriously bulky and heavy for a basketball shoe, but this was a non-issue when designing for the athletic specimen that is LeBron James.

What I want to focus on is not so much the design of the shoe itself, but the special MVP edition and the inspiration and details that went into designing this commemorative colorway.

LeBron is well-known for his pregame ritual of throwing chalk into the air and Nike recognized this by creating a "Chalk” edition Zoom LeBron IV. The MVP edition takes it one step further by giving the entire upper the look off a fresh, powdery chalk clap from LeBron himself by using dull, white, distressed leather. The shoe also received other special treatment not seen on any other LeBron VI models. The midsole is patent leather and the soles are clear with metallic gold flake, a nice touch.

The shoe itself is kind of quiet except for the dramatic prints which are a statement of LeBron’s game and career. The heel tabs of the shoes feature Nike’s campaign for LeBron, “WITNESS” printed across both tabs. Behind the tab of the left shoe “08” is printed and on the right “09”; this is for the NBA season he was awarded the regular season MVP award. The forefoot straps have the words “WITNESS”, “MVP”, “08” and “09” scrawled across both shoes in the same large block print that adorns the rear of the shoes and the inside part of the double lined upper.

To find inspiration to design LeBron’s signature shoe is hard enough, but to create a commemorative shoe of such magnitude with only color, material and print/graphics as options is another task. Ken Link had to look beyond LeBron James the person and the player, the inspiration for the shoe, but to LeBron’s career, on-court performance and persona to give this shoe its own identity feel. This shoe became as anticipated as LeBron’s first MVP award. Let’s hope it is not the last and the inspiration keeps coming.

The Nike Air Yeezy By Designer Mark Smith in Collaboration with Kanye West

The Air Yeezy is the first signature shoe for a non athlete produced by Nike. The shoe is the collaboration between legendary Nike designer Mark Smith and the ever innovative and controversial Kanye West. The shoe was well hyped leading up to its release just because of the names involved, but what a lot of people over-looked was an elegant, under-stated design made of premium materials that was constructed equally well.

The soft, supple perforated leather on the forefoot of the shoe is like none other that I’ve encountered on what is being deemed a “basketball” shoe but is better situated as a “lifestyle” or casual shoe.

The color blocking is very subtle on the exterior with shades of “zen grey” and “light charcoal”, but the liner of the shoe explodes with neon applications of pink and orange. This subdued exterior and vibrant, in-your-face interior is a wonderful analogy to not only the inspiration of the shoe, Kanye West, but the dynamic between its creators. The high cut of the shoe and over-sized tongue is also a throwback to the basketball shoes of the 1980s which Kanye is a fan of.

The lines are clean and few and far between. The use of large, one-piece cuts from heel to toe give the shoe a sense of being larger than life, but when it's on your foot, it loses this physical illusion of grandeur but the psychological remains. The repeated "Y" pattern that adorns the suede toe-cap and patent leather mid-foot strap take on the look of a textured material rather than the imprints they are. The shoe is clean and crisp. The vibrant colors of the well-padded and securely snug interior seem to warm your foot from their hue alone. The novelty of the shoe doesn't end with it just being a Kanye West Nike shoe. The outsoles are made of glow-in-the-dark rubber that reacts to the sun very well and appears to glow even during daylight. Something that has been done on various parts of Nikes before, but this marks the first time the entire outsole has been given the treatment and this is the best it has ever looked.

Kanye used Nike shoe history, as well as his own aspirations, vision and "Glow In The Dark Tour" to make his contribution to the shoe while Mark Smith provided his unparalleled expertise in not only design, but the process involved in design to create a truly unique and highly coveted shoe (as usual). Both had to look beyond themselves for inspiration which I find truly inspiring due to both of their lofty statuses in their respective fields. This shoe is a testament to design, not only as an aesthetically beautiful, well constructed shoe, but the design process which proves that great design is fostered in teamwork and proven in cohesive execution.

"Supeui Giok - Memory of a Grove" By Designer Hyunju Lee

If “Haha Hoho” and “Huh Huk” are the extremes of emotions, then “Memory of a Grove” is the quiet transition between the two. The piece breathes and exhales tranquility, inducing a sense of serenity to those who stop and take the time to appreciate it. The colorful blossoms that encapsulate much of the script incorporated into the image are a beautiful array of pastels that are as peaceful as the grove they represent, or should I say the memory of the grove they represent.

The vertical lines that stretch the piece aid the viewer in stretching the imagination. The lines bend in a naturally whimsical manner adding to the organic chemistry of the piece as a distant place, whether it be space or time. The well-balanced use of color as well as the larger script prints in the lower left and upper right give a comforting sense of symmetry and protection as all is bound within the naturally curving, vertical lines. The protected peacefulness of the grove is projected onto the viewer and both confide in eachother. This piece is truly beneficial to all who encounter it and all who encounter it benefit the grove by creating another memory of it, enabling it to live on outside of its geographical location and printed representation.

"Haha Hoho" & "Huh Huk" By Designer Hyunju Lee

These two pieces are my favorite from the exhibit. The pieces represent the emotions of sadness and joy which respectively translate into the expression of those emotions, crying and laughter. "Haha Hoho" is a joyous occasion from the first glance. The subtle positive bend of the lines encourage you to mimic the movement with a smile of your own. The wispy lines appear to run across the entire canvas but actually taper and reappear or completely disappear. They could be said to represent the lips of a thousand smiles with each symbol of hieut bubbling from beneath the lips to create laughter within the piece. The different colors and sizes of the characters reflect the different sizes of laughter from a subtle chuckle to a repeating cackle to a robust merriment of laughter. On the other end of the spectrum, but in line with the previous, "Huh Huk" is the sound of sobbing in Korean and this piece somberly displays it. In contrast to "Haha Hoho", "Huh Huk" is a gentle, melon collie expression of sadness. The lines run straight across horizontally, never breaking or bending. The piece has a determination to show no positive emotion. The drab colors underline that and the symbols are considerably less numerous, vibrant, and varied in size when compared to "Haha Hoho". The symbols become the universal expression of sadness, tears. The two pieces paired together give a soaring sense of jubilation and pessimistic crash back to reality. The space between the pieces leaves the audience to create its own closure as to why the drastic change of emotion. What happened between the two to cause such conflicted expressions? The pieces are a very good use of line and color to express what everybody on Earth can identify with, the balance of emotions and the calm between the extremes.

"Typographic Exploration In Hangul" By Designers Hyunju Lee & Phil Choo

"Typographic Exploration In Hangul" is an exhibition taking place in the Design Museum in Walker Hall at the University of California Davis that features typographical works of Korean designers Hyunju Lee and Phil Choo. The exhibition features pieces of typography in Hangul, the adopted script of North and South Korea.
Having recently read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, I viewed the gallery as a series of pictures telling a narrative and conveying action, emotion and history. I viewed the gallery as a comic. The stark white back-drop on some walls accompanied with the predominately square and rectangular pieces must have triggered this perception. The space between pieces became "gutters, the space between comic frames, leaving the mind free to create its own closure in discerning what happens between images and why they have happened. Some pieces were purposefully paired creating a moment-to-moment representation and before long it was on to the next piece which created a scene-to-scene experience. Viewing the entire gallery in sequence created some non-sequitur "frames", except for the fact that all the pieces revolved around the characters of a language that strung them together as much as any language has strung together the differences, commonalities, and heritage of any culture.
The sequence of all the images immerse you in another world, that of the Hangul script. Without knowledge of the language or the first clue of how to pronounce any characters, I could still feel and understand each piece as they created moments of joy as well as somber, quiet reflections and moments of uncontainable energy. It brought the characters of the language to life and they became more than symbols of sounds and ideas. They became symbols of the universal language of emotion conveyed by design.