Everyday works of art.
This is the eleventh essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. The Editors.
Grand Ronde, a small town on the way to the Oregon coast, has a feeling of being quite remote. The "Grand Ronde Shopping Center," a general store, apparently has to stock a bit of everything for those who can't get to the bigger centers in Willamina and Sheridan.
Browsing around the store is a pleasure; I find myself drawn to the tool bin, a lush jumble of shining wrenches, drill attachments, electric cords, screwdriver sets "Anything on This Table for $2.99." On my last visit I suddenly realized I needed a hammer, a brilliant chromed-head hammer with an inviting matte-black hand grip. When it practically leaped into my hand I knew I'd found a friend, a user-friendly tool that would help me to attack with unerring balance the most dull-pointed 10 penny nail. The hammerhead was sleek and beautifully sculptured with a claw end that flowed gracefully down in a luscious curve. The connection to the handle was continuous and streamlined, and I knew I was in the presence of true art.
I thought back to the year I served on the Art Selection Committee of the Portland Art Museum and the time that an ancient, red-lacquered Japanese stirrup was presented as an objet d'art to be purchased for the museum collections. The stirrup, designed for use, was no more beautiful than My Friend Hammer. Because the Japanese stirrup was from the historic Edo Period and was presented in a richly brocaded box, it commanded a high price. My hammer was new, a product of current industrial art - and only $2.99.
Most people think of "Art" as paintings and sculpture on display in art museums, separated out, in a way, from daily living. Another kind of art expression, however, is called "crafts." Beautiful pieces of sculptured furniture, fabrics, individually designed jewelry, ceramic ware and porcelains are on selected display at Oregon's nationally noted Contemporary Crafts Gallery as well as at other galleries and shops around the state. These objects are useful and necessary in daily life, but, using the language of art, extremely well-made.
A question: "OK, art - so what's the use?" Answer: Viewing visual art can elevate one's aesthetic sense in ways that can be refreshing, useful and in tune with moments of human excellence. That's the "use" of Art.
The same principle works at home when we select objects that include the simple language of art. The kitchen shears, simple and sculptured, give us great joy in their use. The Alvar Alto glass bowl that holds our spring flowers is a pleasure in the early morning light. Even my typewriter, sculptured by the Italian designer, Etore Sotsass, is a delight for the eye as I write. And I have my hammer, a nice statement of American design art.
It seems to me that a good deal of the usefulness of museum art is the preservation of the moments, styles and attitudes of our ancestors and of past cultures. The grace and beauty of the people illustrated on Greek urns, for instance, are captured in a way that we still can see, and the color and mysticism of early Northwest Coast Indian cultures are preserved in museum collections in artifacts that are disappearing from the real world.
The function of recording a past moment is part of the art of a Japanese print in my family's collection, a print by Hiroshige made about 1836, well before Adm. Matthew Calbraith Perry prevailed on Japan's Tokugawa shogunate to open the feudal island to trade with America in 1854. Hiroshige's picture records a windy day on the lakefront marshes of Yokkaichi station in sensitive line drawing and subtly colored woodblock printing. Though the drawing is assured, alive with wind and wetness, the picture is just a country scene, an occurrence of gentle amusement in which a man chases his hat as it rolls off in the breeze. It is really what we would think of today as a cartoon.
The Portland Art Museum has had feature exhibitions of the prints of Hiroshige and other Japanese block-print masters, and the museum's Asian collection includes many similar prints. The "block-print" method of multiple reproduction allowed many people 150 years ago to have copies of these pictures, often the onlY pictures many Japanese citizens of that time had seen.
Come to think of it, the print method used by Hiroshige, a black drawing with added color tints, is similar to the technique The Oregonian uses for the Sunday comic pages.
I wonder whether this comic art will be housed in future museums as an artistic record of our culture? At the very least, it is available to all of us now home-delivered.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 13 February 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post
AIGA Portland hosts Brian Singer and his 1000 Journals Project.
Last evening, AIGA Portland hosted Brian Singer, president of AIGA San Francisco, principal at Altitude Associates and creator of the 1000 Journals Project. It was in 2000 when the project began as one hundred journals were initially sent, containing only basic information about the project, a blank slate, and an artful cover. As many of you may recall, that was around the time of the (first) dot com bust and Singer was at the epicenter the tech quake; San Francisco. Much like the economy today, there appeared to be more time for exploring ideas than there was available paying work and it became clear that people were feeling a need to reach out to others in order to rekindle connections or spark new ones. In those eight years the project has expanded to include one thousand traveling journals and has prompted a new online effort, 1001 Journals, which picks up where the last bound journal left off, as well as a book and movie. In this era of online social media, it's good to be reminded that a hand-scratched note or illustration still colors the personal nuances that pixels can only aim to render. An exhibit of the 1000 Journals Project is underway at SFMOMA and runs through April 5, 2009.
Shouts-out to Stephanie Wagner, and her team of volunteers and facilitators at AIGA Portland, for their assistance in bringing Brian to town. It was a pleasure to attend and to hear first hand how the project was conceived and how it continues to evolve and flourish.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 29 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post (1 so far)
Twitter Roundup: Week of 19 January.
Pinch. A Design Office. produces a daily Twitter stream we call @Pinch_Bespoke. The premise is simple: six tweets a day on issues related to brand, design, and sustainability. We were pleased to provide another glimpse of PUMA City, one of our favorite examples of shipping container architecture, as well as announce the upcoming opening of the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. We share contemporary work from Post Typography and Piece Studio, both from Baltimore. Mike Dempsey looks back on Raymond Hawkey, we remind you about Hille Furniture contributors Robin Day and Fred Scott, and DesignWorkPlan reminds us about the words of Eric Gill. As always, we thank you for allowing us to share our work and our incessant ramblings.
- Connect:
- The deal is one Pinch post a day, that's all. But let's open it up a bit. Join us at the Pinch Facebook group.
- Pull:
- Founded by artist James Lavadour, Crow's Shadow Institute provides technology, instruction and cultural exchange.
- Present:
- The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) calls for submissions for TypeCon2009 Atlanta. Via Typophile.
- Regard:
- Nolen Strais' and Bruce Willen's Post Typography. Design, conceptual type, lettering. Check the firm monograph.
- Tell:
- Simon Heys' typographic Word Clock. Linear and rotary modes display fixed list of words. Via Hip. Young. Thing.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 23 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post
The creative pig.
This is the tenth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. As always, Byron entertains and shows a knack for having his finger on pulse of Portland, then and now. Who else can wrap the mythical Calvin Swine and the esteemed Charles Eames to illustrate his idea? Nobody, that's who. And that's why we love the young feller'.
Not many products are designed in Oregon because, of course, the state manufactures little in the "mass-market manufacture" sense. Oregon, as home to Jantzen, White Stag, Speedo and Nike, has a large name in the active sportswear field, but much of the styling or manufacture for these brands is done out-of-state. Pendleton's fashions are Oregon-directed; Gerber Blades, Columbia Outdoorwear and several other products can be called Oregon-based in the national marketplace. Oregon is a surprisingly large supplier of printing and publications, and the growing electronics industry has required some specialized product design.
But design innovation is not a great need in our cut-and-ship state, where most products are grown, harvested and shipped out — timber, fruit, wheat and vegetables. I suppose there's not much need for invention when you live with a "let-me-watch-my-garden-grow" attitude.
The cut-and-ship condition may have been responsible for Gov. Tom McCall's invitation to visitors, "Come visit, but don't stay." That is, visit, but then cut out, ship out. But now we're part of the international marketplace, with trees and wheat shipping out to the Pacific Rim nations and the Port of Portland acting as point of entry for massive numbers of Japanese cars. We have to think of the new intermix of one-world technologies and cultures. I knew the international mix was upon us when I suspected that our local Mexican restaurant served guacamole made with CooIWhip.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 21 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post (1 so far)
A Pinch review of Phillippe Petit and Man on Wire.
Considered by many to be the "artistic heist of the century," Phillippe Petit's 1974 wire walk between New York's World Trade Center towers is an immersive study in design wrapped in an auspice of art. And for me at least, the walk itself was much like the conclusion of any creative endeavor — a bit of a letdown. Consistent with the views of many designers and artists, Petit serves to illustrate that the end of any creative pursuit only forms the path for the beginning of another. When he argues that "there is no why," Petit expresses yet another wire walk between the disciplines of art and design and his own questions surrounding an undetermined future.
The title Man on Wire describes both the complaint tagged to the police report and Petit himself. It's a tight little story of a man who clamors for attention for the work best performed within his own most personal moments. Igor Martinovic's cinematography is upstaged by the rich and ruddy quality of the film that Petit wisely captured and collected from an early age. Without this footage, the visual style of the picture would suffer. But Petit is both an accomplished aesthete and skilled in the process of design at its core; from the measured construct of his planning sketches, to his work and personal relationships, his personae, his acts of performance, and his mad daring. "Now, it's impossible, that's sure. So let's start working," Petite says at one roadblock. And the process begins.
The early 1970's demonstrated a era of promise in America and New York's Twin Towers represented a sanguine spirit of worldwide cooperation, optimism, and progress. The beauty and seeming innocence of that era — to then be chronicled in 2008 — can't help but borrow on the emotion surrounding the events of 11 September, both innocent and tragic. The contrasts in imagery naturally reminds of what the Manhattan skyline once was, and the efforts displayed in the construction site footage recalls the incredible and horrific power of each tower in free fall. Petit's clandestine preparation can't help but stimulate consideration about the terrorists' planning and prompts the viewer to ask himself, with some trepidation, "what is next?"
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 16 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post (1 so far)
Choices of taste linking industry and art.
This is the ninth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. The Editors.
Sigmund Freud opened up the idea that each individual is the psychological product of individual experience, that we are molded by outside influences and by choices often out of our control.
Before the 1895 publishing of Freud's experiments in hypnotism, which under clinical conditions revealed underlying problems of troubled patients, most folks thought they were mere cogs following ordered patterns of society. They believed in God and government, and they had the patterns of life properly established in their minds.
The Victorians lived in a proper way within an ordered class structure. In the "Upstairs/Downstairs" years, the standards were well-established – not that the parlormaid didn't aspire to finer things, but her choices were limited.
The upper class collected paintings and hoarded antiques from ancestral estates. Some gathered Asian art as the spoils of colonialism. In the Victorian/Edwardian eras you knew you were lower class if you didn't have any of that stuff.
But here we are in the last 20 years of the 20th century, and "times they have a-changed." Herman Kahn, the socio-economist, noted "the period 1948-1973 was our time of economic boom." During those post-World War II years the United States blossomed with exuberant manufacturing, and the affluent suburban consumer society was formed. Although British observer Stephen Bayley notes the "overwhelming of the American consumer goods industries by imports from Europe and Japan" by 1973, when the U.S. economic boom faded into silence, we now have a worldwide trade marketplace filled with innumerable goods.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 08 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post
A forward looking statement.
With regard to Bespoke, I've made three personal resolutions: First, I'll post at least once every business day, no matter the length. It may be as simple as an image that we've found somewhat inspiring, or a link to some manifesto or project deserving of attention. Second, to revive the Tuesday Flickr set and The Pinch Digest. Both of these departments have required some effort in the past, but over the holidays, I compiled and penned a nice bank of posts to fill those weeks that see neglect. And third, to begin a monthly interview series. The format will remain focused; six questions (do you see a pattern emerging?) posed to a dogmatic subject in (or on) design. We'll call it The Straight Six. The goal is simply to further the discussion about design, whether it comes from the point of view of an author or an architect, a photographer or an educator, a stripper, sculptor, director, designer, hustler or whore. Without being overly rigid, we believe that design is the focus of our culture and perception can (and should) originate from anyone. We look forward to 2009.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 05 January 2009 | Permalink | Comment on this post
The bombing of a new-age rock hypothesis.
This is the eighth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. – Ed.
In an earlier column I spoke of Buckminster Fuller, the great American design philosopher. I must tell you about the great opportunity I had to chat with him several years ago in Yugoslavia.
In the eariy 1930s Fuller, feeling unsuccessful and frustrated about his contributions to humanity, had decided to spend a year of silence just thinking about the patterns of science and design. From that period to his cataloging of the Earth's natural resources in the late 1970s, "Bucky" earned the affection and respect of the nation's design and intellectual community. His lectures revealed a bright, encompassing mind that brought to light new ideas and connections. His insights sparkled with creativity.
Fuller had explored the crystalline structures of minerals – basalts, silicas, salts – and that's why I wanted to talk to him.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 11 December 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender on the "O" in Obama.
The New York Times feature "Campaign Stops" has Steve Heller interviewing Sol Sender, the creator of Obama's "O" logo. We have our own experience with other "O" identities and thought we'd weigh in with a little support for Sender's work on this one. If you're interested in our general take on the identity program, follow the "Read more" link below.
Heller writes, "At the end of 2006, Mode, a motion design studio in Chicago, approached Sol Sender, a graphic designer, to create a logo for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The resulting “O” became one of the most recognizable political logos in recent history. I (Heller) spoke with Mr. Sender a few days after the election to discuss the evolution of his design." The full story is here: The "O" in Obama.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 22 November 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Contemporary artifacts and the universally absurd.
This is the sixth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. – Ed.
If the public art pieces on Portland's Downtown Mall are all waterproof, and if Los Angeles' art has to be smogproof, at least the art in London no longer must be fogproof.
A foggy day in London town is not so foggy anymore: Peat and coal fires have been banned from the central city. The rooftop chimney pots stand disused, the chimneys that, during Victorian times, poured into the sky tiny particles of smoke ash that formed the nuclei for water vapor and helped cause London's pea-soup fogs.
Sherlock Holmes, perhaps, would not recognize the new, cleaner London, and Queen Victoria would be surprised by what has happened to her beloved Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A, just a few blocks down the road from Harrod's famous department store, is a gigantic museum that took its present shape in 1900, dedicated to showcasing the decorative industrial arts of Victorian England. Victoria and Albert, her prince consort, believed in manufacture and commerce, and the museum collections preserved the products of that period.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 16 November 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
The high-tech road to nostalgia.
This is the fifth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. – Ed.
Quite a few years have passed since the last exhibition of design at the Portland Art Museum. As I recall, it was a traveling exhibit from the New York Museum of Modern Art called "Objects of the Twentieth Century."
Because the show was organized in the early 1960s, it could represent only the first half of the 20th century, but it did make its point about design.
The collection consisted of industrial technique-produced pieces of fine design: chromed steel tube chairs by Marcel Breuer; mass-produced porcelainware by Rosenthal; factory assembled office furniture designed by George Nelson and Charles Eames; glass-fiber fabric designs; and Jay Doblin's elegant pen and pencil set for Sheaffer.
The objects exhibition made the point that the art of design had established standards that, through industrial mass production, could surround everyone with examples of fine contemporary taste.
At the gallery's exit door, I overheard two nicely dressed women talking to Dr. Francis Newton, who was director of the museum at the time. "I like your exhibition of new things," one woman said, "and I'd like to have this modern furniture."
"Yes," said the other, "but we happen to have all these old things at home. Victorian, you know."
That was the dilemma, wasn't it? Good people stuck in a conformity of taste. I would suspect that if the dear ladies had bought a television set it would have been encased, most appropriately; in a Victorian highboy – and the set would have brought in only a picture of Queen Victoria playing the pianoforte.
Interestingly, the designed objects of the '60s museum show are still in production but have become extremely expensive. Elevated to "art" by the museum circuit, they now show up primarily as symbols of good taste in the most sophisticated corporate offices.
In the late '60s, some five years after the objects show, the "alternative lifestyle" protest groups began to make their voices heard socially, politically and economically. Partly in protest to corporate industrialism, and partly because the young don't have much money, they bought their clothes and furnishings at thrift stores and junk shops.
The junk-shop findings for the new lifestyle influenced mass taste. Soon used Levis were an international fashion commodity, and recycled "Tiffany" coloredglass lamps found their way into general interior design. The surge toward "Retro," "Replay" and "Nostalgia" had begun. (A side note: Though the late '60s' alternative lifestyle represented an important force for change, I must admit to some sadness today when I see middle-aged "hippies" stuck in their beads-and-Iong-hair conformity of taste.)
During the mid-'70s turn to nostalgia, another factor appeared to affect the American taste scene: the overwhelming of the consumer-goods industries by imports from Japan and Europe. This trend in the American marketplace came upon us gradually, but it represents a significant change. The consumer can buy only what is available.
Play a bit of a game: Count the high technology objects surrounding you at home – the radios, television sets, video recorders, cameras and typewriters that were designed and manufactured overseas.
No wonder we have turned back to American nostalgia, toward a time when America was more sure of itself and of its production leadership. I expect that a replay of the past is a good thing, that through re-examination we can find new ways, but the "retro" attitude can have some strange results.
Friends of mine have found great pleasure in collecting old neon signs, and they have decorated their dining room with glowing tubes. "Eats," "Cafe," "Coffee Shop" and other bright legends provide the only illumination for dinner. I must observe that a salad under red neon's light and a steak lit by blue krypton's glow do not present themselves too favorably.
I realize that I have my own conformity of taste about dinner.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 10 November 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post (9 so far)
Tuesday Flickr Set: Japanese matchbox covers from maraid.
My, oh my. How the weeks escape us! The last time we really took stock of the season, we were busy test-driving bathing suits in anticipation of the warming summer months. McIsaac was — as is his spring custom — favoring the bikini. After all, as he'd maintain (and we certainly agree) that as a hulking Scot, he possesses the abs to go strong or go home. And Hillerns? Well, let's just say he was more comfortable with a conservative one-piece. In black.
By and by, the weeks passed with willy nilly regard for the Tuesday Flickr set. Make no mistake, there was hardly a content deficit. No, it was merely an issue of priority and we were heads-down with new business and the strategic side of personal services. Lo and behold, here we are; staring October dead in the eye. Lest we not digress.
Now, as a matter of house-keeping, we should clear the air and address the whys (of why) we hadn't posted this particular treasure a bit earlier. Conahan (and a few others, it seems) had initially stumbled upon this set a while back. Being half Irish and half Japanese, Conahan zeroes in on certain subjects for which many of us simply can't subscribe. To his credit, he likes his whisk(e)y neat and the televised stunts as can only be delivered by the broadcast media of Japan. Culture can have its hits and its misses and who are we to judge which is which? In this case, we shouldn't have sat on our hands. He had a winner all along.
Jane McDevitt (also known as maraid at Flickr) is the English Web designer who posted this set of early twentieth-century matchbooks from Japan. She credits her friend Michael for the set, which was originally collected by his grandfather. The labels apparently date from between the 1920s and the 1940s. We've seen other similar collections of course, but Ms. McDevitt's deserves special mention.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 07 October 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
A collection of plastic.
This is the second essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. – Ed.
Recently London's Victoria and Albert Museum showed a collection of objects formed in plastic. The shapes of the items — pens, phones, kitchen utensils and calculators — were appropriate to their functions, examples of living design at work.
Closer to home, Ron Brentano, curator of technology for the Oregon Historical Society, reports that the society has put aside a few plastic items to add to its old celluloid — yes, that was an early form of plastic - backings for hand mirrors and dresser sets and even older frames for daguerrotypes and tintypes. A small table radio — almost a prototype radio — and examples of scrimshaw-like artwork, done on plastic, form parts of the society's more modern plastic collection.
Except for the "scrimshaw." the items seem to be pretty functional — plastic lends itself to some pretty fussy stuff, it's true, but also to some good design that is both practical and attractive.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 25 September 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Tuesday Flickr Set: Ephemera, signs and lettering from Alistairh.
McIsaac forwarded this to the desk of the Tuesday Flickr Set and we simply obliged. Not much to disagree with there considering that he shares that small, yet well-appointed desk. But Bespoke is a pure democracy; majority rules and we all agreed it was high time for pictures of stuff. Little more. Of the same mind, British designer alistairh has posted two meritorious collections with his Ephemera and Signs and Lettering sets. As you've come to know, typically we'd devote a little more ink (or a few more pixels, as it were), but we really needn't do so. The real story here is in the images and we admit to having our favorites. Of those, the ageless simplicity of The British Travel Association (BOAC) materials reminds one of the winsomeness of deliciously flat colour. Does The West of England Sack Contractors maintain all the qualities of a peerless nameplate? Hardly. Yet for what it's worth, we're a bit better off in knowing that the agency informs of "sacks let on hire." Alistair is a principal at We Made This Ltd. in London.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 19 August 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Cheap logo services compete in unwitting Olympiad. Drollery ensues.
In a design-flavored salute to the Beijing games, Doug Barlow takes one for the team and blows a thousand bucks on cheap online logo providers. If you've ever wondered how these places stack up, wonder no more. via Bierut.