Make Up is Art

               So, many don’t know, but I am someone who loves make-up. I find it so amazing how you can do so much with make-up, creating depth, and just how it enhances your look. Make-up is art on the face or body. One of my favorite make up lines is MAC, Make-Up Art Cosmetics. Two years ago, I remember I came across one of their collections where they had an artist, Richard Phillip, create a work of art using the company’s latest pigments and products.

                                             Richard Phillip, Vain Glorious, from Google images

                Phillip’s works is mostly inspired by fashion and he used 24 different products to create a retouched version of “Der Bodensee,” of one of his recent paintings, also known as, Vain Glorious. He shows that painting and make-up are very much the same, the only thing different is the canvas.

                I think it’s pretty amazing what you can do with make-up. Make-up has been around for centuries and has been around since Egyptian times. In modern day, many people, women and men, use make-up for many reasons; for personal enhancement, for their profession, for art, and design. Make- up is used professionally for movies, display art, and for the runway. It is universally used. Make-up as an art can transform you, and it has become a common product in the daily life of many people. It has expanded into a huge beauty industry, and along with it, are the professions of a make-up artist. They see the face and body like artist see a blank canvas. You become inspired, and create something that is exquisite. Make-up is beauty, creativity, uniqueness, boldness, and the possibilities are endless.

 Pictures from Google images: MAC make-up

                Design in society can come in all kinds of mediums. Media is what you create design with. Just like paint is a medium of art, so is make-up.

The Phone

                                               Pictures from Google images:

                The phone has been an industrialized product for many years. It has taken many forms and shapes in order to make our lives better.

                The phone is used for communication, in order to contact a person from a distance where you cannot reach them. It has been used universally for many purposes, such as socially. Its production changes from its appearance and how it functions. Phones are created for a home, for personal uses, and even for different ages. The different form caters to a certain consumer.

                For homes, phone are made wireless, in order to talk within your house without having to stay in one place. For personal uses, phones are created small and the functions apply to what type of communicator the consumer is, such as email, texting, and talking. For different ages, little kids have basic functions, and less functions because it is normally used for emergency communication. The adult phones have more functions, such as smart phones. The older consumer phones may be different by size and the appearance of the digits because of bad eyes.

All these types of problems connect to how these phones came into production. In order to have a good functioning phone, content and form must be part of the design process. The signals of the phones are also important, because that helps the function of the phone. The function and appearance must be appealing to the consumer because the point of the phone is to help make their lives better. The material is also important. The phone must be environmentally safe, many phone that are mass produced end up in landfills. If the phone is created without thoughtfulness, then the product loses its purpose and value.

When the phone is created, the communication has to improve. Its purpose is the make communicating with others easier, that is its most important purpose. Its shape, material, size, and function, are constantly changing. The industrialization of phones will continue to be improved as long as our needs continue to change.

Interaction of Form and Content: Objectified

                                                           Picture from Google images

               In the movie, Objectified, many artist and designers explain how form and content interact. Every object tells a story. Everything in the world is designed one way or another. We see design everywhere. Our minds process design quickly. When we see an object, we automatically make assumptions. How it’s used, why it is created, what it is and what it should look like. We design for a better life, to improve our daily lives, but there is so much more too it, than just its form.

                For example, in order to tell a story, the form must be processed thoughtfully. Good design has to be functional. The process that goes into creating an object is so much more than its appearance. We have to ask ourselves, who is it for, how do we make it for this person, how can it be environmentally friendly, how does it work, how does it function, and how it should look? All of these questions are part of the content. Content gives guidance of how form should be. Some examples from the movie were chairs, toothbrushes, the phone, and computers.

                                                     Picture from Google images

                After being able to process all these questions, then form starts to take its appearance in an object. Form lately does not follow function, but our minds process it as what it is made for. For example the Iphone, it does not look like it does all the things it does, such as apps and all those sorts of things, but we somehow just assume it should do those things. The apple notebook is also an example of thoughtful designing, making sure it is working to its full potential, and at the same time it is sleek and simple.

                                                        Picture from Google images
An object gives an emotion, it gives us a story. Without content and form, there is nothing.  Content is research, making solutions, and answering questions. Form is the production and process. In the end, your get an object, a story, a purpose.

Happy Halloween

                                                               Picture from Google images

                Isn’t it interesting how once someone dresses up in a certain way we can assume they are portraying a certain person. Halloween is all about being someone else, or in other cases, something else. We dress up to play a part, to act like someone other than ourselves for a day. It’s interesting how one simple change can make you appear differently.

                Costumes play a role in our subjective mind. Because we have experience with certain characters, things and people; when a person is dressed a certain way, our mind automatically makes connection so we can assume what it is they are dressed up as. Our perspective changes because we make that connection to our experience. Our minds know that it is a costume, and that they are not really who they are portraying. The connection between costume and person shows a conversation between who looks at it. Design as a conversation. The design sends a message and the interaction from who looks at it creates a conversation. Here, an example of a baby dressed as a monkey; he's not really a monkey, but by the way he is dressed, we know he is a monkey.

                Halloween is like everyday life. We dress a certain way to portray a certain person, which is ourselves. We dress for our personality, our current success, our goal for success, or our way of life. We see people on the streets we don’t know, and make assumptions automatically because of their appearance. Fashion and design help us show a hint of who we are. Although it may not apply to everyone, our appearance plays a role in our minds because we make connections and assumptions through our past experiences of what we know.

Comparison and Contrast

In order to see relation and or see a difference, you have to compare and contrast. It requires more than one thing to compare and contrast. It can be anything you want. When you compare and contrast you find how things are the same, or different. You make a connection between them. Even certain things can be completely different, but there is always some sort of similarity, even if it’s not a major similarity. It can be change over time, or 2 different objects.

Today, I want to compare and contrast something we actually sketched in class, the iconic character of Hello Kitty.

Compare from the first picture of Hello Kitty from 1974 to present year, 2010. You can easily see they are the same character. They have the same basic shape of the kitty in overalls, and the bow. Hello kitty became popular when it first came out, and it still is the most recognized character. They both still holds the same purpose. Hello Kitty has always been an iconic image that is most popular amongst girls.

Contrasting both Hello Kitty then and now, you can easily see a difference of how the character is designed from the past, and then altered a little now. It has definitely become more appealing to the audience and more simplified, as we became more modern. The iconic image of Hello Kitty has expanded universally, and she has become appealing to all types of ages now. From little girls, to adult women, she is an icon that has changed a little over the years. But, her character is still the same no matter how different she may seem to look, compared to the first images of her.

The relation between time and change, to compare and contrast, is finding a connection. You can always find similarities and differences in things, it just takes a little bit of thinking.

Design As A Conversation

                                               Picture from Google

How can design be a conversation? It can be defined as a conversation when there is communication between the creator and the audience. It does not need to be direct, but it’s a message portrayed by the creator. If the message is read by the audience, that means there is conversation between the two.

Conversation happens quickly, when the message of the creator is understandable. When there is connection and relation between the audience and the creator, then the creator has done their job. The audience learns something, they understand, and gain knowledge of a different point of view. It is important for the message or conversation to be effective. Design as a conversation should make an impact. Design has a purpose, and when the purpose is achieved, the audience leaves with the impact from the conversation.

A painting, a sculpture, a clothing collection, a song, and many more design examples; they all hold different conversation between their audiences. The audience will be impacted somehow, when there is conversation with the design. It can send a message of happiness, sadness, time, change; anything. Design as a conversation gives a designer the ability to create their own display of the message they want to portray, without having to be obvious. You have a conversation from your senses, the more the message is portrayed through the audiences senses, the more of an impact the message will have. Through seeing, observing, hearing, and feeling are some examples of how you can interact with design and have a conversation.

For example, when Lady Gaga and Yoko One sing for an audience, the song, "The Sun is Down," they have a conversation with the audience. Lady Gaga shows her message through her outfit, her song, her emotions and expressions. She is sending a message to connect with her audience. She has a conversation with her audience through her performance.

                                         Pictures from Google images

So, design as a conversation can be read universally. It doesn’t have a specific language. As long as the design gives the audience the message the creator wants to give, then it is all the matters. The audience has to be interested, and it has to effectively impact them somehow. Being able to have a conversation with your audience is very important to the creator, you want them to be intrigued and understand your point of view. So when you look at a design, have a conversation.

Cookie Anyone?

                                                  Picture from Google images

                Have you ever thought of your food as art? More specifically, your favorite cookie? This weekend I decided to bake cookies and I thought, are there any art pieces that are of cookies? Surprisingly, there are.

                The chocolate chip cookie is pretty universal, and it has been around since 1930. It was created by Ruth Walkfield at the Toll House Inn, where of course that’s where Toll House cookies came to be. Ever since then, chocolate chip cookies have become the most popular cookie in America.

                I came across this art piece, “Eat Your Heart Out,” by Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers, 2008. It shows a series of 4 pieces. The 4 pieces shows a giant ice cream sandwich being eaten. In the end, you just have the wrapper.

                                                Picture from Google images

                But, Tim and Rebekah, is using this of many other art pieces to represent disconnect between our reassuring fantasies of nature and the much more alarming reality. They present sculptural installations of childhood language, such as toys. They turn the message of comfortable accommodation upside down. The use highly glazed clay, fiberglass, plastic, wood, and Styrofoam to show their fragility. Their previous works include shiny pink penguins set on eroding ceramic ice floes and inflatable plastic killer whales resting on ornamental wooden bases. They juxtapose these creatures against fabricated ice cream sandwiches, half eaten popsicle and ice cream cones. They are symbols of our mindless consumption. These sculptures show our careless disregard for nature’s fate and suggest a similarity of the way we treat our personal possessions, such as the natural world. The show is titled “All good things…,” a phrase whose unstated ending is, “must come to an end.”

                So there is more to a cookie than just its taste. When you look paste it as just a dessert, you find a big representation of our consuming world. Although we have many good things in our lives, they are all being mass produced and are very harmful to our natural world. We must understand that eventually, all good things must come to an end.