Saturday, September 20, 2014

J. Diane Martonis, Artist






Memory and ambiguity are concepts I explore by assembling selected imagery to unearth instinctual response, self-reflection, and an open narrative.
The focus of this series is a cottage on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York where I spent every summer since birth. It was dubbed ‘Justamere Cottage’ by my grandmother for its simplicity and vintage, bare-bones personality. Exploring my memories and history through fragments of information that are collected and assembled, the reality of Justamere’s history becomes a new translation that is simplified and whimsical.
Cut paper lends a quiet fragility to my work. It is delicate, intricate, and subtle. Layering and overlapping creates shadows that echo the original, producing a repetition of shape and value. It is this play with light and shadow that I want to explore, using a simple medium to manipulate texture and form through cutting and sculpting. Through cast shadows, the space around the work becomes activated, transforming two-dimensional work into three-dimensional space.
Text and images from artist's website. Link here

Friday, September 19, 2014

Neora Zigler, Designer of Sento Tactile Cookware






‘sento tactile cookware’, israeli student neora zigler‘s final project in hadassah college’s inclusive
 industrial design department,is a set of cooking utensils for the blind and sight impaired. the cooking
 utensils encourage a cooking experience that takes advantageof all the senses, and answers the practical
needs of the blind and sight impaired.two points were emphasized in the creation of the set: first, to
create a set of safe-to-use cooking utensils that will assist the blindin basic cooking; and second,
to intensify the sensual cooking experience (smell, taste and feel) for all users, even those without
sight impairments. ‘sento tactile cookware’ solves day-to-day problems such as fire and heat hazards,
measuring and quantifyingaccurately, and having a clean and organized working environment
in the kitchen, thus responding to the entire population’s needs not just those of the blind.

Text and image from Design Boom. Much more to see. Link here.






Gregor Timlin and Nic Rysenbry, Research Associates, Design Products

When design for dementia, in order to be successful, the designer needs to focus on the ability, not the disability, says Rama Gheerawo. At the Helen Hamlyn Centre the students found out that people eat more on a dark blue plate because white food on a white plate is often difficult to see for older people with bad eye sight.




Being able to eat and drink in a dignified manner is very important. Tableware includes pieces that compensate for poor vision and dexterity, and improve the experience for those who can no longer feed themselves.









Dining areas make surface areas easily accessible so residents can balance themselves as they move through the space. 




Design work for the bedroom environment has focused on developing new dressing furniture designed specifically for people with dementia. Drawers allow residents to see inside without the need to open them and whole outfits fit onto a single hanger design so clothing can be easily prepared and laid out by staff for a resident to dress themselves. Room layouts can be reconfigured as needs change, using rail and hook systems drawn from the retail sector.



The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the RCA organises its practice-based research activity within three research labs: Age & Ability, Health & Patient Safety, and Work & City. Each lab works with a range of academic and business partners, and with funding from UK research councils. Link here for the website.

Also, a short video can be found here
The designers discuss their research as well as other designs they created. 


Nendo, Designers





pooh-table

for Walt Disney Japan


A table collection for Walt Disney Japan, based on Winnie the Pooh and his friends. 

To reflect the stories’ setting in the Hundred Acre Wood, the tables use natural-feel maple extensively, and come in sizes and silhouettes intended to recall the stories’  characters. 

Coloured knit cladding on different parts of the tables subtly indicates each character through their distinctive clothes, hair and tails, and suggests that the tables are like stuffed animals, too.

More to see on their website. Link here.








Souvenir Items for The Olympic Museum, Marceau Avogadro, Designer


Souvenir items for The Olympic Museum
To celebrate the reopening of The Olympic Museum, the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne has been working on designing souvenir items for the Museum shop, created by Bachelor of Industrial Design students after a workshop with Hector Serrano, a Spanish designer based in Valencia.





Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Student Work, Fictitious Dishes

Michael Hanley
White copy paper, ink (no adhesives used).

Sisley Leung, Artist








Mini is the word: Creatures of Comfort Installations by Sisley Leung is a series of installations of miniature objects and settings - a copper pot kitchen, a table set for two, a closet full of clothes, hot air balloons, and more - "peaking through the nooks and crannies" throughout Toronto's Gladstone Hotel, clear evidence of tiny people who live among us.

Image and text source link here

Friday, September 12, 2014

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Michael Mapes, Artist








The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,'' said Aristotle, a phrase often quoted in scientific fields such as gestalt psychology – but which can also lead to monstrous results if misunderstood, as Mary Shelley so luridly demonstrated in her classic, ‘Frankenstein’. Using a technique similar to that of Dr. Frankenstein’s, without however being so atrocious and nightmarish, American artist Michael Mapes creates, or sometimes re-creates, portraits of people by putting together pieces of photos and other objects, all placed in cases reminiscent of the cabinets used by entomologists for their insect collections. Intentionally forensic in their aesthetic, Mapes’ portraits are like swarms of smaller portraits of the person they depict: tiny versions of the original portrait or dissected parts of it are pinned on the board, or are sometimes set inside small transparent vials and behind magnifying lenses just like scientific samples. Having created many portraits of people in this way, more recently Michael Mapes has begun a series of works based on famous portraits by great Dutch painters from the 16th-17th centuries.

Image and text from Yatzer. Link here.

Brain Frandsen with Ege Carpets, Designers

250 Layers of Carpet







Danish carpet manufacturer Ege Carpets and young designer Brian Frandsen were recently teamed up to create the project Face to Face. Ege Carpets is traditionally known for their innovative designs, environmental considerations, and uncompromising quality. Frandsen is a recent industrial and fashion design graduate. The collaboration brought standard 2D carpet designs to new, three-dimensional levels.
According to the Ege Carpet website, “Face to Face is brash and personal: Brian Frandsen’s own face has been scanned and used as a pattern for the many carpets that have been cut out and placed vertically and in layers.” The fresh and unconventional design incorporates 250 pieces of carpet layered together to construct Frandsen’s three-dimensional self-portrait.
Together with six leading Danish companies, Kolding School of Design presents the exhibition project The Tube at I Saloni in Milan. The completed Face to Face design will be presented there from now through April 22, 2012.
Image and text source My Modern Met. Link here.

Monica Stauffer, Student Work

An example of Figure (positive/negative space)

A detail of Shadow Box (foreground, middle, background)



Thursday, September 4, 2014