City culture and the arts
Design the World print
My new friend Chris over at Valley Vision sent me this link today. It’s an article the Chief Strategist of San Jose, Kim Walesh. She talks about how San Jose grows by empowering creativity and the arts. They host a week long conference centered on the arts. She also brings up some great points about nuturing creative integrity. There are dozens of initiatives set forth by cities and the various organizations that promote the arts but its the underlying intent and raw vision that drives that growth. Walesh says,
“Behind all these initiatives is our strong belief that a unique, vibrant arts scene will help us develop, attract, and nurture talented people. We’ve witnessed the sheer joy of self-expression and the power of the arts to connect people across diverse backgrounds.”
“We believe that the creative arts and artists are increasingly integral to where our entire community is headed. We’re convinced that the companies and communities that will thrive in the coming years are those that can generate and apply new ideas–the model that Nobel prize-winning Stanford economist Paul Romer has shown is the primary catalyst for growth in advanced economies.”
“It’s the “mix and match,” the reorganizing of resources (natural, human and financial) that generates growth…The ability to generate new ideas, to link ideas in novel, unanticipated ways, has become the critical path to staying ahead in today’s global competition.”
How true. That’s why I started this blog and the Battle for the Capital. Here’s some videos to inspire you, and some more.
Tim Brown on Design Thinking
Here’s a great little video by Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo and one of my design heros. I love what he says divergent thinking because I’ve long believed that what makes for great design is the ablility to move across boundaries, mixing and cross pollinating new ideas with things we’ve learned from other areas. I was once told I have to many interests and that I should focus more. Why? Does that strenghten our abilities to see new trends or weaken them. What I prefer is creative diversity, flexibity and the ability to learn and adapt. It’s about divergence not convergence.
Identity & Local
A couple of things I wanted to address quickly, you may see the face of this blog change periodically. That is due in part because this blog was born out of a small group of misfits. It started as a meeting, a couple of people getting together to talk about design and share a drink. Then it became other meetings, more people, more drinks and then a vision. It came to life. So I started this blog to able to give a virtual voice
those misfits and designers, to let them share their experience. Well they liked the drinking and socializing part but they haven’t picked up on this up quite yet. Hopefully that will change and we’ll start hearing more from them, or at least i’ll feed their pre-existing blogs in. So this blog is evolving, still searching for it’s identity as a group, and we’re looking to discover our purpose as a organization and find new clarity in purpose. We have no mantra, we have no moniker, just a lot of ideas and a vision about where we want to take this. So be patient as the Capital Creative Collective takes shape and we discover it’s true identity and theme.
The other point I wanted to touch on here was locality. Part of the vision for the this group was based on location. As creatives in Sacramento and passionate locals we should (in my opinion) spend some effort to use our creativity to improve our city and region, to be the change we want to see. So it seems natural to say that this blog should be focused on the local design scene and the creative culture in our own back yard rather than the vast nebulous world of design out there. However, part of what empowers our creativity and gives us the breadth of inspiration to draw from, is the global design community and the huge body of work that lies out there. I can’t say either way how this blog will begin to curate that information but what I will do is make an effort to include as many local creative projects as possible and make the distinction. Stay tuned for more changes.
Kinetic art & architecture
I won’t go into to much detail, since kinetic art is about movement and experience, not words. So here’s some videos fo kinetic art that I found really beautiful and a little awe inspiring. I hope you like it.
Technorama Facade by Ned Kahn
FLARE facade system by Whitevoid
Magic Wave by Reuben Margolin
BMW sculpture at Artcom
Strandbeasts by Theo Jansen. TED talk
Design battle update
So last week was really productive. I met with the city of Sacramento urban design department, the AIA and the design faculty at CSUS. In brief all three meetings went very well and we have the support of each of them. I met with Bill Crouch, Bill Thomas and Greg Taylor at the city and they were very enthusiastic about this event and they tabled some amazing projects as potential areas that we might address at the event, I’d love the opportunity to work on any of them. All three planners were interested to see what kind of ideas this event could generate.
I then met with Michael Malinowski of Applied Architecture and head of the AIA Central Valley chapter, and he to was very intrigued and excited about the potential for cross industry collaboration. Finally I connected with the graphic design faculty at Sac State. Granted their time is very limited, but they were still very interested in getting involved and increasing student involvement. Next up is ARC, Sac City, UC Davis and IADt.
I also had brief conversations with Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, Valley Vision and Urban Land Institute. All three organizations were very intrigued by what we’re doing and we’ll be following up to see how involved they’ll be. All in all, the event is growing in size and scope and looks like it will be a huge success! Knock on sustainable wood products.
Art in print.
I love the discovery process. Unearthing new things that lead you to other new things. We chase the anticipation of discovering the next hit, getting the rush as we’re struck with awe by each progressive idea. Today I was looking at print design and how it sometimes crosses into fine art. More specifically I should say type, since it transcends physical collateral and works in digital media as well. But print design can be marvelous and you can gaze at it, study it and just react to it. It’s wonderful.
Limited Edition Print by Because Studios
I’ve been finding a lot of great typographers and print designers that are doing some brilliant and provocative things using type. I love the graphic strength of type and how it can convey so much depth and meaning. It’s not just about clever wordplay but the fact the language has so much meaningful impact, art can tell us a story, but using type in art can now tell us multiple story lines at once, but that we may discover the next new one only through examination and observation.
Today, I discovered some wonderful art and design work by two studios in the UK. The first was Because Studios, which lead me to Peter and Paul, which lead me to madethought, which lead me to YES Studios, which lead me to Bibliotheque, which lead me to Frederic Teschner, which lead me to Frost, which lead me to Village Green. All these firms have great portfolios which contain some brilliant insights into the minds of these talented designers and their clients. Happy hunting…how far down the rabbit hole will you go?
Takeaway – Flexibility wins
This months turn out for the pint night was fairly on par with the previous events, clocking in around a dozen or so. We were honored to have a couple of new faces. Two marketing designers from the motor sports industry, a graphic design director and a talented finish carpenter. It’s amazing to see the diversity of the crowd, but I was hoping for more. More people that is. I often catch myself looking to measure the success of these meetups in terms of quantity. The more people that show up, the more successful i’ve been in creating a ’successful’ event. I guess I think that somehow the amount of anything determines its strength and impact value. Is that because our culture has taught us to think that more of anything will fill the void? Maybe. But I quickly realize that the strength of any network is not the size of its mass but the strength between it’s relationships. So success can be measured not by size but in energy (if it even can be).
So I quickly learned that my disappointment was my own fault. I approached this event with a rigid expectation. So I let go. I listened to the conversations, I watched everyone interact, I saw the chemistry happening. The vibe was different. It wasn’t static, it was shifting, it was vibrating, it was living. The energy was there, sparking back and forth between new people, new friendships were being forged (over a cider of all things). New relationships were forming out of nothingness and the ‘collective mass’ of the event was growing, not in size but in intensity. This pint night had changed and I was changing with it. It adapted when I wasn’t paying attention right in front of me. I thought, “this thing is flexible”.
I listened to several designers and we talked about their practices, there jobs and how they got there. It was interesting to hear a common theme begin to surface. They too had adapted. Each one had his or her own journey to get where they were, they adapted to make it work, to get better, to be successful. They may have gone to school, been self taught or even fell into it by mistake, but each one had had to shift, move or evolve their approach to get where they were, and they are going to do it again and again whether they know it or not. Change is inevitable, but adaption and flexibility are essential to growth. Just like the pint night itself, we as designers, artists or architects have to bend and flow to remain nimble. Like water that gobbles up everything in its path, we dance and roll and flip and fold around obstacles, to meet our work with fluidity and grace. Therein lies the success of flexibility. That is how we build strength, by embracing those fleeting relationships and building on them, while dancing swiftly through the process.
Great designer and creative studios let go of rigid processes, stop defining our pattern, we learn new habits and we adapt to create smarter, better projects. We shift our approach for our work to stay fresh, to stay alive, to evolve. So after spending several hours with my new friends and peers, listening to the crest and crash of conversation and laughter, I came away hearing one thread of commonality is this small bunch, that we have to remain flexible and open to new ideas to really be successful.
December Pint Night Reminder
Hey all, so tonight is our December meetup. Be sure and come out. Enjoy some pints with some of Sac’s finest creative types. We’re making some serious progress with our organization and making big plans for the design battle. I’ll be talking a bit tonight about what’s happening and how you can be involved. See you there.
Bonn Lair
3651 Jst.
7-11pm
Waging war – AU Design Slam Part II
As promised, here’s part two of the Autodesk University Design Slam.
Here’s link to all of Core77’s videos on Blip.tv.
DVNO/ Justice
I’m loving motion graphics right now. The power of digital animation is unbelievable and it providing us with never before seen visual effects, new material textures and cinematography experiences that are unmatched in traditional video. Motion graphics has many distinct advantages over traditional video and static design including more complex camera paths, deeper scaling and richer visual experiences. Just look at the advances in major motion pictures and how we can now seamlessly transition between live action recordings and richly enhanced digital graphics that make the action more immersive.
Motion graphics has obliterated the boundaries between real and the unreal. Some of my favourite movie examples are the Star Wars prequels, any of the Marvel movies, the Fountain, 300, Beowulf, hell even Kung Fu Panda blew my mind a few nights ago. The coloration, texture, effects and even the human expressions are quickly narrowing the gap of the uncanny valley.
Motion graphics has brought new life to music videos, architecture, commercials, user interface design, cell phones, mobile interface, billboards and just about any other form of visual media that is not static. If it can be animated, motion graphics will make it amazing. I think more importantly the real power of motion graphics is that it’s not limited by anything other then our imagination. If you can imagine it, you can animate it even more richly that it might actually happen.
We can design, animate and market entirely nonexistent products. We can create characters the fit a perfect rendition of our most cherished friends. We can create surreal landscapes, dazzling effects and dreamy lighting. Motion graphics is quickly evolving out of the imaginations of a talented few and sculpting new realities. Our future world is being dreamt up in minds of mad motion geniuses. I for one am happy to walk through that door.
Single of Cross by Justice
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