Saturday, April 9, 2011

In Praise of Nonsense

My last post may have been about the practicality of design, but it wasn’t meant to deny the importance of frivolousness. When I think of design under the life umbrella of “school” or of “working,” I tend to enter this serious mindset and sometimes miss out on the tongue in cheek, clever, and totally unnecessary items designers of all disciplines (fashion, industrial, graphic, architecture, etc) create out of love. I picked up a book from the Richardson Library called “Design Play: an array of quirky design” that inspired the ideas I’m developing for capstone. There are a variety of media, attitudes, and references depicted across the pages, but the drawing power of novelty through an unexpected location, topic, material, etc. made everything in this book a Eureka Moment.

It reminded me about the importance of fun in design, for the designer AND the audience. People develop emotional connections to playful design. This fact is often examined in a negative light – how advertisers woo young children into brand loyalty through character design, for example – but it’s rarely celebrated openly (especially since the recession put frugality back into fashion). There’s something to be said for the kind of materialism that makes a house a home, or a shirt a favorite shirt.

18 comments:

  1. After reading your post, I researched more about the designs and read how these designs play with humor,optical effects, die cuts, 3-D illusions and other extra­ordinary interactive elements, this exciting adver­tise­ments challenge what graphic art is today. The designs have such a twist that captures a target audience.

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  2. Some of the best designs are those that little practical sense. For example, this past holiday season, Target's Choxie brand chocolate had very interesting packaging. It was a rectangle box with a pull tab on one end. Upon pulling the tab, the box slid open into 2 quadrants: one contained the chocolate and the other contained a spot to keep a gift card.

    The chocolate wasn't very good, but i was so fascinated with the packaging. It didn't particularly make sense to house 2 small chocolates in such a large container, but the interaction revealing the gift card, with that element of surprise, made up for the oversized chocolate box.

    Like the images in your post suggest, this element of surprise is another answer to what design can do.

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  3. I love this. I also enjoy your comment about "how advertisers woo young children into brand loyalty through character design". I have finalized the direction I am going for the Capstone class and it all about brand loyalty!

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  4. I really like the wall art photo that you posted. Where are those from?

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  5. An important point. Part of being a good artist is having fun, something I too often forget and still need to work on. I like that you touched on this point, and how there is both a good and a negative to this. I think it is very important to maintain some degree of that inner child, which can help us play and from that play create something wonderful.

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  6. People develop emotional connections to playful design.

    Requoting for truth. I love whimsicality and playfulness, which is why I chafe so violently against the idea that design must be utilitarian and functional. There's a time and place for everything, and it's up to the designer to decide whether such whimsicality is the answer to the design question they're struggling with.

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  7. Creating work that you actually enjoy making I think is a very important part of design. I agree with Sora's comment in that design doesn't always need functionality, it can be just for enjoyment.

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  8. I agree with Sheri, though unfortunately, as you stated, we overlook our own desires in our schoolwork. We have a specific goal or project and although we use our own creativity, we overlook just having fun with it!

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  9. I love when design can be fun and not have to relate to any certain topic in the world, in this case it is pure entertainment!

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  10. I love the things like this. There is no practicality in them but the design is so clever that it sticks in your head. Its so refreshing to see things that are quirky like the ones you've pointed out instead of things such as advertisements, political campaigns, and so for that always try to produce actions (...other than pulling a string that lifts up your shirt like blinds to a window haha!)

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  11. That is an awesome shirt, I would totally buy that. I love when I see work that is done out of humor and fun, I think it is important to do that type of work every now and then and get away from the possible serious nature of your everyday job.

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  12. It's definitely a nice change of pace to see (and make!) a design piece not trying to sell anything but a giggle.

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  13. I think that we all wanted to be designers because we love what we do and what to share our artwork with the world. It is crazy to think that we forget to make our work FUN! I think that there is a right time and place for it, but seeing the pictures in your post definitely play to that idea.

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  14. I love this!

    Very cool and unconventional in a way, especially the t-shirt. I like how it has the dual function of both shirt and decorative element.

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  15. ive always been attracted to unconventional designs. everything from die cuts to grafitti to snowboard art.

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  16. I think that we have such a connection, especially as designers, to branding because we simply appreciate the design it has, maybe not even the product itself, but at least that's how I am. Tongue in cheek humor always gets me, reminds me of the napkins for Elephant and Castle, they're great if you ever go there!

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  17. These are so creative I like the functional aspect on something made to be an image.

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  18. I think it is important to have fun with design. However, it is probably one of the hardest things to accomplish.

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