Tuesday, February 4, 2014

*a week of Ah-Ha moments*

I had a definite realization/ah-ha moment when I read the Joshua Tree story, and I think Robin Williams made an excellent decision by beginning his “Selections from a Non-Designers Design Book” with it.  When I read his story, it immediately made me think about how when I was in London, every kitchen I went into had one of those electric tea kettles that heats up water to boiling temperatures in about 60 seconds flat.  I used that thing for everything—my tea, when I made pasta, porridge, you name it.  Immediately when I got home, I informed my dad that we HAD to get one of these amazing contraptions.,. and low and behold… there’d been one sitting in the cabinet with the mugs waaaay before I’d ever gone abroad.  Just because I didn’t know what an electronic kettle was, I literally didn’t realize it existed on my counter-top for who-even-knows how long.  Crazy how selective our attention can be—isn’t it?  Anyways, I really like how Williams opened his piece with this story because it made my ears perk up, and ensured that my “selective attention” shifted to fully absorbing the principles he then went on to describe in the chapter. 

Another part of the Williams reading that I really enjoyed was the “Review” section because it made me realize that design is not like math or science.  There are no strict rules that one must adhere to… yes there are principles… but design affords you the freedom to be creative and unique and expressive.  I also really like the eloquent general guiding principle of design as written in the text—“Don’t be a wimp.” J


I really enjoyed the McCloud reading because, well, first of all—it was written in cartoon form, a form of writing I have never once been assigned to read for a class… so awesome.  Secondly, I enjoyed the reading because it raised a lot of interesting points about the progression of text from ancient times to today.  This was one of my favorite parts of the reading:

and this one i didnt quiteee understand... 

any thoughts?

No comments: