AdamsMorioka

Archive for May, 2011

Date: May 31st, 2011
Cate: article

Publikum, Serbia

Taken from Publikum Catalogue, 2008

NR: What is the first thing you do in the morning after you wash your face?

SA: You’re supposed to wash your face? I thought that the dirt made me look more tan. Actually, I have a dull routine of Kashi cereal, blueberries, and soy milk. I know it’s very LA, but what can I do?

NR: When you were little, what did you want to be when you “grew up”?

SA: I found a book of questions that I filled in when I was 4. Some of the answers were odd, to say the least, “How many steps is it from your house to your car? I answered, “Foot steps”. The question, “What do you want to be?” was answered with “Train man”. In retrospect, I was obsessed by the typography on the side of the trains that ran through my hometown before heading over the western Sierras. My retirement dream is the same; I intend to work on the Disneyland Railroad as a conductor.

NR: Do you have any daily rituals? If so, what they are?

SA: Beside animal sacrifices to the Gods, I don’t think so. Although we obsessively take lunch exactly at noon. And I religiously see my trainer every day at 6:00 pm.

NR: What is most important to you?

SA: Corny, but true, my family. Who wouldn’t say that? I could say “my hair,” but it would only be the second most important thing to me.

NR: What is your favorite food?

SA: I could live on fried chicken every day, except I would become very fat. So I limit it to once a month.

NR: Where do you get your greatest inspiration?

SA: All over the place. Sometimes it’s a fantastic piece of packaging in my grandmother’s cupboard (which has food from 1940). Yesterday, I saw a beautiful color scheme used on the clothes in the movie, “Meet Me in St. Louis”. And I just finished reading a book on challenges American presidents have faced since George Washington (yes, I’m related).

NR: What is your biggest pleasure?

SA: Hello, I’m a man. What do you think? But the one that can be used in polite company is working with the incredible designers who are part of AIGA and the community. They have enormous energy and are unbelievably committed to the betterment of the profession.

NR: What kind of people do you avoid / prefer?

SA: I’m not so keen on people who are snooty. We’re all human beings, no need to have a superior attitude. I love to spend time with people who have great stories, or are willing to talk about their lives. I learn so much from meeting someone in a town where I’m speaking and hearing how they work, what their challenges are, and what their hopes are.

NR: In your career, what project would you say is your favorite?

SA: The correct answer is “the next one.” But I specifically enjoyed working on all of my projects for Mohawk Paper. The group there, headed by Laura Shore is remarkable, with a commitment to the environment, good design, and the community.

NR: What are the greatest misconceptions about contemporary design?

SA: That it needs to be serious and heavy handed to be “good”. I want my mother to understand and enjoy our work, not just 12 people in an avant garde art group.

NR: Who is your favorite hero (this doesn’t necessarily need to be a graphic designer)?

SA: My grandfather

NR: Any advice you can share for successful living?

SA: Don’t falter, keep moving, never give up.

Date: May 31st, 2011
Cate: article

Design By Surprise

From Print magazine, May 2011 by Colin Berry

A couple thousand years ago, legend has it, a Chinese cook was fooling around with a mix of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter—common kitchen items at the time—when they ignited. Initially alarmed, the cook became interested, packing some into a bamboo tube, which shot out and—BOOM! Fireworks were born.

Something beautiful borne by accident. How does this apply to design? Constantly. From fast food to fine art, graphics to googling, unintentional design—that is, design by surprise—has long proven to be a tactic for success. What first may feel like distraction or disaster (or at least a dead end) may quickly turn to creative discovery.

History proves this. Penicillin, microwave ovens, corn flakes, Silly Putty, vinegar, stainless steel, cellophane, Cracker Jack, dynamite—were it not for someone’s screw-up, we wouldn’t be enjoying them today. In the 1830s, when British chemists John Lea and William Perrins tried replicating a Bengali condiment made from malt vinegar, molasses, anchovies, and tamarind extract, the result was so vile they locked it away in the basement, where, fermenting, it transformed into the first batch of Worcestershire sauce.

Design-by-surprise comes in three flavors: accidents, happy or otherwise; extensive brainstorming, which often shakes up cerebral cells; and utter desperation. For designers, a creative decision made from the third option—usually late at night in the studio, pizza boxes piling up, brains fried—can often lead to triumph. On his blog, designer Michael Johnson of London’s Johnson Banks relates how he once needed a way to unify a series of posters for Paris’s Parc de La Villette, whose scheme included a thick black border. Exhausted after a long train ride and unhappy with his own progress, he gave his “uptight English layouts” to a junior designer, who promptly skewed Johnson’s design five degrees off center. “She placed the whole scheme into dynamic tension,” Johnson explains. The result was perfect.

But simple accidents can also be a source of success. One stormy night in her studio on an island west of Vancouver, Canadian artist Marian Bantjes was trying to create a tribute image for the Manhattan design firm Number 17—until the power went out. Computer-less, she lit candles and, on a whim, tried gluing some toothpicks together.

“My intention had been to make a complex structure of a ’17,’ the way I made toothpick sculptures when I was a kid,” Bantjes recalls. ”I’d made only the barest framework when I noticed the candlelight casting an array of wonderful shadows.” Her complexity was already complete. “It was a great surprise.” Creatives in similar pinches might recall how the best design ideas are usually the simplest, and usually lurk within the object itself. A carabiner makes a great key ring; a bike messenger bag holds a hipster’s laptop; toothpaste works as silver polish, zit cream, and scuba-goggle defogger. New York designer Barbara Glauber, brainstorming a They Might Be Giants CD cover a few years ago, found her idea staring her in the face: “[TMBG guitarist] Jon Flansburgh wanted to fill the package with charts and graphs,” she recalls. “As I was plotting out the song listing, I realized there were 29 tracks and 30 lines in a bar code—it literally was the bar code.” The UPC became Glauber’s trope, refracted in sharp angles across the CD.

Some designs, like the clunky layouts for Craigslist or Google, shouldn’t succeed, yet do; plenty of wrongs turn out right. The Dutch firm LUST proudly embraces mistakes as a central pillar of its design style, resisting new versions of software for the random (and often beautiful) results created by crashing old ones.

Sometimes a tight budget births a bright idea: Sean Adams, a partner at AdamsMorioka in Santa Monica, felt pressure to create an inexpensive graphic program for Mexico, a West Hollywood eatery. “We began working the way we’ve handled other restaurants, with highly refined and sophisticated forms,” Adams remembers, “but the result was duller than a doorknob. At one point I thought, ‘What if we rode this horse the wrong way?’” On the spot, Adams’s team invented a fictional character—“an ambitious artist” and a “cousin of [Mexico’s] owner”—who was an enthusiastic designer but had never gone to art school. This “cousin” chose the cheapest printers in town, didn’t notice how his colors clashed, and never checked his copy too carefully.

“The entire solution became about mistakes,” says Adams. “The placemats vibrated between blue and red; the business cards were off-register; the fax form switched between English and Spanish.” The designers hand-painted all Mexico’s images, frames and characters, redoing several to make them worse. All the type was done on a typewriter; even the building was painted bright pink. “The end result is completely lacking in quality or taste,” Adams grins. “We are very proud of it.”

Some design may intentionally capitalize on surprise. A 2010 Pointflex/Harris survey of some 4,000 U.S. mobile app users reveals 47 percent click or tap on mobile ads by mistake. Who’s to blame for this terrible design? Designers? Cynical marketers? Technology? Sometimes even a potentially catastrophic design error creates a different kind of surprise: After building the Citicorp Center tower in Manhattan in the 1970s, William Messurier, the structural engineer, discovered a potentially fatal design flaw that could allow the building to topple in high winds. After agonizing with the knowledge, Messurier took his news to the architect, Hugh Stubbins, and then to Citicorp’s CEO and chairman with a plan for how to fix it. They did, in six months.

For Messurier, the ultimate surprise may have been the fact that rather than finding his career ruined, he was actually lauded for his forthrightness. “There’s something more interesting in getting it wrong,” suggests L.A.-based illustrator Ed Fella, who, since his professional retirement 25 years ago, has made a career of “done-wrong” aesthetics. Fella’s work is featured this summer in the 22nd International Poster Festival, in Chaumont, France. “Rules are made to be broken only exceptionally,” he likes to say. Finally, lest we forget, plenty of design’s most moving surprises are rooted in human survival. In 2002, using only a fifth-grade science book, a broken bicycle, and a discarded tractor fan, Malawian teenager William Kamkwamba built a 16-foot windmill to generate electricity for his village. How can Kamkwamba’s creativity inspire first-world designers? Easy. Look around. Possibilities lie everywhere.

While others are staring at their screens, trying not to be surprised, the rest of us can embrace the unexpected, looking further—literally—into the thrumming, thriving real world, where an infinite inventory of design options is perhaps the greatest surprise of all. Read more at PrintMag.com: Design by Surprise For great design products, visit our online store! MyDesignShop.com Read more at PrintMag.com: Design by Surprise For great design products, visit our online store! MyDesignShop.com Read more at PrintMag.com: Design by Surprise For great design products, visit our online store! MyDesignShop.com

Date: May 1st, 2011
Cate: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Bright Lights: The AIGA Awards

Bright Lights: The AIGA Awards

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Date: May 1st, 2011
Cate: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Design Event 02

Design Event 02

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Date: May 1st, 2011
Cate: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Design event 03

Design event 03

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Date: May 1st, 2011
Cate: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Pivot: AIGA Design Conference

Pivot: AIGA Design Conference

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?