Visual Symposium – Photography

On Friday, August 28th, I attended the Visual Symposium on Photography. It was lead by Tom Lewis who is the faculty chair. While I have never been into photography, the presentation caught my attention right away. This was because of one simple idea: lens based media. This idea, while simple, exemplified how important photography is because it is used in so many other practices. I could remember preparing my portfolio to apply for colleges and getting frustrated because I was inexperienced with cameras. Knowing this skill can hone other skills as it involves so many processes and ideas that help to create a good composition.

Creating an interesting photo involves many different ideas and processes. These processes are extremely similar to those used when creating a painting or drawing, or even a 3-D structure. If it won’t make an interesting photo, then it may not make an interesting piece in general. This is not always the case but including the concept of lens based media in your work can create a more dynamic and interesting piece. Also, as was stated by Tom Lewis, photography is included in almost every practice now, even things as simple as creating a portfolio of work.

What is Good Design?

In her New York Times article, Alice Rawsthorn breaks down some simple elements of good design. She describes the good, the bad, and the ugly of design, and why some designs work and others don’t. Overall it seems that design is a very large idea that includes many different elements. She emphasizes this fact that just because something looks good and works well does not mean it has good design. If the product is not cost effective or ecologically friendly then it could be considered to have bad design.

According to Rawsthorn, many different elements must be considered before a product can have good design. These include whether the product does something useful, whether its aesthetics work with the concept of the product(not just if it looks good), if its cost effective, environmentally friendly, and so on. So many different factors are involved in good design it can almost seem as if good design is completely subjective. But these elements allow critics to review a products’ design and determine whether it succeeded or failed in its attempt to innovate.

While good and bad design is all around us, being able to judge it in an unbiased way is extremely difficult. It seems that one would need to be constantly studying design in order to stay ahead of the ever changing concept that is design. With technological advances comes new chances for design to take a form never before seen, causing it to change continually and exponentially as technology does. There will never be an end all be all answer to what is good design. But by remaining vigilante in an attempt to critique products who’s function can change our lives for the good or bad is important for all artists who can create these very products and change the world.

Hello world!

This blog was created to share the progress of the Foundations program at KCAI. Its design was inspired by other artists’ blogs, which include-

http://rasberg.blogspot.com

http://design-milk.com

http://www.fubiz.net