Symphysis
Kinnari Thakker's Personal BlogArchive for Information Design through Art
Sheila Hicks and Weaving As Metaphor
Found Art has always been a “revealer” of information about the past and its histories and cultures. Here’s a look at how the art of weaving is a revealer of information about place, textures, surroundings –
In her book Weaving As Metaphor, Sheila Hicks shows her woven works which I find to be very representative of her nomadic career. It was beautiful how the first few images in the book – one, a piece she had woven and the other, a picture of Sheila in Mexico, seemed so connected. It reveals to the viewer information about her surroundings, her culture, her sense of perceptions in the form of textures, colors, patterns and compositions. The reciprocity between art and design is communicated so naturally that it ignores all the rules of classification and planning which we, as designers often confine ourselves to.
The above picture is of Sheila Hicks in Guerrero, Mexico. Below, is some of her work. (taken from her book)
The above picture is one taken by Sheila of her surrounding in Guerrero.
Weaving As Metaphor states an an interesting thought held by Plato — that the fine arts are mimetic, or imitative and therefore holds nothing he would recognize as originality, since they involve merely copying an existing reality.
Ubiquity of Graphic Design
There is increasing realization that graphic design is not as ephemeral as the paper it is printed on. Advertisements, posters, packages, logos, magazines endure the tag of impermanence – but this is not all that graphic design is. The lateral growth of the practice seeks to include areas such as education, art, research… How can graphic design be integrated with other disciplines to make communication and understanding more efficient and enduring?
Project Vision, the research collective I am a part of, is trying to understand the role of graphic design in the area of education – how can learning be made visible? There are some existing approaches worth considering, such as the reggio emilia and the learning made visible at Project Zero, Harvard.
Designerly ways of Knowing is an interesting book, which seeks to involve the concepts of design into the very fundamental systems of our education.
{Science + Humanities} + Design
Cross, argues that design strengthens and unites the entire non-verbal education of the child, and improves the range of acuity of his thinking. Questions graphic designers (such as I) are asking is – what are the different roles of graphic design in education? How can the use of graphic visual language be answers to understanding and visualizing complex problems that are posed as inquiry in education today? How can they assist in the development of cognitive capacities that are far more complex and exhaustive when compared to conventional approaches?
To me, graphic design (out of many things) is about making connections within the understanding of contexts – and about recognizing and making visible complexities, and interconnections between elements. ” The manner in which one is educated is just as important as the matter which is transmitted”, Cross highlights in his book — which points out that the design – is just as important if not more than the matter itself. (connects back to Narayana Murthy saying, Education is about learning to learn)
Lots of avenues open for graphic designers – Carpe Diem!
The Next Chapter
A book can be many things: an object, a source of knowledge, a cultural artifact or an idea. From each volume, layers of meaning and subtext can be mined, not only from the words and images inside, but from the subtle design elements, the materiality of its pages and spine, and its symbolic value as a recorder of human evolution. For 550 years, the printed page has been our primary means of communication, though it is steadily being overtaken in the digital age.
Will books survive the digital age? What will they need to become to survive it? Not surprisingly, the ideas which are expressed in this article, as possible solutions for the future of the book, portray the book as it should have been in the first place.
“The book has to be more and more of an object, more tactile and more of a connection between publisher, author and reader. It is like the pleasure we get from buying a locally grown tomato directly from the farmer”
Matvei Yankelevich, co-founder of Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse.
The Next Chapter (print magazine)
We have the Kindle, the iphone and of course, the web. But is the new technology really changing the way we read?
Personal Geography
One of the things that inspire me towards a love for art is a specific artist whose work I have very little access to, Joyce Kozloff. I collect bad res. jpgs of her work that I find on the internet. Kozloffs work takes me into a personal and introspective journey through information and imagination.
Contd Post : Some maps
Reading and the internet
I am in the middle of reading more than 5 books right now. Every time I pick up a book I scan the Contents, read random passages looking for words and phrases that interest me, in the process I read entire chapters sometimes and then put it down thinking I’ll read it fully another time.
Today I have four un-returned, half-read library books on my table..
So then, I ask: Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Or are we getting used to understanding textual material which isn’t linearly accessed, but accessible as a SET of data, linked up to create an understanding which YOU as a reader can navigate through to take away a UNIQUE understanding?
