Headphones

Music is huge in society, so how one listens to it is also important.  This made me think about the way that headphones are designed.   There are so many different ones designed in so many different styles.  First off, there are ones that cover your whole ear and ones that go in your ear.  The ones that cover your ear are much more cumbersome in their design but since they easily seen, they have been made to be fashionable and more aesthetic.  For example, Skull Candy headphones are big sellers for these types of headphones.  For headphones that go into your ear, there are two main varieties.  There are the regular kind that usually fit pretty well and the noise-canceling kind that have a type of plug or rubber suction on the end of them.  These are designed to be a lot sleeker and usually to blend into the wearer so that no one really sees that they have headphones in.  They are all very good in their own ways but in order for the in-ear ones to be better for society, I believe that there needs to be a way so that the cord is shorter or less likely to twist and create such a mess.  Either way though, since music is such a large part of society, the way that it is designed for people listen to is very important.

 (skullcandy picture thanks to:  http://vitalmove.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/skullcandy_headphones.jpg )

Icons, symbols, labels... etc.

I was on my laptop looking at all the desktop icons and I thought to myself how when I look at each picture or symbol, or whatever, it has a deeper meaning to me.  For example, I see a blue lowercase "e" with a gold circle around it and I know that if I click on that icon, I will open up the Internet Explorer application.  I see a music note on top of a CD and I know that that icon opens up into iTunes.  It fascinates me how society has been trained to identify with pictures or symbols or icons to remember things.  Why wouldn't the laptop just have a list of words stating each program, instead of the icons?  My personal opinion is that it is more efficient.  Design has been used by society to make work or anything more efficient.  For example, it is much quicker for me to look for a blue letter "e" than to look for the words "Internet Explorer" that is jumbled in with a bunch of other words.  These icons that society identifies with are to make life simpler.  These icons can be empowering, like the symbols on flags, or they can be unique so that people notice them and remember them better than other ones.     

(Internet Explorer logo thanks to:  http://dennisdeacon.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/internet-explorer-logo.jpg) 

Flyers, Posters, and the Sort

I was looking at the cork boards that were outside of my class earlier today. You know, the ones that have all of the different advertisements to catch a person's eye so that they will hopefully attend a certain event? So I looked and observed all of the different ones that were there. Some of the flyers were huge while others not so much. Some of them were bright colors while others preferred to have huge pictures or icons on them instead. All of them seemed to catch my eyes in different ways. I was thinking about how designers choose to create these flyers or advertisements for society to view. How do they decide whether or not to make it a large or small flyer, or put it on a neon colored paper, or use a huge symbol? I would imagine that they use whatever is related to the project/event that they are trying to promote. They could put a huge picture of the person they are trying to promote or a clever phrase to advertise a TV show or movie. For example, if I was doing advertising for the Sacramento Kings I would do a flyer which, for the most part, would definitely have a huge Kings logo or at least be on purple paper, since that is one of their major team colors. I believe a designer creates a flyer around whatever their advertising.

(advertisement thanks to: http://www.esongtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/taylorswift_fearlesstour.jpg) 

Inspiration from the Outside

I believe that a lot of times artists create their own masterpieces with little difficulty because they just think of a project they want to do and make it so that it is their own.  Simple enough right? Well, what if they need to create something entirely of their own imagination.  They have to design a project entirely from scratch.  What do they do then?  They can look for inspiration somewhere other than themselves.  An artist could just be doing anything on any particular day at any place when all of sudden, WHAP!  Inspiration smacks them in the face.  Another time an artist can find inspiration in places other than within himself or herself is when they hit a, well, a rut.  They can't think of anything to do for a project so they go out, and instead of waiting for art to find them, they seek out art.  They know that they need to look at the amazing world around them to find new inspiration for which they can draw from and use to create something unique.  They know that their fire for creativity needs a spark that can only be done by an element that is not found within themselves.