Color Transforms

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How many times have we all stopped at a traffic light, the familiar shape and position of those colors so burned into our brains that we hardly even see them anymore? If you feel that way, maybe you should wonder what would happen if those colors suddenly disappeared, and we had to rely on our memories to determine which position told us to go, and which one told us to stop.

Needless to say, the three separate colors in a traffic light are extremely important. Besides their designations as stop, slow down, and go, the colors are also important from a design perspective. The traffic light was designed with three very different colors--red, yellow, and green. It is important that each of these colors comes with a distinctive hue because of the changing nature of colors based on their surroundings.

When viewed from a different angle, or with sunlight reflecting upon them, colors can sometimes appear as almost completely different shades. If red had been orange instead, in bright sunlight, a driver could possibly mistake a stop light as a yield light, and run the light, creating a dangerous situation for themselves and drivers around them. It is also important that the value of each color is light enough that the colors do not blend into the black around them, but shine in sharp contrast, alerting drivers of their presence.

Design in Society

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Throughout the quarter, the theme of our design 1 class has been design in society, and how design aims to function within and even improve society. Although I will come back to one very specific design, I would first like to talk about an event that focuses on utopian design. This event is the Index Award, an award that is given out every other year to designers who create products that aim to better the world around us. This award is given out or five different categories--body, home, work, play, and community.

One major aspect of the thinking behind the Index Award is also one of the key points in our class--the design process. The creators of this award have broken down the creative process into four different steps, with each step joined together by the sub-steps of summing up, learning, and continuing. These four steps are 1. Prepare; 2. Perceive; 3. Prototype, and; 4. Produce.

By following these steps, Philip Greer, Lisa Stroux, Graeme Davies, and Chris Huntley were able to create a design that was selected as the 2007 winner of the work category. Inspired by the underground bombings in London in 2005, the "tongue sucker" was created to be a paramedic's new best friend. According to their research, the creators of the tongue sucker found that the average arrival time of a paramedic was 12 minutes during the bombings. The average person will die or suffer severe brain trauma from lack of oxygen after only 4 minutes should his/her tongue slip back and block the airway while unconscious. The design behind this small gadget allows even an untrained bystander to suck the tongue out of the back of the throat, allowing paramedics time to secure other victims, perform CPR, or even call for more assistance.

Despite its small and seemingly effortless design, the tongue sucker saw 60 prototypes before the winning design was created, and even now, it faces difficulties while the designers search for a company willing to produce the award-winning design.

Design is Dangerous

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Of course gun design is dangerous. Guns have been crafted with the intention of killing. Over the years, firearms have been used for hunting, war, and protection. Despite this aspect of danger intentionally built into guns, Remington has been battling with a design that unintentionally places its users at risk for the past 60 years.

According to an NBC report, the Remington 700 has caused at least 100 injuries and two dozen deaths due to a malfunction where the gun may fire automatically without anyone pulling the trigger. The malfunction is part of a defective safety, an issue that was originally noted by the lead engineer. Despite this warning, and more than 75 lawsuits against the company, Remington claims that there is no defect, and that the gun is completely safe. 

This defect is not merely dangerous to its users, but life-threatening. However, it is not merely the gun's defect which makes this product so dangerous; it is also the company's attitude. After being interviewed about the defect, a spokesperson for Remington claimed that the injuries were caused not by any flaw in the product, but in user error.

Thus, despite the gun's intentional danger as a weapon, the defect in the safety mechanism of the Remington 700 also makes it unintentionally dangerous to its users. And even after a multitude of injuries, deaths, and lawsuits, Remington still claims that there is no flaw in the Remington 700. So which is more dangerous, the product or the company?

Rediscovered Art in Berlin

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In recent news, art believed to have been destroyed by the Nazis was recently rediscovered in Germany. While digging at a site near the Berlin city hall to prepare for a new subway line, construction workers unearthed a handful of terracotta and bronze statues thought to have been destroyed. They were found at the site of an office building, originally burned in 1944. The pieces include some that were considered deviant and sexual by the Nazis. These "deviant" characteristics were attributed to Jewish artwork by the Nazis, but only two Jewish artists contributed to the works found.

Originally, one piece was uncovered in January 2010, but was thought to be a unique piece until the other pieces were discovered in August and October. The first piece found back in January was a statue of actress Annie Mewes by Edwin Scharff.

Some of the pieces are set to go on display at Berlin's Neues Museum. Most of th pieces have suffered a great deal of damage; one of them is now too fragile to place on display. Some that have been damaged have been left unrestored or partially unrestored to reflect the the history behind the damage.

Word & Image

Lately, we have been discussing the notion of design combining words and images. Brian Fies's lecture on comics was a perfect example of this, and it got me thinking about other areas of design that so perfectly combine word and image. Of course, my first thought was something very close to me, graphic arts. Growing up with a graphic artist for a father (who used to work in the advertising section at The Sacramento Bee), I am very familiar with the way in which an image, accompanied by text, can create a strong advertisement. So from there, I decided to do a little research into the graphic arts, and how graphic artists effectively pair images and words.


According to AIGA, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the main tools of a graphic design are "image and typography." A graphic designer must be able to take the concept that a client visualizes in his/her head, and make it a reality. In advertising, the graphic artist must be able to take an image of the client's product, find the most appropriate words and typeface, and balance them in the most successful manner with that image. Graphic artists do not often do this alone, however. Much in the same way that the words and images must collaborate effectively, so must a designer collaborate effectively both with his/her team and the client. Effective collaboration can then lead to a successful marriage of both word and image.

The World of Comics & Brian Fies

During class last Tuesday, we were lucky to receive a lecture from the gifted comic artist, Brian Fies, known for his graphic novels Mom's Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?. Throughout his lecture, Fies stressed the importance of words and images working in conjunction in comics. Comics, according to Fies, is a "combination of words and picture that add up to more than the sum of their parts." He made his point by comparing comics to rock music. Without the lyrics, the music is just a repetition of a few chords; without the music, the lyrics are just bad poetry. So it is that were pictures of words missing from comics, they would cease to be comics.


Brian Fies's lecture was an exciting view inside the work of a comic artist. He talked to us about how he first got started with his web comic, Mom's Cancer, which was eventually published into a book, and what it took to get there. He was also informative about the use of space and time, split panels, visual allusion, character design, color, and collaboration to make his comics effective. In the end, the most important aspect of comics I took away from the lecture was the juxtaposition of words and images and the ability of comic artists to distill their subjects to the very essence.