July 20, 2005

• Calatrava's constructions are beautiful, just the way the future should have turned out.
• As a matter of fact, I was just discussing fashion trends with Mr. Minda the other day. I've noticed that we've already repeated the fashions of decades gone, and now we're just mashing it all up. There's no originality anymore. Also, check out some of the fabrics over at Momentum Textiles and the furniture at Knoll.
• Architecture, industrial design and auto design are all influenced by safety standards, ergonomics, aerodynamics, and/or fuel efficiency. Dealing with those restrictions over the years may have sparked some creativity. While fashion has incorporated some new technologies (tencel, lycra, etc.,) they're pretty much dependent on influencing taste for the current year in high fashion, which will melt down into influence in off-the-rack stuff in the next year or two. They can't sell their designs based on crash testing or seismic safety. On the other hand, that motorcycle was very cool, but the cars that have been produced in the last 20 years or so pretty much look alike, with a few exceptions. I can't tell the difference between a BMW and a Toyota at a glance these days. I put together a plethora of links to cars from the 1950s to demonstrate that there was a different kind of creativity then, but I must have run out of room. So I'll try to get up the energy to do it again.
• I think you could say the same for industrial design, or almost any school of design. Many of the design aspects of industrial design have been around for decades as well. A lot of contemporary furniture design, for example, has done nothing but apply new materials and technologies to existing designs. Take a look at what was being done in the 30's - it's not that far off from designs you see floating around nowadays. Of course I'm speaking in very broad terms. There are always those that take design to new creative levels unimagined. Fashion design seems no different to me - new materials (especially synthetics and blended weaves) and innovations in technology have had their influence on fashion design. One link to an industrial design portfolio is obviously not representative of the entire field. There are parallels among all of these design methodologies mentioned. Industrial designers design cars, clothing, and furniture. Having worked many years in one of the most renowned industrial design firms in the US, I can say that the design was very much repetitive. What it all boils down to is what the consumer wants. Corporate ideology plays large as well. One very interesting push in design is interaction/innovation design - which was referenced in one of today's posts. These designers are really pushing technology to new and exciting places.
• I take your point that a lot of other design is repetitive, but it seems that it is possible to find objects that look good and work well, whereas big fashion designers seem to concentrate on showy flimsy things. Outdoors shops and sometimes sportswear sell very hard wearing breathable kind of stuff with quite utilitarian design. Seems there could be more possibilities.