Inception

The movie Inception was a genius of Design. The beauty of it wasn't just that it used design elements in it, like perspective, overlapping, balance, focal points, etc... almost all movies do these things. Even the really crappy B-line movies you sometimes rent at blockbuster as more of a joke than anything. Several of the characters in this movie designed things themselves. Levels of a dream- where there was very literally no limit to their creativity. These characters were called Architects, and rightfully so, with the powers of their mind alone, they created insanely detailed worlds, and were able to bend physics to create stunning and surprising results. My absolute favorite part of this movie was when Ariadne (played by Ellen Paige, from Juno) was being trained to be the next Architect. After placing them in a city, Ariadne enjoyed playing with the world she had created. She turned the city into an enourmous functioning cube that they were inside of. The entire time I just stared in wonder about how they made this work, because the corners of the cube, once the characters arrived there, still functioned flawlessly. Cars didn't have to make that 90˚ angle jump, which would have looked -really- weird. Instead they drove straight into a tunnel on one side, and game out of an archway perpindicular. Another favorite designing movement she made was to create two mirrors out of archways, and reflected them both infinitely. Then, she broke one of the mirrors to reveal a bridge, with rows of archways all along it. One of the other Architects training her taught Ariadne that one could even use Optical Illusions to create in the dreamworld, and taught her about Escher's Never-Ending Staircase:

Which he used to great effect later in the movie, to get behind a bad guy who was shooting up the staircase at him from below- Arthur used the trick to appear behind the assailant while still running -up- the stairs.

There are so many more things I could say about this movie, and the designs used in it. But I don't want to overload anyone reading this with my ramblings, especially if they have not seen the movie- If that's the case, then I truly apologize because I doubt you've successfully followed any of this- the effects used within the film are something you really just have to see to appreciate, not be told about. So if you haven't seen it- go watch it! It will seriously blow your mind. 8D

A Delicate Subject....

As September 11th came and went a few weeks ago, I got to wondering about the whole 9/11 Twin Towers restoration project..... Wasn't there supposed to be something awesome and fantastic built in it's place? I realized I hadn't heard anything of that sort since that massacre happened in 2002. Eight years ago. So I did a bit of lookin'-up on the internet on the subject, trying to figure out just what happened to that whole idea. Turns out the whole project's on hold.

Long story short- the first design that was picked from a contest held among the top architects wasn't.... architecturally possible. It wasn't feasible, it couldn't be built and still stand. (How can you be a top architect and design a building that isn't physically.... doable?) So then they hired ANOTHER architect to fix the design flaws in the first person's design. It looks like this, by the way (Or at least I think it does, it looks like this, I know, but I don't think this is the -exact- design. I can't seem to find the picture I first saw on the website when I looked this up two weeks ago.)

So then they started constructing (ignoring all the design requests and pleas from the families and friends of those lost in the disaster that was 9/11, by the way.) the Freedom Tower.... but they couldn't, because the police said that for it to be built in the footprints of the original Twin Towers would position it too close to the underground highway. All it would take would be a semi truck full of explosions to bring the Freedom Tower crashing down on our ears again.  So they stopped construction in 2006 and haven't done a damn thing with it since. Sorry, but isn't just about any building in the world at risk for terrorist attack? You can't build a building that cannot be destroyed by someone else. And letting nothing happen, doing nothing, designing and building nothing..... doesn't that just mean that the terrorists have won, then? They ripped the heart of New York out eight years ago. And we've done NOTHING about it. Because no one can think of what to do.

You know what I think? I think that the best new design for the Twin Towers... looks like this:

I think that rebuilding the Twin Towers, exactly as they were, well- maybe just another floor taller, or something, would be the biggest "up yours" to the jackass terrorist devils that ripped them down in the first place. We'd have our Trade Center back, it would boost economy and patriotism- a lot more so than the empty pit that stands there, stagnant, today.

Some people and their free time....

I met a woman at work the other day, who was making a tablecloth for a some girl in her church's wedding.  Trouble with this was that she was making them out of little green maple leaves. Hand sewing thousands of delicate little leaves together to cover the table that her wedding cake would go on. And this wasn't some retired old woman, no, she looked like a housemom. The concept of that kind of art was... insane to my mind. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. She was doing this for free. And not just once, for her own daughter, she did it all the time for the girls in her ward. She said it took an entire day of hard work to finish the table, and it all had to be sewn the before the wedding, because after a day, the leaves would get all crispy and dry.

Today I got fired/quit my job of four years at the Sugarhouse Bed Bath and Beyond, because this past half-quarter has shown me that I can't work 40 hours a week and get all my schoolwork done for school. I kept having to ask for last-minute days off of school to get homework done, or to get off early, or come in late, or switch schedules with someone..... My managers and co-workers all just start started to hate me. More openly than I would have preferred. After dealing with this for the past month, I had to call out again today to try and get my finals done, and some back homework done to get my grades back up.... my manager and I got into a fight. He said that he was sick of my scheduling bullshit, and that he couldn't take it anymore.... and I said that school was more important, so I turned in my two week application. Because I couldn't stand having people hate me at work, AND not having enough time to get all my homework done on time, or even get to my classes on time.

And yet this lady has the kind of time it takes to hand-sew a tablecloth out of leaves.... There's no justice in this world, I tell you. =P

Hetalialoids!!

One of the things that I love to do is design costumes, and then make them, me and my friends then kill ourselves sewing the monstrosities and then compete with them at Anime Conventions. Geeky? Totally. Lots of fun? You bet your life. Something recent I've been working on has been a "Hetalialoids" Cosplay group for me and my friends. I've combined designs from two fandoms, "Hetalia" and "Vocaloids" to design these costumes, this one is a product of combining Lovino from Hetalia and Gumi from Vocaloids:

Lovino

Gumi

Lovino Hetalialoid

 

 

 

 

I did a couple more, too, but my computer doesn't seem to want to upload them, so perhaps later. XD

Future in Design?

As the Half-Semester draws to a close and I sit here happily typing up my other four posts for my Design class, I'm pulling up some of my things that have drawn my attention. One thought that's been rattling around in my mind for this past month has been wondering about all the different things I could do with a degree in this class, or that class that I've been taking. This semester, I've taken Design and Perspective. And a great career that would be a product of those classes would be to design creative buildings or..... amusement park rides?  I found this picture on "MiceChat.com", a website that keeps up to date on the architectural developments of the amusement parks.

I did work for a summer in Walt Disney World- wouldn't that be awesome to return to the company as an Imagineer? I love seeing the potential of the lessons I've learned at this school.

Video Game Icons

As a Game Art and Design Major at The Art Institute in Salt Lake City, of course I have a lot of interest in video games. And one thing that's always made me wonder is how some Video Game Icons become so widely-known and, well, iconic. One popular example being the Mushroom from the Mario games, or the Triforce from The Legend of Zelda series (my personal favorite), or, to use an example from something other than nintendo titles, the 'O' from the popular Orange Box game, Portal. (for PCs and XBoxes).

I often wonder what makes those logos and icons so popular and well-known. Is it the design of the things? The art that's involved? Or is it the popularity of the game that makes those images so recognizable? One thing can be deduced that these logos have in common- they're relatively simple, uncluttered and uncomplicated in design. Leading me to believe that the world wants something uncomplicated to represent the things they love. And that perhaps it's the simple designs that are the most successful.

But simplicity in itself isn't enough, I think. After all, there's a great deal of difference between the sort of simple that is obvious, and the sort of simple that is profound. A simple logo or icon isn't enough. It must stand for something, and on it's own, represent all of the things within the game it corresponds to.