Free Courses on Design from the Famous California Design Firm IDEO Start This Week

in Design, Online Courses | September 14th, 2017

A quick fyi: This week, the famous Cal­i­for­nia design firm IDEO has launched two free courses–a 7‑week Intro­duc­tion to Human-Cen­tered Design and a 4‑week course on Pro­to­typ­ing.

As you might recall, we recent­ly fea­tured A Crash Course in Design Think­ing from Stanford’s Design School. If that piqued your inter­est in design and design think­ing, then IDEO’s cours­es might hold appeal. You can enroll in both cours­es, at no cost, today.

More free cours­es can be found in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media

Saul Bass’ Advice for Design­ers: Make Some­thing Beau­ti­ful and Don’t Wor­ry About the Mon­ey

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Mil­ton Glaser’s 10 Rules for Life & Work: The Cel­e­brat­ed Design­er Dis­pens­es Wis­dom Gained Over His Long Life & Career

Abstract: Netflix’s New Doc­u­men­tary Series About “the Art of Design” Pre­mieres Today

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

A Short Documentary on Artist Jeff Koons, Narrated by Scarlett Johansson

in Art, Design, Film | September 1st, 2017

If you don’t move, noth­ing hap­pens. — Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons, the sub­ject of Oscar Boyson’s recent pop video essay, above, is sure­ly one of the most wide­ly known liv­ing artists. As with fel­low artists Damien Hirst and Cindy Sher­man the spot­light has pro­duced an army of detrac­tors who know very lit­tle about him, or his large, far-rang­ing body of work.

The choice of Scar­lett Johans­son to pro­vide snarky sec­ond-per­son nar­ra­tion might not jol­ly Koons’ naysay­ers into sus­pend­ing judg­ment long enough for a prop­er rein­tro­duc­tion. (His show-and-tell dis­play of his Venus of Wil­len­dorf cof­fee mug caus­es her to quip, “You sexy moth­er­fuck­er.” Ugh.)

On the oth­er hand, there’s rap­per Phar­rell Williams’ onscreen obser­va­tion that, “We need haters out there. They’re our walk­ing affir­ma­tions that we’re doing some­thing right.”

The poten­tial for clam­orous neg­a­tive reac­tion has nev­er pro­pelled Koons to shy away from doing things on the grand scale in the pub­lic are­na, as the giant open air dis­play of such sculp­tures as “Seat­ed Bal­le­ri­na,” “Bal­loon Flower,” and “Pup­py” will attest.

Sure­ly, the genial affect he brings to the film is not what those who abhor “Made in Heav­en,” a series of erot­ic 3‑D self-por­traits co-star­ring his then-wife, porn-star Ilona “Cic­ci­oli­na” Staller, would have expect­ed.

Nor does he come off as a pan­der­ing, high priest of kitsch, some­thing cer­tain to dis­ap­point those who abhor “Michael Jack­son and Bub­bles,” his gaudy, larg­er-than-life glazed porce­lain sculp­ture of the King of Pop and his pet chimp.

“Kitsch is a word I real­ly don’t believe in,” he smiles (pos­si­bly all the way to the bank).

Instead, he veers toward reflec­tion, a fit­ting pre­oc­cu­pa­tion for an artist giv­en to mir­ror-pol­ished stain­less steel and more recent­ly, gaz­ing balls of the sort com­mon­ly found on 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can lawns. He wants view­ers to take a good look at them­selves, along with his work.

Those whose hearts are set against him are unlike­ly to be swayed, but the unde­cid­ed and open-mind­ed might soft­en to a list of influ­ences includ­ing Duchamp, Dali, DaVin­ci, Frag­o­nard, Berni­ni, and Manet.

Dit­to the opin­ions of a diverse array of talk­ing heads like Frank Gehry, Lar­ry Gagosian, and fel­low post-mod­ernist David Salle, who prais­es Koons’ artis­tic ded­i­ca­tion to “every­day Amer­i­can-style hap­pi­ness.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters: The Point of Con­tem­po­rary Art

Cindy Sherman’s Insta­gram Account Goes Pub­lic, Reveal­ing 600 New Pho­tos & Many Strange Self-Por­traits

Teens Pon­der Mean­ing of Con­tem­po­rary Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

36 Abstract Covers of Vintage Psychology, Philosophy & Science Books Come to Life in a Mesmerizing Animation

in Animation, Books, Design, Psychology, Science | August 11th, 2017

Ani­mat­ed ebook cov­ers are the wave of the future.

Graph­ic and motion design­er Hen­ning M. Led­er­er surfs that wave on the most unex­pect­ed of boards—a col­lec­tion of abstract mid-cen­tu­ry cov­ers drawn from the Insta­gram feed of artist Julian Mon­tague, who shares his enthu­si­asm for vin­tage min­i­mal­ism.

Led­er­er first came to our atten­tion in 2015, when we cov­ered the first install­ment of what seems des­tined to become an ongo­ing project.

His lat­est effort, above, con­tin­ues his explo­rations in the sub­jects which most fre­quent­ly trad­ed in these sorts of geo­met­ric covers—science, psy­chother­a­py, phi­los­o­phy and soci­ol­o­gy.

No word on what inspired him to toss in the first cov­er, which fea­tures a cheer­ful, Play­mo­bil-esque mush­room gath­er­er. It’s endear­ing, but—to quote Sesame Street—is not like the oth­ers. Those of us who can’t deci­pher Cyril­lic script get the fun of imag­in­ing what sort of text this is—a mycol­o­gy man­u­al? A children’s tale? A psy­cho­log­i­cal examination—and ulti­mate­ly rejection—of mid­cen­tu­ry pub­lish­ers’ fas­ci­na­tion for spi­rals, diag­o­nal bars, and oth­er non-nar­ra­tive graph­ics?

Whether or not you’d be inclined to pick up any of these titles, you may find your­self want­i­ng to dance to them, com­pli­ments of musi­cian Jörg Stier­le’s trip­py elec­tron­ics.

Or take your cue from yet anoth­er cov­er  con­tained there­in: I. P. Pavlov’s Essays in Psy­chol­o­gy and Psy­chi­a­try with a Spe­cial Sec­tion on Sleep and Hyp­no­sis.

Here’s the one that start­ed it all:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

55 Cov­ers of Vin­tage Phi­los­o­phy, Psy­chol­o­gy & Sci­ence Books Come to Life in a Short Ani­ma­tion

Artist Ani­mates Famous Book Cov­ers in an Ele­gant, Under­stat­ed Way

500+William S. Bur­roughs Book Cov­ers from Across the Globe: 1950s Through the 2010s

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Free: A Crash Course in Design Thinking from Stanford’s Design School

in Design, Stanford | August 9th, 2017

If you ask a few of today’s young­sters what they want to do when they grow up, the word “design” will almost cer­tain­ly come up more than once. Ask them what design itself means to them, and you’ll get a vari­ety of answers from the vague­ly gen­er­al to the ultra-spe­cial­ized. The con­cept of design — and of design­ing, and of being a design­er — clear­ly holds a strong appeal, but how to define it in a use­ful way that still applies in as many cas­es as pos­si­ble?

One set of answers comes from the 90-minute “Crash Course in Design Think­ing” above, a pro­duc­tion of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s Has­so Plat­tner Insti­tute of Design, or d.school. The Inter­ac­tion Design Foun­da­tion defines design think­ing as “an iter­a­tive process in which we seek to under­stand the user, chal­lenge assump­tions we might have, and rede­fine prob­lems in an attempt to iden­ti­fy alter­na­tive strate­gies and solu­tions that might not be instant­ly appar­ent with our ini­tial lev­el of under­stand­ing.” In a brief his­to­ry of the sub­ject there, Rikke Dam and Teo Siang write that “busi­ness ana­lysts, engi­neers, sci­en­tists and cre­ative indi­vid­u­als have been focused on the meth­ods and process­es of inno­va­tion for decades.”

Stan­ford comes into the pic­ture in the ear­ly 1990s, with the for­ma­tion of the Design Think­ing-ori­ent­ed firm IDEO and its ” design process mod­elled on the work devel­oped at the Stan­ford Design School.” In oth­er words, some­one using design think­ing, on the job at IDEO or else­where, knows how to approach new, vague, or oth­er­wise tricky prob­lems in var­i­ous sec­tors and work step-by-step toward solu­tions. D.school, with their mis­sion to “build on meth­ods from across the field of design to cre­ate learn­ing expe­ri­ences that help peo­ple unlock their cre­ative poten­tial and apply it to the world,” aims to instill the prin­ci­ples of design think­ing in its stu­dents. And this crash course, through an activ­i­ty called “The Gift-Giv­ing Project,” offers a glimpse of how they do it.

You can just watch the video and get a sense of the “design cycle” as d.school teach­es it, or you can get hands-on by assem­bling the sim­ple required mate­ri­als and a group of your fel­low design enthu­si­asts (make sure you add up to an even num­ber). Young­ster or oth­er­wise, you may well emerge from the expe­ri­ence, a mere hour and a half lat­er, with not just new prob­lem-solv­ing habits of mind but a new­found zeal for design, how­ev­er you define it.

“Crash Course in Design Think­ing” will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. You can find a num­ber of MOOCS on design think­ing and design at Cours­era.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media

Saul Bass’ Advice for Design­ers: Make Some­thing Beau­ti­ful and Don’t Wor­ry About the Mon­ey

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Mil­ton Glaser’s 10 Rules for Life & Work: The Cel­e­brat­ed Design­er Dis­pens­es Wis­dom Gained Over His Long Life & Career

Abstract: Netflix’s New Doc­u­men­tary Series About “the Art of Design” Pre­mieres Today

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Accidental Wes Anderson: Every Place in the World with a Wes Anderson Aesthetic Gets Documented by Reddit

in Design, Film, Photography | July 31st, 2017

Wes Ander­son­’s immac­u­late­ly art-direct­ed, imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­able films may take place in a real­i­ty of their own, but that does­n’t mean a real­i­ty with no con­nec­tion to ours. To go by their results, the direc­tor of The Life Aquat­ic, Moon­rise King­dom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel (to name only three of his most visu­al­ly dis­tinc­tive pic­tures) and his col­lab­o­ra­tors have clear­ly immersed them­selves in the very real his­to­ry of the West in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, drink­ing deeply of its fash­ion, its archi­tec­ture, and its indus­tri­al and graph­ic design.

So no mat­ter how fan­ci­ful his con­struct­ed set­tings — The Roy­al Tenen­baums’ dream of New York City, The Dar­jeel­ing Lim­it­ed’s train cross­ing India in quirky old-school splen­dor, The Grand Budapest Hotel’s unspe­cif­ic Alpine mit­teleu­ropa — Ander­son always assem­bles them from prece­dent­ed ele­ments.

And so the habitués of a sub­red­dit called Acci­den­tal Ander­son have set out to post pic­tures of his sources, or places that might well pass for his sources, all over not just Europe, of course — where they found the Vien­nese cafe at the top of the post and the Berlin­er deliv­ery van with wag­on just above — but Amer­i­ca, Asia, the Mid­dle East, and else­where.

Much of a loca­tion’s acci­den­tal Ander­son­ian poten­tial comes down to its geom­e­try and its col­ors: deep reds, bright yel­lows, and espe­cial­ly pale pinks and greens. Many of Ander­son­’s pre­ferred hues appear in the Gold Crest Resort Motel just above, which may strike a fan as hav­ing come right out of an Ander­son pic­ture even more so than the motel he actu­al­ly used in his debut fea­ture Bot­tle Rock­et. The direc­tor has since moved on to much fin­er hostel­ries, which thus form a strong thread among Acci­den­tal Ander­son­’s pop­u­lar post­ings: Flori­da’s Don CeSar Hotel (known as the “Pink Lady”), Cuba’s Hotel Sarato­ga, Switzer­land’s Hotel Belvédère, Italy’s Grand Hotel Mis­ur­nia.

Berlin’s hum­bler Ostel, a themed trib­ute to the design sen­si­bil­i­ties of the for­mer East Ger­many, might also res­onate with the ever-deep­en­ing his­tor­i­cal con­scious­ness of Ander­son­’s movies. (Remem­ber The Grand Budapest Hotel’s tit­u­lar build­ing, sad­ly redone in a util­i­tar­i­an, faint­ly Sovi­et avo­ca­do-and-ochre dur­ing the film’s 1960s pas­sages.)

To think that Ander­son came from a place no less impos­si­bly dis­tant from the realm of mid­cen­tu­ry Europe than Texas, home of the Dal­las music store pic­tured below. Giv­en his increas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, it’s hard­ly a sur­prise to see his sig­na­ture aes­thet­ic being not just reflect­ed but adopt­ed around the world. If life con­tin­ues to imi­tate art, Acci­den­tal Ander­son­’s con­trib­u­tors will long have their work cut out for them. Pay a vis­it to Acci­den­tal Ander­son here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wes Ander­son Movie Sets Recre­at­ed in Cute, Minia­ture Dio­ra­mas

The Per­fect Sym­me­try of Wes Anderson’s Movies

The Geo­met­ric Beau­ty of Aki­ra Kuro­sawa and Wes Anderson’s Films

Wes Ander­son Likes the Col­or Red (and Yel­low)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Miyazaki Meets Warhol in Campbell’s Soup Cans Reimagined by Designer Hyo Taek Kim

in Animation, Art, Design, Film, Life | July 28th, 2017

M’m! M’m! Good! M’m! M’m! Good!,

That’s what Warhol Campbell’s Soup Cans recon­ceived as Miyaza­ki films are,

M’m! M’m! Good! 

Brazil­ian-Kore­an design­er Hyo Taek Kim has found a con­tin­u­ing font of inspi­ra­tion in his child­hood love of Hayao Miyaza­ki’s ani­mat­ed films.

He has decon­struct­ed them into a series of Pan­tone of col­or palettes and cap­tured sev­er­al favorite moments through the lens of VHS tape glitch­es.

Miyazaki–Special Soup Series, his lat­est explorato­ry jour­ney into the enchant­ed world of the revered mas­ter ani­ma­tor and director–finds him reduc­ing each film to a cou­ple of essen­tial fla­vors.

One can imag­ine Mom call­ing the kids in from an after­noon of sled­ding for a warm, Cream of Toma­to-ish bowl of Totoro.

Spir­it­ed Away and Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle are slight­ly more sophis­ti­cat­ed fla­vors, that may involve leafy greens.

Princess Mononoke and Por­co Rosso are Grandpa’s favorites–real stick to your ribs fare.

The sub­tle iconog­ra­phy brings added dimen­sion to the stark prod­uct design Warhol dupli­cat­ed to such acclaim.

As Kim told the Cre­ators Project:

Sim­ple design that works is always so much hard­er to cre­ate than you might expect. It’s just very fun to mar­ry two ideas, artists and/or con­cepts into one big image. Andy Warhol changed the world of phys­i­cal arts. Hayao Miyaza­ki changed the world of ani­mat­ed arts.

This is not Kim’s first go at Campbell’s. His ear­li­er Super­soup Series reduced super­heroes to con­som­mé and cream ofs. Don’t for­get the oys­ter crack­ers.

Posters and t‑shirts of Hyo Taek Kim’s Miyaza­ki Spe­cial Soup and Souper­soup Series can be pur­chased here.

View more of Kim’s soup cans online at the Cre­ators Project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Roy Licht­en­stein and Andy Warhol Demys­ti­fy Their Pop Art in Vin­tage 1966 Film

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

A New Theme Park Based on Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neigh­bor Totoro Set to Open in 2020

Watch Moe­bius and Miyaza­ki, Two of the Most Imag­i­na­tive Artists, in Con­ver­sa­tion (2004)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch the World’s Oldest Violin in Action: Marco Rizzi Performs Schumann’s Sonata No. 2 on a 1566 Amati Violin

in Design, History, Music | July 14th, 2017

Most of us are acquaint­ed with the sor­row­ful sound of the world’s small­est vio­lin, but what of the world’s old­est?

The instru­ment in the video above dates back to 1566.

Mean­ing, if it were the patri­arch of a human fam­i­ly, sir­ing musi­cal sons every 20 to 25 years, it would take more than 10 gen­er­a­tions to get to com­pos­er Robert Schu­mann, born in 1810.

And then anoth­er 31 years for Schu­mann to com­pose Sonata No. 2 for Vio­lin and Piano in D minor, Op . 121, the piece vio­lin­ist Mar­co Rizzi–age unknown–coaxes from this love­ly piece of wood.

Were you to peek at the back, you’d see traces of King Charles IX of France’s coat of arms. The Latin mot­to Pietate et Justi­tia–piety and justice–still lingers on its rib.

It was con­struct­ed by the mas­ter cre­ator, Andrea Amati, as part of a large set of stringed instru­ments, of which it is one of four sur­vivors of its size and class.

After leav­ing Charles’ court, the vio­lin spent time in the Hen­ry Hot­tinger col­lec­tion, which was even­tu­al­ly acquired by the Wurl­itzer Com­pa­ny in New York. In 1966, it was donat­ed to Cre­mona, Italy, Amati’s birth­place and home to an inter­na­tion­al school of vio­lin mak­ing.

Ven­er­a­ble unto the point of price­less­ness, from time to time it is tak­en out and played–to won­drous effect–by world class vio­lin­ists. It’s tempt­ing to keep anthro­po­mor­phiz­ing, so as to won­der if it might not pre­fer a for­ev­er home with a gift­ed young musi­cian who would take it out and play it every day. I know what a chil­dren’s author would say on that sub­ject.

You can view Amati’s Charles IX vio­lin in more detail here, but why stop there, when you can also like it on Face­book!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Makes the Stradi­var­ius Spe­cial? It Was Designed to Sound Like a Female Sopra­no Voice, With Notes Sound­ing Like Vow­els, Says Researcher

Why Vio­lins Have F‑Holes: The Sci­ence & His­to­ry of a Remark­able Renais­sance Design

Watch the Mak­ing of a Hand-Craft­ed Vio­lin, from Start to Fin­ish, in a Beau­ti­ful­ly-Shot Doc­u­men­tary

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine — issue 58 is hot off the press. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Splendid Book Design of the 1946 Edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

in Books, Design | July 6th, 2017

decline of roman empire

In 1929, the book pub­lish­er George Macy found­ed The Lim­it­ed Edi­tions Club (LEC), an imprint tasked with pub­lish­ing fine­ly illus­trat­ed lim­it­ed edi­tions of clas­sic books. In the years to come, Macy worked with artists like Matisse and Picas­so, and pho­tog­ra­phers like Edward West­on, to pro­duce books with artis­tic illus­tra­tions on their inner pages. And some­times The Lim­it­ed Edi­tions Club even turned its design focus to oth­er parts of the book. Take for exam­ple this 1946 edi­tion of Edward Gib­bon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and its pret­ty amaz­ing spine design.

Cre­at­ed by Clarence P. Hor­nung, the design cap­tures the essence of Gib­bon’s clas­sic, show­ing Roman pil­lars pro­gres­sive­ly crum­bling as your eyes move from Vol­ume 1 to Vol­ume 7. George Macy lat­er called the col­lec­tion, which also fea­tures illus­tra­tions by the great 18th-cen­tu­ry print­mak­er Gio­van­ni Bat­tista Pirane­si, “the most her­culean labor of our career.”

Find more infor­ma­tion about this 1946 edi­tion here. Or, if you have deep pock­ets, pur­chase a copy here.

Note: an ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in June 2015.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

700 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

630 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

The His­to­ry of Rome in 179 Pod­casts

Free Cours­es in Ancient His­to­ry, Lit­er­a­ture & Phi­los­o­phy

Rome Reborn: Take a Vir­tu­al Tour Through Ancient Rome, 320 C.E.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.