The Designer Gardens
10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I First Started a Design Business
My friend Linda Merril, who is a local blogger, wrote this article hat appeared in the Williams Sonoma Designer Pages called, 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I First Started a Design Business.
I agree with some of what Linda says, but not all. Here’s my top 10.
1) Do not work for free. Learn how to bill. If you don’t respect your time, no one will.
2) Trust that you can succeed. I had a few careers before this and had all the background, but not all the necessary skills, so I read everything I could get my hands on and took classes.
3) Ask for help. I never worked for another designer. I am glad I never worked for another designer as this way I could build the kind of company I wanted.
Faceted Design: 10 Crystalline Creations of Future Design
Lamborghini could be considered to be the godfather of faceted design. In 1974, the Lamborghini Countach LP400 was released, a sharp-angled, wildly aggressive sports car without a single curve on its body. It is amongst the brand’s most iconic vehicles, a success in design that has remained in the spirit of every vehicle Lamborghini has produced since. The latest Lamborghinis are a bit curvier than their Countach counterparts, but few other vehicles appear to be so visually aggressive. The Lamborghini Aventador, the Reventon and the Sesto Elemento are a few of the brand’s latest and greatest, each of which has a fundamental focus on facets in its bodywork. For over 40 years, this crystalline approach to automotive design has been a defining factor for one of Europe’s great luxury car manufacturers.
Lamborghini Design Gallery
What might be the world’s coolest mouse owes its allure to faceted design, where flat, triangular surfaces meet on hard edges. The Orime Mouse by Elecom and Nendo is a functionally-standard five-button mouse, but even the scroll wheel on this baby is sliced geometrically. While comfort might be a consideration for some, the cool factor comes out on top. At ~$84 each, the price is a bit of a stretch. But the facet-focused collector might consider paying the premium.
Orime Mouse Gallery
Designer Andreia Chaves has an unique perspective on footwear design. Her high-heeled concepts use faceted design philosophies with a range of materials. The Invisible Shoe by Andreia Chaves features a faceted, mirrored exterior that reflects the ground around them with each step. In a more recent design, Chaves dropped the mirrors for a black faceted frame that encages a typical high heeled shoe. In the world of footwear, Chaves’ designs are some of the most progressive and ground-breaking in this young century.
Andreia Chaves Footwear Concepts Gallery
Faceted design can also have a functional application, especially in the radar-deflective systems of stealth aircraft. The F-117 Stealth Fighter is possibly the most iconic stealth aircraft ever taken into battle, the ship that launched a new generation of aeronautic technology. Stealth bombers and even stealth boats had been employed by militaries around the world for their ability to avoid radar detection in many scenarios. Today, the faceted style of stealth aircraft have given way to curvier systems which are developed with new radar analysis software. While faceted designs may not be used the same way they were to close out the last century, the F-117 remains one of the most visually remarkable aircraft ever to have been created in American history.
F-117 Stealth Fighter Gallery
Designer Mary Huang has developed a new, customizable fashion project that uses faceted designs for modern dress wear. The D Dress by Continuum is a dress designed by you but guided by Huang’s Continuum system. Using Continuum, one can create their own design using Huang’s pattern, then it can be made by you or a hired tailor. It’s a democratic approach to fashion design, where Continuum acts as a guide to allow users to craft faceted fashion in their own inspiration.
D Dress by Continuum Gallery
Can facets exist in two dimensions? Artist Matt W. Moore has developed a form of street
Nebuta House by molo design
Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen of molo design have completed the Nebuta House, a museum and centre for creative culture in the Northern Japanese city of Aomori.
Over the project’s course, the program evolved from housing and community facilities into a unique cultural building inspired by the craftsmanship and spirit of Aomori’s Nebuta Festival.
The festival, one of Japan’s largest, is a form of storytelling during which heroes, demons and animals from history and myth come to life as large-scale, paper lanterns (Nebuta) illuminated from within. The b
Garden Design Details: Pergolas
Sometimes being a designer means solving a mystery. I’d like to say that clients’ desire for structures and elements to be incorporated into their garden’s design was consistent and cyclical, but it’s not. This spring I find myself being asked for several pergolas and outbuildings to be part of the landscape designs I’m working on.
I like to show clients inspiration early in the design process. I find that these images not only help them to clarify their vision, but they help me to understand it as well. Pergolas all follow the same format…it’s the details that change. What color is it? What materials are we going to use? Will it be a transition from one place to another or a place to linger? Will it be attache
Quirky Light Projects – Academy of Fine Art and Design’s Students Design Oddball Lamps (TrendHunter.com)
ACADEMY OF FINE ART AND DESIGN
Its amazing how limitless lighting designs can be, which the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia demonstrates in this fun student project that extended over their winter semester. Essentially, these students were asked to design a lamp with no boundaries, not even for material or sizing. Each lamp created was as bizarre and quirky as the next.
For her Academy of Fine Art and Design light project, Viktoria Fedorkovicova designed a lamp that was inspired by Harold E. Doc Edgertons iconic photo titled Bullet Through Apple. Although it looks nothing like an apple, the bullet is clearly noticeable.