Don't be afraid of the light*

As kids we are told not to be afraid of the dark, as adults we should be taught not to be afraid of the light.

Many are the people who find themselves dumbfound when confronted with the task of lighting their homes. Growing up in a sun swept country I have taken light for granted, dared to hide, screen and play with it. Arriving in the Boston area, the first thing that struck me was, that the light switch to the “main” light was actually only connected to some meager table lamp on the other side of the room, providing half the light needed to negotiate the space around me. In short I find the homes here are DARK and under lit.

I can’t stress enough the importance of proper lighting in the home and work environment.  It is known that the lack of light can be attributed to depression (SAD – seasonal affective disorder) , and other types of  illnesses. I have recently read an article about how lighting can create positive environments ranging from restaurants to airplanes. So it’s worth while investing time in understanding how it works.

 Architects and designers talk, write and sculpt with light. My two favorite are Frank Gehry and Tadao Ando. They come from different parts of the world, but both are in my view, ” lightscapers” of the highest degree. Their uncanny ability to work with light stems, I believe, from their deep understanding that light is as much a building material as concrete, metal and wood. Assuming most of us can’t afford the likes of Gehry and Ando to light our homes, how can we translate lightscapeing (as I call it) into our own home environment?

After working for a lighting design firm, I have learned that the most important tool a lighting designer has is the ability to envision what type of atmosphere (narrative; if you will) the space requires. Try thinking of how a pharmacy is lit up, verses a romantic restaurant. Now think of your home – would you light the kitchen counter the same way you would your bedroom? Now that you have an idea what type of setting you would like to create you are ready for the big experiment – turn off the light! Yes, right now. Look around you, what are the colors you see, how is the shadow cast around the space you are in, is it daylight or night, and most importantly how does it make you feel? Move about your house go through every room with this at the back of your mind. You’d be amazed what a powerful design tool you now have just acquired by simply switching the light on and off. Yes there are many code words within the lighting design world; LED, uplight, downlight, floodlight, recessed light, pendant, kelvin, etc. But the most important thing is HOW IT MAKES YOU FEEL. Go ahead plug lights in and out from different rooms, and test out how it looks like, how it makes you feel. It’s no different from picking a color for your house, you have to try it out. This will empower you once you get into any store that sells light fixtures and ask the right questions. A good lighting designer will be able to help you translate your feelings into the proper light fixture, and once you play around with it, you’ll be able to answer these questions yourself. Light is so fundamental in our everyday life it really is worthwhile to get acquainted with it.

*this post was orgianly published June 6, 2012 

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All Work and lots of Play

During my graduation ceremony way back then, our class speaker, diligently taped crayons to the bottom of each and every seat, it was an apt reminder from where we all started.
Designers like to play, our whole world resembles a blown up pre-school classroom. We experiment with color, light, shapes, texture, but unlike the carefree kids with fingernails clogged by green play-dough, proof of concept lies on our shoulders.

Play, the new hot word in the design world, is a very intricate tool. As boundaries of work-home environments are blurred and redrawn, the in-between becomes a vital regulator that assists in balancing the two. We all know, and research shows that people who have a more balanced work-life world are usually more productive at their jobs. I've been around the high-tech start-up community long enough to know that research is nice, but not always easy to attain. Some like the big high-tech companies in California, will even go as far as adding a huge slide to connect between two levels (though I've heard the noise made them close it off). In areas where the weather is consistently good there will be a hiking trail near by, in the north-east this option is good for maybe 2-4 months out of the year. The challenge is always to create a "play" zone without it being disruptive, too juvenile, and consistent. Because structured play is extremely important for creative processes, and office culture.

Along the years I've learned that most places I think of as the "right" off site, breakout zones in the office program, usually become last on the priority list of company leaders. This is usually due to budget and space constraints, and/or lack of will to create these seemingly money and time wasting spaces. I used to worry a lot about these spaces, I mean after all I'm a professional player (ahem..designer). I'd cry over the lost lime colored bean bags, that will never make it to the right spot. But then something interesting happened, some spots got filled with junk - yes. But others got organically filled by the people who work there. Old school video games popped up, an old sofa picked up from a curb made it in instead of the lime green bean bags. Some even took away the custom made tables from the kitchen to create a totally new off site area in the middle of the open space. A natural playground was born, a new and unique office culture has been cultivated through the lack of over designing "play". I guess designers are not the only ones who like to play with space, allowing other people to join in the fun of experimenting with space is a powerful tool, kind of like rediscovering how to use crayons again.  

Why Design Matters

MFA exhibit  a visual story of culture through design

I once got into a heated argument about an author, and his choice to write, what can be described as easy summer reading. His books are good, fast paced and huge crowd pleasers, but something lacks in his writing. The way I see it is, a well educated man decided to take all his knowledge, along side his linguistic skills, and serve the most diluted form of these to his readers. Till this day any form of diluted creation rubs me a little the wrong way.

Recently a big phone manufacture came out with an "all-you-can-think-off" watch. Aside from the technological aspects, again I had that uneasy feeling of something lacking. It felt that even though probably a lot of hours had been spent on making this watch, the intricate history of watch manufacturing and design was sidelined and somewhat ignored. The watch who has come out of a ground breaking company that holds steady at the front of the design world, feels like the diluted from of all of these. In fact most of the wearable technology lack in the departments of creativity and design, or are just plain ugly, geared mainly to a specific target audience, but we now know they won't be the only ones wearing these.

Why am I getting so worked up about this? As a designer I feel we all carry some visual and culture responsibly for our surroundings, especially ground breaking manufactures. If a manufacture that size comes out with a device that is so plain looking so far removed from the look and feel of a well crafted watch, the rest will follow that same diluted down version of a watch. Which in turn leaves us with design reductionism all around us. Same as the famous google landing page that has dictated a certain "look and feel" for web interface, these new wearable devices create a visually dull environment.

So what? you say. But in an era where never before again people around the world across any social-economic background have access to mobile phones, wearable devices, and easy read books, our culture and history gets diluted. As people with access to higher education it is our responsibility to demand higher design be available for all, further democratizing access to good design, which tells the story of cultures and the history of people in a visually cohesive and responsible manner. I refuse to live in a world of shrunk down versions of rectangles on my wrist or of bleak looking landing pages, I don't want it to define the rich culture I come from, I don't want my kids to grow up in a diluted version of the world.

Location, Location, Location!

Photo by Udi Edni, 48 Photography

The famous idiom of Location, Location, Location which is favorably used by neighborhood realtors, seems to feel almost dated when deciding on a new office location. In a world of quick and easy means of "off site" communications, the appeal of renting an office in a more cost effective area has never been more appealing. Or so we think.

In the past few years I have been privileged to personally follow and assist some companies through their "growing pains" of locating and designing an office.

Like a home, the office has a soul, and its location matters. Unlike a home, the economic ramification of poor office locations can be devastating for a new up and coming business, and for other local businesses around them. Office buildings are like mini-cities, they not only generate work or a certain kind of culture to the people who work in them, but also to the their surroundings.
If ever there was an example for a business creating a distinct culture around them, the first one that comes to my mind is Detroit. Though we know the outcome of the lack of foresight and mismanagement of Detroit, I think you can see my point of what a company culture can do to its surrounding environment.

Photo credit Emily Neumann

But not every employer or company have the privilege of finding that sweet spot between, easy commute, free parking, proximity to recruiting talent, and great eating spots. These are the exception, rather than the norm. This is where good design comes to play.

I can't stress enough how the American office space design lags behind it's European, Asian and Middle Eastern counterparts. It seems that many a times the functionally, cost effectiveness and connivence combined with a sever dose of conservatism have created the most dire and beige spaces I have had to work with. In his book "From Bauhaus to Our House" Tom Wolfe so pungently describes the 8' ceilings in steel and glass frames with 2' X 2' acoustic tiles, and buzzing florescent lights, that I had a vision, not of a luxury corner office, but of a prison cell. The design culture of offices has to change to allow for growth, where beige cubical walls are present creativity is stifled. Good office design has been proven to promote productivity, which in turn allows for companies to grow and create better environments around them outside the office building.

Identity Theft

There is something unsettling about it, a sense of violation. Then there is the understanding that not much can be done about it. And no, it's not the sincerest form of flattery. Yes I'm talking about people copying and using your design without permission, and with no proper compensation. It's a hard enough profession than to go out and try and get that compensation. Like in many artistic / creative areas the ease at which people shamelessly take what you have worked so hard to create, is hard to enforce. There is yet the iTunes for the design world.

The first time I encountered this blunt "copy-paste" approach was in an open shopping center. I was driving by when something caught my eye. It was the logo of the store front I immediately recognized, only to see the interior was bluntly and crudely pasted from the first, and only store I designed for that brand. In an effort to maintain their brand identity, the store owner stole mine. You see, and this is hard to explain to people outside creative professions, the design process folds in it a lot of who the designer is. It's a process of trial and error, a delicate dance of listening to the wants and needs of the person in front of you, and actualizing them. So when you see that delicate process slapped on, as if no thought has been given to it, it kind of stings.

Some may argue that all designers are thieves among themselves too. There is some truism to it, we all get inspired by the world around us, which happens to have some incredible designers too. The huge difference would be that, designers will "quote" certain aspects to re-enforce their own design. Same as a researcher will quote an article that cements it's hypnosis. With many design apps, design shows, and design magazines it's easy to see why people feel that the designer can be cut out of their process. Which in some cases, and I'll be first to admit, is the right thing to do.

This weekend I was at a 2 hour styling talk. The stylist explained in detail her styling philosophy
teaching people the types of prints, textures, shapes that would work with different body types. It was fascinating for me as a designer to see how people reacted to such a process. But at the end of the day most only wanted to know where each specific shirt was bought at what store. These are natural questions, I deal with similar questions (about sofas, rugs, light fixtures and etc.). I realized that no matter how hard we will try and get the same items, it'll be hard to pull-off that effortless look that was just shown to us.

Design literacy take both time and experience to create that un-known factor of look and feel that make spaces unique, and make people safe and happy in. It's a process that builds an identity to things and office culture to small companies, it's too important to just be "copy-pasted".