IXD104 Week 3: ‘Getting iconic’

Objectified
by Gary Hustwit

Gary Hustwit is a highly successful film maker and visual artist with his works being popular in over 20 cites and being approached by big platforms such as Netflix, HBO, and BBC. With his work being highly favored, his documentary ‘Objectified’ would continue to highlight this even further. The documentary is about the relationship we have with manufactured objects along with the people who create these objects.
Hustwit explores the creative process it takes to give life to these objects and highlights how it is this process that gives us the ability to ‘re-examine, re-evaluate, and re-invent’ and lead us to something bigger than what we started off with. Using this process is leading us to develop more into the objects we create. Without this process we will always have objects, but they will be pointless and of no potential. It is this that we can create good and functioning objects we use in our everyday lives. Society is constantly trying to improve objects around us as a lot of us are certain that we can better the things we have. This creative process is not just the steps to an outcome, it is an endless thinking process that is benefiting us as a society.

 

The Dribblisation of Design

When coming across the phrase, ‘The Dribblisation of Design’ I found it funny due to the nature of what Dribble is as it makes it sounds like an impactful er of design however, the more I continue to read, the more I began to understand this issue. Dribble is a platform used by many to interact and when this writer came across other designer’s work, he started to see an occurring problem that many people viewed as fine.
This designer saw that many people who publish their work on dribble are not trying to stick to their own values but seem to try and impress their work with their peers however it is to fit their standards. These designers worry about rewards and winning instead of looking and appealing to primary clients which is just ruining their chances to climb up and become successful. If you want to appeal to clients, you should address genuine business issues and investigate more detailed into how you achieved the outcome you ended up with. You do not want to appear superficial or have the same design as others on this platform. You want to show you as a designer who shows the good and the bad that came with your final product. When speaking about this subject, we came across a past student designer called Inga Hampton and we had a look into her work.

 

Inga Hampton

Looking at Dribble, we came across Inga Hampton who is a 2D game artist that is based in Northern Ireland. Looking at her work on Dribble was incredibly fun as exploring her work is very aesthetically pleasing the more you scroll. The colour palette seems to be consistent, which gives a professional feel to her work while showing what colours she prefers to work with. Hampton creates very idealism scenes while having a signature way of creating her characters; she is marking her style in design.

Harry Nesbitt

When looking at what inspires Inga Hampton, I came across Harry Nesbitt, who is a UK based artist and developer. Both their concepts are similar as both their pages both show those idealic landscapes in a very modern but professional way. Nesbitt, however, includes more details within his work as it gives it a more 3D look. This makes sense as Inga is a 2D design which is why I see more detail in Nesbitt’s. Scrolling down I came across his portraits that are a very realistic and game feel. His work is very versatile and shows that he is an artist that has a lot to offer.

 

The Noun Project

Looking into ways Icons have impacted us as a society, I came across a website that was called The Noun Project which is a site created for many to create and publish their own designs of icons. Over 3 million entries have been published ranging from UI design to music influencers. This website describes icons as a way for us to communicate visually while crossing over in language and breaking into cultural boundaries. This form of communication is understandable for everyone and easy to translate. This site shows diversity in what it offers as there were some occasions in 2011 where they held an iconathon for icons based around human rights and disaster preparedness. With the ability to highlight these issues, The Noun Project has strived to be gender balanced and focus on society issues we see today. They promote inclusion and projects a positive space for many.

When looking through the website I was able to find their company values, which start off with People first; showing that their priorities are with their users and how they feel. The second was respect and kindness as promoting these values is benefitting user experience as the space is made to feel safe for the user. Honesty, transparency, and fairness altogether made a value which I think it a good set of values to have as you create trust and loyalty with the user. Diversity and inclusion are something you feel straight away as the website allows you create these spaces and expresses whatever you feel like you should. The fourth value is to learn and improve, which shows the user that nothing here is a finished project; it is improving every day and showing the user that this is okay. The last value is to keep it simple, an icon is a quite straightforward design as it meant to be the easiest understanding to a subject, so an overly complicated design would just be off putting.

 

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