Design Corner » Notes on Design

Rebecca works her magic with a soup can arrangement in her favorite space in the studio: a harvest table that doubles as workspace and office desk.

Rebecca Cole thrives on creating unique floral, garden and interior designs with a rustic, natural aesthetic. She’s best known to the public as co-host of all 200 episodes of Discovery Channel’s “Surprise By Design” with fellow designer and studio neighbor, Robert Verdi. She continues to educate on a national and global scale through a weekly radio show, “On the House,” regular appearances on shows such as “The Today Show,” as a “guru” on Howdini.com, and as the author of 3 books. From her studio in Manhattan’s flower district, Rebecca Cole Design delivers her unique style to a growing clientele of New York area celebrities and aficionados. Wall-to-wall windows lend an airy greenhouse feel to the space overlooking W. 30th Street.

We stepped into the middle of the proceedings to find out what makes her space so inviting.

How long have you been in this space?

It’s a little over two years now. We were in a brownstone downtown for almost 10 years, and everyone’s office space was in their own room—which I think everyone liked but me. I needed more of a loft / “let’s all work together” feel, because we do too many things all at the same time, so it’s better to have a big space. Someone can be working on a garden design while another’s working on getting furniture for a photo shoot, and we can all be in the same room. And our radio show is in the closet!

The location’s ideal because we do floral and we’re walking distance to the flower market, but we’re not down on the street competing. There are also a lot of garden and irrigation suppliers in the neighborhood. Plus, we’re right in the middle of the city, so it’s easy to get everywhere – Brooklyn or Upper West Side, wherever. Location, location, location. It’s not easy to find an office with a terrace which lets us have a garden. When something looks like it’s about to die, we put it out there and nurse it back to health and then put it on someone else’s terrace!

Have you made many changes to the space?

Nothing was here when we found it. It had been one of the many furriers that used to be in the neighborhood. That was part of the old New York, and they’ve mostly closed now. It’s kind of becoming the design district now. We needed an industrial space, and I was one of the first of my friends to move in. Now, many other designers and friends are in the area or even in the building. There’s a Broadway costume shop upstairs, which has come in handy when I’ve needed specific fabrics. My friend Robert Verdi also followed me here. He thought it was too bohemian at first, but after looking around, everything else was twice as expensive because they were already finished. We really wanted to redo them anyway, so this made more sense. They’re starting to redo everything and put in new windows and things, so I’m sure all the rents will go up even more soon and we’ll all have to find the next bohemian neighborhood!

Before. Originally a furrier, industrial features such as freight elevator access drew designers and artists to the building.

After. Much more civilized.

Can you tell me about the radio show?

It’s a live, 4 hour weekly and nationally-syndicated show called “On the House” – the oldest radio show on home improvement in America. I joined 2 years ago, but it’s been running for 20. The tagline is “They fix it, and I fix it up.” It started out covering just home improvement, and then broadened its focus as part of the movement over to making things pretty and not just technical projects.

I do the show remotely, and originally I was doing my feed from the table out in the room, but they said there was too much echo with all the metal and cement. They told me to build a studio, or at least set one up in the vault I use for storage, but I wasn’t giving up my storage and sitting in a vault for 4 hours every week! Someone suggested I setup a space in a wood or cloth closet, so I built my little studio in this wooden closet. The guys on the other end are sitting in a fancy studio, and I’m in a closet– but it’s comfortable.

Broadcasting live each week from a tiny closet.

Where do you find the interesting pieces I see throughout the studio?

When I first started, I had a store called “Potted Gardens,” where I sold pieces. This was back when it was the coolest thing to find old pieces and sell them. Most everything was one-of-a-kind, which made it difficult to maintain supply. I like a mix of modern and weathered, but I use them as they’re found. I don’t generally sell pieces anymore, but still use them in photo shoots or for events.

What’s your favorite piece?

I have two favorites with similar themes. My first is the “elephant in the room that no one talks about.” I’ve had it in every place I’ve ever been.

Rebecca’s favorite piece: the “elephant in the room.”

The other thing I love is my pink flamingo. You can’t get one-of-a kind pieces without having “pickers” to help you out, and I had one guy who was genius at picking for me because he had my style down. I said I’d like statuary, but it has to be a little weird, a little off. And he brought this, which I love, and have used several times in shoots.

The quirky pink flamingo.

What’s your favorite spot in the studio?

My big harvest table, which I use for everything. It’s great for me because I can spread out and use it for lots of things. It’s good to have a permanent space where I can lay everything out to work, and it’s in front of the windows so I love the light. When I was downtown we had a great garden, but there was just no light. Everyone walks in here and says how beautiful and open it is. Sometimes I forget until I’m here alone on the weekend and it’s quiet and I’m reminded how great it is.

Check out Rebecca’s work at:
[www.rebeccacoledesign.com]

ANDY: Rick, regarding academia and it’s “fixation to ignore the really interesting and productive examples of online collaboration and to only showcase the grand Professors and organizing committee members of such conferences and the menial work they more often are doing” – that’s a real can of worms. But let’s open it anyway.

I think the first thing to address here is that academia and education is changing. Charles Leadbeater has researched and written some great work on this. Well, I say they are changing, but it’s more of a case that they need to change and it will be forced upon them. The pyramid of expertise, of professional elitism, that has driven education has been over-turned in many areas thanks to the web, but higher education in particular is predicated on the idea of a select few having expert knowledge. It’s no wonder that, regardless of new technologies and cultural shifts, the “grand Professors” carry on with their traditional mode. Cultural change requires generational shift, as I mentioned before. Put bluntly, the old men (for it is mainly men) in tenured Professorships need to retire and/or expire in order for that change to happen.

Higher Education research – particularly in design and science – should be a hive of rapidly changing activity in my opinion. But it’s not. Research grants and publication are always historical and extremely conservative. Nobody gives a research grant to someone with a good idea that might be worth exploring. Research grants - in design and the humanities at least – are given to the safest bet to people with long track records and the publications are often a re-write of previous material. HE research creeps forward at a snail’s pace. It should be a rocket.

Academia is, also, notoriously introspective. Some of that is because of the reasons above. There aren’t nearly enough design practicioners in design academia. There certainly aren’t enough good ones, because the environment and conditions are just not set up to entice them. Not only can academia not pay enough (though, I think, that’s not such a big consideration), but the requirements for an applicant to be a Professor, for example, will be a PhD or a significant academic track record. So you’re not going to get someone with a wealth of knowledge in the industry, you’ll get someone who has published papers about design theory. A PhD is pretty bloody useless in a design studio. I know, I’m writing mine right now and it’s pretty much put a stop on any design work.

It’s no wonder most of the design and education material presented at academic conferences seems so lame. It is lame – handicapped by the structure it operates within.

But it need not be that way. Re-thinking what constitutes research, re-thinking the value of design research and re-thinking how it is funded is one (slow) route for change. Personally I think private institutions are going to end up in a much better position in this area. They can move faster, aren’t bound by archaic and science dominated funding and will be less and less the “spoilt rich kid” option because public institutions are becoming equally as expensive.

Lastly, conferences (and quite possibly most journals) are, by and large, a farce. There are a handful of worthwhile ones, but most conferences’ peer-review process is a joke. Conference organizers know that academics need their research points from presenting papers and so they can charge enormous fees. The more presentations, the more fees. So there is a high incentive to accept almost all the submitted papers and the peer-review process is pretty much devoid of purpose. Accepting so many papers means that conferences have so many parallel sessions (of people giving a 20-minute presentation of a 4,000 word paper) that nobody really talks about the same issues, which is what a ‘conference’ should be about. The irony is, of course, that the people paying the conference fees are also providing the content.

I think some online work could work wonders here, but I’m not so much a fan of ‘online conferences’ that just follow the same format. I think ongoing conversations and collaborations are much more valuable.

I’d like to open this up more to anyone who has patiently followed our (long) conversation and ask what others think? Are there some better solutions? How can academia and professional design come together better? What prevents it and where are the dislocations?

Since school is back in season, the inner tubes are deflated, and football is on the tube, I thought it was worthwhile to look back at ten notable summer events in the world of design.

1. June 17: Eames stamps stick
The US Postal service honored the design legends we’ve been admiring for years. The furniture, graphics, films, and innovation of design duo Charles and Ray Eames are monumentally depicting on these miniature stamps, designed by Derry Noyes (granddaughter of the Eames’ dear friend Eli Noyes). If you haven’t yet, get your set! (I bought ten sheets!) See all USPS latest stamps here:

2. June 24: Pseudo-seal is retired
A new visual for the Obama campaign was unveiled at a mid-June presentation for Democratic governors, prominently displayed on the podium face. You won’t see this seal again. It’s similarity to the presidential seal left the voting public outraged, even called the “audacity of hype” by ABC news. Note the “O” logo within the eagle, the Latin translation of campaign slogan “yes we can,” and the curved typography eerily similar to the presidential seal, presented by a presidential hopeful.
From Shepard Fairey’s graphic for the masses of Obama, the abstract “O” flag hanging on the post outside of design firm Pentagram in New York, the elegant typography of John McCain, to the tshirt competition hosted by Hillary Clinton, this summer has provided great fodder for political visual analysis. See CNN’s comparison of seals here:

3. July 12: Radiohead innovates with video
Radiohead’s In Rainbows album has been an experiment since it was first downloaded for free, blazing new territory for musicians, listeners, and viewers. The video for “House of Cards,” created without a film crew or cameras, is no exception. Lasers, 360-degree high-tech scanners and massive rendering shaped a new paradigm for music visuals. See more here:

4. July 15: Iran tests missiles and photoshop
In early July, a photo on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps website depicted four missiles as a testament to the nation’s missile testing program. The image was presented on hundreds of reputable websites (BBC, NY Times), and even the cover of the LA Times and Chicago Tribune. Inspection of the photo reveals elaborate photoshopping and and one missile too many: the clone tool may never have been used for such political agenda. Analysis here:

5. July 18: Dark Knight posters are worth the hype
Warner Brothers designers released some stunning visuals to promote the latest Batman film: Dark Knight. The posters worked! Opening weekend shattered box office records. Movieweb’s gallery of stunners here:

6. July 21: New Yorker cover satires to mixed reactions
Artist Barry Blitt sent tongues wagging with the satirical New Yorker cover dated July 21 of Barack and Michelle Obama. The exaggerated cover “The Politics of Fear,” intended to call attention to the outrageous misinformation of political campaigning but was labeled “tasteless and offensive” by Obama’s team. Paula Scher called the illustration “bad art direction” and analyzed it brilliantly here:

7. July 27: Mad Men season premiere delights
Everyone is talking about the second season of the Golden-globe winning Mad Men. A sitcom on the AMC channel, Mad Men depicts the experiences of a New York advertising executive confronting shifting values in 1960s American consumers. The opening titles, designed by Imaginary Forces, artfully poise vector and raster-based images in a fresh way. Enjoy here:

8. August 8: Beijing Olympics are over the top
The Beijing Olympics was full of visual vitality: from the intimidating, thrilling drummers of the opening ceremony at 8:08 on 08/08/08 to the savvy icons designed by Min Wang, (design director and professor at China Central Academy of Fine Arts and formerly of Adobe). He writes of the work: “this is a ‘weiji’ moment in china’s design field. ‘wei’ means crisis, ‘ji’ means opportunity. From crisis, opportunity arrives.” The Olympic crescendo was the photo finish of the 100M butterfly race, won by Michael Phelps over Milorad Cavic of Serbia by .01 seconds, the smallest increment measured by the clock. The underwater fram-by-frame photos demonstrate a convincing victory for Phelps, while live action was uncertain. See Sports Illustrated’s documentation of the finish here: [sportsillustrated.cnn.com]

9. August 11: Actor Dane Cook critiques poster
My harshest critic from art school could share a point of view with comedian Dane Cook, who found the promotional poster for his upcoming film My Best Friend’s Girl “boring / odd and has zero to do with the movie.” Read his criticism here.

10. August 15: Vogue India’s fashion is faux pas
A multi-page spread featuring the latest fall fashion trends offended the subscribers of Vogue India. In a presentation of the impoverished modeling couture, a child models a Fendi bib, a barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella over a mud floor, and a working mother wears a Birkin bag while commuting to work sideways on a moped with her two children in tow. Editor Priya Tanna defends the feature, saying “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful.” See images here:

Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring, the new novel come graphic design experiment by Zach Plague (aka: Zach Dodson) is equal parts both. It is what you get when a writer, who becomes a graphic designer, is also his own publisher. As with any auteur, his total control means one thing, he can break all the rules. Because no one is there to stop him. So this is what he does.

The first and most obvious is the notion that a book’s signatures are a means to an end, and not an end in themselves. Dodson has decided to turn this process around and design the signatures first, as whole uncut objects worthy of display. For the launch of the book, he even created limited edition silkscreen posters of these signatures for sale, in a gallery.

Of course he also offers the cut-up-and-bound book format for those of you interested in actually reading the thing. But wait, you have four options as to how you would like to read it. Would you like to read it in audio format? In pdf format? In an online flash app? The possibilities are endless, if not also a bit gimmicky.

Let’s say you make your way through the myriad of choices, and find yourself back at the print version. If you do actually read the thing, there is ample to enjoy. Type aficionados will appreciate the experimentation and random collaging. The typefaces change for every character, the orientation of the type changes depending on what point in time the narrative takes place (past is printed sideways, present printed right-side up). Emotional phrases are styled with italics or bolding, or sometimes even crossed-out.

And below, an example of character development through typeface selection. Here the two main characters, Ollister and Adelaide, are introduced as much through text as through their mishmash letterforms. Dodson used over 100 typefaces in all to develop the emotions and personalities throughout the book.

Luckily, he is a decent writer as well, so this book is not easily dismissed as some misguided graphic design student’s thesis project. It reads as well as it looks, and that is important since the visuals are so closely linked to the content. In a recent interview with AIGA, Dodson said, “It’s about using type variation as a vehicle for expressing a new layer of meaning beneath the words. Some people will find it hard to read. It is harder to read. The goal is to have those patterns assimilate into the reader’s experience and bring another dimension to the text.”

This sounds like any number of squashed concepts from ambitious book designers fresh out of college, still high on Marshall McLuhan-speak. In the “real” world, concepts like these typically wind-up getting rejected before they leave the InDesign layout screen. Or in some cases even before they are executed, thanks to the foresight of the more seasoned design-management pragmatist.

With all these broken rules, it seems nearly impossible to fathom this thing slipping through any established publishing-house. But thanks to the accessibility of desktop publishing, we may start to see more design auteurs like this in the future. So a question arises, what exactly would the publishing world look like if graphic designers were calling all the shots? Hmmmm…

Inspired by fellow contributor Chris Costello’s post Paying Your Dues

My career also started humbly and I still think about those experiences every time I interview a young designer. I went to Phoenix for interviews near the end of my senior year. I had researched the top firms I hoped to meet and had sent them all hand-made promo pieces, well-written letters and a great resumé. To my surprise, I got interviews at all but two of my top 15 choices. Not too bad for a guy who didn’t go to a school exactly known for design - nope, not bad at all…or so I thought.

Sure that an amazing job was in the bag, I strolled in to each firm with all the confidence of an Olympic champion. I left each one without a job and wondering what had just happened. The pre-portfolio opening conversations went fantastic, but things would take a bad turn when my portfolio was opened and with each page it would continue to go downhill. Finally, after no offers and no constructive criticism from anyone, the owner of the firm at my second to last interview said something like, “I have never been so interested in seeing a book and been so disappointed page after page.”

Well, that day was a horribly great day. I was humbled by the fact that my portfolio - which I was so proud of - was not good. But, it was great that someone had finally told me the truth. After the owner’s comment, we talked about each piece, what was lacking from it and what I needed to add to improve my portfolio. I still remember that day vividly and I told myself that if I ever had the chance to review a designer’s book I was going to be honest and helpful.

So I went home and threw away my entire portfolio. I redid it in two months - four years of college in 60 days! After graduation, I went back to Arizona with a new spring in my step and expectations high. I ended up getting only one interview instead of the 10 I was hoping for. The result: no real feedback and no job. As I was leaving my only interview, the art director gave me a number to call to inquire about a job. I called a few days later. No interview.

I went back to Illinois and tried to figure out what to do while taking work as a cement laborer. After a few weeks of hating everything, I decided to move and try again to make my design dream happen.

Moving into my apartment, I called that number one more time and to my surprise the owner answered. He gave me a job offer over the phone - without seeing my book. I jumped at the chance.

Now the job was not great, but it sure was great to take that first step…and I’ve been going ever since.

You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions.

Hi Jean,

For the past six years I’ve developed the print design department of a small company. There was just me and the computer doing the creative and production work, and the boss facilitating with infrastructure and a wage. I got tired of the office politics, left that company and started my own. Many customers have come with me. My question is, who owns the customer files? If the old company wants to sell them, is that legal, and what are they worth? This is a small community and a lot of goodwill is at stake here. But I don’t want to sacrifice more than I have to.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
Sue

Dear Sue,

If you were an employee of your old company, all the work you did for them for their customers belongs to them as work made for hire. If the customers were given the files and the company transferred the rights to them in writing, then the customer owns its own files. But, if not, the company owns them. The old company can sell the files it owns to anyone who wants to buy them and they are worth what someone wants to pay for them. My advice would be to have to clients ask for their files and pay the difference between what they already paid and whatever the company would have charged them for a full buyout of the rights when they first hired the company to do the work. That way, you stay out of the transaction; the customer gets its files and can do what it wants with them.
Best,
Jean

In his previous post Dave explained how design is increasingly looked upon as a commodity by corporations.

Good news for right brainers

Whereas the craft of design; creating logos, layouts and Web designs, is becoming as much a property of amateurs as it is professionals, designers need to find new areas of unique value that they can provide their clients. By addressing the areas of complexity, co-creation, context and accountability, designers position themselves to better meet the needs of their clients and the demands of a changing economy.

In 2000 Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan stated that technical know-how would be superseded by “the ability to create, analyze, and transform information and to interact effectively with others.” This idea was echoed in Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, in which Pink projects that the future economy will be driven by six key “senses” - design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. For designers with a collaborative spirit and the ability to conduct and synthesize research, this is good news.

It is becoming clear that designers in this new era must not only be experts in form, as they have been traditionally taught, but must be equally skilled in solving more complex problems that require a broader range of skills including social sciences, technology and the organization of teams. The ability to collaborate, manage the increasing complexity of design problems, design “in context” to their target audiences and be accountable through measurement transforms designers from “makers of things” to “design strategists.” Along with the ability to create form, these skills complete the designer of the conceptual economy.

This idea of a well-rounded design professional is not a new concept. In 1957 Henry Dreyfuss stated, “A successful performer in this new field is a man of many hats. He does more than merely design things. He is a businessman as well as a person who makes drawings and models. He is a keen observer of public taste and he has painstakingly cultivated his own taste. He has an understanding of merchandising, how things are made, packed and distributed, and displayed. He accepts the responsibility of his position as liaison linking management, engineering, and the consumer and co-operates with all three.”

The thought of orchestrating these diverse disciplines can seem daunting. However when we consider the areas of collaboration, complexity, context and accountability, we see that they can easily fall into the framework of design process.

Project initiation: This phase is focused on aligning stakeholders toward a common goal and requires collaborative planning to address complex design problems.
Skills: Business, interpersonal, organizational and communication planning skills.

Design research: This phase defines the context for making design decisions. Centered on the needs of business stakeholders and audiences, this phase relies heavily on collaboration as a means for understanding meaning.
Skills: Social sciences, interpersonal, qualitative, quantitative and analytical research skills.

Concept development: This phase synthesizes the research into an ide