A Catharsis!

Time for a new layout! Ok not yet, but I'll have the page stripped down to default or some variation of it in the meantime.

So until I come back with a fresh new look, cheers and stay healthy & happy through finals!

Nuclear weapons [Design is utopian]

[Second atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan] Library of Congress

Fairly often, we come across designs and designers who endeavor to improve general society in their work. Many are successful, while many are not. But rare is it that any do any sort of real harm. Most modern designs are nothing more than ergonomic enhancements or environmentally conscious redesigns based on old designs with little or no new practical functionality anyway. One design, however, that was engineered toward entirely new functionality that I would deem a major utopian work with irony (but not sarcasm) fully intended is the nuclear weapon.

I personally find the entire concept of nuclear weapons utterly repulsive and entirely unnecessary, above all other abhorrent tools of destruction. However, what is more human than the desire and struggle for bettering "our" society by completely wiping out "theirs"? I am well aware of the misanthropy in my words when I say that nothing is more utopian than self-service through the ruination of those whose own self-service conflict.

Credit company rhetoric [Design is Dangerous]

Have you ever actually through the printed terms and conditions of a given loan service before signing your soul away to your credit company? Chances are the answer is no. Aside from your laziness, there is a reason for that: they are designed that way on purpose. Credit companies have layout designers who purposely draft obscure layouts for the mandatory issue terms and conditions. This is obviously to discourage most of the company's customers from reading or having a chance to understand their rights and the customer service policies and thus take advantage. The actual layout is normally printed in an incredibly small font (maybe 6 point) with unbearably tight leading and tracking printed on a light grey paper with a slightly darker grey or tan ink. This almost immediately rules out the ability for people with sight problems or reading accessibility issues to even have a chance to read them, let alone able people.
But even if you had the ability and patience to read through them, you would immediately be bombarded with numerous abbreviations and cryptically convoluted rhetoric, making it a challenge to even understand, given you are not the lawyer who wrote the passage.

Such design for the sole purpose of inaccessibility is dangerous in that it allows these companies to easily take advantage of their customers. Some amount of government regulations would be necessary in order to defend society against such dubious immoral business tactics.

Is design really ethical? Just because it can and should be does not mean that it is. Just like any other trade, it could be used for moral or immoral purposes.

Bare Bones: Color is the devil, and Why

Okay, no I do not actually believe that color is the devil and the root of all evil, however I do have some major qualms pertaining to its use and perception specifically in the realm of art and design. Color may not be some abstract evil deity, but it certainly has power far beyond those qualities which we normally think of when the concept of color comes to mind. I personally approach each and every one of my visual works, no matter what realm, with a deep fear and respect for value and chromatics. Here are a couple reasons why…

Answers: A) No B) Most likely

Color is deceptive in that it skews the perception of varying values.
Josef Albers already said this, but allow me to reiterate that while human vision is extremely inconsistent, the hues of different color throw off our comprehension of varying levels of value between shifting colors. When I refer to value, I am simply talking about the tints and shades of different hues. Take the above image for example. It's a quiz. Not really. Both levels A and B are identical with the only exception being that A is in greyscale. I think the evidence speaks for itself. Thus it is especially important to take this into account as a designer during the process, not after the fact.

Thread art by Gabriel Dawe

Color distracts from content. If you have ever heard anyone advise to at least start your work in greyscale before moving on to working in color, you will notice that they will likely cite the deception of color in terms of value as I had previously explained. That is a big deal as a technical aspect, yes, but the idea that color distracts from content is far more important as the meaning or message or idea behind a piece is by far the most significant aspect as all the technical details merely act as intermediaries between viewer and content. When I say color distracts, I mean that the core function of a piece can easily get lost in the emotive vibrance and incredible variation of chromatic selections. The compositional structure of any piece is the core, the skeleton, upon which augmentations such as color are implemented in order to elaborate further. Even the above photo of Gabrial Dawe's installation exhibiting a large scale arrangement of threads representing prismatic order. While the focus is indisputably the manipulation of the color, the core structure of each of his pieces is what gives rise to each set of optical interactions they deliver. Without the unique structure, the colors would be meaningless.

Straight on view of Dawe's installation

Color can act as a gimmick for grabbing attention. Lastly, for now, color is often used and abused to snatch otherwise apathetic viewers' attentions. I find this to be an issue as a viewer in that when bright, zany and/or superfluous color is the first thing I notice when I witness a composition, my first reaction (correction: second, immediately following the all too human "Ooh pretty colors~ teehee!" reaction) tends to be a dismissal of the compositions meaning and content on the grounds that it feels far too desperate to catch my attention for the quality of the content to be worth a damn. Generalizations are never a safe bet however, and in recognizing that, my dismissals never last long — at least until the proposed lack of worthwhile content is confirmed. There are countless amazing compositions that fit the description by established creators to prove that color is not necessarily a gimmick for grabbing attention. But the point is that it can act as such, and thus it is important as a creator to be wise and mature about his/her use of color and doubly as important for the viewer (ie. everybody) to be as conscious about the content of that which they are experiencing as the method by which it clasped his/her attention.

Lauer & Pentak's Design Basics: A critical review

Total waste of money!

Image stolen from a site that stole it from somewhere else…

Future UCD design student: Save some bucks, save some trees, and just look up "Elements of Art" and "Principles of Design" on wikipedia or something. It's all right there! Take my word for it, as a student who deeply regrets dishing out 20 hours worth of slave wage pay for this over praised scrap of high-end press material.

How much is Wadworth paying you, professor?

This is all you need, a complete comprehensive and dare I say accurate replacement for L&P's Design Basics:

Design Elements and Principles

Cheers!

(Untitled)

Conceptual art as a genre is the greatest pretentious indulgence in psychobabble of the 20th and 21th centuries. I saw this film title (Untitled) (2009) about a week ago, and fell in love almost instantly. As a career art student, I have always sort of felt like an outsider, never buying in to the pretentious bullshit behind the supposed greatest works of whichever era, never caring to participate in critiques as a front to display my knowledge of the elements of art and principles of design, and I simply have never respected an artist/designer who has more words to say about their work than what their work has to say for itself. I guess what I am trying to get at is that in realm of art, I am an outsider on the inside and it almost feels like this film was written exclusively for me. I am not going to bother analyzing the film or even attempt to sum it up for you especially since the trailer is right here. Besides, that would be down right hypocritical of me would it not?

Anyway I will leave you with my favorite quote from the film, as spoken masterfully by Adam Goldberg's self conscious and mildly neurotic character Adrian Jacobs in response to a critical claim about his musical performance made by some art yuppies whom he was at a dinner party with:

"Harmony is a capitalist plot to sell pianos."

Here's the trailer...

The Toilet: Part 1 [ergonomics]

Is the standard toilet as we know it a perfect design? I would be amazed to hear a resounding "Yes!" In fact, I would be much less surprised to hear a majority of responses that fall along the lines of "No way, man! Not even close…" But then why have I seen such little variation an ergonomic improvement in toilet models beyond the two basic eastern style squatter versus the western style sitters? I mean this is an object that everyone (with few exceptions) uses at least daily, and not too many — I would imagine — would be very happy having to live without. Maybe the lack of variety or enhancement in the ergonomic design has something to do with the idea that folks are too afraid, reluctant, and/or just plain unwilling to take on the task of reinventing the throne, upon which we place our bare hide and release our bowels on a regular basis, due to its… toilety nature. Nonetheless, while the standard sitting toilet is certainly useable, in todays world centered around efficiency and luxury, it is yet far from perfect.

Random uninteresting Youtube video featuring some insanely bad parenting...

Firstly, the standard toilet as we know it is far from safe. Just look at the image above and imagine having to take your toddler to the emergency room because (s)he drowned his/herself in the toilet. Once you stop laughing about it after approximately three minutes, you will probably realize how tragic that would be, which may or may not cause you to continue laughing with greater intensity thus confirming that you, like I, have no soul. The risk of concussions, bruising, and/or broken bones is also very eminent, especially amongst the drunk, stumbling folks who attempt to approach the toilet in order to let their lunch loose from the wrong end. Virtually anyone is at risk of slipping and suffering blunt trauma from the edge of the porcelain basin, but of course the drunks, seniors and infants lie in the high liability zone. Should it not be that our design standards look out for these people first?

But forget about physical safety. What about our toothbrushes, our jewelry, our phones (our children...?)? It almost feels like every other day that I hear about someone's emotional trauma involving an incredibly expensive phone being sacrificed to the far from benevolent god of sanitation.

Second, the toilet is lacking in the comfort zone. I am a huge fan of the winter season. If you have lived in the area where I am staying right now — Sacramento/San Francisco bay area, CA — you probably are unfamiliar of the concept of winter. Nonetheless, it is my favorite season (for anywhere that is not here), for so many reasons except for one: the god forsaken freezing toilet seat. On the coldest of winter days I dread having to make a visit to the restroom and revealing my bare behind and make contact with the icy polished porcelain in order to relieve the tension my bowels. If it was not such a high priority duty, I would not think twice about forgoing the task. Could the engineers not find a material with a lower specific heat capacity that is as archival and cleanable as polished porcelain? I know there are replaceable cushioned seats on the market, but honestly those never stay up — I think I can speak for all men when I say they are a dread for those of us who happen to urinate standing up.

...Stay tuned for the second half, which will feature some more b.s. about the toilet's ease of use and performance!

To which they reply, "Whatever…" [word and image]

Help the quick brown fox find his way over the lazy dog!

Breaking the Fourth Wall: Part 1 [word and image]

Trends come and go and are rarely of any significance. Having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, I have noticed recently — say, within the last handful of years — that it is becoming fashionable in film/film related media to transcend the fourth wall taboo. Said "fourth wall" is of course a metaphorical drama term referring to the imaginary wall between the action and the audience and/or camera. This circumvention has made shown its face in many forms and styles, a majority of which I would consider satirical, but one form that has stood out to me recently has been that of opening credit sequences in films and other cinematic pieces.

What sets these apart from the typical opening sequences is the integration of the written credits with the action. There are many different ways in which I have seen this go down, and a lot of times it has been in combination with another cinematic trend involving credit sequences, which is saving it for the end of the film. The ones that I have noticed that were very conspicuously postponed to the films ending tended to be in the realm of campy action shows sloshing with extravagant cheesiness — such as Black Dynamite or The Losers. For the record, I only mention those two because my brain is not being cooperative in recalling some worthy examples, and it would be out of the question to re-watch every film I had seen in the last 3 or so years to find one.

Screen from Black Dynamite end credits

The recent trend of word graphically embedded into active imagery has of course come to fruition with the help of computer graphics related advancements yielding to the ease of innovation and trickery (though each instance is not necessarily the effect of computer graphic implementation). And there are two kinds: embedded word in a way that it seems to belong, while referencing a non-story related element (... I'm mostly talking about title and credits here, but it can be other things), and embedded word in a way that is made to appear as an obvious juxtaposition to the action by its mere physical presence rather than exclusively by its meaning. The latter tends to draw the viewers attention more toward the design of the feature as something that does not naturally belong and thus, I would say, is generally more conspicuous as a method of integration.

Here, the intro to the HBO drama Entourage, is an example of an opening sequence in which the credits are embedded in a way that they appear in an evidently naturally occurring media and form, given the context of the surrounding action taking place...




















And while it may be a video game rather than an actual film, Grand Theft Auto 4's incredibly cinematic opening suffices as an example for the second form in which the word is embedded in such a way that it serves as a juxtaposition in its physical form rather than by meaning alone...
Of course if it were a film, GTA4 would be rated R so, I would recommend skipping to about the 0:20 mark to see what I'm talking about without having to see/hear the rather odd, possibly NSFW business going on in the very beginning.



I know I have seen a title sequence done in a similar way as the one in Grand Theft Auto 4 in at least a film or two, but I am really having trouble thinking up some decent examples. If you read this and know of some of your own, please say so in the comments!

"It's not premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married..."

After taking a week off from updating (thanks for caring), I suppose I should have a lot to talk about. But I don't. Hey I'm still alive! It may not seem like much of a surprise to you, but I'm honestly a little bit relieved.

Now if only they made one of these in a compact Jazz III size, I'd have just a litte more incentive to go on.

GFYS: A Self Portrait

Despite having a number of high priority tasks to complete within a short period of time, I — for some reason — found this necessary. It is titled: GFYS Time Management, A Self Portrait Created While Very Slightly Intoxicated on an Insignificant Sunday Afternoon.

Drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS5 using Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet

Random [no]fun fact: sometimes drawing on the computer requires moving your entire body to get the right angle.

On a side note, I have heard a lot of artists comment on how they feel about "ugliness" and "prettiness" of people in their art, saying that it is too easy to make draw pretty people so they choose to draw ugly or less attractive people because the believe it's more challenging. I would just like to say that I disagree entirely. I find ugly people to be so much easier to depict (in most cases for me: draw), however it may just be more tempting to draw pretty people because, of course, you want your art to look pretty. I personally like drawing ugly people and ugliness in general for fun, and it's mostly because it's so easy to do that I can just mess around, change and exaggerate things to my liking, making the image as well as the overall process so much more entertaining. But not at all challenging, really. I mean, let's stop kidding ourselves — in order to portray physical beauty one must meet a standard, whereas in ugliness there is no standard, it's anything that does not meet the aforementioned standard of beauty.
I do recognize that there is a slight challenge in creating something ugly as opposed to something pretty, but it is merely a psychological challenge because we are naturally driven to attempt to meet the beauty standard. But that is no more of a challenge than deciding to heat up a microwavable dinner as instead of cooking a meal from scratch — you know it would be so much more wholesome and delicious, but it takes more time, patience and expertise.

So next time you hear some imperious artist try to claim that they prefer to draw unattractive people or create things to look ugly because pretty is just too easy, make sure you tell them GFYS and be sure to send my regards.

Hello, Isadora [Comparison and Contrast]

Very often, I find myself being mesmerized by the glory of obscure works from before my time.The most recent instance happened while I was trying to find lyrics for a sub-psychotic no wave band called Arab on Radar and thanks to my totally irrelevant faulty transcription of the bizarre moaning vocal, I came across this picture of the early 20th century modernist dancer Isadora Duncan.

Portrait of Isadora Duncan c. 1906-1912

I'm a music nerd, so seeing this image I immediately thought of the Salem, Massachusetts hardcore punk band Converge's cover for their album Jane Doe.

Jane Doe cover art by Jacob Bannon

Luck would have it that both Converge and Isadora Duncan, while being so different in almost every fashion yet both deserving the title of iconic figures within their respective fields, have such similarly composed images that represent them — icons in and of themselves. I know nothing about Converge vocalist and visual designer Jacob Bannon's process in creating his image for Jane Doe, so I could not speak on his inspirations or what, if any, references he might have used. However it is necessary to point out that this image has become what I view as a modern icon for the entire school of art and music, within which Converge remains at the forefront.

Compositionally, both images are for the most part symmetrically balanced, with slight elements of variation so as to remain in a comfortingly natural realm.Discomforting in both images, however, is the position and expression of the figures. Both hold a stern, serious facial expression, with their chins slightly tilted upward. A lot of emphasis is put on this element, especially in the Bannon piece. This element gives off an air of divine scrutiny, almost as if we are not the viewer but instead the subject — we are the ones being watched. However, what sets the two images apart in this respect, is that Isadora's soft skin and face is clearly visible thus enabling us to see that her eyes are focused straight forward, while Jane Doe, with her rigid contrast, appears to be looking slightly downward, thus adding even more emphasis to the discomforting scrutiny under which the icon places the viewer.

As if this was at all necessary, here's a PV of Converge's "Fault and Fracture" off Jane Doe.
Just a heads up though, it is not meant for the faint of heart.

Formalities = Plague

I honestly don't remember where I got this…

No one is going to read this, I am sure, so I am just going to take a minute to vociferate my frustrations with format — rules. What I am referring to are the "life lessons," the laws of art and design with which we must comply in order to create a "successful" piece, and eventually become "successful" in the field. For all the time that I have spent in art/des. classes, I guess you could call me a career art student. Each time I come away from a class I feel not that I have learned something to help me with my form (aside from that which I learned on my own) but instead that I have become less appreciative of the discipline as it is governed by statutes within which I refuse to restrict my work. These are laws regarding use of color, compositional structure, subject matter, style, how we refer to what we see, and even how we see.

What am I doing here — with this blog? Analyzing things, putting my analysis into words, and making my words public. But to what avail? The form of analysis is one I am very familiar with, but I have never felt the need to put it into writing and share it with the world. It feels like nothing more than a pretentious gimmick. Oh but it's analysis, which automatically makes it too deep for gimmicks, right? That is exactly it, the gimmick in and of itself is the false image of depth conveyed by the mere idea of analysis.

I suppose the issue is not so much the existence of the laws themselves, or the unnecessary analysis of the forms in regards to such laws. But instead, it is an issue of who has the means —the knack— and who has the desire but lacks the means. Wielders of the knack can choose to whether or not they desire to use it, and if they do choose to use it then the next step is to polish it with some practice. Those who have the drive but lack the means, however, are condemned to analyze the work of those who do. They analyze it to the point that they develop postulates as to what defines "good" art or "good" design. They continue to analyze until they feel like they have derived laws to define what is good and what is bad. Then they either try to replicate it, or spend the rest of their lives writing about it.

Design as Conversation

Lifted from Chicago Tribune, photo by Petros Giannakouris

So I saw this program on KVIE recently, in which they discussed the architectural marvels of the parthenon that were discovered during its restoration. While I am not for the restoration of ancient constructions — as I feel they should rather be replicated in order to preserve the condition of the original while still enabling the indulgence of our awe and curiosity — I feel like such processes allow us to decipher the spectacle of archaic techniques. This speaks to the idea that we, as creators in contemporary society, are virtually having a perpetually evolving conversation with our predecessors. What I mean by this is that as time progresses, we make steady advancements in our technology and creative process to meet our insatiable desires and ceaselessly evolving tastes. As we advance, however, the processes and objects of our creation stray further and further away from their antecedents. It is not uncommon that our advancements deviate so much from the origin that the anterior process from which we developed such concepts and constructions become lost in history as relics of a forgotten design.

We forget our roots.

We continue on for quite some time without realizing this, because we are so focused on the our present desires, our consumer tastes. But every now and then some kid takes a walk down the street, staring down at the ground, notices a crack in the sidewalk and has the epiphany, "Oh crap! Remember the Parthenon — the temple constructed in Ancient Greece nearly 2,500 years ago, which resides on the Acropolis of Athens!?" And just like that…

We remember our roots.

Thus we find inspiration in what we feel we have advanced so far beyond and yet have become so disconnected from. We look back, and realize by analyzing the construction and design of these creations that our ancestors were no where near as barbaric and obtuse as we like to think as we go about *slapping numbers into our Excel spreadsheets, throw together websites in Dreamweaver, and play games on our iPhone. The Parthenon is merely one example of a vast number of the astonishing opera of our past, many of which we have yet to rediscover.

How is this a conversation?

The designers of our past speak — statements are made in their work and in their plans, and questions are asked. Another responds, expanding upon the topic, refining the words, answering questions and asking new ones. The proces continues as time goes by, generation to generation, some of which get shrouded and forgotten. Our forbearers speak, and sometimes we listen and respond.

Now is OUR turn to speak. How will the future respond?



If you're interested in more information on the program Secrets of the Parthenon, you can find it on the NOVA website.

*When I say "we," I am of course referring to society in general. I actually don't do any of these things, aside from maybe calling on Dreamweaver to help me out with it's interface though I still prefer to code by hand.

So… Murakami, huh?

Has anyone heard of "My Lonesome Cowboy"?

Yeah, Google images and get back to me. I'd put an image of it up here, but I'm pretty sure I'd get reprimanded. But that's Murakami. Not Murakami, the author, nor the silkscreen artist, but Takashi "Killer Pink" Murakami. Food for thought.

----
Update: I went and grabbed a cropped version of a photo taken of the sculture

Creativity From Without

Have you ever looked at a cluster of staples on a post board and thought about hatching? I'm guessing the answer is no. Well unless you happen to be the mastermind behind this:

Air Force One by Baptiste Debombourg

As the caption reveals, this is an installation by French artist Baptiste Debombourg. The piece is simply an enlarged rehash of a 16th century drawing by Hendrick Goltzius titled The Fall of Phaëton, except this time its one a wall fleshed out in nothing more than staples over the naked white wall. Debombourg also did a second slightly more elaborate piece on another wall featuring two intertwined figures using mangled nails rather than staples this time. On his portfolio site, Debombourg admits to not knowing the original draftsman of the stock drawing he used for the second piece. I'm not sure if this is because this information is generally unknown or if Debombourg himself is just not sure of the images origins. Nonetheless, his inability to cite his resources in precise detail is a negligible fault in comparison to what he managed to pull off in re-imagining the archaic images into a modern wastefully utilitarian concept. Here are some more images of the installation…

And this is what the original drawing by Goltzius…

Stoned Soup

Is "stone soup" really just a reference to a grassroots breed of collaborative productivity? Honest question. Because that is exactly what it sounds like to me. That being said, I have not seen one single film, heard a band's album, or walked into a building that could not be considered a stone soup. All movies are are massive (and in some incredible cases, small) collaborations of artists and engineers working with whatever materials accessible in order to create one unified piece. Ok, so a lot of films we see or hear about today happen to be backed by millions of dollars and are not exactly democratic in the nature of production, which would arguably conflict with the "grassroots" part of my definition of stone soup. So then shall we limit films worthy of the label to indie flicks? I suppose I can get on board with that.

Sam Bottoms as Gunner's Mate Lance Johnson, Apocalypse Now

But allow me to indulge, for a moment, the idea that all it takes to consider a work stone soup is that it must be a wide scale collaborative endeavor using whatever tools are available. In this sense I'd like to call attention to the film Apocalypse Now (1979) as a remarkable example of such an endeavor. I'm came to this conclusion after watching the documentary chronicling the near fatal trials and tribulations that plagued the production of the film — Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991). Before watching the documentary, I was still asking myself "What qualifies as 'stone soup' anyway?" However I barely made it past the introduction before deciding "This is it!" I mean, I'd labor over the precise definition of a whimsical term used metaphorically to describe a process with no purpose other than to promote inspiration and good old fashioned kindergarten style teamwork, but what's the use? Fauvism, Impressionism, Neo-post-abstract-expressionistic-brushed-steel-exhibitionism, whatever-ism. The lines are fuzzy any which way you look at it, so I'd prefer to just stick with my gut when it tells me "This is it!"

Francis Ford Coppolla, on the set of Apocalypse Now

So now that I've [probably not] made you curious: What makes Apocalypse Now worthy of the [not really] coveted title of stone soup? If you've already seen either, or preferably both, of the two previously mentioned titles, you're likely to see what I mean. The film's basic plot itself is an adaptation of a story published in 1902 called Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The story was rewritten and adapted into a contemporary setting as a movie, and the project was ultimately taken up by director Francis Ford Coppolla (dare I mention Mario Puzo's The Godfather? … I totally just did). But that doesn't make it very stone soupy yet, does it? No that's not a sincere question, so don't bother answering. I won't go into much excruciating detail, or any at all for that matter, but in order to go through with this project, Coppolla had to put up the entire film's budget out of his own pockets. In that sense, he was putting the small fortune he'd acquired for his work on the first two Godfathers on the line, risking bankruptcy for failure to either complete the project successfully or complete it at all — which he viewed as incredibly likely within months of shooting. The most interesting part about the film is that it partially acts as a Vietnam war exposé during the war, so in order to shoot the warlike scenery deep in the Vietnam-esque tropical climate, the crew went to the Philippines and actually worked with Philippino government and army to participate. The exotic tribesmen and some of the rituals they performed such as killing the bull were in fact real traditions that they'd presented to the filmmakers ceremoniously. These are a couple of the numerous unrehearsed contributions that went into the film and I won't go any further because it's just something you will have to see for yourself… if you haven't already.

I guess my "Followers" widget is out of commission

How sad. If you want to follow, there's a link up there though… at the top of your page… yeah, there on the left. No the other left. Hold your hands up with just your index fingers and thumbs extended. Which one makes an "L" shape? Yeah, that one. It's on that side.

I'm not a fan of faeries but...

Have you ever heard of that obscure movie released in the early '80s by the mastermind behind The Muppets (my main man Jim Henson) called The Dark Crystal? If not, then It's about time! … Ok, enough soapboxing. If you're honestly not familiar with the film, it is a dark (hence the name) fantasy featuring a host of non-human characters and creatures surrounded by lush scenery, all of which was handcrafted by talented set designers and artists including Henson himself. Of course computer graphics were as primitive as type on a black backdrop at the time, so James Cameron's Avatar-type 99% computerized atrocities were yet out of the question. Oh, I'm soapboxing again. My bad.

Anyway, whether the in-film scenery is handmade and organic, or entirely digital, a large part of the imagery's style and depth is the result of conceptual designers. And in the case of The Dark Crystal, this department is far from lacking. With faerie illustrator Brian Froud — who teamed up with Henson again later for another worthwhile endeavor, Labyrinth (1986) — in charge of conceptual design, costume design, as well as creature design, which amounts to just about everything visually in this particular film save for lighting and post production, the evidence of the spellbinding world of The Dark Crystal is found both on screen and on paper. A myriad of Froud's conceptual works for the production of this film have been archived and published in a hardcover book called The World of the Dark Crystal. I'd share more, but I have yet to get my hands on this book myself, but for now here's a little taste:

Concept illustration for The Dark Crystal by Brian Froud 

RGB/RGBa versus Hex?

I just made the discovery — while I was editing the layout for this blog as a matter of fact — that RGB values can be used in CSS instead of hexadecimal, and nearly shat myself. To clarify, hex values are noted using the format #xxxxxx, where x is a number 0-9 or a letter A-F, and each couplet of digits represent red, green, or blue. This is limiting in terms of versatility, and somewhat involves guesswork if you don't have access to a hex chart, and don't happen to be a mathematics savant. As far as RGB values are involved, however, you have the ability to adjust the value of each red, green, and blue from 0 to 255 in this format: rgb(x, x, x). For example (0, 0, 0) would show black, and (255, 255, 255) would show white, (255, 0, 0) red, (0, 255, 0) green, (0, 0, 255) blue, and so on.

Some RGB value swatches — lifted from google images

What got me excited about this discovery, however, wasn't so much the added versatility of being able to use up to 255 values for red green or blue, but it was the ability to manipulate the alpha effect. In other words, using the rgba(x, x, x, y) property, you can can adjust both the color and the opacity of whatever object you are modifying. In this format, the colors work the same as previously explained, whereas the "y" value here refers to a decimal between 0 and 1. For example the property rgba(125, 97, 186, .5) would yield a purple element at half opacity.

This is extremely useful in that it makes it very easy to create streamlined effects with a mere line of code. This has probably been around for a while and I totally must have skipped over it, but I am glad I made this discovery now.
I know, it's such a small thing to be excited about.

Divine Intervention

Photo shamelessly stolen from 山と旅、ときどきイヌ

Amidst the vivid realm of the Japanese countryside, the phenomena known as 鳥居 (torii, lit: "bird residence") are vastly common. However, at the wee age of 3-4, I was only aware of one — and it was nothing less than monolithic in my tiny little eyes. In case you are unaware of what I am referring to, torii are the tall bright red gate-like structures that look strikingly similar to the A in Northern Renaissance narcissistic painter Albrecht Dürer's distinct signature (consequence?). These gates, from my insubstantial repository of knowledge, are intended to represent entryways to a given Shinto shrine or temple… usually.

But none of this mattered to me during my visit to the monument located on the eastern edge of Japan's northernmost mainland prefecture, 蕪島 (kabushima, lit: turnip island, though it is known colloquially in english as "Seagull Island"). The area is perpetually swarming with seagulls, and while this is a matter of nature and thus not technically design, it certainly added to the experience by exaggerating my perception of this gate in this specific composition as colossal in both space and time. With the combination of the water splashing into the rocky oceanside, overcast sky, low lying fog, and the pervasion of the seemingly omnipresent seagulls, on this island, the nearly overwhelming elements of nature worked in perfect yet immensely melancholiac harmony with this manmade structure to spark an everlasting sense of aspiration into the psyche of one single insignificant human being.