Aesthetic Exploration: Apple
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Aesthetic Exploration: Aesthetics of Apple Sleek, sexy, contemporary design is the cornerstone of Apple. From Macs to iphones, Apple has defined contemporary aesthetics for its products, making it the most valuable company in the world (www.finance.yahoo.com, “Can Apple Hold Its Place as World’s Most Valuable Company Again in 2017?” January 3, 2017). Once a fledgling…
Aesthetic Exploration: Holi
Holi: The Festival of Colors One of my favorite times of the year, Holi is an Indian festival that marks the beginning of Spring. You can probably tell why it’s called the festival of colors. On this day (usually in March, based on the Hindu calendar) the entire country of India is vibrant, energetic, and bathed…
Aesthetic Explorations: Muscle Cars
The design of muscle cars is as bold as it is iconic. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved the look and aesthetic of these beasts of the road. There is so much to love about them! A muscle car, with its sharp edges and low profile, turn heads as often as they turn…
Aesthetics Exploration: Tiny Homes
As someone who borders on the line of hoarder, I am mesmerized by the concept of tiny homes. Over the past decade, people have started to embrace the minimalistic lifestyle due to its low cost and environmental impact, as well as aesthetic appeal. Many tiny homes feature wood panelling and large windows giving them a seemingly open…
Aesthetic Exploration: Santiago Calatrava Architecture
Santiago Calatrava is one of the worlds most revered modern architects. He has bold iconic and polarizing designs that span the globe and draw mixed opinions from all of those who encounter these designs. When looking at the designs themselves distinct features flow through the years of Calatrava architecture. White natural flowing shapes are something…
Aesthetic Explorations: Cell Phone Design
Cell phones have become a ubiquitous part of modern life. Most people in the United States own one and they have become a crucial part of communicating and networking, as well as an important work resource. The first operational mobile telephone was produced by Motorola in 1973, though they did not start to become widely…
Aesthetic Explorations | Contemporary Archeticture
Contemporary Architecture which is also known as architecture from the 21st century, is both expressive dramatic and are modern works of art. The three architects that I am going to focus on are Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, and Frank Gehry. Santiago is probably best known for his work on the newly redesigned World Trade Center…
04 Critique and Aesthetics Tour 2
Today we talked about some posting details, and laid out the assignment for critiquing blog posts. Then on with the tour! Lecture in PDF: 04 Aesthetics Tour 2
Aesthetic Explorations: Baseball Gloves
The baseball glove is an item that has been around for hundreds of years. Gloves are a vital part of the game, and have been around almost as long as baseball itself. They have evolved, grown, and changed to fit different demands of the modern sport. The aesthetic of gloves has always been centered around…
Aesthetic Exploration: Mosaics
Aesthetic Exploration: Mosaics A mosaic is one big piece of art that is made up of a bunch of small pieces. Mosaics are used in both decorative art and interior design, and are often seen in churches and many museum’s in Europe. 1. Mosaics were first found in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC,…
Aesthetic Exploration: Robots!
Recently I watched the film Robots. While it is not a great film watching it at this point in my life I started to notice things that I never noticed when I was a kid, aesthetics. The movie was made by Fox in 2005 and while its boasts some big name actors; Amanda Bynes, Robbin…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Evolution of the Formula One Car
Formula One racing has been around since the early 1950’s and the evolution of the sport, due to the rules and regulations that the drivers and builders must adhere to, has caused the race cars design and performance to change from year to year while keeping one thing constant. That is, speed. These cars…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is a staple series when it comes to gaming. One of the most fascinating aspects of the games is that there is no real order to the games besides a rough timeline with no games taking place in the same time period of the Zelda universe (for the most part). The…
Aesthetics Exploration: Greek Sculptures
The is an aesthetic that comes from ancient Greece, this being Greek sculptures. The sculptures were focused around proportion, poise, and the idealized perfection of the human body. And even today, one can identify them from these distinct characteristics. This is an aesthetic for a certain era as well as a culture. Greek sculptures escaped…
Aesthetic Exploration: 4th Dimensional Objects
To create something in the 4th dimension is currently impossible. To even visualize it is incredibly difficult. But there is something very appealing to watching a 4 dimensional object rotate in 3 dimensions on our 2D screens. There are artists such as Salvador DalĂ who incorporated the concept 4D objects into their art. 4D objects are not…
Aesthetic Exploration: Clean and Minimal
I recently took an ATLAS course where we were tasked to write a Design Manifesto as our final paper. At first, I thought it would be easy to pin down my aesthetic; however, it proved to be more difficult than that. So, I began with a man named Dieter Rams. Dieter Rams is famous for his…
Asthetic Exploration: Traditional House Design
I was born in Annapolis, MD, and have lived there my whole life. My move to the University of Colorado was my first time moving to a different part of the country, and there were some differences that I almost instantly noticed. One of the main differences in they way people live her is in fact…
Aesthetic Explorations: Pop-Cult Minimalism of Olly Moss
The sub-genre of pop-cult minimalism can be most easily traced to the emergence of Pop Art in the 1950s in England and America. Notable figures such as Andy Warhol and Eduardo Paolozzi pioneered pop art by taking culturally relevant imagery—often of a commercial nature such as advertisements or product designs—and putting a critical spin on…
Aesthetic Exploration: Impossible Triangle
The impossible triangle, or Penrose Triangle is a shape that cannot be made by any 3 dimensional object in ordinary Euclidean Space. This style of artwork was first started by Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvard in 1934 and was later discovered independently by a psychiatrist Lionel Penrose and mathematician son in the 1950’s who famously described it as “Impossibility…
Aesthetics Exploration – Thai Tattoo Culture
The tattoo culture and unique aesthetic have a deep-rooted, religious history in Thailand. The practice of spiritual tattooing, as practiced by monks in Thailand, is a tradition that goes back to ancient times. Thailand is actually the only country to celebrate tattooing as an annual religious celebration. Each year, thousands of tattoo enthusiasts arrive…
Aesthetics Exploration: Geometry as an Aesthetic
Patterns with distinct edges and shapes have been implemented by humans for centuries to use geometry as a form of expression. Studies of Palaeolithic cave art have revealed that even the earliest humans were fascinated by geometric patterns. Some of the earliest documented artistic examples came from the Geometric Art Period (circa 900-700 B.C.) in Ancient Greece.…
Aesthetic Explorations: Theo Jansen and His Strandbeest
Theo Jansen, a dropout physicist become artist, has created his very own aesthetic. In 1980, Jansen began with 1500 combinations of 11 linkage sizes. Using a new technology at the time, a computer was utilized to dwindle the different configurations down to just one golden combination, the “eleven holy numbers”. These numbers allowed for the…
Aesthetic Explorations: Vaporwave
I took a look at vaporwave, a musical and visual retro/90’s aesthetic that is both a reflection and criticism of consumerism. The word vaporwave stems from the word vaporware: computer software that is announced but never released. Vaporwave started as an Internet-only style arising from artists like Ariel Pink and James Ferraro. Both Macintosh Plus and Blank…
Aesthetic Exploration: Rock Climbing
Climbing has been around for hundreds of years. Maybe it wasn’t always done for entertainment and pleasure but more for necessity. Climbing rocks were first recorded in Chinese paintings around 200 BC. It became necessary for exploration through tall mountains starting in the 19th century and because a leisure sport starting in the fifties in…
Aesthetic Exploration: Aesthetics of Time
“Time and tide wait for no man” says the famous proverb. While humans have managed to find a way to tame the tides and make electricity out of it, we are still chasing behind time.  Humanity has tried to manipulate time for a long time and has failed time and again. The concept of time…
Aesthetic Explorations: Fumito Ueda’s Video Games
As a video game lover, one game creator whose games I cherish is Fumito Ueda. Ueda is the Director, Lead Designer, and Lead Animator of a game studio called Team Ico which has developed games over the last 20 years. Fumito Ueda Ueda’s games revolve around a relationship between the player and a computer controlled…
Aesthetic Explorations: Retro-futurism
Although many of these visions seem almost comical now, the spirit in which they were created crystallizes the essence of how the future was described prior to the 1980s. There was a time in the past when the future was thought as a beautiful place of cooperation, peace, beauty and of course, convenience. But the…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Egyptian pyramids
As I am very interested in architecture, I thought a post about the Egyptian pyramids would be relevant as an ancient aesthetic. There are actually eight pyramids that are known in Egypt but three of them are the famous ones: Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. The reason why I chose this amazing architectural structures is because…
Aesthetic Exploration: Scandinavian Furniture
Scandinavian furniture is characterized by sleek, well-made, and minimalist design. The harsh weather conditions and large forestlands have influenced the designers to produce long lasting products that use wood as the main construction medium. The socialist political climate in Sweden has shaped a common design philosophy that everyone has the right to well designed objects…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Piano
For almost 300 years the piano has been an iconic musical instrument that is recognized by all. Today three types of pianos are commonly known: the grand, baby grand, and upright piano. When told to picture a piano, many can think of the unique harp shape that almost all grand and baby grand pianos have.…
Aesthetic Exploration: Molecular Gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is the study and science of the physical and chemical processes that occur during cooking. It is a modern style of cooking first used publicly by Nicholas Kurti and Herve This recently in 1988. Molecular gastronomy uses modern scientific techniques to obtain a world class style and aesthetics of cooking. It was also the…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Golden Ratio
The golden ratio is a ratio of 1 to 1.618 that seems to be abundantly demonstrated in nature. This is mathematically represented by the Fibonacci series, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 – each number being the sum of the two previous numbers. The ratio of one number to the next number approaches the…
Aesthetic Explorations: Ski Photography and Filming
Photographing something that is extremely bright is hard. Adding in a moving object makes it even more challenging. Ski photography has come a long way since its start, around the time of the camera. It can be inferred that ski photography didn’t really come about until the camera had become more portable. It was around 1931…
Aesthetic Explorations: Starr Kempf’s Kinetic Wind Sculptures
In my hometown neighborhood sits a house with a peculiar front yard. Enormous metal sculptures clutter the lawn: some swaying in the breeze like a wind vanes, while some lay on their sides too gargantuan to stand up. A man named Starr Kempf designed and created the steel kinetic wind sculptures, displaying them across the…
Aesthetic Exploration: Touch of Color
The aesthetic called a “touch of color” or “dash of color” has been used in still art, photography, and film for years. The aesthetic uses backdrops or settings that are substantially desaturated or even gray-scale with a single saturated element. It forces an instant response from audience to focus on the saturated element and uses the…
Aesthetic Explorations: Baroque Composers
The aesthetic I have chosen to explore is that of Baroque musical composition, a period of European musicianship lasting from 1600 to 1750. Â Well known within this period are composers such as Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), and George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) among…
Aesthetic Explorations: Lava Lamps
Lava lamps have been glowing in people’s homes ever since they were invented in 1960’s in the United Kingdom. The inventor, Edward Craven Walker, took particular interest in the way two contrasting liquids behaved together inside a container and strived to learn their properties. Several years later, he released the first lava lamp known as…
Aesthetic Explorations: Juggling by Preston Marcoux
*** Note most of the videos below are long, I would advise scrolling through them briefly to get a general sense of the juggling patterns displayed in the videos ** While in class, I was amazed by the extreme differences in aesthetics of the popularized dance seen around the world, compared to the far less popular swing…
Aesthetic Exploration: The Wild West in “Westworld”
The “Wild West” includes the time period ranging from pre-Revolutionary America to the early 1900’s, but is most commonly coined between the Civil War (1865) and about 1912. In movies and shows, the setting is the American Frontier, or Southwestern United States. Today, this would be Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, and Nevada. The…
Aesthetic Exploration- Art Deco Revival
Art Deco was an art movement that started in France during the 1920s. It influenced everything from jewelry to architecture. Art deco focused on repeating geometries, non-dimensional illustrations and liked incorporating things that had to do with the influx of modern era technology. Art Deco was a backlash against the WWI mindset of rationing and…
Explore an Aesthetic: Psychedelic / Technologically Advanced EDM Stages
Electronic dance music stages have significantly evolved in design over the last several years from simple lighting setups, akin to what one would see in a standard theater production, to highly technologically advanced productions involving many moving lights and other elements on the stage. The effect is that the light shows displayed from psychedelically designed stages create a deeply…
Aesthetic Exploration- Psychedelic Poster Art & the Counter Culture
The 1960’s were a time of change and drastic social movements in the United States. The 60’s led to a sort of rebirth of America, one with more freedom in many aspects. This desire for cultural change led to new developments and techniques in music and art, among many other things. These movements were pro-peace and…
Aesthetics Explorations: Camera
While brainstorming for an interesting aesthetic exploration topic, I began to realize that the very thing we use to capture the aesthetics in our everyday lives is an aesthetic in itself. While most people will immediately picture the black, square DSLR cameras owned by almost every household, cameras have progressed greatly over the years. The earliest…
Aesthetics Explorations: The Hofmeister Kink
The Hofmeister Kink A Simple Twist https://charlesng.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/bmw-hofmeister-kink1.jpg The Hofmeister Kink is a design feature named after BMW’s chief designer Wilhelm Hofmeister during 1955 and 1970, where there is a “kink” on a car’s C-pillar or D-pillar. Wilhelm Hofmeister http://www.bmwism.com/designers/wilhelm_hofmeister.jpg The Hofmeister Kink has been on almost all BMW cars since 1960, with very few exceptions of some…
Aesthetics Exploration: Park Guell, Barcelona, Spain
Park Guell lies on the northern face of Carmel Hill in Barcelona Spain and overlooks the city as well as the Mediterranean Sea. (On top of Carmel Hill in Park Guell – Photo Taken by me) (Inside the colored-tiles in Park Guell overlooking the city – Photo by Traveldigg c) The development of this park was…
Aesthetic Exploration: Camouflage
The history of camouflage art is based in survival, but it has since evolved to mean many things. Up until around WWI many armies and navies were dressed in the bright uniforms of their profession. This included items such as red jackets and white gloves [1]. Â Fighting in this period of history was undergoing a…
03 Aesthetics Tour 1, and Upcycling
Today we reviewed definitions of art and aesthetics, and started looking at examples. We also spent a little time towards the end of the hour on what is upcycling. Lecture in pdf format 03 Aesthetics tour, Upcycling Lecture in OneNote format
Aesthetic Explorations: The Utility of Maps
I am a strong believer that everything I own must have a purpose. This purpose could be physical or abstract, but should have enough of an impact for me to NOT throw it away each time I move. If it does not have a function, do I need it? If a stranger were to walk…
Aesthetic Explorations: The Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a famous aesthetic that sits in the San Francisco Bay, connecting the city of San Francisco to Marin County. This aesthetic is actually characterized as one of the Wonders of the Modern World. A birds eye view of the Golden Gate Bridge It was finished…
02 Definition of Aesthetics
Plus Hertzberg’s Theory of Art: a vision instantiated. Lecture notes in pdf format: 02 Definition of Aesthetics
01 First Class 2017: Fresh again
Design, art, engineering: all iterative processes. This will be the third offering of the Aesthetics of Design course. The class is full, the students are eager, and I’m stoked to do this again: learning and presenting new content, expanding and honing what I already have, greeting students from previous courses and meeting new ones. Looking…
Laser cut automaton
I wish I could give better attribution for this than a tumblr post! Can anyone read the artist’s name?
Is the Aesthetics of Design course right for you?
This is the letter I’ve been sending to students, both enrolled and waitlisted. The idea is to clarify expectations. Thanks for signing up for the Aesthetics in Design course. I’m writing to give you a bit more information about the course, and get you thinking about your design project for the course. An updated flyer…
Drones play James Bond theme
https://www.facebook.com/kunsht/videos/271407379864562/
Tyler, Sam, and Sophia’s Aesthetics of Design Game
For Our team’s aesthetic of design game categories were the modern style aesthetic and LAMPS. The essence of modern style is to use angular, geometric shapes with swooping curves, and simplicity. We know that there are other possible definition, but these were the key aspects of the design that we were trying to capture. The…
Erick Pena final report (Part 1 and 2) Bluetooth speakers
Final Product Starting out with the cost of the project as seen in Table 1, the total price to complete this project came out to be a little over $160 dollar. My budget that I set out for this project was $150 dollar, but one thing to take into consideration is that I did not…
Spider Toy: April 13th Update
I have made a lot of progress this week by building the wind up toy’s skeleton, but there is still a lot more to do before the ITLL Design Expo (4/23/2016)! First I began the week by going to the ITLL machine shop to start the fabrication process of my wind up spider toy and…
Spider Toy: Wednesday Update March 30th – Industrial Aesthetics
Just got back from spring break, and the project is coming along slowly. I went to McGuckins Hardware Store to collect several “solar powered hobby cars” to collect small plastic gears and metal parts to build a prototype of my design, and then salvage the parts for the final design. Â I also bought spring steel…
Reflections and Plans for the Living Room 3D Printer
Aesthetics Project Reflections As previously mentioned, this project really started out as an aesthetics challenge: how can I make something that inherently has many wires, motors, rods, and fasteners look like it belongs in a living room? This was the first project that I’ve ever done which focused more on aesthetics than pure functionality, and…
The “Electric” Hourglass: Final Report pt.2
Why and What’s Next? Much of my intention for this class was to construct pieces which were art in themselves. While, the electric hourglass does not function to serve any purpose other than visual art, I believe it conjures an interesting aesthetic space. The design is far-fetched in nature but provides depth for further contemplation.…
Spider Toy: Wednesday March 16th Update – Fabrication Timeline
The wind-up spider toy is off to a rocky start! There have been a few issues related to collecting my materials through online distributors, because some particular crucial components for building sets of 125 plastic gears only cost $13.oo but two months to ship from China. These gears would not arrive at my apartment until…
The “Electric” Hourglass: Final Report pt.1
Introduction The intent of the “electric hourglass” is to create a new perspective on the age-old timepiece. Its initial concept was to construct a wood stand and hourglass section in which a lighting display would imitate the movement of sand. However, this scope was narrowed by the capability of available lighting options.  More idea were developed while thinking upon…
Fabrication Timeline
For my design, I will need to fabricate both a wood structure for my hourglass and a light installation to go inside. As of now, I am not settled on the details of my light installation so I will focus on fabricating the wood base. Taking inspiration from traditional hourglass forms, I want the wood…
Nixie Clock | Case Update
Boom! A block of the finest Silver Maple- so fresh, it’s still kind of damp, and has wax sealed sides! This was an unexpected extra step; I definitely wasn’t planning on having to spend time drying out (“seasoning”) my wood. This block was purchased from an exotic woods dealer online. I picked this silver…
Nixie Clock | Electronics Update
Progress! After receiving all the parts, I spent 6 hours straight soldering. The board arrived blank, with a bag of components- all it took was some caffeine, and one late night! https://www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IMG_2523.mp4 I’m really excited with how these turned out! While I was debating on a case at first, I’m really glad I decided to…
Nixie Clock | April 6th Budget Update
The Nixie clock is humming along! I received my block of wood, but wasn’t able to make a lot of progress this week on the physical case- I hit an unexpected road block. It turns out, when you order exotic wood, it comes “partly seasoned”- aka, still wet! This block has wax sealed…
20th Century Design Influences
My project is heavily inspired by 20th Century Design Influences. I really wanted to mimic this modern look: Straight sides, sharp corners, constant finish- this is the goal of my nixie clock. I was very inspired by a lot of furniture from this era. This is another piece I really like: Simple…
Pre-Spring Break Aesthetics Game
Dang! Didn’t see this up, so I wanted to add it to the Aesthetics Game section. Ashley Zimmer, Dennis Can, Yusen Ji, and I had “Post Modern” and “Office trash receptacle. These are the two designs we came up with! The right-side-up one is a curvey, three-piece set that nests together, and is made…
