Design Reviews

Archive for April, 2009

Dear readers, we recently moved office, I’m talking about my day job here. I had to get my desk ready for transportation, so I got the parcel tape and started taping up all the drawers. I’ve been at this job for two months but, while taping up, I found a very thin upper drawer, a little stationery drawer. As you can see below I had uncovered the melancholic stressed-out remains of my predecessor.

chewed pens

What does this picture make you think about? Is it a little wabi sabi?

chewed pens, alternative angle

Please leave a note in the comments! If anyone wants I can upload the 3MPx original images.

A week ago I looked at Wabi-sabi, the beauty in imperfection. That was all about objects, things created by manufacturers, craftsmen and artists. This time I’m looking at people, more specifically; some of the most beautiful faces of the 20th century!

It really is a case of letting the pictures do the talking. But before I insert all the pictures into the post I’d better explain to the less observant and well practiced in ‘spot the difference’ that each pair of photos has one difference. Some obviously asymmetric element, an ‘imperfection’ perhaps, of course it’s a beauty spot. You can actually get one for yourself here in the UK, with prices starting at £75!!!

In chronological order let’s look at the beauty spot lineup.

Marlene Dietrich in 'Destry Rides Again'

Anne Francis as 'Honey West'

Singer/songwriter Lynsey De Paul

Now you might be confused looking at these beautiful women whether the beauty spot makes any difference at all, so I’ve thrown in a wild card. This might help you decide whether beauty is enhanced by the mark or not.

Beastly is in the eye of the beholder

Now I really want to encourage readers to make imperfections within their design work, whatever that may be. But never go the easy way of making imperfect things straight off the bat, first you have to achieve something you believe to be perfect and THEN give it some Wabi Sabi Sauce! It’s a sacrifice isn’t it?

Finally, in corporate work where you might need to use a © or a ® you might be able to use it as a beauty spot, but probably not… The next blog post won’t be about wabi-sabi principles, but I am going to re-visit this subject and it’s application in day to day logo and illustration work soon.

Isn’t being perfect a bit weird? Well it is  for us humans, but for the things we covet and buy a lot of the stuff can possibly be ‘perfectly formed’. Shiny new iPod, shiny new BMW etc etc. That is until you get up to the very high end of things, oddly, where ‘hand made’,  ‘craft’ and ‘characterful’ become major selling points. Now words like rustic, antique and crafted replace flawless, pristine and precision made.

Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese aeasthetic which embraces objects of art with imperfections, roughness and asymmetry. It’s a kind of art I liked without even knowing there was a name for it, until now… More than once the Design Reviews blog has discussed eroded, aged, worn, haltoned and other ‘lo-fi’ effects in illustrator and vector graphics in general.

distressed, worn and reliced vs brand spanking new

Guitar enthusiasts have been buying into hand-made and artificially aged or ‘reliced’ guitars for quite a while now, look at the picture above. A relic will have quite a premium on the price tag! Just think of how many years you would have to own and play a guitar to make it look that used. Quote: “Fender’s Relic line accounts for more than 12% of its $5 million annual sales.” Another very popular market for aged and worn appearance is clothing; think of faded stonewashed jeans and distressed leather jackets. Of course don’t forget antiques either.

As I noted earlier the Wabi-Sabi idea can be put into your illustration and logo work quite easily now with the modern versions of illustrator which are less about pure lines and shapes than before. There’s a lot of vector tools that can cross over into areas that were once Photoshop only avenues.

I have a couple of other articles planned about Wabi-Sabi style graphics, beauty and design coming up which I think will be very interesting. And I hope to put up some polls for feedback too. Come back next week!