There is one thing that everyone does, that has been wasting natural resources for decades. Its the title of a world wide sensational book, and often one of the first words for a child, yet we simply ignore it. But Everyone Poops.
We often face giggles and smirks when this subject comes up but it is a real issue that is just now being dealt with. The toilet has seen a multitude of aesthetic changes over the years but we failed to be concerned with the water consumption these tools truly are. A few years ago no one cared that with every flush on average, sent six gallons of water into waste treatment plant. Now most of us see this is a huge waste, especially considering that people go #1 about four times as much as they go #2. Thats flushing liquid with force meant to flush solids.
Luckily we have realized our carelessness and are quickly trying to mediate the situation. I think I first heard mention of a dual flush toilet about ten years ago. I thought,"wow that makes sense!" but quickly realized that they were much more expensive than a conventional toilet and simply out of reach to the majority of people. Then I considered how often people replace their toilets, maybe once or twice. These are sturdy pillars of our homes that don't care much for the latest trend. That is until now!
The dual flush system is now available to the average consumer. Its the brand new One2Flush , dual flush conversion kit. This package sells for about $30 in most major home improvement stores. Taking the water hog conventional tank from old and wasteful to new and efficient. The instillation is super simple, anyone can do it in less than an hour.
This revolution in flush technology is actively making our society better. They have taken the simple act of flushing the toilet and made it have an impact. Each dual flush system saves the homeowner money on their water bill which has an economic impact on the household as well as the greater economy because they now have extra money to use in other area. The environmental impact is even greater. Water is the most limited resource we have on this planet. It is why we are unique and can sustain life. The dual flush system can save millions of gallons of water from literally being flushed away. This movement is also in its infancy, the real impact will be clear when every toilet in the world is a dual flush.
Design at its greatest takes an everyday tool and transforms it so dramatically and affectively that it becomes difficult to comprehend why we stuck with the old way for so long. The One2 products are going to revolutionize the way we use water on a daily basis and that is exactly what we need design to to in our current society.
With the current trend towards digital books and touch screen devices is it a surprise that one of the major bookstore chains in the country is trying to get its slice of the pie? Barnes and Noble was quick to jump on the digital book craze with its original nook. This competed with the ever popular Kindle. But this wasn't enough, they were living in a black and white world, simple text just doesn't cut it these days.
The average consumer wants a device that is small, attractive, efficient, and can do everything! The iPad easily filled that slot. It is bright, new, touch-screen, and can do just about anything you can think of. The mass versatility leaves a small window for the new NookColor! This little powerhouse can do a whole lot more than its predecessor and what makes it stand out even more is its vivid color!
From the Barnes and Noble nook home page
This is a perfect example of what color can do. Before, digital readers were for adults that wanted a lighter way of taking their novels and heavy books with them on the road. With color the Nook is opened up to a variety of users. One that thrives on color is children's books. Less text means more illustrations which are dynamic and exquisite, enticing kids to fall into the story and see the world around them. The Nook Color also has a great "read to me" function. So young beginning readers can sit with their favorite books and follow along as they hear the words. Now the new features are not just for the kids. The Nook Color also addresses a concern of those who use reading glasses. The font size is adjustable! Built in Wi-Fi allows for automatic newspaper download in the morning and quick access to new books. This way you finish one and scroll right into another. Color is the transformative power for the Nook. It brought this device into another realm of existence.
It is an innate concern of parents to want to provide a safe home for their children. Infants are incapable of protecting themselves. In the past the mother carried the infant with her, keeping it close for safety. But in our modern world we encourage infants to sleep on there own, often down the hallway in a room of their own. There are plenty of studies that show that starting an infant on an independent sleeping schedule will make transitioning and separation from the parent much easier but it provides us with another obstacle for protection.
This separate room must be strategically designed to provide comfort and tranquility at night while being inspirational and bright during the daytime, both for the infant and the parent. However, what is most important is SAFETY!! Parents take into consideration many details when designing their children's room. They decide on a paint color and shop for the best furniture they can get. When purchasing these items most parents assume that items designed for use in children's rooms are safe, have been well tested and will perform properly. This leaves the consumer with mostly aesthetic concerns when making their choice.
The false sense of safety and quality of children's product has proven to be deadly. Lets take a look at the main item of any infant/toddler room; the crib.
Looks pretty innocent right? Simple, sturdy, and something that could fit into any décor. The wood comes in a variety of stains for further customization. It is on wheels so that changing locations of the crib is simple, requiring only one person rather than two or three. Like many other cribs the mattress support system is adjustable so as the child grows and is able to stand in the crib, the bed can be lowered to eliminate the ability of crawling over the side. All of these things are positive design elements, the consumer sees a safe addition to their child's room. However, behind this pleasant design lurks the danger of death. The front side of this crib is designed to lower. You lift with one hand, push in the bottom with your knee and the side drops about six inches. This allows for easier access to the crib and placing the baby on the mattress is actually possible for someone right around five feet tall. This characteristic of this crib is what has made it so popular. The drop front crib design is carried by many manufacturers carry it. But this design has a tragic manufacturing flaw. The plastic guide and brace at the bottom of the front side malfunction. They break and allow the bottom of the side to be pushed away from the mattress. This creates a deadly gap, an infant can fall into this area, and be trapped, suffocating, being strangled, falling to the floor. Thousands of reports of injuries and sadly a significant number of deaths have been caused by this defect. This news report tells the story of a little boy who lost his life to this deadly design.
The solution to this tragic flaw is recalls. It is responsibility of the manufacturer to take responsibility for any failures their products have made. But it is the job of the designer, to test their designs, anticipating the failures before they are put out on the market. Designers should not simply send specs to a manufacturer for mass production without having that model tested rigorously. This may be difficult and demanding requirement for the designers but it is necessary to prevent horrific injuries to consumers. The malfunction of the plastic brace on so many cribs is something that should have been anticipated. The wear of a crib can be duplicated, thus the issue would have been discovered. I don't think it is too much to ask of designers, to take control of their designs. They have a moral obligation to those that they design for, an obligation to make their world a better place, not one that risks lives.
It seems that I have become obsessed with seats. I am continually fascinated with how designers are working to make those overlooked boxes we have been torturing our bodies with, into pieces of furniture that fit our lives. We are all aware that the human body is unique, we are not cookie cutter people which makes designing on an industrial scale rather difficult. However, it is possible, if studied properly the body is not so hard to accommodate. The HON Company has been providing the masses with comfortable office furniture that fits their needs and is comfortable but this simply wasn’t enough. They have decided to go even further. With the help of Wolfgang Deisig they have created Ceres, a chair comprised of the necessary functions of sitting.
NeoCon East in Baltimore MD will be the first public appearance of Ceres after its lengthy development behind closed doors. The first step in designing this chair was not a chair at all. Deisig studied the movement of the human body to better understand what it needed, no matter what the position. Reclining, weight shifting, and sitting straight up, all taking into consideration. Length of sitting was also a key ingredient. The average office worker spends about 8hrs in their chair a day. The entire chair is “genuinely purposeful” creating the perfect balance of form and function.
Even though function was the driving force, form followed beautifully. Ceres has even been honored with the Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) Indoor Advantage Gold certification for indoor air quality. This means the materials used don’t off-gas. It also earned the SCS level 2 certification for sustainability; of the product, materials used, energy cost, atmospheric affects, ecosystem health and social responsibility. For an office chair these are great achievements. One unique product used is the ilira-stretch M4 material. It is a knit mesh that stretches in four directions so that it is always responding to movement. As if this wasn’t enough, this magic fabric comes in some great colors that work well with just about every office. Customers also benefit from the HON history, the chairs are available with any of the upholstery lines offered by HON. The frame resembles those of other chairs but it is the perfect tough of utilitarian familiarity that this needs. The five prong foot with casters is a time tested, safe and reliable addition to the office chair. This only enhances the uniqueness of the seat it supports.
The usability is also magnificent. An intuitive chair, is that possible? Ceres has fit the bill. Continuous, full back support was the goal and that is exactly what is provided. No matter how you like to sit the chair is there to support you. The curves take into consideration how the body is aligned during all changes of pivot points, from shoulders to hips. Customization is possible as with many other office chair but this is different. Tilt tension is controlled by a simple slide bar at the side of the seat. The reclined position is also a favorite innovation with Ceres, other chairs create a gap between the chair back and the lower back of the user during reclining, but that is not true of Ceres. There was of course a target audience for this chair but users from the 5th to the 95th percentiles were satisfied and felt the chair met their needs. This is a sign of a good design. It also exceeds standard weight accommodations, it was tested and approved for up to 300lbs for a 40hr work week. This is considerably higher than regulations.
Sorry this is not the best image, I had to take a picture of a magazine add to get a full image of the chair.
Aesthetically speaking this chair is still a chair, but it is something beautiful. The versatility in color and options in upholstery add to the visual appeal. So many mass produced products loose their individuality first, it costs more to have more options. But HON chooses to give users what they want. Something that works well with their body during the long work day, and denies the hum drum condition so many cubicles suffer from.
The advertising tagline for the Ceres is “Purposely Innovative. Incidentally Beautiful.” This should be the tagline for everything. So many have said that design should be something that shouldn’t be recognizable design. It should work so well and be so pleasing to look at, that no one stop to question why it is the way it is.
My niece one of the best things that happened to me in my entire life. I was her nanny for the first full year of her life so she is very much like my own child. I know everyone says this about the children they know, but honestly, she is spectacularly intelligent, funny, sweet, and beautiful! At 18 months she knew her entire alphabet (including the “sing with me” section), how to could to ten, and had about 250 words in her vocabulary. Now she is moving on to full simple sentences, and three syllable words! For those of you that don’t know, those are things normal 2 and 3, year old kids should be doing.
So what books should this bright diva in training be reading? It is our never ending search these days. I hope we have found the right fit in the wonderful short stories, “Fancy Nancy” by Jane O'conner and Robin Preiss Glasser. These books follow a fabulous little girl through her days and attempts to make the world “fancy”. From dressing up her family with feather boas and glitter shoes for a trip out for ice cream, to having a tea party with her best friend. I am a huge fan of these books! But, her comes the downfall. The balance of word and image is off. The illustrations are amazing! Pinks, purples, glitter, and metallic embellish everything. The detail is fantastic as well, in the background things like a coat-stand with labels of fancy and non-fancy items, really set the mood for the book. The text is lacking any pizzazz and literary weight. Every story is centered on Nancy making something or doing something “fancy” but she falters at least once as well. In the trip to the ice cream shop, as she carries the tray of sundaes back to the table she trips and falls, throwing ice cream all over the floor, herself, and neighboring people. The story simply says she was embarrassed and asks to leave. If feels as though there are a few pages missing here. There is no real resolution to the mishap; they just go home, she gets cleaned up and they have ice cream at home.
“Fancy Nancy” may be the one of the cutest books I have come across in a long time, but it is definitely not the best. Its as if publishers consider children’s books as lesser literature. After all, they are just kids, what do they know? This is upsetting because literature has become such a lost art form. Now should be the time that we make youth fall in love with the written word. If a short story is unable to be complete to an adult, why should we ask a child to learn this?
Comic books are one of many forms of word and image combination. i think they can be some of the most effective conveyers of meaning. Yes, comic books have gotten a bad rap with the trend some artists choose to follow but denying the cliche, comic books are genius! When executed well and thoughtfully comic books may be the key to all teachings. Different styles are welcomed and encouraged but the quality of communication must be demanded. Yet, we live in a world of confusing jumbled messages that take to long to understand or give us conflicting messages. With such a simple format to follow, why do we have anything else?
The answer to this is that we get bored, we want something new and different at every turn. This is true throughout history. the trend of trends is the only lasting trend. Modern society has created the need for new! There will always be some craze for people to jump on board with, yet those on board are half a step away from jumping to the next boat!
History is where I look for answers. We have all heard that history repeats itself so its logical for answers to be found in the past. Yet this unwillingness to balance word and image is a constant in history as well. In art history we are taught to interpret images that have no accompanying words. Sometimes there are a few but often there is only vague historical context. The clues to the interpretation are in the image. This eventually leads to more confusion and utter uncertainty of the true meaning of a given image. Perhaps this was because the concept of combining word and image was not yet thought of.
So let us return to the present where we have the resources to convey clear messages with out art. Instead of embracing the comic book concept we condemn it, as "low" art. This injustice may be the worst. We have essentially cut of our nose to spite our face.
I am continually appalled at the injustices that have scared our world communities past. Centuries of discrimination, war, judgment, ignorance and pure evil running rampid. I am sure right now every single one of us can list at least ten instances where we personally felt that we were treated with unjust behavior. Being free citizen has allowed me to avoid many injustices throughout my life yet in my short life I have been confronted with horrific realities of our world.
On a global scale we can look at history and learn of unbelievable tragedies being committed. One of the most common is racism and genocide. One of the most famous instances of this was crimes committed by the Nazi party surrounding WWII. The deaths and crimes are well known yet further injustice occurred to the creative lives of the victims.
It may seem trivial to address the artistic expression of the victims but I feel that this was a significant loss and a deep wound to world creative expression. From a historical analysis viewpoint, one of the first aspects of a civilization examined is the artistic works. Every culture has a unique style that gives clues to possible influences, traditions , and with further research new symbolism is revealed. That is why the art lost during the Nazi reign is seen a huge loss. Works that were deemed unfit for public view were thought to have been destroyed and lost forever.
But, hope is a gleaming light today. In an article in Associated Press by Mary Lane, reports of newly discovered sculptures that were thought to have been destroyed during WWII. During excavations for new construction near the city hall of Berlin a handful of sculptures were discovered. They were part of a collection of 15,000 works that were considered "deviant". The building that once stood in this spot burned down many years ago, from the top down, taking its contends down floor by floor until what survived lay where it was found in the building basement. It is unknown if other canvas and more flammable works were also in the building before it burned. If so those are lost forever.
The pieces that were able to be put on display are now showing in Berlin's Neues Museum for all that want to come and appreciate. This is a rare opportunity for injustice to be made right. These pieces survived and now live on to tell the story of the time, the artists and the people that surrounded their creation
