Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Matchstick Men and You

figures for design workshop exercise
weight-shifting of matchstick figures

A good group of designers has signed up for Figures for Design this month! My challenge is to identify and preserve each person's stroke style and give guidelines for proportion and level of detail. Everyone possesses a stroke style, whether they identify as being able to draw or not. Like other behaviors, stroke style can be discerned and incrementally modified. Above is one phase past paperclip people on the workshop's path toward identifiable figures that communicate ideas without drawing attention away from the design itself. 

Monday, March 13, 2017

Gullible Travelers

from bluff overlooking top of Alamere Falls, Point Reyes NP

Sunday. I persuaded a friend to do a 7.5 mile hike in Marin. I wanted so badly to get out after the rains and try these Daniel Smith pigment sticks that I mis-read the distance to Alamere Falls: yes, 7.5 miles --one way. I also failed to register the meaning 
of a dirt road lined with cars on the satellite picture. There would be crowds. 
We ended up picking over muddy trails, single-file with every other politically-traumatized and rain-fatigued local. More than enough hours had passed, yet we had no sense of being anywhere near the shore. I consulted the map and realized my error: we'd be taking our wintersoft bodies twice as far as anticipated. Deal! Doubling-down is in these days. As we neared what just had to be the descent to the falls, some of the earlier-risers were heading back, toward us. Our file stood aside and asked, How far to the falls? 
It's closed, a big dude answered. For a tired nanosecond, we long-marchers believed him! After all, for the past 4 months, we'd been sheltering indoors, hearing bad-upon-bad news. It's a National Park; could they...?? The landscape colors and the sounds of the Pacific beyond pounded sense into us. We chuckled sheepishly and marched on.