design is dangerous

Paper or plastic?

It’s the choice we’re faced with whenever we go to a grocery store. We must choose between the recyclable, stiff, paper bags with the handles that are easily ripped off. The brown ones which cut into the edges of your hands and break open and spill their contents when you have a wet object in it. Or the lightweight, flexible, plastic bags that can easily be rolled up and shoved into small places?

            Most of us would rather choose the second option— the convenient plastic bag. The plastic bag is a much more convenient option because of its flexibility and water resistance. The design of the plastic bag is so simple and practical that it becomes the choice of many consumers each year. But, this convenience is destroying the planet and threatening the oceans.

            In 2002, over 5 trillion plastic bags were produced, and it all ends up in our landfills, or blowing away until it makes the end of its journey in the middle of the ocean with all the other trillions of plastic bangs each year. It is met with toothbrushes, bottle caps, tires, netting, rope and other disposable items in this gigantic swirling mass of human waste called the Pacific Trash Vortex.

            Thankfully, many people have caught onto this trend and have started designing reusable grocery bags. While it is a bit more of a hassle, shoppers must realize how much they are impacting the planet. The design of the plastic bag is dangerous to our futures. Consumers need to learn to pick the sustainable option instead of the more convenient option.

design in society

Look around a public place and I guarantee you that you will see a box hanging from the ceiling that contains glowing red or green letters that read E-X-I-T. What is it? It’s an exit sign. This simple design can save lives. It points people in the correct direction to the nearest emergency exit, which is why so many fire, building, health and safety codes require such a simple sign. All around the globe, all public buildings contain this basic sign which con sometimes include a little man running out the door.

This is a universal symbol for emergency exit. Can you imagine a world without a heavily regulated design? The emergency exit symbol could be hidden on the floor in some fancy, tiny lettering you can barely read that blends in with the décor of the building. Then a fire occurs and people are frantically looking around for the nearest exit. Foreigners have no idea what to look for, and you might be having just as much trouble locating the obscured sign. With the universal glowing symbol located on the ceiling, it is much easier to spot. This is because the design is so simple, it is universally understood that it is the sign that points to an exit and cannot be mistaken for anything else. It is also a blaring, unavoidable design that can be seen by everyone who looks up. Our society depends on the consistency of these designs to save lives and get as many people directed to the doors in emergency situations.

color transforms

            London is famous for its bright red double decker buses. They are tourist attractions and many visitors enjoy sitting on the top level of a double decker bus and taking pictures of the city.

            The double decker buses in London are painted a rich, vibrant red. Its bold color choice is what makes the buses stand out so much and its what makes the buses so iconic.

            The bus contains many little details such as a white stripe that lines the bus as well as the dark windows. The warm hue of the bus makes the bus warm and inviting, instead of loud and overbearing. But nonetheless, the red is still a bold color choice.

            Today, many different countries use the double decker buses, it’s not just London anymore, but London is the place most famous for using them because of the bold color combination. In Germany, the buses are a bright yellow, and in other countries they are painted with fancy designs along the sides. Recently, the buses have started to gain some popularity because it’s more efficient to use a bus that’s twice as tall rather than bring out an entirely different bus to transport passengers on a busy bus line. That is one of the huge advantages of double decker buses. It's amazing how after all these years, the red still looks fresh and modern, yet the details of the bus keep it looking classic.

Check It Out

          Will.i.am and Nicki Minaj recently released a video for their song Check it out. Their music video contains a neutral background throughout the entire video, while brightly colored Korean words pop out from behind them as they are singing. This video attempts to imitate k pop videos, but does a poorly made, cheap, and offensive rendition of it which ends up mocking kpop videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqky5B179nM

            K pop videos usually feature lots of clean in-sync dancing similar to that of boy bands in the 90s. Check it Out makes a mockery of the background dancers by simply applying a cheap video mirroring trick to will.i.am’s dancing to attempt to get the same effect. Also, kpop videos feature dancing that is very precise, clean, and consistent. This video makes a poor attempt to imitate that.

Koreans and other Asians are often mocked for wearing shirts with words they do not understand. This video makes a mockery of that with the bright flashy Korean letters in the background that most Americans cannot read.

The part that especially bothers me is when Nicki Minaj contorts her face at 0:40 seconds. In the many Korean music videos I have watched, none of the kpop stars have done that. If anything, they try to make themselves look cute and adorable, not horrible with contorted faces. I also do not understand her excessive blinking, her make up to make her eyes look slanty and her attempt to act air-headed and silly. And what’s with the robotic Asian audience?

Of course my opinion is extremely biased because I found her last video Your Love extremely offensive (as well as this one). She needs to learn to respect the Asian culture instead of mocking them. So far she’s ridiculed the Japanese and Korean culture. Which culture is next on her list? Turns out, I'm not the only one offended. My roommates (who are huge fans of kpop) were offended too, as well as these other bloggers and their commenters:

http://blog.angryasianman.com/2010/10/wtf-music-video-check-it-out-by-william.html

http://www.racialicious.com/2010/11/01/the-orientalism-of-nicki-minaj/

Minaj also refers to herself as a "harajuku barbie". Not only is this offensive, but it shows her ignorance of what harajuku actually is. Harajuku is NOT wearing a slutty kimono or skanky versions of historical clothing.

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/06/the-problems-problem.html
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2010/08/nicki-minaj-harajuku-barbie
(all the pictures are screen shots from the music video on youtube)

Ergonomics

In an Earlier blogpost, I wrote about the maltron keyboard. I wrote about how it is aesthetically unappealing, but extremely ergonomically friendly. I would like to talk about that some more.

Maltron keyboard

First of all, let’s compare this to other keyboards. Other keyboards use the QWERTY keyboard, which is named because of the order of the keys on the keyboard. Maltron is named after its inventor, Lilian Malt, a keyboard training consultant who wanted a more efficient keyboard. Malt paired with electronics engineer Stephen Hobday who crated an algorithm that calculated how often each letter is typed in the English language. From there, they placed the most often used keys within the home row. 91% of the keys that are typed are within the home row on a maltron keyboard, compared to just 51% on the QWERTY.

ergonomic keyboard

Within a typical day, a typists’ hands move 20 miles, which puts a lot of strain on their hands. The normal keyboard can cause carpal tunnel and a multiple of strain problems, including carpal tunnel and wrist strain. To correct this problem, other companies have developed an ergonomic keyboard that tilts the hands towards each other to reduce the amount your wrists have to twist. Maltron keyboards take it a step further and make it ergonomically friendly not only for the wrists, but for the fingers too by curving the finger area.  The keys curve downwards which is friendlier to your hands because your hands are not designed to stay flat. According to the website, it’s to account for the different lengths of each of your fingers “to reduce movement and tension”. Professional typists claim that they experience no pain whatsoever using a Maltron keyboard, while a normal keyboard or even ergonomic keyboards made typing excruciating.

The Maltron keyboard  improves productivity greatly according to users. Typists claim they can type conversations in real time accurately with the keyboard, with some even claiming the ability to type over 200 words per minute. Typing is apparently much more accurate because your fingers don’t have to move to the side as much, so it reduces the likelihood that your finger will miss. Can you imagine how quick writing blogposts could be? You could be done in under 10 minutes.

According to users, there’s a steep learning curve. It takes about a month to get used to the maltron keyboard, and if the person uses a QWERTY keyboard at any time, it severely hinders the learning curve. This is what makes people so hesitant to switch over. It also makes switching back to a QWERTY keyboard difficult. It’s often very frustrating for the person to go from typing relatively quickly to hunting and pecking. But after that month, you will be typing faster than ever.

regular keyboard

Aesthetically, this is not the best keyboard. Not even close. The keyboard looks old and needs a serious makeover. It’s big and bulky and made of plastic that keyboards were made of in the mid 90s.

            If this keyboard is so great, why aren’t we all using it? It’s because the keyboard is five hundred dollars and the price is off-putting to potential customers (like myself). But apparently it's a great investment because they last for decades.

http://www.maltron.com/component/content/article/16.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954633,00.html

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4086/

Food styling

Menus in restaurants often feature pictures of delicious food. Well food stylists who design food take these photos and their goal is to make it visually appealing. After all, who wants to order a burger that has a picture of overcooked, old-looking meat with a soggy bun and limp lettuce that doesn’t have a lot of filling? Not me.

From the movie Buy Me That!

That’s why food stylists are here. They make sure they choose the best bun (even if it involves gluing on sesame seeds and painting it with plastic to make it shiny). Then they use a blowtorch to add grill marks to the burger and use toothpicks to prop up the bun and make it seem like it has more fillings than it actually does. They then choose the perfect lettuce leaf from hundred of different bunches of lettuce. I would not want to eat that burger.

So why do we depend so much on pictures to determine the foods we order? It’s because our culture is so reliant on things that are visual. We could rely on food descriptions that describe the burger, but most of us would rather choose the few items that stand out and appeal to our eyes. I suppose the same thing applies to advertisements. I know lots of people who buy a certain brand of cereal because the packaging looks much more visually appealing than the generic cereal.

Words and images on packaging

When you go to a grocery store and you’re standing in the middle of an aisle, what are you looking at? Ads.

Each of the packaging is an advertisement vying for your attention so you will be tempted to buy it. Usually it consists of the company’s name in huge letters and a picture of the product to give you a preview of what’s inside of the can. In order to catch your attention better, the companies usually add a visual element that pops out of the design to catch your attention.

For example, this Progresso soup can shows that it’s “NEW!” and has “45% LESS SODIUM” in bright green and yellow shapes to capture the shopper’s attention. It also has a green band across the top to designate it as a “HEALTHY FAVORITE”. These colorful shapes and labels are used to give the words a sense of hierarchy to the words. It gives importance to certain words over others. The net weight of the can is certainly not as important as the name of the soup, and so on and so fourth. It’s fascinating to see what marketing tools are used on packaging and how the design is used along with marketing sayings to try to get a shopper to buy their product.