Design Blog 6, Designer

Richard Taylor is a New Zealand designer and filmaker.  He is a good friends with Peter Jackson and he worked with him on a number of films.  He created the props, costumes, prosthetics, and weapons.  He did work on Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings The Return of the King, and King Kong.  Where he won a multitude of awards, including a total of 5 oscars.  He won best achievement in visual effects in King Kong (2005), he won best costume design and best makeup for Return of the King (2003), and he won best effects, visual effects and best makeup for Fellowship of the Ring.  He was also nominated for best costume design for Fellowship of the Ring.

Here is a picture of an Orc, one of the grunt type enemies in the movies.  The design concept is based off of J. R. R. Tolkien's book, but Richard Taylor really brings it to life.  The make up is designed to turn a human being into a creature of mythology.  And everything from the swords to the armor has been designed specifically to make this movie come to life.  

Next, in the movie King Kong, he went all out in design concepts.  Even though the beasts depicted are based on old concepts and ideas from decades ago, the creatures still are marvelous to look at.  The dinosaur is based on conventional ideas, but just the fact that it is look life like is what makes this movie and these designs stand out.  The main attraction is King Kong, and even every little hair on his body brings out the incredible time commitment requirement and shows how much work they put into designing him.  

Though a lot of these movies employ a heavy use of CGI, or computer generated images, the designers still need to put all the ideas and concepts together in order to build this world.  Look at how many soldiers are in this picture, in reality there are maybe a couple dozen men down there.  Every thing in this movie was designed from the ground up.  Look at the buildings in the background, they make you really feel like your in the middle ages, yet in a fantasy setting.

Richard Taylor did an outstanding job creating these worlds.  He honestly deserved these Oscars.  

Design Blog 5, Designer

Frank Gehry is a Canadian architect who designs contemporary buildings.  His work is considered deconstructivism.  Which means it is post modern art.  Post Modern architecture grew to prominence during the 70's when designers started mixing styles and makes shapes and forms just for the sake of having them in the design.  Frank Gehry helped popularize this type of design.

The point to deconstruction is to move away from form following functions, and the purity and trust to materials that modernism follows.  It is the exact opposition to modernism. Basically it looks to improve on and to solve the problems transparent in modernism.  Like excessive designs and little details that would have been excluded, and now included to show the importance and dedication the designers have in their creation.

                               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTswlJDd8nE

 Often times people mistake Frank Gehry's work for unfinished or crude works of art.  But in reality his art features the use of inexpensive items and non traditional means to sculpt his designs.

 For instance lets take a look at the Guggenheim Building:

This is one of his contemporary works, and it has been heralded as "single moment in the architectural culture" because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something" Even the World Architect Survey voted this building to be one of the most important buildings designed and completed.  The curves appear to be random to the common eye, but in reality it was designed to catch and reflect the light.  It had non tradition titanium panels that were designed to resemble organic life of a fish.

This next piece of art is called the Stata Center:

And

This is located at MIT.  One of the premiere reasons that art listed for wanted to attend this school is for the amazing architecture, and an emphasis is placed on the Stata Center.  Robert Campbell from the Boston Globe wrote "the Stata is always going to look unfinished. It also looks as if it's about to collapse. Columns tilt at scary angles. Walls teeter, swerve, and collide in random curves and angles. Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal. Everything looks improvised, as if thrown up at the last moment. That's the point. The Stata's appearance is a metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that's supposed to occur inside it."

I can't describe the building any better than this.  It looks sensational.  Everything about deconstruction is described in the building.  This is especially cool because you can see the definite use of artistic lines, and how shades of color give it life.

Frank Gehry is an amazing architect that designs some of the greatest buildings of our generation.  He has won multiple awards in a variety of institutions and people often put their faith in his designs.