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ASID’s MakeYour40 Runner Up!

March 8, 2017 in blog, Personal

In March of 2015 I became a student member of ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) as a Design Ecademy student studying HND in Interior Design and Interior Architecture. Soon thereafter, there was an invitation from ASID to design a ’40’ using physical and/or digital materials for their 40th anniversary. It was instant inspiration for me and I produced and submitted mine the same afternoon I saw the call for entries.

The story behind the image: My real life drafting tools (scale ruler, triangle, drawing pen, magnifying glass lamp) that I have been using and continue to use for my Design Ecademy school assignments. The floor plan seen behind the lamp is one of the actual drawings that were part of my final project for Stage 1 of the HND course.

I placed all items onto a white board on my drafting table and played around with the setup for a little while that afternoon.

Experiments Collage, #MakeYour40

I experimented with different lighting/shading and various arrangement adjustments, and it was not long before I had a winner image out of about 80 photographs that I took.

Final Configuration, #MakeYour40

A few photo corrections later, a simple frame, and the final version was ready for submission. I titled it “A Tribute to the Tactile Tools” to honour the tried-and-true physical means to design that continue to be in use along with the massive digitalization of each and every way that we work and create in the present day.

Ready For Submission, #MakeYour40

Here are a few happy memories snapshotted during the contest:

Contest Memories #1, #MakeYour40

Contest Memories #1, #MakeYour40

And upon the winners’ announcement:

Contest Memories #1, #MakeYour40

This was my first attempt at a contest of this kind, and it was an exciting ride. Along the way, I received a lot of support and encouragement from my communities, including the Design Ecademy’s Facebook group, and I am trilled to have been announced a runner up among the winners. I am very grateful to all who helped make this possible and to ASID for providing this inspiring opportunity to the creative crowd. ♦

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Halloween Costumes: Begging to Differ?

October 28, 2014 in Design, Personal

In the fall of 2010, the first Halloween in our son’s life was fast approaching and we were faced with the Costume Conundrum. As a tireless enthusiast for originality, I just could not go the usual route. A skeleton, or Spiderman pajamas, or even the slightly original fireman outfit were not appealing options. An utterly adorable [animal of your choice] bodysuit was a serious consideration (no one is perfect). But all this was just the usual short-lasting review of what everyone had already done over and over again, and as expected, this was a good enough reason to go in a different direction and seek some excitement.

I had a starting point: we had a child that we had named Charles. I also knew of another Charles, a much older favourite of mine. He was also brilliant, though in a different way from our lovely little troublemaker. He had made iconic silent films, so generally he was a bit less of a noise-maker than his namesake that lived in our house, but they were both able to touch ours hearts, each in their own mysterious ways. And so it was decided. A scaled down version of Charles Chaplin was in the works, and this is how it turned out…

October 31, 2010

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And the after-party... (Don’t ask why there is masking tape in the following images… Lets just say it is not an uncommon occurrence in our household…)

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If we should say so ourselves, the costume was a big hit among Halloween enthusiasts. Certainly, some of the younger kids had no idea who we were depicting, but their puzzlement was just another reassurance that, if nothing else, we had been successful in avoiding the “oh, here is another <fill in the blanks character>”. And hopefully we somewhat helped re-enliven the memory of a true and deserving legend.

So naturally, we recycled the costume the following year, albeit with much less bagginess in the pants.

October 31, 2011

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And the after-party…

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We are happy to report that as a result of our tribute to the silent film era, at least a few members of the younger generation now know who Charles Chaplin is. This, and all the fun that we had being the escort of the miniature person in the loveable tramp figure outfit from a time gone by, made for a fully worthwhile experience.

And now, for the Charles Chaplin Halloween costume formula:

charles chaplin halloween costume

charles chaplin halloween costume

 

In the spirit of good recycling, for the following two Halloweens (2012 & 2013), we reused parts of the Chaplin costume in combination with an existing feature: our son’s real prescription glasses, to easily recreate another classic (while admittedly less unusual) character:

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We are certain that you have guessed correctly who this character is, but here is the costume formula anyway:

clark-kent-costume

clark kent halloween costume

 

In the spirit of even better recycling, we were not going to let a great pair of fabulous baggy pants sit in the closet for too long…. So 2014 saw yet another utilization of the everlasting piece of quirky garment…..

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And here is one of the easiest costume formulas:

Newsboy Costume Formula

Newsboy Costume

Okay, so perhaps there was a little discrepancy in the resemblance achieved that last time around…. But good times, nonetheless!

How did you like the method of using a pair of pants to chart-illustrate a child’s growth over a period of 4 years? Very clever, I know….  We definitively demonstrated that legs appear to continually elongate, based on each and every October 31st data retrievals. We intend to continue with this important study, stay tuned for further updates.

Truly,

R

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A Word on Pink

February 17, 2013 in Design, Fashion, Personal

pink candy cotton

Hmm…. This has post has been bubbling up inside my mind for a long time, perhaps dating back from a time even before “a post” had its current web related meaning…. And what better time to address the elephant in the room than just after yet another candy cotton filled Valentine’s day …

So Pink… “Who does not love Pink” would be among the most widespread expressions of feelings toward this tint, or tone, of red (with tint being colour + white, and tone being colour + grey, if we consult the Colour Wheel terminology). The last time I heard this rhetorically intended question was during a presentation on upcoming Colour Trends at the Interior Design Show in Toronto in January of this year. The slide on the screen was showing a decidedly pink interior and after pointing the trend-related features, the presenter casualty added, in the most axiomatic manner, “And who does not love pink”. My brain instantly began sending commands to my arm “Raise now”…. I muttered to my myself “I don’t [love  pink], not always anyway..”, immediately followed by the internal wondering “But am I the only one?…” I did not raise my arm, and did not see anyone else in the audience express any objections… Did all of these design profession individuals indeed LOVE pink? Were there some other quiet rebels against mainstream Pinkdom that also chose to remain silent to the passive challenge? I will never know for sure, but I can say that in my experience, it has not been that common to meet a female who would have some serious objections against this most girly colour of all. It is not that such non-conformists don’t exist, but the pink loving prevalence is a true reality out there.

pink gift boxes

In the majority of cases the pink obsession certainly begins from the cradle and more often than not it remains there to stay way past the age when it can be still be regarded as sweet or cute. And sometimes perfectly pink-free sensible ladies who successfully resisted the power of pink for a good portion of their lives give in with no fight when a baby girl enters their life in one way or another, thus closing the pinkless gap and curing the anomaly. Shortly after our son was born and having spent some time around other parents with baby girls, my husband spontaneously exclaimed: “I am so glad we don’t have to deal with all this”, and by “this” he meant the frills, the bows, the unicorns, the princesses, Dora’s shirt, Tinker Bell…. boy, were they ever Pink!.. (Yes, I know, Tinker Bell is SUPPOSED to be green – exactly my point!) I had to agree with our overwhelmed daddy.

Not that I am completely innocent myself. I had a period when my own wardrobe contained quite a few items that sported the contrast between brown and… yes, you guessed it, pink. Admittedly, more brown compared to pink was present in this colour combination, but alas, no, I cannot say even for myself, that I never wore pink. I think even right now one of the drawers of my dresser contains an entirely pink sweater. A pale pink, nothing of the aggressive obnoxious kind, but pink nonetheless… So here you have it, my flushing pink sins confessed, with pun intended. Now I can move on to put Pink in its place.

Much like the brilliant Seinfeld show established once and for all that “Naked” has two states: “Good naked”, and “Bad Naked”, I believe we can split Pink in the same manner. While I am certainly hoping that most people are glad that we as a society generally don’t get to see much of the “Bad naked” – at least not much out in public anyway, the same, sadly, cannot be said about “Bad pink”, both because we see a lot of it, and also because it appears that many people don’t seem to mind having it around. “Good pink”, on the other hand, can really be not so bad, and quite good actually, when done right.

So what constitutes “Bad pink”, and how does it differ from “Good pink”? The answers would be certainly subjective, and I am not one to force an opinion. With colour being an intrinsically visual matter, perhaps it would be best to line up a few visual examples (along with, well, inevitably subjective commentary since I am the author of this post) to illustrate the conundrum, and everyone can be the judge:

pink panther vs pink barbie

 

pink shorts vs endless pink store shelves

 

contemporary pink vs drowning in pink

 

The bottom line is clear to me: pink, or any other colour for that matter, isn’t always good. It needs to be used in the right way for a positive effect while giving the proper consideration to important factors such as intent, setting, amount, individual tastes.  Girl = Pink is a short-sighted view more often than some people might think.

 

Yours truly,

R

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A solution to end world hunger? Look no further than the shelves of your playroom

December 10, 2012 in Personal

Too Many Toys
In the spirit of the Xmas season, it is impossible to escape the topic of The Gifts, The Presents, The Giving… Of Stuff. So much Stuff. This year I am narrowing it down to children’s toys, as just one example of this, well…. insanity would not be too strong a word.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who told me how impressed he was (not in a good way as it turned out) by his friend’s basement. Or shall we call it their “Private Toy Land”. Of course, he was talking about a space in someone’s house entirely devoted to Toys. Toys and then more Toys. An enormous amount of them. Too many toys, dare we say… In the present example the family only had one child. With the current state of affairs in the world, there are probably not many people who have not seen this type of room at one place or another. My instantaneous comment was, without a doubt in my mind , “I don’t agree with it”. My good friend was on the same side. And I think the reasons why we very strongly disagree with it are worth mentioning, even if it would be just to spur some attention to the subject, and ask ourselves some good questions.

1. How many toys does your child really need? I will only say that with most toys, our son usually plays once or twice, and after that they just sit there and take away precious space in our small flat.

2. Is the abundant monstrosity of stuffed modern day playrooms teaching your child something that is of any positive value? It is difficult to ignore the strong suspicion that whatever this may be teaching, it would be decidedly outside of the realm of the good old sharing, not to mention generosity…

3. Am I a lonely loner thinking “Does anyone have any idea how many villages of starving children can be fed if the money used to buy toys destined to sit in boxes and on shelves was donated to such or similar worthwhile cause instead?” It is a disturbing thought. I would put this one at the top of the list, but sometimes it can be hard to get the parents’ attention unless the focus in on their own child. No apologies for this statement, we all know it is true.

I can certainly go on with the questions, but to keep this short and sweet, I will end with how we, my husband and I, are trying to cope with the hard to escape consumerism that is constantly creeping around our 3-year old, and I will stay mostly narrowed on the Toys instance of the issue for the same reason.

We try to let people know that we do not need any more toys, “We have very limited space, nothing large, please.” We keep a good portion of the toys away so that only a controllable amount is at everyday’s reach. We give away, distribute to grandparents places etc. We stack away a good portion of the newly gifted toys (still unopened) after every event that results in gift accumulation to gradually reveal them overtime hoping this would result in better appreciation and less harmful abundance effect. We try to educate our son about this at every opportunity, and we are very pleased that he never cries for stuff nor is inclined to want to take stuff when we leave places loaded with items generally very tempting to children.

We do all of this, but it is not easy. Another Xmas is just around the corner, and we certainly do not want to insult any grandparents. Including those who have a set budget to spend (meaning not an amount not to go over, but an amount that HAS to BE spent on each grandchild….) World causes are not exactly a thing of our parents’ generation, we have found. If anyone has had any success convincing the grandparents of their children that donating to PETA is a rather meaningful alternative to gifting a yet another outfit that their grandchild simply does not need, without thus initiating the Great Family Scandal, please do give us some tips!

Yours truly,

R

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