Covers Matter

Although the quality of a book's content is in no way determined by its cover, consumers are more prone to pick up a book that has a well-designed, eye-catching cover than a book that is simply binded together by a solid colored cover. Some people may disagree with the above statement, but through my own experience in libraries or at a book store, I always go for the books with interesting cover designs.

Surely many have heard the saying "don't judge a book by its cover." However, in a world that includes millions of books by millions of authors, competition is tough. If authors want their books to sell, their publishers must get creative and hire cover designers and illustrators to make the outer appearance of the book more appealing to the eye, outdoing the books that will inevitably be placed next to them on shelves in stores.

One example can be seen among the three books required for all Design 001 students at UC Davis. The books are shown below:

At first glance, McCloud's Understanding Comics catches the eye the most. The reason for this occurrence is due to the colors used for the cover. The colors are vibrant, exciting, and they spark curiosity. Even if an individual has no interest in comics, he or she will most likely give the book a second look. In second place – in terms of cover design – is Lauer and Pentak’s Design Basics. Although the cover deals with variety, unity, and colors, it is not as visually intriguing as McCloud’s book. Lastly, Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color lacks variety in the interaction of colors on its cover. There are essentially two colors present on the cover which are the different shades of purple rectangles and the white border around them. Though I am sure the inside content is more interesting than the cover, it would definitely not be the first book many consumers would take off a bookshelf.

The success associated with books, as well as other marketable products, lies within the techniques utilized to make them appealing – techniques that are essential to designers who want to capture the attention of the public, and to advertisers who wish to sell their company’s products.

*Images found on google and arranged by Mandy Chew

Comparison and Contrast

Although a single designer may create different works for different projects, similarities between works can still be seen, as well as differences that seek to complement the purpose or message of the work at hand. Take Sonya Cohen Cramer as an example. With the help of Ida Pearle's artwork, she designed the CD covers for two of Elizabeth Mitchell's albums titled You Are My Little Bird and Sunny Day.

Both album covers feature drawings of children of different races. The children are also depicted in a playful atmosphere; on the cover of You Are My Little Bird, the children are seen skipping together with different instruments in their hands, and on the cover of Sunny Day, two children are seen playing with masquerade masks. The clothing the children are wearing are vibrant in color, making the background pale in comparison. Moreover, in terms of “The Picture Plane,” the drawings of the children are far from realistic; they do not have eyes or any other distinct facial features. They are more or less abstract in the sense that any or all children can see themselves in the characters on the covers, which is the purpose behind Cramer’s designs. After all, Mitchell’s albums contain songs meant for children and their active participation.

Despite the many similarities between Cramer’s two designs, there are apparent differences. To begin with, the image of three children skipping across a pale blue background gives off the sense of what the album’s title suggests; the children are flying freely along with the music. The songs on the album, such as “Little Bird, Little Bird,” also relate to this feeling of lightness and happiness associated with child-like innocence.



In contrast, the background for Sunny Day is illustrated with a grassy hill, a blue sky with faint clouds, and a round yellow sun. The design of the artwork also includes value on the grassy hill, giving it visual texture. Certainly, the cover for Sunny Day is a lot more detailed. Aside from the aesthetic factor, the more detailed background design serves the purpose of emphasizing the album’s title. Furthermore, the fact that the two children illustrated are facing each other in a way that two friends would, this album cover seems to focus more on interaction between individuals, which is exactly what Elizabeth Mitchell wants to happen among her music audience.

Overall, Cramer’s designs for the CD covers succeed in bringing together similar elements to create a variety that is simplistic yet overwhelmingly fitting for Elizabeth Mitchell’s children folk songs.

*Images taken from Housefield's blog

Design as a Conversation

Give and take; produce and inspire; revise and revive. These phrases describe the true essence of design, a universal world in which different cultures come together to participate in a continuous conversation. However, rather than verbally expressing thoughts and ideas, design lets visuals do all the talking, enabling history to evolve into the future.

While designers create designs and works of art, their audience will either applaud and compliment the artistic perfection achieved, or they will critique the work by addressing the flaws and/or the lack of unity involved. Although negative feedback is not exactly a pleasant thing to hear, constructive criticism is invaluable to designers and artists alike. It is from these positive and negative comments that allow past and current designs model as a guideline for future designers, lending them visual knowledge as to what will and will not be successful in this critical design community. This back and forth conversation between creators, critics, and even the layperson, leads designers on a search for the best methods in which their messages can be expressed effectively and meaningfully to the public.

In some cases, designers and artists may find that their purpose can be achieved through the revival and a personal revision to an iconic work of art. For instance, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware is an image that is widely recognized around the world. It depicts one of America’s most prominent heroes, George Washington, crossing the Delaware River as part of his surprise attack for a battle during the American Revolutionary War. Through the use of this vernacular image, Robert Colescott, an African American artist, created his own version of the painting titled George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware. In Colescott’s version, all characters are African American, each depicting the many kinds of negative black stereotypes existing in America.

[ Leutze's painting on left, Colescott's painting on right]

Essentially, Colescott conversated with Leutze through Leutze’s painting. Colescott used the worldly success of Leutze’s artwork, letting it guide his own painting to produce an effective and powerful message that strikes a dark contrast between a patriotic image and the harsh realities African Americans had to endure in the past in the very country that was founded on the principles of freedom and equality. Although Leutze’s painting is permanently marked in a time of the past, Colescott showed that design in the form of art can in fact revive older designs, add new meaning to them, and create a new spark in the ongoing conversation of design for generations to come.

*Credits to Lauer and Pentak's Design Basics

Paper Creations

Looking around my room back home, I rediscovered a familiar jar filled with folded stars I made years ago. Although they do not have the appearance of a professional origami artists’ handicraft, it peeked my curiosity, leading me to research origami designs online. Within a few minutes, I came across a name of a man who is considered to be a legend in the origami world - Akira Yoshizawa.

Sure enough, I learned the reasons why many modern folders harbor so much respect for Yoshizawa. All of his paper artworks are characterized by simple and clean folds, yet the actual designs created, which range from animals to flowers, are so realistic in details - gorillas' protruding jaws and sunken eyes, a peacock's lush fanned tail, and more – that they are able to leave viewers from half a century later in wonder and awe.

Some critics may argue that Yoshizawa’s designs are too simple and that he did not deserve the worldly attention he received. However, Yoshizawa achieved to bring life out of mere sheets of paper, something that most people cannot do. For instance, he successfully depicted the playfulness of young children in his design “Boy Jumping Rope.”

Some of his designs were more peculiar than others, such as the one titled “Fantasy Teapot.” Nevertheless, his combination of a dog with a teapot further explains his success in the art of origami; Yoshizawa folds his imagination into reality.

Unsurprisingly, his name and legacy lives on even after his death in early 2005 through his mastered designs and contributions to modern origami.

*Photos taken from Gabriel Vong's Ori-Scope

Creativity from Without

Artists and designers have a wide range of medias to choose from for their projects. They can use paint, pencil, charcoal, light, or even nature. For the famed British artist Andy Goldsworthy, he specializes in ephemeral art, utilizing leaves, rain, twigs, ice and other natural objects to create stunning visuals for his audiences.

Having traveled to different parts of the world, Goldsworthy has experimented with numerous elements of nature. In places that snowed, he would find icicles and manipulate their rigid features to create awe-worthy sculptures, such as the ice spiral wrapped around a tree trunk and the icicle star joined by saliva pictured below.  

In forests, Goldsworthy would take advantage of the leaves in the area to form circles of color that are simple in form but are simply mesmerizing.

Other times, he would use objects such as goose feathers and pebbles. In the case of the goose feathers, Goldsworthy bent the feathers into arches and curves, orienting and overlapping them into a whimsical design of white that stands out from the dark color of the dirt. As for the pebbles, he gathered different sized but similarly textured stones, cleanly split and scratched them along the cracks, and laid them in the shape of a swirl on the sandy floor, alluding to the swirls on various sea shells. The white marks made by the scratches and the shadows cast between the cracks in the pebbles make Goldsworthy’s design pop out from the background, highlighting its unique features.

Certainly, Goldsworthy is an artist who draws inspiration from his surroundings, harboring a “creativity from without.” To express his reasons for using such a method, he stated, “I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools--a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn.”

Here at UC Davis is where we can learn too, inside and outside of Design class. As long as we keep our eyes and minds open, we will eventually find our inspiration around us, just like how Andy Goldsworthy found inspiration in nature.

*Photos and quote taken from Morning Earth and Cherry Coloured

Stone Soup

Regardless of their children based audiences, everyone - including adults - can learn valuable lessons through stories such as Marcia Brown's Stone Soup. In this old French tale, readers are introduced to three hungry soldiers whose big appetites scare the residents of a local village. However, after the soldiers request for a large pot to cook stone soup for everyone, the villagers began to cooperate, bringing out all the food they hid prior to the soldiers' arrival. As each person added his or her ingredients to the boiling stone water, they came closer and closer to creating a delicious soup, eventually providing both the villagers and the soldiers with a satisfying meal.

Aside from the sharing aspect of the story, the all encompassing moral is that the efforts of more than one person is necessary to create something extraordinary, whether it be soup or design.

The proof to this fact was seen on Tuesday, October 5^th, when students of Housefield’s Design 001 used materials they found to assemble their very own “Stone Soup” in groups. The process was as creative as it could get, bringing each designer back to the simple mindset of a kindergartener; instead of overthinking as to what to do, each group just let the the process take them to wherever it led them. In my group’s case, this freedom to create just about anything resulted with an extremely interesting piece of design.

Initially, my group did not know what to make out of our gathered materials. What we saw was merely a pack of turquoise paper, white pipe-cleaners, yarn, tape, an old boardgame, and a few plastic bottles. However, when someone pulled out a white body suit splattered with paint, it set us in motion; we began stuffing the suit with rolled up paper to make it more three dimensional. Soon, we discovered that the paint on the suit actually depicted a frightening face, sending us off on the idea of creating a monster hanging from the tree nearby. Slowly but surely, all the materials we brought, along with broken twigs, were used to make a “scene” telling a story of an evil puppeteer tormenting a “blue guy” through dreams. With all the attention we drew from the other groups, we proudly deemed our project a huge success.

Certainly, both the story and the activity of “Stone Soup” reveals to us potential designers that no successful designer in the world works solo. Although creativity is important, collaboration is even more so.

*Pictures taken by Clarice Kwok, Design 001

Design Is Everywhere

To many individuals who are not aware of design's presence in everyday life, they may think that design can only be found in fancy museums or studios where professional designers work their magic. However, if one takes the time to really observe his or her surroundings, he or she will be amazed at the realization that design is unmistakably everywhere.

Simply look around; you will undoubtedly come across at least one object designed by the human mind. The object could be a ceramic mug, a spiral bound notebook, a clock on the wall, or the cemented floor under your feet. We often take these designed items for granted, never really appreciating how each and every one of them are made or how they make our lives easier. Just imagine one day without all the designed goods we own - no computers, no televisions, no lights, no homes, no cars, no clothes, etc. What kind of life would we have without design?

My answer to this question is "no life at all." Without the existing designs of our world, our lives would be extremely restricted. I came to realize this fact after traveling across the Bay Bridge this past weekend for a home visit. If it were not for the amazing architects (as well as the financial support from President Herbert Hoover) who constructed an 8-mile long structure from San Francisco to Oakland, closing the ocean gap separating the two great cities, the desire to visit home after two tiring weeks of college studies would not have been fulfilled.

*Photo taken by Mandy Chew

Surely, thanks to the Bay Bridge - or rather the design of the Bay Bridge and others alike - UC Davis students who grew up in the San Francisco area can now visit home without fearing seasickness on ferries.

Childhood Collections

What makes collectibles so desirable to collectors? Could it be the rarity of certain items? Or is it something more basic, like the mere fascination of how something looks to a person? As a child, it was the latter that inspired me to begin collecting erasers.

Instead of collecting figurines, postcards, or snowglobes, I chose erasers as the subject of my collection. Not ordinary erasers used in school, but rather the ones that are shaped into a vast variety of miniature versions of real life objects. Some are shaped to resemble cakes, hotdogs, bread, and sushi, while others are made to look like bicycles, spoons, shoes, and animals. The vibrant colors used by the designers of these unique erasers further added to the fun assortment.
The designers of such products even made it possible for one to take apart the "toppings" on cakes, as well as disassembling parts of a bike eraser. Although the appearance of these erasers are overly simplified in comparison to the life-sized objects, the color and sculpting details involved in their design succeed in the designers’ purpose of bringing a little fun into a youth’s life.

Due to all the critics in this world, design is certainly a hard occupation to take up.  However, if it is possible to bring joy and inspiration to others through your own creations, every bit of hardship is worth it.

From simple erasers to other design masterpieces, the potential the design world holds is endless. Therefore, in order to discover what design has to offer me, the time to learn, grow, and explore is now.

*Photo taken by Mandy Chew

A "Living" Room

In Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, he writes about how our awareness of self "flows outward to include the object of our extended identity." In terms of our homes, the different rooms in which we spend most of our time in gradually become objects of our "extended identity" to the point where the look of a room can reveal a lot about our personalities. For instance, if a room is decorated with pieces of ancient artifacts, one might imply that the owner is interested in history. If a room is only slightly furnished with the essentials, such as a chair and a table, one can say that the person who lives there does not care much for material objects.

Naturally, people want to live comfortably in spaces that represent who they are, and how they want others to see them. How is this accomplished? Design, of course!




(before on left; after on right)

*Photos taken by Alice Chew



In the above pictures, one can see the major changes performed on this one room. Before all the construction, the living room was essentially enclosed on all four sides, restricting the amount of light from the windows. The wood paneled wall, as well as the dark red carpet, exacerbated the lighting problem, making those who set foot into the room feel trapped. Fortunately, through the help of carpenters, painters, and the creative minds of the investors, an entirely new living room was created. Walls were torn down and repainted, curtains were replaced, ceramic tiles were laid, and more; the end result being the more open and lively room seen above on the right. Ultimately, the room was given a new "life," emanating the qualities the investors' valued.

How was this simple yet effective design made? Purely from the human mind, and most importantly, from the desire to make an imagined concept a reality.