Cre8ive |)esign No. 29

Over Spring Break I came across two different studies on the deterioration of Detroit and its resulting artful form. The first is a exhibition at the Wilmotte Gallery in London called “The Ruins of Detroit,” inspired by the book of the same name. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre took photographs around the devastated metropolis over five years and the results were overwhelmingly beautiful:

Michigan Central Station

Farwell Building

Donovan Building

David Whitney Building

National Bank of Detroit

United Artists Theater

Fort Shelby Hotel

American Hotel

Melted Clock at Cass Technical High School

Piano at Saint Albertus School

St. Margaret Mary School

A Former Public Library

Vanity Ballroom

Jane Cooper Elementary School in the Spring of '08

Jane Cooper Elementary School in the Spring of '09

Highland Park Police Station

Packard Motors Plant

Fisher Body 21 Plant

Lee Plaza Hotel

The second is a LIFE documentary by Joel Stone, a curator of the Detroit Historical Society, “Behind Detroit’s Notorious Ruins.” In it, Stone takes an optimistic look at Detroit’s history and its current urban regeneration:

Cre8ive |)esign No. 28

In No. 13 I told you about my annual Oscar traditions. This year I invited some current and former Chi Alphians to join me in the festivities, complete with some Oscar Bingo, courtesy of reelz.com.  It was quite the entertaining night and I was delighted when one of my favorite animated shorts from this past year took home an Academy Award. In case you haven’t had the privilege of viewing this fifteen-minute film, I’m posting it here. Created in Louisiana, there are strong references made to the devastation from hurricane Katrina, but the recovery at the end, reminding me of scenes from “Pleasantville,” is my favorite part. Here’s “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore:”

Cre8ive |)esign No. 27

The days of having change for the pay phone and prepaid calling cards is coming to an end as the age of cellular phones continues to rise. For a while now I’ve been wondering what London will do with all of those beautiful telephone booths scattered about their city. I’m sure designer John Locke could cook something up for them. Locke (who already has my attention with his LOST moniker) is currently looking for people to help fund his Department of Urban Betterment project in New York City. If he keeps on creating installments such as the ones that follow, I’m sure he won’t have any problem doing so.

There are 13,659 pay phones on NYC sidewalks. Why not turn them into something a tad more useful? How about a community library?

"All the books were donated by local residents."

"I intentionally wanted to avoid any directions, like a sign that would say something along the lines of 'hey this is for sharing books, you can leave some here.'"

"Stop and engage with the street."

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I already paid homage to Dear Photograph in No. 24, but the history major in me can’t get enough of the juxtaposition of then and now pictures. Apparently, Locke shares my affection for nostalgic projects:

"Using marking chalk, the stencil was painted on the street near to where the original photographer stood in 1941."

"The moment in the original photo and this street marking can define a line through two points, the past and present, collapsed into one and defined by and within the smartphone."

"When I first saw this image of my block from the 40s, I knew it was something I wanted to share."

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This last one was an entry into a jersey barrier design competition, but I think it’s an amazing idea.:

"We started with an iconic New York quote from Agatha Christie . . ."

". . . and we wanted to elevate something that is typically a solitary challenging act pursued underground in the subway -- solving sudoku puzzles -- to the street level, making it a communal, shared act."

Cre8ive |)esign No. 26

As much as I love the creativity of OK Go’s music videos, I have yet to post one on my blog due to their overwhelming popularity. Last night they debuted their latest for “Needing/Getting” during the Super Bowl.

The band paired the Chevy Sonic with over 1,000 instruments to bring this four minute video that took four days to shoot and four months to prepare. Damian, the lead singer, actually took stunt driving lessons so they could take it all on themselves. I, for one, am impressed.

It definitely reminded me of another musical automobile advertisement I saw last year:

For this one, 300 harmonicas in the key of G were hooked up to a Mini Cooper. What I liked about this ad campaign is that they broke it up into segments so you could go back and compile your own song by arranging the clips in an order of your choosing. Beautiful!

Cre8ive |)esign No. 25

Jesus once told the Pharisees that even the stones would cry out in praises to God if His disciples didn’t. Some might say that nature already sings praises through all its visual beauty. I heartily agree, but I can’t help but wish I could hear the songs that would come from God’s creation were they given opportunity to sing. I love the passage from The Magician’s Nephew where C.S. Lewis describes the creation of Narnia through song:

Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children’s bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.

Well, it appears that there are some designers who have harnessed the music God’s creation is making. Last week I came across the work of Bartholomaus Traubeck of Munich, Germany. His piece called “Years” takes a slice from a tree’s trunk and turns it into a playable record, matching tones to the rings and playing it on a turntable. A computer measures the rings’ strength, thickness, and rate of growth and translates them into different piano keys.  What does it sound like?

Last month I came across the work of Craig Colorusso. He tours with solar-powered boxes and each box transmits looped guitar notes, which come together to create a B-flat chord. The loops are different lengths and all the boxes overlap each other as the day progresses.

You can listen to a live recording of their current location at http://www.sun-boxes.com/blog/sounds/.

As soon as I find a designer who is able to capture the songs hills have sung for a thousand years, I’ll let you know!

Cre8ive |)esign No. 24

Our family moved out of our home in Laingsburg my senior year in college. I may have had my own place here in Kalamazoo, but it was still strange to think I would never be going “home” again. We had lived in the same house for seventeen years. A friend of mine found out over Christmas break that her parents had sold her childhood home and she had a month to remove all of her things. Though she now has her own place out of state, I can understand how hard it is to say good-bye (cue Boys II Men) to the location of so many memories. Before her parents moved out, she had a Dear Photograph assignment for her mom. She sent her a handful of photographs taken around the house from the 80s to overlay photos she would take in the present. I loved the outcome so much, I had to feature it here this week:

My friend with her mom

My friend at Easter

My friend's baby dedication in '85

My friend's lemonade stand she made with her brother

Cre8ive |)esign No. 23

I have been waiting all Winter Break to share with you my latest design findings! I was pretty excited when I opened one of my presents this Christmas to find my dad had bought me a new bookshelf! Yes, I get excited about home furnishings — especially when I have a new apartment to decorate. As a former English teacher and all-around fan of the written word, I have quite a lot of books to shelve. Before I knew I would be getting a 1oo pound bookshelf for Christmas, I was trying to think of creative ways to display my novels and magazines. Here are some of the means I came across:

Stacked

The Book Collection

The Hockenheimer

And, finally, why have dozens of books you will never read again lying around when you can turn them into real works of art:

Book People

Biblios

Tectonic

Petras

Historia Illustrada Do Japaos

Historia Das Americass

Jades

Grand Larousses

The Grand Library

Two Ermitages

Cre8ive |)esign No. 22

Five, seven, five: to anyone who has ever taken an English class, those three numbers, in that order, should have some significance. Well, New York City has chosen to take the popular syllable pattern to the streets in an effort to promote pedestrian safety. Curbside Haiku pairs the three-line poetic style with colorful graphics to inform bikers and walkers of the dangers that might occur out of negligent behavior. Some have argued that the Department of Transportation has wasted money on a project that might distract people trying to cross the street rather than protect them. I happen to enjoy the signs. Not only do they promote safety, but literacy too!

To welcome the new signs by designer John Morse, The New York Times decided to write haikus about it:

Look! It’s a street sign
with a haiku underneath.
They are new, Tuesday.

The city says they
are an eye-catching way to
encourage safety.

You will find 12 signs
that are designed by John Morse,
artist and poet.

Want an example?
Imagine a bike, askew.
The caption below:

A sudden car door,
Cyclist’s story rewritten.
Fractured narrative

At crash-prone crosswalks,
200 will be installed.
(Some are in Spanish.)

“A lot of our signs
are largely ubiquitous,”
said J. Sadik-Khan.

“We look for new ways
to get through to the public,”
she said on Tuesday.

Look for them on poles
from Queens to Staten Island.
Twelve sites in total.

Want one? You can buy
a sign for personal use.
Sixty-five bucks each.

And if you would like,
submit your own sign below.
We’ll post the best here.

Check out the online article to see readers’ responses — most are quite good and many are amusing!

Here are the REAL haikus with their adjoining artwork:

Cre8ive |)esign No. 21

In honor of our annual excuse to indulge in food, I thought I would bring you the works of Microwhat. Give thanks for your microwave that can bring you colorful works of art in 60 seconds. In this tumblr we see just what becomes of cosmetics, candy, toiletries, produce, and other novelties when tortured by gamma rays. Happy Thanksgiving!

Four Bubblegum Jawbreakers

90 Seconds

Chocolate Covered Halloween Peep

30 Seconds

Starbursts

74 Seconds

Soap

79 Seconds

Egg

75 Seconds

Gummy Bears

61 Seconds

Candy Corn

60 Seconds

Cre8ive |)esign No. 20

I’m already looking forward to Christmas and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. One of the reasons I’m so looking forward to December is because my sister is flying in from Los Angeles and we’re going to Detroit and I’m not talking about Detroit Metro to pick her up from the airport. I almost feel like a traitor to be a Michigander and to have never seen the true Motor City. Sure, I’ve driven through parts of it to get to Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, or to take the tunnel over to Windsor, or to go to a conference over at Ford Field, or to go to a Tigers game, but I’ve never actually SEEN Detroit for itself. I posted a link to the documentary “Detroit Lives” in No. 3, so I’m not going to talk about the redeeming of Detroit that’s going on right now, but more of its abandonment.

The stigma that’s been attached to Detroit as violence-ridden continues to keep people out of the downtown area. My sister actually visited D-town back in September and told me it looked like something out of an apocalyptic movie. Traffic lights have literally been turned off because streets don’t get enough traffic. Nearly 12,000 homes and other buildings have been neglected for decades. Kevin Bauman recently drove through and photographed the area for his “100 Abandoned Houses” project. Here are some of my favorites:

"A foggy morning in Detroit, Michigan. Various shots of abandoned spaces, churches, industrial buildings and general urban scenes."