Practical Practice

I can't overemphasize how important it is to make you interior your own.  It can't all come from a store or a magazine.  You need to get your hands dirty.  You can wear little white gloves if you don't like getting your actual hands dirty, but you must put them to work.  I'm inclined to be a little worried about someone who needs gloves, but it's more important that you are taking action and I can't criticize you for that.  If you need the gloves to get going, fine, go for it.  As for where you get those cute little gloves I have no idea, you're on your own there.  Start making things and I will promise not to disparage.  It doesn't matter so much how you get there only that you arrive safely.  I will say one more thing and drop the issue of the gloves for good.  Getting your hands dirty can be a part of the process and if you are afraid of that part you might want to question your levels of commitment and dedication.

Okay, with these images today I want to focus your thoughts on how you can make things (call it art or whatever you like) and those things can be both practical and beautiful.  Things that look good and things that are functional are not exclusive.  Ideally you can make all of your functional things look good.  Doing so will again require work on your part since it's really impossible that all of your functional things can look good straight from the store.  These are two great examples of how you can get started.

First we have a set of books with handmade covers.  This is one of my favorite ideas.  Listen to the books talking to each other.  Notice the typography.  Are they even real books?  It doesn't matter.

I'm sure you're aware that most book covers are lousy.  If you have an area where your books are in view remaking those covers is a almost mandatory in managing your interior.  It's a lot of work and I'll admit that even I haven't gone all the way with this one, but you really don't need to do every book.  Start with one.  Then do another.  Then do another and you'll have three.  And keep going.  You could do one a week.  Or one every other odd numbered day in each odd numbered month.  Here's a tip: focus your attention on the spines- the front and back covers can be blank if the books remain stacked. 

It is possible to get well designed books, in fact, I would advise that you stop buying poorly designed books and look to buy more well designed books.  Get the ugly ones from the library and buy the cute ones with the intent of displaying them.

Don't forget to get creative with the book stops.  If you live near some trees you can chop one down and have lots of dividers on your shelves and have plenty left over to give as gifts to your tree loving (or hating) friends.  Also think about other uses for that tree before you turn it into 54,000 book stops.

Next up is a bag.  It is of course useful.  I don't think I need to talk in length about how bags can be useful.  What you should notice here is how this bag is hung.  Bags need a place.  It's easy to throw them on a chair or table, which can look good, but not always, and not with every bag.  You need a variety of techniques for dealing with where you put your bags so I've decided to focus on one of the lesser known.  This bag is hung from a nail.  That's all you need.  Put a nail in the wall.  How easy right?  The important part is that it's hung in a way which lets you know to stop and look at it.  It should demand that.  Many bags like attention.  This one certainly does.  Look at it.  Such cachet.  While not the focus of this particular post, you should know that the actual bag is critical.  And I advocate making (or at least altering) the bag yourself.

Everything I've covered here will take practice.  You don't jump ahead to making fantastic things like these examples right away.  What you need to do first is slowly begin to change your thinking.  Here's how I would start.  Rather than immediately assuming things need to be bought ask yourself if you could make them.  For the ugly things (if they are screamingly hideous and you don't use them just throw them out) you already own ask yourself if you could alter them.  As you get started making and altering, work into it slowly.  Don't try to tackle every project and skill at once.  Give each the attention it needs to be learned and executed properly.  As your skills and confidence grow you will quickly be able to personalize almost everything you buy.  Very few people get this far, but it's really not too difficult once you really get started.  Be persistent.  Now put on your gloves and get to work.

Knots

Today I want to talk about knowledge.  You need book smarts to go with your design skills and you need to be able to use your smarts when talking people up.  Most of this information doesn't have to be important or relevant or even interesting, but you do need it, and you need to be secure in delivering it with conviction.  I hope you aren't asking how this is relevant to design.  If so I'm ordering you to memorize this post.  I'm calling these bits of knowledge "knots" (if you like memory aides half as much as I do you'll appreciate that they both start with the same three letters) because they (the knots) are entanglements along lines of thought and intent and can be used to kink, bunch, splice, yoke, tangle, tie, twist, and twirl situations to your advantage.  There are complicated knots and there are simple knots.  You'll learn the types and appropriateness of each with experience, but today I would like to focus on making your first knot.

I'm going to suggest for your first knot that you start with something semi-obscure.  Your mom and friends shouldn't know much (if anything) about it, but it shouldn't be unbelievable or highly laughable either.  It needs to be yours.  Yours no one else's.  A one-man (or woman) show.  This is one area in which you don't want competition.  You need to be an expert.  The expert.  This doesn't mean you need to know a lot (and if you're really good you don't need to know anything), it only means you need to know considerably more than your target or client or friend.  Once you have the gist of your knowledge set you will be free to improvise and invent to meet the situation.  You should now clearly see the advantage of semi-obscurity.  Choose wisely and you won't need to learn much.  When you're the expert anything goes.  If Einstein thought that imagination was more important than knowledge you shouldn't disagree with him.  Set your creativity free.  Isn't this where you want to be anyway?  Don't you want to create and invent and have people trust your vision?  Design is just another version of selling a story.  You are the storyteller.  You are the ringleader, the lion, the trapeze artists (all of them), the magician, and the ticket taker.  Get to know your knot.

Knot selection is critically important.  You don't want your credibility challenged.  Being challenged is always bad.  Even if you are correct or win the challenge you are permanently associated with fallibility.  Your credibility is key.  You can't lose it.  Anyone who is an authority on anything, no matter how obscure, is always in demand and always liked.  You need that prestige as well.  But don't let anyone know you need it.  To them, you must look, act, and talk like you don't care.  Like you could take it or leave it and you don't notice it or know what they're talking about when they mention it.  And they will mention it.  If you're good they will.  And if you're good they'll believe you when you shrug it off.

I'm going to use one of my current pursuits as an example.  I'm fascinated by trees and tree products.  I often use wood, wood grain, and tree imagery in my work so I decided to add some aspect of trees to my vast set of skills.  I decided on Dendrochronology.  Now don't go running off to your local community college or local community college website to see what's available just yet.  Have you heard of Wikipedia?  Of course you have.  Go get your free two-minute education.  And regarding those Wikipedia entries, you can skip lots of those parts.  Some of them get really long and you won't remember most of it anyway.  Now back to Dendrochronology.

More than just a great name, Dendrochronology is the scientific (always impressive) study of tree-rings.  Used for source dating and monitoring climate, ecosystems, glacial movement, water levels, rainfall, wildfires, insect populations, air pollution, and landslides, Dendrochronology is a wide-reaching asset to any knowledge set.

Versatility is a great quality in your first knot.  The other knots can be more specific and obscure, but I would advise you to stay on the safe side with the first one.  With Dendrochronology the usability is clear.  It's almost impossible to not be near a tree or tree product.  That alone makes Dendrochronology omni-relevant.  I know I said before that relevancy doesn't matter, but sometimes I don't think things through, and sometimes I let my cat tell me what I should say, and sometimes I write with one eye on Judge Joe Brown or Dr. Oz., but I will say now (ignoring my cat) that relevancy, while not essential, is helpful in convincing people that you are well-adjusted.  That seems to matter to some people.  I recommend making some effort to appear well-adjusted when around others.  But, with that said, you could also say that relevancy is a relative term.  And you can always invent some sort of lame segue, even after the fact, if you or others feel the need to seem or be in the company of well-adjusted people.

Well, I think that's about as far as I can take you today.  I'll leave you with a few first knot recommendations.  Have fun.

Exposition (literary technique)
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Tetrahedrons
Program music
Noumenon
Dream argument