Audi R8 V10 Spyder

         Audi R8 V10 Spyder 5.2 FSI quattro, a longitudinally mounted mid engine high performance sports car, designed by German automaker Audi AG in 2006. It’s a two door Convertile , that allows the roof to fold away as an open-air vehicle. On the other hand, the carbon fiber made body parts reduces the weight of car and also gives a protective structure or crust to the whole design. The outer skin of the waterproof fabric is well fitted the high speed R8. On the aesthetic aspect of the design, the step pedals and footrests are in aluminum look which fits perfectly with the edgy outlook and the Fine Nappa leather package of the seats and interior of the car. Seats are with colored pigments that help reflecting infrared sunlight which keeps the car up to 20 degree Celsius or less. Despite the quality surround sound system and air condition, there is the latest navigation system with fast route calculation on a 6.5 inch display. 
         On the aesthetic aspect of the design, there’re sill strips around the door edge made in aluminum with black satin as the detail designs on the door. On the other hand, the full-LED headlight is one of the significant of Audi’s design and work of art. The LED light is similar to daylight which is easier for other driver to see during night time. The way lights are lining around the edge of the headlight gives a motional feeling to the car and somehow makes the car come alive. Moreover, there’re two slim fins extending to the edge of the car to give a elongated, smooth body as a whole. The sculptured line of the emotion-packed is the representation of modern and dynamism. To keep driver from being safe in a high speed driving, the break of the Audi R8 is one of its features and that helps driver from stopping the car immediately in certain situations. Talking about safety, the bulkhead has a rollover protection in a two spring-tensioned plate form. Besides the airbags that is ready for passenger’s head collision, there’s head side bags are located at the backrests to protect passenger’s different side of the body. There’s also an integral head restraint system to avoid whiplash injuries.  Beside from the high speed engine and featured brake, there’s the standard driver information system that would record the lap times. The gear lever knob lighted up in red rings. It has a top speed of 313 km/h, which is in very high speed compare with normal cars. Moreover, the fact that the break can stop so fast in a super high speed is also one of the success. You can check out you-tube video below to see how outstanding it works. There is electrically adjustable seats support the body perfectly. Besides the leather comfort seats, there’s a seatbelt microphone for hand-free phone user which is more convenient then shouting out loudly to the phone. For more information of the car and design, check out the  Audiofficial website and there’re photos and in depth information of R8.

Special messege when image combines with wordings.

I was taking a black and white photography class last year spring at my previous college and there was an assignment “photographs and words” which the professor asked us to write a line or some wordings on the print of photograph. I was at home looking for things that I can write some words on with meanings and I saw some photographs that I’ve taken with my sister and few friends on my desk. I took few snaps on it and I put some changes and coins on top of them. The photograph was with happy face and memories; everyone seems to be happy at the moment. And then I wrote a sentence on it, it says “I pray to got that we’ll never change”. At first I wrote this line just because I want this friendship or sister ship to last forever. On the critique day, the class was commenting about my photograph and the professor thought for a little while and he sees an implication in it. Even though I wrote the line “I pray to god that we’ll never change”, he noticed that there’re a lot of changes in the photograph. And the deep and implying side of them picture is trying to tell people, although how much you don’t want this pretty moments to go, they world’s keep changing anytime, you just need to cherish the moment when you have it.

Implication of logos

If you pay attention, there’re wordings and graphics around us. Like posters, advertisements, logos and a lot more. Sometimes we are attracted by them, sometimes we’re unconscious about it, which depends on the success or failure of the media. When combining words and images together, we need to make sure they’re telling the relevant information and they fit well together. I’ve seen a logo on a clothing brand website, Bobby Fresh. The logo was made during the time last year when Lakers and Boston Celtics were fighting for the final championship. The subject of the logo has a man that represents the brand, Bobby Fresh, and there’s a line of wordings below. It said “The Luck to Fakers”. If you see more design of this brand, you’ll know Bobby Fresh is support the Boston Celtics team, but not Lakers. The “L” in the word “Luck” and the “F” in the word “Fakers” are in different colors with others. If you put them back to same color with other words, it will be “the Fuck to Lakers”(excuse the foul language). I think this is a clever design, with good use of colors. Apparently, it looks like it has a good message, but, it actually implicated other meanings.

Fonts and word sizes bring differences

Texts are always one of the main design elements that we don’t pay much attention on. It helps bringing the meaning and message of the design in the direct way. It’s the main content of the design and sometimes it might tell viewers a totally different or opposite message with the graphic. Different font and style may affect the meaning to the words. For example, for a caution, you  may use “Impact” and you may use some scary font for horror theme. They give a distinct tone to the design with different layers and effects too.

This dynamic piece is from a novel called “the mayor’s tongue”. We can see the wordings are perfectly fitted into the shapes and size of the graphics. The series of words from small to large, from large to small brings the energetic mood which brings viewers the feeling that it’s not a romantic or tragic story. But probably gossiping about how talkative the mayor is or how well his speeches are. There’re also movements of those wordings in black from the left up corner to the right down corner. That is, this design also reflected the importance of locality of wordings.

"Objectified"

A documentary film “Objectified” by Greg Hutwit, talks about different industrial objects and the progress of design. I remember it talked about the Japanese toothpick that we, Asian, always use but didn’t realized the design. The tail of the toothpick can be removed as a sign of used and also used as a rest for the toothpick. Other than that, there’re the CD player and the tote bag designed by the Japanese designer, Naoto Fukasawa. The CD player is a simple square shaped box on the wall. The album will start playing once to pull the robe hanging below the box. It’s a modern design with everything in white. Yet, it uses similar structure of a lamp and placing it to a CD player which is quite interesting. On the other hand, he designed a tote bag. What’s special about it is that it has a shoe bottom attached to the bottom of the bag. It’s a circumspective because when people are holding lot of things at a time, they can put the tote on the floor without haven’t it falling. Chair designer, ronan & erwan bouroullec and Paul tahon, demonstrated some of their designs. They’re mostly in simple and modern and clean shapes. The red chair above is an example. The inspiration of this design is from vegetables and plants. The detail of the chair represents branches gently curving to form the seat and the back. The plant like branches gives us the sense of geometry of the model.

Miss Wax-Jewelry design

Street fashion is always what I’m interested. The graphics, the colors, the edgy old school feeling are street fashion. If you’re also a street fashion geek, you have probably heard of brands like Rock Smith, Nike, DC, Crooks and Castles, Hellz Bellz and many more. Yet, there’s a hidden jewelry brand called “miss wax”. The style of miss wax jewelry mostly focuses on simplicity. They use simple geometric shapes but put them with sharp and bright colors, sometimes with gold as well. It’s like a new “80s” style with huge and colorful earrings, but also with modern feelings to them. 

The necklace is with gold-plated rope chain and seven strips. The subtle design of the black and white horizontal lined strip reduces the noisiness of the gold. Yet, the vertical strips give us the sense of edgy and modern. On the other hand, the “MT” shaped earring feels us the 80s feeling. The bright color way of bright orange, yellow, blue caught viewer’s eye at the first sight. The way it uses letters as the shape of the design is also very modern and vintage in the same time. Finally, here’s a dark purpled and black earrings. There is repetition of circles from the shape of the earrings, also the circular lines in the middle circle. Even though there’s no bright or variety of color used, the use of lines beautified the design also reduced the dullness. To see and know more about “Miss Wax”’s Jewelry, go check out her website.

Chair

Thinking about a mass-produced object of industrial design, aside from the Apple technology, let’s talk about the office chair. Chair is something that we see and use everywhere. We sit on the bus, we sit during class, and we sit at home. We spend most of the time sitting, yet we mostly neglected the importance of a good chair. The photo above is showing an ergonomic office chair. These office chairs are well designed that excel at helping our body to fatigue and stay in the right postures when we’re spending so many hours a day sitting. It helps reduce shoulder, back and neck strain.

In the accent of design, there’re adjustment on the handle and height of the chair which allow different people to set the chair into the right shape for them. Sometimes we need different handle heights when doing different things and it allows us to put our pressure in a comfort way. On the other hand, there is an extra support on the back which is absolutely helpful to reduce our back pressure which sometimes made us feel tired after hours of work. On the other hand, there is a headrest for people to rest on or to reduce our neck pressure. It’s also optional when some people find it useless, they can remove it as well. About the material used for the chair, the seat is made by leather which prevents it from getting dirty easily from food and beverage. Moreover, the back is made of nylon with holes in between which helps spread away heat.