Passive Solar

The family is very environmental conscious and would like to employ every passive solar aspect that they can within, throughout and outside the home. They would like to have the home as self-sustaining and energy saving as possible. Also because of Roark Janofsky, the father, being wheelchair bound, they would like to have barrier-free space […]

National Kitchen and Bath: Kitchen Competition Entry

  The Matthews are history buffs, and love the look and feel of older homes. They want to maintain the old world charm of their Federal row house. After going through dozens of design magazines, they both agree that they are interested in a transitional style, with accessories and colors to reflect the historic fabric of […]

Interior Design: A History

Design has always been around, it just hasn’t always been under guidelines and theories. The Chauvet caves, France (30,000 BC) , showed people’s innate need for color and design in their lives, with handprints, beautiful animals and abstract forms of line and shape, from the very beginning.

Reasons for this innate need:

1. Africans south of Sudan pass on the TRADITION of painted walls and creating relief designs. Only women learn this art and it is passed and carried into each daughter’s new home and family.

2.EXPRESSION OF BELIEF in the community and SOCIAL INTERACTION, is created by tying in designs from cloth patterns, field furrows, animals and plants, etc.; include abstract design.

3. CONTROL OF THE ENVIRONMENT through colors, line and forms. Design is in the details and it shapes the mini universe that will be inhabited by anyone that enters.

One of the first Interior Decorators realized the innate human need for design at a young age. “I was an ugly child and I lived in an ugly age,” wrote Elsie De Wolfe in her memoirs. “From the moment I was conscious of ugliness and it’s relation to myself and my surroundings, my one preoccupation was to find my way out of it. In my escape, I came to the meaning of beauty.”

Elsie De Wolfe used all three innate needs in her design. She changed the drab Victorian Style which included densely patterned wallpapers, heavy velvet draperies, dark woodworks and hideous bric a brac  to rooms that were painted in light fresh colors or wallpapered in delicate Chinoiserie prints.

1.  TRADITION: She loved the look of eighteenth century French and English furnishings, choosing for the first time in America, softly upholstered chairs, which one could actually sit comfortably in, rather than the tortuous Victorian era chairs that had preceded them.

2. EXPRESSION OF BELIEF/ SOCIAL INTERACTION: Elsie was also intensely practical. By removing most of the ugly clutter that accompanied the Victorian style of décor, she was able to entertain more guests in comfort, something that she loved and did extraordinarily well.

3. CONTROL OF ENVIRONMENT: “I opened the doors and windows of America and let the air and sunshine in.”

Take a page from Elise De Wolfe book and design with your innate needs in mind and you will be surprise how you are inspired and what becomes of the mini universes that you are creating.

Greek Architecture to Mid-century Modern

Around 1900, a number of architects and designers around the world, began developing new solutions to integrate traditional precedents (e.g. classicism, Gothic or Greek Architecture) with new technological possibilities.

Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of past design. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely.

 In a broader sense, modern architecture began at the turn of the 20th century with efforts to reconcile the principles underlying architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society.

Architects and Designers were looking for ways to create the same movement and shape of past historic features and design with a simpler, more minimalism design or modern techniques. For example:

This chair was inspired by the true Greek architecture but using modern techniques and materials.

This chair was inspired by the curves of the Ionic Column of Greek Architecture using nature material.

Lighting’s Affect on Design

Lighting truly affects design aesthetics and the way color is viewed at different times of day. In design this is referred to as certain type of Metamerism, called Illuminant.

Illuminant metamerism is witnessed when you have exactly the same samples, but when each is viewed independently under lights whose spectral power distributions differ (e.g. Fluorescent or Incandescent) . An example of this, would be these gloves, which were taken under different lighting sources.

The reason for the difference is that the light sources absorb only a predetermined set amount of wavelengths, making the left over colors that are labeled at the emitted colors to be shown.

Another example would be a room at different times in the day:

DESIGN TIP:  Take a sample of paint, flooring and/or any other decorative material home that you thinking of purchasing and watch what the colors look like at different times of the day, in the room you are decorating, for at least three days. This will make sure the choices truly work well together and that it is really what you are wanting.

Tame to Design

Most people when they are designing for their home, environment or company, are wanting to be impressive and be outgoing but still be within the limits of what is considered norm and functional.

So what makes a design that becomes innovated? It is when two ideas come together as one to create a new and/or improved object. Take for instance this chair.

It is the common stool with a dynamic twist. A series of calculated blasts create the legs of the stools. For a demonstration, click here.   This Israelite team was most likely inspired by their environment around them and wanted to tame that environment to create an object that helped their daily lifestyle.

What around you can you tame to create usefulness in your life?

Some suggestions:

Child craft projects or scrapbook items that have been piling up: Artwork in the  hallway, living room or bedroom in a collage design

Old textbooks or books in general: Into awesome ornaments

Leftover Tissue Paper from Parties: Wonderfully cute pom poms for any room

Reason for the Break

So for the past few months I have been hesitating to blog for a couple of reasons:

1. I have been wanting to work on some old projects and make them better before I put them up
2. Nothing to write about

Both of the reasons were solved today, in a very unexpected way. I lost my hard drive with all my projects from the past two years of my majoring in Interior Design. Of course I have hard copies of most of the work, but the electronic versions were what I was wanting to work on and change for the better.

Now because I am re-electrolyzing the projects, I get a chance to redo. And Post!

So to start this positive start that losing a hard drive brings:  My Design Templates

Trust me, they won’t all be this boring. This was just the easiest.

Code on Another Site

One of my favorite fashion blogs is http://tandsdaybook.blogspot.com/

She uses a blogger template style:

Blogger Template Style
Name:     Extreme Georgia
Author:   Klodian
URL:      www.deluxetemplates.net
Date:     July 2009
License:  This free Blogger template is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits both personal and commercial use.
However, to satisfy the 'attribution' clause of the license, you are required to keep the footer links intact which provides due credit to its authors. For more specific details about the license, you may visit the URL below:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

She customized the site by adding links and pictures that tie within the contents of her blog.  Example:

<a border=”0″ href=”http://tandsdaybook.blogspot.com&#8221; target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac267/sydneypoulton/5307240614_529c2256de_m.jpg”/></a&gt;

I think starting with a basic template and customizing it using basic online and program tools is the best way for non web developers and designers to create authentic and useful websites. The only thing she needs to fix is putting the author’s name on the site. According to the rules of using the deluxetemplates.com website, you have to keep the name somewhere on your blog., which I have not been able to find.  Other then that I think it is creative, inspiring and informational, a great use of marketing her thoughts and other stores.

HTML/ CSS

HTML

What is HTML? Word, references that place where images will be displayed and other data on a website. They are written in syntax markers that indicate what the words and images will do when readers interact with them.

User Agents-more then just web browsers, it is any software that allows a use to access web pages for people seeking for the information

Generic Containers- there are two syntaxs that can be use for customing pieces of content: <div> and <span>.

<div> is to  wrap block- level elements, to specify how tight the wrap, you will need to label it as class= “menu” or class=”content”

<span> is used to wrap inline elements, like editor’s or warning note  in a special style that will make stand out in the paragraph

CSS

History: CSS has gone through at least 2 major revisions since it was written. It is not as old as HTML but is still a heavy contender compare other web developing software on the market.

Rule Set or Rule- is made up of three main parts that create the structure on a web page.

Selector- identifies the HTML elements that the rule would apply to, such as  <body> or <class>. Basically taking the rules you write and rewriting them into HTML. The rules and code however look nothing like HTML, it shows up on the browser as the same.

Declaration Block- brackets with in the CSS code specify content and the style of that content. Anything with in the two brackets are under one general rule unless stated other wise by the developer. {  }

Property/ Value- it is just one line of rule or content it is separated by semicolons and referred to as declarations.

Designing Web Registration Processes for Kids

For original article click here

Tangible value propositions vs. abstract activities

Kids have a very simple understanding about games and websites on the internet. When approach with something new to their understanding of how the internet works they are skeptical and will avoid it unless they can understand how it works. The article uses the example of barbie.com as a good resource to see how children can be educated the importance of things like having an account on a website is important. It takes the child view by view what having an account will let them have access to.

Opportunities for creativity

Most children websites will allow them to create avatars and user names to make them individuals within in the site. This will make the website more personable and allow you to gather information safely for your statistics. You will need to make sure to have a good filter since some kids will be more creative then others. There are some companies that hire people to watch the websites and reports to block or suspend players.

Pictures

Most kids using the websites are still learning how to read and write. Using multiple pictures to explain and demo is the best method. PBS KIDS uses pictures for secret codes to recover passwords when they are forgotten. 

Personal data

In today’s society kids are taught that they need to be cyber safe. Many will stay away from sites that ask for too much information. If you need to get specific information to have them play at certain levels on games, you will need to get creative. For examples see article.

Language

Like I said before simple is better here are the some words that are better to use then others.

Wording Options

Use…	Instead of…
Sign-up	Register
Sign-in	Log In
Start	Submit
Nickname / Site Name	Name / User Name
You / Your / Yours	Me / My / Mine
Password	Secret Code
<site name> Friends	Friends, or Other Players

Information Architect cont.

Task-based scenarios- These are used during the design stage before development beginnings and again during the usability testing phase. Scenarios used to decide how a user would find the information they are seeking with in the site and if it was easy to do so.

Example Scenario: I need help get into my email, who do I need to call or contact?

Competitive review- Main question for this sections is- what are the others doing? The main key to analyzing your competitors is to have a basic survey that you fill out for all the websites that you look at. This will allow you to get a concise and informative view of the strengths and weakness of other websites.

Card sorting- This process is when you layout the different pages of a website on cards and allow a group of target users to sort out the content in a format that makes sense to them. This will allow to see if your designs and concepts were correct. Be careful to not have less then 20 and no more then 50.

Good content- This is the core of a good site. It needs to be done throughout the project no matter what. Some sites are late going up because the content is being developed. Insist on a content strategy that includes a plan for content development, creation, editing, tuning and maintenance.

Storyboards- These are like scenarios but with pictures and the website content connected with it.

Example: 

Limu Chair

I think this chair has great blanket storing and putting away those magazines that always pile up on the coffee table.

great design solution!