First Encounters with Design

Design is everywhere. It's big, it's expansive, and it encompasses practically the whole of the human experience. "Design" is humanity's way of making a mark on the world around us. That mark can look like anything, from the blocks we play with as children to the latest Apple product, the games we play, or things we find in our grandparents houses.

Probably my first encounter with design as a child was growing up playing with Legos. I remember taking all those little multicolored blocks, breaking them down and building them up into new things, houses, space ships, castles. I remember vividly the colors, and the unique texture of the Lego brick. Legos were a passport for my creativity, letting it run loose and travel wherever it wanted - whether that was down the street, or into other worlds of my own creation.

Superman dooms earth... again!

The other object that I look back on as a touchstone of my youth was an old comic book buried somewhere in my grandmother's house. There were a lot of them, actually, but the one that really sticks with me is Action Comics #496, pictured here. I suppose the 'in' thing to do these days is to refer to them as "sequential art," and while that's accurate, to me it was a story about someone incredible doing amazing things. But the object still sticks in my memory for several reasons.

First, the dramatic image. Superman's costume is interesting for a number of reasons, but I may explore those in a later entry. At the time, though, it grabbed my attention, as did the rest of the art work. The colors associated with the era in comics; the artistic style of the period; the smell of the thing. Old books, and comics too, have their own unique, musty kind of smell, and it always evokes fond memories for me.

The sweeping architectural style of Kandor, the Kryptonian "city in a bottle," still resonates with me today. It's always interesting to see how someone portrays a 'futuristic' society, and Kandor is no exception; it's full of eye catching curves and angles, and the brief glimpses of it here were enough to make me want to see more. It has a kind of personality, especially when you combine the architecture with the wild colors worn by its citizens.

Design should have personality; it should say something about the designer.