A minimal design’s voice

Posted on 3 March 2012 by ninamehta

Design always has perspective and voice. It is always saying something and a good design’s message is intentional and thoughtful.

Three white canvases hang on a white wall aligned side by side at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This installation could be making commentary on negative and additive space, on shadows, on meditation or virginity, or sound or color. The artists could be saying something about potential, beginnings and opportunity or the intimidation of working with huge spaces or the fear of having nothing to say. Though some would say say, these are just 3 pretentious white canvases in a famous museum and nothing more.

I visited the Pompidou twice during this trip in 2007 and neither time gathered the name of the piece. So if you know the artist or if this is actually an unfinished piece, please share.

Minimal design is not a shortcut
Minimalsts celebrate critical editing and their ability to sensitively the balance between form and function. Design should not be sparse or naked just for the sake of attempting a minimalist aesthetic. Blog themes are the worst offenders.

Minimalist designers edit for voice
We celebrate minimal design in product, layout, architecture, photography, music, dance, writing and fashion. The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams exhibit at the San Francisco MoMA did exactly that. Minimalists pride themselves on their ability detatch themselves from their work to critique and edit. Omitting what is superflous, removing what is not required and stripping down the design is intended to result in a final product that is an exquisite sum of its best parts.

The b side of design editing is about maintaining voice. Design should still say something. Both commercial and artistic design is still about communication: what it is, where it lives, who it is for, how it can be used or and what it may be. The voice can easily be muted when essential factors are over edited.

We have more access to design software and likely more designers. Minimalist design looks easy to a novice: give it extra white space, switch the font to Helvetica and draw a thin hairline. These designs lack form, structures and constraints and therefore structure, a perspective, a voice, shape, color and membership to a system.

Minimal design executes details
Let’s analyze the Diynamic Music label art from Hamburg, Germany that does an excellent job executing a minimal design.

The records are all designed within a system; each sleeve is precisely and exactly the same as those in its family. The typography, shape, language style and material are consistent. Only the color of the sticker label and artist and track listing changes.

It’s designed with solid color blocks and matching typography. The design system is linear and predictable and its form factors are intentionally basic shapes. Minimalism gives more by challenging to the design to work with less.

So with all of these constraints, the sleeve design still has a very distinct perspective. It speaks with a voice and attends to a message. The reel in motion would move forward voicing process and progress, the dissected shapes speak to the technical sounds of the label, the analog imagery is in conflict with synthetic electronic sounds on the record and the large black blocky image is softened with the gray background. But then all of this is disrupted with a vivid round block of bright color. This design is making an explicit statement with a unwavering perspective about what kind of music is within.

The designer here has also fantastically played with numbers:

There a single main image, the audio or video reel. One.
The audio reel requires a second circle to serve as its border, so the singular main image is comprised of a circle pair. Two.
The rounded rectangles and punched out medium sized circles are intentionally only in tryptich. Three
The reel is cut into 4 slices at shifted on the y-axis at half and fourth heights. Four.
The last detail works in a partnership of 5. Three bullets run vertically down the lower spine of the reel and two stack next to each other like a set of eyes on the top right section. Three and two: Five.

These are subtle, intentional decisions designed in a rhythm. It is beautiful because it is edited and thoughtful. Minimal design especially in art and music does not usually command bold attention. The consumer can easily disregard and let the design go unnoticed or be be very cerebral and studious about its form and function. But to do the latter, you the participant has to bring something to the design conversation. Without a voice, there is no dialouge.

Minimalist design websites with perspective:

Minimalism in Web Design: 20 beautiful websites

If This Then That: ifttt.com

Google.com

[Afterword]
I am aware this blog does not have an applied theme.
I’m working on my editing skills. I’m quite aware this post’s length.
I must share the first minimal tech house track I fell in love with. From the Mobilee Back to Back Volume 2 Compilation on the second disc, produced in Berlin, enjoy Pan Pot – What is What Remixed by Gummihz.

Designing in real time and not a minute later

Posted on 8 January 2012 by ninamehta

I VJed at my first party last night! I’ve been playing at home for friends for a few months until last night when I took the first step out into the wild and exercised my digits.

“VJing is a broad designation for realtime visual performance. VJing is the manipulation or selection of visuals, the same way DJing is a selection and manipulation of audio. This results in a live multimedia performance that can include music, actors and dancers. The subject of VJ-DJ collaboration also started to become a subject of interest for those studying in the field of academic human-computer interaction (HCI).
-Wikipedia

I’ve been working in Modul8 to control the live, real-time look, feel, actions, motion and mixing of projected images. My friend Sarah composes her visuals in Resolume. Curious to commit to a weapon of choice, she and I booked a design jam to trade vj notes. She then invited me to get my feet wet and tag with her for the SF Haçeteria party at Deco Lounge. Having only used Resolume twice, worked with a midi controller once, being newborn fresh to Sarah’s compositions and having never VJed with video clips, there was a high probability I would produce visuals that look like they were Winamp visualizers circa 1998. Mostly excited, slightly hesitant, I said yes.

So here’s the thing. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. That’s what the people who get things done, say. It’s a Twilio mantra and is heartfelt advice from Ira Glass‘ talk on good taste.

Glass says, quite simply:

You love doing this kind of creative work, so you do it.
Because you have good taste, you can see what you’re producing. But, especially in the beginning, is not very good. In fact, it’s pretty crappy.
There is only one way to get better. Do work. Do a huge volume of work.

I’m thankful I was reminded of this again by Public Works’ resident VJ, Howard Wong. He advised,

I think you should lock down a gig playing out. You’re going to run into a bunch of hardware/production issues. The best way to learn is to simply dive right in.

When Sarah very graciously invited me to join her I had no choice but to say yes, even with all the Winamp fears in hand. The night went great, the vibe was killer and the DJs spun everything from Acid House to 90s Technotronic tracks. Sarah set the stage and invited me to jump in soon after and start mixing some clips. She carried the set through the main singing act. After I hopped back in and then really got into a groove. Then we tagged back and forth before Sarah closed down the night. Party-goers were taking photos in the lights and grooving until close well beyond last-call. I recorded 6 seconds of my compositions for you:

Though I missed beat drops and confused a few layers from one another, I did it–and that was the big win. I did eventually get my bearings enough to find my rhythm and make compositions that felt like my work. I composed somethings I liked and got to say something to the world. We made that tiny little spot in the Tenderloin a better space for people to meditate and move their bodies to music.

A handful of our friends came out to see Sarah play and discovered me behind the proverbial curtain. Keep good people in your life, good things will happen. I heard words ringing in my head that I had been sprouting off to my peers launching creative endeavors. I’ve been saying, “We, we your friends, we want you to be successful. Our reflex behavior will be to support you, encourage you to grow and pursue happiness. Go do the thing that you cannot not do. We’re cheering you on. “What is more joyful than seeing people you care about find fruits and joy from their labor? And those friends did just that.

I’m humbled by the invitation to design for motion, color, sound, lights and the immediate, immersive experience for people. It’s more than I could ask for and is really really fun.

Follow visuals.ninamehta.com for my clips and book me for your party.

(Fiona) Apples to Apples on the new iPad 2 Case

Posted on 2 March 2011 by ninamehta

Apple generally does a superb job choosing songs for their ads that charge our emotions. There’s an interesting story about that cute tune in the new magnetic iPad 2 case video. It was written by Fiona Apple, of all people, and titled Extraordinary Machine, of all names.

Six years after Fiona Apple wrote the album, in 2008, happy as a clam–or as happy as Fiona Apple could be– it was shot down and sent back to the drawing board. Many tracks were reproduced and rumored to be against her creative will. They were produced and arguably overproduced, before going to market. The original album ‘accidentally’ leaked to music-internet junkies across the web while American Eagle and many radio stations played the shinier, more sellable album in stores.

What does this have to do with the iPad? Not much really, but it’s an interesting back story on on a sour Apple and an Extraordinary Machine.

Make music, make friends: my social graph

Posted on 29 October 2010 by ninamehta

I wish I had drawn out my interpretation of my social communities before I installed the new Facbeook app, Social Graph. What this app does very well is show me how my facebook friends are connected and clustered.

I ran the app, took a screen grab and began to label the clusters. When I loaded the app again, my clusters looked different. In these screen grabs I did not include some of the outliers. Most of those people are friends I made while traveling. There are so many ways to interpret my social circles. The app is slow right now and it doesn’t tell a story. But I can do that:

Ultimately, what I found is that my techno community links my high school and ancestry communities the most. Media and music are still the center of my social circle here. My current job at the Office for Women’s Affairs is surprisingly barely connected to anything at all. I have two London networks that don’t overlap at all.

I can see that media and music are the centrally what link me to people and my professional communities. I have strong clusters in Indiana and San Francisco that thickly overlap with my Chicago community.

I found many of the outliers here to have a specific ethnic quality in common. I also had an absolutely random seeming smattering of “indian people” from all over the country in that cluster.

Overall, I’ve learned that my music communities centrally have guided my social life. I have an enormous high school network, which makes sense because I joined Facebook as soon as I graduated high school. My Bloomington music community is tightly connected to my student media groups which then led me to my job at the Star, the news design community, my Poytner Fellowship and the cluster of friends in Indianapolis who worked at Rolls Royce.

Last year, friends from my San Francisco Tech and Techno Community went to India for a wedding. They stayed with my aunts, uncles and cousins and must have friended each other. There are enough people from my high school who moved to San Francisco, listen to Techno and work in Tech, so we can see those overlaps too.

I was surprised how few links there were between my tech communities and RockMelt, but then again it makes sense because I did not get the internship by knowing someone, per say (which is quite rare). There was a 6-degrees of separation alumni connection there.

I wish I could make some sense of the random smattering of Indian people. That cluster is concentrated with Indian people I know from all over the country and world. I guess we really are all family.

I would love to search for specific friends in this app. Still, very cool. This is also the first time I got to check off every category in my tags!

Humans love music and stories

Posted on 5 November 2009 by ninamehta

Music is everywhere in our world, all the time. Just like design. Once we open our ears to all the sounds, rhythms and melodies it changes the way we hear our world. I thought about this a lot during our class today.

Selma (Bjork, Dancer in the Dark) hears music everywhere. Here she is working in a factory, and of course, breaks out into song about the exact fact that she hears music everywhere.

Ignorance is bliss, but learning is fun
As we become more versed and educated in music….. or design or walking or breathing or math, it forever changes how we experience it. We can really appreciate the beauty of the world we live in. But, the magic and mystery is lost as we begin to learn. The Earth that turns, birds flying together and leaves changing color are no longer fantasty.

Eugene talked about this problem during the first week when Marty played the small cymbals. Many of us heard a sound and vibration. But, Eugene heard so much more because he has studied music. Some of the magic is lost for him but at the wonderful trade off of education and depth of knowledge.

Creative Processes
The study of HCI and the study of music overlap because they are both the study of experience. They both rely on creative processes. Writing music and designing are messy, swampy, difficult, iterative achievements. Great thinkers develop processes and exercises to teach us ways to also become great thinkers, creatives and problem solvers.

Writing is like music is like design
Music is sticky and music is fun. I went to the Poynter Institute last year for a 6-week-hyper-collaborative journalism summer program. The director, Roy Peter Clark, taught his book Writing Tools in song every Tuesday. The lessons are also available by Podcast, Tool 24: Work from a Plan, Index the big parts of your work is a great example of a writing lesson taught with a music language.

In Tool 24, Clark draws parallels between writing and music. He recommends we write with subheadings and chapter titles. “The reader who sees the big parts,” he says, “more likely to see the big story.” He’s talking about generalizations. He also discusses the process of writing and recommends sketching out big ideas first, then adding phrases and nuances later. He says, and I quote, to write with “transparency.” Then, he links all the process of writing to the architecture of writing the song Three Blind Mice. How beautiful.

Clark asks journalists to write with transparency, labels and clarity for the reader. Make an indexed global structure, he says. I think he’s suggesting writers make an index to help readers make quick generalizations. Transparency also means to make your sources known, your process understood and your motivations clear in journalism and HCI!

Clark loves Polka. Below is a video of a fun little bit about the Media and Pennsylvania or Albania or Transylvania. I don’t quite remember. Unfortunately, my flickr video won’t embed!

Perspectives make our process messier
The HMI class reinforced Marty’s lessons on perspectives. It’s important to walk around your space and see (or hear) the experience in many different ways. Corinthe was sitting underneath a little nook by the pipes feeling the vibrations. She must have felt something much different being low to the ground in a dark place versus someone like Dave who has an incredibly different experience simply because he’s tall. I wonder what the world sounds like up there. Does he hear the world differently? Is it sunnier?

Height, everyone is a different height. That completely changes how we experience the world and it’s such a messy problem designers must think about!

Creative processes are messy but at least we get to dance around and listen to music during the cleanup.

Video of Clark & Polka: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninamehta/2727566917/

Music for (multi)Media: Roy Peter Clark on Writing and Music

Bloomington does London

Posted on 2 April 2007 by ninamehta

This was the last weekend of visitors. Alec arrived Thursday and we enjoyed the perfect concert at the Koko. It was a conglomorate of his and my music taste with the largest disc ball I’ve ever seen. We arrived as James Holden was doing his first of two sets. I liked this first better, it was more chill. Then Green Gartside (Scritti Politti) & Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip) was the meat of Holden’s sandwich set followed by an insane jam session with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) and Steve Reid! We met up with Annamarie that night to continue the perfect weekend.

Early that morning I took them to my favourite classic place for visitors, The Troubador. Then we slopped through some rain and I took them to Buckingham Palace and Westminster. We sought salvation in the National Gallery and saw the Manet to Picasso exhbit. Annamarie went to see Marry Poppins with her Roma roomies and Alec and I toured Soho. Some how we made it out to Zoobar, a classic London day.

On Saturday, graced by the sun we split our ways and Alec got to see the South Kensington Museums. I took Amar around to all the shops she’s been missing at High Street Kensington. Poor little girl in Roma has not seen in H&M in forever. I got a super cute cheap bag from Top Shop with a huge discoball on it, it reminds me of the Koko! They got a taste of my favourite takeout, by favourite I mean cheapest, and it became a Snappy Pizza evening. That night, tired from Londoning we spent the night in and made it to Kings Kebob at a good solid 2am.

We woke up, dropped Alec off at the Tube and proceeded onto Notting Hill Gate where it was not crowded, touristy, or annoying. In fact, I got the perfect pair of shoes I was looking for, for 3 pounds. Pink athletic pumps! We did our thing, and got McDonald’s and then I took her to meet her roomies and we said by.

I came with the intention of napping only to pleasantly find an email from Matt telling me him and Jonathan are back in London till tomorrow. We met up for some drinks and I got a peek at some upcoming goodies for the paper at The Savoy.

I also met some really fun Londoners on my Tube ride home! What a great weekend I have no idea how I made it to class this morning.

Air @ the Forum, 17 March 2007

Posted on 18 March 2007 by ninamehta

“Oh, didn’t Air do that one song in the 90s?… Sexy Boy “

Yes. Any many-a-other song since. I saw Air last night in Kentish Town. Besides the obvious that they were excellent I’ll tell you more. I had no idea what they would be like live. Especially considering their special guest opener put encouraged everyone to talk or sleep after about 2 songs. Point being, the possibility of an Air-like soothing lovely but quiet show became a real possibility.

Silly me, Air was not a 20quid naptime. Of course they played songs from Pocket Symphony but it’s always nice to hear the classics. Nicolas Godin has a really cute French sense of humor. Before Kelly Watch the Stars, he got distracted by the voice distorter and saying little nerdy things instead. And his broken English reminded us, “I like when you shout!”

Some of the songs, but not all by any means were instrumental. And don’t you worry, their encore ended with Sexy Boy.

Even though I went by myself, I made friends with two girls here from Australia. They live about 2 hr from where Rossy is studying! When I told them the tale of how I ended up there solo, they said to me, “It’s like going to the movies alone!” That’s a little joke for you if you read my blog. They’ve been going to so many shows, I’m a little bits jealous. But we both realised and agreed… London is weirdly behind on the music scene.

Berlin!!

Posted on 12 March 2007 by ninamehta

Achtung! I had a wonderful time visiting La Cantina in Berlin from March 9-11. I arrived to the airport a million miles away from the city and took a train to the Zoo train stop where we were supposed to be meeting. Well, I guess there was a mis-com because I later learned they were already there and didn’t find me. After magically communicating I needed a phone card (and a nice woman who helped me use it), and 4 phone calls I got in touch with Thom and hopped two trains to his host family’s place.

Just outside the station and Thom and Alec were sitting and waiting happily. They greeted me with a German beer at noon. We all know I don’t like beer, but it was kind of perfect. I checked out his host family’s place which was SO cute and wonderful, then we got the best roast chicken from a stand outside

Then Thom took us on a walking tour of the city. It was perfect and good to just have a chill evening and see Berlin. It’s really interesting how creatively they do their monuments. It’s weird too because Berlin is a new old city since so much had to be rebuilt. It will be interesting to see it grow in the next 20 years.

I begged for a traditional German dinner around Alexazanderplatz and was reminded and pleased with small European portions. We cleaned up real nice and got swankyed up and hit up a cool German club in the Sharp building. I guess after the war old movie theaters and warehouses adied the clubbing boom there.

Our night ended at 5 and started up at 11 when we hoped to find Drew and then Kristin at the airport. With success by a hair we made it back to Thom’s host sisters place in E. Berlin where we stayed. After much needed showers and naps we had really delicious Indian (a little germanized) dinner with Thom’s host sister Judith and her friend. On the way to dinner there were Punks rallying in support of other Punks in Copehagen. Gotta love E. Berlin!! We were hoping to get into a pretty elite club, Panorama Bar to see the Junior Boys, but in short… Nein. Tatoo faced bouncer surprisingly said no to my cute face, just kidding.

Still a good night because I had my first taste of Donner, a turkish pita/meat snack thing. Can you tell I barely eat in London, EVERYTHING was the best food I ever had. Of course, how would I see these boys without me jumping and snuggling all over them before bed. The three of them were cramped on a pullout couch and Kristin and I scored the huge cozy bed. But, it was nice to be tucked in by my boys.

Another night ending at 5 and starting at 11 led us to pick up Paul from the airport. I insisted on a second Doner before Pauly could even get back to the apartment. So good.

With only a few hours before I left we got to check out some cool Markts (markets) and I had amazing Blood Orange juice, warm wine with chestnuts, and a cheese and green onion crepe.

Berlin, like Barcelona, had really awesome graffitti everywhere. There’s no doubt that styles were different. But art for arts sake, or taking almost any opportunity to be creative is something I will miss when I leave Europe and the UK. Look, my friends are hipsters, hahaaha:

Thom, Alec and Drew took their little Pinta to the train station-bahn-platz-strass-haus and saw me off. It’s always so hard to leave these boys, they’re so good to me. I’m also glad I knew they were amazing far before I ever left them. I hope they have a good week in Berlin, I’m looking forward to showing Alec around London in a few weekends when Annamarie is here.

I am thrilled that I got a relatively cheap flight, but RyanAir is killer. They make it worth it no doubt.

Going to the movies alone

Posted on 30 January 2007 by ninamehta

One of the most exciting parts about coming to London was for the music. Unfortunately, I haven’t met too many people who listen to the same stuff as me. I used to always say that I would kill to go see Massive Attack or Four Tet, but they never play in the States. Frustrated that I would be missing their shows, I decided I’m not going to.

A pretty cool co-worker of mine who’s been in London for 10 years (from Seattle), gave me the final push. So, I bought a (really cheap!) ticket to see Four Tet and Steve Reid at the end of March. Theres a mild possibleyeity that some I may not have to go it alone, but doubtful.

During the past half month, I’ve been whining “this is not why I’m here.” So, that’s the end of it. I will do things that I want to do while I’m here. I’m sorry I waited so long and never bought Air tickets, now I know. I’m sorry that it seems to be the first time in forever that Massive Attack isn’t performing (minus a benefit concert that was sold out immediately, and well before I left for England).
Also, I have really wonderful coworkers who really want me to get something out of my internship. I’m already writing an article because someone insisted I get my name published in the Magazine. It’s a 500 word piece about the health of Britishers in North East England. Hey, it’s a start. I’m getting a push from another side to interview an MP. Eek, I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. He assured me that I’ve got 3 months yet. Weird.

Nina Mehta on design, news media and travel.

Category Archives: Music