ＩＤ：nbuy暱稱：{N}
June 21, 2008 - September 7, 2008
Piet Zwart (1885-1977) owes his reputation mainly to his design for the Bruynzeel kitchen in 1938 and his progressive graphic designs for companies like PTT and cable manufacturer Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek. But the major Piet Zwart retrospective in the Gemeentemuseum this summer shows a much broader body of work. He worked as an interior designer, industrial design, commercial typographer, photographer, critic and lecturer, playing in all these capacities a key role in defining the design climate in the Netherlands in the twentieth century. His versatility and his influence on present-day designers led the Association of Dutch Designers to award him the title of ‘Designer of the Century’ in 2000.
Piet Zwart preferred to call himself a form engineer or form technician rather than a designer. He believed in functionality, standardisation and machine production, and profiled himself as one of the first industrial designers in the Netherlands. In his eyes, a design must take account both of ergonomics and user-friendliness, and of the demands of mass production. The kitchen he designed for Bruynzeel in 1938 is a good example. It was highly progressive for its time. This was the first time that domestic appliances like a refrigerator and stove could be integrated in the design in a practical way. All the elements were designed with logical proportions, and customers could combine them as they wished. Handy details like glass containers, a pull-out bread board and storage racks made the kitchen a textbook example of comfort and efficiency.
The same urge to innovate is also evident in Piet Zwart’s graphic work. His designs are simple and functional, but also playful. Zwart was not a ‘group man’. He was not part of the Amsterdam School or the ‘De Stijl’ movement, though he was influenced by them. At the same time, he was drawn to the international avant-garde, particularly Russian Constructivism. In the 1920s, when Piet Zwart began to work for the progressive Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek In Delft, he was able for the first time to experiment with upper and lower case, lines, circles and screens. He used alliteration, the visual reworking of letter shapes, repetition and combinations of figures and letters, creating his own unique new style that still has great influence today.
Zwart soon incorporated photographs into his advertising images. His photographic work is also very no-nonsense, evidence of his predilection for lines and planes, and his keen eye for detail. Besides advertising photography, he also took images of the surface structures of wood, metal and textiles, and close-ups of organic forms for a while. Many of these photographs possess an almost machine-like element of repetition, reflecting Zwart’s love of structure and balance.
Piet Zwart’s versatility can be seen in a stand he designed for celluloid manufacturer the Eerste Nederlandsche Celluloidwarenfabriek at the fifth Utrecht Fair in 1921. In its simplicity and lack of pretension, this stand illustrates above all his architectonic aspirations. Shortly afterwards he reworked his design drawing to produce an open Constructivist structure of diagonal, horizontal and vertical slats. This revolutionary stand has been reconstructed for the exhibition.
According to market-research company NPD's Accessories Tracker, the hottest accessory in the U.S. over last year through May 2008 has been reusable shopping totes. During that period, sales for these bags rose 72%. NPD's chief consumer analyst, Marshal Cohen, says consumers clearly see the environmental benefit reusables have over plastic. They bestow green-pop-culture "bragging rights," especially because celebrities use them, says Colleen Ryan, an analyst at market researcher Mintel.
Eco-Bags started in 1989 when Rowe asked a friend to bring back a string shopping bag from Europe for her. Light and scrunchable, woven bags — long a staple on the Continent — could easily be tossed into handbags for impulse purchases. Rowe's friends liked her new find and wanted their own. Rowe, then a sales executive, found a supplier in Germany, trademarked the name ecobags and began to sell to natural-food stores.
In 1992, hit by rising import costs, Rowe found a new supplier in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) that provided more colors and styles. Three years later, she added canvas bags for suburbanites who wanted a more structured bag to load in their cars, and in 1996 she started using organic cotton. Retailers began paying attention. When natural-foods chain Fresh Fields asked Rowe to print its name on the string bags, a green branding device was born. Today her clients include supermarkets, corporations and nonprofits. Rowe sells about 100 products made of string, canvas and recycled materials at prices ranging from $2.50 to $42.
Rowe has an unusual approach to her competitors: she sells their products, including those of ChicoBags. Andy Keller, a green-conscious software salesman before he founded the ChicoBag Co., in Chico, Calif., in 2004, suspected a lot more people would tote their own shopping bags if only they could remember to pack them. His solution was to make the ChicoBag's small storage pouch part of the bag. The product's patented design helped generate sales of $2 million in 2007. He, too, projects revenues will double in 2008. About half his business comes from customizing the nylon bags — they retail for about $5 and are available in 10 colors — for nonprofits, schools and corporations.
Reusables may even be too hot. "[They] are becoming a commodity market, and the business is getting increasingly competitive, with new companies popping up every week," says Keller, who's concerned that if the bags are priced too low, people will treat them as disposable, defeating their purpose. For now, reusables are hip. Whole Foods, which stopped using plastic bags this April, has "sold in excess of 2 million reusable bags in many styles," says Michael Besancon, who heads Whole Foods' green initiative. The Container Store introduced a reusable made of recycled billboard material for $29.99. "Sales have been amazing," says Mona Williams, who oversees the buying department. "Consumer attitudes toward reusables have radically changed. It's not a fad. It's a lifestyle change." Rowe would agree. Reusables are "the poster child for the green movement," she says. It's her payoff on a nearly 20-year-old goal to clean up the planet, "one bag at a time."
Graduate school is training in research. It is for people who love research, scholarship, and teaching for their own sake and for the difference they can sometimes make in the world. It is not for people who simply want more undergraduate courses. It is not for people who are in a hurry to get a real job. The eventual goal of many doctoral students is to get a job as a college professor, or perhaps in industrial or government research. Some in technical subjects go on to start companies. But many just do it because they like it.
More specifically, graduate school is typically a five to eight year program (in the US anyway; fewer years in most other countries) of study and research organized by a single department or interdisciplinary program of some university, culminating in a doctoral degree (usually a PhD). In the United States, as a general rule, the term "university" refers to a college that grants doctoral degrees. Some individual departments in a university may not have graduate programs. But a research-oriented university will normally grant doctorates in dozens of different fields. A common misconception is that you cannot apply to a PhD program until you have completed a master's degree. This is rarely the case. If you want a PhD, apply to a PhD program. You'll need an undergraduate degree before you start the PhD program, but you can apply to the PhD program before your undergraduate work is done.
Graduate school, as I mentioned, generally takes five to eight years. That's a long time. The first year is often the worst. It usually consists of an overwhelming amount of structured reading, designed to give you a generalized background in the basic texts of the particular field. But the exact format of the first few years of graduate school varies widely. Typically one must pass a set of "comprehensive exams" (often called "comps") to continue in the program past a certain point. People do fail these exams. And the workload and the possibility of failure often cause a great deal of anxiety. I have elaborate ideas about the causes and cures of this situation, but I'll reserve them for another occasion. My point here is simply that this unhappy period passes, to be followed by more interesting periods. The next few years of graduate school are usually focused on finding a topic and advisor for one's dissertation, along with additional coursework and teaching assistantships. The best part of graduate school, the part that makes it worthwhile, comes toward the end, when you begin to present your research in public. Suddenly you will begin to join the community of scholars who work in your chosen area; they will take you seriously and you will begin to make numerous professional acquaintances, some of whom you will probably keep for the rest of your life. (I've written another article, similar to this one, about this process of professional networking. It's online at http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/network.html .)
Graduate school, then, is quite different from undergraduate school. It takes longer, it requires more focused and sustained work, it involves more intensive relationships with faculty and other students, and it makes considerably greater demands on your personal identity. You can get through your undergraduate education, if you care to, without ever really thinking about who you are or what you want to accomplish in the world. In graduate school, though, your personal identity will almost certainly undergo great change. In particular, you will acquire a particular sort of professional identity: you will become known as the person who wrote such-and-such a paper, who did such-and-such research, who refuted such-and-such theory, or who initiated such-and-such line of inquiry. This process can be tremendously satisfying. But it's not for everyone.
It's my birthday today!
unfortunately.............typhoon is comming!> <
what the hell............
to celebrate myself~I bought a lot of cosmetics~even I don't have much money~
jesus! I'm 25 ! unbeleivable~~
Oh..by the way...I cut new hair~ totally failed style.....
I hate that fake designer!! I. HATE. YOU.!!
why she just did herself? didn't listen to me! I gave her a picture to compare...but,but...
totally wrong! I don't want to cut short! so sad..........my long hair was gone....T T
Look at my braces! haha........Can you see the shiny things on my teeth?>D<
ok.......being a mineral girl is my best wish~
觀看全文...
3D model has been turned into real model! ^ ^
I have been enthusiastic about waiting for it so long~~
But I can't have it now~~because it should be waited for some procedure.....
Look at her! Marshroom! Is it cute? my No.2 work. But I still haven't decided her color yet.
