Design is Dangerous: The Belt

Like so many other products in life, the belt is a piece of design that was created for one particular purpose but later came to be used for another. As crucial as it may seem to have one’s trousers supported at waist-level or have one’s outfit completed through its usage as a fashion accessory, belts have become involved in more serious issues in the events of today’s culture.

Simply put, a belt is usually made from leather and is typically worn around the waist in order to prop up pants. As straightforward as this may seem, belts have unfortunately become instruments in various acts of violence, such as abuse and suicide.

For example, belts have been promoted in today’s society as ways to “discipline” children through the act of beating them with such strips of leather. Even belt buckles worn as ornaments can be used to harm children in this way. As a result, belts have been misrepresented as a form of child abuse.

Belts have also been valuable instruments to those looking to end their life through suicide. Particularly amongst the teenage population, belts have been exploited as a way to hang oneself. This has been seen in recent years in several news stories as belts have been used to hang people in their own closets. Consequently, belts have acquired a reputation of being tools for suicide.

As belts become a more versatile object in today’s fashion industry, often used as an accessory for dresses or dress shirts, they have also grown to be more dangerous. For those belonging to the emo or skater fashion scenes, belts have come to be rough strips of leather decorated with sharp, metal studs, making them seem as if they are weapons rather than parts of fashion.

Even occupations such as policemen support the connection between belts and violence, due to the fact that they are used to carry weapons, such as guns, knives or batons. And because belts have also come to be a sign of authority, belts have ultimately become dangerous forms of design.

As stated earlier, belts did not intentionally adopt such a harsh relation to violence. However, with its simplistic design, belts were quickly discovered to be useful for actions other than holding one’s pants up. Because this consequence was unintentional, we must recognize that belts as a dangerous form of design is not the fault of the designer. Instead, it is our own faults since this lies solely on social responsibility. Thus, we learn that all forms of design may have other uses, but we must ultimately be responsible for the consequences that result from using these forms for other purposes.

At this rate, belts won’t be able to hold up its reputation any longer.

Design in Society

Looking at the video below, we see a humorous advertisement promoting the use of condoms in order to prevent unwanted situations such as the one seen in the video between a parent and his rambunctious son. Although this serves as an amusing commercial to couch potatoes everywhere, the advertisement actually promotes a product that is a form of utopian design; in other words, condoms are a form of design that aim to improve society.

With all the different pieces of design out there, many may not have condoms as their number one choice for utopian design. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that condoms have been beneficial to the general public.

When it comes to measuring a condom’s worth, I’d say that condoms are very crucial to society, especially in today’s modern culture. Looking at American advertisements, media and Hollywood films, we live in a country in which “sex sells”. There’s no denying it. Because the American population is accustomed to more intimate and sexual relationships, sexual intercourse is far more common in this country than it is on the shores of others. As a result, we must look at how the condom serves us in the context of the 21^st century.

Consider the primary purpose of condoms. In most cases, condoms are used to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This is a crucial aspect of how the condom is a form of utopian design.

For unwanted pregnancies, condoms strive to prevent the possibility of unintentionally conceiving a child using its latex design. Not only does this goal reflect safe-sex practices, but also population control. With our population facing tough economic times as well as an ever-growing number of homeless people, we must be reminded that having more children is not the answer. Why have more kids when there are people out there who cannot even provide themselves with a sufficient means of living?  

Not only do condoms keep the population in check, they also prevent the death of children from abortions as well as any parental abandonment that results from putting a child up for adoption. Because condoms serve to prevent such increases in population as well as avoid child death and abandonment, we see how it is a form of utopian design.

Condoms strive to improve society in other ways such as preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and infections as well as being a reliable and inexpensive product. Because condoms have proven to be dependable (with a 2% per year pregnancy rate) and relatively cheap, a large part of the population is able to use it, thereby showing that it is an important (if not essential) design in our society.

Having been used for over 400 years, condoms having been improving society for centuries and is still popular even today. Because of this, we can safely assume that they are perfect examples of what can be considered as utopian design.

Color Transforms: Transforming the Holidays

You see red and green. Quick! What do you think of? No need to answer, we can probably guess it for ourselves. First thing that came to mind was Christmas, right? We don’t need to be psychic to know because red and green are widely accepted as the representative colors of this holiday.

The fact that these two simple colors are able to convey an entire holiday to its viewers shows how much influence color has over our visual perception. Not only do we utilize color for aesthetic purposes, we also use it to relate to important traditions in our lives. But what happens when we dare to change these colors? If we change the official colors of Christmas, do we change our perception of Christmas tradition as well?

If you don’t know where I’m going with this, take a moment to think about Christmas decorations. When you picture the typical living room Christmas setup, what do you see? A green Christmas tree, probably with red spherical ornaments hanging on it, and red stockings hanging on the fire place. With this standard setting of Christmas interior design ingrained into our minds, we don’t realize how much we associate red and green with this holiday. We’ve come to accept these colors ever since we could remember celebrating our earliest Christmases. As a result, we ignore the fact that red and green have so much effect on us when it comes to the festive holiday and the interior design in one’s home.

Now, picture the same typical living room setup. Only this time, picture a white Christmas tree (such as the one below) with light pink and purple spherical ornaments hanging on it, and maybe even some bright blue stockings hanging on the fire place. Here, we are given the same exact items that are associated with Christmastime—a pine tree, ornaments, and stockings. However, when not presented with its typical representative colors, we are given a whole different image of not only interior design, but of Christmas.

So what does this mean? When we change the traditional colors of Christmas, are we really changing our perception of Christmas as well? For some, brighter and contemporary colors present a more modern twist on Christmas. As a result, one can say that changing the customary colors of Christmas reflects our desire to be innovative and “fresh”. Thus, we turn to the interior design trends of our century, even if it means rebelling against the traditional red and green.

So as the holidays draw closer, take a good look around you. You may not realize it now, but color has a strong influence over all of us. Changing one color can mean changing an entire holiday!

Ghosts, Mansions and Design: Oh My!

In an earlier blog written in October, I mentioned how design is both a verb and a lifestyle: We are able to both do it and live it. I demonstrated this by writing about our campus’s social sciences and humanities building, otherwise known as the “Deathstar”—a concrete building that serves as a labyrinth to students and teachers alike. As I come across various forms of architecture in my life, such as the Deathstar mentioned earlier, I find that this concept of design being both a verb and a lifestyle still applies to many buildings. My most recent discovery of this is the famous Winchester Mystery House.

Being a legendary mansion in the San Jose area, the Winchester Mystery House is known for being the old home of a rich widow by the name of Sarah Winchester. Although the building stands as a landmark of beautiful and extravagant architecture, it also serves as a reminder of how crucial design is in the lives of many—particular in the life of Sarah as she continuously constructed the house to drive spirits away that she believed to be haunting them.

Sarah Winchester was the wife of a gun entrepreneur, William Wirt Winchester, who came to fame as the creator of the Winchester rifles. But after his death, as well as the death of their only daughter, Sarah came to believe that her family was cursed and haunted by those killed by the rifles that her husband created. As a result, vengeful spirits were the ones who ultimately took the lives of the ones she loved most. Being very superstitious, Sarah sought help from a psychic, who ultimately told her to build a house for these spirits and to keep building it in order to please them. By never allowing the building to be finished, only then would the spirits allow Sarah to live.

Sarah immediately made design a big part of her life as she went on to continuously construct, renovate, remodel and erect new additions to her home, fearing that her life was threatened if her mansion ever came to be built completely. This construction went on for 38 years and did not stop until the day that she died.

The Winchester Mystery House reflects the design of a Victorian mansion. And having had seven floors and 160 rooms before in its lifetime, the house proves to be not only architecturally exquisite, but also fairly large. One rumor that explains the building’s enormous size is Sarah’s fears of the spirits coming after her. Fearing that they followed her throughout the house, Sarah purposely built the house like a maze with several oddities, such as twists, dead ends and trap doors so that she may throw off anyone who may try to follow her. She even slept in different rooms to assure that ghosts would not come for her.

The famous "stairs to nowhere" was just one of the
many oddities that Sarah Winchester built into her house.

The fact that one woman was so engrossed in one piece design (even though her mansion had no master plan or blue print to follow) demonstrates how design can fit into the meanings of both a verb and a lifestyle. What appeared to be one woman’s way of living and escaping death now serves as a national landmark in California and one of the greatest architectural pieces ever known. Spooky, isn’t it?

Ergonomics: The Snuggie

Sometimes our consumer habits make us want products that are practical.  Other times, we find that we tend to go for products that can be used on a daily basis. And then there are those moments when we crave a product that makes a statement. Luckily for us, there’s a product out there that happens to be all three of these: the Snuggie.

Couch potatoes unite!

The Snuggie (also known as the Slanket, the Snuggler, the Cuddlee, the Dreamie and my personal favorite, the Toasty Wrap) rose to fame as the popular fleece blanket with sleeves between 2008 and 2009. In response to the entertaining commercials promoting it, the Snuggie became an instant hit in pop culture as well as a product of high demand during the holiday gift-giving season.

With over 4 million Snuggies sold in 2009, this sleeved blanket has quickly taken America by storm one couch potato at a time while also meeting some of the areas of ergonomics: safety, comfort, ease of use, performance and aesthetics. It is through these five areas that designers like us can observe the interaction between the Snuggie and its users in order to ensure that health and productivity are met.

From observing Snuggie usage and by looking at the overall practicality of the product, I would say that the Snuggie indeed meets the ergonomic area of “safety”. Okay, so maybe we can’t expect a Snuggie to save us from something like, say, a fire or a raging grizzly bear trying to protect its cubs. But if we look at the Snuggie’s purpose—or a typical blanket’s purpose for that matter—we see that this product does meet a certain sense of safety. What happens when we cuddle up with a Snuggie? We feel warm. We feel secure. And most of all, we feel safe. Even if in the back of our minds we know that this particular Snuggie won’t save us from a physical threat, we know that we can still experience a feeling of safety when wearing it. (And as far as I know, I have not heard of any death-related Snuggie freak accidents, so I still stand by my claim. However, there have been reports of alleged weight gain and increases in laziness.)

For the ergonomic area of “comfort”, the Snuggie definitely passes with flying colors. Made from soft fleece material, the Snuggie stresses its ability to provide comfort to its users—not only in a tactile sense, but also in the sense of leaving its users handsfree to do other activities, such as reading, watching TV, etc. By providing comfort in multiple ways, we can safely assume that the Snuggie abides to the second area of ergonomics.

The third area of “ease of use” highly coincides with the previous area of comfort. In its quest to provide all couch potatoes and sporting event goers with a blanket of absolute comfort, the Snuggie has also accomplished the task of being user-friendly. Resembling a bathrobe that you simply wear backwards, the Snuggie is very straightforward and clear-cut when it comes to directions. One can simply figure out how to use the Snuggie by looking at the promotional pictures or ads that adorn the packaging. And because wearing it is practically effortless, we know that the overall concept of the Snuggie is not hard to grasp.

The areas of “comfort” and “ease of use” are pointless if the product does not fulfill the fourth area of “performance”. The Snuggie itself cannot physically perform on its own like a car or of an electronic. However, with the help of the user, the Snuggie is able to perform by providing warmth and coziness to the user’s well-being, ultimately serving its primary purpose as a blanket while also allowing the user more convenience with its built-in sleeves. So all-in-all, the Snuggie proves to be up to par with performance, even if it may cause its users to be less productive.

Ellen Degeneres sporting her own Snuggie

Finally, we look at the fifth ergonomic stage of “aesthetics”. I’ll be honest: the Snuggie is not as visually pleasing as one may hope. The fact that the Snuggie looks like a backwards bathrobe has made it the target of many jokes and parodies including on the Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres talk shows (above). Often compared to a “medieval monk” robe or the attire that a cult might wear, the Snuggie has had its fair share of criticism regarding its overall appearance and does not measure up to other products when it comes to the field of aesthetics. But despite the goofiness given off from users wearing the Snuggie, this product has ultimately sold millions. Perhaps aesthetics is slowly becoming a less important aspect of design.

Through ergonomics, we are able to see the effectiveness of various products as they interact with consumers and affect their everyday lives. By fulfilling practically every area of ergonomics, the Snuggie has proven that it’s an innovative product of design that is safe for one’s health and is practical in many senses. So knowing this, you can go home and cuddle up with your Snuggie knowing that it passes all the stages of design criticism. 

Brian Fies and the Art of Storytelling

I’m not going to lie; it takes a lot of guts to become a comic book artist in today’s society. For one, you’ve got to have an artistic style that not only has a unique feel to it, but also the ability to draw in the crowds and keep them in your grasp, asking for more. Second, you need to be original. There are lots of comic books out there about tight-wearing superheroes and sparkly vampires. What makes your comic so different? Finally, you’ve got to be able to take criticism. With comic books quickly becoming a dying art form in American society, you’ve got to have thick skin to survive in this profession.

With so many unflattering realities surrounding the not-so-glamorous life of a comic book artist, we soon come to understand why there aren’t that many prominent comic book artists in America to begin with. So what in the world got into Brian Fies’s head when he decided to become a comic book artist? Luckily for me, I got this question answered in person after Brian Fies came in to talk with design students about his experiences in the field of storytelling.

Brian Fies is an Eisner award-winning comic book artist best known for his work of Mom’s Cancer, an autobiographical web comic and later graphic novel that retells his family’s experiences during their mother’s fight against cancer. For Fies, cartooning had originally been just a hobby growing up. But in the event of his mother being diagnosed with lung cancer, Fies felt that a comic was the only way he could openly express his experiences when dealing with the situation; comics were his release.

The fact that Fies chose comics to tell his mother’s story is significant in itself, as many have disregarded comic books as a way of storytelling in today’s modern age. However, Fies countered this belief in his discussion by expressing how important graphic novels are in both design and storytelling. According to Fies, comics transcend the idea of just mere words and drawings. In other words, comics communicate outside of written dialogue and subtext. Not only do these comics tell stories to the reader; they evoke emotion in the readers as well.

Fies also expressed the benefits that come with being in the storytelling business. Not only are comic book artists granted a wide range of artistic freedom when it comes to artwork, writing and publishing, they are also given the luxury of working from their own home.  And by doing a job that you love, just like what Fies does with his cartooning, you learn that you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

By breathing new life into comics and the art of storytelling, Brian Fies has revealed the brighter side of being an artist in the comic book industry. Thanks to him, my childhood dream of being a comic book artist has never seemed more possible. 

Word and Image: Get the Message?

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. But what happens when that picture is made up of nothing BUT words? Do we immediately get the picture’s message by looking at the terms in front of us? Or is the message lost within the overwhelming assortment of letters?


By looking at the picture below, I think we may find our answer.

Image by ehmaysink on www.deviantart.com

With just 78 words composing an image of a gun, deviantART member JayLynn Alise (her username being “ehmaysink”) is able to express a message that exceeds the amount of words used in her picture. By using negative words to create a controversial subject, Alise not only shows how words and images can work together to create design, but also succeeds in getting a message across to her audience: “forget firearms; we kill with the tongue.”

Alise’s art piece is just one example of how words and images come together to create design.  Although it may seem as if these two concepts belong exclusively to the realm of design, they might surprise you by popping up throughout our daily lives.

As consumers, we witness the relationship between words and images through advertisements and marketing. As readers, we encounter the relationship through book covers and comic books. Even as drivers we run into this relationship through our obedience to traffic signs and road signals. The connection between words and images is practically inescapable in today’s society. However, it is nevertheless effective in delivering messages to viewers.

So why does this relationship between words and images exist in the first place? What significance does it possibly serve?

By looking back at Alise’s art piece of above, we see that word and image are used not only to interact with each other, but also to interact with the viewer. Together they stimulate feelings and emotions in the viewer that a word or image could not do alone. The usage of words and images together may also leave a bigger impact. As the viewer tries to take something away from a piece of design, an image can leave the viewer with a mental image while words can leave the viewer with something to ponder over, even after they are no longer looking at the words and image together.

But who knows? Even though words and images together may hold so much power to express messages more effectively, they may also hold enough power to obscure messages through misapplication. It is then that we must ask ourselves if word and image’s relationship is essential to communicate with audiences or is instead unnecessary to begin with.

You be the judge.