graphics
Truchet Tiles
The basic course
The Basic Course was a general introduction to composition, color, materials, and three-dimensional form that familiarized students with techniques, concepts, and formal relationships considered fundamental to all visual expression, whether it be sculpture, metal work, painting, or lettering. The Basic Course developed an abstract and abstracting visual language that would provide a theoretical and practical basis for any artistic endeavor.
A universal correspondence
In 1923 Kandinsky proposed a universal correspondence between the three elementary shapes and the three primary colors: the dynamic triangle is inherently yellow, the static square is intrinsically red, and the serene circle is naturally blue.
The series ▲■● represents Kandinsky’s attempt to prove a universal correlation between color and geometry; it has become one of the most famous icons of the Bauhaus. Kandinsky conceived of these colors and shapes as a series of oppositions: yellow and blue represent the extremes of hot/cold, light/dark, and active/passive, while red is the intermediary between them. The triangle, square, and circle are graphic equivalents of the same polarities.
BeOS Icons
The Art of Looking Sideways
A Book by Alan FletcherCover art for Alan Fletcher's wonderfully expansive commonplace book.
Interaction of Color
A Book by Josef AlbersWhat shape is the internet?
A Gallery by Noah VeltmanAccording to patent drawings, it's a cloud, or a bean, or a web, or an explosion, or a highway, or maybe a weird lump.
narrowdesign.com
A Website by Nick JonesDesign
Prototype
CodeAPL386 Unicode
A Font by Adám BrudzewskyAPL font based on Adrian Smith's APL385 font with a fun, whimsical look, inspired by Comic Sans Serif.
APL (named after the book A Programming Language) is a programming language developed in the 1960s by Kenneth E. Iverson. Its central datatype is the multidimensional array. It uses a large range of special graphic symbols to represent most functions and operators, leading to very concise code. It has been an important influence on the development of concept modeling, spreadsheets, functional programming, and computer math packages. It has also inspired several other programming languages.
butdoesitfloat
A BlogThe Tiling Patterns of Sebastien Truchet and the Topology of Structural Hierarchy
A Research Paper by Cyril Stanley SmithA pattern of tiles illustrated by Douat in 1722.
A translation is given of Truchet's 1704 paper showing that an infinity of patterns can be generated by the assembly of a single half—colored tile in various orientations.
Reading Design
A WebsiteReading Design is an online archive of critical writing about design. The idea is to embrace the whole of design, from architecture and urbanism to product, fashion, graphics and beyond. The texts featured here date from the nineteenth century right up to the present moment but each one contains something which remains relevant, surprising or interesting to us today.
A Visual Inventory
Amassing the archive
I once sent a camera to a client, with a request that she keep a visual diary of her newly completed house. For a number of months she duly sent me one photograph a day, of whatever caught her attention, and it was fascinating seeing the spaces from her point of view.
In part it's simply about amassing the archive, but it's also about understanding the implications of every design decision and bringing this knowledge to bear on new projects. You have to keep pushing the learning process.
The spaces between things
It's easy to underestimate the significance of the spaces between things...as soon as you frame a section of the view with architecture, the eye has a place to rest and previously invisible details come into focus.
An absence at its centre
At first glance, the rocky outcrop reflected so sharply in the still surface of the water looks like the ghostly image of a house. Interestingly, once read this way, the image always seems to have an absence at its centre.
Drawing a frame
The panels of tessellating hexagons have been laid to stabilize a path running through what remains of the nave of Rievaulx Abbey. They demonstrate the impact of drawing a frame around anything, even if that frame is nothing more than a plastic cell and the subject an area of grass. I like the way the path simply peters out to either side, with no sharply defined boundaries.
Economy of line
With a composition as disciplined as this, everywhere you point the lens feels like a natural frame. The visible architecture comprises simply three walls, two benches, and the top of a flight of steps. It is a perfect expression of economy of line, with the dark green backdrop of the trees acting as a foil for the light grey concrete and granite.
The smallness of human life
The smallness of human life is graphically expressed in this graveyard, in the low stubs of the headstones dwarfed by the towering tree trunks. Perhaps unexpectedly, the effect of this monumental contrast of scales is a feeling of comfort — the secure tranquility of a final resting place overseen by these massive forms, whose benign nature seems to be underlined by the little wooden nesting box on the central tree.
Attenuation and repetition
The distortion here is produced by the movement of a car, on a road near La Ina in Andalusia. My eye is always drawn to attenuation and repetition and the stratified view here exhibits both characteristics to such a degree that the image appears stretched. The extended parallels of the power lines are layered above the repeating arches of the viaduct and the low mass of the roadside barrier.
The aesthetic potential of flaws
The archaeological quality of this section of exposed wall provides an example of the aesthetic potential of that which is flawed or broken.
Cantilevers of bronze
Set close to the surface of the water, the visible structure is made of only two materials — vertical cantilevers of bronze set between horizontal treads of dark grey granite.
A single material
There is something very appealing about a form constructed in a single material.
Of the plainest variety
It is unusual to find such mismatched elements on a single facade as this fine stonework coexisting with these stained and rotting shutters, on a house in the fortified town of Feltre, in the northern Italian province of Belluno.
Where considerable labour lies behind the cutting and fitting of the stone, the timber planks have been left in their raw state, with no paint or carved decoration. Even the iron hinges are of the plainest variety.
Stacking the rails
Stacking the rails in an interlocking zigzag configuration creates a self-supporting structure that is easy to repair and to take apart. This traditional construction method also has the advantage of requiring few tools, since no holes have to be dug for posts and there is no requirement for nails.
White walls
When people say that white walls are cold and characterless, I wonder whether they have ever stopped to look at one. It's not just about the drama of light and shadow, although I love the fragment of the ghost chair in this picture, but the way the smallest nuances of texture and tone come alive in certain conditions.
The precise construction of relationships
This flight of steps runs up the outside of a Modernist house in Switzerland. What is striking here is the precise construction of relationships. The gaps between steps allow crisp lines of light to fall on the darkly shadowed wall, reinforcing the subtlety of the dialogue between granite and the concrete, which has been bush-hammers to expose the stone aggregates.
In the lee of the sills
The first thing you register here is the dramatic inconsistency in the coloration of the timber cladding the house in Haldenstein: the natural hues of the wood survive only in the lee of the sills, like re-growth along the parties of a head of dyed hair. But a second glance takes in the precision of the cuts made to accommodate the window and the fact that the pine is used in seamless lengths.
An Escher-like quality
There is an Escher-like quality to these flights of steps, but it is the intricate net of shadows created by the roof structure of this sky-lit sculpture gallery, falling across a succession of vertical planes and reflecting back on the surface of the glass, which commands attention. Slender metal bars set crosswise between the rafters add their own animating rhythm. It all makes for a very complex visual arena in which to view art.
Monumental structures
These disused gas cylinders occupy a site on the outskirts of Stockholm. For the first ten years after moving to London, the view west across the train tracks was of a similar pair of monumental structures, transfigured by every sunset. One has since been dismantled to make way for the expanding national and international railway stations.
The character of a light box
In certain conditions, the white walls at home take on the character of a light box. In traditional Japanese architecture the intensity of atmosphere has a lot to do with the way natural light is filtered through the shoji paper panels, suffusing the interior spaces with subdued light, calming the spirit and sharpening the senses.