Where What are the GOOD ideas?

I think there is a sense in school that ideas can be left on the floor. As in, lost on the cutting room floor. There are so many good ideas that come from a school environment, where all you have to do is think of the idea. But when you have to come up with an idea every week, every month, every class, there are so many pearls, seeds of good ideas which could really ride with more work. Most, if not all of these, get a pic taken, and are set in the pile of old foam/ideas.

I'm in Seattle now, and I have the luxury of working in the Koolhaas library. There is a sense of completion which I think a designer of any kind should be proud of. Standing in the wings of this stage, I know what it takes to make a simple light, and can appreciate even more, what it takes to make something, anything of interest. I think Seattle made a really good choice to build this, its been full every time I have been here, there is always room, and it's always interesting to work in.

But how does a student decide which ideas are good enough to revisit? Does she gage the amount of interest in the studio? Does he listen to his peers? Perhaps he simply "believes." I think it has become obscenely clear that the ideas we work with in the studio are a long way from anything that can be made. What is the level of preparation which pratt should work to explain to the students? I think in some ways the program has dug itself into a hole because it has a very wide set of exit parameters. I.e. people from Pratt find themselves doing all sorts of things for work. Small furniture, Smart Design, design consultancies out on Long Island, automotive... It would be so easy to shave the program down to only a couple outlets, and focus on those things. I do not advocate that. The thing that keeps me going back to the studio, day after day, is to listen to friends who have very similar interests.

Furthermore, I think that any sort of tracking will kill the "liberal arts" style of education that Pratt ID seems to have adapted. But that leaves us in the same place, where people who come out of school are not really prepared to come out and just start producing objects, which seems like it should be the most basic of operations for a recently grad with a MA in design. Maybe I have it wrong, maybe being able to produce nice things in limited quantities is the pinnacle of the design world, the piece de resistance. Even then, why do I not feel ready to produce the things I want to make?

Ok, but back to the original question. How do you identify good ideas? is there a strategy for this? Is this something that people have been thinking about for a long time? I guess I could read about this for endless nights, and maybe at the end I will be smarter. Can we learn to identify only the good ideas in a forest of all sorts of ideas?

Some thoughts on from the airplane

Thesisisisisisis

Some thoughts about thesis.

The more I think about thesis, and my place in design, the more I think about design selling things. Here’s a problem: I have never been good at selling things. I am not a salesman. I find myself to be more of an intellectual, more in the pursuit of knowledge. Where does that leave me? I had a very interesting conversation with an old friend today. She is starting a company to provide luxury goods to people that are sustainable, and can be certified as such. I immediately thought about all the ways I can help her.

Some concerns in the arc of my career. What if I like helping people with their ideas better than thinking about my own ideas? Am I too scared of my own ideas? Am I too scared of my own ideas? I have ideas that are validated by other people. Do I spend too much time in my own head? What is going to get me the most fulfillment? Am I scared to do the work? Am I seeking approval too much? I think there is a level of jumping that I am scared of. Not a gambler by nature, its hard for me to make that leap when there is no sight of the other side. I have confidence that I can do the work in what ever I do. I can work until something is done, work until I am satisfied. Is now the time to make the jump? Can I gain more confidence doing other things which will improve my station in life?

SCCARRRRRRYYY.

Are the people who make this leap, the great people in this world? Do I need to be one of those people?

Perhaps it is more that I need some sort of partner doing this. How blind do I have to be to try to do this. What are the emotional and psychological elements which have to go together to do this.


This thesis is about:

1. This thesis is about a business plan.

This thesis is about making some nice lights.

3. This thesis is about new and emergent technologies

4. This thesis is about selling these things.

5. This thesis is about stretching my comfort boundaries.

6. This thesis is about doing things with a safety net.

7. This about learning about me.

8. This thesis is about making creating confidence.

Or is it:

1. This thesis is about me.

2. This thesis is about creating confidence.

3. This thesis is about stretching my comfort boundaries.

4. This thesis is about doing things with a safety net.

5. This thesis is about some nice lights.

6. This thesis is about selling these things.

7. This thesis is about emergent technologies.

8. This thesis is about a business plan.

added adsense

Its late at night. I just added AdSense.
If anyone comes to this corner of the internet, and then clicks on some advertisements, I get money.


Its free to you, so click on some ads.

Doin' some drawings

Ideas have been coming fast these days, There has been a lower amout of things around to do, and I have been able to put more subconscious effort towards lights. I have been doing some sketching.

Here are some pics of some sketch books.

From THESIS LIGHTS

I have been thinking a lot about my desk lamp recently. I know the sketches are rough, and perhaps indecipherable, so, welcome to the rawness.

One more week of this mess that is fall semester.

This winter, I really want to put the skeleton together for the actual paper. Some topics which I think should be in there. Energy conservation, LED History, LED Technology, Inspirations and Aesthetic decisions, Marketing and penetration, perhaps consumer profiling. Also, thinking about mentors for this. Who should those be, and what fields should they be in?

Comments, in the comments section or email directly are great!

KTC

Class today

Today was the last day of thesis A. That means I am really one semester away from the end.

Before that happens, there is so much to do.

Today in class, Fred gave us another peptalk. Its comforting. its peppy. I like that he does this. In many ways I feel like I just need to keep being encouraged to get things done. I knew this going into his class. Today we had a chat about the thesis process in general, Directed Research II, Thesis A, and Thesis B (B stands for Best). He reiterated a couple things:

1. The thesis is a project in which you must be personally commited to.
This was something that really was not communicated in DRII and that made for a lot of lost people. I think that people in Fred's class are now on the right track, and there will be some real success in that class.

2. You must engage people to test in some way, your ideas.
Your ideas come from your opinion, there is some sort of process that you use. Its important to show that idea, some how, in what ever form, to people so that they can comment on it.

3. Writing. Writing must happen, in some way.
One of the reasons I started this blog, is because it gives me a place and a time to think about, and collect thoughts about thesis. Its provides a place, which is semi-public for people to look at the thoughts I have and comment. But as well, It can be referred back to by me, so when I start writing this document, there is a lot of ideas and writing already written.

4. The role of the Designer.
The role of the Designer (with a capital D), is that to make connections of different disperate things. How a designer puts these things together is what makes the designs interesting. How are ideas infused into objects?

Here are the things I am trying to get done during break:
1. Drawings of lights
2. Thinking about goals in what I am doing. What is the goal of this? what is going to make this successful?
3. Perhaps some market research?

I think I am heading towards a desk lamp a wall unit and a chandelier, and I would like to think about what will make that those successful.

The(sis) blog

From now on, this blog is about my thesis. I do this in some attempt to put down a lot of thoughts "on paper" through out the process, so there might be some sort of record. I am going to try to show progress on the process.

In many ways this thesis has mutated over the months. Part of this comes from a lack of time, but also a drive to really ferret out what is the core of the thesis.

There are a lot of ideas about LED lighting these days, its coming from all angles. In the past couple years, its pretty clear that there is no concensus on what is a good idea, or what makes one of these lights successful. Yves and his light the leaf light

















debuted at the same ICFF as this light, the Z light



With all the acclaim heaped on the Leaf light, the Z light still came away with ID magazine's design of the year. Why? Is this a better light? What makes this a better light?

through out the next couple of months, I am going to explore all sorts of ways to add light. These lights are in many ways different than the lights I have been making. I have been making lights to look at, these being more task oriented, lights to iluminate your work.

I invite comments, suggestions, and any other feedback here.


Lastly, here are some models I made the other day, I hope I can show lots of the things I am doing here.

From THESIS LIGHTS

From THESIS LIGHTS

From THESIS LIGHTS

Final CPH post, near christmas

So this blog is my multi use blog, I don't feel like I need to make one little blog for every little thing. So I am posting these last couple pictures in here to finish up the CPH era and make this into my thesis blog.

Check out some of these pics from the end of DK days.

at the final exhibition

From Late CPH

DIS uploaded a lot of photos that they took, you can see them here
here are the ones just tagged textile

Finally, Here are my fotos from the end of days there:


Check them out.

Kenzan

finishing up.

So its been while, we have been all over the place. Check Picasa for some good pics. On one of the last days, Keen and Ola and I were sitting outside, and we ended up emptying the fridge. They went to get beer, and we had a dinner that consisted of these items:

Popcicles/Ice Cream bars
Gummy Bears
Potato Chips (Sour Cream and dill, and Plain)
Tuborg
mini Calzones
Peanuts
All in Ones Crackers (carrots, Parsnips, Celery)
Yogurt (Chocolate Chips or Blood Orange)
Cookies

It started with popsicles, beer and chips and went on from there.

From Bad Picnic

Later that night Luis, Ola and I went out to find this party on a beach, which proved very difficult to find, but, ultimately really fun.

From Beach Party

There was a fire, and some partying, it was a great finish to the program. The next morning was a little slow.


Finally, I am sure you want to see some good pics of the studio, and work process.

Here is a good one of Kim and her colors.

From In the Work S...

There is now a whole gallery over on the picsite of us working in the studio. It doesn't really show process, but Its fun enough.

What? what? what? what?

Tonight, after long hours preparing, I have finally started my final print. Seeing as it is in progress right now, I can't post any pictures.

K.

Waiting for the copy center to Open.

Its been a good portion of time since i have updated this. Not to despair, nothing has happened. I thought it would be boring to keep updating this thing saying, "nothing has happened, nothing has happened."

Well yesterday something happened. Yesterday we went to the dyerhavn. pronounced "deer-hawen," it used to be the kings' hunting grounds, we stopped at a place, which has a really long name (forgot it), which was the place where the king would eat lunch when he was hunting. Of course, this small lunch spot was the size of a large mansion with all the statues and gargoyles to go with it. Now Denmark doesn't even have a king, they have a Queen, who i doubt is that interested in hunting, but she will come up later. They do use the grounds once a year for a fox hunt, in which I doubt they find many foxes because apparently a large population of commoners come out to watch the spectacle. For now, there are just a bunch of people riding around up there, its in this area north of Kobenhavn called the wiskey belt, which the NYtimes did a piece on in the last week, and it is just overall beautiful. There is a golf course, with some horrible golfers on it, and the deer have magnificent antlers.

We trekked through this area on our way to this little settlement where George Jenson had is factories. He also believed that his workers would be more productive if they were happy, so he built them a little town, with a lot of amenities. By town I mean under 100 buildings and houses. Now the only people who live there are artists and traditional crafts makers. They apply to live there, the list is really long, the woman we visited Lisbett Friis, applied right out of school, and space just opened up, now that two of her kids have gone to college themselves. She also got some studio http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifspace there, which she says, "I will never leave." She does all sorts of cool textiles, like reupholstering all the chairs in the Queen's yacht, making pillows for Fritz Hansen, anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd art projects. She is more of an artist than a designer, and admitted that she needed to be convinced to turn her art into a business. We walked back through the dyrehavns, it was nice. When we got back to the train station, Ola and I decided to go to the beach for an hour before heading back to school. It was nice, but we ended up talking about my ex for a while, and that put me in a really bad mood.

But things are looking up, People are printing, and things are starting to roll.

k.

PS. New pics on the picasa

Post posty post.

Blogggo
It's early in the morning here in copenhagen, and the reason I know that is because sun is up and its shining on me at my desk. The sun only shines on me at my desk when its nice out, AND, its morning.

Last night I traced, (traced because I cannot draw worth two galleons in a stupid Harrpy Potter book), some clouds in ink. They look good. Here they are:







And the best one:


They took a while to do, but its fine, they will look good against all the illustrator art that I used for the rocks. The rock pictures will have to wait, its a really huge image (140x95cm) and it would be sad to see the thing small.

Silvia's intown now, she went to helsinki for a quick jump, and came back. she might guest blog on this thing if I can convince her, and get her near a computer. Anyway things are coming together, I am really tired, and the work is starting to catch up. I am supposed to have all my screens and color seperations done today, but I dont think that is going to happen.

Later

Kenzan.

Not about CPH.

Please, with humbleness, enjoy this movie.

A field trip and a check in

Yesterday went on this field trip out to a fabric showroom. There we saw a lot of fabrics that people use for industrial/commercial upholstry. See the pics over in the usual place. It was way out in this convention center type of place. All of Scandanavia is on vacation for most of July, so there was no one there, and we got to look at a lot of different types of fabrics, Laser cut, burn out, and all sorts of weaves in all sorts of colors. It was pretty nice to see some of the things that are available on the market right now.

For the past couple days we have been thinking and doing exercises which are leading to final patterns for the end piece. We have been working on preliminary ideas in color and pattern. You can see some of the things that I have been working on. Now I need to take a lot of these things into line art, to make sure they can be accurately represented on a silk screen. Today we had a Checkin with the instructors to see how our progress was going, I was the last one to go, they had very little to say, I think it went well, they liked what I had to say, and they are excited to see the next step.

Anyway, Silvia comes in tomorrow, so the amount of posting might go down, unless I can convince her that she wants to guest spot on here, in which case the writing will get so much better.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kenzan

Some patterns, and other unrelated thoughts

So we have been back for a while, been working in the studio now. These days we have been doing a lot of work at the desk, and the print rooms have been quiet. I had a chicken falafel for lunch. Check out the photo page for some early work. These were tests to show us the variety of things that we can do and how to place things on the page to get repeating patterns. I have been working a lot right now on my final project, I have been sticking to my guns on the clouds and rocks pattern, to which a number of people have commented that my designs are very masculine. Perhaps that is true, but I maintain that the only reason people think that is because my design is not based on flowers, trees, little girls, or leaves.

Tomorrow I can show you some of the work I did today on the rock section. I want to have a pretty large repeat, something that is more scenic than graphic. A couple of the instructors thought that wasn't a very good idea, but I think its going to turn out great. As on of my friends said, its interesting because rocks always seem to be waiting to get rained on anyway, so this will be some sort of discussion of that. But really this is going to be an expression of the study tour, most of the images that I am using, come from the study tour. It really has become an expression of patterns that I have seen in those cities.

The weather has been unusually shitty here, even the danes say so, but they are prepared for it, most every one has a full rain suit, complete with wellingtons, and happily ride around in anything up to a full downpour, and even then they are out on their bikes.

I went to see Die Hard four point oh, AND harry potter last weekend, both amazingly bad/good in their own way. If you want to see a balls out action movie, go see DH4.0, you can see how bad of an actor that "i'm a mac" guy is.

Anyway movies here are $15-$17 so that will not be happening too much more, although My friend Carly wants to go see Transformers this weekend, I think I will go.

In any case, the sun is shining, and that's a rare occurrence, So I'm off to ride around, and look out for some more photos tomorrow.

k.

pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/kenzan

some more crap

I have no idea how often I am going to up date this, but if i can get to school early, I will post small updates as often as possible. I am also currently accessing the interweb at a internet cafe, mostly used for CS and CandC. So its not my computer and therefor no photos yet, but i did take 546 on the study tour, and of course video. soon my friends soon.

Since I have gotten here, I have learned basic silk screening techniques and then ran off to on the study tour to Stockholm and Helsinki. Both of those are so amazing, they deserve their own posts. Conceptually, I have been thinking about clouds and rocks a lot these days, and they might be the final concept in my pattern.
I have been attracted to a lot of lighter colors and pastels here, that has been reinforced by a lot of work in watercolor, the color pallet of helsinki and just a general shift towards more delicate colors in my general thought process. I think there is certainly an excitement in being able to make 5-10 yellows and make them feel different and vibrant. But when i say yellow, I more mean to say, is that it has been raining and there has been a lot of looking at clouds seeing so many gradiations and tones in the grey of the clouds. the weather and the physicality of the area are so similar to the PNW in the way that it can be hot and sunny and 3\4 of the sky is cloudy and threatening rain. Also watching the people, they dont stop when the weather gets bad, they go out in all types of weather, and seem to have a sunny disposition. well, as sunny as the danes get, which is equivalent to mildly overcast all the time. I have also been watching some danish movies, and those are really wanked. If you think Lars von Trier is wierd, wait to see all the ones they dont let out of the country. Anyway more thoughts from the northland, Cristiana and the euro disco on the boat, and all of that too.

bye

Welcome to Copenhangen, all that and the rest.

Its 18:27 in Danmark, as the Danes spell it. I'm sitting at Julia and Kandice's house waiting for them to come home. They live 2 blocks from us in a nice two BR renting from a nice guy named Thomas. They have a lot of flies. No one knows Whys. I have been going to school for a little over a week now and have learned a number of things. I have learned how to mix reactive dyes, how to mix opaque pigment, how to do a burn out, how to wash and set pieces, and learned a lot about repeat patterns. Today we had a big lecture about scandinavian designers.

Some things I have been doing:

I went to Paris. There, Ben and I walked around a lot. We got kicked off the Metro when it closed at 1. In Paris, there is not a last train, which you catch or don't catch. at the stroke of 1 or slightly before, it stops at a station, and everyone gets off. not matter where you are. You could be all the way across town, and you are walking or in a taxi. We drank a lot, we visited all sorts of nice people, we saw ocean's 13 in version original, I bought a bunch of clothes.

That leads me to the other winding thread which ties all this travel together. Britsh Air, or BA or Bitch Ass, Has not been able to get my baggage to me from the transfer at Heathrow. No one I know has been able to get a good experience getting over here, people were late all over the place, baggage has been all sorts of lost, and remember that I got to Paris on the 26th of June. SO, I have been buying clothes like a rich man; not too many, but some nice things because they have not been able to get the luggage, which we now know is in italy, to paris, Amsterdam, or here. yesterday I bought a really nice jacket from a danish designer, a pair of levis and a hoodie. Today I bought a backpack, a digital camera, a matte knife, a ruler and some other shit. I was expecting to buy things, but its getting out of hand. H&M is a friend of mine. I'm about to start buying watches and a new Sport Coat. I'm hoping for a 1st class upgrade on the way home, because I don't really want to ever ride this airline again. Heathrow has been a mess, they shut it down for 24 hours, after there was a threat at galwaith. not to mention that we were delayed at all points on both legs of the flight.
For instance:
1. Off the gate at JFK
2. On the taxi way at JFK
3. Waiting to land at Heathrow
4. On the taxi way at Heathrow
5. At the gate at Heathrow
6. In the terminal at Heathrow (I wrongly rode the tram all the way back to terminal 1 went through security, was told to go back to terminal 4 to talk to the ticket agent there, and I still beat some of the people who went through security at terminal 4.)
7. Before pushing off at Heathrow
8. On the taxi way again at Heathrow
9. landing at CDG
10. On the taxi way at CDG
11. Waiting for a malfunctioning Jetway, and then waiting for the stairs to be driven to the back.
12. That was the one bright spot was that I was in the last row, so suddenly I was first off the plane. I was taking pictures of getting off, and they asked me to delete the pics on the camera. I think If it was JFK, they would have arrested me or at least detained me. But the guy walked away before I erased them. I will show you that pic later when I can get my computer hooked up to the internet.
13. Then, everyone who was on the original flight was missing their luggage, the whole thing went to Milan. Where I assume, its been sitting since then.

I don't really want to fly back with them.

From paris, Ben and I took a Beautiful Thalys train from Paris Du Nord, to Amsderdam Central Station. The weather continued to be bad, and we quickly found Mr Charles Mitsui who took us back to his amazing flat. We kept going to this coffeehouse near his flat because they had internet, and we wanted to use it. He lives at this intersection of two canals and over a nice restaurant, and there never ceases to be interesting things to look at. we spent the first couple days looking out the window, but quickly moved to sitting in the window sill and hollering at girls who would ride by on their bikes. We again, walked around a lot. It was interesting because we visited Berenis, our friend in paris, and Chuck in the twilight time of their stays in Europe, and they were both so excited to have some american people around. There was a lot of chilling. There was a lot of lurking. There was a lot of walking around just checking things out. Drinking beer. At Chuck's we BBQ'ed s couple times. We relaxed in his palatial flat.

From there, Ben headed out to London, I got on a train bound for Dusseldorf. I have to say that the german ICE (InterCityExpress) has some new trains just delivered by Siemens which are super smooth and quiet. they have this fresh fold down step that almost disappears when the door is closed. The trains got worse as I moved north. the train from Dusseldorf to Hamburg was a little less nice, and the train from there to Copenhagen was the oldest and least smooth. But it had the distinction of riding the ferry. I had been asleep, when I awoke everyone was getting off, and we were clearly on a ferry boat. They had loaded the whole train on to the boat. The boat itself was two cafes, a money exchange, a huge duty free, ( why are they always basically perfume and booze?), and an ice cream stand. I was awake when the train rolled off the ferry.

Tell you about CPH soon.

K.

why does this happen?

I am trying to get last week's assignment to work before going into this weeks
it seems to not like line 2 (int switchPin = 7;)
why do i get a:


error: redefinition of 'int switchPin' In function 'void setup()':
In function 'void loop()':


for this:
int ledPin = 13;
int switchPin = 7;
int pulsePin = 3;

int pulseLevel1 = 500;
int pulseLevel2 = 5000;
int pulseWidth = 1000;
int switchValue;

void setup() {
// make ledPin an output pin for mr. led
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// make switchPin an input pin
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);
//set internal pull up resistor
digitalWrite(switchPin, HIGH);
}

void loop() {

switchValue = digitalRead(switchPin);

if (switchValue == 0) { //i.e.: you've pushed the switch
//remember we're normally HIGH
// because of the internal pullup
pulseWidth = pulseLevel2;
} else {
pulseWidth = pulseLevel1;
}

//we actually do the pulsing here
digitalWrite(pulsePin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(pulseWidth);
digitalWrite(pulsePin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(pulseWidth);
}



Thanks
k.

too small

that pic is too small.
im gonna email you.

debug time.

I am pretty proud of myself for writing this little program, its a lot easier than the LED, counting all that crap. But I have written this from scratch, and I cannot figure out why this is happening. ideas?

Reading ideas

Since I assume that you will be reading a lot of what I write here, a lot of ideas that I have are going to come out.

Idea of today:

Take one of these:
http://www.suck.uk.com/product.php?rangeID=50&PHPSESSID=aab7b5a45186ac292077591a1c22127f

and fill pot holes with them via resin, in the same vein as:
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/

solar powered light up potholes.

that's my idea.

Welcome to 1000

Welcome to This blog. This is the first entry for a blog that chronicles a semester in the art of electronics.

The goal is to improve the inner workings of the lights which I hope to bring to market soon.

you can see the present state of affairs at:

http://www.studio1thousand.com.
Make sure you play with the dimmers.

I hope to parlay this class into some large light up boxes, perhaps side tables using these as well:

http://www.anigmo.com/


Thanks,
Kenzan.