This is the second in a series of posts by guest blogger, Joe Vax. The series is meant to shed light on design principles that readers can use whether they are crafting, designing a logo, arranging a room, or just looking at their world. Joe's first post can be found here. Enjoy.
Space, it may not be the final frontier, but in the arts it may be the most important one. Think about it, in every art form from music to choreography to film, artists concern themselves with the division of space. A comedian has to have great timing, a chef using the space of the plate to present your meal, a director and cinematographer framing a shot, it’s all about space division.
The great Miles Davis once said that the notes you don’t play are more important than the notes you do play. That‘s because the notes you don’t play create the SPACE around the notes you play, and that space defines the nature and importance of the notes we hear.
Now translate that idea to visual forms and you can understand that the space surrounding an object defines the object. If the object itself is positive space, than the space around the object is negative space. Like the notes we don’t play, that negative space can be far more important than the positive shapes they surround. You are experiencing this phenomenon right now. When we read we don’t read the letters, we read the space around the letters (and in letters like a, e, o, b, g, the space inside the letters as well).
Readability is, of course, a utilitarian function, but negative spaces have aesthetic and communicative functions as well. Negative space also creates forms or shapes which can be even more beautiful than the subjects they surround. Also, negative shapes can be crafted to actually deliver information that isn’t in the positive forms.
In this trademark that we designed for the California Pistachio Commission, we used negative space to create the rays of California sunshine. A negative shape is also used for the highlight on the lip of the bottom half of the shell.
Below: The letter mark we designed for Anthony Mar Advisors uses negative space to create the A in AM.
Negative shapes communicate emotions powerfully. The way we divide space can create tension or serenity, trust or fear and it can make the viewer feel large or uncomfortably small. Think about your subject matter and how you want your audience to feel about it.
Same word, same type face, same colors — entirely different messages.
Being a graphic designer, I’m usually working in two dimensions, but people who work in 3D have additional challenges in negative space. Next time you view a large sculpture take a walk around it, the negative space changes from every viewing angle.
In the hands of masters the use of negative space can be a wonder. Negative shapes that are so beautiful they draw you into them, shapes that actually help communicate the meaning of the piece. This is why I love Abstract Expressionism, there is no figurative imagery to get hung up on, only form, line, color, texture and most importantly, the exquisite use of space to communicate the artists message.
Next time we’ll talk a little about color. Once again, may your form always follow your function.
Saturday
Negative Space - Guest Blogger Joe Vax
The Yellow Treehouse Restaurant
Ran across this stunning marvel over at inhabitat this morning. I'd like a smaller version of this for my backyard, please. This from the site:"The new Yellow Treehouse Restaurant by New Zealand based Pacific Environments Architects Ltd. (PEL) is a stunning architectural feat perched high above a redwood first. Appearing for all the world like an enormous chrysalis grafted onto a 40-meter-high redwood tree, the project is constructed of plantation poplar slats, redwood balustrading milled at the site, and makes extensive use of natural lighting throughout."
link
Models Made Out of Books
Friday
Somewhere, a dictionary is missing a page...
Book mangling aside, it's a pretty sweet way to let someone know that you are interested. click here to see it full size.
Facepaint Craziness
Found this gallery of crazy face painting over at Guide Spot. I love the bamboo guy and the Kirk/Spock face.
Crazy Egg Man Makes Crazy Eggs
I imagine that making one of these feels a lot like diffusing a ticking time bomb or playing a deadly game of Jenga. Each hole you drill brings the structure one step closer to collapse! You won't find me trying this anytime soon, but I'm glad Franc Grom has the guts to do it. From Rag and Bone
Thursday
Book
Very cool mail art project between Belfast and Brooklyn. From the site:
"For thirty six weeks a sketchbook was sent between four artists. Two in Brooklyn, two in Belfast. Every Wednesday, one participant would receive the book and the following Monday, it would go back in the mail, giving the artist five days to respond to the previous piece."book site
Pixel Crayon Art
Continuing with our Crayon theme, I found these over at Monster Munch this morning. Artist Christian Faur uses hard-cast encaustic crayons to make these incredible pieces. I love how they change depending on your viewing angle.
Wednesday
Crayola Sculptures by Herb Williams
I thought these crayon sculptures were a great jumping off point for any other long, cylindrical objects laying around the house that might be made into a piece of art. You could just buy one of Herb's, but with prices starting at $4800, you'd be better off raiding your kid's kindergarten class and making your own. from Better Living Through Design
Three TED Talks You Shouldn't Miss
Sir Ken Robinson talks about how schools are killing creativity. I couldn't agree more.
Elizabeth Gilbert talks on an alternate way to see our creative powers. Very inspiring.
Barry Scwartz talks about our loss of wisdom and the essence of improvisation, something near and dear to me, having been a high school teacher.
One of a Kind Treehouses
This slideshow from the Seattle Times got me thinking about building my "dream shack" again. I've been crazy for small buildings for years and this might just be the Summer to build my own, uh, if there's any money left, that is.
Nail Mosaic
Artist Saimir Strati works with all kinds of media, but his stuff with nails is simply amazing. link
Tuesday
Chop It Up, Make It Fresh
Designer Laurent Corio is making everything old, new again. I love saw horses to begin with, and I love them even more when somebody repurposes a worn out piece into a pair of fresh looking table legs like these. via NotCot.org
Sour - Shadow Puppet Goodness
Friend of the site, Dana, posted this incredibly cool, shadow puppet music video on her site, she walks softly. While you're over there, take a look around. Her content is a welcome change from the usual "Karol's Krafty Konundrums" sites we get directed to. link
The Paper Art of Peter Callesen
I have a new hero of the paper world. Peter Callesen's work is just shatteringly cool. This from the site:each work is made by cutting a single sheet and using only the removed paper to create figures or buildings. these sheets can be as small as a4 size or as big as 7m by 5m. callesen states, ‘my paper works have been based around an exploration of the relationship between two and three dimensionality. I find this materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3d form almost a magic process.’
via design boom
Liliput - 9 to 5
Mysterious little people, hard at work. Photos by Vincent Bousserez. Makes me wish there were little people who would clean my glasses! Warning, a couple of these photos are NSFW. Too bad, because they are the weakest links in this cool project.
Monday
James, The Matchstick Man
Found this sweet profile over at the concrete beat blog. In addition to doing some stunning work, James is a really interesting cat. link
Bike Powered Washing Machine
MayaPedal has a whole host of bicimaquinas (bike machines) to keep everyday tasks "off the grid". via Homegrown Evolution
Stencils
I've had some requests to do some posts on stenciling. I've been cruising the internets for good tuts on the subject and am left wanting. I found this on instructables and, for a one layer stencil, it's a pretty good method. I'll be doing a tutorial soon for multi-layer work like my Cab Calloway stencil above.
Madonna Made From Dice
Sunday
Build Your Own Scrollsaw
I used to marvel at all the foot-powered machinery as my Dad and I would watch Roy Underhill weave some handmade magic in the Woodwrights Shop on PBS. So when I ran across these plans, I got a little pang of nostalgia for those weekend afternoons with Dad. Probably not a big enough pang to build the darned thing, but it's nice to think about. link
The Long Thread - Craft Links
The Long Thread blog has just published a huge list of crafty links for your surfing pleasure, AND they were nice enough to include DudeCraft in the list. Cheers!
Crafty Pod - Publishing Your Craft Book
The Daxophone
German inventor and typeface designer Hans Reichel has invented one crazy looking instrument. Before I listened to the mp3 on the page, I must have stared at the strange and beautiful "tongues" for a good five minutes. Gorgeous. Then I heard it. It's great! One commentator likened it to "the sound of munchkins singing and farting at the same time." I can see that. This from the website:
"The Daxophone consists of a thin, finely formed wooden stick secured to a heavier mounting at one end, and free to vibrate at the other. It can be sounded by plucking or bowing. A separate piece, not shown in this photo, is a specially shaped chunk of wood with two slightly curved surfaces, which can be held against the light stick as it vibrates in such a way as to alter and control the pitch and tone quality. A contact mic embedded in the mounting piece allows for amplification. The sounds that issue forth from this thing are totally unexpected: wildly comical and sometimes oddly beautiful."from oddstrument.com
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Saturday
The Creative Personality
Here's some early Sunday morning reading, if you're into it. I like to read about what makes people tick, and I found this Psychology Today article on creativity to be interesting. You might too. link
More Art from Books
I have been a fan of Brian Dettmer's book autopsies for some time, so I was excited to find a page this morning with some other, equally cool, book art. It's still a little hard for me to see books rendered unreadable, but if people keep making stuff like this, I think I'll get over it. link
Album Cover Photos
Simple concept, mostly great execution. I could see spending a really fun Saturday posing my friends for something like this. Depending on the album titles, you could do a whole series of greeting cards. Many more here.
Friday
DudeCraft Interviewed
Friend of DudeCraft and awesome book maker, Emily, has just posted an interview she did with me over at her blog, SubuRose. Hey, and don't leave without checking out all the cool stuff in her Etsy store. You need a journal, yes you do.
Box of Clouds
Digital artist Kim Laughton has made this incredibly cool gadget from an lcd photo viewer. Definitely makes me want my own box of clouds, or box of something, anyway. via Make
Rope
One of the first things I learned in theater was knot tying, the practical application of which has both saved my butt and made my life a lot easier on countless occasions. Do It 101 has organized a pretty decent compendium of rope craft and knot tying here. At the very least, you'll never ne one of those people who has a mattress fly off the top of their car on the highway. Well worth the price of admission for that alone, I'd say.
Workbench
A bit of woodworking porn for your Friday. This amazing old bench, originally posted on Lumber Jocks is owned by Pedro Rodriguez De Costa. Check out those dovetails! Slammin'. link
Dinero con Sombreros
Found these over at Design Llama. I am diggin' Abe Lincoln with the sideways baseball cap. More here.
Thursday
Skull Packaging
If people put more Dia de los Muertos skulls on products, I would buy more products. This brilliant little package comes from a packaging design class blog you can find here. viaCool Tweets.
Redress
I love finding new blogs that are in the DudeCraft vein. It's harder than you think. So, imagine my delight when I ran across Franklin's blog, Panopticon, while sifting through the endless soap making and scrapbooking links that StumbleUpon loves to send me to. (side note: the world has enough soap. you can stop now. please.) The post that I was directed to was about an interactive installation in Chicago called Redress. This from Franklin:
"A rail of thrift-shop sweaters is suspended from the ceiling; more are piled in one corner. Even more have been unraveled, and the reclaimed yarn is spooled around eight wheel rims (from wrecked bicycles) mounted on a wooden platform (salvaged from a warehouse). The yarn winds off the rims (as though from a swift), swoops across the room via a series of hooks, and hangs down above eight seats (more salvaged wood) where it is being turned into eight swatches."
Makes you wish you were in Chicago, don't it?
Mashable's List of How-to Sites
In digging through the 900 tweets a day that I receive from Mashable, I found this useful list of how-to sites on the web. Not all craft related, but tons of knowledge represented here anyway. Is there anything that doesn't have it's own tutorial these days?
DIY Alethiometer
Fans of Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy will appreciate this pocket watch Alethiometer, part of a site called Curious Goods that also has some DIY Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket artifacts.
Wednesday
Supply Hound - Wire Mesh
You know you want some. Well, maybe you didn't know, but now, after staring at that alluring copper grid of perfectness, you do. Straight from the town next to my hometown it's: TWP, home for all your meshy needs.
Lemi the Space Wanderer
Alright, this thing is cute. I might have it on my desk at work, or I might just make it so I could crush it later. But it's not the optimistic look on Lemi's face or his cute little lightning bolt that sold me on this paper craft; It was this description on the website:
"For a brief introduction, Lemi is a space wanderer, he got lost in space so that need to find his way back home, while wandering in spaces he sometimes crushed into one planet and eat some monsters."
If you still say you don't want your own Lemi, you're a liar. From Thunder Panda
Craptastic Penny Portraiture
Ok, this is more of a jumping off point than a recommendation. The portrait of Honest Abe above is fairly craptastic, BUT the potential for better penny pictures is there! Plus, it would be fun to do a "picture a day" journal with one of these so you could watch the oxidation of all the pennies progress and see how the picture changes. Now go do this and then send me pictures.link
Filigree Skulls
link of a link of a link, sent me to Daniel Pirsc's site this morning. I'm a fan of anything to do with skulls so, naturally, I was diggin' the filigree money banks in the picture above. via this site.
Knitting for Britain
In searching for some knitting info tonight, I ran across a brilliant article from 1997 that was originally published in the Christian Science Monitor called: "When Knitting was a Manly Art". It tells the story of school-age kids in England knitting during wartime and is, thankfully, free of the usual chest thumping and posturing that is present when men write articles about knitting being manly. via Men Knit
Tuesday
Fake Sheep
I'm a vegetarian, but I must admit, I'm a fan of knitting with wool. Having said that, if you are seeking to eliminate animal based fibers from your needles entirely, the Fake Sheep blog has some excellent alternatives in their guide to vegan knitting. Truth be told, I've been wanting to try knitting with that recycled sari fabric since I found out about it last year. Now may be the time.
The Case of Curiosities
It's like...It's like...Well, it's not really like anything I've seen. It's part Victorian naturalists kit. It's also sort of steampunky/bladerunnery/harrypottery. Whatever it is, it's kind of fascinating, and it's definitely craft. link
Guest Blogging over at Fave Crafts
Did some guest blogging today for Fave Crafts Blog. You can read my post here.
Pipe Dreams
If anyone could make a sewage pipe seem like a cozy, modern hideaway, it would be the Austrians. That sentence made no sense. Anyway, I want to sleep in there! via Design Boner (my new favorite website name!)
Monday
Foldschool - cardboard furniture
I had just finished a rant about the tacky crap they sell in the kids department at Target when I ran across Fold School, a site that has several brilliant designs for kids furniture made from cardboard. So instead of buying your kid that unsightly Dora the Explorer chair, why don't you make a chair (preferably with your kid) and then let them draw whatever they want on it. Please. link
How to Decoupage a Tray
You know why I feature Jeffery Rudell's paper work on this blog so much? Because the dude makes quality stuff and his tutorials for Craft Stylish are always top notch. This definitely holds true for his latest decoupage project. Great results and thorough instructions. Can't wait to dig out a tray when I get home. link
Stunning Lighting Objects
Here's how my usual StumbleUpon search goes: "It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", Vague interest, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click", It's crap, "click"." And then every once in a while...
"Gasp. Sheer poetry."
That's what happened this morning when I found Frank Buchwald's Incredible Machine Lights. I usually don't lust after objects, but geez, these things are incredible. Take it easy on me Frank!
The Cure for the Common Cold Studio
Kandle Heeter! While not the prettiest pony in the pen, Kandle Heeter looks to be a brilliant hack that takes advantage of the radiant heating capabilities of Terra Cotta. You can buy a Kandle Heeter already assembled for $29.95, or follow the step by step instructions on the website and build your own. via Extreme Craft
Can Planters
Found these nice looking can planters covered in hip wallpaper and a short tutorial over at Apartment Therapy, but the real find was Jon and Em's site called It's (K)not Wood where I found the link. Their site is dedicated to all things Faux Bois (fake wood) and they do a hell of a job of finding interesting stuff. And I thought my blog was niche. Sheesh.
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