Design as Art: Bruno Munari (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The “working intuitively” part alone can’t be achieved by “art”; it’s driven by user research and testing. Good design is also data-driven. What is more, in the near future, AI will transform the way design is delivered. It will be super-personalized and anticipatory. Will design as “art” be able to do that? I don’t think so. Its really gotten out of hand lately and its vague as it is! but to answer most of the questions In a short informative thingie I always do here at Goodreads! I will say its the bridge between science and everyday life and thats my own philosophy what design is, you may have your own Idea about it! but its more related to having a practical solution rather than have a stylized approach in mind like most of the designers do now!! As a working professional(interaction&industrial design) I would like to give an example: Bruno Munari asked an old Designer namely the chief engineer who designed a scooter- why did he choose the particular color he used for the scooter? His simple answer was 'it was the most suitable and it was the cheapest' and I know its much more complicated than that! but you get what the general approach looks like and what it should be-"effectiveness over stylized accessories", I will leave your thoughts at that! And if you wanna have a chat what it is to you or you disagree! feel free to drop a message

Design as Art | Book Review - RTF | Rethinking Bruno Munari: Design as Art | Book Review - RTF | Rethinking

Esej o pomarańczy, groszku i róży nie był ostatnim, który uznałam za warty przybliżenia. Pozostał nam jeszcze jeden, szczególnie zabawny oraz ironiczny. To Luxioursly Appointed Gentlemen's Apartaments. Napisany przed laty, nie stracił nic ze swojej aktualności, nie jest to jednak powód do radości, a raczej do rozpaczy. As a UX designer, I always need to dig deeper, beyond the facade that one might call a potential “design” and look at the bigger picture holistically: the target audience, the use case scenarios, the context, and the device the design is intended for: TV to mobile, desktops to tablets, to ATMs, etc. And when it comes to product design, let’s not forget validation and usability testing. If design were just art, how could you test it? What does all this mean? Vermeer likely used an advanced, and still unknown, form of camera obscura to create his masterpieces. This is a contentious theory, but there is ample evidence from multiple sources to support such a claim.

Design as Art di Bruno Munari

Bruno Munari, ‘Works 1930–1996’, 2018, installation view, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. Courtesy: Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Don’t agree? Consider the centuries of repeatable practices, standardized tools, chemical reactions, and scientific discoveries owed to art. To the extent that there can be realities independent of the mind (the definition of objectivity), art is objective because it is process dependent.

Bruno Munari on Design as a Bridge Between Art and Life

Again, we look to a Dutch artist, the master of light and painter of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer lived during the middle part of the 17th century, experienced modest success as a painter, and died under a mountain of debt. Nearly two centuries after his death, however, Vermeer’s work was rediscovered, and his standing as one of the great painters of all time was cemented in the annals of art history. Con la penna fu un genio del designer e un ottimo scrittore. Cose che non coesistono obbligatoriamente, insieme a molte altre che attiravano l’eclettismo di Munari. The essays in the book are part of social commentary, part musing and part criticism about the world of design, filled with “abused objects” and the tone of them sets the book apart from most other research tomes that otherwise dominate the world of design thinking. It is filled with observations and thoughtful reflections of the material world, which is one of the most powerful tools a designer can have. If you enjoyed Design as Art, you might like John Berger's Ways of Seeing, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. A natural material ages well. Painted material loses its paint, cannot breathe, rots. It has become bogus”.

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Art and design are inextricably combined. I consider design as a holistic endeavor which includes “art.” Design is both subjective and objective but should be primarily objective. Proper design objectivity is achieved by user research (defining the target user base, getting to know the product’s users, observing context of use), working through the essential steps of a user-centered design process (UCD) and user testing. It has been argued that the difference between fine and applied art is context and has more to do with value judgments made about the work itself than any indisputable distinction between the two disciplines. Furthermore, comparing “art” and “design” is, though a lofty endeavor, perhaps a quixotic one, as neither can be defined absolutely because they are always changing—boundaries are constantly being pushed and will hopefully continue to be so into the future. This debate, after all, is timeless. Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. Plates are for pushing. Knobs are for turning. Slots are for inserting things into. Handles are for lifting. Balls are for throwing or bouncing. When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed. His paintings contain lighting and perspective distortions that can only be seen through manmade lenses. Best known on these shores for the English translation of his 1966 volume Design as Art, the Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari (1907–1998) eludes any definitive classification: graphic designer, photomonteur, sculptor, furniture designer, industrial designer, author, painter, xerographer, children’s book author and aesthetic provocateur. Almost exactly contemporary with experiments by the American sculptor Alexander Calder, Munari is credited with the development of his own version of the ‘mobile’ during the 1930s. Composed of hanging quadrilateral units, Munari called these pieces ‘Useless Machines’, a designation indicative of the wide-ranging artistic formation which shaped his work between the World Wars, and a prelude to his enduring and prolific output until his death late in the century. While nowhere near comprehensive (a feat nearly impossible given the dimensions of Munari’s oeuvre), this rather uncommon exhibition at Andrew Kreps Gallery affords a fairly representative cross-section of his output.

Design as Art - Bruno Munari - Google Books Design as Art - Bruno Munari - Google Books

Design] is planning: the planning as objectively as possible of everything that goes to make up the surroundings and atmosphere in which men live today." (35) How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever.Thus our task is to make a new kind of artist, a creator capable of understanding every kind of need: not because he is a prodigy, but because he knows how to approach human needs according to a precise method. We wish to make him conscious of his creative power, not scared of new facts, and independent of formulas in his own work.’ What I appreciated about the essays, is that there are global references, about art and design in other countries, which is nice to have context about, as a creative person. Understood more fully, art is not a result. Art is a process, and the process of art is overflowing with objectivity. I will limit myself to saying that Bruno Munari is one of the most important designers of the last century, a figure who defined the role of the designer, both with his professional experiences and with his thoughts. The book is full of mental jiu-Jitsu that truly makes you think about the design of everyday objects. As Andrea Branzi describes it, Munari has a subversive style of thinking that might strike a chord with any designer trying to do something different with his practice without going overboard. For example, in one essay Munari describes an orange, a pea and a rose as though they were industrial products. He proposes that the rose is “an object without justification, and one moreover that may lead the worker to think futile thoughts. It is, in the last analysis, even immoral.” Impeccable reasoning, absurd conclusion: a perfect illustration of Munari’s mental jiu-jitsu in action.

Design as Art - Bruno Munari - Google Books

Clearly, Munari was writing in and for another period. That was a period spearheaded by designers-thinkers from the ranks of Nelson, Eames, Maldonado, Rittel, Bill, Aicher and Dreyfuss. These designers offer the insight that acute observation combined with thoughtful reflection of the material world is one of the most powerful forte of a designer. The insistence on a distinction between art and design has been like a constant, low-grade fever that’s bothered me for the last 15 years—first through my industrial design training, then during a fine arts graduate degree, and on into my career in branding and illustration.

What has always impressed me about his work and aptitude for research, coupled with a poetic and pragmatic ability in making the complex simple. This is evident in his design projects as well as in his artistic production and writings. Munari is an incomparable communicator who has left us dozens of books aimed at both professionals and children, books imbued with his experience and the desire to reach an audience, which he always does with great agility. If this were all the project encompassed, it would be little more than a nice lighting effect, but the scope of Roosegaarde’s artistic vision is much wider. Van Gogh Path is a proof of concept within a larger project called SMART HIGHWAY, an ambitious effort aimed at reinventing the Dutch landscape by implementing a sustainable system of glowing, interactive roads.