June 2006

Task TwoPart D- ReflectionThis exercise and the previous have brought to light the lack of design criticism and accountability, especially in the field of fashion. Away from my normal style of formal, academic writing, I tried to be a bit more creative with my criticisms to engage and entertain the reader, after all, it is being published on a web log, not in a scholarly journal. Because of this I was outside my comfort zone but glad that I could experiment and get a bit creative. I actually prefer the first copy of my criticism to the second and would mark it a C. On a final note, it was interesting to see that there wasn’t much research available for fashion design in regards to academic design criticism which definitely limits the reference and authoritative credibility of the argument, this would be the criticisms biggest flaw.

（圖一）（圖二）（圖三）DEVIL，妖，把現在時下流行的英雄主義拿來嘲諷〈呵呵~奸笑〉。打從娘胎出來，就很崇拜卡通漫畫裡的英雄人物，希望有朝一日可以成為他們，那麼的威風，那麼的與眾不同，不過，現在已經過了20幾年，我依然還是我，沒辦法像他們一樣飛天遁地，力大無窮，好吧~我覺悟了，只好由愛生恨，來創作了這個題材〈噗噗~得不到就要醜化他~哈哈哈"-_-〉。 我自己是這樣解釋這個系列的作品，超人們與生俱來就有著神力，他們來到這世上唯一的目地就是打擊犯罪幹掉妖怪，拯救世人們，但一旦壞蛋、妖怪們都被打擊完了呢？是不是就會過著幸福快樂的日子，不不不~人們會把注意力集中在這些救世主身上，因為他們個個身懷絕技，與眾不同，說穿了他們其實也是妖怪的一種，不一樣的是他們是好的妖怪‧‧‧ 這世上超人最多的地方，我�...

Tom與三位得獎者分享Street Fashion的看法。2006年6月5日踢倒街所辦的「瞎啪台T」頒發典禮，第一、二和三名齊聚一堂，來到了台北幽靜的MURA小辦公室，大家一起分享各自對於street街頭的想法，互相交流，創意總監Tom也跟三位得獎者分享他對於街頭的看法，伴隨著黃燈光，紅葡萄酒，這是一場華麗但低調的授獎與思想混搭的儀式！第二名「阿嬤的花布」作者林欣毅，正在聊他覺得Street應該是一種傳播。右邊是MURA的另一位設計師Enzo。(從右至左)第三名「四神像」作者黃傑，以及第一名「佛手」作者吳智瑋，Tom。Tom向智瑋聊到如果要他在街頭這個範疇下創作，他會選擇哪三個主題，看的出來智瑋很慌張...(笑)，他心裡的os，『噢~有說要考口試嗎？怎麼沒聽說？』ps.:tom，發想時間太短拉。設計師Gin的天外一�...

I’ve gotten a few emails over the last year asking me why Design by Fire fell by the wayside. The answer to that question is fairly simple, even though I’d rather not admit it.
First, I got fed up wrestling with layouts and designs that looked or behaved differently across the various browsers. To put it bluntly, I have better things to do with my time than sit around and wonder why the fuck the Microsoft engineers left out “position: fixed;” while supporting “position: absolute;” Or wonder why the Firefox team decided to implement what easily constitutes the ugliest set of form controls to ever grace any graphical user interface in the history of computing, requiring a detail lover like myself to waste countless hours trying to make them look respectable.
Second, I grew weary of the blog format and blog content. I’ve always wanted to be more of an essayist, like a George Will on the back page of Newsweek or something, but my old approach to Design by Fire pigeonholed me into a blog mentality. Instead of writing about topics at length that I feel passionate about, I felt compelled to commen...

Do you ever have difficulty explaining to others, let alone your mother, what exactly it is that you do for a living, or what design actually is?It seems that when I try to explain design, I get hung up somewhere between explaining the process, and giving a laundry list of outcomes (e.g., brochure, logo, web site, etc.).The conversation usually goes like this:"What is it that you do?""I'm a designer.""So what is it that you do?""I design logos and brochures and...""So what exactly do you do?""I create ads and other printed communications.""Oh, so you use computers.""Yeah... something like that."It's always frustrating that as communication professionals, we have a difficult time explaining exactly what we do. Perhaps it's not so much that we can't explain it, but we need to define it.This definition of design seems to have struck a chord with designers, software engineers, and others from around the world:"Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want, until they see what you've done, then they know exactly what they want, but it's not what you did."I know it sounds cynical on the surface, but I think it's accurate in many ways. Of course...