California: Designing Freedom - Exhibition // Design Museum

Intro to California: Designing Freedom 

California has had a huge impact on moden society. It’s not a style it’s an attitude. Their thinking is that technology empowers people. The Exhibition was broken down into sections, Tools of Self Expression and Rebellion, Tools of Perception and Fantasy, Tools of Movement and Escape and Tools of Collaboration and Community.

The reason why I went along to this exhibition: 

1st.  To hopeful find some relevant material for my dissertation

2nd. I am very interested in design and how it communicated and is used in every day society. 

3rd.  I am interested in technology, looking a head to the future of but looking back in the past to understand where we are today. 

4th. To see, analyse and hopeful get some inspiration of how the final year show could be put together.

My Overall thoughts on the show:

I thought that the show was visually interesting and engaging, this was because of the use of bright, bold vector style, it also gave it a felt very modern and very ' California ' style. I thought that all the areas of the show had a lot of detail and had loads of examples to show you what they were talking about. They had a good user experience of the show, so it was easy to navigate, there was not a linear line to follow, but I thought it was a great idea using the use of colour to let the audience know which artefact belonged to each section. I found this show allowed me to understand in a lot of depth lots of areas of everyday life, like how our iPhones were designed to solve problems, how people use creativity to solve everyday problems. There were a couple of pieces that stood out. 

I found this exhibition one of the most interesting ones I have visited for my design practice and my lifestyle attitude. I am very interested in technology, I go to a lot of talks on technology all across London, ranging from Google Campus to The Royal Academy of Art. Most of the talk about the future of tec, but it was so interesting to see the history of technology and have all the iPhone model in front of you. It put what I am learning into a lot more context, it is also fascinating to understand why these items were designed and been developed. I am also interested in creativity and design which again lots of areas of the exhibition ignited and stimulated my brain. 

What I got out of the show: 


The Sections of the show:
In the next section of the blog post, I am now going to talk about the areas of the show and a few key pieces that stood out for me, why they are so important what issues do they relate to in the current situation etc..

1st. Tools of Self Expression and Rebellion: 
California designers have pioneered various forms of freedom. A lot of external and political factors have effected an impacted this area, such as political agitation in the 1960s, civil rights for African American.

We The People 

We the people was a print campaign in protest against Donald Trump. This poster could be downloaded for free, it could be used to put in the back of your car window, to share on social media, to flyer around a school etc.... The clothing company Obey, which is a street style designed and disputed this at the time of the run-up to the American elections. 

I found this piece the most interesting object out of the whole show I thought this because it touched on so many different current factors in society, which I thought made it such a powerful image as one image could trigger people to think about so many different topics. These are the topics which I thought the poster brought up: 

1st. Politics // It was a political poster in protest against what Donal Trump stands for, which made people aware of the situation, maybe allow them to think more about the subject and to research into the topic and who they are voting for. I think that it worked so well because the illustration was bold, vector style with a limited relevant colour palate, this made what they were trying to communicate stand out from afar in a simple, clear and fast way. 

2nd. The power of an image //  I think that this poster shows how powerful an image is now in the 21st century. How you don't need words to tell people things or trigger people to think. 

3rd. Feminism // This poster touches upon feminism and how the people of America stand of feminists. 

4th. The power of social media and communication // I think that this poster is a perfect demonstrates of how our world now communicates and how powerful social media to connect to people and communicated and have a voice in this big world we live in. 

5th. Women rights //  Having a lady of the front also touches upon the women right movement 

6th. Muslims // Again it hits another important current topic in today society religion, saying how stereotypes are not acceptable and how the people accept people of all ages, religions, beliefs. 

7th. Native Americans // 

8. The power of the 21st century // 

9. Retail and business have power // For me, this was a perfect case study in my dissertation, as it's about the future of retail. Obey is a clothing company and it shows that retailers and business have such a key role to play in society how they are now a lifestyle and platforms to communicate with there consumers. how they have an important role to play to build people's mindsets. 

Shows the campaign in print 

Shows the campaign in Protest

External research on we the people: 
I thought that this was the most key case study out of the whole exhibition for me. It touches on so many interesting concepts and subjects as mentioned above. I thought that there must be a lot more to this then was shown in the exhibition. This is more detail I found.

I think the poster got more powerful for me when I realised that the illustration was based off real people, I felt that it was a personal connects and that the poster had to meaning and could change people's life. 

I then found a series of other ones, which made the campaign, even more, stronger as it started to build up a narrative of the community that we live in. 

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Photos that I took at the exhibition 

I thought that this image of the bike and car was interning as the bike is old fashion and represents old California and the new electric car is new and represents the new California. 

I found this cool, as I didn't think that the UX and UI designers at Google would think of their initial thoughts of using paper to create there work. 

I really wanted to see these in person as I have read a lot about them. It is an interesting concept however I think it throws up a lot of concerns about privacy. 

The Surfboard was an example of what the future of retail could be like, It was an open sources CAD file that you could get sent to your home and then print out using your 3D printer.