Category Archives: Trends

In keeping with this category, highlighting the dynamic balance between the Rational and Natural worlds, Geometric Form/Organic Matrix captures one specific method of achieving this balance. In this theme, a purely geometric form, often based on a primitive such as a cube or rectangle, defines an absolute outer boundary volume....

The use of ceramics by humans has been chronicled since our earliest recorded history. Some of the very first artifacts in the archaeological record are fired mud ceramic vessels. Fast forward tens of thousands of years into the future: today we are surrounded by ceramics, from Chia Pets to ceramic...

Black and White are classic, fundamental colors. Different hues may come and go, but these two can always be counted on to bring both freshness and familiarity to a design. In this context, the two colors are set upon each other with maximum contrast, achieving a kind of yin-yang effect....

The idea of bending planar materials into three-dimensional forms has been around for decades, primarily through the Eames’ work in the furniture category. The technique is extremely simple: take a material that lends itself to bending or forming, and use that simple process to define and enclose a form. In...

Vacuum forming has long been a favorite design medium: there is an element of mystery as the inner object pushes through a plane of material, resulting in an interplay between the underlying form and the overlying plane. Typically this production method has been reserved for large, simple plastic enclosures such...

The term “affordances” came to be used in interaction design to indicate a visual cue to indicate the proper way for a user to interact with a device. That scoop under your door handle is an affordance, telling you where your fingers go in a visual language that all humans...

There is always an effort to humanize our technology. Technology’s most raw forms typically start with harsh geometries and cold, precise materials as a result of the production process. Much of the function of the design industry as a whole is countering the harshness of tech: softening, inviting, comforting, empowering...

Often, designers are asked to provide glimpses of what the future will hold. Throughout the evolution of the design industry over the last century, designers have always reached for visions of the future to inspire the products of today. We act as aesthetic change agents, taking the phrase “Fake it...

One of the most important (and most overlooked) elements of design that can have the greatest effect on an objects overall aesthetics are its proportions. Short and wide, long and skinny, accelerating or tapering, many designers typically accept the proportions they are dealt at the beginning of a project and...

In keeping with this category’s theme of mashing disparate concepts together, here we see stylistic motifs from two distinctly different visual eras juxtaposed together. This method first appeared at the Milan furniture fair in the mid 2000’s. The most common combination so far has been more Baroque/Victorian themes with modern...