Setting up your blog

Here is a brief demo of how you can set up a blog, if you don't already have one.

When you set up your blog, please email me your blog's web address and your level of privacy. Ideally we should all share our blogs with the rest of the class, with links here on the course blog. The intention is that we use the blogs as the basis for further class discussion of the points you raise.

If you decide to restrict privacy settings, you must allow me access by adding my email addresses (beegan@earthlink.net) to the "Blog Readers".

For all of our protection, this blog will only be viewable by members of this course. We have not yet restricted the privacy setting but will do so once everyone is all set up.

Week 1 What does design mean?

We reading The Eames Lounge Chair and watched excerpts from Frazier, and Helvetica. In Frazier, Frazier and his father battle out tensions of authenticity, class and gender over some key design objects, a Le Corbusier lamp, a "Wassily" chair, an Eames Lounge, and a battered vibrating recliner. Frazier sees his furniture in aesthetic terms, as named "pieces", his father sees his chair in terms of physical comfort. We spoke about the complexities of the idea of "function".  We also read an essay that opened up some of the differences in status between anonymous design and named design using the Eames chair. This is an ongoing debate.

I gave out the readings for discussion in next class meeting: No Logo, Branding the Individual, Fabien Baron. 

Please check out the links related to the class on the right, including the Bauhaus exhibition site. The Ideal Book is an talk by William Morris that lays out the principals of functionality and truth to materials that inspired modernist design. For next class you need to set up your blog and post responses to the readings.

Week 2 No Class 

Continue with readings, set up blog, post responses.