Design

26 Jan Light As Shadow: The Value Of Natural Light In The Legacy Architecture of Japan

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]The world is a different place in the dark and all the shades and nuances in between shape and sculpt a space like a potter at a wheel. From a fluorescently lit takeaway to...

28 Aug Can Computers Be Creative?

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]AI is increasingly becoming a part of everybody’s life. Even my mother who previously couldn’t work out how to record Emmerdale on her VHS player is now using predictive text on her smartphone and happy...

27 Jan Seeing The Visual Language Of Type

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text] As I type this blog with paragraphs made from sentences built from words spelt by letters constructed from little visual forms, these forms build each pica of the letter to connect and build words...

09 Dec Hierarchy and Tone

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]Hierarchy is one of the first principles in graphic communication.   Designing a hierarchy is a compositional skill. It's to arrange the elements in a way that emphasises the importance of information.

09 Dec Can We Practice Taste?

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text] A term which I often see getting thrown around is whether or not someone has “the eye” or has “taste”… But what exactly is this?    Is this some natural force that a lucky few are...

23 Oct Is Seeing Believing?

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" el_class="blog-new-hagan" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/4"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]

The Pillars of the Parthenon aren't actually straight…

   

The NeXTcube wasn't a perfect cube…

   

And the letters I type aren't all dead flat to the baseline…

    Every day, perceptive illusions are built around us because sometimes when something is constructed 'perfectly' it doesn't look perfect. If the Parthenon's columns where perfectly straight, it would not look straight. If the NeXTcube was a perfect cube, it wouldn't look like a like perfect cube. And if 'o's, 'e's, and 'a's, etc, were all aligned perfectly to the baseline, it would feel like the letters weren't even.