Seams explores an alternative storytelling approach to describe the drama behind clothing production, namely sweatshops. Seams components are a website, an experimental fashion collection and a catalog manifesto.
The conceptual aim of Seams is to help consumers think differently about everyday products: to learn the stories and processes of production, and to encourage consumers to take social action about sub-standard clothing production.
Seams website was launched with the aim to amplify seams message & reach a broader audience. Within its first year of launch www.seams.la received more than 50,000 unique visits.
9 Point Perspective is the first book, in a series of publications written and edited by students from the graduate Product Design program at Art Center College of Design. The project was a collaboration between the students and myself, from developing, collecting and editing content, to designing the final piece. I worked around the idea of “9″, creating a system that divides the book in nine sections, indicating them with a square that moves along with the folio. The body text is organized in multiples of nine; and it changes every three chapters.
The New Ecology of Things project involved documenting a Sun Microsystems sponsored class that my former teacher Phil Van Allen, Nik Haffermas & Bruce Sterling co-taught. More than 36 hrs. of footage went into documenting the class, interviewing faculty and students, I invited Matt Mckissic to join me an editor. We produced a DVD with seven short stories, about 8 min. each. The stories touch on process, the students’ vision for 2015, and the meaning of the New Ecology of Things. The project evolved fluidly, along with the class pace.
» visit the New Ecology of Things blog
Bukowskifilm.com features the interesting background research conducted by director John Dullaghan while he created the documentary, the site it is a complete resource about Bukowski’s life and work. Given Bukowski’s personal story and work, I wanted to create an online space that remind people the idea of tools, machines and craft. I used HTML, and focused on typography, rhythm and space.
Interactive Clothing explores the idea of Open Design.
What happens when people can complement, modify or transform design?
One skirt with transparent pockets allow people to modify the content. The example juxtaposes images representing digital environments within a hand crafted form and medium.
The two blouses focus on humor to describe technology glitches. The Low Memory blouse integrates the visuals that one is confronted with when a computer does not have enough memory to display an image, and the Offending Command blouse displays a real postscript error.
» more on Open Design at droog design
I’ve always been fascinated by lighting, these are explorations I conducted in 2003, and focused on the idea of transforming familiar objects into new ideas and products. I used a chinese lamp shade to create a new shade out of it. I built a cloud of LEDS as a lighting source for a dinning table, I also used three tiny bulbs and mirrors to create a magic box.
When I began grad school in 09/2001 I discovered my love for repetition in design. Since then I find myself constantly finding and exploring patterns across diverse media types. The more I work with patterns, the more engaged I become. These are projects in which I used repetition as the design drive. The writer Susan Kandel website is a good example of it.
Certainly type and pages where the first design challenges I faced as a professional designer. An important body of my work prior grad school was editorial. These are only few of the multiple pages I’ve worked on. From the Manual para la Sierra Juarez de Oaxaca, designed in 1998, to some of the recent work I produced for CMYK magazine, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Typography speaks for itself, is powerful and becomes even more powerful when combined with language. In these projects I explored various ways to communicate ideas by juxtaposing basic and opposite forms, like curves and rectilinear shapes. These are self-initiated, and client based projects. The artfairs inc. project features a complete identity system based primarily on typography.
The From Storage to Domestic installation was a collaboration with Ana Franco. We wanted to transform the facade of an storage space into a domestic space, to be part of a Lighting Exhibit at Art Center College of Design. In the final piece we projected three windows onto a blank wall, each with their own unique narrative, that when viewed together told an interconnected story.