lucas5675

[lucas5675]

Week 14

lates A while back a remember doing a post that touched on marimba mallets, and a realized I never really thought about design aspects of the actual marimba. There are a little more than half a dozen major marimba manufacturers today, and it’s interesting comparing the different design aspects of each. The most distinct one that comes to mind is manufacturer Mode Marimba. They market themselves as a cheap albeit less high quality sounding product. They make their bars out of synthetic material, compared to more expensive rosewood or padouk many other manufacturers make theirs out of. Some make synthetic bars, but mostly for the purpose of being played outside in a marching band or drum corps, and come with a sturdier more( and more expensive) frame because of that. Mode Marimba markets themselves specifically as a cheap practice alternative, costing around $8,000 where others go for around $10,000. The design of the resonators, the big pipes below the bars, are another aspect that varies greatly between manufacturers. The sound frequencies work, the sound needs a certain amount of oscillations within the tube before coming out the other side. Sound oscillates faster at high frequencies, slower and longer at lower ones, so this proves a challenges for lower notes. One company marimba one, approached this by having multiple smaller pipes within on bigger pipe to make a more compact lower resonators. Another, malletech, opted to curve it back upwards, like a saxophone, to get the extra length. Another common workaround is to make the lower tubes much wider, Each has pros and cons, like malletech’s look aesthetically pleasing, but are heavy and bulky and awkward to work around. Marimba One’s are compact and easy to move, but lack the larger fuller sound of malletech’s.

[lucas5675]

Week 13

Digital aesthetic is the way digitally created art appears when compared to the more personal version created by hand. Digitally created are does not and cannot have the minute details included in it that a piece of art created by hand can. Artists develop unique touches, and are only limited by what’s physically possible. Whereas a computer program can only create blocks of shapes and lines, with predetermined textures and color. So in the case of digital art, the artist is limited to the capabilities of the computer program. Modern animation is a good example of the limitations of computer generated objects. No matter how detailed an animation can get, it will still always be less real looking to anyone’s point of view than anything live action. Apparently hair is notoriously hard to recreating in animation. I actually remember reading somewhere that Tangled was one of the highest costing animated movies of all time simply because of all the time and effort to recreate the girl’s hair. Of course live action moves present their own challenges through having to use CGI to incorporate certain things that come more easily to animation. But it comes at the advantage of always being more realistic than animation can ever be.

[lucas5675]

Week 11

Interactive design is a concept that we encounter pretty much daily as we go about our lives. There are recent media things that have come out that allow people to interact with them in various ways. Things like smartphones and mobile devices have largely made that possible. They make it so we have a convenient piece of technology wherever we go, enabling companies to market in new and different ways than they could before. May apps are perfect examples of interactive design. The default calendar app, for example, lets people create and edit events to a very specific degree, and lets them customize when and if they reoccur, and probably a lot of other things I don’t know yet that it can do. This lets people have as much control over it as possible, and interaction between the person and the app is very important, and how that interaction is design is also very important. An important aspect from personal experience would be fluidity and how intuitive the interaction feels. In the digital world, especially with smartphones, interacting with them and controlling them can feel a lot less natural the more things become automated and digital. Things like a mouse and keyboard can go a long way into making something more intuitive compared to a mobile device. And also, in music production, a lot of aspects of that have become digital too, including things like mixers and effects. Moving a knob or slider with a mouse on a screen doesn’t have the same effects as physically doing it with your cans, so some companies have done what they can to link physical hardware easily to the digital version, making the process a lot more intuitive. 

[lucas5675]

Week 11

The citizen designer mentioned in our readings is broadly a designer who thinks about how the object they are designing can benefit the greater in addition to it’s main purpose. It is common for designers to get caught up in producing a design purely for aesthetic or use, and forget about what they could do to make a real impact and difference in the world they are a part of, or a citizen of. Making money is often the biggest goal for anyone, including designers, when doing something related to your career. But a citizen designers is someone who either in addition to or separately thinks about how what they design can impact the word, specifically the people in it. Actually, as a musician, this is something pretty relatable. When making music as a living, we often tend to only think what we can do to make the most money off of something. But especially in college when we’re focusing on the technical and business aspects of music, we forget how strongly music can impact people’s lives, and what we can do with what we know to contribute to that. I feel like a citizen designer is the exact same concept.

[lucas5675]

Week 9

Brooks Steven made many advancement in industrial design, almost all of which he did here in Milwaukee. He showcased many of his designs at the Milwaukee art Museum where they are still preserved today, and opened his office on North Ave. He built relationships with several major manufacturers in Milwaukee, like Miller Brewing, Allen-Bradley, and Harley Davidson. These companies allowed him to prove his skills and expand further. He also designed a new train design first used in Milwaukee. Brooks Stevens also designed a lot with relation to the military during World War II. There were a lot of military designs he re-purposed for civilian use, like the jeep. One reason he might have stayed in Milwaukee was that was where his fathers company was based. He grew up involved and continued to be somewhat involved in the company even after he attended college and came back to Milwaukee, winning a contest to redesign the logo for the company. But he also believed the best business was in Milwaukee. Which was probably true. There were many major manufactures based in Milwaukee, which allowed him to demonstrate his products and provided him a place to put them to use and have a relationship with the companies who used his design. The Milwaukee Art Museum also put on several events where he was able to market his products, which he was very successful at. He influenced the concept of Industrial design, and always believe everything could always forever be improved upon. There are many institutions in Milwaukee that showcase his designs and pay him homage.

[lucas5675]

Week 7

Universal design in architecture is a concept of designing a piece of architecture that would be both accessible and pleasing for everyone. It started out with the Ancient Greeks basing it off of mathematics, and taking the average of everyone. But later this was viewed as untrue, as there is no one person that is the average of everyone, as everyone is so different. So anything that is meant to appeal to the best qualities of people as a whole would be inaccessible to a lot of people. So the architects started appealing to a wider variety of human characteristic, and not necessarily strong ones. Buildings did not always have to be symmetrical, or not entirely symmetrical. One example is the newer building, Lapham Hall I think. There are many things jutting out of it in a very linear way, but it is not symmetrical. Maybe it starts on one side of the building, but it does not continue to the other side. It’s weird, but this sort of asymmetry is pleasing in a way. Maybe it reflects our own asymmetry and imperfections in a way that is pleasing to us.  A more functional example of universal design are ramps that are next to stair to accommodate the disabled. Someone in a wheelchair would have significant difficulty trying to get up stair, and in some cases it might even be impossible. Having a ramp integrating into the building would allow them to avoid that problem, catering to all types of people. In the zelazo center for the perform arts, there is a stage that is raised up above the ground level. And because of the limited space and the need for it to be simple in order to distract from performances, a ramp in not possible. In this case, there is a small elevator offstage to allow someone in a wheelchair to get on and off stage.

[lucas5675]

Week 6:

There are a lot of architectural elements around Milwaukee. There is a lot of variety, especially around campus at UWM. A lot of the buildings around UWM were designed with the purpose of having a lot of.rooms, for the purpose of classes. Other buildings, like the union or the library, were designed to be a kind hub. They are in a central location with easy and seamless access to lots of other buildings, which makes them easy to get to. The houses around UWM are also designed with specific purposes in mind. As opposed to the buildings on campus, they are built to live in. There are multiple levels that aren’t connected so there can be multiple separate groups of people can live in the house but not be related at all. They are also grouped in the same location and near campus so they would be an ideal place for someone going to school could live. They are also old and cheaply made, comparatively to other areas, so rent is slightly more affordable. The houses in the other areas, especially closer to the lake and in Whitefish Bay are more built for permanent living. They are nicer, well built, and so they are also more expensive and not geared towards college students. On the East Side, there is a lot of commercial building, compared to around campus. Those are also specifically built with that purpose in mind. Often when a franchise chooses a location to build, they have the choice to specify how the building looks. Chains, like McDonald’s often have a recognizable look. People can look at the building and see that it’s a McDonald’s without any other information. It creates a familiarity, and helps with business as well. These buildings are also on a large scale in a central location and easily accessible from multiple residential lications.

[lucas5675]

Design week 4

Walking around campus there are a lot of things with different design elements to look at. One example is a crosswalk. It might seem obvious, but there is thought put into where they are. In the one outside the entrance to the union parking garage on Kenwood, out of context it might not be an obvious spot of a crosswalk. But, since there is a lot of foot traffic from the union to the neighborhood across the street to the union, it makes sense to put one there. The fact that crosswalks dip down is also a vital design aspect. It allows them to be wheelchair accessible, as well as allow anything with wheels to be transported across. The bumps on the metal plates on crosswalks also serve a purpose as well. Because of the slant towards the street, when waiting for traffic, anything with wheels would roll into the street. The bumps prevent that from happening, and the fact that they’re metal prevents them from eroding. Another object I found is the shelters near bus stops. They are often placed near stops that have a lot of people coming through, and there are a lot of them near campus. They provide shelter from wind, rain snow, or anything else while waiting for the bus. There is a glass window all around it, to make it easy to see when the bus is coming. But it does not extend all the way to the bottom, probably to let water or anything flow freely and not build up against the walls. The tops are also round, again probably to prevent buildup of water, allowing rain to flow of the side of the structure.

[lucas5675]

Design Journel 3

This is a marimba. The bars are made from a wood called rosewood, that has much more resonance than other woods. The bars get bigger as they get lower, and thinner as well, so they vibrate at lower frequencies. The resonators also get bigger as they get lower. They curve down at the top, and that serves an aesthetic purpose, it just looks nice. But at the bottom they are more functional, the longer pipes allow the full wavelength of the sound waves within the resonator. The frame is also adjustable with a crank, as opposed to some other models where you have to lift it up.

These are marimba mallets. They are most of the time a rubber or wooden core wrapped with yarn. The core give the sound a bit of an attack which they are struck, and gives weight to the mallet and the sound. The yarn on the outside provides warmth, and give a bit of softness to the sound. So different variations of yarn tightness, amount, and density, along with core size, shape and material. These specific mallets can get two kinds of sounds. When played on the side, the core speaks through clearly, giving it a strong bite. but when tilted up, there is more yarn and it doesn’t come through as much, giving it a softer attack.

A house definitely has aspects in it’s design that are important. The slanted roof prevents water from collecting on top of it. The entrance is at the front, and there is a way to lock it. It does seem kind of obvious, but if you think about it, it’s really pretty important and would be less useful without it. The windows also serve a functional purpose of allowing natural light inside the house, and some houses are specifically designed with windows in certain directions so light comes in from certain angles at a certain time of day.

Stairs are another common thing that has some critical design elements. Each stair is a comfortable height so it is easy to step up each one, and there is a hand rail so you don’t fall off.

This is a vibraphone. The bars are made out of metal, so it has a much brighter sound than the marimba. They also ring a lot more. One aspect of design of the vibraphone is the dampening pedal. There is a spring inside the vibes that pushes a felt covered bar against the metal bars. This dampens them so they don’t ring. But when the pedal is pressed down, the bar lowers allowing the bars to ring freely.

A pencil also has a very specific design. On this one, there is a lead center, that works best when it i sharp. There is wood around it to protect it and give it a bit of a grip. The eraser at the top is designed to wipe the lead off of a suface.

There is a surprising amount of thought that goes into making a pair of drumsticks. First of all, these are intended to be played on drum set. As opposed to concert style playing where tone is important, hence bigger sticks, in drum set playing the sticks move around a lot more. Lighter sticks make that easier. These sticks have a teardrop shaped head. Similar to the mallets, the angle that they’re played at has an effect on the sound. Played flat, they get a full sound, and tilted a thinner sound. This is because of the shape, when played flat there is more surface area making contact, creating more sound.

A fan has certain design aspects to it, most of which make it safer. There are blades that rotate around a center, propelling air forward, which helps cool an area down. There is also a cage surrounding the blades, which serve two purposes that I know of. One is to protect yourself from hurting yourself from the spinning blades. The other is to prevent something from stopping the blades from spinning.

A snare drum has several design aspects that make it sound the way it does. There are two drum heads on each snare drum. One is meant to be hit, the other resonated from the sound waves created from the other head. What makes a snare drum sound the way it does are wires running along the bottom of the resonant head. When that head vibrates, the wires bounce against it, creating it’s distinctive sound.

These are timpani. What makes them unique is they heads can easily change pitch. This design has changed dramatically over time, but in the modern timpani, There is a hoop running around the top of the timpani. There are pedals on each of the timpani, that either pull or push the hoops up or down. Pulling it down raises the pitch of the drum by tightening the tension of the head, and loosening it lowers the pitch.

[lucas5675]

I would define design as the way something is made in relation to it’s intended use. One thing that I frequently use as a percussionist is mallets. There are several ways to hold 4 mallets at once, and a while ago someone invented a newer way to hold mallets, but found that the way mallets were made weren’t suited to his new grip. Mallets were made out of rattan, a pretty flexible material. But in his new grip the mallets are held further out in the hand, so the flexibility resulted in a lot greater response time. So he started making his own mallets with birch shafts. Birch was much more stiff and provided an immediate response. It’s pretty simple but it’s also a clear example of design with a clear intent for use

[lucas5675]

Design Journal 1

Aside from it being a GER requirement design is something I’ve been interested it. I’m a music major, so I’m sure there are a lot of similarities of how the two are approached. Music inspires me. As a percussionist, I buy a lot of sticks and mallets, and how the mallets are designed influences the sound, and I definitely have my opinion on what designs sound better than others.