ID [PNW]

The Polaroid Desk Lamp No. 114 - 1937 - photo courtesy TEAGUE Although today we associate Polaroid with instant photographs, the company was originally was founded on the invention of polarized film. Edwin Land worked with researchers to develop applications for his new film in the 1930's and were striving to find a successful product. They developed a polarizing lens filter for Eastman Kodak in 1933, which is likely how they connected with Walter Dorwin Teague.   One of those experimental products was a desk lamp that emitted polarized light, reducing the reflective glare and easing eye strain. The first product was a blocky chunk of Bakelite, largely dictated by engineering constraints.  Teague, with staff designer Frank Del Giudice, took those constraints and imagined a new form, the Polaroid Desk Lamp No 114.  Frank was the first Teague designer to have a formal education in industrial design. (The others either came from architecture, engineering, or ...

Curvilinear Space Analysis by Johan Axelson I'm attempting to bring some traditional form studies from Rowena Reed Kostellow's Elements of Form into the design education at Western Washington.  These studies date back to the 1940's and the development of the original industrial design curriculum.  This is a space analysis that I did as a student of Lenny Bacich at Pratt Institute.  He was a student of Rowena's and tried to teach these very difficult form abstractions to me.  Only now that I'm teaching it do I realize what they mean and why they are so valuable.  Rectilinear Space by Larisa Schulze The forms here are done by my junior ID students.  They are not computer models, they are made with paper and wire. They have very strict rules regarding the elements used and where they can be placed.  But the intent is to expand the negative volume and create a beautiful and interesting space.  But the real goal to increase the visual and ...

Lenny was my former professor of three dimensional design at Pratt Institute.  He passed away last year, and has been recently recognized with the Rowena Reed Kostellow Award.  Now that I am teaching the elements of form to my students at Western, I think of Lenny often and can still hear his words echoing in my mind. "LOOK at it.  What do you see?" "Precarious balance is like Martha Graham, the dancer, think of a dancers' pose when creating your forms." He encouraged me to go into teaching and is part of the reason why I am a design professor. Wire/Curve study by Thomas Kloucek, Western Washington Here's more about Prof. Bacich from the RRK fund: "For almost a quarter of a century, Lenny Bacich epitomized the rigor and magic of great teaching. He said: "The WHAT and HOW issues of three-dimensional design are explainable and teachable. The WHY is the challenge of teaching the course." Lenny taught courses about abstraction an...