“The essential function of our profession [design] in our society is to enhance and cultivate communications toward an easier understanding of ideas and complex problems, in the shortest possible time for higher visual and auditory retention of data.”
“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.”
“For design is about the making of things: things that are memorable and have presence in the world of the mind. It makes demands upon our ability both to consolidate information as knowledge and to deploy it imaginatively to creative purpose in the pursuit of fresh information.”
“To design is to plan and to organize, to order, to relate and to control. In short it embraces all means of opposing disorder and accident. Therefore it signifies a human need and qualifies man’s thinking and doing.”
Palm Springs, CA: Modernism
Visit: We stopped by Palm Springs on our way to LA, hoping to see old friends who moved there recently. Unfortunately, they were visiting family in Europe, but we were able to drive by their wonderful Modernist house (behind the Airstream in the picture).
Discoveries: Palm Springs is filled with vintage design stores, where Modernism is the dominent style. We found out that in fact they actually hold a Modernism Week in February each year. Johan found a chair designed by Mario Botta, and so we had to squeeze it into the growing collection. Amazingly it resided comfortably in the car, where books and other collected items were gradually filling the available space.