HORIZONTICAL

Okay..so...this is my blog.

2011-05-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

Posts coming soon.

Where has the time gone?

2011-02-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

Ok I know I was supposed to have a million projects done by now, and yet life got complicated. Very complicated, because that is what it is supposed to do.

So anyway, I am looking at the possibility of getting this Art Horse project up and running. If I don't get it up this month, then I will at least post the cut sheets or the sketchUP model for it so that you can make one yourself.

The Question of Design Part II: What gives? Part B

2010-10-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

     Despite popular belief, giving criticsim, and doing it well, is not a gift we are all born with. Most people are truly terrible at it, others are just down right mean. The act of being critical is not meant to be used as a weapon, but rather as a scientific instrument. It should be an exercise in analysis and synthesis, nothing more. In a nutshell, proper criticism is the act of conveying your perception and conception of the idea set before you, taking it apart, weighing its strengths and weaknesses, and then clearly stating those topics back to it's proper recipient.

      I apologize if that perhaps sounded a bit wordy. It's funny, because in your mind it sounds so easy, but when you really want to describe critiquing, it's actually a very complex issue. In order to really understand, what I just wrote, let's pull out our information dissection kit and take apart the last sentence, from the paragraph above, phrase by phrase.

     "The act of conveying your perceptions and conceptions."

Well let's see, the idea here is that you have baggage, experiential, informational baggage, that you carry around with you constantly. At a moments notice this baggage can be opened and can influence an immediate response to something. Couple this with how you conceive the world to be. The world has an order, that you yourself believe is how things should work, could work, it's potential. You may remember from my first discussion how I said that these two constantly affect each. You need to know and understand those two forces and their affect upon you before logically moving on to the next step.

"...taking it apart, weighing its strengths and weaknesses"

Reason. That is what this is all about. You now see what the project, set before, you is all about. The person who created this object has expressed their goals and desires.   Now you must assess whether those items they have listed out have been successfully translated into the object itself.   This is tricky because, here is where you are weighing their conceptions and perceptions against yours. This is NOT a matter of right vs wrong here. This is place where you see whether there answer solves the question. Remember, there is always more than one right answer. I know of no other time when these issues come together, mingle casually and/or wage great battle within a person. This is a place where great change can take affect. At this point, someone has the ability to change their own ideas because the ideas presented before the may be better. Here that they can decide if their idea is weaker/stronger than the other guys. Here it can swapped. How cool is that?

      "...then clearly stating those topics back to it's proper recipient."

This is always easier than it sounds. Now that you have made all those decisions, which you do in about two milliseconds, you have to say it. Patiently and carefully gather your thoughts. The where to's and the why for's, and say them to the other person in a controlled and measured tone. Be objective, clear, and confident. Enunciate. If you do this correctly, sometimes there will be an exchange of ideas, a moment for the other guy to do the exact same thing. And so a beautiful, dance ( dialog ) ensues.

Acrylic Pedestal DIY

2010-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

I finally got my first DIY up on the site! It is how to build an acrylic pedestal. I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to finally get something up. I hope you enjoy it!

A Lesson Learned

2010-09-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

I am going to skip ahead, in my design lecture series, to bring up an important lesson in friendship, business, and money. Sounds like recipe for disaster doesn't it?

When you are starting out on your own, friends are always there to support you and you them. Everyone wants to succeed, and you want to create, be constructive, and put your stamp on the world. Often times in the exuberance of the moment it is hard to think with a level head or rather how can you know what you don't know. I had such a situation happen. A project where a short time period, too much enthusiasm, too little clarification, and poor explanation of compensation played out an anguishing and embarrassing moment in my life. I don't want to write out the entire story because:

A. It is very long
B. It will distract from the point of this post

Just know that in the end the project was completed, with a lot of hand wringing on my part. It wasn't a failure, if anything it was a humbling learning experience. Every time I have one of these "moments", where things go wrong, horribly wrong, I take the time to write out the lessons learned. Why you may ask? Well first of all because while it is still fresh in my mind I can look back and see where the mistakes were. See what it is I could have done better. Sometimes by doing this, it allows me to realize that I may have been too hard on myself, that perhaps it was the client, or situation, vs something I did or did not do. The other reason is for more straight forward. I have no desire to ever repeat the same mistake twice. With that being said here is my list, a recent one at that. Enjoy, laugh, criticize, but above all learn.

Don’t do favors ( friends or otherwise ) unless it’s in writing
When a project is given, not only is it good just to price out raw parts. It is also important to price out money for any fuck ups that will inevitably occur, as well as labor. Always include tool/materials necessary to complete the project aside from the raw materials themselves. Always buy extra material to test ideas out and include that in the negotiated price
When an argument arises via email or a phone message, or when there is a problem or disagreemnt over the type of work and or compensation. Don't respond right away. Let it sit in your mind for an hour. Work it out in your mind. If you don't you may wind up saying something you will regret.
Keep track of labor hour
Never use your own money. Always take a 50% retainer, that way they have to buy it and you aren’t stuck with a half finished expensive product. Always do this when you are very low on money to begin with.
Don’t forget that the shop where you are ordering materials from can also probably cut the pieces better than you can, and cheaper.
The negotiated price is what it is. If you don’t get it right the first time, chances are unless the client request changes, you are going to eat the cost.
Take your time building what ever it is your building
With a little patience most things can be buffed out
Avoid Tight deadlines when at all possible. If there is a quick turn around deadline, try to push it so that you can work on the weekends, and have the result in Monday or Tuesday.
Three days is the absolute minimum for turn around time, and I strongly discourage going near that.
Have the right tools and the right space
Friends always want to help, let them but be aware things may break around them. Don’t be mad at them if they do. They are working within their standards, not yours.
Most sawing/cutting parts, sold at stores, are for wood cutting/sawing and they always cut 1/8” larger than they say they will. Example...hole saws. Count on it.
Air tools always beat doing it by hand
Never ever wait until the last minute to take photos of the finished product, it can be disastrous.
It is always good to have an extra person help out while taking photos. They can keep backdrops and background boards from blowing over and destroying your finished product.
Store your finished product in a safe place once you are done with photos and handle it as little as possible. Once it is the clients hands it is their problem, not yours.
Always keep a small supply of finishing cleaner around in case there is a need to touch up a scuff.
Never send the list you just wrote, about what you learned, to the client that "educated" you

It is my sincerest wish that you will find this useful someday. At the very least I hope you fail as often as you succeed. Without failure, you will never learn to succeed. However let us pray that your failures are ones that are not on this list, because then clearly you will have not learned anything from this at all.

Happy Designing!

The Question of Design Part II: Why So Critical? Part A

2010-07-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Anton Ego, I salute you!

Ah the critic. No matter who you are or what you are, you have been either a party to or a subject of the critic. I like to muse sometimes that a critic is just someone who failed at their original profession, but if that is the case...then I am a failure, so I digress. Still, there is much value in the act of critiquing and it is important to learn:

   A. How to receive it
   B. How to give it
   C. When to just keep your mouth shut

Let's start with receiving criticism shall we? By far the least fun of the three options, taking criticism can be a brutal process. First of all many people see it as an opportunity to criticize your personal choices, which is in a sense a reflection of you, ergo it is you. When this happens, your best bet is not to ignore it, not completely. If you feel your personal character is being assaulted, immediately ask the critter (sorry best spell check answer I ever saw, I wanted critiquer, but it gave me critter...that has to stay ) to be more specific about the comments. Remind them this criticism is about the project itself and not you. Generally that grounds them rather quickly and keeps them on the alert that you are not there to have your heart ripped out.

If you have an intelligent and thoughtful audience, the above problem may never happen. This is a great time to listen and get your short term memory note pad out. At this point people are bringing their baggage with them. Their perceptions and conceptions of how things are, how things work or how they might work. Here, commenter's are thinking critically about your project and their thoughts may be very constructive. Their comments might allow you to see areas you might have missed or how to attack the problem from another angle. Let's face it, when you are working on a project, it is easy to get tunnel vision. No matter how hard you may try, it is next to impossible to see the entirety of a big idea.

There also will be times when you will receive glowing comments about your work, praise at its insight. This is the kind of thing that keeps you doing what you are doing. I live for these moments, it makes everything seem worthwhile. It's so nice to have positive reinforcement, however don't always look for it. It's not that it is hard to get, but if you ever seek is praise, you project will never improve. Personally the best criticism I could ever ask for would be glowing praise of the idea, admiration for its execution, and thoughts on how to improve it.

I am going to end this piece here. I do intend to write more, but I do not want to inundate you, the reader, with more text. I have always found it easier to digest content small bits at a time..otherwise I just give up and ignore the rest. I blame my short attention span on technology...and me.

The Question of Design Part:1

2010-06-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

Before I start popping out DIY design projects I thought would address the question of design. It is a demon of a question. What is design? What makes it good or bad? To a large degree, design is in the eye of the beholder, plain and simple. Let me be clear, there is bad design...scads of it, but it might not be bad for the reason you think it is or isn't.

The experiences we carry with us, along with the other internal influences that make the human experience possible, play a profound role in what we find appealing or heinous. For years I labored under the delusion that my notion of good design was the more correct one. That is, those friends and associates I talked with had roughly the same beliefs that I shared, therefore reaffirming my own. However as my onerous personality mellowed, I began to realize this was an idiotic way to go about looking at design.

When you have decided that you want to design something, the first things to ask are:

What do you need or want to have?

What desire is it going to fulfill? Let's face it, design is a very selfish thing.

When you have the what, then you can move on to the how:

How will it look?

How have other people done it?

How will you make it?

How much will it cost in terms of your time and money?

Then the final thing to ask is:

Will it work?

Will it be functional?

Will it be for looks only?

Will it drive my friends crazy with envy or mad with laughter? Actually friends be damned, sometimes they just wont get you.

These are fairly fundamental, at least I think so, but my word is far from gospel. Once you get rough answers to these questions be sure to just let them float in the back of your mind as you work. These questions should not be hurdles, but merely guides and way points to help you remember things as you go along. With that in mind, I will give you the three R's

Research

It is said every artist is a cannibal, and every poet is a thief. Designers are no different. Most times you are not trying to reinvent the wheel; just trying to make it more attractive, at least for yourself. Look up every example you can find, study them up close and from far away. Decide what it is, about this particular object that you enjoy/dislike and why. Let those ideas percolate for while, let them marinate your brain. There are other way to marinate your brain, but we will keep it clean for this entry.

For my research I go to the source. I personally have a few favorite retail stores that I just like to peruse through and study. I'll spend time dissecting some furnishings that I find appealing/hideous and then when I go home I start sketching out ideas. Yes I said sketch, even if you are terrible at it, do it, it helps to see your thoughts. Plus it provides a hard copy of your process and may help inspire other ideas and iterations. Then be sure to collect and put them somewhere safe, because it sucks when you lose an idea...literally.

In my next installment of "The Question of Design", I'll talk about critiquing, critics, and all the other rabble and what it means....or doesn't.

HORIZONTICAL Kick Off...... Welcome All !!

2010-06-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hello and Welcome to Horizontical. This page is about design and build for those things horizontal and vertical. The ultimate goal of this blog is to post creative ideas and solutions on how to design the things you want and need to have in your home, office, or any humanly occupied space, and do it at a price that won't kill your pocket book.

In the coming months I will be posting DIY projects that will vary from simple home ideas, i.e. lamp shade creation, all the way to ideas on how to design and entire home. It is my hope that everyone can share in these ideas, and learn.

Thanks for coming to my site, check back in periodically to see new stuff!

Cheers,
Jared