Translation

Designers sometimes hear the phrase, "I'm/he's/she's so visual!"

This, I've discovered, usually translates to a designer as: "No you/he/she aren't."

This misleading statement is, I think, due to a difference in definition.  "Visual" to a Designer means you think visuals are important, you value them, and you can see them in your head because you can imagine what something will look like.  To the Non-Designer I think (it's a foreign tongue so I'm guessing), "visual" seems to mean that you literally have to SEE it - for real, in all full physical reality - to understand it.

Kinda the opposite, huh?

I suspect there is a misunderstanding - because I've worked with a few "so visual!" directors.  I've even acted out scenery for them with the help of several people, boxes, sticks, and spike tape at full scale... and this was after the model, the perspective drawings, the construction drawings, the sketches, and a fair amount of hand-waving.

Just a heads-up, Fellow Designers.  "So visual!" can be so misleading.

As for the REAL directoral rattlesnake-warning phrase, it's "I'm open to other ideas."

image courtesy of clkr.com

There's a pretty funny (mildly insulting!) report on the architectural versions of these warning rattles at Life of an Architect.

Amazing Architecture/Sculpture

...made from packing tape!  See it at fastcodedesign.com  I wanna make one!

Image borrowed from Architectural Record

Listening to Book CDs in Public

Speaking of books on CD...

I was once listening to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander on the car's CD player, back when it worked, before that ugly eating-the-parking-lot-ticket incident... ahem, anyway!  When the audiobook used to loudly recite to me, I'd drive along, listening to the characters troubles and their (Outlander being racy in part), um, romantic interludes.  Except for at the traffic light.  There I was, listening, and as the narrative got warmer, the guy outside with the cardboard sign got closer, and I turned the volume lower, so warmer, closer, and lower, and so on until in pure embarrassment I hit the "Pause" button.

Ridiculous but true.  It's the same flinching that keeps me from reading certain books on the train in case someone looks over my shoulder.

public domain + Wikimedia mashed

An earlier post on books on CD in the car here

Travelin'

Off I go in Scenic Ride II, my spiffy new set-designer-mobile, the old one having died on me (previous post).  Heading north.  But, unfortunately without my CD book player working.

Reading while driving is bad, right?

Alice on Halloween Sale

Alice Through the Proscenium: more scenic set design goes on sale.  Again.

Those wacky publishers!  They crave excitement I think.  (And I'm excited that Alice is selling better than I'd expected.)  Care to join the rush?  Being "In" and in-formed is suddenly cheaper!

Read more about Alice here.

Scramble!

...sixteen hours later... carpenters wait, one foot in the pickup truck, for sketches to be scanned, to be finished, to be started, after designs get redesigned - fast - so carpenters can estimate materials, so they can buy materials, so they can start building...

 'cause last night the show's concept changed.

Luckily, I like this version better.  These things happen.

Public Domain Images

I found a great new source for public domain images: The Graphics Fairy.

There's a land office rush going on in cyberspace as designers and bloggers (and especially designer-bloggers!) upload the treasury of Victorian images that are out of copyright.  The Graphics Fairy is another rich source.  (I can see I'm going to need to scan in my own old-book illustrations.  "Fly!  Be free!")

From the Graphics Fairy - thanks! - here's an appropriately Halloween-y sample image:

public domain image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

Not a Review - Spring Awakening

WaterTower's production of Spring Awakening is a wowser!

So much youth and energy onstage!  I haven't seen the show before, so I can't compare it to the original NY production, but this one is worth seeing.  I really like the music.  Choreography, direction, actors... all just wonderful.

Photo borrowed from WaterTower Theatre

The set - by Chris Pickart - makes a handsome framework, with just enough detail to suggest the period.  Its whitewashed texture of brick, wood, and metal acts as a sort of building/cyc for the lighting.  Leann Burns' lighting is fantastic!  Rock-n-roll colors and moving light; sensitive transitions, mood shifting as if on a swivel; stars; wild grafitti-like scribbles of light dancing; and there's a moment when dots of light seem to flutter across the stage and collect like blown autumn leaves that's so beautiful and so perfect...

This is a show that I could see suffering under a weak production - this marvelous one is worth celebrating!  Glad I caught it on its last day.