The Concept Excuse...

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

I have been there - through the Architecture schools and the Industrial Design schools - and frankly - I am very tired of people who use the word 'concept' as an excuse for piss poor work - random conceptualization - and just an attitude of ignorance born of self importance and the reluctance to study precedence and history...

Hell - when I got into my own school and checked out the women - THE REAL ONES - I said to myself - lets stay awhile and see how this mess goes - it was the professors who made me decide otherwise - except for one...:)

As self absorbed as you may be - (myself included) - ask yourself this - are you and your name insured against lawsuit - are you and your name willing to credit your heroes and inspiration as a base to your own work or your interpretation of theirs - or are we to assume - as you do - that you and your ideas - are nectar from the Gods - pure and original...

As is **** from a Bull Terriers ass - every curl like a snowflake...

Grow up Princess...

That said - there is a very special place for random thought - but a designer is bound by physics - the emotion - and the history of the idea or object at hand...

Ignorance is bliss and leads to profound blurts of spew - as I do - that rhymes - but in time - it falls into a file of C MINUS - minus sus - minus's - hell I dont punctuate...

I am STILL looking for my piece of string folks - help me out...

Froggie wank...

SH.

[marshmat]

Anything labelled a "concept" at a car or boat show inevitably draws a crowd, and in most cases will never see the light of day. (Case in point- Dodge Tomahawk- a Viper engine in a motorbike, the hit of the show, but can't run for more than 40 seconds without overheating 'cause there's nowhere to put the radiator.)

Then there's the "concepts" we sometimes see on here, that would probably be better off in the shuttlebay of the Starship Enterprise than in a slip down at the lake.

Then there's those of us who call our ongoing work "concepts" because we don't want to get hopes up (either the readers' or ourselves) that the financing will be present to actually build what may in fact be a good idea.

I take it that it's the second (and possibly the first) of these cases that's got your goat today, Sean?

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

Just tired - but probably more so - envious - perhaps - of the wide eyed kids in schools - paying their teachers wages - who are getting told their ideas are immaculate and wondrous...

So the teacher can cash his or her pay cheque at their expense...

It is not a correct method - and the real industry will bash both their heads - when and if - they pull same out of their dated academic sand piles - and put their hands to real work - to pay their student loan debt...

While the rest of us just bust our asses doing it - and pay the bills due by the man...

Oh listen to me - I have become an academic preacher - it must be my twiddling of string...

I need a hot bath and a good sausage pasta with a mushroom cream sauce - because I paid the man - and I am due...

Thanks 'Marshmat'...

SH.

[kach22i]

The language of success is a learned skill done often done in baby steps as one learns the talk and the walk. Like children we learn by imitation and repeating what we see and hear rather than by any special knowledge or insight.

Damned be the talented person with graphic and visualization skills but not the verbal communication ability to convey his thoughts, his genius.

Rewarded is the poser which looks and sounds the part, for he never has to prove himself with the tangible.

Falling back on "trigger words" and "popular thought" the student is often expected and even demanded to parrot certain words if not by his peers then by his instructor. Phrases uttered may be generously overlooked as one run with the herd, however phrases and terms used in a reaching manner testing the edges of genuine expression are often punished for coloring outside the lines. The mill press, the factory, the assembly line of higher education often falls victim to it's own enormous wallowing mass of hysterics.

An original thought is at first misunderstood, then ridiculed, then mocked and copied by lesser minds. Tell us why a student should take such a chance with his grade, his future? I often did, and my not so great GPA reflected it.

Due homage is often viewed as a weakness, and admittance of guilt rather than as a strength. This may be because competition for it's own sake in lieu of the sake of creativity is the bar for which we are measured.

Expressing the depth of one's own personal inspiration and exposing one's "insides" to the flesh eating competition (including the instructor) can be foolhardy or even hard and rarely rewarded. It's no wonder we rarely see it.

As one student put it; why should I show all of my design at mid-term and end up competing against myself?

What he was referring to was the other students copying his ideas, something I too fell victim to and not just from other students, even my instructors took credit for my ideas and then told me not to pursue it as the instructor had other students do my work under the guise of his own direction, his own thoughts.

I've taught, it's not as easy as it looks. Lead by example, that is the best you can do.