Ai Weiwei "Fairytale Chairs" At The Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Ai Wiewie's Fairytale Chairs
Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2007

The fairy tale chairs are an installation of five rows of nine chairs from the Qing Dynasty. Although the chairs are in a mass, they are each spaced apart to give a feeling of isolation and reflect Ai's interest of relationship of the mass and the individual.

They are there to give the sitter the feeling of the history of the chair and it's surroundings such as who could have sat on in what type of place.

My first impression was that the chairs reminded me of a group of people from all walks of life because of their different shapes and sizes. I too also felt lonely or isolated when I sat down and looked around the room. It also occured to me the many hundreds if not thousands of people whom may have sat on these chairs in the past.

Overall the experience was good , I got the feeling that I understood what Ai type of message or emotion Ai was trying to give out and for me, was one of the highlights of the visit.

The Professional Photoshop Book "Global Advertising Styles"

Andreas Franke
www.staudinger-franke.com

Andy Potts
www.andy-potts.com

The article that I have chosen discusses the latest trends and styles used around the world using the photoshop program. The article explains how different countries and continents have their own unique style and approach to advertising using photoshop at the heart of their projects such as, the USA's approach which involves highly rendered, hyperreal CG based imagery, as opposed to the more clean, minimal, no fuss and also illustrative look to styles found here within the UK. The article also also explains how these lines (in style) are been blurred because of the use of sharing content across online forums and social networks.

The article is also good collective of many different Artist's and designers of opinions of global design. I particularly liked the quote from US advertising photographer "Mark Holthusen" www.markholthusen.com where he quotes "I think you find the most interesting ads with smaller companies who are willing to take risks" which I totally agree with because I have had experience working within global company design rules and guidelines such as Harley-Davidson® which leaves very little room to be creative when approaching an advert. I don't disagree with corporate identity because it does prevent cheapening the brand but, I do think it can get quite ridiculas when you have to design a business card down to the exact millimetre or have to place a logo using a measuring system using the letter "H" as a measurement?

What I have learnt from this article is how different cultures and countries have different approaches to design but, it has taught me that as an individual I should take risks in my approach to design while I can. It has also taught me to look at the many different styles out there and not to be narrow minded, to look at the latest trends and keep up with them and maybe even change them along the way.