Thought Spore fans might want to know that we are doing a giveaway this week with the ever-inspiring blog Design Milk. We are very excited to see the interest so far. We have asked people to submit the name of their favorite modern residential architect to enter (final winner will be randomly selected). The winner will get a True button of their choice. The Design Milk community is such a diverse, global crowd, and we are having fun seeing who they admire. The firms they are mentioning vary in size and to some extent in style, and I will post some of our favorites here later in the week.

By the end of the evening, however, I questioned whether we ever will. In spite of my desire to create a cohesive space and find some appropriate art, I don’t think I have it in me to start a room from scratch from the floor coverings to the furnishings and the art. Much as I admire the work of great interior designers, I would miss the the eccentric layers that remind me of where we have been and where we are going. Our furniture may not match, and the quality is inconsistent, but an inventory of the items therein reflect Ted and me–and Us.

His: a small birch Aalto Artek stool; an orange Eames fiberglass chair found at a yard sale while he was in college (updated with the knockoff rocking chair base upon the arrival of our first daughter); a wind-up robot.

Mine: a four-foot bronze statue of Tara, the Indian goddess, from my grandfather’s house; a peculiar old handmade shoe, circa 193os, severely deformed by water damage, in a size that suggests original ownership by an extraordinarily tiny woman; a hand-tinted, autographed photo of a pair of jockeys, found at a thrift store a dozen years ago.

His design icons and my tchotchkes are accompanied by a 1960s no-name Danish sofa and chairs found in Palm Springs; a Scandinavian stereo cabinet found for $25 at a Lutheran church rummage sale; Ikea floor lamp and wool rug. All around are toys, piles of books on food and architecture, and dusty record albums.

A slick living room would require a massive purging or hiding of these markers, a reduction and agreement on what Our Tastes are. The hodgepodge is a compromise and a reflection. We will continue to “improve” our house with better, newer things, but in the end I am glad that we cannot afford to make all of our decisions at once. The process of considered coveting, slow shopping, and accrual of acquisitions will lend our home a patina that is more homey and true to our middling pretentions. We might not ever live in a house that is magazine material, but I suppose that is why we like nice hotels.

Painter Carmen Herrera, from the New York Times 12/19/2009

Art is such a commitment. You must love what you put on your walls, and in the more traditional approach to good taste, your “decor” must somehow synthesize, harmonize, or…match. We don’t go so far as to endorse matching in our house, but purchasing art is still intimidating. Scale and color and texture and tone must be stuck into the context of a domestic living room, and suddenly aesthetic preferences are found at odds with reality. Money only adds to the conundrum of What To Put on That Wall.

We have avoided the whole mess by sticking to small art works, modest little old drawings and prints, which we love dearly but which don’t quite make a statement. They instead impart the slightly sentimental (albeit un-saccharine) feel of a curio shop. We have been tempted to fill vacant wall space with objects, such as a portion of an old tin gas station sign we once found (and, alas, left on the road side) featuring a dinosaur. That somehow lets us off the hook of having to find a large piece and stand by the art and the artist.

Another option would be to create something ourselves. There is enough talent in our house to fool people into thinking we meant it, and I have even considered commissioning hundreds of small pieces from our three-year-old and stitching them together by hand. But there is something in me that thinks it is gauche to decorate my own canvas, like placing large family portraits above the mantel.

Then tonight I read in the New York Times about Carmen Herrera, a 94-year-old painter in NYC who has just begun to get recognition for her supremely restrained graphic geometric paintings. Her sense of proportion is lovely, and I immediately thought: Oh! I could copy that for our wall. Which I Shall Not Do.

But it did make me think about what makes art, and particularly this kind of modern art, original. What makes Herrera’s triangles so amazing, and why is it less amazing if I pull out the painter’s tape and measure her angles and duplicate them on my wall? I would be decorating, obviously, whereas she is painting, but is there something essentially different between what she has created and I could copy? I think there is, but I don’t really know why. I am drawn to geometric and color studies from Kandinsky and Mondrian through to Herrera, and there is an impulse to try my hand at their work, but I don’t.

Why are their circles, squares, and triangles superior?

Our railingless deck

I am sure it is a common predicament in designy households. A vision appears: the Perfect Bed. Or: the Ideal Coffee Table. Or, in our case: the Best Deck Railing. Unable to leave well enough alone, we have the good-bad luck of knowing how things can be made. We have the resources to design and build our concepts. And we have the stubborn and peculiar desire to see our project through on our terms.

Our deck was undertaken in the summer of 2008. We had contractors come in and repair the cantilevers, then Ted spent a few beautiful days laying the deck with some lovely wood. Next came the railing. Our old railing was no longer code-compliant, and with small children we really do care about safety and such. Besides, it looked shoddy compared to the beautiful new deck. We considered our options: cable railing, pre-fabbed glass or steel panels, wood.

We are still considering our options, having lost a full summer of deck dining in the process. Shall we anodize? Powder coat? How about electric blue? Harvest gold? Dark gray ano? Cor-ten steel? Tis a lovely problem to have, but I wonder sometimes what is wrong with us that we can’t just order up and have a serviceable railing.

What would we “sacrifice” by going with a standard option, and is it worth the time lost? It is the designer’s quandary. I want to know what hang ups other designers have had.

Red china marker

Add this to the list of objects that couldn’t be better designed. I have been shopping for desk set items, and I think a good old china marker (a.k.a. grease pencil) in red or white is about the best thing ever. Sure, it’s anachronistic, but the design is superb. The tactile element of pulling the string to unravel the paper and reveal the writing tip is awfully nice. Reminds me of my artier days: little piles of pencil shavings, some curled up discarded china marker wrapper, the smell of ink…

Wouldn’t it look swell to see a red china marker next to your laptop and your nicest pen?

I don’t know who makes the best ones these days. I used to buy Berol, and I know they still make them, as does Sanford–and apparently Sharpie. The art supply store is calling me!

Vintage pinup we found in a foot locker at an estate sale

Back in the old days, before we had two kids, Ted and I used to frequent estate sales in our neighborhood. Our area has a lot of mid-century houses, and for a while we were on a roll finding odds and ends that helped us complete our house (a.k.a. Bingo). Among our finds was this picture, which we found in a rusty foot locker from the 1930s. We took the awful thing home, hoping we’d find time to pull out the saw and cut this image out of the lid. Of course, it just sat there. So we took a picture and set the thing on the curb with a “free” sign at our next yard sale. The next couple was also pleased to get the trunk.

There are so many things I like about this image. It is racy (no pun intended), without being crass–at least to my current sensibilities. I love the woman’s expression, almost irked or indulgent.

Vargas pinup from 1945

The scarf, helmet, goggles and shoes are an amusing ensemble. And while slender, the lady is not extreme. There is none of the bodily exaggeration that would come with the Vargas pinups of WWII.

We all know that aesthetic preferences change over time, but the feminine ideals really swung from one pole to the other in the decade between 1933 and 1943, or thereabouts. There are dozens of historical reasons why this change occurred, but it is still striking to see the transformation.

The idea of dated design is one we struggle with constantly. Our doorbell buttons were on Apartment Therapy last week, and I noticed that one commenter said that her friend had one of our earlier designs, which looked really dated now. I cannot argue one way or another about that person’s perception, but it is always curious to us to see how people respond to our designs. One person brushes them off as dated, while the another winces that they are far too modern, while a nice bunch in the middle like them and use them. As designers, we cannot always decide where we want to be on the continuum of style and trend. History beyond our control will dictate how viewers perceive our goods, but we will always relate to one era more than another. Some will favor motogirl, others will admire Vargas.

How do you define your aesthetic, and how does it change over time? Are you static?

Thank you to all of the good people who wrote about us and spread the word. We are mighty appreciative.

Grassroots Modern

Apartment Therapy

Gizmodo

Dvice

Gizmodiva

Mercer Island residence by chadbourne+doss. Photo by Benjamin Benschneider

I nearly forgot: Spore has a beautiful new website, designed by the talented Seattle Brand Envy. This firm is an awesome family enterprise: Jason Brown started with Lost Luggage, a company that makes beautiful modern portfolios. His wife, Nadine Stellavato, came in and gave the brand a boost with her marketing and graphic design savvy, and they made their design services into another branch of the company. The two aspects of their company come together in Taste Envy, their line of menu covers and tabletop accessories that is quickly making its way into top restaurants around the country.

It has been great getting to know these talented people and their staff. Ted had admired Jason’s work for years and had considered Lost Luggage one of the best parallel companies in Seattle (niche design products). I was unaware of this when I selected Brand Envy to design our new site–in looking at many firms, their work easily stood out as the best match with our company.

As for the beautiful picture above: this fantastic Mercer Island, Washington house was was remade by Seattle firm chadbourne+doss. The original house plan was made by Fred Bassetti, who went on to design some of Seattle important public buildings. It is hard to see, but chadbourne+doss selected Spore’s Delite button (in amber with black anodized faceplate) for the residence. Read more about the project here.

As we made our way below deck, I wondered how the ship came together. What was the very first cut made? The first section welded?

Dakota Creek's Grant Candies

A house must always begin with grading and foundation, but this great vessel could have started with anything. I asked Mike, and he said that they often begin construction on these behemoths months before the designs are actually complete. If one component is finalized, Dakota Creek can work on that until the rest of the ship design comes together. In this case, the tower had come before the hull.

It was rather magnificent to imagine the inaugural cut, the first transformation from raw material to completed ship.

The Grant Candies near completion

When Ted was designing our newest button, True, there were months of minor tweaks in the design, well before the prototype was built. The circuit board had to be engineered, and little changes were made so that we might be able to use the same board in another future product. Once part samples began arriving, plastics were considered, aluminum finishes and anodized colors contemplated. Dozens of little changes were made. No such experimentation can happen in the construction of a ship, which is why the design takes so long.

Required orders of operations can radically shape a final design. It is almost like a syntax that creates the nuance of a language. Do industries that require near-perfect designs before construction have a product with a different feeling, or accent, than those industries that can revise almost until the end?

A magazine rack from Ponoko (designed by allesprodukt)

designers can send their flat designs over to ten Have’s laser cutters, which can cut a product out of the flat material of choice. Pokono takes it a step farther by adding an Etsy-like sales tool, which allows users to post their designs for ordering by customers. Ponoko then manufactures on demand, shipping the finished goods to the end customer or to the designer, if other assembly is required. Designers can charge just for the cost of goods (giving their designs away for free) or they can add their fee to the Pokono price.

Mag Cloud offers similar services for magazine printing, which makes me want to become a publisher of peculiar collections. I can’t decide whether to celebrate this as the long tail theory working brilliantly or whether I am sad about the decline of traditional print. Either way, for creative types it is an exciting opportunity to experiment with new designs without having to commit to huge R&D costs.

We will probably experiment with Pokono for new products or displays, and it will certainly be utilized for the holiday gift making.