Zen and Madness
by James in Japan on February 15th, 2009
At work I’ve been doing a lot more web work. Well, not really a lot more, but rather nothing but web work. Initially I was disappointed, but it has forced me to finally learn CSS and web design properly, instead of relying on friends all the time. Skill-set expansion is a good thing™.
I am very much minimalist when it comes to design. Less is always more. I am the same way with my tools. Give me tools that get out of my way and let me get work done.
Often when one things of Japan in a design sense, one thinks of Zen. Pictures of rock gardens in Kyoto come to our mind. Simple. Minimal.
For others though the opposite comes to mind. The busy streets of Tokyo. The flashy lights in Shibuya. The crazy kids in Harajuku. The complete opposite of Zen. I would almost go as far as to call it madness.
This difference is huge and is often a point of conflict in my design. How does one find a happy medium between Zen and Madness? What does it look like? What does it feel like?
I don’t have any definite answers yet, but I am studying.
1st March 2009, mom wrote:
james,
picasso, is perfect. study his colors plattee that is your zen. it al makes since. the maddness is cubism. he would walk around his subject matter and get three or four visuals. dali with his surrealism. pure maddness in a zen like world.the era of impression was very zen, such as matise the water lilies. however the maddess of it all is the size of the piece.however everyone interpertation is different at different tmes, so therefore if your connection with the universe is sincere and you can,take the negitive enrgy into a postive you have a zen feeling.now doing that is different. during the hippie days it was peace and love. not war. but we were in war.it will look different to everyone and feel diffrent to everyone, because of interpitation. good luck . miss you.p.s. dont cut your ear off like van gogh did. love momma
1st March 2009, Dad wrote:
Hey James-I don’t tweet yet so…Outside sales? Actually a humbling experience that’s good for the soul.