Humans adapt expertly — and soon become accustomed to the environments and things that surround us. Objects that at one time were novel tran...

I have been primarily approaching this project from the viewpoint of the object. How does it live, age, record, and show wear - essentially...

It would probably be helpful to read and analyze the 'anti-wear' perspective. What is appealing about disposability, aside from nov...

There seem to be two main paths to explore the concept of wear explicitly: 1) Utilizing existing, patinated materials in a new context. Whi...

According to Grant McCracken's Culture and Consumption , patina was the visual proof of status prior to the 18th century's consumer...

A photographer put together a video documenting the wear developed on a pair of raw denim jeans over the course of a year.

The following list mentions each item only once, not every time it was touched: alarm door knob drinking glass pill container pill coffee mu...

Garrett Hardin's first rule of ecology emphasizes the extreme complexity of systems. Every act has consequences and implications - both...

I have wanted new glasses for a few years, and probably needed to update my prescription for just as long. Occasionally I would stop into a...

An increased emphasis on the long-term, in relation to the effects of current systems of production and consumption, implies sacrifice, or a...

One of the reasons we buy new things is that we become bored with what we have. The object that at one time was novel transitions to mundan...

Can I create a new material that is recyclable, non-composite, or renewable that shows wear, records use, or develops patina? This Eindhov...

A friend just told me about his father's truck. It has over 300,000 miles on it and a couple interesting wear marks on the interior fro...

In the Regina Bendix book, In Search of Authenticity , she writes, "Authenticity is generated not from the bounded classification of an...

I believe brands provide information to consumers and attempt to manufacture desire within them. Consumers choose, through purchase and use...

This book by Leonard Koren is a fantastic brief overview of the wabi-sabi aesthetic. I found the following excerpts particularly valuable ...

The values that I identify with in raw denim: Durability - These jeans are meant to last years - even with everyday use. The seeking of wea...

There is a common path that a relationship with an object can take - markedly similar to relationships with people. First, we see, covet, o...

Continuing the post about the impact of material choice on an object, the physical material of the object also has the potential to extend ...

Don Norman makes the claim, in this essay , that simplicity is overrated. According to his research, people will often buy products with mo...

Document my own relationship with my raw denim. I can take photos that record the wearing in of my jeans. Document relationship with a new ...

After realizing in class today that most of the ideas I've written about so far are very interconnected, I need to try to define, and co...

In what ways has easy access to so much information, much of it for free ( Project Gutenberg , NASA digital elevation maps , baseball statis...

This article on Design Observer is about the state of graphic design and illustration, but mentions a book by John Carey called What Good ...

Objects play signficant roles in our lives. But there are two ends of the spectrum of human-object relations: the extreme and the mundane. ...

While writing a short bio for the Industry Projects class with Danese , I was reflecting on past projects to find common threads in my work....

Deadstock (and some used) Nike waffle trainers from the early 80s had been selling for $100-200 dollars for years on Ebay. I bid on a few p...

Christine Atha, in her design historian candidate talk, mentioned the difference in the value of things (goods or materials) in the West vs....

While working on the Danese project this semester, we've been thinking a lot about combining functions and breaking out of typologies b...

This might be more of an investigation, but producing a set of objects in a single material, or one object in multiple materials could be i...

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert's book, Stumbling on Happiness , discusses the circumstances and conditions in which people incorrec...

Human beings, as a species, have a remarkable ability to adapt: to environments, to conditions, to circumstances, to conveniences, and to t...

Why do people have allegiances to brands? How are these loyalties cultivated, developed, and maintained? Is allegiance to anti-brands, lik...

Goods have traversed the globe for centuries, but never at the pace, volume, and complexity that they do today - much of the reason why it i...

From the IDSA portfolio review of 3/8/08 at UIC. A couple of reviewers, young professionals in ID, mentioned my portfolio pieces should be ...

This blog is intended to document the process of my Master's Thesis in Designed Objects at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago ....