Week 5 - Episode 25 - I was Here

Hand stencils and prints are the oldest art mankind has made. Right now, the oldest known cave painting is a red hand stencil in Maltravieso cave, Cáceres, Spain. It has been dated to older than 64,000 years and was made by a Neanderthal.

Depictions of hands are pretty universal in early cave paintings all over the world. Which makes sense - because hands are the most accessible object available. No-one can say for certain what, if anything, these prints mean. But what I can say is that their appeal is universal - we immediately recognise hands, and I think it is impossible not to love these stunning stencils from the Cueva de las Manos.

Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Picture by Mariano Cecowski

When I look at this picture I see those people in the past, their handprints saying “I was here”.

Today, make your mark using your handprint. Leave it in the sand, on a steamy window, use pigments or paint, and say ‘I was here’.

Freely downloadable desktop wallpaper by effiftengigue on Suwalls: you can find it here

And keep an eye out for hand prints left by others - whether inadvertently or on purpose.

Share pictures of your version of this age-old, universal art using the hashtag #kramerseye on Twitter or Instagram.

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Week 5 - Episode 24 - Hello Hands

Hands are probably the most ingenious appendages to our bodies. They can do incredible stuff.

Like grabbing - thanks not only to our opposable thumbs, which we share with other primates, but also our ability of small and ring fingers to rotate across the palm to meet the thumb (something called ulnar opposition).

Thumbs are pretty essential though - during the Gallic wars, Julius Caesar ordered the thumbs of captured warriors amputated so that when they returned to their country, they would serve as examples and be unable to bear arms again.

In Hinduism and Buddhism hand positions, or Mudras, have symbolic or ritual meanings. In shiva nataraja statues, a specific hand gesture called ḍamaru-hasta is used to hold the drum and symbolises rhythm and time.

Shiva Nataraja, anonymous, c. 1100 - c. 1200, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Hands are super sensitive, with countless nerve endings. We use them to feel, to touch, we lay our hands on people.

Hand muscles can be incredibly strong - rock climbers can support their entire body weight using their fingers. 

And hands tell stories. About our lives. How old we are, what kind of work we’ve done, how much we have endured.

In short, hands are miraculous. And well worth taking a closer look at.

Today, start observing hands - starting with your own.

Notice the many different ways and directions in which your fingers can move. The lines in your palm. The blood vessels on the back of your hand.

Would you recognise a loved one if you saw a picture of only their hands?

All day, capture hands you see. Not only of people you meet in real life, but also of pictures.

Share your hands on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

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Week 4 - Episode 23 - Wayfinding

All week we’ve been spotting signs.

We’ve taken a close look at stick figures, warning signs, seductive signs and traffic signs. And you must have realised by now how much of our life is ‘signposted’. 

Signs have become integrated in our urban landscape - it would look very strange without them (one of today’s creative assignments is built around this). 

The discipline that helps people navigate indoor and outdoor environments like city centres or train stations is called wayfinding. And it’s incredibly hard to get right. 

If you’re a frequent traveller like me you’re probably familiar with desperately looking for a sign in an unfamiliar airport or train station. Upon arriving in Tokyo I spent half an hour desperately looking for the right subway, lugging a large suitcase around. In the end I was helped by one of the pensioners-volunteer stationed there to help lost tourists like me. 

Good wayfinding saves a lot of time and hassle and I hope this week has, if anything, made your more appreciative of all the effort that goes into designing and creating consistent signage that helps you stay safe, find your way, and - fair enough - spend a ton of money. 

Below are a couple of suggestions to creatively play with signs and wayfinding this weekend.

1. Imagine an alien as arrived to your house and is staying for a week. It doesn’t speak your language, but does understand visual cues. What signs would you need to design to help it find its way around?

2. You could go on your own ‘signs’ treasure hunt (this is also a lot of fun to do with kids). Go for a walk in an urban environment and look for arrow signs. Whenever you’ve found one, take a picture of it for your collection, and then take the direction it tells you to go (do bring a map just in case). When there are arrows pointing in different directions toss a coin or just pick the most fun looking direction. If you like, you can keep track of your walk in an app like Runkeeper, so that you’ll end up with a very funny-looking drawing on the map. 

3. Design a sign! We have signs for many things, but what sign do you feel is missing? Smog-free routes? A warning sign telling people that if they try to jump the queue they’ll have to start queueing all over again? Think about where you have friction as you go about your life. What irritates or vexes you is always a great place to start. Then ask yourself: could this be fixed by a sign? And design it! Draw it, paint it, design it digitally. It doesn’t have to be perfect - we just need to get the idea. 

4. If you want to take more photographs, again, arrows can be a great visual element to play with this weekend. Direction is in important compositional element, and arrows are your instant directional fix! Look for arrow signs and see if you can take your picture in a way that will make hem point to something beautiful, quaint, interesting, ridiculous, etc. 

5. If it’s a rainy day, and you like using photo editing programmes, you could take a picture of an urban environment, a busy city centre for example, and start erasing all signage. It can be very interesting to see what you are left with. 

6. And of course you can always catch up on any assignments you missed out on earlier this week. 

Do share your weekend projects around signs on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye, I can’t wait to see them!  

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Week 4 - Episode 22 - Traffic Signs

Today, we’re focusing on some of my favourite signs: traffic, a.k.a. road signs.

I love them. Because they need to communicate quickly and clearly, they’ve been reduced to the essentials - and I think that makes them beautiful.

Bold colours. Stark contrast. Great design. And free! What’s not to like? 

Now one of the earliest traffic signs which you may actually have seen is the Roman milestone. This helped you figure out how far you’d traveled and how far you still had to go - helping Romans with any  ‘Are we there yet’ queries.

These crazy bikes started it all - Two men ride penny-farthings in Santa Ana, California, 1886

The first modern road signs erected on a wide scale were designed for riders of high or "ordinary" bicycles in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Because these bikes, e.g. penny farthings, were rather hard to manoeuvre, cycling organisations began to erect signs that warned of potential hazards ahead (particularly steep hills).

The basic patterns of most traffic signs were set at another fun convention: the 1908 International Road Congress in Paris. Here, nine European governments agreed on the use of four pictorial symbols, indicating "bump", "curve", "intersection", and "grade-level railroad crossing". 

Still, different countries have different systems - there is no universal agreement on traffic sign design. Which makes it even more fun to go sign-spotting when you’re traveling. 

Today, focus your eye on all those gorgeous traffic signs designed to get you safely to your destination. 

Spot them, marvel at their design (and at the hours of meetings that were needed to agree on them), capture them and share them on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye. 

Listen to today’s podcast