Week 14 - Episode 73 - Floral Codes

Cabbage for profit, cactus for warmth: Victorian floral messages aren’t easily decoded.

Floriography, ‘communicating through flowers’, was imported from Turkey and blossomed (couldn’t resist) during the Victorian age.

It was used as a means of coded communication, allowing people to express feelings which could not be spoken out loud.

Bouquet image from "The Language of Flowers" (London, 1834) in the special collections of A. R. Mann Library, Cornell University.

We no longer need elaborate floral language to say what cannot be said.

Yes, red roses are still considered romantic, and the connotation of forget-me-nots is impossible to forget.

But mostly, our flowers are just pretty, beautiful, pleasing.

Our floral associations have become personal rather than shared. Which doesn’t make them any less interesting.

To me, the parrot tulip speaks of spring, of fire, of exuberant energy.

Blue Irises of deep, cool mysteries unfolding.

And peonies of the passing of time.

Today, capture your favourite flowers and tell us how they speak to you.

Who knows, we may find out that we stil have a common flower code after all.

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

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Week 14 - Episode 72 - Reproductive Organs

If you approached this episode with some trepidation fear not, it is all very suitable for work, children, and the like.

Wondering what kind of reproductive organs we are focusing on?

Flowers. Obviously.

Harbinger of Spring, highlight of Summer: we cannot help but love them.

And that’s exactly their point. To seduce.

To be attractive.

Not necessarily to us, although we don’t object and have much to be grateful for, but to pollinators.

© Else Kramer

Bees, Bats, Birds: anything with wings that can spread the pollen and help make even more flowers bloom next season.

We’re diving into flowers and their symbolism all week, but for today, simply let yourself be seduced by flowers.

Which ones attract you? What kind demand to be seen and captured?

Find them, snap them and share them using the hashtag #kramerseye on Twitter or Instagram.

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Week 13 - Episode 71 - Columns for the Future

Over the past week we’ve mainly looked at classical columns. But over the past century they’ve evolved into a myriad of shapes and forms which sometimes seem ready to take flight rather than stay grounded.

Oscar Niemeyer’s columns make me think of birds in flight. And the peacock-patterned columns of Mumbai Airport’s Terminal 2 turn it into a 20th century palace.

Mumbai International Airport, Terminal 2

But modern columns aren’t always glorious - sometimes they’re hilarious.

American architect Philip Johnson mocked the classical obsession with columns in his design for a Town Hall in Disney Town Celebration, Florida.

Philip Johnson, Town Hall, Celebration, Florida

And Japanese architect Kengo Kuma turned the column back into a building in this Mazda showroom design in Tokyo.

This weekend, become a designer and create your own futuristic versions of columns.

Structural Columns

Forget technical limitations. If you could design any shape of column, what would you come up with?

How would you design a building or structure with columns?

What do you think the columns of the future will look like?

You can sketch, draw or even create a small model of your columns of the future.

Columns as Canvas

If you were given Trajan’s column, but blank, how would you decorate it?

What stories would you tell? And how would you place them?

Would you stick with the spiral? Or do you prefer a different pattern?

Advertising Columns

As the old advertising columns are being demolished there is clearly room for new design here.

Can you think of a modern advertising column that would both add value to the environment and pay for itself through advertising?

Enjoy designing your own columns this weekend, and do share your creations on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

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Week 13 - Episode 70 - Periodical Columns

Columns aren’t just useful to support structures or advertising.

They also help you navigate texts, especially on wider sheets of paper.

Above, you can see an image of the world’s first broadsheet, printed in Amsterdam from 1618-1672, with very densely filled columns.

Because dividing the text into columns not only helps the reader - it also saves paper. And the latter was probably the main reason printers and publishers started using them.

In the 19th century, these gave birth to yet another type of column: a regular written piece by a specific journalist.

Columnists became a fixed feature in newspapers, giving them a way to create customer loyalty and to distinguish themselves from the competition.

And some columns gave birth to new media themselves:

Ladies Home Journal, 1889

“When Cyrus Curtis founded the Tribune and Farmer in 1879, it was a four-page weekly with an annual subscription rate of 50 cents. He introduced a women's column by his wife, Louise Knapp Curtis, and it proved so popular that in 1883, he decided to publish it as a separate monthly supplement, Ladies Journal and Practical Housekeeper, edited by Louise Curtis. With 25,000 subscribers by the end of its first year, it was such a success that Curtis sold Tribune and Farmer to put his energy into the new publication, which became the Ladies' Home Journal.” (Wikipedia)

Columns, starting out as a tool to save paper and increase legibility, gave us great columnists.

And even now, many newspaper and magazine readers turn first towards the page (whether paper or digital) where their favourite columnist resides.

Today, cast a typesetter’s eye on publications.

Look at the use of columns in print.

What do you prefer when you’re reading? How wide should the columns be - and how much space should be left in between?

And if you have a favourite columnist, do share.

Whose column(s) do you love to read? And why?

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

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