A Good Design in Field Museum

I took this picture in Field Museum in Chicago. This brilliantly colored wall is at the end of a exhibition of species. Here is the words in the middle :" ...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." The wall is unique in design, excellent in manufacturing technique and profound in meaning. When I was standing in front of it, my heart is full.

Also, I think it implied a educational meaning as well. Sometimes, we spend the whole class to tell students something we think is important. We talk with them, listen to their ideas or views and lead them to set up a a multiplicity of ideas. However, when I standed in front of this wall, I was totally understood why people should protect the nature and preserve species diversity. I think most of us will have the same feeling as mine. There is only one words there, but this design is worth a thousand of words. Especially, a collection of different animals and plants make us feel amazing.

There is another two wonderful points in its design. First of all, every tiny picture is circle, which is the same as our earth. That means we all live in the earth. We, human humans, share this planet with other species and other forms of life. We need to respect each other. Second, when you stand in front of this wall, every picture is equal in distance. That means we are created equal. All the beings are equal. They are all around human beings, sharing our blue planet. We should protect them. When I think about these, I would like to see what a student could think about if he or she is standing there. I think it does work if we have such a wonderful thing to show them in a biology class.

Squirrels and Castle in Disney

This is a photo taken by Yiren in "Magic Kindom", Disney. One week ago, we took a wonderful trip to Disney in Florida. I like this photo because it has a good shot, also reminds me of a jolly good time there.

First of all, the squirrels actually are decorations of a barrier, which are sculptured in bronze. When at the first sight, I feel the smooth contour of the sculpture is so wonderful. Even if they are still, you can feel they are so fluent and lively as well. Here, we can easily see the appearance of animation of the figure in this sculpture. I love this kind of shaped beauty they presented, which express its definiteness.

Also, as I said, this photo has a really wonderful shot. Yiren made a good decision when she chose the how far from the subject her camera will be and what kind of background she needs. Fortunately, we had a pretty good light that day (always in Florida), so we did need to be worried about the light may affect the result.

Look at the sapphire sky, it is so blue. Let’s focus on the color in this photo. The photo has a pleasing balance of colors and spaces, especially it wants to say “something” in the relationship between squirrels and castle. As a guest, I can feel the words they want to say : “Welcome to our Kingdom, enjoy!” However, this kind of relationship is shown by the shape, color, even the sculpture itself. Like the words in Disney’s gate: “Where dreams come true”, every charactor in Disney seems to tell us that here is the realm of fairy tales.

My work on the project 3

Last week, I try my hard to do the project called “The tale of two retail spaces”. The places I chose are “Oriental Mart” and “Dahua Mart”. They both retail Asian goods, including Asian food (mainly), Asian daily necessities and Asian decoration, so I think they occupy a similar market niche in East Lansing.
The first thing that grabs my attention as I walk into oriental is the Chinese traditional paintings, and sculptures, such as effigies of Buddha, the God of Wealth, wooden screen, Chinese fans and so on. These objects reveal a Chinese traditional atmosphere. In Dahua, the first thing I noticed is the hanging paper flowers, which create a festive merry feeling.Describe any signs you see in the interior that are promoting the products, or have the logo incorporated - in the windows, on the walls, hanging for the ceiling, or on a display stand.
Dahua has a poster in the interior which list all the goods at a discounted price. They hang the poster in the doorway so that every customer can see it as soon as they open the door.
Oriental Mart doesn’t have any list to show which goods are on sale. But they also put some signs there to promote the products. However, they just put a card with a title “special”, without any logo incorporated. Dahua and Oriental Mart both have one type of normal lighting. Because Dahua is a smaller than Oriental, its ceiling is well decorated with a kind of white plasterboard. But, this kind of design makes an uncomfortably confined space. It be hard for customers to cause the desire for material goods in such a confined space Oriental’s ceiling looks like the ceiling of a factory workspace, simple, roomy and clean. This kind of surrounding makes people take their time when buying shopping goods and they often like to compare. Dahua displays the different products just by type. Oriental Mart did a good job on that. They have different areas marked by different numbers. The goods from different countries are displayed in different areas. What’s more, if you can’t find something and ask the shop assistants, they can tell you where the thing you want is, located by number. The number signs that label each area make shopping a breeze.The Dahua makes the red as the predominant color in a design. Red is an auspicious color in Chinese culture. As the most favorite color of the Chinese people, red represents auspiciousness. It appears on each day for jubilation. Oriental Mart chose Golden as the predominant color. In China, Golden means a river of gold flow into your pockets. Money and treasures will be plentiful. Anyway, both of them don’t use any color on the wall. Dahua doesn’t have too much artwork on the wall. They only have stickers on the window. Oriental has lots of artworks. The boss there told me changes have been made in the way artworks are displayed, which makes customers can appreciate them while they are shopping. Also, they put the price of artwork there, if customers would like to buy it, they could know the price immediately. Both of the two marts display some products around the counter. Dahua put different kinds of drink there. Without being placed in an orderly arrangement, they can not draw customers’ attention a lot. Oriental Mart put some food for taken-out, such as spring-rolls, desert. Dahua is smaller compared with Oriental Mart. So those narrow rows and too many shoppers cause the inconvenience sometimes. As mentioned before, Oriental Mart is roomy and clean because they make a more sensible arrangement and make the most of their space. On another hand, they consider sufficiently the wants of the customers and have a better shopping environment.
As a small shop, Dahua is so far so good. However, Oriental Mart has not only a good assortment of goods, but also a comfortable environment and you may choose things conveniently. In sum, Dahua and Oriental Mart are similar but different. I enjoy each of them in some details. In the process of comparing their architecture and interior design, I applied what I have learned in class, summed up, and got a the experiences mentioned above.