Now you may be thinking “Eameses? Didn't they make chairs?” or “Who? Are they brothers?” or even, “Eameses? Is that the correct way to pluralize that?” Let me address these questions now:

1) Yup! They are well known for their furniture and structural pieces but they also dove into photography, filmmaking, toy design and multi-screen slideshows. Their innovative way of creating physical and visual experiences makes them a great study for interactive communication designers. (Ahh! Now you understand COM.COM.)

   

2) Are Charles and Ray brothers? Maybe father and son? I get that a lot here at COM.COM. Actually, Charles Eames married his bride Ray Kaiser in 1941. Thenceforth they were the “Eameses” and in 1943 they formed the Eames Office which employed a number of influential creatives. This group (presently including Eames offspring) can really all be referred to as “Eameses” now.

3) Yes, that is the correct way to pluralize that!

   

Charles and Ray both found it difficult to communicate their ideas in words so they instead created visual experiences to convey concepts. They enjoyed finding patterns in the world around them and putting them together (whether through film editing or screen layout) to create a visual balance and a sense of connection in order to make hard-to-grasp material a little more digestible. They believed the WOW factor would help create an emotional connection between an idea and the audience.

Due to their expertise in connecting to Joe Human, the Eameses were often hired by companies and museums to create educational installations. Charles said, “You must be committed to the subject, to the discipline of the concept involved, not to the medium.” And in the process you may create something beautiful and compelling.

In 1964 visitors to the IBM Pavilion at the World’s Fair ascended into the “Information Machine” encased in an ovoid theater where they were immediately surrounded by screens of various shapes and sizes in order to watch “Think.”

   

“Think” was a 15 screen narrated presentation about how computers make decisions just like humans. Charles and Ray believed that life was made better through functional design and technology so they chose to humanize computers. Were they alive today, they would most certainly embrace digital interactive design.

Charles and Ray were obsessed with photography! I’m not kidding. The Library of Congress now holds about 250,000 photographs from the Eames Office (which doesn’t include the collection of drawings and posters). The reason for their interest in capturing the world around them most likely involves their continuing fascination with form, function and composition.

   

Charles was notorious for studying structure and objects (like toys) and communicating ideas by putting two images side by side. Ray came from a Modernist art background so her interest lay more in space, patterns and the “plastic unit” (which is another way of saying the balance of the positive and negative shapes). Together they looked at the world around them in a different way.

And besides their own photography for pleasure they also worked closely with the Polaroid Corporation to create instructional films about their cameras. In 1972 they released the film “SX-70” which glorified the new portable instant Polaroid camera and exemplified what the average user could do with it just by viewing daily life and framing it with that signature white border.

Now I’d like to invite you to take your own photos of the world around YOU. And I urge you to do it in an Eames-like fashion. Look closer. Look for patterns. Look at objects in a new way. When you’re ready to share your images do the following:

1. Create an account (or login) at Flickr.com
2. Upload your image
3. Tag that image with the text "comdotcom" (no spaces)
4. Then visit the COM.COM visitor gallery here

Here are some examples of "looking closer":

   
   

In the 1973 Charles and Ray Eames film, “Design Q & A,” Madame L’Amic (of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris) posed the question to Charles, “Does the creation of Design admit constraint?”

Charles answered, “Design depends largely on constraints.” He believed that the success of the designer depended on his or her ability to recognize as many of the constraints involved in a particular project and to work within those constraints enthusiastically! Price, time, size, balance, materials, team members and project goals are all examples of constraints but each project comes with its own list.

At another point in time Charles sketched the following diagram to illustrate the concept of the “overlap.” One shape represents what the designer can and wants to do for a project. A second shape represents the needs of society and the third stands for the client and what their project goals are. Charles believed that design should occur where the three shapes OVERLAP. Thus, the last “constraint” IS the overlap.

At the Eames Office there were large corporate projects that needed to be treated with integrity and careful attention so Charles and Ray followed a certain order in the design process to keep things running smoothly. Some things could happen simultaneously while others could have and should have happened often.

   

The first and most important step in the process was to recognize the need! The needs of society, the client and the designer. From there, ideas became drawings or storyboards. Drawings became clay prototypes. Tiny-scale people were set in miniature rooms to determine the layout and the look of things once complete. The function of an object was observed and designs changed as necessary. And the Eameses were spectacular at giving presentations in an understandable fashion in order to gain clients (or to help clients gain clients).

   

Charles and Ray completed their design processes in a certain order. If you can solve that puzzle and implement the process in your designs, your work will excel.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

 

Thanks for coming and I hope that you got a little something out of your experience at COM.COM today.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Charles and Ray or would just like to know where some of the information in this experience came from please click here.

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