Happy Halloween!

John Hench was (and still is) a legend in the world of Disney Imagineering. He was the Renaissance Imagineer. His book provides deep insights into the world of Disney design. Of all of the Imagineering books that I have, Hench's is the most eloquently written, treating the subject as seriously (and deservedly) as one would discuss modernist architecture. One can draw many lessons from this book and apply them to event design and experience design. Regardless of the current state of the Magic Kingdom, the design principles behind Imagineering are still magical.

I think this is the only periodical exclusively devoted to the professional field of special effects. Why is that? I think it's a fascinating field. I wish I could learn more about it. When I was kid, I couldn't find many good magic books either. Maybe there's a connection between the two. Both are founded upon the notion of illusion. Both are used to entertain. Both have their secrets. Anyway, unlike many of the film fan magazines out there, Cinefex carries the same weight and professionalism as something like American Cinematographer. If you're interested in special effects, this magazine provides you with a serious treatment on the subject.

Lately I've been thinking about decision theory. How do we make decisions? What influences them? How can we make better decisions? I picked up Mauboussin's book to help shed some light on the subject. He does so by helping the reader identify the salient mistakes people make while making decisions. Some of these mistakes include our tendency to rely upon experts uncritically, how we subconsciously allow context to affect our decisions, and how we try to understand complex systems by studying their parts. Throughout the book, he illustrates these mistakes with entertaining stories. One key message I took from this book was the value of experience. We all have a tendency to think of our problems as unique when they're not. When making decisions, Instead of relying on just reason or intuition, consider the experiences of others, or your own past experiences. If you want to improve your decision making, Mauboussin recommends keeping a decision journal. So take the time to think twice, before deciding.

I pulled out my almost-twenty-year-old copy of The Fifth Discipline, to reread. It's still very relevant after all these years. Companies have only gotten larger, more global, and more complex, since its writing. In his book, Senge writes about the five core disciplines of a learning organization; they include personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and - the fifth discipline - systems thinking, which he considers the cornerstone discipline, and the one that integrates together the other four. Personal mastery isn't just about mastering skills; it's about mastering oneself in sustaining creative tension by maintaining one's vision, while understanding clearly the present realities. Mental models build greater self-awareness and make tacit assumptions explicit. Shared vision - real shared vision - results in an organization that's aligned and committed towards a common goal. Team learning is about creating an atmosphere of inquiry and dialogue, instead of just advocacy and abstraction wars. And systems thinking is all about having an integrated view of the world, removing the walls between "internal" and "external", between "us" and "them." It's about understanding at a higher level.

In this book, Bruns tries to justify three theses. "The first is that poetry is made of language but is not a use of it - that is, poetry is made of words but not what we use words to produce: meanings, concepts, propositions, descriptions, narratives, expressions of feelings, and so on." Second, "poetry is not necessarily made of words but is rooted in, and in fact already fully formed by, sounds produced by the human voice." And, third, "poetry does not occupy a realm of its own. It is not a purely differentiated species confined to a merely aesthetic, neutral, or disengaged dimension of human culture. Rather, precisely in virtue of its materiality, poetry enjoys a special ontological relation with ordinary things of the world."

In his book Analog In, Digital Out, interaction designer Brendan Dawes has a chapter titled "Evidence of Use". I like that phrase. In this world full of spotless, high-gloss, lick-able product designs, I miss objects that age gracefully and beautifully, like my Dualit Toaster. Wabi-Sabi is another book by Leonard Koren that I find myself often rereading. It reminds of an aesthetic that I love but fear is disappearing with each rising generation raised on spectacle and the new new. Koren eloquently conveys the value of (and the need for) humility, simplicity, and a perspective that considers the impermanence of the world around us.

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Have brands gotten out of hand? Are they taking over our lives? Is our obsession for them leading to alarming consequences for society? Yes, according to Lucas Conley. And it makes for fun reading. The book is full of engaging stories, ranging from over-the-top spectacles to tales of subtle subterfuge. All of these branding efforts with the intent, as the designer David Butler would say, "to help you sell more stuff." But even after reading this book, has it really influenced my buying decisions? Probably not. Probably because brands speak to that part of us that, perhaps, we don't really consciously control - although we like to think that we do.  It reminds me of what Hubertus Bigend explained in Gibson's Pattern Recognition: 

“The heart is a muscle.  You ‘know’ in your limbic brain.  The seat of instinct.  The mammalian brain.  Deeper, wider, beyond logic.  That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex.  What we think of as ‘mind’ is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness.  The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda.  And makes us buy things."

It's been over a year since Stan Winston passed away. Hearing of his death had left me with a sense of loss and surprise. I was unaware that he had been suffering from cancer for many years. The man and his studio produced truly amazing work. Sadly (at least, to me), the studio no longer carries his name but is now known as Legacy Effects. Only time will tell whether or not the company will continue to thrive without its unique founder.

 I have a small collection of special effects books (another interest of mine, for which I find difficult to get good books on. If you know of any, please let me know.) This book is the best one out of all of them. It provides a very comprehensive look at Stan Winston Studio. It has tons of behind-the-scenes photos, lots of in-depth interviews and stories, and an intimate look into Winston himself, including his biography and his personal artwork. I wish there were more books like this, covering the field of special effects. It's a fascinating craft.

Whenever I travel, I like to visit bookstores and browse their periodicals, hoping to spot something inspiring and new. I picked up issue no. 63 of this magazine while on vacation in Los Angeles. Its name and cover caught my eye. I found the articles thoughtful and interesting, which included interviews with Irma Boom and Ross Lovegrove, and an essay by Ezio Manzini on collaborative services and social innovation. Lots of beautiful photos and tight layouts. It's not cheap ($25/issue) but I think it's worth the price. I'm looking forward to getting the next issue, once it's available.