My name is Chris Burns and I am a Design Junkie. It is not a thing that is all-consuming. No. I am not an addict in the sense that I would not be able to go swimming for lack of letterforms in the ocean. Nay. It is the job of the design addict not to be addicted (exclusively) to the forms created by his or her fellow designer, but to see beauty in all things, seeing potential at any time they want to take a lesson from the things they see in life, then applying them to potential design forms. That said, it’s time to take a ride in the car across town to the grocery store. Looking, and considering, as we go, at every little thing with a healthy appetite.

The following set of photos were taken by me, Chris Burns, graduate with a BFA in Graphic Design from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, publisher of World Famous Design Junkies, but otherwise a dude in my environment. The photos are taken on a short trip to the grocery store while my fiancee Elizabeth drove the car and shopped around for some milk and we went to subway to eat some subs and such.

*It’s important to note that taking a bunch of photos and posting them on the internet isn’t the one perfect activity you have to do to consider yourself a designer. God no, why would you think that. It is healthy though, and is always appreciated by your fellow workers.

That said, lets do this.

On the way out the door is this sign on the door. Hand written in lovely, big fat letters that are basically unmistakeable. There is nothing more pure than letters written with one cause in mind. Do not keep this door open, taped to the door, surviving for years and years and years until it’s rendered useless by one single vandal. Perfect.

Stickers and old paper cover this pole outside the building. Each of these stickers were placed in reaction to the stickers placed there before. It’s interesting to think about how many hundreds of signs and messages have been attached to this pole, the majority of them temporal in nature. Not only are the signs themselves important because of their aesthetics and messages, but their placement and the remnants of the other signs are worth investigating also. The three stickers you see here are inward facing (away from the street) because not only were they placed by people coming out of the alley (the same alley the photo is taken from) but also because they are so small, passing people in cars wouldn’t be able to make anything of them. Therefor it makes much more sense for these small messages to be placed in a place for people walking to see. There is a “right” place to put any bit of graffiti, and this right place is changed every time a bit of graffiti is placed.

After having sat probably overnight and up until the point when this photo was taken (afternoon) on a sunny day, this ice-cycle connected this car to the ground. This car had now five points of solid matter touching the ground. Very pretty!

Yellowish Van, Greenish Van. Beautiful are terrible colors when put in the correct combinations and collections. And then they drive apart. Like it never even happened.

As this truck passes under this bridge, at this angle, it becomes another leg.

We are driving at this moment over the 35W bridge (Minneapolis), aka the new bridge constructed over the bridge that collapsed in 2007. What you see here is a set of columns that flow into the air in the middle of the bridge (between lanes). Its interesting to note both the playfulness and the structural soundness of the sculpture. The air of the bridge now is that of futuristic soundness – it is simplified, it is beautiful – it even has lights under it that can be seen from neighboring bridges, the city, and Dinkytown. What was once basically just a busy bridge is now a design landmark.

These powerline towers stand in areas so devoid of tall structures that it is almost impossible to photograph them in a way that it appears they aren’t the dominant construction in the area. Mathematical architecture against the best blue ever, of all time: real sky blue.

Graffiti writers inadvertently intensify the grays on bridges by having their artworks covered up by so-called “cleaning crews.” Anti-definition by destructive design.

The same situation as above, also reflected by the snow, which covers the dirt and dead ugly grass, which is then again covered by the dirt. The harshness of the truth is that as the loveliness of simplicity and brightness increases, so too do the chances that dirt, chaos, and destruction will come. Then more snow, then more dirt, then springtime!

A spot like this is devoid of typography, graphic design, art. It lacks those things, but also provides a place for the eye to rest.

This little device was Industrial Designed by someone to act as a simple lever to make it easier to adjust the rear-view mirror. This sort of item will be made in bulk and used in many different iterations of cars, used as sort of a Lego building block until a car evolves to the point where a new nob is vital in some tiny way to its look. The new nob will then continue to be produced in this new way for several waves of car again. Again and again forever.

Millions of miles of road are applied to the ground now in blocks. Where when pavement was applied, it was more of a “strip” sort of a deal, now cement mixes are the smarter choice as they are less prone to crack in the heat. There is an area between Minneapolis and Saint Cloud that is a world-class testing area for road-materials. Some days you take one road, and other days you are re-directed to another one. It is a game you can play if you and a friend decide to travel to or from Saint Cloud some day.

Freelance truckers run their own trucks. Very often their cab will be amazing, pretty beautiful, large, have bunkbeds, tvs inside, all that good stuff, and the cab wont match the trailer. In some other cases, the truck runs corporate, for example a FedEx semi truck will have a giant “FedEx” on the trailer and a slightly smaller “FedEx” on the cab. But some companies (who shall remain nameless) take the time to make an amazing mark, typographic logo, or generally lovely side to their trailers, then put stock-ugly lettering on their cabs. I imagine the silly nature of this paradoxical situation does not cross their minds.

This is just how it’s done.

It’s quite the thing to think about how human beings adapt to their environment. If thought of in mathematically sound terms, a person who owns a house in Minnesota that keeps it up nice in the winter should have lots of extra spare time in their day if they then move to Los Angeles. But it just doesn’t happen that way, does it? It’s also quite the thing to think of how snow shapes our winter environment here in Minnesota- how it dictates where we can walk, what we can do, and how willing we are to get up in the morning to go to work. Not that a nice sunny day wouldn’t do that last one too, but imagine if you’d lived here your whole life then moved to somewhere in the world where snow does not fall? Adaptation. How does one design without computers? Adaptation.

The calculated marksmanship that goes into laying out a parking lot is one not-oft discussed in a graphic design classroom. For many reasons, like for example the idea that it’s a craft, one that one learns to do exclusively, then masterfully applies to all parking lots in a city. But two, because it is on the ground. Why does one not see many marks on the ground other than garbage? Because it is so quickly covered up, washed away, destroyed by the elements. This spring grab yourself a bucket of chalk and find out how much real-estate the cement you walk on every day has. Lots!

The special sale was never a way to offer the customer a favor, but a way to guide their eyes around the shelves of the store. Soda pop brand giants Pepsi and Coca Cola trade weeks for sales on endcaps not because they make more money that week, but because that week is theirs for advertising. Smart brands have their product placed in a variety of different outlets so that while one is showing good face, the others are making profit. Did you know that Coca Cola provides Disney with their product for their Disneyland locations free of charge? My uncle told me that, and I’d believe him.

Stores, bands, organizations flow from one event to another, one celebration to another, one special look to another constantly. Why? Because the modern consumer reacts best to a product when they see that it is tied to another product. One brand tied to anther brand. It means that this group is good enough that another group was willing to trust them in a partnership. This goes for everything, even on to grocery stores partnering with Valentines Day. We know we’re professional enough and gosh darnit GOOD enough for you to spend part of your holiday weeks here, with us!

This is salt on the ground. Salt in bags is used in Minnesota (and many other places, I’m sure) to delete the snow by lowering its melting point. But then it stains whatever the snow was on until spring or early summer. Also it makes cars rust. Using materials like this to destroy your old work, or to create new work, is awesome.

This is the stamp you need if you want to park in 2 hour zone in Minneapolis. It does the job. It’s so orange, and so white and black. The numbers go in the squares, and it works.

This is a bag of Subway trash. After eating Subway, this bag of trash was outside after a Subway employee took it out of the regular receptacle inside the restaurant. So what lesson about branding do you learn here? You learn this: Subway could ask if you want the sub “here or to go” and get rid of MOST of their waste, but they don’t because giving you the double wrapper and bag and single napkin is part of their brand ritual.

Trip over! This is inside the building! Notice the paint, of course. Look how intelligently it cuts off one color reflecting the cutoff of the color on the wall. That’s simple excellence.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies environment category.