Radcliffe’s favorite design inspirations
Dan Funderburgh, wallpaper designer and artist in Brooklyn, N.Y. danfunderburgh.com/
Michael Johansson, contemporary artist (installation and sculpture) who splits his time between Sweden and Norway. michael johansson.com
Apartment Therapy, a website with a motto “saving the world, one room at a time.” The site aims to connect people to the resources needed to improve their homes. www.apartment therapy.com
Tom Sachs, sculptor best known for elaborate re-creations of Modern icons such as the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module, and the bridge of the battleship USS Enterprise. tomsachs.org
Martha Stewart, famous entrepreneur who is the face of the media and merchandising empire that bears her name. www.martha stewart.com
“How to Wrap Five Eggs: Traditional Japanese Packaging” by Hideyuki Oka (Weatherhill). A book from one of Japan’s premiere graphic designers features 221 black-and-white photos of Japanese packaging before mass production.
DAYTON — As the creator of a blog titled “Things Organized Neatly,” one would assume Austin Radcliffe would be the type of guy who arranges his closet by color, stacks papers neatly on his desk, and puts everything in its place.
Not entirely so, said the 2005 Oakwood High School grad.
“For me, it’s more aesthetic,” said Radcliffe, 24, of his Tumblr blog. “I think organization is great and helpful to clear your mind, but I’m not super organized, ironically. I’m not the one to come to for organization tips.”
The Herron School of Art and Design (Indianapolis) student already had a personal Tumblr blog when he started “Things Organized Neatly”(things organizedneatly.tumblr.com) in April as a way to compile images he had pulled from design websites. The photos showcase everyday objects impeccably arranged such as meatballs aligned on a cutting board, hammers organized from shortest to tallest and ornate frames hung strategically on a wall.
Radcliffe didn’t expect the site — which currently has around 22,000 followers on Tumblr alone — to garner so much attention. In October, England’s The Guardian featured a slideshow of images from Radcliffe’s blog, resulting in a surge of new followers. It was recently named one of the 60 best new Tumblr blogs of 2010 by the website BuzzFeed.
The site took off in August when several professional designers on Twitter, as well as the popular blogger swissmiss (www.swiss-miss.com), posted a link to his blog. In one day, he accrued hundreds of new followers — about 50 an hour. He’s currently in the process of getting the blog trademarked.
Radcliffe insists the blog began as merely a creative endeavor.
“It wasn’t like this big aha moment where I was clicking start new blog and thought, ‘This is genius!’” he recalled. “I started this as a sort of desk job. I consider myself a curator.”
He posts his own personal pictures and drawings as well as submitted images of his choosing. Radcliffe had a difficult time articulating what exactly constitutes good design.
“It’s kind of subjective,” he said. “There’s things I’ve learned in design school about balance and symmetry and asymmetry, but in the end it’s a gut feeling.” Radcliffe said he also subconsciously looks for right angles and execution of the rule of thirds.
Having the authority to select and refuse images is something Radcliffe said he particularly enjoys.
“There’s a kind of integrity to the blog. I look at image quality and lighting, just a good professional quality, and that it’s family-friendly,” he said.
Whenever possible, Radcliffe credits the original source as well as the “middleman” blogger, but sometimes he just pulls images. Asking for permission or hunting down the original source is impractical given the number of images posted, he said, adding that it hasn’t caused any problems.
“I haven’t had anyone tell me I need to take it down or add the source,” he noted. Instead, he said designers appreciate the publicity generated from the posts on his blog.
Radcliffe’s online presence has afforded him the opportunity to communicate with many professional designers, including Carl Kleiner, who wrote a book for IKEA in Sweden.
“It’s been a great networking tool,” Radcliffe said.
Brooklyn wallpaper designer and artist Dan Funderburgh is one professional Radcliffe has featured in “Things Organized Neatly.” Like Radcliffe, he considers himself a relatively unorganized person with, conversely, a keen interest in organized images.
“There’s a human interest to organize and to shuffle, and it’s purely aesthetic,” Funderburgh said. “I know a lot of people who love to have things arranged aesthetically, but then they’ll have everything else in a box because it’s not pretty looking.” Funderburgh added that “arranged” might be a more appropriate term than “organized” in describing the images.
The blog is a means of dabbling in a neater lifestyle, Radcliffe said, adding that he spends about one to two hours daily updating the site.
“I am not an organized person, and I think that’s why I enjoy these type of images,” he said. “It shows extra care and time and attention. And it’s rewarding.”
Last summer he attended Courson Archaeological Research field school in Perryton, Texas, where Radcliffe said he enjoyed photographing knives, brushes and other tools organized neatly. These images are included on the site.
“I went on the archaeological dig strictly for fun,” Radcliffe said. “I call it an ‘aesthetic immersion.’”
Radcliffe didn’t choose to pursue design initially. He enjoyed dabbling in design while working on Oakwood High School’s student newspaper, The Dome, but after graduation he chose to study physics at Loyola University in Chicago. After the first semester, he switched to undecided, and then a year later transferred to Sinclair’s visual communication design program. Finally, he transferred to Herron School of Art and Design, where he’s a sophomore in visual communication design, but like many other college students, a senior in earned credits.
Radcliffe has already been approached about new projects, but for now he’s focusing on “Things Organized Neatly.”
“A couple of people have talked to me about making a book, and I haven’t had the time right now,” Radcliffe said. “But maybe over the summer.”
Contact this reporter at nknoth@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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