Bill Dan touching his work

I thought I would make my first real post about something that wasn’t necessarily related to design or technology.

On my usual travels to work via train and bus into (and slightly out of) London, I often have a flick through the daily offerings of the Metro – a free morning paper (for those who don’t know). This morning something caught my eye.

Up and down the coast of San Francisco a sculptor named Bill Dan has been using his natural approach to art to build ‘uniquely beautiful’ structures. Admittedly, I haven’t quite explored the entirety of his website, but from the snippet in the Metro I became inspired.

For me, it awoke my inner artist, taking me back to the days I used to spend in my art room at college chipping away at breezeblocks creating abstract forms, allowing the method and materials to dictate the outcome. It occurred to me that this might be a good approach to take with design from time to time. The tried and tested method that we are all taught – researching our brief, planning our designs – may not always be the most suited to the task at hand. Could it really be a bad thing to dive in, forgetting all the planning stages and starting to get our hands dirty from the get go?

I can hear in my head a lot of bad points to this. After all, proper planning can save a lot of time and money. However, if you find yourself in a situation where the client is open to ideas and a little more partial to creativity than your average businessman, then maybe it would be OK to throw caution to the wind.

More mind boggling examples of Bill Dan's art

If you want to see the original article that sparked my interest, please navigate your browsers here.

(Both images are sourced from the Metro website and property of their respective owners)

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