Over the weekend, we watched a documentary on Charles and Ray Eames called Eames: The Architect and the Painter (available on Netflix). It gives great insight into who they were as individuals and as a couple. Kyle and I have always known them for their furniture, but didn’t realize they had done other things like reinventing the splint for wounded soldiers during WWII and making films — one film being the Power Of Ten:



Do you remember this? We had no idea they did this film. It immediately brought us back to Junior High and watching it in class. I hadn’t seen it since. And look! The picnic people are right by Soldier Field.
This documentary is really inspiring for us. We never thought we’d be a husband and wife team at work… it just happened. So seeing another husband and wife team like Charles and Ray just hits close to home for us. The film lets you in to their relationship, which had its good times and bad, but he needed her just as much as she needed him. Together, they produced brilliant work that was both structurally sound and aesthetically beautiful.



Watching the film reminded me of British-born Andrew Byrom (above, with his wife and son), another thinker and designer who is greatly influenced by the Eames. Andrew creates experimental typefaces out of things like Band-Aids, drinking straws, steel railings, neon lights and kites. He’ll see something while out in the world and it will remind him of a letter… like when he looks at a chair, he sees a lowercase h. At some point he wonders what the rest of this alphabet will look like. And so begins his process of designing the typeface and usually building a 3D form to go along with it.





To hear more about Andrew’s process, check out his TED talk at UCLA last year. To get a glimpse of his more personal side, this interview is a great read. I was lucky to have Andrew as a design professor during his 6-year stint at NIU. He now splits his time between teaching at California State University, creating experimental typefaces, designing for various clients and playing with his 3 sons.

Thanks to Ohn Ho for sharing the interview with Andrew Byrom