Smorg + Discommon = Bengle
Many of you noticed that yesterday's “Bengle” concept drawing had a striking similarity to to the machine designed by Discommon https://www.instagram.com/discommon/ (specifically by Kevin at https://www.instagram.com/kevincossdesigns/) for Matt at https://www.instagram.com/coffeedrunklbc/ - it was made by Jacob at https://www.instagram.com/pantechnicondesign/
There's a very good reason for the visual similarity.
Many of you know that we've been working on a “Smorg” design with Omri, conceptually based on a leaning dragon shape. I've been posting variations on that idea for quite a while. https://www.instagram.com/p/CGuHaQ4hGOK/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CFtv1LoB5nX/
What I hadn't shown you is our most recent revision of Smorg, which you can see in the upper left of this image. There's been good progress on that design, but we were interested in pushing this idea into a more abstract direction.
When we came across Kevin's design for https://www.instagram.com/coffeedrunklbc/ we saw it as a big dragon, leaning on its forward wings, but made abstract with very liberal use of planes.
What I posted yesterday was Ben's attempt to apply the planar/abstract ideas in Kevin's design, to what we were doing with Smorg. And… I posted that to get feedback.
Bengle is very much a concept drawing, first draft, and we're still in the ideating stage about what next year's “pretty Decent” should look like. Our Portuguese designer Joao Tomaz https://www.instagram.com/joao_tomaz_design/ is currently working with Ben's draft, to refine it with his modernist touch.
I do very much want to credit Kevin's fine work for inspiring Ben to try the planar approach. But… I also want to show you where we were coming from.
I am very much a follower and fan of Austin Kleon's books https://www.instagram.com/austinkleon/ and see the artistic process as borrowing ideas from here and there, merging them to make new things. That's why I started the music service http://magnatune.com/ that features Creative Commons licensing, to enable this sort of remixing. And it's also why I sat on the board of Creative Commons for many years.
I spoke today with Neil Ferrier, who runs Discommon designs, and besides being ok with what we've done, he'd also like to take a crack at refining our Smorg design. As he's a master of surface, light and reflection, I'm really interested, especially as we're having trouble getting Smorg “over the finish line” into something we are really excited to build. I've put him in touch with Paolo at https://www.instagram.com/regaliacoffee/ in New York, so he can get his hands on a Decent.
Updated 2021/04/09