At Curve Creative a lot of our passion for creativity was grounded on a love of photography. We wanted to nurture a creative studio where design and photography go hand in hand. As creative cousins, design and photography have so much in common and so many areas where crossover expertise is highly beneficial. Having a good knowledge of the rules of making a great photograph such as the rule of thirds, framing, lead in lines, etc. lend a lot to a designer when laying out a photo book or graphic design project. Even the ability for the designer to know a technically great photo and to know how to treat it properly when cropping so as to not damage the effect of the photo is a skill that is essential today where so much depends on decent images.
Vice versa, for a photographer to also be a designer brings with it great advantages. Not only can the photographer pre-visualise when shooting what is going to be required of a photo later at the design stage in terms of composition, leaving space around the edge of the subject, even leaving dead space for copy or shooting multiples of the same scene from different vantage points to give choice at the design stage but the photographer then also has the experience of the shoot and of being there at the time to know the photos that really matter when it comes to using them in the design.
As industrial designers we are also very aware of the relationship between products and photography. Obviously we want our products and designs to look as good as possible online and in print so for this we need great photos of them. Often it is very important to show a product in an environment or in use to communicate it's meaning or target market. This is where a strong photo can mean the difference between gaining interest or a product going unnoticed.
Industrial designers also benefit from a knowledge of photography when it comes to product or concept visualisation. Using 3D CAD models and rendering software designers can create photorealistic digital images of their designs. Through this the designer has access to a virtual photography studio where lighting can be controlled, environments can be selected and altered, and controls which simulate adjusting values on the virtual camera to capture the scene can be set. Essentially it is the same as using a camera, focal length can be set, aperture, exposure and position of camera can be adjusted to achieve a perfect exposure and composition. This is where a hands on knowledge of photography can help the designer to create great images on the computer.
Following our belief that a strong relationship between the arts can enhance and benefit each art individually we are introducing Curvephoto.
www.curvephoto.com
This is now the photography department of Curve Creative. We have always taken our own photos in house for projects and we have also worked as professional photographers individually beforehand. Now we are bring this all together into Curvephoto to offer our professional photography service to you, along side our design services. We have developed our new site where you can look at examples from our portfolio of photographic areas that we like to cover.
We would love if you have a look and also think about how photography affects your field too. We believe great photography can have a benefit for most businesses not just creative ones.
Anyway, I was talking with Alan the other day about the new iPad and made the point that if the first gen iPad was still Apple's current iPad I think it would still be the tablet marker leader. It got me thinking about the new iPad. It's lovely, so is the iPad2 but it's mostly the same as the original. I'm using the original, I got one maybe 10 months after it came out. I loved it. A groundbreaking device that was changing how we interact with digital content again! Then the iPad 2 came out and as far as I was concerned it was no different to the first one. They had put a camera on it. Big deal. It was slightly thinner, so what?!, my iPad isn't fat. What else was different? I can't remember. But I had no desire to upgrade. Now the new iPad is out. Ok, so it has that new gorgeous screen, but after that I don't know why anyone would upgrade. It's put on weight! (not that that matters, but I expected more from apple!) and yes it's faster, and so is the ipad2, faster that is than my first gen iPad. But my iPad isn't slow. To the contrary in fact. I still love how I can zip around using the multi touch gestures from app to app. I use my iPad on a daily basis for Flipboard mainly and other content consumption apps along with Dropbox, twitter and some web stuff. I can't imagine using it to edit videos on or take photos however. That's what cameras and computers are for. Like I said before, the original iPad is still better than the other tablets on the market and I'm happy for Apple that everyone wanted the newer iterations but I'm totally happy with mine. Besides, people should be taking more of a stand and using their "old" devices for longer. The 1st gen iPad was only released in 2010! But yet, it will soon be forgotten by Apple. The same went for iPhones. The iPhone 3g, only four years old is totally forgotten by way of iOS updates etc. The 3gs won't be far behind. Don't even mention the original iPhone. As an industrial designer I fully understand the need for companies to create new iterations of products to stimulate markets but that doesn't mean the older stuff is useless! 
