22 ■ POPULAR WOODWORKINGDesign Matters
LEADPHOTOBY^SAILKO/3.0 ;^ALL^ OTHERPHOTOS^BYTHEAUTHORI was waiting on a phone call
so I didn’t think twice when my
phone rang. Two words in and I
hung up the call. Why do telemar-
keters manage to get through when
I least want to talk to them (which
is never). Perhaps a bigger question
is how do I know in two seconds it’s
an artifi cial voice, some pre-record-
ed zombie trying to lure me down
a rat hole? Granted, technology has
come a long way. The early versions
of electronic speech sounded like a
drunk talking through the whirling
blades of an electric fan. Now days,
artifi cial speech is only slightly
annoying, like a child trying to recite
memorized lines. But my point is
that our ears are fi nely tuned to pick
up small nuances in human speech.
Perhaps it’s an important defense
mechanism we developed to quickly
determine friend or foe. When we
hear that artifi cial voice we knowin just a word or two that it lacks
the rhythm and emphasis of a live
person. It comes across as mechan-
ical and dead. That’s an important
concept that we can apply to design.
I’m convinced that those things that
grate on us, like an artifi cial voice,
may hold deeper clues about how
we respond to the world around
us. Let’s take a look at how rhythm
and emphasis can make a design
come alive.Picket Fence
Our senses, especially our hear-
ing and sight are highly adept at
picking up patterns. Individuals may
vary but taken as a whole; we have
similar responses to certain types of
patterns. In general, when presented
with a monotonous or single note
pattern, we respond with apathy
or distain. A picket fence is a good
example of a pattern.Spice It Up With Rhythm
By George Walker
Subtle use of patterns and repeating motifs please the eye.
This Gustav Stickley credenza (in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago)
creates a simple rhythm by varying the width of the cabinets.1
2
1 The picket fence at the top has
equal spaces and pickets or a pattern
of 1:1:1:1. The one below it breaks it
up, which does your eye prefer?
2 Architectural moldings are good
places to look for rhythms in the wild.To many folks, a picket fence is a
negative thing because it represents
a life with everything charted
out and no room for surprises or
spontaneity. That may be true but
the horizontal pattern played out by
the pickets and the spaces between
them creates a rhythm. Note that
even the monotony of a picket fence
is greatly improved by making the
empty spaces noticeably narrower
than the width of the pickets. Look
at the play of rhythm on this stone
dentil molding. The empty spaces
separating the lower dentil molding