Insects and Design

Walking around the West Village recently, I re-encountered Laura Zindel's wonderful, distinctive ceramics in one of my favorite specialty shops. Zindel's ceramics, in shades of cream or creamy blue, utilize classic silhouettes to showcase the attenuated high-design of the insects with which Zindel details many of her gorgeous pieces.

Insects as a design motif may strike some as odd, but among all else they are, these animals are wonders of design. Whether angular and prickly or fat and fuzzy, whether too tiny to be seen by the naked eye or large enough to give you a start when you encounter one skittering across the floor, insects embody the fundamental principle from which design evolves: form and function. Those tiny gossamer wings beat fast enough to get their owner aloft; perhaps there's an extra set to stack the deck against the prey. Once caught, that prey has no chance against exactingly evolved maxilla and mandible. Divinely simple bodies evolve into highly specialized ones: for flying or burrowing or creeping, for feeding and reproduction and protection. And they're sly: though some actually provide their own light, every one of them can avoid detection.

Insects offer a designer a lot to work with. Neither Lilly Pulitzer's nor Diane von Furstenberg's trademark prints would be the same without the riotous coloring on a butterfly's wings. The holographic shellac of a beetle's shell -- blackish brown from one angle, golden teal from another -- inspires both the aestheticians who design cosmetics and the ones who apply them. Playful ladybugs and industrious honeybees adorn items from coffee cups to tea service, from fingertip towels for the powder room to party packs for kids' birthdays. Creepy-crawlies of every kind nestle in jewelry boxes, transformed via metal and gem into adornments for cloth and skin. The latter is also the canvas for the tattoo artist's needle, where bugs frequently define their territory.

Dragonflies are an important design motif in our home. I am inspired by the aerodynamic perfection of these amazing insects (appropriately to inspire someone who sews, there is one family of dragonflies known as "darners," for their resemblance to needles). What at first appears to be a contradiction between size and power is really a marvel of camouflage, for a dragonfly on the hunt is one of nature's swiftest flyers, and their dexterity in the air defies both their prey and all but the most determined of their own hunters. The seeming contrast between that tough, colorful exoskeleton and the iridescent strength of those wings is, in fact, a masterful expression of the power of illusion. Maybe it's the illusion that speaks to me, but I like dragonflies simply because they are sharp and fast (which, after all, is all their existence requires them to be) and, simpler still, because they are beautiful.

I am always on the lookout for dragonfly items; I often find especially nice ones at museum shops. Entomological prints hang on the bedroom walls, accompanied by a mounted dragonfly specimen from Evolution, another favorite shop. Vintage accent plates emblazoned with dragonflies have been retired from formal service to sit, sexy and slightly menacing, on the black leather top of the bedroom bookcase. They are illuminated by the glow of a vintage lamp which picks up the bedroom color scheme of black, cream and chocolate. How lucky I felt one day when, poking around Chinatown, I found a dragonfly mobile in just those colors, shot through with the persimmon that is the room's accent color. Now, I have my eye on one of those Zindel vases that began this piece.

Like anything that flies around, bugs have buzzed back into design circles in 2010. Shelterpop recently published a post about about bugs as a trend for home design. Here is a similar piece I wrote for Slashfood last year, about bug-themed place settings. Perhaps you'll get inspired to add the secretive, potent energy of bugs to your home design. At the very least, maybe you'll be inspired to place Microcosmos into your movie queue.