Karl Johnson

Karl Johnson is an American premier silhouette artist; who had practiced making rare art shapes and forms for most of his life.  He learned this unique skill as a young boy from his father who had been taught many years earlier by a friend of his family.

Karl art movement is cut art, which is a technique that artists cut out entirely black paper freehand by using a scissor. All he does is simply looks at the person or objects, or from a photograph and cuts out a black paper of their exact shape and form from their poses.Every Silhouette is an original, one of a kind work of art, signed by the artist.

Karl's work is currently featured in Restoration Hardware Baby & Child and was on The O List in Oprah Magazine as well as over 30 other magazines! Karl also has created silhouettes for many celebrities, like Reese Wither soon, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez, Drew Barrymore and more

Norman Foster

Norman Foster is the founder and chairman of foster + Partners. He was born in Manchester in 1935. After graduating from Manchester University of Architecture and City Planning in 1961 he won a Henry fellowship to Yale University, where he gained a master’s degree in Architecture. 

Norman designed a bridge called Millau Viaduct set in Millau, Southern France from 1993 to 2004. He wanted the architecture of the infrastructure to have a powerful impact of the bridge and its environment.

As he designed the bridge in a close collaboration with constructed engineers it follows the millennium bridge over River Thames. Crossing the River Tarn as it runs through a spectacular gorge between two high plateaux. And the spanning of the bridge is at 2.46km from one plateau to another in the most economical and elegant manner.

Norman also wanted the bridge to be a cable stayed structure to delicate and transparent and to have the optimum span between columns. It has the highest pylons built in order to become the highest and tallest road bridge deck structure in France and Europe. Each of its section spans at 342m and its piers range in height from 75m to 245m, with the masts rising a further 87m above the road deck.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass, born May 8^th, 1920 and died April 25^th is an American graphic designer and academy award winning film maker, best known for his design in motion pictures title sequences, film posters and corporate logos.

His designs were most famous for using simple, geometric shapes and their symbolism. In which a single dominant image of a figure or object stands alone to deliver a powerful message. He hand drawn them to create a casual appearance with a sophisticated message. His ability to create such a powerful message with basic shapes makes the design very impressive.

During 40 year as a graphic designer he worked with Hollywood’s most prominent film makers in a film title sequences called ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’, a jazz musician who struggles to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-1950s on the film cover he designed the arm as the central image with the film’s title as the film features an animated, white on black paper cut out arm of a heroin addict.

He designed the arm and title from paper cut out and then scanned it afterwards. He makes the titles generally static, bold and getting close together. The black and blue papers as the backgrounds are dim because he used lower lightning effects on the film covers he scans.

Saul Bass also designed a film cover call’ ANATOMY OF A MURDER’, an American courtroom crime drama film produced and directed by Otto Preminger.  This was adapted by Wendell Mayes from the bestselling novel of the film written by Michigan Supreme Court justice john D. Voelker under the pen name Robert Traver. Voelker based the novel on a 1952 murder case in which he was the defence attorney. This was the first mainstream of Hollywood films to address sex and rape in a graphic design terms. 

This includes one of Saul Bass’s most celebrated film title sequences, a musical made and scored by Duke Ellington who played Pie Eye in the film was described to by a law professor as ‘probably the finest pure trial movie ever made. As similar to the title sequences called ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’ He also designed the black figure in a dying pose and the white title from paper cut out and takes a photo of this it afterwards. 

Most of Saul bass designs in his 1950’s films was that he designs the figure from shape and style from a human body or objects and used flat colors only to develop their shadow, they don’t have straight lines or are not neat and tide. Like ANATOMY OF A MURDER film cover the yellow and red papers as the backgrounds are dim, he use different type of color papers or is because he used lower lightning effects on the cameras from where he has taken a photo from a area. Bass made effective and memorable title sequences to create a new type of kinetic typography for his films and made them innovative. He made them generally static, bold and separate or close to each other for the films he design.

Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Tokyo

The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge was known as the Pearl Bridge. It was built as a Suspension Bridge because it has the longest central span of any other suspension bridge in the world at 1,991 metres. it was links between the city of Kobe on the mainland of Honshu to Iwaya on Awaji Island in japan.
 
The construction began from 1988 and ended until 1998 before the announcement for Opening it, which was April 5th, 1998. it was to allow all vehicles from crossing the Akashi Strait. which It carries six lanes of roadway as part of the Honshu-Shikoku Highway. The bridge has a toll that cost 2,300 yen for all vehicles to enter from Awaji Island to Kobe or Kobe to Awaji Island.

Satoshi Kashima

Satoshi Kashima is a Japanese civil engineer and executive director of the Japan Bridge Engineering Centre.
 

He was to be leading the bridge designers and engineers to build the longest suspension bridges in the world.

He built the Kaikyō Bridge known as the Pearl Bridge to be located between the Awaji Island to Kobe in Japan which he completed it and was announces to be Opened on April 5th,1998.
He earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Texas's College in Engineering.

History

Before Satoshi Kashima build the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, boats and ferries carried passengers and sailed them across the Akashi Strait in Japan.
In 1955, two ferries sank because of the experiences in the Akashi strait during a storm killing 168 people.

The Japanese governments was shock and outrage about this and was about to convinced Satoshi Kashima and the Japan Bridge Engineering Center to develop and build plans for a suspension bridge to cross the Akashi strait.

The original plan was to be a mixed railway-road bridge, but when the construction began in April 1988, Satoshi Kashima and the Japan Bridge Engineering Center had to restricted the road only, due to a six lanes plan.

The bridge was then opened for traffic on April 5, 1998. The Akashi Strait is now an international waterway that necessitated the provision of a 1,500 metre wide shipping lane.

Suspension Bridge

A suspension bridge is the deck of the bridge that hangs below the suspension cables on vertical suspenders between the towers.

Vertical suspender cables also carry the weight of the deck below, upon which traffic crosses.

This will allows the deck to be level or to arc upward for additional clearance. Like other suspension bridge types, this type often is designed without false work.

Bridges without vertical suspenders would have a long history in many parts of the world.

Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first type of bridges were built in the 15th century.

The bridge Tourism

Satoshi Kashima have built a tourist attraction on The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge for the tourist to view the city landscape of Awaji Island a Kobe.

He also built two parking spaces near the bridge, he named them ‘Maiko and Asagiri’ and Both can be reached accessible to the coastal train line.

He also including a small museum in Maiko.

My conclusion to this bridge

 
Satoshi Kashima did a good job of building the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, a Pearl Bridge and Suspension Bridge built over the Akashi strait.

Which allows all vehicles to travel between Awaji Island and Kobe instead of taking the ferries in the dangerous strait.

Also allowing tourist view the landscape of the two city while their vehicles can be parked in two parking space in Maiko and Asagiri near the bridge.

Except the cost on the bridge is too expensive, which Satoshi Kashima could reduces the prices for tourist to not waste their money in travelling the two cities.