RSS Feeds:Last week, debutante-user-experience blogger Michael Grossman gently ripped on NYT tech columnist David Pogue for his less-than-sophisticated humor. His barely-out-of-diapers blog got the attention of The Pogueanator, who aimed the barrel of his next video's less-than-sophisticated humor directly at the semi-hapless Grossman. Pogue makes great use of the classic rhetorical technique of repeating someone else's words in a duh-duh-voice (I had a boss who used to do that) and manages to make the word blogger sound like a filthy insult.
Isn't it funny (a word I choose carefully) that if you don't like someone's particular style of humor, you must therefore have no sense of humor yourself? If you aren't with us, you're against us! Grossman demonstrates his humor and pretty fair mashup chops in his potentially viral response video.
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M Coleman Horn
Santa Barbara, CA
Any urban soldier will agree that hitting the black-top requires a keen arsenal of apparel and accessories. Whether you are running for the train or throwing down over a cashmere top at Saks, your hectic life needs accessories that say ''Don't Tread On Me!'' The next time you hit the streets, make sure M Coleman Horn is on your side, or better yet, on your feet. But your artillery doesn't need to end there, and Horn's collection certainly has a plethora of options for the young and hip who live and play hard. Hardcore watches from Nixon, military inspired bags for Adobe, and rugged boots for UGG are just a few of the goodies Horn has rolled out.
Horn's eye for competitive advantage and long-term sustainability has lead him and his design collective, Medium Design Group, to campaigns for companies like Nike, Ralph Lauren, K2, Morrow Boards, and Apple. His products often fuse durable materials like nylon with supple leather, and take inspiration from the functionality of military and athletic apparel. Take for example The Minimalist LUX, which is constructed out of durable nylon with accents of the finest leather. The design for the loafer/sneaker hybrid was taken from early 20th century athletic sneakers.
The advantage of Horn's forward thinking and hot design isn't limited to urban folk. His design for K2 and Morrow Boards will make for a sick air-to-fakie.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (3)
Office pranksters are impishly rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the upcoming free-for-all harass your coworkers day, otherwise known as April Fool's day. AFD is on a friggin' Sunday this year so cube and office-dwellers will have to figure something out by the end of the day today, or for those of us with nothing better to do, visit the office on Sunday so that it's still technically a legit prank. If you're at a loss for ideas, Wired's got a great list going -- you can even add your own prank and vote ideas up or down. Here's a nice razzer to get you started:
This works best on people who dont know much about computers, but will fool anyone at least for a minute. If you have a wireless mouse, plug the usb transmitter into a port in the back of someones computer. When they are sitting at the computer make sure you are close by, and just move the mouse around. They will think it has a mind of its own. Go crazy, right click and everything.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
For those of you designing personal electronics, iLounge has a fantastic roundup of a variety of different headphone styles, with tons of pictures. A must-see if doing headphone research.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
We're all up ons Helvetica -- how could you possibly not be? MoMA's decided to celebrate the 50th anniversary Max Miedinger and Edouard Hoffmann's illustrious typeface with an installation of posters, signage, and other items that show off this loved-by-all modern classic. The exhibition will also include an excerpt from Gary Hustwit's documentary "Helvetica," which we previously covered here.
50 Years of Helvetica
April 6, 2007 - March 31, 2008
Museum of Modern Art
Architecture and Design Galleries, third floor
Sega's apparently decided to blow lame digipets of the past out of the water with its new interactive snuggly, cuddly, fluffy, baby chicken robot. When held, the Dream Chick flaps its wings and even makes peeping noises when you stroke its fuzzy lil' noggin. At an affordable 1,507 yen (about $12.90), the robo-chickie makes an ideal companion for the cute-obsessed crowd, those who are too irresponsible for real pets, and children who don't know their own strength.
akihabara news via plastic bamboo
Finding Cheska's ceramic Lung Ashtray is undoubtedly attractive and elegant...okay, it's straight-up too pretty to be defaced with raunchy ashes and ciggie butts. The Taiwanese tabletop design group's take on the smoke disposal vessel is a clever and direct correlation of what we do to our real lungs when we inhale those nasty cancer sticks. And a clean Lung Ashtray signifies the path to respiratory health, unless, of course, you've decided to just use one of your other motivational ashtrays.
via design crack
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
Zieak likes to recycle things which often don't get recycled. His latest discovery? The circuit sheets in keyboards make durable wallets. If you don't have a keyboard you can spare, wait until one of your coworkers goes on break.
[Via Instructables.]
If you're lucky enough to be in the hood, this is not to be missed! Celebrated minimalist fluorescent lighting artist Dan Flavin will be featured at LACMA in May with a dedicated retrospective show that includes over 40 of his original works.
Dan Flavin : A Retrospective
May 13 - August 12, 2007
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Modern and Contemporary Art Building
Earlier this week c,mm,n (website in Dutch), the world's first open-source car, was revealed at AutoRAI, the Amsterdam car show. The initiative and vision behind the c,mm,n (pronounced "common") comes from the "Stichting Natuur en Milieu" (The Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment) and the three technical universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede.
The vehicle's technical drawings and blueprints are freely available online, and everyone is invited to add their own ideas and modifications, provided of course that these are shared again with the community.
Environmental sustainability was a key factor in the development of the c,mm,n: the vehicle is therefore a zero-emission, hydrogen-powered 2+2 family car. c,mm,n drivers can also easily share information on traffic conditions, route planning and parking availability.
(There is, as some readers may know, another open source car project, called OScar, but this is according to Bruno Giussani still "in an early conceptual stage".)
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (6)
I know it's hard to get excited about a hinge, but Japanese cell phone manufacturer Kyocera's latest (on the E5000) is pretty slick. Some clever marketer has dubbed it the "S" hinge.
[Via iTech News.]
Kyocera's also got some PR copy up here. Excerpt:
“...The focus on organic elements in nature and attention to detail prevalent in Japanese culture will be reflected in the design of our products..."
--Tom Maguire, vice president of global marketing, product planning and design at Kyocera Wireless Corp.
Tonight (late notice I know!) there will be an auction of 100 vases at the Alessi store in SoHo. These are part of the 100% Make-Up project from 1992, produced by Alessi and Alessandro Mendini. 100 artists and designers were invited to decorate a porcelain vase designed by Mendini, with each participant producing 100 copies of their work, for a total lot of 10,000 items. Participants included Philippe Starck, Brian Eno, Milton Glaser, and Ettore Sottsass Jr. among others. You can read some background about the project here. RSVP to "RSVP15-at-bdeonline.biz" if you are interested in attending.
Alessi - 130 Green St. - SoHo, New York City
6-8PM March 29.
Romain Duclos
Paris, France
Featured Project : Jardin a la Francaise
Romain Duclos lifts austere technical drafting associations from the french curve tool and implements it into the garden as a decorative element. His "French Garden" captures the essence of French-ness not because it's in France, or because the designer is French, or even because open-mouth kissing might take place there, but simply for the fact that it's composed of a bunch of classic french curve shapes.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has posted an interesting way for you to experience a life-size whale right on your screen -- just drag the screen around to get some more o' that whale. Now if we could only get all designers to post their work full-scale on the web...
thanks Kris!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Driven by frustrating "jam" sessions when attempting to stow his guitar on planes, airline pilot and guitarist Fredrik Johansson, went on a serious mission to develop a compactible, travel-friendly axe. The fruit of his labor, the Centerfold folding electric guitar, is the breakout product for DeVillain Guitar Company and debuted earlier this week. The $3,370 guitar doubles over at the neck via an aircraft-grade aluminum mechanism while the strings retract into the body. When you're ready to rock, the instrument unpacks and unfolds in about 20 seconds.
via gizmodo
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Fred & Friends get cheeky with the Boost telephone directory spoof booster seat. After a few seconds of camp-value appreciation, we realized that it'd be a shame if the impostor was used instead of the real thing -- we have no idea who still uses a physical telephone directory (or has a land line for that matter!), but for some reason, they're still wastefully pumping them through the presses to our doorsteps. Phone books would definitely do toddler tots justice height-wise, but not so much bum-wise. So here's where Boost has the extra tail bone-friendly advantage, composed of washable, cushy foam with a mini butt-shaped molded seat.
via swiss miss
This is great. According to their website:
In it's simplest form, The Gowanus Studio Space is a workshop for designers, artists and entrepreneurs.In a bit more detail, designers and artists can apply for membership and get 24 hour access to the studio space, access to a shared shop and gallery space, and private storage and workspace. They also will facilitate access to funding and other means of support for emerging designers. All for as low as $125 per month. Take them up on the offer now while space is still available! Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Last summer, the PBS series Design:e2 explored the "economies of being environmentally conscious" through interviews with sustainable design experts like William McDonough, Sergio Palleroni and Susan Szenasy, and narration from none other than Brad Pitt. After the success of the first season, a second season about design is currently in production, which will be followed by future episodes focusing on topics like water, energy and transportation.
The vision behind Design:e2 originated with kontent>real, a production company founded by Karena Albers and Tad Fettig to create entertaining and engaging programming about issues important to them. Cinematic-quality production makes Design:e2 one of the smartest documentaries to cover the current green movement. But by simply using the familiar medium of television, kontent>real has launched a new chapter in the way that we share and absorb messages about design, sustainability and the built environment. Karena Albers spoke with Alissa Walker about kontent>real's mission while on location in Santa Monica, California.
You can buy Part I of Design:e2 at the PBS shop or look for it in reruns. And stay tuned for Part II, premiering on PBS this fall.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
We've expressed our own affinity for Ctrl+Z before, but it looks like the masses have become shortcut-savvy enough for Saatchi & Saatchi to slap it on this Olay ad. If the promise really is to zap wrinkles in a Ctrl+Z jiffy, let's hope Olay sprinkled some miracle dust up in those jars.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
So you might think you're extra special if your power strip is eco-conscious, has tentacles, or sails the high seas, but in the end, we all have trouble figuring out which wire goes to what device. To save your sanity, ID Pilot stickers offer an all-too-simple solution of labeling devices right on the plug. You can obviously make your own DIY versions, but these pre-made pinpointers sport sweet illustrations of exactly what those dang wires are connected to.
via lifehacker
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Operating out of Japan, Surface Bait Libertaria's collection is abound with all sorts of gear for the subversive fisherman. We've seen signs pointing towards an uprise in hipster fishing before, but this trend-focused fishing supply company really "takes the bait" with its limited edition street-pop lures -- sure to attract only the most stylin'-est fish dinner.
via boingboing
The TT Movement is an Australian artist collective whose exhibit, going up at Sydney's MoCA in April, will display art inspired by the iconic Audi TT. Click their link for a cool intro video.
The exhibit is in fact a contest, with first prize being an artist's grant and usage of an Audi TT--for one year. Just a year! That's kind of like winning the lotto and finding out it was only a loan.
[Via Josh Spear]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
In a bid to reduce crime in Tepito, Mexico, the government is offering to swap gaming consoles for illegal firearms. If you give up your gun, you can get a free X-Box. Problem is, if you hang on to your gun, you can get free anything.
[Via Engadget]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
This year's Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism is open for entries... (Wait, that's not a very good sentence right there.)
Write on! (You've gotta be kidding.)
There's nothing that both scares and delights a designer more than a blank sheet of paper... (This is getting worse.)
Ugh. Here it is from the site:
The Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism seek to increase the understanding and appreciation of design, both within the profession and throughout American life. A program of AIGA, these annual awards have been founded by Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel of the Winterhouse Institute to recognize excellence in writing about design and encourage the development of young voices in design writing, commentary and criticism.
5 Grand for the top prize; 1 Grand for students. Deadline is May 31, and you get to pick up your award at the swank-city AIGA Design Legends Gala in NYC. All info at the site--link above. (Wait, that was awkward too! Help!)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)We predict that the toaster will become the new chair for the creative set, as evidenced by the ongoing enthusiasm for the RollerToaster, the Glide, and other iterations in myriad design studios and schools. Conveyer toasters go back a long way, in actuality: There's the original conveyor toaster--the awesomely-named Toast-o-lator (patent filed in 1934). But today on YouTube we see a new toaster design, Lift, all wrapped up in quite-the-animation folks. You saw it here first.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (3)Just super: scientists have developed some sort of assassin robot that climbs ladders and can jump rope. The motions it demonstrates in the video clearly pave the way to forced entry and garrotting someone from behind.
Also, check out how the impudent little automaton angrily hurls the rope across the stage as he gets fed up with following orders.
[Via Engadget> and Robot Dreams.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
The MADA Caimes semi-acoustic guitar is no regular axe; the organically molded body is made from hemp and, ironically, lacks joints.
A new spray-molding technique, specified by designers Adam Wehsely-Swiczinsky, Luthier Andi Neubauer and Norbert Schmid of the AWS Designteam Studio in Vienna, precludes edges and provides the smooth shape you see above (available below in different colors).
Seven years in the making, the MADA Caimes launches this June. Check it out here.
Not the recommended usage.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Plastics News Blog has some great posts on...well, plastics. But they also concentrate on how plastics figure in culture, politics, and the environment. Recent posts include news on yesterday's San Francisco plastic bag ban, securities fraud, and water wasting. Spicy!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Via Treehugger and Inhabitat, no empty promises of wall-size plasmas and counter-top fab labs. Bell Travers Willson Architects is building The Digital House using some sophisticated CNC action to nail (sorry) both the 3D and the labor parts.
From Jill:
The Digital House brings high-tech building methods to a broad housing market, providing a high quality, well designed and more sustainable alternative to traditional housing. Just how does it work, you ask? The structure is produced using a detailed 3D computer model that includes specs for every single construction element, from entire walls to tiny screw holes. This information is then transfered to a CNC machine (Computer Numerical Control), which cuts the components from engineered timber. The components are then packed and shipped, ready to be assembled into a house of your very own. For some of the larger components, the pre-cut timber sheets are assembled into lightweight hollow “cassettes” , which can be filled with recycled newspaper for insulation and air tightness.
From Lloyd:
The technology behind the Digital House allows every part cut to be different than the next, so that houses can be customized to each individuals requirements. This moves away from the standardization that has previously been an economic driving force in prefabricated systems that are criticised for being inflexible in their designs and visually repetitive.Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
If you've ever worked at a McDonald's (raise your hand, there's nothing to be ashamed of) you know the deep-fryer gets nasty quickly, as all that gunk builds up on the bottom.
Well, this has to be the weirdest design solution we've ever seen for that particular problem: A deep-fryer with a goldfish cleaning solution. Goldfish, as in actual fish.
You know how oil and water doesn't mix? Oil sits on top. So this guy in Japan (sorry, name unavailable) figured out he could make a deep-fryer with fish in the bottom, and they could eat all the fried food flakes that drift down to the bottom. It's good for him, and bad for those goldfishes' cholesterol levels.
[Via Tv in Japan.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
This Broadcast is brief, but oh-so-sweet. Maira Kalman, children's book author, illustrator, product designer, librettist, and critical mass of inspiration, innovation, and imagination, teaches a class at the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author program, where each year she conceives new ways of telling stories. This year, for her "suitcase project," students are invited to create three-dimensional, autobiographical visual narratives. Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA program, caught up with Maira during the formative stages of the project.
After a rundown of some of the suitcases (one emits light and sound; another telescopes out to tables and chairs), the conversation moves to the take-away. "And what are YOU getting out of it?" Steven poses. Maira responds, "A headache."
Perfect charm.
Oh: Special thanks to Randy Hunt for co-production on this Broadcast; Photo: Rebecca Pollock.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Something for you interface designers to think about: as things get tinier--witness Samsung's new camera chip and Texas Instruments' new 1.5 inch projector (via Engadget and Gizmodo)--they're not getting any easier for us to use. Take a look at this article on shrinking tech vs. interface design.
The active ingredient in aspirin is an extremely small percentage of the actual pill, which is something like 95% powder. Why? So you can actually pick it up with your fingers. Seems this principle may soon apply to our tech products.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Scientists at Bristol University are messing around with wearable cameras that you wear on your shoulder, like a pirate and his parrot. They're hoping they can get the camera to track your gaze or your hands in order to "identify a wearer's activity and offer assistance."
I love how people think up some seriously stupid uses for technology, like how every article about hi-tech refrigerators boasts their product can "track when your milk will expire, and automatically wire the grocery store!" Because that's really what we as a society need.
This shoulder-mounted camera has similarly lofty ambitions--it will be able to tell if you are cooking or eating, to "warn a computer to reroute phone calls to avoid interruptions." Or you could do this other crazy thing and (gasp) turn your phone off.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Over at SpeakUp, Marian Bantjes posts a piece on our favorite topic these days. It's all great, but here's the paragraph we picked to pique:
The response of most designers is to downplay the active, creative part of their work in favour of the strategic, results-oriented, business-minded part. A scan through most design websites will reveal an emphasis on "forming partnerships," "sound business objectives," "industry leaders," "distilling information," "marketing communications," "story telling," and a great deal more that hints at "creativity" contained in a controlled and mindful environment (i.e. the back room, out of sight). But Graphic Design's embarrassment of its artistic roots threatens to do away with the very thing that makes it unique and valuable. In this sense, the computer becomes the perfect icon for design today, as Design begins to look a lot like what everyone else does in the vast market of business consultancy. As designers increasingly promote themselves primarily as strategists, consultants and business-people first, they do so often by sacrificing the one thing they have that separates them from their clients: the ability to think and express ideas visually. And at some point, you have to wonder: if you look like them, and act like them, and talk like them, and think like them, and use the same tools as they do...well, what the hell would they need you for?
Read the entire post here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Last summer the team at Roth//Tevet> Experience Design unveiled "Soundscapes", an installation computer-controlled musical instruments, mostly realized at a giant scale. The dramatic lighting and setting enhances the muli-sensory experience of the project. Starting in April the exhibit will re-open in the courtyard of the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem and will run through the summer of 2007. According to the designers 'the instruments are played automatically and controlled via a computer, yet keeping a natural and acoustic sound.'
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (1)
The reviews of the Craftsman CompuCarve are very uneven, and the only ones that seem to make it work are really dedicated users. Not to mention that they also can invest $1900 to buy it in the first place. But the important thing is that this product is available at all, from Sears, and is being marketed as a tool for the layman. It is just one step closer to the Jetsons lifestyle, where you push a button and a finished product comes out of an opening in the wall.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
The lasting influence of the pictograms Otl Aicher developed for the 1972 Olympics in Munich may still be seen in European airports and public facilities to this day. Using stark white and black geometric forms arranged on a grid, Aicher developed a comprehensive visual language that could be easily be understood by viewers of all nationalities.
For graphic designers interested in the history of visual iconography, Markus Rathgeb's monograph of Aicher's life proves a valuable resource, but it deserves a wider audience. Since designers don't have the opportunity to see their own career through the lens of a retrospective until its end, this elegant account of one designer's life provides ample lessons for those of us at the beginning.
Much of the design of the seventies almost invites ridicule when seen through modern eyes, and regrettably, some of Aicher's graphics share those traits. Though his Olympics posters easily betray their age, some other pieces of his work exhibit a timeless harmony. Clearly, the question of why some designs retain their charm while others seem out-of-touch is something that designers should hold in their subconscious throughout the entire design process.
Posted by: Robert Blinn | Comments (0)
For those of you with technical skills, a set of tools and some time on you hands (we know there are a lot of you), check out the projects by Limor Fried, a NYC-based engineer who focuses on open source hardware projects. She is a partner in a laser etching company that we noted a few weeks ago. Her projects range from from a simple bike stand (beginner's welding) to cell phone signal jammer (beginner's espionage), and all are extensively documented for the DIY engineer. Some of the more complicated projects are available as kits to save you the time of ordering the various components. Shown above is the x0xb0x, a full reproduction of the original Roland TB-303 synthesizer. She's got a nice set of photos documenting the assembly on Flickr. Fun!
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Here's a nice competition that came across our desk yesterday. Good 50X70 is a communication design competition focusing on five of the burning social issues which the UN recognizes as the plagues of our millennium: AIDS, Environmental damage, Human rights violation, Underdevelopment and War.
Designers are invited to submit a 50cm X 70cm poster design addressing one of the categories above. The international jury will initially shortlist 30 entries from each category, ultimately choosing 10 winners from each category. There will be one outright winner, "The Good 50X70". An exhibit of all the entries will follow the conclusion of the competition.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)This is a good idea. If you can get over the insane amount of energy it will consume pitching vodka to an empty bathroom. Oh, and it's probably a bad mirror, too. [via freshcreation]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
For years this has been the dream of design students everywhere. Now LumiGram makes it a reality: plastic fiber optic woven alongside synthetic fibers, forming a luminous fabric. All info at LumiGram.com
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (4)Some intriguing work here; make sure you check out Nacho Carbonell Ivars's "Pump It Up, Furniture & Animals" piece.
Talk about slow time-to-market: 500 years after being developed, Leonardo Da Vinci's transmission hub is finally going into production with Ellsworth's The Ride bicycle.
Da Vinci, the Original Industrial Designer (sorry, Raymond Loewy) developed a transmission based on independently rotating spheres. The NuVinci hub offers a smooth transmission of power without the jerky clunks that come with changing gears on today's chain-and-derailleur bicycles. I guess if your beard was three feet long, you'd look for a way to get rid of the chains too.
[Via CoolHunting.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (7)
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the gas-powered taxi in NYC, the Design Trust for Public Space will be debuting new cab concepts at next month's NY International Auto Show.
On display will be concepts for taxis that:
- are battery-powered
- can accommodate wheelchairs and strollers
- have improved passenger cabins
- are hydrogen-powered and can reportedly hit 200 m.p.h.
Good luck finding a clear stretch in Manhattan to pull that last one off!
[Via Engadget.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)Ever wonder how CD's are made? Click the link If you like watching manufacturing processes in action.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Philippe Starck may have famously said "I believe in general that my job is absolutely useless" at the last TED Conference, but the designer-at-large is at it again: witness his new grommet-like watch for Fossil, which retails for $110.
[Via ProductDose]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (7)There's an excellent post in TreeHugger about Biomimicry, the science (art?) that entails observing how nature's design solutions are often better than ours, and trying to learn from that.
Why can birds fly so easily, while we have to dump millions into developing fiendishly complicated helicopters? Why do spiderwebs trump any cable suspension system we've ever devised? How is it that geckos get up walls so easily, and we have to rig window washers up with these enormous contraptions?
Learn more about the course (May 23-29):
Janine Benyus, the author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature , and Dayna Baumeister, are running a six day intensive course to train biologists interested in applying biomimicry to design.
Click the topmost link for more info.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell, an anime and series of movies set in a dystopian future, has long been renowned for having some of the best and most through anime industrial design in the genre. Everything from guns to cars and parking meters to telephones have been well-rendered and thoughtfully considered to convincingly depict what objects might look like in the future.
Now, those rendered objects may actually be accurate. The next Ghost in the Shell movie, Solid State Society (released last year in Japan but not due to hit American shores until July '07) features actual Nissan concept cars: The Sport Concept and the Infiniti Kuraza (both below) are both driven through the film by principle characters.
From an article in World Car Fans:
"This is a revolutionary collaboration made possible by direct exchanges between both young and more experienced creative talents from both companies and is different from product placement," said Shiro Nakamura, Nissan's senior vice president and chief creative officer. "Japanese animation is being taken more seriously as art every year around the world, and the concept cars in this film are rendered with particularly high quality; they're just wonderful."
[Photos via World Car Fans.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (5)
Many packaging designers have broken their heads on getting a spoon integrated in the pack to support our 'on the go' lifestyles. The industrial design company Inveratek now launched an interesting alternative, whether you eat with or without spoon, it's up to you - which is probably the best of it all.
Inveratek's CEO Paul Adams notes: "It can be manufactured on existing form fill seal or pre-forming equipment and requires no special tooling or materials. In fact CrushPak's unique design means less plastic can be used than a conventional container, up to 36% less."
Fonterra (their New Zealand licensee) is currently surprising the locals with this packaging innovation. Inveratek also licenses major manufacturers in US and Europe, so probably coming soon to a supermarket near you.
via verpakkingsmanagement magazine
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (5)Say goodbye to the next hour of your Friday. (Bonus: Donal Fagen reference!)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)Dan Saffer over at Adaptive Path posted a short, absolutely perfect piece a couple weeks ago on the state of design education. With Dan's permission, we're reposting the entire piece here. Required reading. The original AP link is here. Dan's site is here. His book, Designing For Interaction is here.
[No blockquote on this one--we need the pixels!]
Design Schools: Please Start Teaching Design Again
It's that time of year when Adaptive Path wades through stacks of design school students' resumes, looking for summer interns and potential hires. As I was doing this, a trend that that I had suspected became clear to me: quite a few design schools no longer teach design. Instead, they teach "design thinking" and expect that that will be enough.
Frankly, it isn't.
I was taught that design has three components: thinking, making, and doing. (Doing is the synthesis, presentation, and evaluation of a design; the bridge between thinking and making.) If all design schools are teaching is the thinking, well, they are missing the other two thirds of the equation. They have abandoned craft for craze. Thinking without the making and doing is almost useless in the job market, unless you want to work at Accenture or some other big consulting firm. It probably won't help you get a job as a designer in a studio environment. You'd be better off getting a degree in Humanities; at least you would be well-rounded.
D schools are doing a serious disservice to their students by only teaching them "design thinking" when a class in typography or mechanics or drawing might not only give them a valuable skill, but also teach them thinking and making and doing--all at the same time. For design to be truly useful as a profession and as a discipline, designers can't just use "design thinking" to come up with strategies and concepts. Dare I suggest that those are much easier than building a product? Some notes on a whiteboard and a pretty concept movie or storyboard pales in comparison to the messy world of prototyping, development, and manufacturing. It's harder to execute an idea than to have one, genius being 99% perspiration and all.
What gets lost without the making is the detail work that makes us designers in the first place, the small parts where we earn our paychecks. Details are also where we earn the respect of the developers, businesspeople, and manufacturers who make what we prototype real(er). Details often get overlooked in just "thinking" projects, as do constraints. Constraints are somehow less solid in the world of thought than they are in the world of making.
What we're going to end up with is a generation of "innovators" who are MBAs in MFAs' clothing, who can neither create or run businesses like entrepreneurs can, nor design products and services like designers can. It's the worst of both worlds. What we as employers are searching for are people who can do as well as think. This isn't to say that we're looking for glossy stylists either: we want designers who create thoughtful, meaningful designs: designs that pay attention to details, and have emotion and craft in them, as well as reason and cleverness. The world desperately needs those designers. Start making them again.
The Intel Challenge is the latest attempt to get away from the boring boxes that house our PCs. Vote for your favorite new design at the website, and five of you will win $100 certificates. But the rules are strict--unlike the Presidential elections in this country, you are only allowed to vote once.
While voting might win you a C-note, coming up with the winning design might net you a cool million (although it's hard to say, as the details on the website are mysteriously worded). So in this case, design pays. Maybe.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)Holy cow. The Japanese are known for constructing elaborate obstacle courses for their variety/game shows, but I have to say this one takes the cake.
First Stage is above, Second Stage is below.
[Via Japan Probe, click the link to see other contestants and the "unconquerable" Third Stage.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
I came across a great review of a presentation from the Shimano marketing team at the National Bike Summit, where they detailed the background of their Coasting program. Shimano worked with IDEO to develop a strategy to get more of the 161 million Americans who don't ride back onto bikes. This research led to a revisiting of cruiser bikes, and subsequently to a series of new bikes from Trek (the Lime is shown above), Raleigh and Giant.
In any case the original post I found goes over some of the findings that IDEO uncovered, and the resulting product strategy. But the comments, from bike mechanics, enthusiasts, lawyers and others, are the best part. The only thing missing from the conversation are the designers and product strategists.Personally I'm not convinced that the strategy will get more people onto bikes. The cultural issues raised in the comments are significant. But it's a great product design conversation, from a group of 'non-designers'.Posted by: StuCon | Comments (5)
You know Design Festival season is upon us when you find a pile of last years Interni guides dumped on the street in the hi-end furniture retail neighborhood of Soho, NY. Here's a couple of upcoming notables on the Core77 radar and don't forget to check the calendar for a full listing.
Milan Design Week
April 18 - 23, 2007
Designmai, Berlin
May 12 - 20, 2007
New York Design Week
May 19 - 22, 2007
Istanbul Design Week
June 14 - 24, 2007
Sure there could be other factors at play but it is fun to think that Austria's high burglary rate is due to marauding aesthetes. Kinda Prison Break + Top Design w/Todd Oldham. Or Martha +, well, Martha Stewart.
via kottke.
update: The crime data that post cites is from 2001 and the prison was finished in 2004, so there is no correlation really, but who knows, it is a damn attractive building - time might still prove him right! ;)
Posted by: shaggy | Comments (0)
Talking about flying cars is nothing new but making it really happen is a different story. Many earlier attempts to do so have failed but with new regulations and perspectives on personal flying Dutch amateur pilot John Bakker seems to make a good chance with the Personal Air and Land Vehicle
"The PAL-V ONE is a hybrid of a car a motorbike and a gyrocopter: a personal air and land vehicle. A solution to increasing congestion in our cities, highways and skyways. On the ground, the slim line, aerodynamic 3-wheel vehicle is as comfortable as a luxury car but has the agility of a motorbike, thanks to its patented cutting-edge 'tilting' system. The single rotor and propeller are folded away until the PAL-V ONE is ready to fly."
The PAL-V Europe company is currently raising the capital to get the first flying car on the road, or better in the sky within four years time. For us locals, this might be the end of ghost ship stories with John Bakker as the new Flying Dutchman
via design.nl
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (3)
In response to yesterday's post about iPod theft, Robert Nightingale sends along images of his iBook project that builds on the
Idea of Product disguise, playing on the concept of the "ibook" and inspired by recent trips in developing countries where one doesn't really want to advertise the possession of an ipod, And who steals a book?
If you want your own, try MAKE's Hollow Book, a project we learned of during an in-home interview, where our participant was using it to store her iPod!
(actual fieldwork image!)
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart reported yesterday that the books behind President Bush in a recent press conference are in fact used for candy storage.
5 Senses of Istanbul is the name and the theme of a four month project from the ID department of the Istanbul Technical University. 22 designers developed concepts reflecting on the theme, including the Seven Hills seating concept shown above. The ball has seven points around the bottom, which requires the user to balance, reflecting on the balance found among the people who inhabit the seven hills of Istanbul. The entire collection will be shown at Salone Satellite in Milan next month.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Holy cow. As more proof that humans will buy anything, Josh Spears reports on the latest movements of Justin Gignac, a guy who collects NYC trash off the street, puts it in clear boxes, and sells it at NYCgarbage.com.
Thus far Gignac has sold over 800 cubes in 20 countries. His latest project? "Producing" "100 limited-edition garbage cubes from St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin, Ireland."
I am in the wrong line of work.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The web site says it perfectly:
Rock and Royal's core business can be described as “providing personalized advice to help you with your choice of exceptional chandeliers and photo realistic mosaic designs.”Forget the mosaics, I want the Core77 logo rendered as a chandelier. The group is based in Rotterdam, and launched at the Millionaire Fair in Cannes last fall. Check their site for pictures of their impressive display, and attire. Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Bouf presents a collection of limited edition/niche products made by designers and for sale to the public. The UK based Bouf caters more to furniture and houseware designers than the to the craft crowd serviced by Etsy. Shown above is a loveseat, by Jake Phipps, carved from a solid block of English oak. Shipping to North America is a modest 150 British pounds.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Steve Portigal speaks with Debbie Millman, partner at Sterling Brands and host of the scrumptious Design Matters radio talk show.
Steve and Debbie traverse a lot of topics in this one, with stops at cultural anthropology, behavioral psychology, commerce, and creativity—and a nice discussion on the commoditization of the term "strategy"...bringing it back to Michael Porter's classic definition, "deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value." (Debbie asserts that strategy is ultimately owned by the smart people in the process: smart designers, smart brand people.)
Around minute 27, she talks about the monologues at the start of the DesignMatters shows—always a highlight for listeners, and, in our opinion, reason enough to tune in to her weekly show: How does she prepare them? What makes for good topics?
Then things wrap up with a discussion of Maira Kalman and her recent work at the Times. Ironic, since next week's Core77 Broadcast will be with Maira, hosted by Steve Heller. Thanks for the perfect segue Debbie...always a great audio host!
LISTEN NOW (39 min.) | Download 35.3MB (right-click) | More Broadcasts
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We are greatly looking forward to the results of ApartmentTherapy's "Smallest, Coolest Apartment" contest, now open for submissions. There are a ton of prizes (well, 106, at any rate) with the top four being $1,000-and-up gift certificates to the ironically-named Design Within Reach.
Have a cool crib? Click the link to find out if you qualify. Results will be up by May.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Discovering Design is a tragically unusable and annoying waste-of-pixels from Herman Miller, who can't be the design leaders they claim to be if they can't manage some basic interaction design principles. What the hell is that thing? The What Is This? link tells you nothing about the Cube-Zero-Beckett nightmare you've clicked upon, instead it is a quiz for you to perform. Does your very survival depend on success, or merely the last fragments of what passes for sanity in this place forsasken by all others? We don't know. Skip the questions and go back to the Tholian web of people and stuff. A big egg? A funny face? Rolling over one makes links between others. Roll over the face on the left, but the words underneath the face in the middle change. Perhaps by rolling over one man's face you can magically change the name of the other man. It certainly wouldn't be the name of the man who's face you've rolled over because of course that info belongs under his face. Yes? No? Ah, for that way madness lies, we daren't think it, let alone utter it aloud. And under this face , we see text to tell us that these are people. Click on the word and - egad - a mystical layer cake circle appears and rotates, bringing 3-D hypereality to bear. What Magick be this? Click the word again and the circle rotates once more. Oh, did you move your mouse slightly, oops, it rotates the other way now.
And why, why, why. Why are we here? Oh, cruel fates, please release us.
Moving on, taking the bullet, so you don't have to. It's why we're here, folks.
Update: link fixed
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (1)
A collection of customized bikes from NYC's own Trackstar and Dave's Quality Meats. I want to see Nicole Kidman reprise her BMX Bandits role with the one pictured here... 25 years later and Judy, now a NYC bike messenger, stumbles into another bank heist plot! various antics and slow-mo bunnyhops ensue. via hypediss via hypebeast
First Bellperre announces they're making no-plastic cell phones (above) out of precious metals, now these companies are making computers, LCDs and keyboards out of wood (below).
If we don't watch it, soon landfills are going to be out of business.
[Via Textually and the Times.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
That's not a sexy blog post title, but the competition is great: Tricycle, Bentley Prince Street and Floor Focus magazine have teamed up to produce the Ample Sample 2007 design competition, and it's worth a shot for sure. Here's the pitch, in its entirety:
Down the hall in your resource library, a shelf is overflowing with carpet samples. Rethink these beautiful, fashion-forward textiles...they aren't trash, destined for the dumpster. They're design materials.700,000+ carpet samples will ship this year, helping designers move closer to choosing the perfect carpet for their projects. Our SIM from Tricycle sustainable sampling is a fast, accurate, eco-savvy way to narrow pattern and color options before requesting a physical sample, (and so reduce oil use & landfill waste), but SIM is not meant to replace all samples. Physical strike-offs are still important for final decisions and client presentations.
So what to do with these samples? After they've served their purpose for your design project, we say re-use them to make a design product. Recycled materials became design elements because designers chose to see them as such. Why not carpet samples, which are high style, high performance, and wonderfully 'reuseful'?
Create a design that will transform these textiles into a beautiful and/or functional fixture, piece of furniture...or any interior product you dream up. The winners will be promoted at NeoCon and in Floor Focus, and have blueprints of their design posted for free download, to forward-thinking designers around the world.
All info here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
This industrial case pops open to reveal an easy chair, and you'll definitely need to sit down after seeing what you just paid for it: US $5,192. It's Maxwell Smart meets Le Corbusier, as financed by Richie Rich.
[Via TreeHugger.]
Nothing like the San Francisco to publish a front-page article with some stunning new concerns exploding on the local scene today
As the supremely portable devices have spread across the Bay Area, the number of iPod robberies has soared. Listeners, often lost in the music and oblivious to their surroundings, tend not to realize how attractive a casually protected high-tech device worth hundreds of dollars can be to a criminal, police say.In San Francisco, an increase in iPod robberies over the past two years prompted police to run undercover stings. BART officials have begun placing flyers at stations warning riders that the telltale white earbuds could make them targets for iPod theft.
Yes, folks, it's 2007, and this stunning non-new news is splashed all over the front page of today's breakfast reading. In other non-new news, our nation's children are struggling with obesity; some say it's an epidemic! OMG! Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)
We love this: Give away the plans; find your own materials.
Foldschool is a collection of free cardboard furniture for kids, handmade by you. The downloadable patterns can be printed out with any printer. Follow the instructions and assemble a stable piece of furniture.
And it gets better, with a mission statement worth reading:
Mass culture is run by superficiality and ecological absurdity. Foldschool supports craftsmanship as a face-to-face approach to design and brings together product and user the closest possible. The mindset of foldschool is to restore design to one of its original missions: to provide a product at an affordable price through a smart manufacturing process.Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Debuted at CeBIT: OCZ has developed a no-hands video game controller, reviewed at LegitReviews. The Neural Impulse Actuator sits on your head and turns your neural activity into on-screen activity!
Now cute brunettes like the one in the picture can play mind games that destroy on-screen enemies instead of my self-confidence.
[Via Gizmodo.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)I'm not even going to type a description here, you just have to watch this. (The footage is in Japanese, but it hardly matters.)
All I can say is, what do 97% of bananas have in common?
[Via JapanProbe.]
The Smokers Phone (made in China, of course) looks like a cigarette packet but is in fact a real working mobile phone complete with a handy compartment inside to keep your cigarettes safe.
With the official government warning stickers this handset looks exactly the same as a real cigarette packet and includes a microSD card slot, MP3 player, colour screen and VGA camera.
(via Mad4MobilePhones and textually.org)
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
[photo: cross section of APS fabric]
Dow Corning's latest material news is called APS or Active Protection System, an "intelligent" fabric that consists of three-dimensional spacer textile treated with a specially formulated, responsive silicone coating. It remains soft and flexible under normal conditions. But when stressed under high-impact force, the material instantly becomes rigid, and then immediately returns to a flexible state. This innovative material offers a unique combination of benefits that is particularly suited for use in high-performance protective apparel and equipment.
Those who are into smart fabrics will surely remember D3O lab's products which are based upon the same principle. New materials open doors to new applications as demonstrated by the 6 winning designs of their recent competition.
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (4)What is wrong with these people!
InterRobot Inc. has developed "Mospeng-kun," a supposedly harmless robot that detects when humans are close and gives them tissues. At least, that's what it does until it develops emotions and figures out it can do more with that claw than serve its human masters.
I'd prefer me and everyone around me sneeze into open air rather than accept any help from these relentless automatons.
[Via PinkTentacle.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Dyson: "This thing totally sucks!"
In case you don't have a subscription to Forbes (we won't judge you), last week they announced the 11 individuals on their "Tastemakers: Industrial Design" list.
James Dyson is on there, noted as one of the world's richest men thanks to his powerful cyclone-based vacuum, and the list is filled out with big dogs and small dogs alike: newcomer Tobias Wong, Nissan's Shiro Nakamura, and Apple's Jonathan Ive, who designed some gewgaw called an iPod. Click the link above to check out the roster.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
If you're looking for something different to do in New York next Saturday, take a free 90 minute tour of your neighborhood with the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) who will highlight the level of electronic observation your daily commute is subject to. The information is being made available for educational purposes only and not intended for use in the commission of any crime or act of war. Still I'd consider wearing your hoodie, I suspect the tapes made during the tour will be reviewed at some point soon for your own security.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
The design of baby strollers has been getting more complicated (witness Quick Smart's "Easy Fold" and PegPerego's "Pliko P3 Soleo," above, courtesy of Aving), and complicated = more parts = heavy.
It's nice to see a minimalist design as a counterpoint: Edoardo Perri's "WIP Metro," (courtesy of MocoLoco) below, is basically a hammock and a tripod. The superlight frame is all-aluminum, making it easier to haul up and down stairs; now you and your spouse will have one less thing to fight about and you can get into the real stuff, like which design school to send junior to.
Photographs of designers' workspaces and artists' studios.
You know you want to look.
[Via BoingBoing.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The Register reports that in Australia certain LG LCD and plasma television sets have begun freezing up during digital broadcasts from TV station the Nine Network.
LG told local media it expects to have a solution to hand tomorrow, but for now troubled punters can simply turn the affected telly off, wait 2-3 minutes then "reboot" it, according to the South Korean giant, quoted by Australian IT.
"What have we come to when a device intended simply to show moving pictures has to be rebooted," the Register asks quite rightly. "It's no surprise that it does - the on-board digital TV tuner is essentially an embedded computer, after all. But it just goes to show the extent to which these pesky, computing devices running complex, bug-prone software have made their way into once simple, instant-on consumer devices."
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Two interesting "couch" (if you can call them that) concepts: the Anima Cause Feel Seating system, above, seems it was inspired by the playroom at Chuck E. Cheese, while Edra's Boa couch, below, looks rather like a large intestine.
Novel? Yes. Difficult to clean? I'm sure of it.
Still, these couches are the perfect thing to buy if you want to spend 2 1/2 hours looking for your remote control.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Wired Mags gallery documenting the evolution of the computer mouse feels more like a graveyard then an archive. You can't help but think the mouse hasn't come that far given how much the rest of the hardware has changed. A broader range of input devices would be better, which is actually hinted at with the inclusion of the Wii.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
This item, from Saturday's NYTimes, makes you scratch your head: You'd strap a 2-stroke weed whacker to your back, but not to to your feet? Well, no, we wouldn't; this was probably always a bad idea.
CanNOT believe they buried this on a Saturday! (Photo: Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Airbus' gargantuan A380 is making its first American stops this week. The empty, unbooked planes are making trial runs at major U.S. airports to see what modifications still have to be made to accommodate the birds; the damn things are so large that runways have to be altered and gates redesigned.
The Superjumbo is so big that proposed interior amenities have included not just seating but bars, gyms, casinos, showers, and beauty salons.
How big are we talking? The 300 million dollar plane stands eight stories tall, with a wingspan nearly the size of a football field and a maximum passenger capacity of 853. The amount of snack bags required to feed that many people will probably revolutionize peanut farming.
[Read about it in the Times.]
Comments: If you were an airplane designer, what would you do with that much space? IMAX screens? Crying babies all sealed off on a separate level? Tell us about it below.
As the size of American McMansions continues to balloon, houses in Japan are getting smaller, at least in Tokyo. An article in BusinessWeek reveals how Japanese architects design "micro-homes," houses built on plots as small as 320 square feet.
As in Manhattan, Tokyoites cannot built outwards, but they can often build upwards; some of these tiny domiciles are up to five stories, and feature a number of design tricks to make the micro-spaces more livable.
Still, with rooms as small as the one pictured above, we wonder if American shows like Prison Break are a hit in Japan. It must be a drag to watch a bunch of incarcerated convicts roam around in spaces bigger than your living room.
[Via ApartmentTherapy.]
Photo from the New York Times.
Interactive design firm IconNicholson is testing out a mirror for department stores that allows shoppers to "virtually" try on clothes. The mirror is connected to the internet via camera, so friends can log on and see what you're trying on in real time, and communicate with you through a chat window.
Great. It's not bad enough we guys have to sit on the boyfriend couch while you ladies shop, now you can get us at home, too. Someone please develop an emoticon that means "No, that dress does not make you look fat."
[Via an article in the Times.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
An article from the NY Times News Service profiles Rich Christoph, the 27-year-old industrial designer behind Harley-Davidson's new Nightster bike.
While still a lowly ID student at the University of Wisconsin, Christoph built his own bike for a class project, using the metalworking skills he'd learned while fixing his father's tractors on their farm in Iowa. He then drove the bike to HD headquarters in Milwaukee. "I came riding my portfolio to the interview," says Christoph, who proceeded to nail the interview.
Christoph's design sketches of the Nightster are above. Images of the yet-to-be-released bike are not up on Harley-Davidson's website, but we here at Core are hoping the bike looks something like this:
Methinks this should've operated on seed-planting rather than sun-starving, but a cute idea non-the-less. Here's designer Romain Duclos:
You have no time to garden... "Jardin à la Francaise" is an innovative concept allowing people to personalize a corner of greenery according to their mood. This kit gives an elegant and refined style to your garden in a few days, whether it is for an event, a reception or simply to imagine a short-lived decoration. Explanations: Place synthetic field elements on the grass by following a figure on the guide, or invent one of your own! Leave from 10 to 12 days, remove…and here is your printed motif field! Your garden is personalized and will stay with this creation for approximately fifteen days.
[Link]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Well folks, I'm afraid some new studies confirm what many suspected: cell phones can be linked to infertility.
Textually lists seven articles that can explain in far greater detail than I can here. Let's just say you'd better make your next booty call from a landline.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
This one's been all over the net for the past week since it was posted at footurama. Celebrating the premier of Transformers on the 4th of july 2007, Nike are joining merchandise makers with the Air Trainer III release in the colorways of Autobot Commander Optimus Prime. Not much more information is available but you can be sure we'll see more from Nike before the films debut.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)WAY too early for this on a Monday morning, but that'll give us all week to populate it with some cool concoctions. We are partial to martini's ourselves (extra olives; tiny bit dirty), but there's not much design to that. Get on board and let's top the Harvey Wallbanger, shall we?
Hot tip from the one and only yo.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)Bruce Nussbaum lets it fly in his latest blog post--notes from his recent talk to design management students at Parsons in New York. Some choice bits:
...So one Big Design Management Challenge is how do you switch gears from designing for to designing with? Maybe the object of design is not a finished product but a set of tools that allow people to design their experiences for themselves. Think iPod and iTunes. Think TiVo. Starbucks. Fortunately, design has tremendous tools. In fact, design has evolved from a simple practice to a powerful methodology of Design Thinking that, I believe, can transform society. By that I mean Design, with a capital D, can move beyond fashion, graphics, products, services into education, transportation, economics and politics. Design can become powerful enough to be an approach to life, a philosophy of life. But it can do so only when Design by Ego ends and Design by Conversation begins. More on that later.
and
...Let me stop and make a suggestion. Skip your next trip to Milan or Miami and head, instead, for the reservation. Visit the Navajo and Hopi, the Pueblo Indians, the Souix and the Cheyenne. These folks lived a sustainable lifestyle long before it became both fashionable and necessary. There’s a lot left to their eco-culture. Learn from them—their contemporary artists in weaving, pottery, painting and jewelry are among the most innovative and creative in the world.Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (3)
An article on AutoWeek lays out what it takes to make it in trans. A lot. Here is big, fat taste:
The odds that a high-school kid who spends geometry class sketching cars will ever work as an automobile designer are no better, and are probably worse, than the odds that a typical high-school football player will play in the NFL....Here's where the NFL analogy works. If you count the automotive design graduates from CCS and Art Center, plus those in the new automotive specialty at Art Academy University in San Francisco, plus transportation design departments at the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Pratt Institute in New York and a few other colleges, the total will be somewhere less than 100 for any given year. Compare that with the bumper crop of rookies in the NFL last season, when 193 made active rosters. Even if you add automotive design degrees awarded by the Royal College of Art in London and design schools in France, Italy and Germany to those in the United States, you might not hit 193.
A would-be designer will improve those odds at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, CCS is a finely tuned designer factory. It legitimately brags that it has more alumni in automotive design departments than any other institution, and its degree in automotive design is as sure a guarantee of employment as an MBA from Wharton. Yet CCS has never graduated more than 20 automotive design majors in a year. The typical number is 16 to 18.
Is that a function of industry demand, the school's resources or its ability to instruct properly?
[Read Article; thanks to Martin for the tip.] (Photo from AutoWeek)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (8)
Last week, the New Yorker website was redesigned by Winterhouse (well, maybe it took more than a week to redesign it), and today, the new Time Magazine redesign debuts on newsstands. This one's by Pentagram (duh), but we haven't gotten our mitts on it yet. Still, you gotta love the ginormous Franklin Gothic section heads in their sneak peek. (Not to mention the feature "Captain Underpants on Ice"; that movie is going to kill.)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
2005: Bed with a projector TV, okay.
2007: Bathtub with an LCD TV, okay.
1978: Brown velour bed with a cathode-ray TV and a creepy silk-pajama-wearing serial killer type, well, not okay.
Very not okay.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Talk about late to the party. This site has been churning out product conundrums since July 2004, but we've only just discovered it. Rob 's awesome What is it? website boasts a selection of curious items who's function is difficult to figure out. (Sometimes the answer is in the comments; sometimes in a follow-up post.) A couple of our favorites are the phone stand (phone book goes in the cubby) and excerise peg-board above, but they're ALL good.
An article in Air & Space Magazine features some cool Space Tools.
The design requirements for tools used by astronauts, like the hand drill pictured here, are rather unlike earthly tools: they have to be vacuum-friendly, resistant to extreme temperatures, usable with thick gloves, and may or may not be used to pistol-whip romantic rivals into submission.
[Via BoingBoing.]
I love Muji products (and am especially psyched they'll be opening a New York branch) but their new pencil sharpener lacks just one thing: a time machine attachment, so you can travel back to a period when you actually had to sharpen pencils.
[Via Jean Snow.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
We'll start with the Northeast, since we'll actually be at that one. Here's the pitch:
This year's Shift Conference will hit the pulse of industrial design! Shift takes on current notable shifts in our industry by gathering a speaker line-up from Patagonia, Black Diamond, Treehugger, Kid
Robot, Core77, Frog Design, the Smithsonian Institute and the Ministry of Culture...to name just a sampling of the talent.IDSA and the RISD ID Department are honored to host each attendee on RISD's world class campus for discussions on topics including: eco-strategies, entrepreneurialism, progressive research methods,
interaction design, and comparisons between China and India.
IDSA Northeast District Conference. April 20-22. RISD. Providence, RI. Find out everything you'll need to know at www.idsa-ned.org.
Not sure which to attend? The Core77 Event Calendar's got all the information on all the district conferences.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
A sliding closet door operates on the same principles as a train: wheels on tracks.
The slider on Pantech's new cell phone operates on the same principles as a mag-lev train: yep, magnetic levitation.
The South Korean manufacturer found they could reduce the product's size by ditching the mechanical springs used on most sliders and replacing them with mag-lev. The top half of the phone slides open frictionlessly and enables an ultra-thin form factor for slider phones, at just 9.9mm. No word on whether you can also use the phone to pin takeout menus to the 'fridge.
[Article in the Korea Times.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The RecycleBank is driving incentive based recycling and here's how it works: "The RecycleBank container has a barcode that ensures your home is rewarded when you recycle. The recycling truck has a technology that identifies the barcode on your RecycleBank container. The amount your home recycles is translated into a dollar amount that you can redeem as valuable coupons to shop at participating businesses."
In short: "The more you recycle, the more you earn."
Of course, stimulating people to recycle is good but doesn't it sound a bit strange to recycle stuff in order to buy more stuff? No need for cycle traps that say: "The more you recycle, the more you buy, the more you recycle, the more you buy, the more..."
For now, go go go in creating more recycling awareness and if coupons end up at 'participating businesses' that truly care about a greener world (just like the movie) - we're moving in the right direction.
via springwise
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (1)
[photo from Engadget]
Luigi Colani's much-ballyhooed AnyFix, a universal cell phone charger, finally saw its public debut at CeBIT.
Unkindly likened to everything from a vagina to a "Romulan speculum," the unusual-looking device was actually based on the Dytiskus Marginalis, a beetle that swims underwater.
While much attention has been paid to the form of the device, little attention has been paid to Colani himself, a legendary designer who turns 80 this year. To all of you whippersnappers unfamiliar with the man, Colani was studying sculpture and aerodynamics way back in the '40s. Check out some of his other work:
hydrofoil
house
truck
piano
camera
Romulan Starcruiser
The secretariat of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) launches an on-line game aimed at teaching children how to build safer villages and cities against disasters. This initiative comes within the 2006-2007 World Disaster Reduction Campaign "Disaster Risk Reduction Begins at School".
Play here: Stop Disasters game
"The on-line game aims at teaching children how to build safer villages and cities against disasters. Children will learn playing how the location and the construction materials of houses can make a difference when disasters strike and how early warning systems, evacuation plans and education can save lives. Children are the future architects, mayors, doctors, and parents of the world of tomorrow, if they know what to do to reduce the impact of disasters, they will create a safer world."
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)
Zync from Yahoo! Research Berkeley
is a plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger. Zync allows you to watch videos together with your friends, in sync and in real time. Instead of just IMing URLs and waiting for your friends to watch, Zync allows you to converse about a video (pausing, jumping back, and watching together with a friend). Both videos stay in sync. Sweet. :)
Here's technology that simultaneously addresses, comments on, and further propagates a shift in how we live: bowling alone, eating alone, watching viral videos alone.
[via DownloadSquad]
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (1)The Financial Times has a great item by Josh Sims, titled "His nibs," that talks about fountain pens, power, and prestige. Here's the start:
If the masters of industry or politics were to sit down to sign some big merger deal or trade treaty, only to pull out a yellow Bic, a sense of the inappropriate might strike even the most ardent fan of disposable pens. In distinct contrast to the kind of pen found by the box-load in office stationery cupboards, the Montblanc Meisterstuck, one of the largest fountain pens on the market, is often referred to as the Power Pen, given its use for signing important documents by various leaders.Part of the appeal of the fountain pen is that it is symbolic--and enduringly so. Other pens may be much less expensive, lighter, require less maintenance and would be less sorely missed if lost (if missed at all). But the reason to buy and use a fountain pen is more psychological than practical. The fountain pen, which has seen sales growth of 18 per cent from 2001 to 2005, embodies a desirable degree of ceremony and prestige that lesser pens forego.
[via Spivot]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (4)
An excellent article, written by a former Set Lighting Technician, called How to Light Your Bachelor Pad. If you do it right, your mother won't notice that ring-around-the-collar.
[Via ModernSelf.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
From Bedroom to Battlefield: Designing for the Body
The human body poses a unique design challenge, particularly for industries that address its sensitivity. Within this field, the design of sexual accessories and that of military armor provide interesting counterpoints for discussion. frog is hosting an open dialogue between Ethan Imboden, founder and CEO of Jimmyjane, the leader in bringing style and innovation to sexual accessories, and Caleb Crye, founder and president of Crye Associates, the design company behind the body armor of the US Army and others.
The frog Design Mind speaker series is an effort to bring together today's leaders in business, technology, and design for an evening of discussion and debate. Held in frog's studios throughout the US and Europe, the series features prominent speakers from design, fashion, media, architecture, sports, academia, and business, sharing their perspectives on market trends, cultural innovations, and more.
Moderator:
Robert Fabricant, Executive Creative Director of frog design
Event Details:
Thursday, March 15, 2007
6:00 - 9:00 pm
frog design, NY
325 Hudson Street, 7th Floor (Entrance on Vandam)
New York, NY 10013
Tel. 212-965-9700
Last month, we posted an item from Steve Portigal's blog where he takes design instructors to task for bad survey design. (Actually, we were a little less polite about it.) Well, this is a story that ends well...exceptionally so. In his follow-up post, Class Acts, Steve brings us nice closure: The students contact him, thank him for his input, set up time to talk, and ultimately invited him to come speak to their class. Here's a taste:
We couldn't cover all that and get really deep into research, the philosophy, the tools, the approaches, and so on (and of course, that's more than a phone call) - but they are working hard to understand how the different tools (say, an open-ended interview, and a closed-ended survey) can address different design questions at different phases of a project. One gently amusing moment was a discussion of leading questions - one student had assumed this meant a question that led naturally to the next one (and of course, that's a good thing) rather than, as I explained, a question that presumes a certain point of view and ultimately makes it harder for the person to give a true answer (i.e., Aren't you disappointed that Jon Stewart didn't host the Academy Awards?).Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
For those of us who send a lot of text messages: LG Electronics is holding a National Texting Championship on March 31st in both Los Angeles and New York, where the fastest texter will win $25,000.
Think you've got what it takes? The bar has been set, so check it--Singapore's sixteen-year-old Ang Chuang Yang, the reigning world champion, typed
The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human
in 41.52 seconds. This kid pushes buttons faster than your mother-in-law.
The competition is open to the general public, if "general public" means "people who own activated LG enV phones."
[Spotted on Textually.]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
This has been everywhere, but here goes. The Endo Magnet Clip is strong magnetic clip for holding things to metal surfaces. According to their site:
A solid mass of neodymium, silicone and steel, Endo presents an elegant alternative to conventional means of magnetic attachment. No springs. No coils. No internal moving parts. Endo is the one-piece all-purpose silicone magnet with springy clipping action.Who doesn't love 'springy clipping action'?! Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
The Electrici-tree, an interesting-looking extension cord/powerstrip combination.
Freak your surgeon friends out by leaving these under the operating table after they've stitched up the patient.
[Spotted on RedFerret.]
Do you live in New York or Tokyo, in one of those apartments where you open the front door and it hits the bed? If so, here's some space-saving designs spotted on ApartmentTherapy:
Buondi Drop Leaf Dining Table from Jensen-Lewis
Wing Drop Leaf Table from Scandinavian Details
Cars have had computers in them for a while, but now they'll do more than manage the spark plugs: SNT Korea is developing the IOPS In-Car Computer, which boasts a touchscreen and a hard drive that runs Windows. If you can get the Windows blue screen as you run your car into a pole while invading a party, you can crash in three different ways at once.
[Spotted on Ubergizmo. ]
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Businessweek excerpts from an interview with Jan Chipchase, a design researcher with the Nokia Research Center.
In addition, Chipchase's slideshow from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference can be downloaded from his blog.
[Via Textually.]
Office life and its attendant foibles (light-fingered co-workers et al.) are starting to spawn some interesting designs. Designer Efrat Gommeh's anti-theft coffee cup, spotted on GearFuse, requires a key to be used; failure to use the plug-like key provides your coffee with an unintended exit strategy.
Military versions to be used on submarines will apparently require two officers to use two keys simultaneously.
Spotted on Treehugger, some awesome photos of a pedal-powered rollercoaster in Japan--click that link! Darn if this thing doesn't look dangerous!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
This year's CeBIT, "the leading business event for the digital world," kicks off on March 15th. CeBIT is the world's largest digital technology expo, a bigger version of America's now-defunct COMDEX. With over 400,000 attendees, over 6,000 exhibitors from 70 countries and products that encompass both home and office categories, CeBIT is often where manufacturers unveil new products.
If you're not already on a plane bound for Hannover, Germany, yes, it's probably too late for you to register and make it over there, but you can still keep abreast through their website:
CeBIT Homepage
Lifestyle@CeBIT
(Note: CeBIT is a German acronym for "Center of Office and Information Technology" and should not be confused with Seabiscuit, the 2003 horse movie with Tobey Maguire that was nominated for seven Acadamy Awards, including Best Picture.)
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Spotted on Engadget: A company called Nikko is producing a video projector shaped like R2-D2 with speakers shaped like TIE Fighters.
The devices are due to debut at CeBIT, but unfortunately the R2 projector will only play a loop of Princess Leia saying "Help me Obi-Wan, help me" over and over again. (Okay, we're kidding about the last part.)
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
A beautiful video from Scott Andreae and Karen Lee of ilo, a San Francisco-based art+design studio. Here's their story:
In October of 2006 we closed our design studio and took off to Sri Lanka for four months to document the vernacular design of the traditional fisherfolk. Earlier last year we had learned that the tsunami had taken a catastrophic toll on the traditional fishing communities and very little was being done to help preserve or document their culture.While the bulk of the work we did during our stay was photographic and currently being edited, we put together this video in the meantime by compiling short video clips taken with our small digital cameras.
Watch the video, malu, malu, right here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Some nice pics in here. [via MUG]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Word on the street (okay, word on Engadget, Textually and ZDnet) is that Google and Samsung are teaming up to make an internet-capable cell phone.
Judging by the grammatical and spelling errors on what is supposedly Google's survey copy, I'm 95% sure it's a hoax. So why list it here? Because I also thought text messaging and the iPod Mini were never going to catch on.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)The Times has a good piece this morning on Silicon Valley types coming over to the bright side. And we LOVE the term "watt-com." Here's the start:
Silicon Valley's dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era. Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars.It is no secret that venture capitalists have begun pouring billions into energy-related start-ups with names like SunPower, Nanosolar and Lilliputian Systems.
But that interest is now spilling over to many others in Silicon Valley--lawyers, accountants, recruiters and publicists, all developing energy-oriented practices to cater to the cause.
The best and the brightest from leading business schools are pelting energy start-ups with resumes. And, of course, there are entrepreneurs from all backgrounds--but especially former dot-commers--who express a sense of wonder and purpose at the thought of transforming the $1 trillion domestic energy market while saving the planet.
"It's like 1996," said Andrew Beebe, one of the remade Internet entrepreneurs. In the boom, he ran Bigstep.com, which helped small businesses sell online. Today, he is president of Energy Innovations, which makes low-cost solar panels. "The Valley has found a new hot spot."
[Link]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Gentle profile of Kit and Linda Hinrichs and their collections, aesthetic tastes, and the design of their home. Their atrium resembles the Pentagram SF office. Coinky-dink? I think not.
Web designer Ze Frank has created some of the most memorable internet-based entertainment in recent memory. His short web film "How to Dance Properly," created as a birthday party invitation in 2001 and emailed to a handful of people, became a bona fide viral phenomenon, and his website, zefrank.com, soon became a popular repository for dozens of games, videos and short films.
On March 17, 2006, Ze Frank began an experiment: To create a three-minute episode of his videoblog every day for one year. "The Show" has become an unbridled success, creating an audience of faithful viewers who not only comment in massive forums but also participate in open source projects, including the "Human Baton," where a vacationing college student was successfully passed off between audience members all the way across the U.S. and back. On Saturday, March 17, 2007, "The Show" will end. Ze spoke with Alissa Walker just after hosting the 10th Annual Web Awards at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.
LISTEN NOW (7 min.) | Download 7MB (right-click) | More Broadcasts
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
Can designers incorporate the values of the Slow Food movement? The question was probed last October at the first Slow + Design seminar held in Milan among the Italian cities where the Slow Food movement was originated over twenty years ago. The members of the group put an emphasis on local resources and distributed economies, more transparent production systems with less intermediation, and sustainable, quality products that offer satisfying sensory experiences.
The organizers of the event, Ezio Manzini and his colleagues in the design faculty of Politecnico di Milano, also Domus Academy, and Istituto Europeo di Design, in collaboration with Universita di Scienze Gastronomiche and Slow Food Italia, champion a more strategic approach that demands greater attention to every aspect of design, to product systems, and to more fundamental product experiences.
- Read full article in Metropolis Magazine
- Read more about the seminar (including downloads)
Very few designers enter the field with a burning desire to hear terms like "accrual versus cash accounting" or "depreciation and amortization." The rigid structures of accounting and business seem stifling to the right-brained creativity of a talented designer. At the same time, the corporate cubicle culture reflected in many in-house positions can suck the joy out of potentially stimulating projects. There are few experiences as soul crushing as learning that a bean-counter has nixed a particularly beloved aspect of a product or project.
Faced with such job prospects, designers may choose at some point in their career to venture out on their own, put up a shingle, and offer their services as a contractor or freelancer. While starting a venture provides unprecedented design freedom, it also requires that the designer take on some managerial responsibility. Suddenly the designer accustomed to sketching all day finds herself balancing books and reviewing legal contracts.
Sound like fun? I don't think so, and if you went to school for design, chances are you don't think so either. In the real world, however, design decisions are often money decisions, and that's where Shel Perkins's book Talent is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers proves to be a useful resource.
Posted by: Robert Blinn | Comments (0)
Fascinating backyard design. Apparently a large problem with traditional bird feeders is that gluttonous squirrels, like some sort of wildlife Kim Jong Il, take all the food aid for themselves.
This new design, the "Twirl-A-Squirrel," uses simple physics and the weight of the squirrel to prevent it from eating the birdseed. Video here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)Yup. [via Spivot]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (13)
First it was "no cellphones," now it may be "no laptops." BoingBoing recently spotted this restriction at an Austin restaurant.
We here at Core wonder, will this be a trend, or an anomaly? Have any of you, in other cities, seen similar things? If so, please respond in the comments. Thanks!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (7)
Sinkpositive is a sink that sits on top of your toilet, like the ones in prison. It saves water; after you flush, the new water that rushes in to fill the bowl first goes through the faucet, so you can wash your hands with it before it goes on to its less photogenic, secondary purpose.
This concept actually came out in Japan about thirty years ago, but what else is new....
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
For best results, avoid using them near pandas.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
DIY industrial design. What is a Chumby? It's really up to you.
The portable device is basically a processor, some memory and a screen. Users download widgets from the internet and decide on the functionality of the thing: Stock ticker, alarm clock, webcam viewer, MP3 player, photo viewer, GPS device, et cetera.
As the device was developed by hackers, hacking and modifications, inside or out, are fully encouraged. Should set you back $150 when it finally goes on sale.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Again via Make: British artist Benedict Radcliffe's full-scale wire sculpture, apparently sufficiently annoying to garner more than a couple parking tickets (the paper kind).
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (3)
An American industry survey recently revealed that the number of casual bikers had dropped nearly 50% in the previous decade, whereas the number of cycling "enthusiasts" has nearly tripled in the same time. That means that there were more than 160 million Americans currently not riding bikes.
Japanese bike part manufacturer Shimano set out to reach out to them. With the help of design consultancy IDEO, they created "Coasting," a bicycle that's "smart enough to shift gears for you, keep you comfy on those casual rides around town, and one that will permanently put a smile on your face."
More on the user-centered research and design process on Putting People First.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (2)
Video: Career in Computer Science - MS Research
Once again, our warnings go unheeded as mankind foolishly proceeds down the dark and dangerous road of robot development.
As shown above, MS Research Labs' latest conceptual video depicts a flying robot that relentlessly dogs your every step. Just great. Maybe version 2.0 will be able to travel back in time and kill Sarah Connor.
The domestic applications of remote control technology have hitherto been sensory and/or atmospheric: pressing a button changes the channel, raises the volume, lowers the blinds, or turns up the A/C.
Inventor John W. Cornwell is changing that. And while the actual application of his first foray into the field is somewhat ignoble--his remote-controlled beer launching 'fridge fires cans of Bud from the kitchen to the couch--I suppose it is technically revolutionary, as it uses remote control to physically deliver a product into your hand.
These devices may actually go into production, so bachelors with bank, take note: for $1,500 you won't have to be the only thing in your house that throws up beer.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
When cell phone cameras first came out in Japan, a popular commercial touted their domestic utility: a husband shopping for clothes sent snapshots to his wife, who advised him on which color shirt to buy.
In reality, cell phones cameras were used to prevent adultery: It became a trend for salarymen who were "working late" to send their wife a snapshot proving they were actually toiling at the office. An industry sprung up around this trend, whereby technology enabled fake office backgrounds to be inserted behind current time-stamped photographs.
While it's not yet gone this far in the U.S., American technology to catch cheating spouses does exist. "With the advent of technology, cheating has become easier to facilitate," says Manny Coats of Pandora Software, which makes CheaterChecker, a software program designed to nail your spouse if they're nailing someone else. Read all about it on Gizmag.
All of us want bigger monitors, but some of us have a hard time parting with the two grand you'd need for an Apple 30-inch.
Here comes a bank-account-draining rationale, a study by Pfeiffer (spotted on GizMag) claiming that huge flatscreens actually increase your productivity--so much, in fact, that they can pay for themselves in less than four months. Now if only they could do a study on X-Boxes.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Hannah Allijn's curtain concept will soon be available for modern living rooms. Earlier, we spotted Hannah's work at the Dutch Design Week (see gallery) - where she graduated at the Design Academy on a new curtain concept that was made to get rid of the usual curtain dragging and the traditional vertical curtain strokes when opened.
She enters the third dimension by faceting the curtain surface with foam triangles. The mechanism of cords support easy opening and every time you open the curtains its faceted surface reveals a unique geometric play of light.
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (5)
Japanese designer Yoshino Fukuma creates objects based on her presumptions of environmental psychology by observing her environment closely, the people living in it and how they use things.
PingMag, the Tokyo-based online design magazine, just published an interview with Fukuma about how she applies her favorite psychologist James Gibson's thoughts on environmental psychology onto her products.
Also featured are a range of her original designs.
(With this post I am also introducing myself to the wider Core77 design community. Some of you may know me already from the Putting People First user experience blog. As a "clogger", I will post more of course on this site.)
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)One of the latest video entries on Treehugger/SeventhGeneration's Convenient Truths contest is this delightful piece produced by VideoJester.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)This is a stunning demo, touching everything from manipulating data, websurfing, and 3D modeling. (Hopefully we'll be able to do most of this on the iPhone, of course.) Thanks to Kris for the link.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (5)
This one's for designers (and their kids): An apparently 5-minute DIY project, we're gonna hope you're wearing your helmets out there, and we're also gonna hope you've got a 2nd battery stashed in your Disney Princess backpack. See it all at instructables.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Adafruit Laser Services is a laser etching service based in NYC. For $30 to $100 you can have almost anything etched onto almost any surface. They've got a great photo gallery of their work if you need more convincing. Best of all is that they are an "Open Business" and publish a wiki with details on how to start and run your own laser business.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Thomas Gayet is the founder of french website amkashop.com specializing in large format digital printing of limited edition art onto tarpaulins amongst other things. Creatives are invited to submit their own art for the collection and earn royalties from sales. The vinyl wall stickers will knock a dent in your pocket money but are much easier then any stenciling you plan on doing to your apartment this spring
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)DT over at Design Sojourn has taken the 5 top consumer trends from Trendwatching.com and added his opinion on what this means from the product design point of view. Here's a snippet,
4) Trysumers
This will be one of the problems for designers, especially in the software industry. Consumers are spoilt, as you can get almost anything online for free even, its going to be hard going forward to encourage people to part with their money. This is one of the big problems with digital music, why pay for it when you can get it for free. Though what I’m saying not the gist of this point number 4, the relation of this comes to how people treat and deal with objects. Anything that is free or almost free has little emotional value. The increase of disposable consumerism is just one side effect.
5) Global Brain
This sounds like a re-badged Philip’s LiMe (Living Memory) concept. With 3G phones and network running costs getting more affordable, feedback of ANYTHING becomes easy. It will soon be instead of “Buyers Beware” it will now be “Buyers Aware”.
Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University and Ferris' College of Business have partnered to establish the first Master of Business Administration degree in the nation with a concentration in Design and Innovation Management.
The new MBA responds to the increased awareness of the importance of design and innovation in business. The program uniquely combines the resources of a college of business with a college of art and design. By embracing design thinking and collaboration the Design and Innovation Management concentration focuses on training future business leaders with the mindset and skills to build and sustain innovative and creative organizations.
The Hyundai QarmaQ concept is pushing the envelope in crossover utility vehicle design and construction. By the utilization of a high content of recycled plastics, derived mostly from discarded soft drink bottles, and some 29 other design, construction and material innovations, the QarmaQ boasts a weight reduction of 130 lbs as compared to vehicles of similar size and class. The designers claim that this results in a reduction in fuel usage equal to about one and a half SUV fuel tanks per vehicle per year. Granted, that may not seem like much when viewed on an individual vehicle basis, but multiply it by the total number of SUVs on the road and that's a lot of gallons saved.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
In 2002, the Army contracted with SeQual to develop a lightweight, battery-operated oxygen generator for the care of combat casualties. The research led to the Eclipse.
The 17-pound Eclipse, about the size of a student's backpack, hard-sided and connected to wheels and a retractable handle like carry-on luggage, was introduced in August. The company said the product was the result of five years of work and $12 million.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
Refill magazine have just uploaded a great set of pictures over at flickr of the laser cut skateboard exhibition they're currently curating.
SEVEN EXHIBITION
An exhibition allowing artists to explore the idea of lasering away at seven layers of ply that make a deck and add their own distinctive mark.A select group of artists globally have contributed their works to explore this new technology. Only 50 limited edition decks will be produced per artist. The aim of the show is to have a series of unique decks that collectors may choose to ride or display.
The exhibition will have its first show at the MTV Gallery Space in Sydney, Australia scheduled on Thursday 29th March, to be followed later in the year by New York, LA, Japan and finally a scheduled tour of Europe.
MTV Gallery
4-16 Yurong St, East Sydney
Thursday 29th March 2007
Opens 7:30pm
More info: refillseven.com
Today I spoke with some folks from Lulu.com, an on-demand publisher based in North Carolina. For practically nothing you can have your own book, and for a little more than nothing they will also help you get an ISBN number and get your book into various publishing databases so you can purchase the book at places like Amazon or BN.com. For those who don't like to write, use this to print perfect-bound, high quality editions of your portfolio. A typical portfolio book would cost around $6, and they're available in a variety of sizes. So rather than flip through one-of-a-kind pages together with a potential employer, you can present your work like a magazine, and then leave it behind as a momento of your visit. Look for the collected works of Core77, 1995-2007, at a bookstore near you soon!
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)What if every new product had a morning news anchor-style intro? Enjoy.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Crazy SkiMask.Com strives to combat ski mask discrimination
A state of fear and distrust has enveloped our fine country and this condition has grown unchecked for so long now that even the most innocent of facial garments, the ski mask, has become under attack.
Seems like a design opportunity here. Who wants to run a contest to design a face-warming yet heart-warming ski mask? Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (5)
Cameron Sinclair flipped the switch on his TEDPrize project yesterday at the conference, and well, the rest is up to us. The Open Architecture Network is a platform for a kind of open source architecture, where architects and designers can post, browse, and share projects, upload plans and documentation, discuss relevant topics, and enable the kind of scaling that Architecture for Humanity has been building towards. Congrats!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
We'll be shocked if this isn't a hoax, but BoingBoing claims the USPS will put out some R2-D2 mailboxes in honor of Star Wars' 30th anniversary.
We're keeping our fingers crossed for Pottery Barn to release a Chewbacca shag rug.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
For those of us that just can't save comes this ingenious combination piggy-bank/alarm clock from Japan, the BanClock.
You guessed it, the thing doesn't shut off until you pump some change into it. The mild-tempered among us will break it open when we need the dough; the short-tempered will break it because it's six in the morning and we can't find any quarters.
Addendum - Another design: Clocky over here sounds the alarm, then runs willy-nilly around your room until you catch it and shut it up.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we still maintain that developing robots that elude capture is not a good idea, and the first step in our undoing as a species. Why won't anyone listen!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Samsung's new LCD, soon to be used in their cellphones, is thin.
At just 1.29mm thick, the wad of cash you'll need to buy one will probably be thicker than the actual device.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Crap. I just got this blogging gig at Core, and now this--blogging robots.
I am going to be replaced by a robot, I know it.
I hate robots.
Damn you, NEC.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Social Explorer is a 2.0-looking data visualization site for US census. Interactive maps that vary over time and space, and a few nifty animations that are possible. We suspect they'll need a lot more databases to be of real use for non-rudimentary explorations. And like so many databases, the data is there to be retrieved or visualized, but the skill to know what to look for and how to do the social exploring they promise is probably slightly out of reach for most of us. Someday we will all need to be library scientists.
Stopped by the book launch last night for 'PUMA by MIHARA' at the MILK GALLERY in Chelsea, apparently all caps are the new black. The designer Mihara Yasuhiro (pictured centre) was present, It was tough to actually see the book but a series of spot lit podiums showcased a range of the shoes and empty martini glasses. Books will be available exclusively at the Black Station store and Alife Rivington Club.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Adi Fainer - a young designer working in Tel Aviv with an impressive body of work.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
A fascinating article in the new issue of The Economist discusses a field which is sure to revolutionize industrial design: Haptics.
Haptics, long explored by designers such as Japan's Kenya Hara, can be loosely defined as the science of touch and tactility. The satisfying click of a particular keyboard's buttons or the way a Playstation controller vibrates when you blow up an on-screen tank are examples of haptics.
Apple's iPhone made a stir for its "virtual" buttons, which appear only on a touch-screen. Samsung is trying to do Apple one better with their SCH-W559 cell phone; the "virtual" buttons on Samsung's touchscreen actually simulate the feeling of pressing a mechanical button.
The Economist article discusses such fascinating technologies as "skin stretch," whereby a flexible surface is stretched over mechanics that can alter their shape, rather like human skin and muscles, and provide feedback to the user through tactility. Alas, the article, unlinkable here, is available online only to those of us with (wholly worthwhile, in my opinion) subscriptions to the magazine. It's also on the newsstands, in the May 8th issue. But those of you without access can read about haptics here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
It's about time! Someone has finally made portable headphones with a retractable cable. In those iPod ads they always show those silhouette people just dancing around, but they never show them spending three minutes untangling the cables on a subway platform. Here, a company named Macally tries to solve the problem.
They're testing them out in the (South, duh) Korean market first, a common occurrence as of late. Once our pals on the peninsula give it the thumbs-up, I'm sure we'll have 'em 'Stateside.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
Now this is cool: a wireless digital photo frame with bluetooth. You can snap a pic with your cell phone and "beam" it into the frame instantaneously.
The yet-to-be-released device is apparently testing well in all markets except for one focus group held in the Amazonian rainforest, where test subjects worried the photo frame was stealing their soul.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Jim Croce wanted to save time in a bottle, but that's only because they didn't have Tetra Paks back then.
Package designers, take note: the paperboard Tetra Paks are better for the environment than glass bottles. The only trade-off is you can't use them to christen ships or smash them on the end of a bar to get that deadbeat bookie to pay you what he owes you.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Seems to be a trend in portability: WaveBox is a portable microwave, and Hot Jugz is a portable shower. For the outdoorsman (or itinerant fugitive: "If you're not going to give yourself up to the Feds, why should you give up the pleasures of home?").
According to an article in gizmag, "women, not men, are the primary electronics consumers," with the books showing femmes spent $55 billion on gadgets vs. the $41 billion men spent. Which means exactly what you think it does: men are better shoplifters.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
If you've invested in some decent bath towels, Umbra has just launched this shelf to help showcase them next time you have a visitor in town. You just need to hone those japanese roll wrap folding skills and remember to keep the bottom one in rotation.
via MoCo Loco
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
I Just returned from Australia and while in Melbourne saw this recently completed residential property in the back streets of the inner suburb Richmond. Jackson Clements Burrows Architects responded to the difficult and often costly heritage protection laws with a superimposed 1:1 scale photo of the original dwelling onto a glass facade. Exploring the notion of virtual memory, the tree in the background lines up perfectly with the photo when you stand in the right spot, the neighbors fence works from any angle like a renaissance portrait where the eyes follow you around the room and the unexpected choice of glass actually helps to diminish the physical presence of the building reflecting the sky and surrounding street scape.
The architects felt the existing run down weatherboard cottage held little heritage significance yet the local council defended its value. This ironic solution met the heritage controls requirements and makes a comment on the difficulties of the approval process.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (13)
From the city that never sleeps, Emilie Baltz prowls New York looking for the secrets of its favorite fuel: Coffee. Defined as everything from life to enlightenment, this beverage has a particular power over us, and Emilie's out on the streets to write its ode. (Or break its code). Uh, both maybe?
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
It's finally here:
The iLaunch runs Keynote-formatted presentations in high definition through a built-in projector while displaying a 3-D rotating image of the product. Voice-recognition software, Apple's most advanced to date, can recite a speech highlighting the features of the device while injecting several clever digs at competitors. Should a product demonstration experience a glitch or malfunction, the iLaunch boasts a complex algorithm that can automatically produce humorous and distracting quips.
Gotta love the onion.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
The trend of restaurant-grade kitchen appliances--Sub-Zero 'fridges, Williams-Sonoma cookware--has finally come to encompass ovens. TurboChef is a blazingly fast, four-way (convection, microwave, steam, infrared) cooking device that can make 25-minute souffles in two minutes.
As detailed in this excellent Times article, the manufacturers of the TurboChef hired both marketer-anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille (who, thank God, is famous for pooh-poohing focus groups) and California-based Frog Design to develop their product, which features an iPod-like click wheel as its main interface.
The TurboChef isn't short on features, but it clearly wasn't designed in Manhattan; if it was, they'd know we space-tight Manhattanites like to store our sweaters in the oven starting in Spring, and they'd make us a nice little shelf.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
The Omnium Project Australia (through the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales) is launching its latest international online creative collaboration (whew!): Visualising Issues in Pharmacy. Here, pharmacy students and graphic design students will collaborate to "to address important global health issues by producing detailed research reports and subsequent graphic and visual communication campaigns for implementation in specific local hospitals and health centres in Kenya, Africa."
The project will last 3 months (April - June), and is their second such initiative. Here's a bit more:
The VIP project ultimately aims to increase public awareness of six health-related concerns identified as debilitating public health in many developing nations:* adherence
* malaria
* tuberculosis
* sexually transmitted infections
* chronic disease
* immunization
Get all the info you need at the site.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
For centuries we've been subverting wood to our will; lumber mills and furniture factories spit out rectilinear shapes that fit nicely onto trucks but have little to do with the inherent properties of a tree.
Designer Matthias Pliessnig is trying to stay truer to the material, by "[utilizing] the elastic possibilities of the material. The processes I am using combine boat building techniques with furniture building techniques." His resultant lounge chairs are beautiful and look more like something you'd find in an elven village than in a mass-produced furniture store; they're less Lego, more Legolas.
http://www.matthias-studio.com
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)IDSA Boston presents Design Research, Business Strategy & Beyond on March 8th, exploring the impact of design research on product development, business strategy, and more.
Speakers include:
Mary-Lou Tierney - Farm Design
Bill Hartman - Essential Design
Beth Loring - Bently College
Susan Walters - Gillette
Leisbeth Wenzel - Insight PD
If you go, let us know what you thought!
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)
You have to love this. No more trying to wet the bottom of the curtain and adhere it to the side of the tub!
This thing will only cost you 30 bucks, and an explanation to houseguests that the thing hanging off your shower rod has nothing to do with enemas.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
I like things that look good as much as the next guy, but design that doesn't take actual human usage into account drives me nuts.
Case in point, this sharp-looking mirrored dresser from Neiman-Marcus, spotted on ApartmentTherapy; how clean will it look once we start touching it and actually using it? Are we supposed to Windex it after every use?
A mirrored toaster you can get away with, because the threat of getting burned keeps your fingers off it. Perhaps Neiman-Marcus can introduce some sort of heating element.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (9)
At 3:06am last night, Coroflot surpassed a significant mark, now home to over 50,000 design portfolios. A hearty welcome to the newcomers, and a big thank you to all the the veteran coroflotians for keeping on keepin' on.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
RedFerret shows us the Spy-Cye, a so-called domestic robot. From your PC, you can remote-control the floor-level, camera-equipped Spy-Cye to vacuum the floors or scandalize women in skirts.
I admit I'm a bit of a robophobe, but I don't know if remote-controlled robots with cameras is a step in the right direction. It reminds me of the Asimo robot demonstration at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, which revealed Honda engineers have taught the little bastard to run. Autonomous robots that can outrun you, now I'm sure that's not a good idea.
Flee!
It's often the case that technology is developed by the military, then trickles down to consumers: Examples of this are heads-up displays, GPS, radar and its brother technology, gaydar.
Now it's the other way around: inexpensive digital camera technology has been co-opted by military engineering company Macroswiss, which has developed the Advanced Combat Camera System. The ACCS is something like a hi-tech periscope that helps soldiers see what's going on without getting directly in harm's way, using a zoom lens and thermal sensors.
The device is capable of recording video, and it's even got a somewhat silly-sounding military-style acronym: COAST, or Camera On A Stick. If this goes into widespread military use, soldiers, for better or worse, will be doing two types of shooting.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Z Corp has just launched its new entry level full colour printing device, the Z Printer 450. This is the next iteration of its existing colour print capable products, and has a much higher degree of automation. Material loading, set-up, powder extraction and what not are all handled by the machine within its confines.
Posted by: al dean | Comments (0)
In the mid-'90s, Star Trek fanatic Tony Alleyne's wife left him, and then he converted their apartment into a replica of the Voyager spacecraft. (Kind of a chicken-and-egg thing going on there).
While the mission statement of the apartment might seem to be "To Boldly Go Where No Woman Will Ever Go"--or, as Gizmodo's Charlie White puts it, "Alleyne has [created] a bachelor pad where he'll probably never, ever get laid"--demand for similar spaces by other fans has led Alleyne to open his own "Science Fiction Interior Design" firm, 24th Century Design.
Scoff if you like, but all of us designers who've had to mock futuristic prototypes up out of what's available at Home Depot--as Alleyne has--can recognize the man has skills.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Dutch design agency DD Idea designed the Doggytoilet, a toilet for urban dogs. The stainless steel toilet features a remote controlled 'scraper floor' that cleans the surface [ Doggytoilet in action ]. Dog owners receive a special remote control when paying their dog-tax (obligatory in The Netherlands). The cleaning water features an attractive odor that encourages dogs to choose the Doggytoilet over our road walks.
Maybe it was a dirty design job but we are happy someone just did it.
via Product
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)
From Architonic's website, spotted on Design Spotter:
["Hosting a Guest"] was the theme of a joint project between the Industrial Design department of the Hochschule fur Gestaltung und Kunst, Zurich and Napier University, Design Futures in Edinburgh....Solutions were devised which not only work in normal everyday circumstances, but can also be offered to guests as a gesture of hospitality and appreciation and will at the same time help them to feel at home.
I don't doubt the sincerity of the designs, even if I can't quite puzzle out what this pillow's about. But listen, you simply cannot put up a photo of a guy sleeping in infinity wearing tighty-whiteys and black socks and expect me not to take a cheap shot. C'mon, we're supposed to be designers, people!
The newest innovation in laceless shoes: North Face's Boa System (spotted on CoolHunting) which secures the shoe to your foot by means of a crankwheel on the rear. Stainless steel cables keep your foot solidly anchored within the shoe, even while screaming and trying to outrun a bear.
Currently sold in adult sizes only, which, for the sake of the metaphors we use to teach children to tie shoelaces, is just as well.
Then: "The rabbit goes around the tree, and into the hole...."
Now: "Grab the rabbit's ass and twist it until he hugs your foot."
Steve Jobs threw the gauntlet down, and HTC, well, they just kind of ignored it.
Jobs' interface philosophy with the iPhone is that multi-function devices ought not have dedicated buttons for part-time functions; hence, the touch-screen. The buttons you want to press materialize when, and only when, you want to press them (which should sound familiar to my ex-girlfriend.)
HTC's new PDA phone, the Wing S730 (spotted on iTechNews) has a completely opposite design philosophy: it has two keypads (one for phoning, one for typing) and even two cameras (one for snapping flicks, the other for videoconferencing).
Both phones are coming out around July. Which design credo will win?
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
Here was the tip: "You shoult totally link this...Cause I bet you don't know how it works..."
What would you do? [Link]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (11)John King at the SF Chron reviews a recent Rem Koolhaas presentation and considers the larger picture.
Overall, it's great that design novelty sells. I like the idea that decisionmakers see the value of challenging and innovative designs. Each time something dynamic appears on the landscape -- including the library OMA fashioned in downtown Seattle, with its top-floor reading room that feels like a glass tree house -- we see how architecture can reshape the world.Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)But today's craze for gargantuan novelty has a dangerous side. No matter how seductive images might be as images, or as models on display, buildings aren't sculptures in a gallery. Nor are they rhetorical flourishes in a cultural debate.
Buildings are real life -- that's their beauty and threat.
In this interview PingMag talks with Scott Milano, who leads the Verbal Identity department of Interbrand Japan in Tokyo. You've undoubtedly come across his work, as his group is responsible for developing product and brand names such as BRAVIA, AQUOS, and VIAGRA. Their job is to create a product image and identity through a single word. Viagra is pretty good - look up the latin roots vir, vireo, virga or virgo, or the english virile - but I'd like to hear the story behind Levitra.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Core77's very own contributor Tasos Calantzis and his team from Readymade have been nominated for the Index awards this year for their Safer Paraffin distribution system. Here is a snippet from their project description:
>How did this design improve life and for whom?:
Paraffin, or kerosene, is a widely used fuel in many parts of the world. Consequently, it poses a risk in family settings and, in fact, is the cause of numerous household accidents and deaths among children. The "Safer Paraffin" distribution system attempts to utilize existing, cos-effective means of paraffin distribution and packaging while vastly improving safety and reducing spillage. The design provides an innovative way to address the problem of product adoption within a well-established sales-and-use cycle. It incorporates and strengthens the existing recycling of the 2-liter 'cool-drink' bottles. The aim was to create a cost model that makes the least disruptive changes to existing cost structures. For example, we built the system around existing bulk delivery of paraffin instead of delivery of packaged paraffin.
All the nominated entries are listed here accompanied by descriptions and photographs.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (1)
The results of the Architecture for Humanity Logo Competition are in, and the winner is...Michael DiTullo! This competition is notable for several reasons: 1. AFH does incredible work, 2. There were over 800 entries and over 60 jurors from around the globe, and 3. The whole thing was done on flickr!
See the finalists here, and once again, congrats to Mike! (Oops: More here too.)
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Parallel Universes: Making Do and Getting By + Thoughtless Acts (Mapping the quotidian from two perspectives), by Kevin Henry
...In particular, it looks at the work of industrial design researcher Jane Fulton Suri of IDEO (author of Thoughtless Acts) and sculptor Richard Wentworth, (professor at The Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, Oxford University in England, and creator of his photo series, Making Do and Getting By), both of whom use photography to take notice of seemingly similar worlds. What was of particular interest to me was the motivation behind the photographs, and the ways an artist's perspective might differ from a designer's.Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Not Created Equal: A Long, (Loving) Plastics Primer, by Carl Alviani
...Just as building a brick house and then painting it to look like wood is absurd, so too with many consumer goods; especially those, like point-and-shoot cameras, that are guaranteed to eventually be caught out. Given the thousands of alternative ways to allow plastics their own unique aesthetic, and the inexorable forces pushing consumers towards their acceptance, designers are running out of excuses for playing dumb.Posted by: core jr | Comments (3)
Can someone please find the analogous movie for car rendering, and send us a tip? That'd be swell. (Thanks to Jerry for sending this in.)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (7)
"After researching and becoming slightly obsessed with dip-molding," Liz Kinnmark worked toward creating a design that worked with the process.
Dip-molding is usually used for cheap, industrial applications. Only the inside of the product is controlled by tooling. The exterior finish is affected by gravity, which causes the material to form little drips on the bottom of your product. The challenge, then, is to design a product with a form that embraces drips on the bottom. Egg pants are what emerged. The product is a cute, flexible egg cup, which won't shatter and which is easy to clean.
More info at www.lizkin.com/eggpants.htm
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
LivingHomes has been splashed across almost every design, architecture and sustainability publication for almost a year, and for good reason: The company's first modular home prototype was the first residence to receive Platinum LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. LivingHomes founder and CEO Steve Glenn is the company's best spokesperson, and not just because he started the company--Glenn moved into the prototype soon after it opened and has lived there ever since.
On a beautiful Southern California day, Alissa Walker joins Glenn in the family room of his Santa Monica home to discuss the history of LivingHomes, Glenn's inspiration for the company, the praise that the prototype has received and the inevitable blasts from critics, what it's like living in a green home and how exactly his collection of childhood toys has everything to do with green building.
Take a tour of Steve Glenn's house at livinghomes.net, where you can see the house's features room-by-room.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The PANE Chair is named after the common bread which has a similar baking process.
A semi-cylindrical block of fibers is rolled, inserted into a paper tube and baked in a kiln at 104 degrees Celsius where the fibers memorize the shape of the chair. The small fibers organize themselves into a whole and gain strength by spreading the stress they are exposed to. The fiber itself forms the structural body for the chair and offers an unique seating experience.
The Pane Chair is by Tokujin Yoshioka who demonstrates very well how systematical use of small and light fibers can create the strength we know from solid materials. We also know Tokujin for his earlier piece of lightness 'HONEY-POP', a foldable chair made out of honeycomb structured paper.
Gothenburg, Sweden-based Staffan Holm and Johannes Tjernberg have designed the CEO, exhibited at this year's Stockholm Furnituture Fair. In their words:
CEO is a desk for a powerful person that reflects on a glimpse of the lost childhood, when life was easier and freer. We want to invite the director to a journey back to a time when life was filled with playfulness, more fun and when he or she was better at showing their feelings. We created the desk bound by the structural laws of LEGO-building bricks, combined this with the grace of the late Rococo furniture style and painted it glossy black to evoke feelings of exclusivity and power. CEO is made up of massive beech, MDF and painted with black enamel paint.
Love "the structural laws of LEGO," and of course, in addition to "the massive beech." [Link]
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Brochure for Cacao Design. Cute.
From RubikCubism.
Sometimes there are no easy answers.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
Image crunched to fit here.
The kitchen computer is not a new idea, and the endless repetitive iterations and variations serve to do little more than restate the presumed need, although the lack of success of anything beyond concepts suggests that the need may be to sell more high-end appliances and to lodge OSs and chips in another venue, rather than a lack of info, access, or communication in the kitchen itself. The story of the kitchen computer of course still seems compelling but let's see something new from designers!
Somewhat embarrassing in this series is the repeated use of a reversed pasta box graphic. Hmm.
[via Neatorama, who think that this is a MSFT idea, not a contest submission. Oops, guys]
Intellidrug (who names this stuff? At least it's not Tooth Buddy) is an artificial tooth that functions as a drug delivery system. Potentially available by 2010, it works when saliva enters a drug reservoir in the device and dissolves the solid drug stored there, while a timing mechanism opens a valve when the time is right. Spit power!
[via Fade to Play]
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)On March 15 frog design NY is hosting From Bedroom to Battlefield: Designing for the Body, a discussion of design and business between the executives of sexual accessories company Jimmyjane and military design firm Crye Associates.
The design of sexual accessories and that of military armor provide interesting counterpoints in their relationship to the self. Both address the body's vulnerabilities - one indulging them, the other shielding. Both explore the relationship between perception and confidence - one fostering a feeling of sensuality, the other of security. From design and business perspectives, these categories have long been neglected.
At first it seems like a bit of a reach (if not a reacharound), but this imaginative topic has tremendous potential to challenge and provoke. Hopefully we'll have a review here from someone who attends.
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)
More object convergence. This device on aggeggi.com, spotted on RedFerret, has five, count 'em five, fairly useful features. It would be boring for us to just list them all, so we'll list ten features and let you figure out which five it actually does:
- takes still photos at 640 x 480
- captures video at 320 x 240
- makes empanadas with an unbelievably light, flaky crust
- records voice
- reduces tartar by up to 33%
- acts as a webcam
- glows an eerie red when it comes near Osama bin Laden
- fires a recoverable taser that shocks your target into submission with up to 900 kV
- serves as a USB flash drive
- dispenses Pez
It's $249 Australian, which'll set you back $195 on this side of the pond.
Available at Orange22 Design Lab LLC: Designer Paul Kelley has come up with a "revolutionary" desk that hides away. But it's not just aesthetics, as the copy indicates: "When not in use, the chair can be invisibly tucked away again, allowing for maximum usage of space." Of course, if you don't have this desk you could try this other crazy thing, which is to slide your stool underneath the desk you do have.
Anyways, if this emotionally frigid blue acrylic cube is a must-have for you, good news: It's priced for the masses at only $29,921! Though something tells me if you're the kind of guy who buys one of these, you're the kind of guy who sends your kid to military academy for spilling orange juice on the piano.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
From Gizmodo and Unwired: Designers at Sony Ericsson are patenting a combination cellphone/universal remote control. In my book, any design concept that leads to us having less objects and clutter is a step in the right direction.
Of course, if product convergence continues unchecked, it will just be a matter of time before you're ironing your shirt, the phone rings, and you end up burning your ear.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
Okay, if we're not ever going to see the optigrab for real, then I suppose we can settle for these.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
More crap you have to buy, from an article in the Times. Cellphones were supposed to be a technological step forward and liberate us from landlines and wires; but because most call quality still sucks, now you can buy cellphone signal boosters that look like wireless routers and yes, you have to plug them into the wall. Does anyone else see the irony here?
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
From an article in the Times about automated parking garages. If you buy a Volkswagen in Germany and go pick it up at their factory in Wolfsburg, you get to hang out at the bottom of this cylinder while a robotic elevator arm "serves" your new automobile to you. Bring Morpheus and liberate the Rabbits.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
(Photo taken from Peter Payne's J-List.)
Vodafone (known as Softbank in Japan) has released a line of mobile phones in Pantone colors. Can't you just picture the marketing meeting?
MARKETER: I wonder what we should name our new line of brightly colored handsets.
DESIGNER: Maybe we should name them after the Pantone numbers, ha ha ha.
The marketer gets a faraway look in his eyes.
MARKETER: Hey, say that again...
DESIGNER: What?
MARKETER: ...the part about naming them after the Pantone numbers...
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
I'm going to tell you why your bedroom is an unholy mess: because of a lack of design, and because of your clothes.
What do you do with clothes you've worn once? They're not quite dirty, so you can't put them in the hamper, but they're not quite clean, so you can't put them back in the dresser. So you end up throwing them on a chair, your bed, or a slow-moving pet. And since you're not going to wear the same thing tomorrow that you did today, the pile soon grows (and if you've gone with option three, your pet dies).
People have been designing beds, dressers and endtables for hundreds of years; now someone needs to design a new piece of furniture for the bedroom, something that will air out several days worth of clothes without looking like some monster that sweatshop workers have nightmares about. You could call it a Clotheshorse or something like that. (To the Core higher-ups reading this, you guys feel like sponsoring a design competition?)
Until this piece of furniture is willed into existence, apartmenttherapy readers have come up with some solutions here. But c'mon, with all the useless crap being designed, here's an opportunity to actually design something truly new and useful.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (6)
In an attempt to demonstrate the plastic capabilities of Extremeconcrete, designer William Gordon has produced two curious furniture pieces intended to invoke user-driven creativity. Sevn and Whale tale are both freestanding monopod designs, and function as stools as well as table supports. Both are handcrafted and polished with Meld's luxurious material, which is offered in hundreds of colors and a variety of integrated materials. [via Meld USA.]
Posted by: Blaine Brownell | Comments (0)
A complete collection of cars from the Belgian(!) adventure comic Tintin. Many of the illustrations are paired with a picture of the real-world version! via Aeiou, le blog de Flu
Posted by: shaggy | Comments (0)
It's not often that you find a product that begs you to touch and feel it, but the Cantar-X from Aaton is jsut such a beast. The company calls it 'the Stradivarius of new generation multi-track digital sound recorders' and from all accounts that is not stretching the truth. The sales pitch includes references to 'waterproof, sandproof linear faders', the fact that their LCD displays 'remain perfectly visible on a snow field under bright sunlight' and the fact that the operator can easily adjust a variety of settings even while wearing heavy gloves. Nice.
Via idgrid
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (1)
A few people have sent this in, so here goes: Amsterdam-based architects Hofman Dujardin presents "Bloomframe", the hottest piece of blog-fodder since the ROLLERtoaster. Here's the pitch:
With one push on a button the balcony opens smoothly within 15 seconds. On the few square meters which are generated two persons can enjoy breakfast in the open air. Although the construction is extremely solid, the balcony looks elegant and transparent. During the development of the prototype safety had the highest priority. The upcoming months the development process continues...Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (13)
We got our copy today, but now we have to read this first. (We'll NEVER get to that damn magazine!) In D.O., Heller starts off:
A whole lot of blog hoopla has been recently generated about Monocle, the spanking new art, culture and issues magazine from Wallpaper's creator Tyler Brûlé . He's the guy who brought neo-classic post-European modernism to lifestyle publishing. Although Monocle looks nothing like its predecessor, it promises to be the next new thing in integrated web and in print publishing--a very laudable endeavor to be sure--deserving serious analysis and review. But this is not going to be that. In fact, this is not even an article about Brûlé 's magazine at all--but rather a look back to another, virtually forgotten but decidedly important, magazine with the very same name--one that published under the motto, "In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king."
Read the rest right here.
(Above: Monocle. Volume 5, Number 3. 1963-64. Spread designed by Phil Gips.)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
In today's NYTimes, there's a quick item on Tooth Tunes, the $10 toothbrush from Tiger that literally plays songs in your head. Dentists will agree that "two minutes" is the only imperative for cleaning your teeth (you could basically brush with a stick, if only you did it for two minutes), so compelling kids to listen-'till-the-end-of-the-song is particularly ingenious. And there's no speaker--the sound vibrations are transfered through the bristle head to the teeth to the jaw to the armbone, etc. But: The battery isn't replaceable--you gotta throw the thing away after 6 months. (Of course, you could argue that bacteria-wise, you should be doing that anyway.) Ugh. Can somebody please solve this problem? Or should we just stick to the stick?
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)Just when you thought George Jetson was gone for good, one more DIY-techno-nerd-kitchen-gadget.
A stretch? Ha.
