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Today marked the last day for the incomparable Alissa Walker, blogstress over at our fave UnBeige, and we don't know quite what to say. We'll miss her musings, her straight-up reportage, her live-blogging especially, and, okay, maybe even a bit of the bold faced names. The design blog space is losing a gem, but you'll still be able to hear her here in our Core77 Broadcasts.
You will be dearly missed Alissa, and if Unbeige had comments (!), you'd still be making your way through the well-wishers long past midnight tonight PST.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)Here's another future prediction we're guessing no one could have made fifty years ago: Fifty years in the future, people will carry around wireless, personal telephones that each contain more computing power than today's largest mainframes... Also, one out of five people will return them to the store because they just don't like them.
Yep, a recent study by the Opinion Research Corporation shows that smartphones were the most-returned gift this past holiday season, with 21% of them going back to the store. More proof that the future's always more boring than we think it'll be.
via textually
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
That there is a new Sony-Ericsson patent drawing for a modular cell phone:
As described in a patent application called "Detachable Housings for a Wireless Communication Device," mobile phone has two detachably connected housings. One of them can hold user interface devices such as keypad, keyboard, touchpad, joystick control, etc; for data input and control. Other things, such as GPS receiver, microphone, camera and battery go in there, too. The second housing will hold a display with some user input buttons and all the necessary phone circuitry, application processor and memory, another battery.When separated, both housings communicate with each other via short range communication module, e.g. Bluetooth. What's more, the housings are designed so, that they can be joined in different orientations. E.g. with the main display on the inside or outside of the clamshell phone, when closed.
We're not sure where, practically speaking, the design wisdom fits in here; are we consumers meant to assemble the phone we'd need for a given day on that morning, like a sniper screwing his rifle together before an assignment? Or would we carry all of the components around in a bag and swap out on the fly? Either way we're curious to see what the finished product looks like.
via unwired view
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
We're loving Gizmodo's repurposed shot of the Millenium Falcon about to blow the reactor core of the Death Star, which is apparently powered by AT&T and Apple. From an article, of course, on AT&T's network going down. Don't be surprised if you can't get your text messages and hear Han Solo screaming "yeeeee ha!" from the earpiece.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)Seattle-based Teague has a new creative director for their Product Studio: Tadeo Toulis. New Yorker, former Fulbright Scholar and Pratt grad Toulis was the top ID guy at Motorola's advanced concepts group, and also did a two-year stint at Samsung after founding SF-based collective Design RAW.
We'd send you a link to Teague's site for more details, but their "News" section's not been updated since '06. For shame!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Shockingly, this "How to make a Redneck Rollercoaster" video isn't American, it's Canadian. (Well, they do have better healthcare up there.)
Above is the lonnnnng tutorial on how to actually build it; below is the short video that shows the actual device in action. If you're pressed for time, skip the first clip but be sure to check out the second. Ride this "crazy and fun death machine" and you'll "die smiling," says the narrator.
via wonder how to
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
It might sound French but it's going to happen in Finland. Every night from the 22 to the 29 of February 2008 the vapour emissions of he Salmisaari power plant in Helsinki will be illuminated to show the current levels of electricity consumption by local residents. A laser ray will trace the cloud during the night time and turn it into a city scale neon sign.
Nuage Vert is a part of Pollstream series, an artistic intervention in environmental ethics by HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen). This terrible beauty is presented by the Pixelache Festival of Electronic Art and Subcultures.
Munich, last Tuesday, the VOLVO SportsDesign AWARD celebrated with this year's winners. The jury made it's decisions and nominated products and concepts in the following categories: ski equipment, board equipment, outdoor equipment, apparel, wheelers, accessories, and concepts (see all winners here).
This year's theme is "EcoDesign" - focusing on systematically bringing ecological factors into play at the earliest stages of the product planning, development and design process. Our special congrats go to the concepts category winner Max Koriath (the guy holding that huge 5000 EUR check).
His "Schöner Boot Fahren" wooden boat is made of beech wood and produced with an industrial process which enables three-dimensional rounded freeform surfaces. The wood grows again permanently and has a positive life-cycle assessment. The material can be completely composted and damaged parts can easily be replaced, just like the engine bonnet of a car.
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)Mechanical/musical sculptor/designer David Ellis talks about his recently exhibited work, The Owl, which is made from trash objects and based on the player piano, something that inspired Ellis at the age of 5.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
tpod is a teabag design concept by Soos that plays MP3s adds fun to the tea steeping process. Well, on second thought, unless you think the paper tag falling into scalding hot tea and you burning your finger while fishing it out is amusing, we'd say tpod makes steeping tea fun. After removing a tpod tea bag from the box, you unfold the tag which then becomes a boat that floats cheerily atop your soon-to-be-ready cup of tasty tea.
via swissmiss
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Art Director
Vera Bradley.
Fort Wayne, IN, USA
Under the direction of the Creative Director and following the creative vision of the Company’s Co-Founder, design direct marketing, in-store, events and trade targeted materials that promote Vera Bradley products and increase sales revenue. Maintain, expand, and protect the Vera Bradley brand image, keeping it fresh, up-to-date and in accordance with corporate and strategic goals.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
On the occasions you might forget your tote or other not-a-plastic-bag bag, a polyethylene plastic bag or two can make its way into your home. Ideaco's Tubelor trash can utilizes them to collect trash as opposed to the whole pile ending up in the trash. The two-part design seamlessly hides the unsightly folded-over handle area and comes in a variety of colors to blend into any environment. Tubelor has recently received a 2008 iF product design award.
via mocoloco
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (5)
Yes someone went there. DViCE, to be exact, decided to dream up MacBook Air's fellow element-themed cousins: Earth (recyclable), Water (pours out of a bottle), and Fire ("blazing" fast). "No word on prices or release dates" as of yet.
via notcot
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
In Japan, Germany, Brooklyn's Williamsburg and the UK's Brighton, as in countless places around the world, there are helpful little LEDs at the subway or bus stops telling you how many minutes there are until the next vehicle arrives. This is immensely helpful as you can decide whether you've got time to blurt out an important phone message, grab joe to-go or dig through your bag for that unfinished Sudoku that's been nagging you.
Why doesn't every mass transit stop in, say, every US city have one of these "time left" LEDs? Since local governments already have nerve centers tracking these vehicles, why can't we riders have the info?
No, instead we get local governments doing other things with their time--but Domino's Pizza now provides a tracking service. Here, folks, are American priorities at their finest: We can't tell you how long it'll take you to get to work, but we can darn sure let you know that your Crunchy Thin Crust is stuck in traffic on the 405.
via slippery brick
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Both based in New York, children's furniture design studio Argington and The Office for Design and Architecture (ODA) have collaborated on two new modern children's furniture pieces, the Hagia Bassinet and V&A Art Easel, that will debut at this year's ICFF.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
Guerilla marketing company JI Worldwide is putting their money where your mouth is. So here it is folks, the new frontier in advertising: High Definition Napkins.
"Many companies have looked to alternative advertising mediums as both the media and consumer behavior have become more fragmented and specialized," said Jay Jaber, the founder of JI Worldwide, Inc. and, at 28 years old, a Finalist in the 2007 Wall Street Journal's "Creative Leaders Challenge." However, he said, B2C companies often look in vain for viral ways to reach potential customers and continue to rely on traditional advertising mediums."Basically, when people go out and use napkins, they're having a good time," Jaber said. "We help companies be a part of those experiences that in a way that--when compared to other mediums--isn't fleeting."
And how did they come up with this idea? We're guessing they were at a bar and...sketched it on a napkin.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)This has to be the coolest movie promo we've ever seen: to plug their movie The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, Sony has rigged up a water-spray-and-lasers projection in Tokyo Bay that provides an eerily-realistic Loch-Ness-type monster. Check the video.
via tokyo times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (8)
Back when photographers had to throw a black sheet over their head to take a picture, their bulky accordion-looking cameras still had something in common with today's most advanced digital shooters: the user had to depress a shutter button.
That crucial interface device, present on every camera with a mechanical shutter, may soon go away. As Casio product planner Jin Nakayama explains, "A shutter button [might] be one of the principal causes of bad pictures. If users did not release a shutter, there [would be] no camera shake." And how will a camera compensate for this? Well, Casio's new EX-F1 camera shoots sixty 6-megapixel frames per second, and one of those frames is bound to be the one you're looking for.
No word yet on how Casio might plan for the user to trigger the camera into action. Perhaps it will just start shooting the second you take the lens cap off, and we'll all be resigned to TiVo-ing out individual frames?
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Erwin Lui, the CALTY designer responsible for the original Lexus Coupe, famously devised that car's form by manipulating a balloon filed with modeling clay. Lite-On Technology is using a similar technique for their Red-Dot-Award-winning Moldable Mouse, crafted from modeling clay skinned with a nylon/polyurethane blend. Completely knead-able and possessed with shape memory, the silky-feeling mouse is designed to prevent carpal tunnel by letting the user change the form at will. It may also prevent you from finishing your work, as playing with this thing seems a heck of a lot more interesting than finishing up those spreadsheets.
via dvice
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Keys are a big part of all of our lives, unless you're incarcerated or living in one of those societies where they still cut your hands off for stealing. We're all resigned to having a tangled lump of metal jangling around our purses and pockets, and will be until biometric product developers get their act together.
Which is not to say people aren't trying to make keys more manageable through design:
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Paul and James from FXFOWLE battled David and Sean from Konyk last night at LVHRD's fourth annual architecture duel ARCH DL IV held in the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The brief transported us to the year 2029 with a challenge to design a wildlife research park set in the Alaskan wilderness, and a specific request to repurpose the recently disused oil pipes of a utopian future (these were represented by drinking straws in the model). A curtain divided the two teams who were given 30 minutes of sketching time and 90 minutes to construct a model in front of a live audience. Konyk's tower was clear crowd favorite winning with 449 votes to 267, but for those who didn't make it (or did) you can vote online tomorrow at lvhrd.org. And if anyone has suggestions for a good ID theme, let us know.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Now that the US dollar's virtually worthless, what to do with them? Simple--turn them into playthings by holding a photo contest, using greenbacks overlaid with actual photos. Above, a rather brilliant overlay of Abraham Lincoln and the Fed's own Ben Bernanke. Check out the rest here, including some with international currencies that are still actually worth something.
via a welsh view
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Our friends at Mimoco have gone on cute overload with their latest family, titled Magic * Luck * Friendship. These are part of the FriendsWithYou series, on sale starting today. While the company says these items are available just in time for Valentine's Day, I don't know if handing one of these to your special someone on V-Day is going to help close the deal. These guys look like they would be happier jumping into a kid's birthday party goody bag (Good ship Lolipop and sparkly rainbow sold separately!). Giving these to your kids is not a bad idea - it might keep the little buggers from asking to bring the more grown-up drives, such as Darth Vader or Chewbaca, to school with them.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
For those of you who tend to spend inordinate amounts of time loitering at any one of Apple's fine retail establishments, Oobject has a breakdown of the stuff that the stores are made of. Literally, from exterior panels to glass stairs to lighting to bathroom fixtures, you can use this list of "ingredients" to Apple-ize your own space and loiter at your leisure in the convenience of your home!
image by bhaggs @ flickr
via archinect
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)On a more fashion-conscious thread, Stewie asked how everyone dresses for work and how we should dress for work. And the people, they replied:
"I'm pretty sure were supposed to wear those thick black square eyeglasses.""If your an older designer, I think your supposed to wear the jeans and jean jacket with a big bushy white beard and fishermans sandals."
"You can't make a second first impression."
"Best thing i've always found about being a designer is that people expect you to be a little different so you can get away with more (without being over the top- sorry Karim)!"
"Dress for the position you want to be in, not the position you are in."
What do you think? How Should Designers Dress?
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
There's no doubt the Interaction Design sector is hot stuff these days. IxDA's first ever Interaction '08 conference, which starts on February 8th, sold out in record time. We'd say that's a telltale sign.
If you missed the Interaction '08 registration boat, don't worry. We'll have coverage here at Core77. If you are attending, be sure to visit Coroflot's interactive "job board"--literally a large board covered in job postings--where we'll also be coordinating on-site interview sessions with IxDA to connect talent-hunting companies with potential employees.
See you there!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Modelmaker
Bombardier Recreational Products Inc.
Valcourt, Quebec
At BRP, we dictate trends. We wish to create market-oriented products that enable motor sports enthusiasts to achieve their absolute quest: the ultimate experience. Our objective: to transport people physically as well as emotionally.
Bombardier Recreational Products is looking for junior and senior modelers for its Design and innovation department located in Valcourt in the Eastern Townships. Ideal candidates must show an obvious interest in model making and exceptional manual skills.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
When he's not cruising the campaign trail, John Edwards kicks back at this $5.4 million, 21,000-sq.-ft. home in Chapel Hill. Check out our next presidential hopefuls' homes--hopefully their architectural preferences won't sway your existing decisions.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
The I Love My Electric Appliance!! Flickr pool has a ton of whimsical vintage appliance imagery--lots of overjoyed women leaning on stuff, as expected.
via coudal
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)You may expect David Pogue to be a speaker as opposed to a musical performer at TED, but hey, it's not the first time he's belted out some original jams. Listen as he jingles about music and media on the internets.
TED Talks : David Pogue: A 4-minute medley on the music wars
Here's some ID eye candy for you. Check out a bunch of car cut-away illustrations like this one over at Cartype.
via coudal
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Footwear Designer
OKOBOS
Oneida, WI, USA
Expressive. Versatile. Customizable.
OKOBOS is a start-up footwear company with unyielding eagerness to bring new ideas to market. Once exposed to consumers, OKOBOS will strive to be thought of as a contagious, creative and benevolent brand with iconic standing in the market.
We are currently seeking a Footwear Designer to lead design efforts that serve a variety of markets and demographics. The right candidate will have a solid working knowledge in footwear manufacturing processes and will assist and support manufacturing suppliers worldwide. This candidate will also become the guru for current and future trends and will be encouraged to attend appropriate footwear and fashion tradeshows.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Is she about to make a snow angel? Or is this an open crotch watching invite? Amy Jussel of the blog Shaping Youth expressed heavy concerns (a.k.a. calling it "sexualized ad slop") to Target only to be told, "Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets," by PR. And suddenly the story isn't about crotches anymore.
via unbeige
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
The shiniest new fruit of Apple's loins, the Macbook Air, and its ability to fit into a manila envelope directly inspired this carrying case design by London-based designer Michael Leung. The Mac bag is water resistant and constructed with waxed cotton, felt lining, and plastic & rubber cord.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies have announced the 2007 Good Design Awards winners.
Luckily, "web design" isn't a category.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)Chocolate-milk-swilling bastard Messy Marvin was a consumerist slob; open his closet and out came tumbling a prescient pile of current-day eBay's entire inventory. Perhaps if he's spent less time indulging himself in chocolate syrup and more time in gainful pursuits he could have entered Design Squad's "Trash to Treasure" competition.
[The contest] will challenge kids of all ages to take everyday discarded or recycled material and re-engineer it into functional products. The product can move things or people (Mobility), protect the environment (Environmental), or be something kids can play with inside or out (Play)."We are eager to see kids' ideas and everyday items transformed into innovative and intriguing inventions. What a great way to inspire a fresh approach to recycling, not to mention a new crop of engineers and designers!" said Brenda Musilli, Worldwide Director of Intel Education and President of the Intel Foundation.
The competition launches on April 1st, co-sponsored by both Intel and By Kids For Kids. Grand Prize is prototype consultancy and US $10,000, which would buy more chocolate syrup than even Marvin would know what to do with. More info available here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Pop Matters' editor Rob Horning has an excellent essay up on design-oriented consumerism, referencing everything from Virginia Postrel's The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness to Renaissance concepts of self-styling to Rich Gold's "Plenitude" ideology.
...once mundane products like toilet brushes, spatulas, and ice cube trays are now complemented by design so flamboyant that it’s unmistakable even to the untrained consumer’s eye... No longer a prole with a dirty toilet, one becomes a fledgling design critic and a curator of the tastefully appointed museum that used to be a one-bedroom apartment.
If the superficiality of today's design has been bugging you, Horning hits the nail on the head for you here.
via pop matters / marginal utility
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Dissatisfied with the previous generation's seating, Bauhaus designer and architect Marcel Breuer created the B5 chair in 1926 as "a dramatic antidote to the overstuffed seating of the Edwardian era." Though not as well-known as his B3 chair (the "Wassily"), the B5 was recently inducted into the Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Museum.
"This chair is an iconic design that has been on our furniture wish list for a long time," says Sarah Coffin, curator of decorative arts at the museum. "We like to tell the history of design by showing things as part of a continuum, and Breuer's work relates to bentwood furniture and industrial design."
Read about the chair and Breuer's then-radical work here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
The LVHRD crew are back with the fourth annual Master-Disaster Architecture Duel. Two teams of architects battle one another in a timed, model-building competition. The architects receive a surprise brief, and a household material that they must repurpose before a live audience. Master-Disaster events are often industry specific, with past duels focusing on architecture, dance, fashion design, and the dramatic arts.
The Line-Up
-------------------------
ARCH DL IV: FXFOWLE vs. Konyk
Past Battles:
ARCH DL III: Balmori Associates vs. Field Operations
ARCH DL II: Grzywinski Pons Architects vs. Arquitectonica
ARCH DL I: Diller Scofidio + Renfro vs. Smith-Miller + Hawkinson
Details
-------------------------
Tuesday, January 29, 8 p.m.
New York City
Ticket holders will receive location information four hours prior to
the event through text message and email.
If you're in the Bay Area this week, check out the Commonwealth Club's forum on Conscious Capitalism : Resolving the Conflict Between Consumerism and Progressive Innovation. Eric Ryan, Co-founder of Method, Brandon Shauer, Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path, Rajan Dev, COO of Hot Studio, and Nathan Shedroff, Program Chair of CCA's MBA in Design Strategy program will explore this challenge in a panel discussion.
Why are there 50 varieties of toothpaste on grocery store aisles? How does this fit into the world's heightened awareness of the need for sustainable business practices, and our own growing individual needs for self-actualization and meaning? Leaders in business, design and innovation will debate why a deeper understanding of human nature needs to be central to a 21st century business strategy and how it can challenge people's attitudes toward consumerism.
Conscious Capitalism : Resolving the Conflict Between Consumerism and Progressive Innovation
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Commonwealth Club
San Francisco, CA, USA
$8 members, $15 non-members
thanks steve!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)What do you get when you mix motion capture, street art, and Geordi LaForge-lookin' 3D glasses? That would be "Tagged in Motion", a virtual graffiti experiment that won't get anyone arrested for vandalism. Watch as graffiti artist DAIM tries it out.
thanks martijn!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Yael Mer's designs are positively whimsical, but she somehow keeps function at the forefront. Her Evacuation Skirt mixes the ideas of emergency and beauty and inflates into a kayak strong enough to carry a grown woman to safety. And those crazy Rocking Slippers, well, they're pretty self-explanatory.
via swissmiss
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Find out what Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of the International Herald Tribune and a former director of the Design Museum in London; Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Hilary Cottam, who develops design solutions to problems in education, health care and other public services as co-founder of the London-based agency Participle; and John Maeda, the digital design star and newly appointed president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), have to say about the future of design.
The debate took place last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
(The picture is from ActiveMobs, a DesignCouncil project, led by Hilary Cottam and part of Paola Antonelli's show "Design and the Elastic Mind").
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Web Producer
Glaceau
Whitestone, NY, USA
Seeking a web producer to oversee glaceau's interactive initiatives for the vitaminwater, smartwater and vitaminenergy brands.
This position works with many cross-functional internal teams - facilitating robust, highly functional, branded websites and online media. Responsibilities include project management, quality control and maintenance of all interactive websites and media including day-to-day management of external interactive agencies.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Cleveland artist, educator and industrial designer Viktor Schreckengost has passed away at the age of 101. Schreckengost was a tremendous influence on his many students at the Cleveland Institute of Art and was well known for his ideals of affordable, good design.
thanks dave
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Challenging notions of how a museum typically displays its collection, The Living Room re-contextualizes objects from the Museum's collection within a contemporary domestic setting. The exhibition examines a cultural trend in which vintage garage sale finds, mid-century modern classics and craft mingle within the twenty-first century home, resulting in an eclectic mix of historical periods and "high" and "low" art. Periodic changes during the exhibition will highlight different object relationships, as well as the resurgent interest in mid-century modern design, ornamentation and eco-consciousness.
The Living Room
through March 23, 2008
Museum of Contemporary Craft
Portland, OR, USA
thanks mike!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Troika's stunning Cloud installation at British Airways in Heathrow's Terminal 5 has quickly amassed a good deal of attention. Check out some of the first digital animations here:
Take a peek behind the scenes here:
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
When did coffee get so complicated? First there's the $20,000 siphon bar and now the Brugo travel mug, above. The latter has a two-chamber system: most of the coffee sits in the bottom, while you tilt the mug to fill a cavity in the top with one ounce of coffee, which cools to a mouth-friendly temperature once separated with its main body.
Do we need an airlock for coffee? Good solution, or techno-overkill?
via coolest gadgets
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
The reason why many of New York City's portside streets are paved with cobblestones is simple: in olden days, cargo ships from Europe came to America loaded with cobblestones for ballast, unloaded them, and shipped back out laden with New World goods. As the cobblestones piled up, the idea to pave roads with them killed two birds with one stone: new roads made with existing materials that required no further manufacturing.
A successor to that idea is now underway not with cobblestones, but with shipping containers.
Cheap, strong and easily transportable by boat, truck or train, [shipping containers] now litter the ports of America as mementos of our Asian-trade imbalance. (Many more full containers arrive on our shores than depart, so ports either ship them back empty--to the tune of about $900 per--or sell them.)Hurricane proof, flood proof, fire proof, these metal Lego blocks are tough enough to be stacked 12-high empty--and thus can be used in smaller multistory buildings. Used containers (which can be picked up for $1,500 to $2,000) often have teak floors and sometimes are insulated. The bright orange, blue and rust corrugated boxes may not appeal to everyone. But contemporary hipsters find them not just the ultimate in postmodern appropriation but aesthetically pleasing as well.
Click here for the full article on architects turning shipping containers into homes.
via sf gate
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In the latest article at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog, Carl Alviani provides a great argument why young designers might want to stay away from the design poles. It's kind of impossible to pick the best part here (it's all great), but try this on for size:
What finally inspired me to look beyond New York was a pair of realizations that hit in rapid succession. The first was that many freelance clients were remote, or might as well have been. Some were in other time zones, found through digital word of mouth; others were just a few subway stops away, yet we met in person perhaps once or twice in a year, exchanging files electronically and conferencing over the phone. "If it doesn't matter where I am physically," went the reasoning, "why am I living in the most expensive city in North America?" The second realization was that all of the Senior Designers I knew in New York--not just most, but every single one of them--had gotten their start somewhere else. Usually somewhere less sexy: Pittsburgh, San Diego, rural Connecticut.These days, the reason seems obvious: in a tightly packed market, it's nearly impossible for anyone but a bona fide prodigy to get meaningful experience in a creative studio. Wages are low and turnover high, so inexperienced interns and juniors are handed small pieces of pick-up work, not major projects that they see through from beginning to end. In order to develop the sorts of solid, concept-to-market pieces that make a portfolio shine, a young designer needs to work somewhere that needs them, not one eyeing them dubiously until the next hungry grad takes their seat.
Read the full article
More Creative Seeds
A final reminder that the deadline for our GreenerGadgets Design Competition is this Sunday night, January 27th, at midnight EST.
If you've registered and entered, best of luck to you. If you've registered and not entered yet, you've got the full weekend to create something truly amazing. And if you are still on the fence about throwing your hat into the ring? Well, here's our pitch: $4500 in prize money; live judging of finalists work at the Greener Gadgets Conference (in front of tons of media); publication at Core77, Inhabitat, and other design blogs.
sepultura's Flickr via ffffound!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (6)
"If you're faced with a traffic signal, you don't have to think anymore," says Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a leading Shared Space advocate based in Bristol, England. He's discussing the new shared space policy to be implemented in the small German town of Bohmte, where sidewalks, traffic lights, signs, and road markings were removed in hopes that pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers become more vigilant by being forced to pay attention.
The shared streets are not meant to replace every road, but reworking downtown thoroughfares has already succeeded in the Dutch town of Drachten. That Shared Space municipality got rid of almost all its stop lights a few years year ago. Most street signs are gone, and big intersections have traffic circles. Accidents have fallen by 50 percent since the program started, city officials say.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Senior Design Technologist
frog design inc.
Palo Alto, Austin, New York, USA
At frog design, the Senior Design Technologist/Developer will not only provide a high-fidelity implementation, but also creatively enhance the vision of the interaction and visual design. He/she bridges the gap between design and technology by providing technical guidance during the design process by not only bringing awareness to constraints but also by applying creative thinking and problem solving abilities to seek out opportunities for innovation.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)id4me brought up a most excellent topic, asking where design consultancies today are headed tomorrow. The big question is whether the big players, you know, full-service WalMart-type design firms, have lost sight when it comes to good ol' Industrial Design. Do the "little" dudes, who keep their focus on product design, have the right idea? Or vice versa? Or to each his own? What’s wrong with design consultancies? Who has it right? Let us know what you think.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
via dumptrumpet
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
Standing up and balancing on the subway is a point of urban pride, particularly with coffee in one hand and newspaper in the other. But the Boss Level mastery of this skill ought to be tried in Israel's Carmelit subway system, which runs up the side of Mount Carmel at quite the angle. We're guessing the floor of each car is covered in coffee.
via deputy dog
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You may recognize the distinct shape of Design 21's Allumonde designed by Richard Hutten, but these acrylic versions in playful pink, blue, clear, and black are brand new. Just in time for the lovey-doviest holiday of the year, an acrylic Allumonde ring (set of four for $25) is perfect to give to those who love the idea of giving back. The rings are also available in stainless steel, silver, and gold.
21% of the proceeds give back directly: 19% benefits the Non-Profit of your choice, and 2% helps to fund UNESCO DREAM Centers, which provide children in post-conflict regions of the world with the opportunity to express themselves through art, reading, dance and music.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)If you've ever keyed in "7448" during a text message to express displeasure, and been stymied with the unusuable "shiv," perhaps this video can explain.
via a welsh view
It's the high-tech version of an Amish barn-raising: Open-source disaster housing.
The Open Architecture Network is an open-source, social-networking community charged with helping to shelter people grappling with poverty and natural disasters. It uses Web 2.0 technologies to enable architects anywhere to upload and share their designs online under a Creative Commons license.
Co-founded by UK architect Cameron Sinclair (who maintains a blog with the excellent title "Design Like You Give a Damn"), the organization hopes to soon incorporate digital maps and CAD drawings that can be collaborated on in real time. Click here for a photo gallery of currently-shared designs.
via c net
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Design goes south: Tomorrow Houston's Barbara Davis Gallery opens the Imperative Design exhibition (furniture and industrial design), while Houston's Contemporary Arts Museum launches the Design Life Now show as part of the Cooper-Hewitt's US National Design Triennial.
Imperative Design will feature new furniture and product work by its curator, renowned designer Lauren Rottet, as well as Ross Lovegrove, Greg Lynne, Arik Levy and Zaha Hadid.The Design Life Now show will cover experimental projects, emerging ideas, major buildings, new products and media that were at the centre of contemporary culture from 2003 to 2006. The triennial aims to present the most innovative American designs from the prior three years in a variety of fields including product design, architecture, furniture, film, graphics, new technologies, animation, science, medicine and fashion.
On show will be the work of 87 designers and design-led companies, ranging from Apple, architect Santiago Calatrava and Nike to designers such as Joshua Davis, Jason Miller and David Wiseman.
via design week uk
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New air/spacecraft design: Three fuselages, two aircraft, mated. That there is a rendering of SpaceShipTwo connected to its WhiteKnightTwo "mothership," the crafts that will launch space tourists into their dreams.
The two aircraft take off as one, and once they reach 50,000 feet SpaceShipTwo (the single fuselage in the center) disconnects from the mothership and blasts into suborbital flight, some 68 miles above the Earth's atmosphere.
The innovative design makes use of lightweight composites, and this is no mere concept--it's 80% complete and is slated to start delivering passengers into space by 2010. Price? Two-hundred large, with a reported 85,000 interested passengers.
via thomasnet
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The (new) New Museum is now featuring New Silent, a series to take place every second friday of the month, featuring screenings, performances, and conversations about art and technology. The very first New Silent event is Nextcity : The Art of the Possible, which highlights projects that "blur the boundaries between art, design and technological development", by Stamen Design, J. Meejin Yoon, and Christian Nold. The event will be introduced and moderated by Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware.
Nextcity : The Art of the Possible
Friday, Feb. 8, 2008 at 7 PM
The New Museum
New York, NY
$8 General Public, $6 Members
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)In only 4 minutes and 39 seconds, you'll learn a great deal about Chip Kidd as he explains what's behind his deisgns and reveals a few fun factoids about himself. For example, John Updike's dad was his dad's math teacher...and he's inspired by ID from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Also, his lead singing is not to miss.
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Industrial Designer
Burton Snowboards
Burlington, VT, USA
Do the words shred, jib, stomp, and butter mean as much to you as .fla, wireframe, XML, and .psd?
Burton's internal design studio is looking for a few web designers to join it's team of talented, passionate and prolific interactive designers.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
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Forego the wireless life for pure camp value. You too can own and use a Hamburger Phone to call the clinic. Just like in the movie!
via unbeige
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The thing we've always disliked about those Mac magazines is their bland, uninformative "reviews" of Mac-based products; the non-critical articles do little more than tell you the product exists.
We've got slightly higher hopes for iLounge's new iDesign section--"a series of feature articles [spotlighting] the key design features of a strikingly unique [iPod/iPhone] product... Then, if possible, we'll publish a second part [interviewing] the people behind the design. In this way, we hope to reward impressive products and designers, rather than focusing as much on the junk out there."
Their first installment, focusing on headphones, is up here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Just 4 days before our Greener Gadgets competition deadline, a too-perfect discussion's gaining lots of steam. How Green Can Electronics Get? This is the big question asked by ip_wirelessly who kicked things off by adding his ideas of possible ways to green up electronics. Many responded. So if you haven't whipped up your Greener Gadget entries yet, consider this a veritable gold mine of concepts waiting to happen.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Given you have enough space on your desk, adding the Sensory Lamp to your mousing zone may remind you that there's a whole world filled with light and nature outside the room your computer's in. The user is exposed to simulated natural day light cycles, the fresh smell of grass, and is responsible in keeping the grass alive. According to the designer and soon to graduate MICA ID student Sarah Rossbach, "in a step towards the office of the future, the Sensory Lamp takes us back to nature."
via gizmodo
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
In case you missed it, a great piece over at BusinessWeek about the birth of a new set of green design principles entitled The Designers Accord. We've got input from many key players in sustainable design, including our own Allan Chochinov.
What's striking about the piece is not so much the formal list of principles, but the "rules" for play:
"We are talking about sharing high-level learnings about methodology and process, much as the management consulting industry does," says Ideo's Tim Brown.
and
"By pooling our resources, this should mitigate the investment" that each firm would need to make in sustainability research and training, says Valerie Casey, who says that as a student at Yale she was influenced by research done by her professor Barry Nalebuff into co-opetition.
There's a theme emerging here. In one of our features this month, civil engineer, Tom Seager states that, "Sustainability requires cooperation." Right on. So, forget that cut-throat competitive model they beat into us at business school and get back to what they taught us in kindergarten: sharing and playing well with others is the name of the game.
One of design's most fundamental tasks is to stand between revolutions and life, and to help people deal with change. Designers have coped with these displacements by contributing thoughtful concepts that can provide guidance and ease as science and technology evolve. Several of them--the Mosaic graphic user's interface for the Internet, for instance--have truly changed the world. Design and the Elastic Mind is a survey of the latest developments in the field. It focuses on designers' ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.The exhibition will highlight examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design. Of particular interest will be the exploration of the relationship between design and science and the approach to scale. The exhibition will include objects, projects, and concepts offered by teams of designers, scientists, and engineers from all over the world, ranging from the nanoscale to the cosmological scale.
Design and the Elastic Mind
February 24 - May 12, 2008
The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor
Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY
University College Falmouth graduates are participating in an ongoing project, Advice To Sink In Slowly Posters, to help out wide-eyed first year newbies. Each student that enrolls in a BA course at UCF receives an Advice Poster as a welcoming gift. You can find some on sale here.
posters by : Jane Laurie (left) and Robin Wicker (right)
via the serif
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Will Gurley (Denver, CO)
Featured project : Beat Blinds
Put a little sound in your sill! These wooden window blinds have a secondary purpose as a musical instrument. Beat Blinds help integrate play for children into adult environments and encourage them to embrace the world of music.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
If you've held on to your iPod nano (1st and 2nd generation) or shuffle (2nd and 3rd generation) case because it looks so darn nifty and you just know it'd be good for something you haven't figured out yet, look no further. Bird-Electron has designed the Recycling Speaker, a sweet little accessory for those cases so you can blast your jams out loud, wherever you are. There also happens to be a nifty storage area for a shuffle or nano--perfect for travel, quiet time, or when friends and family can no longer take the very best of Michael Bolton. AudioCubes has it for $40.
via notcot
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Somewhat similar to WreckedExotics, this is a roundup of coveted and expensive automobiles forgotten by their owners and ravaged by time. Above, a Ferrari 575 that's seen better days. It's strange to see such highly-styled designs, normally presented in the best of photographic conditions, reduced to their raw industrial parts and robbed of their exotic sheens. Click through for images that would make Giorgetto Giugiaro cry.
via drb
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Industrial Designer
Newell Rubbermaid
Huntersville, NC, USA
The Amerock Cabinet Division is currently seeking a talented Industrial Designer with 2 years of experience in decorative arts-based product design to help develop cabinet pulls, doorknobs and cabinet interior storage/convenience products. The ideal candidate will possess a 4-year degree in Industrial Design, highly creative ideation and sketching technique, proven skills in SolidWorks and Photoshop, and an eye for creating decorative designs for the American consumer.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
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Siphoning works for stealing gasoline and moving cash into secret bank accounts, but it's apparently the way to go if you're searching for that perfect cup of coffee. The Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco has recently acquired a $20,000 imported Japanese siphon bar (above) after years of attempts. This halogen-powered coffee contraption is currently the only one of its kind in the U.S. The high-tech, $11,000 Clover siphon brewer makes only one cup at a time but depends way less on the barista than the aforementioned siphon bar, resulting in a consistently tailored cup every time. There are about 200 Clovers around the world but Starbucks just bought 2, so if you're a fanatic now, prepare to feel less special.
Designed by three Stanford graduates, it lets the user program every feature of the brewing process, including temperature, water dose and extraction time. (It even has an Ethernet connection that can feed a complete record of its configurations to a Web database.) Not only is each cup brewed to order, but the way each cup is brewed can be tailored to a particular bean -- light or dark roast, acidic or sweet, and so on.
image : Peter DaSilva for NYT
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
Architects from every country know that if you want to get a crazy building up, you go to China.
Swimming against this current is Ma Yansong's Beijing-based architecture firm MAD, the first Chinese firm to win a design competition outside China. With its winning concept slated to go up in Toronto in '09, an exhibition that just wrapped in Copenhagen, and a forthcoming book on Chinese architecture, MAD is at the forefront of a new generation of Chinese architects ready to compete on the world stage. Read all about them here.
via c scout
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Yesterday was the one-year anniversary for PaleoFuture, an excellent blog that documents one of our fetishes: retro-futurism. Culling articles, images and video on everything from 1930s future fashion to 1960s shopping-cart autos to 1980s Apple concept videos, PaleoFuture makes it fun to go back to the future and see where we went wrong.
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We were delighted to discover a great place with a wide selection of reusable bags so conveniently named Reusablebags.com. In addition to shopping, grocery, tote, lunch, and other bags, they sell reusable bottles--a sustainbable way to stay hydrated on your trips to and from the market. We like these ACME bags made from recycled PET bottles (left) and durable, lightweight rip-stop nylon (right).
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Coming up on February 15, SVA presents a day-long symposium on propaganda. Here's the pitch:
As the presidential race shifts into high gear, Americans are inundated with propaganda. Where does truth end and "spin" begin? Madison Avenue veterans and other media experts offer some perspective in Where the Truth Lies: A Symposium on Propaganda Today, presented by the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in cooperation with the PhD Programs in History and Sociology of the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
Here's a bit more:
The keynote presentation will be given by celebrated designer and creator of the "I Love NY" logo Milton Glaser, who asks, "Is there any difference between good propaganda and bad propaganda?" Among other topics, the program will address how American presidents persuade the public to go to war and what progressive politicians can learn from Las Vegas. There will also be a sneak preview of Carrier, an original PBS documentary about life on the USS Nimitz warship during a recent deployment to the Persian Gulf and a screening of propaganda videos. David Brancaccio, the Emmy award-winning host and senior editor of NOW, the weekly investigative news program on PBS, will moderate.
All info at the site.
In other SVA news, tonight is DesignCrit's 2nd evening of readings at KGB, 7-9pm.
Many thanks to Adam Reineck, guest blogger with a report from the floor of this past weekend's Compostmodern Conference:
I've been to a lot of conferences about sustainability, and two stand out in my mind: Bioneers and Compostmodern. Both leave a powerful impression because they showcase (and target) people who are committed to the issues, and often have the capacity to make an impact. Compostmodern, in particular, is special because it's small and free of cynicism.
This year's theme was behavioral change and Joel Makower emceed the day-long event. With a keen eye for what's fresh (he's a green consultant to big business), he provoked speakers throughout the day. He began, "Sustainability is like teenage sex...everybody says they're doing it, but nobody's doing it well." And then, "How good is good enough...how do we set the bars, and are we making the difference we need to make?"
Worldchanging's Alex Steffen flew through a slideshow of giant houses, airbrushed Hummers, and "home theaters, private jets, private jets with built in theaters …a flying home theater!" He asked, "What is prosperity? What are we getting sold here?" This is what the majority of Americans believe is true success, and unfortunately we're very good at marketing that to the world. Every one of the millions of souls that have ever watched Baywatch (his reference) believes this is what real living is all about. People in India and China, home to the major populations, are already trying their hardest to save up for a car--what happens when they're all driving one? The potential for 100 million Tata Nano cars (the world's cheapest, at $2500) added to the roads is a truly scary thought. According to Steffen, true to Jared Diamond's speculations, we're heading towards a "global Somalia."
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We've been around the block, so we know exactly when designers get to the real work. And it starts around 6 days before the client presentation. So today is the day that you have to ask yourself what your design talents are for, exactly. And even if you think you were put on this planet to design oh-so-sweet ultra-luxury goods, well, we'd hope that part of your design repertoire is in the design-for-good department.
So here's our pitch. We'd like to appeal to your positive side, and challenge you to enter (and win!) the Greener Gadgets Design Competition. If you've been preaching green (but not practicing it), or if you've been practicing green (but not bragging about it), if you're a design firm who wants to get their staff excited about a project beyond billable hours, or if you've been waiting on the sidelines for a problem to come in that affords you an A-1 opportunity to put a dent in it, well, we don't know how better we can tee this up for you.
$4500 in prize money. Live judging of finalists work at the Greener Gadgets Conference (in front of tons of media). Publication at Core77, Inhabitat, and other design blogs. Doing some good.
So today, 6 days out, we hope you'll decide to throw your hat into the ring. Right Now.
Public radio show Studio 360 is now featuring a bi-weekly podcast called Design for the Real World, where the "hidden genius of everyday things" is discussed. This week's subject is a classic kitchen favorite, the Kitchenaid mixer. Find it at Studio 360 and iTunes.
"From the very start, we've considered design a crucial, thrilling part of "Studio 360's" purview, which is why our longest-running regular feature is Design for the Real World. We've enlisted dozens of graphic designers, industrial designers, architects, artists and design critics to explain why they're fascinated -- in many cases obsessed -- by some particular everyday object, from baseball caps to Post-Its to vacuum cleaners to the industrial wasteland of northern New Jersey to a certain Rolling Stones album cover to the redesigned $5 bill. And now we've turned all of those illuminating, inspiring manifestoes into nifty 2-3-minute-long podcasts. I hope you enjoy them."
-Kurt Anderson, host
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)TED Talks : Frank Gehry: Nice building. Then what?
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences have discovered a way to detect and diagnose cervical and skin cancers without those long, nasty needles. Bioimpedance spectroscopy makes possible the measurement of electrical characteristics of biological tissue. Gyms use the technique to determine lean tissue, water and fat levels.
via medgadget
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Though it did poorly at the box office, Peter Berg's The Kingdom boasted an ambitious opening credit sequence that condensed Saudi Arabian history into roughly 200 seconds with bold graphics and video clips.
Maya whiz Nobuo Takahashi did something similar in 2006 with "Musashino Plateau" and "Japan," illustrating that country's postwar housing bubble through architectural animations. Buildings unfurl, stack and wriggle into ever-greater heights in what looks like an architect's dream--and a contractor's nightmare.
via pink tentacle
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Interaction Designer
Mint Digital
London, UK
We are looking for a passionate middleweight web designer (probably with 1-3 years commercial experience). A great sense of visual design and strong portfolio is a must. You'll probably have tons of experience with Photoshop or similar. An understanding of XHTML & CSS would be nice.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Higher education students around the world are invited to submit their best work to the 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards in 12 categories of 3 media areas : Interactive Media (browser-based design, non-browser-based design, designer/developer collaboration, mobile design, installation design), Video and Motion (animation, live action, motion graphics), and Traditional Media (illustration, packaging, photography, print). $60,000 in cash prizes will be awarded to category and group winners and finalists, along with Adobe software and a trip to New York City.
2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards
Deadline : May 2, 2008
Swedish housewares company Sagaform has named this consolidated pasta powerhouse for the food it treats. In and of itself, Pasta & Parmesan measures servings, grates cheese, and grabs a hold of slippery noodles for your perfect pasta plating pleasure. The multitasking utensil, designed by Swedish design firm Transformer, will be made available in stores and on Sagaform's internet catalog in February/March.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Check out this pioneering beverage and snack tray for cars, featured in the November 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.
Travel snacks can be enjoyed while the car is in motion with a dashboard tray which prevents cold drinks or water glasses from tipping over. The tray hangs from two cords which are held on the dashboard by suction cups. Bottles or glasses rest on two disks which are suspended below the tray on chains. When not in use, the tray can be folded into small space for storage in the glove compartment.
It's a good thing they didn't have Big Gulps or Super-Size Me's back then.
via boingboing
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Soon to graduate RISD MFA student and graphic designer Leslie Kwok created this floorplan of all 16 rooms she's lived in since birth--each scaled in proportion to memory.
via swissmiss
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Air Fork One
by Sibyllle, 2002
via pan-dan
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)Your next job could be...
Senior Interactive Designer
Netflix
Los Gatos, CA
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Live blogging is an art, and Alissa Walker at Unbeige has positively kicked the shit out of that art over this past weekend's Compostmodern Conference in San Francisco. Normally, we'd say that if you can't be there, "might want to check out the coverage at...." But in this case, even if you were there, we say "you must check out the coverage at Unbeige. Here's a choice passage to get you started:
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
This is only the beginning. In fact, the name of this conference couldn't be more appropriate, as moderator Joel Makower pointed out in one of his excellent segues. "Compost"-ing is one of the most fundamental, simple (and fundamentally simple) ways to engage with this lifecycle concept that all designers are trying to bring to their work. But the "postmodern" part is just so perfect. This new model--the postmodern sustainability movement--just kicked in. Like, this week.Earlier this week, IBM and others pledged to make their eco-patents public. When CES backlash hit a few weeks ago, the Greener Gadgets conference answered, and resoundingly: Now we hear CES wants to get involved with Greener Gadgets! And we can only imagine what kind of response will come from the already overwhelmingly positive reaction to the new Designers Accord.
This isn't "thinking about sustainability," this isn't "being environmentally-responsible," this isn't "adopting eco-friendly policies." This is now, officially, simply, your job. Maybe it's like the design world's version of the screenwriters' strike: What if all of you refused to work with clients who didn't get it, and yanked your business from vendors who didn't get it, and only collaborated with other designers who got it? How long would it take?
Designer iGoogling gives you fame-name looks without the price! You can now spruce up your iGoogle page with new designer themes by Yves Behar and John Maeda. Yves Behar's Earth-light header tracks the light of the sun on the earth as it changes throughout the day and the seasons. John Maeda serves up Simplicity is Complex, a different classic Maeda-esque pattern each day, comprised of color, image, and type realized with simple forms and functions.
Entries are being accepted for I.D. magazine's 2008 Student Design Review until February 1st, which means talented procrastinators still have a chance to win Best of Show and $1000 cash, or perhaps win to grace the pages of I.D.'s September/October 2008 issue.
register here
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Pacemaker is a pocket size DJ system, produced by a small Swedish company called Tonium.
The device features include a 120 Gb hard drive, an SNR of 103, and a slew of basic DJ audio tools, including a Line out Crossfader, a Headphones Crossfader, Bend, Pitch, DJ Pause, Cue, Loop, EQ, Filter, Sound FX, Headphone Jack, Line out jack and a USB 2.0 connector.
Reviewed in today's International Herald Tribune, it sure seems to contain quite some clever interaction design.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Richard Knerr, partner of Wham-O and inventor of the Hoola Hoop, Frisbee, and SuperBall, died last Monday, and John Schwaratz has a nice reflection in Sunday's Times. Here's a passage informed by Edward Tenner:
Edward Tenner, visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity," called toy fads "a surprisingly serious subject," and added that the toys that make it big say a lot about the societies that love them. "Toys really are us," he said.Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Our toys, Dr. Tenner said, flow from the cycles of innovation and refinement that define all technologies. The playthings tend to be the byproducts of a new technology and a fertile imagination. So Silly Putty came from failed experiments in making artificial rubber, and the Slinky was a tension spring that a naval engineer saw potential in--and not just potential energy. The postwar period from 1945 to 1975 was especially rich in innovation, and thus toys, Dr. Tenner said.
But the cultural moment has to be right as well. "You can see pictures in Bruegel of kids running after a hoop and a stick," he noted, but in the Hula Hoop the technology of cheap, plastic manufacturing dovetailed with a nation ready to shake its hips. The message of the Hula Hoop, and for that matter of Elvis Presley, he said, emerged in a time for many of intense optimism, which seemed to say: "You can let yourself go. You can dance wildly. You can swing wildly. You don’t have this dignity to preserve."
Mike Doyle's just returned from this year's Detroit Auto Show and has shot a fantastic gallery of over 160 images for your (drooling) pleasure. Start with the concept cars (natch), then head to the parties and back.
>>View Gallery<<
More Detroit Auto Show Coverage:
BLOG POSTS:
Detroit Auto Show
Detroit Auto Show Report 1: Electric Blue
Detroit Auto Show Report 2: Audi R8 V12 TDI
Detroit Auto Show Report 3: Lexus Exhibit
Detroit Auto Show Report 4: Tang Hua
Detroit Auto Show Report 5: Mach 5
Detroit Auto Show Report 6: Scion xD Crane Game
Detroit Auto Show Report 7: Mini + Ghostly
We just published a huge gallery of the best design at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Check out phones, music players, robots and more!
>>View Gallery<<
More CES 2008 Coverage:
VIDEOS:
Video Drive-by: Robot Sampler
Video Drive-by: Air Guitar Rocker
Video Drive-by: Belkin Waterproof Mouse
Video Drive-by: Microsoft Surface
Video Drive-by: Polaroid's Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer
BLOG POSTS:
First Impressions
Notable sightings
More from the floor
NBC Universal
LG Viewty 5.0-Megapixel Camera Phone
Super thin Sony OLED TV prototype
The Library of Congress is now sharing 1,600 color images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information and about 1,500 images from the George Grantham Bain News Service on Flickr! These particular photos have been extremely popular with visitors of the Library, are available at high resolutions, and have no known restrictions on publication or distribution.
thanks bryman!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)The goal of the RedesignMe foundation is to improve the products around us by collectively rethinking bad products into better products and good ideas into great ideas.
Everyone who loves to bitch about crappy design now has RedesignMe, a meeting place not just to complain and point out flaws, but to offer suggestions on how said crappy design could be better, and at best, push a redesign. So far you'll find posts on an invisible fence for pets, Chapstick, a handful of ticket machines, smoke detectors, and oh so much more.
RedesignMe collects the best product improvements and communicates them back to the original designers & producers. RedesignMe will mediate between producers and redesigners to make sure redesigners get rewarded for their ideas. We are currently working out detailed models to be able to accomplish this. Meanwhile enjoy the site and start redesigning!
thanks richard!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
A myriad of towers are currently under construction in the bustling city of Dubai and light artist/designer James Clar took note of construction lights being left on throughout the night. This prompted a rogue mission to selectively apply color filters to one of the unfinished buildings on Sheikh Zayed Road. Clar and his crew came up with a plan that involved sporting the same exact work gear as the laborers in order to gain access to lights higher up in the building. The end result was to be a neon happy face to remind the community of mixed class/race/culture of a positive message : "Relax. We all live here. Smile."
Unfortunately, they eventually got caught, were given a glimmer of hope, but were ultimately shut down in the end by the image-conscious owner, ironically crushing the installation's theme of community over commercialism.
Once we got to the Safety Manager's office I explained what we were really doing; an art installation. I explained the idea and showed him the proposal image; he smiled. He saw that nothing would be damaged and liked the positive message, but he could not give us permission, we would have to talk to the Site Manager the next day.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)What followed was me coming back to the site five more times to present the idea to higher level officers each time. Each time they would comment the same thing "I really like this idea, however I can't give you permission, you need to see [higher level officer]"
At the end of all the meetings the owner of the building, a local Emirati, denied me permission. He could not allow the possibility of something going wrong or someone getting hurt on his site, it would generate bad press for him. Unfortunately, often times people are less motivated when there is no promotion of goods involved, it's harder for them to understand the intent.
The original White House is the direct outcome of a competition won by James Hoban in 1792. As it stands today (after people fiddled around with it over the past 200 some years), it's got 6 stories, 55,000 square feet of floor space, 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, twenty-eight fireplaces, eight staircases, three elevators, five full-time chefs, a tennis court, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a jogging track, a swimming pool, and a putting green.
Storefront for Architecture and Control Room are challenging creative people all over the world to re-imagine the White House as if the same competition were to be held in 2008. They probably won't knock down the existing one to realize a new vision, but there's $9,500 in cash prizes and the best entries will be exhibited at the Storefront for Architecture gallery and published in Surface magazine. Not too shabby.
Home of the world's most powerful individual. Universally recognized symbol of political authority. One of America's greatest tourist attractions. Nerve-center of the world's most complex communications system. The ultimate architectural embodiment of power....What would a White House designed in 2008, year of election of the 44th President of the United States, look like?
On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenges you to design a new residence for the world's most powerful individual.
White House Redux
Deadline : April 20, 2008
($20 registration fee)
Your next job could be...
Head of Modelshop
Ingenhoven Architekten
D¨sseldorf, Germany
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)We know for sure that 12 of the 22 2008 Gravity Free conference speakers will be Theo Jansen (inventor/artist/mad scientist), Jeannine Oppewall (production designer), Jamie Drake (interior designer), Ryan Genz and Francesca Rosella (interaction designers/HUG shirt people), Arturo Vittori (aerospace designer), Stephen Brown, (professor of marketing research), Deborah Adler (product designer at Milton Glaser, Target Rx bottle designer), Stefan Sagmeister (graphic designer), Michelle Kaufmann (architect), Charles White III (father of modern airbrush), and Luigi Colani (industrial designer, curve master)--what a treat! Truly living up to it's theme as a multidisciplinary design innovation conference, we can't wait for Gravity Free to reveal the remaining 10 speakers for this year's festivities.
Gravity Free 2008 : The Year of Dangerous Minds
May 12 - 14, 2008
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
WWF (World Wide Fund for nature) in the UK has come with a report on deeper luxury. An interesting read for anyone who is involved in the industry of jewelry, accessories, cosmetics, clothing, etc.
WWF-UK ranked the world's largest luxury groups (featuring brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, IWC, Garnier, Louis Vuitton, etc.) on their social and environmental performance, as well as analyzing relevant attitudes in the luxury industry. Luxury is about being and having the very best! It's not about following a brand because everyone else does!
With the report WWF-UK urges luxury companies to put sustainability issues at the heart of their business strategy and to benchmark their progress.
The report is written by Jem Bendell and Anthony Kleanthous, and published by WWF-UK in November 2007, the full report is available for download free of charge here: WWF Deeper Luxury Report (pdf)
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (1)Aquaduct utilizes the human ability to pedal, giving hope to those in the developing world who struggle to gather, transport, filter, and store clean drinking and cooking water. Aquaduct is the creation of Adam Mack, Brian Mason, John Lai, Paul Silberschatz, and Eleanor Morgan and was recently announced as the Grand Prize Winner of the Innovate or Die competition.
A peristaltic pump attached to the pedal crank draws water from a large tank, through a carbon filter, to a smaller clean tank. The clean tank is removable and closed for contamination-free home storage and use. A clutch engages and disengages the drive belt from the pedal crank, enabling the rider to filter the water while traveling or while stationary.
thanks martijn!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (5)
In a nutshell, it's very light, thin as a gingersnap, sports a multi-touch trackpad and improved MagSafe connector, and unsurprisingly, has garnered a boatload of attention in just two days since its debut at Macworld. The consensus points to agreement on foxy looks, wow factor, and satisfactory portability, but disappointment with the enclosed battery, limited ports, absence of CD/DVD drive, and overall impracticality for everyday work use. Wired, Gizmodo, and the New York Times, (yeah, yeah along with the rest of the bloggiverse), have said their piece, surely with additional pieces to come. On the sidelines, Bruce Nussbaum forgoes hype for TV and the bigger picture and Greenpeace is sooo not impressed.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
...Not as I do," must have been the author/designer's defense. Luckily, the Design Police did not yet exist.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)Your next job could be...
Footwear Designer
Puma AG
Herzogenaurach, Germany
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Watch your kerning and stay out of the gutter. Design Police are watching. Fortunately, these tickets don't come with a fine.
via swissmiss
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
vintage paper-based condom envelopes via coudal
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York's MOMA, wants to spread an appreciation of design, in all shapes and forms -- and to remove any stigma of it being considered mere decoration.
On the website of the TED conference, you can watch her giving a quick tour of some design exhibitions she has organized, including "Mutant Materials," "Workspheres" and "Safe." (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Posted Jan 2008. Duration: 18:11.)
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
The Greener Gadgets Design Competition deadline is fast approaching (more on that in a second), and the conference itself is right around the corner on February 1st in NYC. If you are interested in environmental issues within consumer electronic product design, don't miss your chance to attend the event. And the sweeten the deal? Greener Gadgets is offering Core77 readers a sugary $77 discount on the ticket price. Here's the pitch:
The first-of-its kind Greener Gadgets Conference will feature groundbreaking presentations from Natalie Jeremijenko, Mary Lou Jepsen of One Laptop Per Child, environmental artist Chris Jordan, as well as panel discussions on electronics recycling programs and emerging renewable energy sources for cell phones and laptops (such as kinetic energy), finishing up with a live, on-stage presentation and audience judging of the Greener Gadgets Design Competition with Core77's Allan Chochinov, a panel of critics, and a clap-o-meter. The event is less than two weeks away and tickets are selling quickly, so we encourage you to purchase tickets sooner rather than later if you want to attend.Here's the good part:
To encourage early registration, we want to offer a special discount for Core77 readers for the next seven days: simply type 'Core77' into the coupon field and you will get $77 off your ticket (this discount does not apply to the already low-priced student tickets).
Conference website here.
And now for the competitor in you: There's still a 10 days left to register and enter the Greener Gadgets Design Competition (and we know that designers wait 'til the last minute anyway!), so fire up those rendering programs and get to it. (The deadline is midnight, January 27th.) The competition will be giving away $4500 in cash prizes to the smartest greener gadgets designs, and your work will be displayed at the conference in front of hundreds of journalists from publications ranging from BusinessWeek to CNET to Wired, as well as reps from companies like Philips, Sony, HP & Nokia. Plus, you could win some cold hard cash.
Competition website here.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
There is a great article on the BBC website on how mobile phones can transform the developing world.
The story is written by Dr. Joel Selanikio, a physician and co-founder of DataDyne.org, a non-profit creating open-source software for public health and international development, including the EpiSurveyor mobile public health data collection toolkit.
Sure, you could have checked out all the digital cameras and slim-city television displays (or snuck into the hot NSFW action next door), but the cool kids at this year's Consumer Electronics Show were hangin' with the 'bots. Check out this drive-by video sampler for some of the stand-outs.
Shown in the video: Robotis Bioloid educational modular robot kit, Tri-bot from Wowwee, Sony's Rolly, and I-ROBO.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
You probably already know about the Polling Project we blogged back in 2006, but in case it's not on your radar, time once again for some citizen journalism. The project asks people across America to submit photographs of the election process, and the results have been thrilling. (Props to Winterhouse, AIGA, NYTimes and Thirdwave.)
Nevada, South Carolina, Florida, and Maine are around the corner, and then you know what kind of Tuesday is after that!
Read the DO pitch here.
View the site here.
Photo above: Matthew Kraus's "How to vote" from Suyvesant Town, NY (47th District) (Link)
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Mini's sweet little two and three half door Clubman model made its Detroit debut this week, but the real draw to the booth was the electro and techno coming from Ghostly International/Spectral Sound DJs Sam Valenti IV (pictured above), Ryan Elliott and Kate Simko. Mini knows what's cool.
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (2)
Despite a collective resentment against compact fluorescents' locker room charm, those who "light-up" might have to bite the bullet in a few years unless something warmer-toned becomes available.
After more than eight months of intense deliberations between Congress and bulb manufacturers, environmental groups and other parties, a law that requires light bulbs to become more energy efficient became part of the energy bill that President Bush signed into law on Dec. 19.Over a three-year period beginning in 2012, all new bulbs will have to use 25 percent to 30 percent less energy for the same light output as today's typical incandescent bulbs. Given that the vast majority of bulbs now on the market that meet those standards are compact fluorescents, which use 70 percent less energy and last 6 to 10 times longer than incandescents, Americans may have little choice but to accept them as part of the future.
In addition to this report, the NYT asked the people why they did or didn't make the switch.
image : Tony Cenicola for The New York Times
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Tuners Five Axis made a pretty wicked looking custom xD for Scion, with one extra special feature: a built-in crane game.
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (0)
Researchers at Rice University in Houston has created a material they claim is the darkest material on Earth. The substance, comprised of carbon tubes standing on end, absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light and is nearly "30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness."
Aside from attempting to legitimize a new Guinness World Record, the research team is exploring the possibility of using the material for infrared detection, astronomical observation, and solar energy conversion (which would give new meaning to the phrase "black power").
It is composed of carbon nano-tubes, tiny tubes of tightly rolled carbon that are 400 hundred times smaller than the diameter of a strand of hair. The carbon helps absorb some of the light.These tubes are standing on end, much like a patch of grass. This arrangement traps light in the tiny gaps between the "blades."
The researchers have also made the surface of this carbon nano-tube carpet irregular and rough to cut down on reflectivity.
"Such a nano-tube array not only reflects light weakly, but also absorbs light strongly," said Shawn-Yu Lin, a professor of physics at Rensselaer, who helped make the substance.
The researchers have tested the material on visible light only. Now they want to see how it fares against infrared and ultraviolet light, and other wavelengths such as radiation used in communications systems.
thanks steve!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
Normann Copenhagen has just released Grass, a delightful stoneware vase designed by Claydies.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
The amount of fiberglass in the Cobo basement Michigan Hall is astounding. Behold the Mach 5 in the flesh, from the Speed Racer movie.
Maybe it's just because of John Goodman, but I can't help thinking about the Flintstones moive while watching the trailer for this...
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (0)
They always keep the special stuff in the basement at Cobo Hall. This trio of electric vehicles from Chinese manufacturer Tang Hua are pure happiness dressed up in screaming yellow fiberglass. The one on top is called "Detroit Fish"... and it's amphibious. What else do you need to know?
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (0)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Bart van den Bogaard (Vleuten, Netherlands)
Featured Project : APFCT ZES III
The ZES (Zero Emission Scooter) III prototype was designed and built in Holland for American fuel-cell systems development company APFCT.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Your next job could be...
Industrial Designer
Intel
Hillsboro, OR
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
In line with the Apartment Therapy/Blueprint Jumpstart January project, Gregory over at AT posted his own work-in-progress. His hi-tech antique experiment involves jamming all sorts of Apple goodies into a vintage sideboard. We like.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
This may not be news to some, especially RISD folks, but we weren't about to drop the ball on this little tidbit spotted at Unbeige. In response to an art/design school sports-ish post, RISD alum Tim Belonax made clear that "a good number of schools on the east coast (Pratt, Cooper Union, RISD) have sports teams (although none are Div. I to [his] knowledge)." He also made sure to point out the spherical body-part nature of RISD's athletic teams which include The Nads (hockey), The Jugs (womens soccer) and The Balls (basketball). And don't forget the extroverted mascot, Scrotie, who gets crowds pumped enough to chant "Go Nads!"
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
You know you're a success when they try to outlaw ya! Virginians may have to think twice about what they dangle from their truck's tow hitches as a bill has just been introduced into the state legislature that would prohibit the vehicular display of human genitalia replicas. Yes, Virginia, there may be no more Nutz, those expressive artifacts of personalization (Really, vanity plates are so 1994).
But how can you show your support for Operation Enduring Freedom without your Support The Troops Desert Camo Nutz (above)
We've Respectfully placed the Yellow Ribbon designating Support the Troops on our Exclusive 8" Customized Desert Scheme Camo Nutz. Your participation in this endeavor will make possible a $10.00 donation to www.supportthetroops.org
Maybe the backlash is an annual thing (New Year's Resolution: lose weight, spend more time reading good books, get rid of those tasteless testicular accessories on trucks); they tried this in Maryland last year.
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (1)
Disappointingly, there aren't many new exhibits at the show this year. (I'm usually more interested in the architecture than the cars.) Lexus however has an all new booth - by far their best yet and one of the most well executed at the show.
Designed by Mark Lawrence of the George P. Johnson Company, Lexus' new exhibit combines highly refined materials and strong organizational qualities. Much of exhibit design is marketing through architecture, and this stand speaks very well for the brand. Abundant use of stainless steel and glass is paired with stone and wood, reflecting Lexus' design philosophy of technology balanced with humanity.
Although there is a touch of Japanese influence in the design, it looks more toward a global definition of luxury than Infiniti, who has very successfully embraced its cultural heritage in recent years to establish itself as more of a cult brand. Less than 20 years on, both companies have found strong and distinct identities in a market segment dominated by some of the most recognizable names in the world.
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (2)
One of the biggest stars of the show, and most telling about the climate of the industry, is Audi's R8 V12 TDI Concept. As its name suggests, Audi engineers stuffed an efficient V-12 turbodiesel engine into their top-of-the-line sports car, producing 500hp and 738lb-ft of torque. (That'll get you to ticket speed in a hair over four seconds.) The engine is already compliant with Euro VI emissions rules that go into effect in 2014.
The styling enhancements are minor but hugely impactful. In addition to larger air intakes and nicely sculpted ground effects, there is an enormous intake set into the glass roof. The result makes the already aggressive standard issue R8 look downright anemic.
The marriage of high performance and high efficiency is not a new concept to Audi: their diesel powered R10 race car has been dominating Le Mans for the past two years. Two years ago the V12 TDI got some confused looks, but today the world is ready for its first fuel efficient supercar.
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (0)
And speaking of experience design, the latest article at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog talks about the career of an IxD(esigner), how one gets there, and what it's all about. Here's a sample:
What also makes the questions hard is the feeling that Interaction Design is something that happens anyway, with or without the input of Interaction Designers. As an Industrial Designer, the parallel is obvious: many of us are fond of pointing out that every product in the world gets designed by someone, whether or not they know what they're doing. Similarly, every time a user interacts with a piece of technology (there's that broad-ness problem again), someone designs that interaction, and frequently they screw it up. Hence the discipline. Interaction Designers, more than any other group of creative professionals I know, are keenly aware of their own usefulness and their own dispensability.
Read the full article
More Creative Seeds
If you're in NYC next Thursday, January 24th, you might want to check out IXDA's Sustainable Interactions panel discussion. Here's the pitch:
Join IxDA NYC and our panelists to discuss how interaction designers can practice our work in a more sustainable and socially conscious way. Come and find out what our industry visionaries and experts are doing in this area and what you can do to change the world for a better tomorrow. We will get a chance to look at some projects people are doing in service, product design and eco-visualization. We will provide an evening of conversations with the panelists and give you intriguing examples from the field to challenge the notion of how interaction design can make great social impact.Jennifer Van de Meer, O2NYC
Sean White, Columbia University
Tom Igoe, New York University Interactive Telecommunications Program
Allan Chochinov, Core 77
All info is here.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Props to Material ConneXion for going for the green here. Below is a snippet from the release:
The newly added materials are an important part of a strategic collaboration between Material ConneXion and Cradle to Cradle design paradigm creators MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, LLC) and EPEA (Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency). Recognizing the value of each other’s expertise, the three companies have joined forces to offer Cradle to Cradle Material Assessment, Certification, Sustainable Material and Product Development and Sustainable material workshops.
More info here.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Pentagram's DJ Stout gussied up the cover of Dairy Today, no doubt, but he also learned a thing or two about capturing all that is cow. "In addition to a bold new logotype, the magazine will feature a stylized 'portrait' of a dairy cow on the cover of each issue in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors." Looks like jabbing the animal in its jugular is as effective as yelling "Woo! Hey look at me I'm a crazy man!"
via unbeige
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)In a guest essay over at Design Observer, Cheryl Towler Weese elaborates on the concerns of rising crime rates related to the popularity of the iPod. The device is iconic because of its ubiquitous physical presence as well as the can't-miss ads that highlight those quintessential headphones that scream, "Hey I probably have an iPod or iPhone or maybe an iPod Nano or Shuffle at the very least." Weese juxtaposes the iPod's overwhelming success with critical claims that Apple lacks social responsibility.
...here's the real question: could a climbing crime rate and the rise of the iPod be related? Has the iPod's design increased its likelihood of theft, and if so, what role could Apple's designers play in developing solutions?...When desire turns so often to theft and even murder, how can you target, let alone measure the degree of a manufacturer's complicity? In this case, the design of the product is intrinsically connected to its desire, and while Apple's designers deserve credit for creating the most coveted gadget in recent memory, their relationship to this critical social problem remains deeply ambiguous. It's time for them -- for all of us -- to use our design skills to develop equally innovative solutions to issues of larger human consequence.
For starters, we suggest simply buying a new, non-Apple pair of headphones. (If you're still really worried, you can invest in a Zune.)
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (7)
The similarity between Ive's Apple products and vintage Dieter Rams designs is certainly striking. We've all seen the iPod and Braun's radio side by side...but what about all the other "distant" cousins? Take the iPhone and Rams' calculator for example. In this discussion, Side By Side It's Stunning, we're exploring how history, along with good design, repeats itself. Join in!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (6)Your next job could be...
Product Designer
Fur Pet's Sake
St. Louis, MO
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Architype Review has posted its Notable Projects picks for 2008 with a focus on civic buildings. The 8 projects include a revamped Boston City Hall (speculative project) by Höweler + Yoon Architecture (pictured above).
Originally designed to be porous and accessible to the public, Boston City Hall today stands monumental and impenetrable, its multiple entrances sealed. Focused on issues of public space and accessibility, our open menu of design proposals includes strategies that outfit City Hall with public interfaces at a range of scales. Taken a few at a time or in combination, these strategies recast the existing City Hall by intertwining its structure with the city. Extending the original vision of City Hall as a robust scaffold for urban life, two possible combinations--Sleeve and Wrap--seek to upgrade the structure to engage contemporary public life.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Research, as we all know, is an essential element of any design project. Sure, we're all handy with Google and Wikipedia, but if you're in the Bay Area and are craving real-life design research skills, put this class in your pocket. The Involution Master Academy is offering an intensive one-day course in Design Research Methods, instructed by Steve Portigal.
This course will provide first-hand knowledge and training in core design research methods. At its root, design research emphasizes learning about people and using the insights gained to inform and inspire design. We will focus on exemplary models of what research is, what it looks like, its role in concept generation, and what it produces.Students will develop their own design research philosophy, learn how to think about people, behavior, and culture, as well as the importance of being open to new perspectives. They will also learn tactical skills they can immediately put into practice: how to conduct observations and interviews, find research participants, and interpret and synthesize results as fodder for design and storytelling.
Saturday March 1, 2008
10:00 AM-6:00 PM
$699 per student
Imagine a real-time dashboard for buildings, neighbourhoods, and the city, focused on conveying the energy flow in and out of spaces, centred around the behaviour of individuals and groups within buildings. Imagine how this would give users of the buildings both the real-time and longitudinal information they need to change their behaviour and thus use buildings, and energy, more effectively.
Dan Hill, Monocle's director of web and broadcast and the BBC's former head of interactive technology and design, presented these ideas and more during an inspiring talk at the Australian conference "Interesting South".
Both a video and a background write-up are available online.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Is blue the new green? Or the new orange? A little of both it seems.
Electric blue - rather a particular shade of light yet highly saturated blue - is the predominant trend color at the North American International Auto Show this year. Lamborghini painted two of its three cars on display a gorgeous gloss blue that looked almost like porcelain enamel. Ever since the availability of electroluminescent sheet material, more and more instrument clusters have gone blue, but we haven't seen the shade quite so much on the exteriors.
Blue is edging out green as the signature color for environmental propulsion technologies. Electric blue has been Toyota's "energy" color for years, and BLUETEC is the name of Mercedes Benz's clean diesel technology. BMW and GM are among others who've adopted blue to show how green they are.
In the design of exhibits - lighting in particular - blue LEDs are everywhere. It communicates clean and high-tech. It makes environmental initiatives seem less granola and a bit more sexy. As a paint color, it hasn't hit with the same level of over-saturation [pun intended] orange did back in the late 1990s, but don't be surprised if everyone follows Lambo's lead by this time next year. (The Italians are supposed to set style trends after all...)
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (1)
Mark Richards has captured the beauty of computer equipment in his photography series, Core Memory.
via coudal
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Industrial Designer and Pratt Professor Lucia DeRespinis has been named the recipient of the 2007 Rowena Reed Kostellow Award, an achievement that recognizes people who have advanced and skillfully applied the principals of design that Rowena Reed Kostellow developed.
"The committee selected Lucia because of the beauty of her personal work and teaching. She consistently applies the principals of abstract design she learned from Miss Reed," says Tucker Viemeister, Rowena Fund Chair.Lucia has been an Industrial Designer for over fifty years and is an Adjunct Professor at Pratt where she studied with Rowena. She is renowned for picking the pink and orange color scheme for Dunkin' Donut's - based on her 5 year old daughter's favorite colors! She was in the Bard Graduate Center's exhibition and major publication: Women In Design/1900 - 2000. She worked for Sandgen and Murtha, Delco Tableware International, Minners & Co. and with George Nelson Assoc. where she worked on the amazing 1959 American Exhibit in Moscow designing the exhibition with a team of 8 from the Nelson office plus Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, and Bill Katavolos. And don't forget all the clocks she designed while at the Nelson Office that are still available at the MoMA store!
2007 Rowena Reed Kostellow Award Ceremony honoring Lucia DeRespinis
January 25, 2008
Knoll Showroom
76 9th Avenue
New York, NY
Individual: $50
Patron: $500 or more
Student: $10
(tax deductible donation)
(Proceeds and silent auction will benefit The RRK Fund)
The name says it all : Consumer Electronics Show. CES is a tech addict's dream--a multi-day extravaganza that showcases a plethora new gadgetry and provides a place for doodad fanatics to connect and converse about what's most drool-worthy. But what's the real significance, really? In the larger scheme of things, does CES offer a glimpse into what technology can do for us tomorrow by showing what it does today? ...Or is it just a bunch of "stuff"--a meaningless mess of plastic, metal, and circuitry? ip_wirelessly sparked this very question on a heated discussion, Garbage @ CES.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Eva Funderburgh shares her crafty concept for baked, pixelated goodness on her Pixel Cookies! Flickr set that shows various stages of the process--including pumping cookie dough out of a Playdough extruder--to make pixel-themed cookies like these Tetris and heart-shaped treats.
via ffffound!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Your next job could be...
Located at : Willamette University in Salem, OR
With the title of : Creative Director
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Attention mid-coasters: sustainable materials resource and community site Ecolect will celebrate its launch on the "3rd coast", better known as Chicago, at the local Nau store. "The event is a collaboration between Nau Apparel- a truly sustainable high-performance clothing company, and Ecolect- the first freely accessible on-line database of sustainable materials for architects, builders, furniture designers, fashion designers, and more."
Ecolect 3rd Coast Launch Party
January 18, 2008 from 6-9 P.M.
Nau Chicago Store
2118 North Halsted Street
We'll be reporting from the floor of the North American International Auto Show all afternoon.
I don't know if anything can top yesterday's hot bull-on-bull action, or someone slamming their Pontiac Vibe into a police car right in front of the hall... but whatever may go down, we'll be there.
Posted by: Michael Doyle | Comments (0)
"In a bold move, the Rhode Island School of Design announced in December that John Maeda, associate director of research at the MIT Media Lab, where he has served since 1996, will take over as RISD's 16th president starting in June. Maeda has long been an advocate for humanizing technology and for marrying design and computer science in a seamless whole. As a designer he has experimented with motion typography and has developed complex systems for clients such as Cartier, Google, Philips, Reebok and Samsung. He has also authored books including Creative Code and the most recent, The Laws of Simplicity, which has been published in 14 languages. Needless to say, this announcement came as a surprise to many in the design field. How will assuming the presidency of a major design institution alter the ways Maeda works? More importantly, how will Maeda alter an institution with so much history? Although all will become clear after he assumes the seat of power, we couldn't wait to hear his reasons for taking on this challenge and his immediate plans for the future."
via Design Observer
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (2)
Last September, the LIFT conference (one of Europe's top gatherings) organised an evening in Seoul, Korea. One of the speakers was Bruce Sterling and the video of his presentation, entitled "Industrial Products and Ubiquity" has just been posted.
Bruce talks about sustainable design, recycling, total life-cycle management, tags, radio-frequency identity, search engines, locative media, computer fabricators, industrial design, user records, metadata, web commerce and ubiquitous computing in the service of sustainability.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (2)
Celebrating their 70th anniversary this year, Polaroid are back in fine form dropping one of the most interesting products we came across, the Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer using ZINK's zero ink printing technology and bluetooth. While it may be an obvious step in the evolution of the Polaroid range--marrying the relatively inexpensive digital snapshot culture with the joy of instant prints--the good news is the photo paper is expected to retail for about 30% of current polaroid paper making it much more accessible. Check out the video for a slightly over-caffeinated presentation from the floor.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
The scene stealer at Sony's booth was their ultra-thin organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions.
Starting with a crazy thin 3mm thick 11" model, the 27" prototype pictured above is only 10mm thick. OLED technology not only allows this extreme thinness to be achieved but offers much greater viewing angles then LCD's, and an amazing 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
No word on when the 27" will get to market, you early adopters are looking at $2,499 USD for the 11" model.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)Well, you can't feel but admiration for someone who has the courage to take design thinking head on by describing it as "naive, at best" (and yes, the author refers to the likes of Bruce Nussbaum, David Kelley, Hillary Cottam, Charles Leadbeater, the World Economic Forum, and IDEO). Here are a few lines:
"Design metaphors obscure the ideological--and political--decisions involved in tackling societal issues. [...] This generation's design movement is built less on a coherent set of ideas than a simple, can-do attitude. [...] When it comes to the nastier socioeconomic and environmental corollaries of growth, everything is going to be just fine. No need to reevaluate or contest the road to economic development. When we run into "problems," we'll simply innovate our way out of them."
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (6)Your next job could be...
Located at : Fox Head, Inc. in Newport Beach, CA
With the title of : Online Art Director
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Apart from alternating between feelings of nausea and delight, there's no doubt that Bob Partington's accomplished that "wow" factor with his mechanical wonder otherwise knows as the Blood Pen.
via cpluv
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (9)
Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) designed a series of pre-designed habitats for Useful + Agreeable. The Useful + Agreeable house includes innovative features like aerospace grade aluminum panels, solar power, rooftop patio, rain collection, flexible floorplans, and built-in furniture to accommodate its economical use of space and energy. Not to be mistaken for pre-fabricated homes the U+A house is "pre-designed" meaning buyers from anywhere around the world can purchase and download building plans and source the materials locally.
The U+A house options range from the "mini hi-rise" (pictured, 660 sq.ft - 61 m2) to "low-rise", or "high and wide" options extending up to 1800 square feet (167 m2).
If you're interested:
The potential purchaser can communicate with Useful + Agreeable by telephone or web video link, from wherever they are in the world. Once specific sizing, zoning and other requirements are met, many materials are sourced locally, while others are shipped for assembly on site.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
10 MPH, an indie documentary about an ambitious cross-country trip via Segway, is now available for your viewing pleasure...free of charge!
10 MPH becomes the first movie to be simultaneously released in its entirety on YouTube while also offering a free iTunes download through a partnership with OurStage. The critically-acclaimed film was originally released on DVD in May of 2007 and made news as one of 2007's top DIY stories.
We're sad they didn't bump into that Segway-ing mom on the way, but between Seattle and Boston, they had plenty of time--100 days to be exact-- to run into interesting people and make true two-wheeled history.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)Another year, another electronics and gadgets conference that is out of whack with modern concerns around sustainability and the planet. The C.E.S. is an arrogant refusal to admit to the problems the electronics industry has created in terms of material waste, poisonous polution, energy waste and over-consumption.Our man on the ground, Scott Burns, tells us that although some brands there might be talking about sustainability or at at least the advancement in technology in allowing devices to perform more with less power, the show itself is anything but green (aside from the mass transit and buses).
Ironically, CES says that it is reducing its own impact on the environment wherever it can - but it doesn't seem to register that it's actually contributing to a greater problem than the number of nonrecycled water bottles left over at the end of the show.
Shazam! These words and more spurt forth from the mouth (or fingertips, rather) of PSFK head-honcho Piers Fawkes who was not afraid to ask "why the hell C.E.S. is allowed to continue as it is without significant criticism of the companies who showcase there."
Relieving the post of rant-status is Fawkes' approaching Greener Gadgets Conference organizers with questions like, "can personal technology ever be sustainable?" in addition to some stickier inquiries and statements that most likely helped to provoke a healthy dose of tongue-lashings from readers--the does being so healthy to induce an equally calm yet confident retaliation post.
There's no doubt that people want gadgetry. Electronics are here to stay. So the solution doesn't mean eliminating these devices, but calls for a focus on aspects like materials, manufacturing, life span, social impact and recycling. It is a true challenge that we face today, and designers have a great opportunity to influence change. We encourage you to share your best concepts for our Greener Gadgets competition.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Fred Vogelstein's got a lengthy piece over at WIRED titled The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry, which does include a lot of heard-it-already recaps, but also unshrouds a few tidbits of secrecy regarding the phone's development being...shrouded in secrecy, for example:
Through it all, Jobs maintained the highest level of secrecy. Internally, the project was known as P2, short for Purple 2 (the abandoned iPod phone was called Purple 1). Teams were split up and scattered across Apple's Cupertino, California, campus. Whenever Apple executives traveled to Cingular, they registered as employees of Infineon, the company Apple was using to make the phone's transmitter.
via unbeige
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Ah--to hear the words of level-headed businesspeople who actually get design. When Richard Sapper's expensive, award-winning Halley lamp for Lunesco sold poorly, blame was not bandied about: "Going for an iconic designer and for Richard was not a mistake," says [Lucesco co-founder Curtis] Abbott. "Our mistake was we didn't have the market research to help us understand the sales potential for this product."
This from an excellent article on the prolific Sapper in Businessweek, detailing some tidbits and highlights from his 50-year career. With clients like IBM (and now Lenovo), Artemide and Alessi, the man commands a level of respect positively inspiring for designers.
"Richard gets into long and hotly contested arguments with our engineers," says Alberto Alessi, "but, at the end, the results are stunning and our technical skills are stronger."
The article also includes a slideshow of some of Sapper's greatest hits.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)More info on the Santa Cruz Design Innovation Center that we blogged about a couple weeks ago: to re-cap, veryone knows artists can re-make neighborhoods (read: New York's SoHo, DUMBO), but can designers re-make economies? When the Californian city of Santa Cruz decided to do something about its flagging economy two years ago, the SC Redevelopment Agency hired Warren Consulting Group to look at the problem.
[Principal Cliff] Warren identified an estimated 1,000 local designers as an untapped source for worldwide recognition and business growth.
The idea, [Warren] said, is to bring area designers--including designers of landscape, architecture, software, hardware and athletic gear like wetsuits and surfboards--together under one roof to collaborate and share ideas as well as attract new business opportunities.
The center has three goals:
- Promote Santa Cruz as a design destination.
- Create networking and collaboration opportunities for designers.
- Educate students, companies and investors on the importance of design.
Read the full tale of this ongoing effort here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Considering the Viewty (LG KU990) is still not available in the States, it was given prime position at the LG booth next to the live DJ, with multiple units mounted around a large rotating animated robotic looking display. Viewty is a 5.1 megapixel quad band GSM camera phone. It boasts low-light capabilities, high-speed video recording (120fps), direct-to-YouTube uploading, a DivX player and handwriting recognition. The menu navigation is intuitive, the camera functionality extensive and styling minimal with an understated matt-black finish. Only criticism aside from the name (it's a viewty) is the missing lens protection, although it will be a while before we see that addressed in camera phones.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
That there is the Tata Nano, the spiritual successor to the original Volkswagen Beetle. With manual steering, a sub-one-liter engine and wheels the size of dinner plates, the "People's Car" from India was designed not for aggresive performance, but for aggressive economy.
How aggressive? The Nano gets 50 miles to the gallon and will retail for roughly $2,500--the same price as the DVD player option on a new Lexus, as one reviewer drolly noted.
While the diminutive car will most likely not meet U.S. and European safety standards, it wasn't designed to compete with cars in those markets; it was designed for people whose previous form of transportation was connected to their ankles. Tata expects an annual demand of one million cars. As the so-called "other half" gains access to automobiles, what will be the impact on the transportation design field?
via bbc news
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We've all seen "Light Grafitti" (arguably invented by Picasso) and its variations before, and now the genre's advancing a bit through more precise shuttering (photos above). Also worth a look is artist Eric Staller's site; he's been tripping the light fantastic since the '70s.
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Pontus Björlin's Pappersdator allows you to "manually" access data.
via manystuff
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Too appropriate! WIRED editor Jeff Howe's recently come up with Coversourcing, a competition to design the cover of his new book, Crowdsourcing : How the Power of the Crowd is driving the future of business. Sponsored by Random House and Creative Review, the competition "invite[s] designers, creatives, and doodlers alike to submit their own designs for the book jacket. You can vote on your favourites, and the winning design will be printed on the UK edition of Crowdsourcing and win £500."
via notcot
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)Some of these are a bit old, but all are neat examples of expandable furniture. The light fixture (first) is pretty cool, but it was the tables (second and third) that really blew us away:
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (5)
The 2008 TED conference program has been uploaded to the TED site, featuring session schedules and a complete speaker and event list. Those not attending, which is probably most of us, at least know what TED Talks we can look forward to watching for free later on in the year. Speakers include but are not limited to TED Prize winners Neil Turok, Dave Eggers, and Karen Armstrong, as well as Al Gore, Yves Behar, Ravi Shankar, Kaki King, Peter Schwartz, Isaac Mizrahi, and Amy Tan.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
As residents of another overcrowded, pedestrian-saturated metropolis, we're amazed how people in Tokyo manage to squeeze by each other and all this publicly planted plant life. PingMag reports:
Tokyo is not known for its greener pastures but for hypermodern architecture and a cityscape that looks like a future preconceived in the early 80s. "Wow! Amazing!" is how tourists usually react. But how do people actually live in this concrete urbanity? Given the lack of vast green spaces, Tokyoites are taking action: First, reclaim your immediate environment and stuff the sidewalk with flower pots as much as possible. Second, on the official side, imitate nature to soothe the stressed commuters with a forest of plastic plants, cement trees - or the friendly chirping of an artificial bird. PingMag shows you the green islands and blossoming places in this most dense populated area.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Your next job could be...
Located at : Target Corporation in Minneapolis, MN
With the title of : Associate Specialist, Copywriter
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The production behind the NBC Universal live broadcast from the CES is a sobering experience for someone who's been walking the floor with a digital SLR. Encouraging people to interact with their content, 2GB flash drives were given to visitors to download and walk away with sample clips from touch-screen kiosks placed around the booth.
Haptics is here, with Motorola's new ROKR phone. Their iPhone-esque "ModeShift" design changes the graphics on the interface depending on what you're using the device for at any given moment, but they take it one step further with tactile feedback--click-vibrations you feel when pressing a "button."
One thing we're curious about is the "airplane mode" touted by this and tons of other devices currently on the market. Our experience has been that when flight attendants see you with headphones on or futzing around with any electronic device, you're ordered/threatened to turn it off immediately. In other words, they don't seem to know or care that Motorola figured out how to disable the wireless. Have any of you used this technology to successfully overcome a flight attendant's protestations?
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (12)
Philips touted their new design identity at CES, described by their Consumer Lifestyle CEO as "simpler and softer, more sophisticated design. Something that touches the heart as well as the head."
"The design language has moved away from a 'masculine technology box' to a smoother, more feminine approach," the PR lit continues. Have they pulled it off? We've not seen any blatant examples of the new approach save for a couple of locket-shaped USB drives, but then again, we're only looking at photos. You can judge for yourself at the extensive product gallery of their CES lineup.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
About a month ago, I posted a link on Core77 to a video of Chris Anderson's keynote speech at Nokia World about the "emerging world of free" (which is still very much worth seeing).
Now CNet has published an interview with Anderson on the relation between open source and the long tail. Check it out.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
What do you get when you cross a video game with a belt buckle? Hmm. Perhaps that doesn't sound so intriguing? Well, watch this video and then tell us how intriguing it is. R O C K - O N ! ! ! !
Posted by: core jr | Comments (3)
Yes, Latin Jazz, American Journalists, and the Year of the Rat are all very noteworthy new USPS stamps for 2008, but we're about to hoard these Charles and Ray Eames sets at our local post office. (So sorry in advance if you go to the same post office as us.)
In recognition of their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, manufacturing and photographic arts, designers Charles and Ray Eames will be honored next summer with a pane of 16 stamps designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC. If you've ever sat in a stackable molded chair, you've experienced their creativity. Perhaps best known for their furniture, the Eameses were husband and wife as well as design partners. Their extraordinary body of creative work -- which reflected the nation's youthful and inventive outlook after World War II -- also included architecture, films and exhibits. Without abandoning tradition, Charles and Ray Eames used new materials and technology to create high-quality products that addressed everyday problems and made modern design available to the American public.
thanks bryman!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Check out the video, then knock yourselves out at the site.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (5)
Starting at 9 A.M. EST on January 30th, 2008, "Face It: There Is a Solution to Global Warming," a national webcast, will be aired on the Architecture 2030 site. (This is the next step following the February 2007 Webcast, "The 2010 Imperative Global Emergency Teach-in.") The webcast will introduce the Reverberate Campaign, an umbrella title that covers 2030's initiatives and events for 2008, including two student design competitions calling for projects (the nature of which is to be revealed during the webcast) that will "reverberate through their campus and society at large."
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
There was a ton of material during the discussion and Q&A portions of Core77's Offsite event, Design, Wit, and the Creative Act, but we've put together a tasty sampler of some of the best.
WATCH NOW (10 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
The pace and intensity at the CES can feel like being permanently stuck in Best Buy on christmas eve at closing time without that last present. In between the overwhelming volume of super thin display screens for every possible work and home entertainment need, this year we're seeing a bit more attention to the product design (thanks apple) and a lot more of "telling stories" to explain the holistic offering from companies.
Pictured above, The HP booth heavily leveraging mid-century design references to raise their 'design-savvy' profile. Samsung teamed up with Bang & Olufsen to produce two high-end concept mobile phone--music players, the 'Serene' and 'Serenata'. LG's vaguely named 'Watch Phone' thats only at prototype stage for now. Intel's side room to help visualize and explain their technology to the people. The CASIO 'G'zOne' (pronounced jeez-wun) extreme phone designed for the toughest environments boasting water resistance to a depth of one meter for up half an hour, and lastly a shot of the CASIO stand.
The future is now, and Apple might very well be at the forefront of the movement. Their prediction for laptops in 2008 will change the way we view and use technology. Watching films on this iPhone-like tablet may even spare you the wrath of Mr. Lynch.
Check out it out for yourself!
Thanks Kane!
If you're cursed with limited space, but blessed with exposed beams, look up. You're a prime spatially-challenged candidate for this simple and effective DIY rafter storage solution that involves some plywood planks and screws/nails. It's a brilliant everyday solution for ceilings just within fingertips' reach, and if higher than that, a long-term stowaway spot for books you'll never read again and miscellaneous pack rat bric-a-brac.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)Your next job could be...
Located at : Life is good, Inc. in Boston, MA
With the title of : Graphic Designer
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Open Architecture Challenge, sponsored by AMD and Architecture for Humanity, asks anyone, not just designers and architects, from both developed and non-developed countries to visualize a sustainable multi-purpose technology facility for under-served communities in Africa, Asia, and South America. The ultimate goal is to provide affordable Internet access to 50% of the world by 2015.
You do not have to be trained architect to participate. Anyone can enter. Entrants are invited to develop a design for one, two or all three sites.Proceeds from the competition entry fees will be awarded to the top entry for each site. The overall winning solution will be built and one years' operating costs will be given to the community partner with funds of up to $250,000 provided by AMD. Centers will be constructed for the other two sites and replicated for additional community partners as funding becomes available.
By entering the competition you will have not only the opportunity to work one-on-one with a community to realize your design and bring connectivity and computing power to those who need it most but also a chance to share your ideas for a more connected future with the world.
AMD Open Architecture Challenge
Deadline : January 15, 2008
velodesigner kicked off this topic by asking:
I was told, "there are no 40year old designers" "there are 40yr old design managers, partners and teachers."I am not sure if I buy that completely but the more I look around I see less and less of the forty and above crowd at the designer levels. As I approach the big 40 I have to wonder where should I go with my career?
If you find yourself at a senior level in your career and are wondering what's next, or better yet, if you've already found what's next, join this most interesting discussion titled, "Senior Level Career, Where Does One Go?" to gain and/or add more insight.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Your correspondent recalls a dozen package design projects where this device would have been super-useful. What is it? Unlike a regular product light-tent, you put objects inside the Photosimile 5000 and it takes a series of wraparound photos, by means of an automated camera positioning system and a turntable for the product. Beats the heck out of calipering every square millimeter of "the competition's" shampoo bottles and recreating it in CAD, micron by micron.
The Photosimile 5000 is manufactured by Ortery Technologies and is due to hit shelves in March.
via dvice
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
On one end you have military organizations designing landmines, and on the other end you've got people like Dr. P.K. Sethi and Ramachandra Sharma.
The latter two developed the Jaipur foot, a flexible and variably stiff prosthetic made of sponge-filled vulcanized rubber. Cheap to manufacture, the Jaipur foot "has helped millions of amputees in developing countries to lead normal lives," and enables users to run, climb, pedal, and even dance.
Sadly the Jaipur foot, which was developed in 1971, has recently come to our attention because Dr. Sethi recently passed away at the age of 80. But the prosthetic he and Sharma developed continues to be widely distributed.
via ny times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Interesting factoid: In 2001, Dell had 40,000 employees--and a design department only big enough to play a pickup game of three on three, with no subs. That's right, out of forty large, they had six designers. Six years later they've got over 89,000 employees, with 90 designers and counting, enough for an entire league.
via design news
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You will recall our enthusiasm for Valerie Casey's Kyoto Treaty of Design proposal back in frog's Design's June Design Mind, and her presentation at AIGA's conference last October. It's definitely time for another update.
The initiative has been renamed The Designers Accord (the possessive apostrophe's been dropped since no one could agree on where it was supposed to go :), with a new logo (designed by Eric Strohl), and a tighter spec. Core77 will be throwing its weight behind the initiative by providing member design firms to badge themselves over at DesignDirectory.com (coming soon!), and the open-source website for member firms to share resources and knowledge will be firing up in the new year.
We spoke with a design firm this afternoon who said, "well, we're already doing a lot of the principles of the accord already, so signing up will give us an opportunity to take it the rest of the way," and that's probably the same situation your firm is in. So visit the site right now, read the details (it's quick), and sign yourselves up today.
Here's the pitch:
The Designers Accord is a coalition of design and innovation firms focused on working together to create positive environmental and social impact.This movement started as a call to arms for designers to engage in the environmental movement with optimism and creativity. We believe it is our obligation to use our knowledge, experience, and reach to positively influence what we design and consume.
The Designers Accord calls for the following:We ask all designers, globally, to proactively engage in a dialogue about environmental impact with each and every client, and to evaluate sustainable alternatives in design. Our rationale is that by collectively committing to having this conversation, our client base - the world's manufacturers, distributors, and services providers - will be compelled to evaluate sustainability as a key vector in decision-making around the products and service they create for their base - the global consuming audience.
We promote openly sharing knowledge about green design and sustainability. We believe that building environmental intelligence should be a collective exercise. For this cause, we advocate for inverting the traditional model of competition, and encourage pooling knowledge so that all may benefit and build on marketable and sustainable solutions.
Adopting The Designers Accord provides access to a global community of peers who share passion and ideas around environmental innovation. Our reach and influence grows exponentially when we act together. View a full list of adopters.
The Accord is for all designers - interaction, digital, industrial, graphic, advertising, architecture - and those involved in the design industry, including engineers, business consultants, researchers, marketers, and educational institutions. Any designer, consultancy, or organization creating consequence at scale should join.
Please take a moment to learn more. All info here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
If you have ideas that can top Jonathan Ive's vision for the next iThing, then this competition's for you. Mac|Life, Maxon, and the Academy of Art University want to see your best fake concepts with Apple's signature flare. Yes, you may have noticed that Apple is not one of the sponsors, and in fact, they have nothing to do with the competition at all, hence why the entries are officially called "fauxtotypes."
Attention all industrial designers, 2D artists, and 3D illustrators: Do you think you have an almost paranormal ability to predict the future of Apple product development? Now's your chance to show us what you've got!...Whether your visions are imminently plausible or borderline absurd, we want to see how you interpret the future of Apple product design.
The best submissions will appear in Mac|Life magazine and on Maclife.com. Our grand prize winner will receive a scholarship for the Academy of Art University, and a boxed copy of Maxon Cinema 4D. Four runners-up, plus our grand prize winner, will each receive $100 gift cards for Newegg.com.
Fauxtotype : Apple's Next Big Thing competition
Deadline : January 31, 2008 Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
From the top:
This wireless USB hub makes us a little less wireless and therefore a little more happy, but the real kicker at IOGEAR's CES booth is the use of 100% recycled paper and eco-friendly inks for printed collateral and stressing the switch to less impactful plastic materials in its products.
They're not for everyone, and we're "just looking", but that's exactly what Alienware gear begs for--to be looked at, er, well, stared or gawked at rather. The new cyberpunk desktop and less flamboyant laptop designs are being shown at the Dell booth in conjunction with new Dell monitors.
SanDisk is still pushing these borderline-novelty music players for those who haven't (yet) adopted an iWhatever. The playful Sansa Shaker switches songs upon shaking, which could be a problem for avid joggers, belly dancers, or kangaroos, and the Clip aims to appeal to tiny electronics-lovers and is probably a better choice for avid joggers, belly dancers, and kangaroos.
more CES 2008 news to come...
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)Yes people, stunning 3D effects can happen without wearing one of those motorcycle helmet-sized doodads. Who knew that Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote was actually possible? That would be Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University, who, by the way, is so very adept at explanatory speaking!
Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space.
via cpluv
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
These things were introduced back in June, but it's nice to witness the demo up close and personal.
Now, if we're going to be critical here, we'd say, "Hey! Let's see you submerge the thing for real!" After that, we'd want it shaped like a rubber ducky (okay, too easy), and then we'd want it wireless and paddling around the tub. You gotta love the show business though, and next time we promise an NSFW whipped cream sequence.
As elections get even hipper, way past Rock the Vote and onto YouTube debates, modern, clever, and (for once) aesthetically appealing graphic design has found a cozy little home in Barack Obama's bottomless arsenal of O-flavored logos.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Your next job could be...
Located at : Insight Product Development LLC in Raleigh, NC
With the title of : Design Manager
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Dun dun dunnnn! If you're on the hunt for a new job--design job, that is--interviews can be pretty daunting. But don't fear because we've got the perfect discussion for you. Common Design Interview Questions is already a virtual goldmine of questions you may be asked as well as questions you should ask as an interviewee (bonus!). If you're another curious job seeker with questions or seasoned professional with answers, hop on board and add your two cents.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
You can't find pizza or escorts here, but you'll luck out when it comes to building materials. Cross Thomas Register with the Yellow Pages and poof--you've got Designer Pages, a directory and dynamic database where designers and suppliers connect. It is now open for registration.
Designer Pages is an online product manager that helps you locate the latest products with up-to-date specifications. All products are posted by suppliers themselves, which means finding more information is only a click away.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Iron Man's Tony Stark is supposed to be an "industrialist," which Webster's defines as "a person involved in the ownership and management of industry," but we're going to go ahead and claim him as an industrial designer with a clear interest in steampunk. I mean, check out the ad-hoc iron suit he put together to escape his terrorist captors! Stark's no pencil-pusher, not with nice ergonomic touches like that chest-mounted headlight. Or is it a death ray, can't remember. Either way, if MoMA had a superhero division, we'd like to think this suit would be in their permanent collection.
Speaking of which, those of you with rendering skills: What do you think a superhero costume would look like as designed by Philippe Starck? Or Yohji Yamamoto? Or Karim Rashid? What we wouldn't give to see some sketches....
via Stark Industries, Russian Division
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
The design industry has produced its share of strange bedfellows, but a collaboration between Robert Brunner and Dr. Dre has to be one of the most unexpected we've seen. The Kindle designer and the hip hop producer have teamed up to design a set of headphones called Beats. Says Dr. Dre, according to the press release, "When I'm making a track I'm trying to capture the sound that makes me go 'now THAT's the shit!'"
Must have been one interesting design brief. If only Jeff Bezos had been as passionate in his directions for the Kindle.
via dexigner
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
1. Great design can change the world and move people
2. If you think good design is expensive you should look at the real cost of bad design
3. Design, creativity and innovation are essential if we are to meet the global challenges of sustainable development
4. Design is not just about products and communications, it's also increasingly in the services we receive or buy
5. To consume design is a creative act - and everyone can be creative!
Those are the "Five Rules of Design" by Sir Michael Bichard, a design fan and former government bureaucrat now helming the UK's Design Council, an organization dedicated to "helping businesses become more successful, public services more efficient and designers more effective." According to the UK Times, Bichard's design-promoting mission comes at a decidedly divisive time in the UK design world:
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
At a recent social function someone asked me what, as an industrial designer, is the single most important object in my life. The answer came quickly: my laptop. Like many of you I use it for work/income, socializing with friends, e-flirting on those sad nights I can't make it to the bar, pursuing purely creative endeavors with no payoff, archiving life (i.e. photos and self-shot videos), and passive entertainment, i.e. watching tons of downloaded TV shows.
That latter item is the one people seem divided on, particularly those who own large flatscreen TVs. Do you watch television on your computer? Is there a difference and even, as some suggest, a cultural difference between watching programming at a desk as opposed to from a couch? Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic AVC Networks, seems to think so, according to an interview from CES done by Bits blogger Matt Richtel. Says Sakamoto:
"A PC-centric world is a 30-centimeter culture," he said. "Television-centric entertainment lets you experience the world at three meters. It's about leaning back and enjoying life.
"It's more human," he added. "I hope it's more human."
Call me crazy, but this designer doesn't think it makes a difference. Do you? Also, what's your exhaustive list of what you use your computer for?
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (10)
I arrived at CES with a shuttle bus entirely full of smart-casual dressed men (well almost) armed with cell phones in hand, and talking loud enough to ensure everybody knew they were the business. The two themes to take away this year are convergence and sustainability. While skeptical of the genuine intentions behind the later, it was refreshing to see large scale companies reducing their packaging volume, using recycled materials and articulating the environmental impact of their products in a very public way. Of course on the other end of the scale is all the magic and "wow factor" of technology at its finest as pictured top at the DOLBY entertainment stand.
The following photos left-to-right show Belkin's new PodcastStudio which records short audio and video content directly to your iPod, the free phone call booth for visitors at the Vonage stand, embroidery performed directly from a digital file at the very popular Brother Sewing stand, the most ridiculous yet desirable remote control moving R2-D2 digital audio & video projector, the D-Link DivX Connected HD Media Player which is considered by many to be the anti-Apple TV as it plays almost any file format, Wacom's Cintiq 12WX tablet and finally a concept sensory phone from Nokia that collects environmental data to help educate awareness of the individuals environmental footprint.
More to come, meanwhile don't miss the extensive coverage at engadget.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)Your next job could be...
Located at : Target in Minneapolis, MN
With the title of : Accessories Design Manager
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
That there is Portugese design student Joao Olivero's winning entry for a Hewlett-Packard contest to provide custom graphics for a laptop, on display at CES. While it's a tad facile from a cultural perspective--let's see, we've got a yin-yang, a sumo wrestler, a bonsai tree, a dragon, a temple, and two Samurais in a swordfight--it's undeniably eye-popping, which is probably why HP has decided to put the design into production. Should be ready come spring--just in time for Olivero to add some cherry blossoms!
Ideas to make an American-themed counterpart for the Asian market: a cheeseburger, a cow, two boxers, depreciating currency, an icon representing extraordinary rendition, and a house that can't be sold because the market's plummeting.
via crave
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
We know it's shocking, but it turns out most consumers don't want refrigerators connected to the internet (or at least, they're not willing to shell out thousands to buy one). The ridiculous assumption that we want our Frigidaires to e-mail us when the milk's gone bad have hopefully spoiled on their own.
Which is not to say the 'fridgemakers are content to let it lie, but now they're finally taking a different tack: "creating what the techies call a platform and letting consumer electronics companies do the heavy lifting," as Technology Bits blogger Brad Stone puts it, reporting from CES.
After realizing they "control a lot of the key real estate in consumer’s homes," companies like Whirlpool are making the kitchen equivalent of a portal site, designing refrigerators with "docking stations" that aftermarket manufacturers can design plug-ins for, like digital photo frames or iPod stations. Is that any better than the previous generation's offerings? Not sure, but at least it lets the consumer decide, by hewing to that most American of product principles--Design 'em all, let the market sort 'em out.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Tired of reading Google-translated interviews with foreign designers, filled with sentences like "We are think to the design function form is not true"? Here, thankfully, is a well-translated interview with architecture firm SANAA, the Japanese duo behind Manhattan's New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their explanation for the stacked-boxes aesthetic makes a heck of a lot more sense in plain English.
via japan times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)He's the master of indirection but David Lynch is not at all elusive when voicing what he thinks about watching movies on the iPhone. If you can't tell, he hates the idea. Period.
Ironically, a David Lynch film would probably be one of the average iPhone watcher's least likely viewing selections.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (6)
Stephen Reed's Radiator mug leaves palms unscalded. (Dependent on judgment level, tongue scalding may still occur.) The finned porcelain design delivers a one-two punch of beauty and function. Handle who?
Available at Charles and Marie at $25.00 each.
thanks deskster!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (8)
Sure, the name, Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs, is kind of a mouthful but the extra verbiage is essential in explaining what's behind Héctor Serrano's take on a most popular tourist pastime--purchasing souvenirs.
A collection of souvenirs that can be send by e-mail and then materialize using a 3D Printer (stereolithography rapid prototyping). No transport or standard production methods are required so the object carbon footprint is reduced to the minimum.The project questions the way objects are manufactured and new technologies are applied to propose alternative ways of reducing their impact on the environment.
via dezeen
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)
Despite comestibles being his medium of choice, Takao Sakai's art looks neat and very un-food-like from afar. Beans and pancakes dominate his edible arsenal, making up works like an edible interpretation of Kasimir Malevich's black square, quirky red bean beards, and flapjack head gear.
The people of London, well, the flat, non-living 2-D people on print ads, that is, are not safe these days thanks to blood-thirsty street artist, the Decapitator. Upon second glance, it isn't just humans--even bees have experience the wrath!
Renegade artist and head-hunter the Decapitator has been bombarding the streets of London with a signature style of graffiti tag - eerily removing the heads from major adverts around town, replacing them with ghastly, gory stumps. (Before and after images of a gruesomely guillotined model in a print ad, right).
He/she proudly displays his/her dirty work in a decapitastic Flickr set.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Due in part to an Intel saleswoman's ill-willed attempt to convince Peru's vice minister of education to ditch a 270,000 OLPC order in favor of Classmates, the relationship between OLPC and Intel suffered an irreparable last blow, and Intel has officially pulled out of OLPC efforts completely. The Intel XO prototype will no longer be shown at CES this week.
In Peru, where One Laptop has begun shipping the first 40,000 PCs of a 270,000 system order, Isabelle Lama, an Intel saleswoman, tried to persuade Peru's vice minister of education, Oscar Becerra Tresierra, that the Intel Classmate PC was a better choice for his primary school students.Unfortunately for Intel, the vice minister is a longtime acquaintance of Mr. Negroponte and Seymour Papert, a member of the One Laptop team and an M.I.T. professor who developed the Logo computer programming language. The education minister took notes on his contacts with the Intel saleswoman and sent them to One Laptop officials.
...Until Intel surprised him by quitting on Thursday, Mr. Negroponte said he had still held out some hope that the relationship could be saved. The Intel XO was supposed to be introduced next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in keynote speeches to be made by Mr. Negroponte and Mr. Otellini, but the prototype will now be set aside.
photo : Martin Mejia/Associated Press
thanks ian!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (4)
The videos of Core77's Offsite event, Design, Wit, and the Creative Act, are up! Held at the Art Directors Club in New York City on November 9th, the day featured Moderator Ze Frank, Kidrobot's Paul Budnitz, writer/editor Steven Heller, technologist Kelly Dobson, and artist Tobias Wong. (Well, almost Tobias Wong--you'll have click on the link to find out more.)
Check out the little video taste above, then delve into the main dishes below:
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Ze Frank (5 min.)
Paul Budnitz (11 min.)
Steven Heller (7 min.)
Kelly Dobson (13 min.)
Tobias Wong* (8 min.)
Discussion Sampler (10 min.)
The annual DWR Champagne Chair Contest deadline for submissions is today at 5PM PST. If you've not already drunk up to two bottles of champagne, start making lunch plans now. Rules are easy: "Create an original miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork from no more than two Champagne bottles." In a nod towards the environment, they added a nice touch:
In an effort to minimize the mountains of packaging waste generated in the past, submissions should be made digitally.This also allows you to finish your submission at 4:55 PST, still leaving enough time to snap a photo and send it in.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Pininfarina, the famous Italian design company, has announced plans to develop and manufacture its own electric car. A major partner to the project will be the Bolloré Group, a French conglomerate that has unique Lithium Metal Polymer battery technology.
The car, which will be sold under the Pininfarina brand name, will be 100% electric and therefore produce no carbon dioxide emissions. It will have four seats and will be equipped with a battery that will provide it with a range of around 250km (155 miles) in city driving. Thanks to the battery's large capacity, the Pininfarina electric car will have a very fast standing start (zero to 50 km/h (31mph) in 4.9 seconds), sufficient acceleration to overtake other vehicles safely and a top speed of 130 km/h (81 mph).
One of the premiere advertising awards shows out there, The One Show sets the industry standard for creative excellence with categories including print, television radio, outdoor, innovative media and marketing, and integrated branding. Each year, a wide variety of work -- from multinational advertising giants to small regional shops -- is judged by an international jury of award-winning art directors, copywriters and creative directors.
The deadline for entering the 2008 One Show, One Show Interactive, and One Show Design awards is January 31, 2008. The online entry system is now live and accepting submissions.
To download a Call for Entries PDF, including the full list of categories with detailed instructions for entering online and preparing your entries, go to www.oneclub.org.
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Transitory Homes - "About invisible cities, or how to be alone, when accompanied."
This came in the mail, it looked good, they have no website. Maybe you need another reason to visit Brazil? Jetsetters check it out! Excellent work around the theme of homeless life - in a museum by Oscar Niemeyer! Runs through February 11th.
Curated by Nicola Goretti, info ( a t ) grupoag.net
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Jon Kolko went from consulting to academia and then back to consulting. So what has he learned from these transitions? Well, not what you'd think. Here's a taste:
While teaching, I emphasized cohesive process and strong documentation because I saw the value of instilling a repeatable and user-centered design methodology as a base upon which individual design skills could then be built. Yet, this type of education occurs in an environment that is sheltered and artificial--by definition. Even the most industry-focused academic programs emphasize and teach a "clean" process, with deliverables that are defined in advance, requirements that generally don't change, and participants who are competent, articulate and well-mannered. Students make "good" design decisions because they have a rigid and confined set of constraints in which to work, and as it should, the safety net of academia provides a positive environment in which to fail.
Design consulting operates in a dramatically different world. While a statement of work may attempt to define concrete deliverables, even the most well-intentioned presales and planning effort can't cohesively estimate the proper amount of sketches, wireframes, documents, or deliverables that will "solve" a given design problem and communicate the solution. Changing requirements lead to slipped deadlines; changing budgets alter design scope in mid-step; even changing attitudes and the constant banging of the burn-rate drum begin to introduce arbitrary design constraints (such as emotions) into an already messy process.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (14)
In this provocative Q&A, Tom Seager, who's currently developing course materials for a new, interdisciplinary PhD program at RIT, addresses issues of sustainability in a way that cuts right to the bone. Here's a sample:
Q: Does sustainability end up costing or saving the consumer?
A: Sustainability requires cooperation. You have to discard the idea of Adam Smith economics, which says that it's better for society if everyone is working in their own self-interest, and move towards the economics of John Nash, which says we can find a better outcome if we work collectively. The question about whether it "costs the consumer" implies that sustainability is like some kind of add-on feature--like power windows or side-impact air bags. That's not the right way to think about sustainability at all. For example, it is true that abandoning coal-fired power plants would require an increase in electricity costs. But if everyone did it, we'd all be better off. The only way it "costs" is if some people do it, but others "cheat." Our economic system can't handle a cost discrepancy between green and black power. But it can handle a uniform cost increase for all power. Think of it this way: If you could run your manufacturing firm today on $25/bbl oil--which is what we had just a few years ago--you would have an incredible competitive advantage. But you can't. All firms have to pay $80/bbl. That's more than triple the oil cost in three years. We still have rapidly expanding economies all over the world. So "cost" is not the big issue, at the moment--it's "comparative costs."
If you're within reasonable distance to Stony Brook, NY, check out the Horsepower exhibit at the Long Island Museum where a group of SVA students, under the guidance of SVA's chair of 3D Design, Kevin O'Callaghan, have re-imagined today's world without oil by designing horse-drawn vehicles appropriate to said situation.
Horsepower
February 2 - March 2, 2008
Meet the Artists : Feb 10, 2008 at 2 PM
Long Island Museum
1200 Route 25A
Stony Brook, NY
After a brief introduction by Allan Chochinov, Ze Frank takes the stage at Core77's Offsite Event at the Art Directors Club in New York City: Design, Wit, and the Creative Act.
In this video, Ze kicks off the day by introducing Marcel Duchamp's The Creative Act, and breaking down the triad of players in the metaphoric room--here, Designer, Object, and Audience--talking about the interrelationships and dynamics between the three. "What is the designer's relationship to wit?" "How does this translate to the actual process of making things?" "As you're designing things, do you have a proto-audience member in your mind that you're having a conversation with?" And finally, "What happens when the audience takes control of a piece--completely misinterprets it?"
All of these juicy questions and more in this wonderful start to a provocative (and amusing) day.
WATCH NOW (5 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
You've probably read about it, but if you haven't, spoiler alert: Tobias Wong's appearance at the Art Directors Club in New York City for Core77's Offsite Event, Design, Wit, and the Creative Act, was not exactly on stage.
What does that mean? Well, Tobias was indeed in attendance, but he was sitting in the audience, enjoying the day like everyone else. And instead of taking the mic for his presentation--and his director's chair for the panel discussion portion--he sat amongst the crowd, drinking in the design, wit, and creative--in this case subversive act--by having a stand-in take his place at the lectern.
Rama Chorpash, chair of the Undergraduate ID Dept. at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and a great designer to boot, did what can only be described as a pitch-perfect job of presenting Tobias's work (and later answering, Q&A as Tobias, remaining authentic to the designs as well as the philosophical underpinnings of the Wong oevre.
Turns out that the two of them had rehearsed the event to death, preparing responses to any discussion points that might come up, and treating the event not as a stunt but as an artwork.
Chorpash later remarked that "there are a lot of parallels between doing this [switch] and teaching, because in teaching you need to give up your identity a bit to better understand the different models and possibilities of design. To be able to talk about Philippe Starck, for example, you need to understand where he's coming from."
People in the audience who knew Tobias or knew what he looked like were in on the joke, and those who didn't needed only to look in their program for Tobias's headshot. Still, an incredible gesture that provided a sly twist to the day and a workout for Chorpash.
Watch 'til the end of the video, when you can see the two of them together, never breaking character throughout the cocktail reception.
WATCH NOW (8 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
Congrats to NIIMI (Takuya Niimi and Yuki Niimi) for grabbing the Gold Prize Muji Award with their Towel With Further Options design.
This bath towel moves your mind toward further uses of the product. Towels take every day dirt and gradually become damaged. In accordance with such changes, you can downsize the towel with "further options" from a bath towel to a bath mat, and then to a floor cloth and dust cloth. The towel has a vertical and horizontal textured surface that does not produce pile-fabric waste when cut with scissors. The lines act as a marker for cutting and form square modules that let you imagine other uses, encouraging you to re-use it.
View all winning entries here.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Here's a handy little guide from Jalopnik showing what you can and can't do with your cellphone whilst driving. So if you're in New York and still using your cellphone, yeah you, holding up traffic and nearly running us over, take your chatty self to North Dakota!
via gizmodo
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)Your next job could be...
Located at : Kidrobot in New York, NY
With the title of : Graphic Designer
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Metropolis has extended the deadline for its Next Generation : Water competition by 2 days, making January 6th, 2008 the last official day for entry submissions.
Metropolis Next Generation 2008 Design Competiton : Make Waves, Focus on Water
Deadline : January 6, 2008 ($75 entry fee)
$10,000 grand prize
Hall of Fame...Mario : The Power-Ups via cpluv
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)It appears that any and every new building sports a LEED badge, a shiny green tiara of sorts that lets us all know how "now" the structure is, a member of the environmentally conscious clique. But what's behind the crown? From any pageant contestant, we'd want beauty, brains, and a hope for world peace--change "world peace" to "a clean planet" and there you have a the perfect building. Unfortunately, "the growth of green design renders the loopholes in LEED more serious than ever," according to Slate. "The point system creates perverse incentives to design around the checklist rather than to build the greenest building possible."
The USGBC has tweaked its checklist in response to criticism. LEED's revised standards have added so-called innovation points, a catchall category for design concepts that go above and beyond the checklist. The new standards also disqualify any building that doesn't score at least a two out of 10 for energy efficiency. Horst says the next revision of the standards, due out in 2008, will be weighted to give even more importance to energy use.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)But closing the loopholes in the checklist will take the USGBC only so far. In Europe, which has had baseline standards for energy efficiency since the mid-1990s, all new buildings are green buildings, at least to some extent. So while American buildings are green by the grace of Goldman Sachs, London offices are green regardless of whether the client cares about the environment, or needs a shot of good PR.
Paul Budnitz takes command of the room at Core77's Offsite Event at the Art Directors Club in New York City: Design, Wit, and the Creative Act.
In this video, Paul talks about the role of wit and creativity in the work of Kidrobot, and in his own creative acts. After a quick review of some of the merch, he discusses abstraction and scale, followed by an amazing sequence on writers' block and how creativity is beaten out of us at an early age. (DO NOT MISS THIS!) It is essential to learn to kill the ego, he argues, because "to be creative, we need to find ways to work around our minds."
Next, he delves into the roles of nostalgia and appropriation, "since Kidrobot uses a lot of appropriation", discussing the SUCKLORD and his StarWars toys. He ends with a movie from the same, an hysterical romp through, well...you'll just have to watch it to see.
WATCH NOW (11 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
Steven Heller returns to the Art Directors Club in New York City for Core77's Offsite Event: Design, Wit, and the Creative Act.
Heller keeps his remarks short at the start, telling a couple of jokes and then moving quickly to his main event: "Humor is all about timing," he asserts, "and since I don't think I have much of it, I did a little film for you." Well, we don't buy the first part of that sentence, but the audience was glad to sit back and enjoy a delightful, top-20 list of "what's so funny." We've got the reel film here [sic], so you won't have to sit through a crappy video of a crappy projection. Promise.
WATCH NOW (7 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
Core77 welcomed Kelly Dobson to the Art Directors Club in New York City for its Offsite Event: Design, Wit, and the Creative Act.
Dobson starts out talking about our relationship with objects and technology, examining how we communicate with them and the role they play in our lives. Showing footage from films she made around Screambody (a pouch-like device worn around the chest that users can scream into and play back later), as well as Core-fave Blendie (a tricked out blender that users growl at to activate), the role of humor and wit took center stage through, most certainly, acts of creation. You've gotta watch the videos to get the full hit here, and the last one--focusing on machine therapy and how machines can "comfort" other machines--is a riot.
Find more of Kelly's work here.
WATCH NOW (13 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
We were recently lamenting the current dearth of inventors and glut of inane products, so we were thrilled to hear tell of the upcoming "Eye for Why" design competition. Sponsored by the James Dyson Foundation and the IDSA, "Eye for Why" asks students to examine actual real-world problems and use design to solve them in a functional way.
[The entry] must solve a problem, work well, and provide real advantages over existing offerings.
Hallelujah!
This year's high-caliber jurors include include Yves Behar, Tucker Viemeister and Niels Diffrient. We're also hoping the entry queue at the ceremony has a special trapdoor, so that anyone who's designed a USB-anything will be summarily dumped into a pit and incinerated with USB-powered flamethrowers.
Time's tight on this one, kids--the entries are due by February 9th. Incentive? How's five large and a trip to NYC sound? Not to mention the winner will automatically be entered to compete for the James Dyson award, involving yet more cash and a chance to interact with Dyson Research and Development. Click here for details.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Imagining the future is hard, but industrial designer and "visual futurist" Syd Mead manages to convincingly pull it off time and again. Though made way back in 1982, Blade Runner is currently lauded for the fact that it still looks futuristic 25 years later, due in no small part to Mead's thoroughly imagined environments, objects and vehicles.
But what about the movies that got it wrong? Check out a rather hysterical article (with excellent photos) called 2001 to Timecop: 8 Movie Futures Already Proven Wrong, which analyzes said movies in the categories of Premise, Predictions, and Overall Accuracy. Excerpts:
- The cars in Timecop are able to navigate by themselves, with a voice activation system so advanced it can understand Jean-Claude Van Damme.Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
- [Robocop is set in] an indeterminate "near future," but a careful analysis of the fashions, haircuts, vehicles, and computers seen in this 1987 movie lead us to believe it took place no later than 1988.
- Ability To Record Experiences [in the movie Strange Days]: Using special "SQUID" headgear, people's sensory data can be recorded to a disc and re-experienced by anybody, literally putting them in the shoes of others. The only thing we have that's even remotely similar to this is the ability to read whiny LiveJournal entries, but this only puts us in the shoes of angsty social outcasts.
It's 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander by way of Jacques Costeau: Liquid Image's Underwater Digital Camera Mask, which comes in both 3.1 and 5.0 megapixel varieties. If you're willing to look like a dork, you can even sport these and take pictures out of water. The viewfinder crosshairs printed right on the eyepieces ensure you'll have no problem lining up the perfect shot, though you'll probably have lots of problems lining up dates.
via notcot
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Contrary to the hopes of excitable Swiss art collectors, David Shrigley's non-conformist snowman is simply a rebellious snowman--no placard, no price.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Before pre-fab became so fabulously fab, the Small Homes Council at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois published Homes From Pre-Assembled Wall Panels in 1954.
via ffffound!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Alex Steffen over at WorldChanging has handpicked highlights from the story stockpiles of yore...okay not yore, more like 2007. We so appreciate Alex's convenient groupings by subject for our organized reading pleasure!
Now, we've been advised that we do a lousy job of reminding readers about the range and depth of the stories we've published here (closing in on 8,000 over the last four years). That's probably more true than ever of 2007. Over the last year we ran more than 2,000 stories, including a number of pieces that I think are pretty much the best stuff we've ever done.So, in the interests of pointing out the good work done by folks on the Worldchanging team, here is my list of the top Worldchanging posts of 2007.
Read A Year of Worldchanging Ideas.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Your next job could be...
Located at : Brooks Stevens Inc. in Milwaukee, WI
With the title of : Lead Industrial Designer
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
IMPORTANT: DO NOT RE-OPEN ONCE SEALED. HIGH RISK OF EMOTIONAL RELAPSE. Contains items of personal significance.
Too bad these Negativity Refuse Bags are just a concept, because we're sure lots of us resolved to rid ourselves of baggage and increase optimism for the new year. (That doesn't mean you can't still dispose of, or if you're responsible, recycle, or even set stuff ablaze!)
via notcot
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)Take it from David Allan, the git-er-done expert himself, that you too can master GTD and the "Two Keys to Sustainaing a Healthy life and workstlye. Reap the benefits of this lecture that Google employees sat through a couple months ago. Know that the two keys are "control" and "perspective", but if you're really serious about GTD, you'll GTD yourself into a chair and sit through the entire 45 minutes.
via lifehacker
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Take a walk through one of New York's three Chinatowns--deep Chinatown, where you'll see/hear nary a tourist or word of English all day--and you'll find thriving strips of stores stocked with products decidedly different from big-box offerings. Everything from kitchen utensils to appliances to cell phones comes in a range of colors decidedly less sober than what's on sale in the rest of the city.
Step into one of the all-Chinese internet cafes and you'll truly feel you're overseas. Although the service is standard for any New York establishment staffed by face-pierced teenagers--ranging from indifferent to openly hostile--a better reason you'll never see these places listed in Time Out is because they're loaded with kids playing Chinese games on computer hardware you've never seen.
Which begs the question, will Chinese-designed consumer goods fly outside the Chinese market? Computer manufacturer Lenovo is "going design" with their new line of IdeaPad laptops. Cosmetic features like brightly-colored and textured lids (below right) have been combined with theoretically functional features like special hinges (below left) that hold the screen further from the keyboard for better viewing. Other features include oversized gaming control keys, touch-sensitive media control buttons, "frameless" displays, and a programmable soft key.
Early blogosphere feedback sounds pretty divided; we're curious to see what the pundits say after they see Lenovo's offerings at CES.
via asia cnet
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
The holiday fatigue hasn't faded quite yet, but we've managed to summarize 2007 in the world of design, in chronological order to boot. Call it picky, call it terse. It is what it is so enjoy!
Like any other time of year, the iPhone hogged headlines kicking off '07 with a preemptive announcement. A "different" prototype surfaced on eBay. A perfect circle was drawn, the US House of Reps passed the Energy Alternatives bill, and a dizzying diagram told us what was the new what. Popular Jobsisms appeared in a delightful clip and BusinessWeek admitted that the word innovation had officially become nauseating. Monocle made its debut only to heavily disappoint Adam Greenfield at the close of the year. Coroflot hit 50,000 portfolios. Friendly R2D2 mailboxes hit the streets and wireframe was a most literal term when describing Benedict Radcliffe's car. CD spindle cases housed bagels and hamsters shredded paper. Home Depot announced the launch of Eco Options. Sprinkle Brigade made dog turds pretty. The SENZ umbrella actually looked different than all other umbrellas and just when we thought the toast thing was over, along came CNC toast printing. Influential exhibit Design for the Other 90% opened at the Cooper Hewitt. Waffles were made in the shape of keyboards and Jonathan Ive received the National Design Award. A mom used the power of Segway to push her baby, and although we almost forgot about it, the Microsoft Surface was announced. Damien Hirst busted out with that seizure-inducing bejeweled skull while the London 2012 logo proved to be more seizure-inducing. The USA still wasn't metric. Manufactured Landscapes was released (broadcast with Edward Burtynsky + Jennifer Baichwal here) as was the iPhone. A sweaty man waited a long time for one and a SNES spoof video was made--just two of countless amusing iPhone side stories that we don't feel like accumulating nor do we think you'd care for us to accumulate them because we're sure there's an Apple blog out there that's done it already. Cue appropriate 2007 LOL intermission:
...aaaand we're back.
7-11 stores got all Simspon-y, Ponoko believed in the design power of the people, and Anya Hindmarch probably had good intentions. Blackle saved a bunch of search watts, Okala Design Guide came out, and (oh lordy) K-Rash designed packaging for dog cologne. We launched the Coroflot Creative Seeds blog. David Ngo did an impressive job of defining design--not an easy feat. The NYT reminded Americans to get back to work. Liz Danzico and Khoi Vin launched A Brief Message. We premiered our Hack2School guide, preparing all walks of design student for semesters to come. We were totally backed up in thinking the Pontiac Aztec was fugly. Someone had an easy time peddling their groceries home. We were like "why?" when Photoshop donned a new logo and Art Lebedev was like "why not?" when debuting the über long Pultius TV remote. Pop!Tech blew our collective mind and we built a giant robot out of milk crates for our Connecting '07 party. Frank Gehry got spanked for a leaky Stata Center. Perfect slices resulted from a laser-cut pizza and Muji opened in NYC. Kindle happened. It got beat down and corrected. Cosmologist Neil Turok, writer Dave Eggers, and religious historian Karen Armstrong were announced as the newest TED Prize winners. Coroflot hit 75,000 portfolios and we presented to you our sparkling new gift guide of 77 items under $77. Philippe Starck became cooler in our book after we watched his enlightening and delightfully-accented TED Talk. Pantone declared 18-3943 Blue Iris as 2008's color of the year. John Maeda was announced as RISD's next president and Yves Behar, the designer himself, story-told the OLPC. And we'll finish our healthy little roundup with another roundup closer--Consumerist's winner of an excellent and real-world take on a Top Ten Products list for 2007...hooray for vinegar!
See ya next year this year.
John Thackara's essential-read Doors of Perception newsletter is something that everyone should be subscribed to, and this month's letter starts out in peak form. Here's the first paragraph:
OF DOOMERS AND BOTTLE-FILLERS
In Sao Paulo before Christmas someone referred to me as a "doomer." I had not heard the word before, but was told that it describes sad, train-spotter-like people who can't stop talking about peak oil, climate change, the instability of financial markets, the impending food crisis, and what John Michael Greer calls the "catabolic collapse" of industrial civilisation. Now it's true that plenty of people out there are unhealthily thrilled by the prospect of apocalypse. Their number includes, or so we are told, George W Bush. But you don't have to be an End-Days nut to conclude that we are headed for what one might call, to put it mildly, a discontinuity. If you look under the hood, the life-support systems of industrial civilisation are coughing and spluttering alarmingly. Even mainstream politicians, who hate being associated with bad news, are promising rough times ahead. But I reject the label "doomer". The word implies that, faced with these scary prospects, we have to choose either to join a cult, or head for the hills with a truckload of guns and baked beans. As a bottle-half-full kind of guy, I'm headed for a third space - between despair and flight - where a lot of creative and collaborative work needs to be done, much of it involving design. This newsletter - and Doors of Perception projects - will focus on those kind of activities during 2008.
Check out more at the Doors of Perception website.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)