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Our annual design salary survey results are in!* It took a while to crunch the numbers but it was worth the effort - it was our biggest survey EVER with 4250 respondents from 73 countries reporting $240,840,280 in wages! That is a lot of design work!
Go check it out now, we've made an ADD-friendly single-page executive summary with charts for easy digestion:
* Well, the results have been in for a few weeks but to honor the Leap Year Spirits we sat on the announcement till today ;) Happy Leap Day!
Posted by: shaggy | Comments (1)
Helmet Designer
Trek Bicycle Corporation
Waterloo, WI, USA
As the lead industrial designer for helmets, you'll work within Trek's product development team to provide design direction specifically for cycling helmets. Exceptional aesthetic and sculptural skills are required. This position will be responsible for defining aspects of style, color, form, fit, and function, as well as be required to meet criteria for product features, cost, manufacturability, and project schedules.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Lately we've several table-and-four-chairs combos that combine into a single monolithic unit. While the supposed space-saving benefits of such designs don't seem real to us, they do make for some pretty aesthetics. Click the link below to read on.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
They say rooting out insurgents is like finding a needle in a haystack.
If that's true, this tank is in trouble.
(By German artist Hans Hemmert.)
via like cool
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
If you've still got an Ikea "Billy" holding up the wall in your apartment, maybe it's time you freshened up. Here's an exhaustive roundup of innovative shelving, some you've seen before, some you haven't.
The variety of designs are sure to spark interest in most people except for Jeff Bezos, who probably wishes for a future absent of bookshelves, when we'll all just have a Kindle sitting on the mantle. Until then, enjoy!
via freshome
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
"Early adopter" is often synonymous with "dork," but sometimes a new iteration of a product promises such improved performance over its predecessor that you can't resist it. The Nubrella is one such product we can get behind--or rather, inside.
The nearly-hands-free umbrella tries to resolve the trade-off between protection from the elements (when you hunch behind your umbrella like one of the Spartans behind his shield in 300) and trying to see who you're about to bump into on a crowded sidewalk (lifting the umbrella high and getting wet).
The Nubrella rests on your shoulder and can be held in place with a finger, leaving your other hand free to...we were going to say "smoke a cigarette," but perhaps filling your bubble with smoke isn't such a great idea. Leaving your other hand free to use a cell phone, how's that. In any case you can pick one up here for a mere $59.99.
Be sure to check out the video below of another innovative bumbershoot, Joo Youn Paek's Polite Umbrella from '05, which tries to resolve the problem of "umbrella bobbing" in crowded areas.
thanks Gina!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (6)
The sustainable materials and resources community Ecolect has just launched Limelight, a monthly series dedicated to featuring Ecolect members doing extraordinary sustainable design. The debut designer is Teresita Cochran, CEO and co-founder of SMIT, or Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology. In addition to checking out its Grow hybrid energy device at MoMA's Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit, get an inside look at SMIT through the eyes, well, words rather, of Ms. Cochran. Here she describes Grow:
Using flexible solar cells as leaves, GROW takes the shape of ivy growing on a building; wind power is generated by the fluttering of these solar leaves. GROW is a modular, lightweight system that can attach to any building surface. We are exploring possibilities of using a leasing/take-back system for GROW so that we as the producers are ultimately responsible for its end-life and recycling.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
There's at least two groups of people who know about the Nissan Skyline: Gen-X motorheads who grew up reading Car & Driver in the '80s, and Gen-Y videogamers who have "driven" virtual versions of the car through a Playstation controller.
As the Times reports,
Not only did Nissan give GT-R data to the Sony PlayStation designers and the software developers at Xanavi Information to make sure the cars in the Gran Turismo games would be accurate, the game producers returned the favor, helping to create the car's 11 instrument panel display screens.
Now there's an interesting input source for auto design.
The previously right-hand-drive-only car, which could previously only be purchased in Japan, Australia and Europe, is finally making its way Stateside this June. Seventy large and a good spot in line will get you one of the 2,500 scheduled for US import; the rest of us will have to make do with Gran Turismo.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
Erica Barnett over at WorldChanging has posted a disappointed yet hopeful breakdown of the happenings since Zipcar's Flexcar acquisition. Fair prices, a little leeway, and actually getting to talk to a real live person for customer service were well-loved perks at the former Flexcar, but are the same major elements missed at today's Zipcar. Overall, there is no doubt that carsharing is an excellent solution for sustainable mobility, however, Barnett fears "Zipcar is more concerned with its own bottom line than its environmental mission."
Here at Worldchanging, we recognize the almost revolutionary potential of product-service systems. Because it's one of the best demonstrations of that potential, we've been vocal supporters of carsharing, and we want to see it work.Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)But in order for it to work, the companies who bring us shared products need to recognize that they are more intimately connected to our lives than other companies tend to be -- that when they're working, they become more than mere companies, they become communities... and they need to hold themselves to a higher standard.
hobomod started this discussion by simply asking whether, in this day and age, we should include cover letters in the email body or attach them as separate documents, old-skool style. But it quickly turned into a much broader debate about what a cover letter should be, what's too formal, and what's not formal enough.
The email/attachment question of hasn't been answered yet, by the way. Feel free to add your thoughts on where it belongs, what it should say, and what it shouldn't...and don't leave out those juicy testimonials about your most unfavoritest letters that made you gag! So, To Cover Letter or Not To Cover Letter?
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Danish designer Phillip Grass sent over one of his newest concepts, the Accelerate sofa...for futuristic, high-speed channel surfing, of course.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Interactive Creative Director
Grandparents.com
New York, NY, USA
Founded in 2006, Grandparents.com is the premier online destination for the new generation of active grandparents who want fresh ways to stay connected with their grandchildren.
Grandparents.com concentrates on the intersection of grandparents and their grandchildren; our users are active, web savvy, and resourceful. The average age of grandparents using our site is 53!
We have an opening for an experienced Interactive Creative Director to advance the overall quality of the user experience of our website through designing, testing and refining new products and product enhancements.
» view
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)If you weren't able to attend this event, here you have the whole hour, 6 minutes, and 45 seconds of discussion and debate on Conscious Capitalism : Resolving the Conflict Between Consumerism and Progressive Innovation. Eric Ryan, Co-founder of Method, Brandon Schauer, 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 discuss "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."
thanks steve!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)If you'd much rather spruce up people than products or spaces, the Ponoko 10-day Jewelry Design Challenge should be right up your alley. You've got from March 1st to March 10th to design kick-ass jewelry for production on a laser cutter. It can be a single 2D piece or something more dimensional and composed of several parts.
The top 25 entries will be manufactured for free and submitted to the final round. The top 10 designers will each receive US$300 and the grand prize winner will get a sweet US$1,000.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Artist and designer Annika Schmidt's Strap-On Chair looks and sounds a little risqué, especially shown here on topless people, but it's a series project in-progress that's intended to attach to just about anything.
Objects are live and constantly transforming. Rather than serving as ends in themselves, each piece serves as a vehicle to a greater interaction. Through their activation and engagement by participants, or simply through a new location, each piece takes on a new life.
via designspotter
Company: frog design
New branch and location: frog design Technology Group for Europe in Stuttgart, Germany
What the new branch does: Press release is vague--"[implements] emerging, complex technology," "creates unique opportunities for innovation," "oversee the design process from start to finish, maintaining a consistent creative vision," etc.
Why they're doing it: The company says combining a Design Team and Technology Team results in faster time-to-market for clients' products.
History and trends: frog first established a Technology Team in 1996 in the US. The team subsequently did work for GE, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Alltel. frog plans to grow the Europe team in the coming months.
Quote: "Digital media design represents our fastest growing area of business in Europe," said Eckhard Wunder, General Manager for frog design in Europe.
Full article: 400 words @ jura forum
Company: Nokia
New branch and location: Satellite Design Studio in Rio de Janeiro
What the new branch does: Studies social and cultural fabric and trends, alongside local designers and students
Why they're doing it: Seems to be part of a Nokia strategy for (large) niche design; also, possibly a form of design philanthropy (see "Quote").
History and trends: Last year Nokia opened its first satellite design studio in Bangalore. Both the Bangalore and Rio location work in conjunction with local top design schools.
Quote: "[The] studios bring Nokia designers directly into contact with local cultures and influences that will help inspire new design ideas and provide local students with hands on experience of working with a world class global design team."
Full article: 600 words @ fox business
School: Various
News: ID students seek recognition--and manufacturers to actually make their products--at Chicago's International Home and Housewares Show's Student Design Competition
Quote: "Quite a few of the winners get job interviews at the show," and perhaps a chance to have their designs licensed, said Victoria Matranga, who's been in charge of the competition since its inception 15 years ago.
Name-drops: Apple, frogdesign, Oxo, Pentagram, Yves Behar
Full article: 1,400 words @ san francisco chronicle
School: Ohio State University
News: ID program at OSU (one of nation's oldest ID programs) is tiny, sought-after, and selective
Quote: "It pains our faculty to turn away students, but the classes are built upon students getting one-on-one attention," said Brian Stone, an associate professor of visual communication design.
Name-drops: Ford Motors
Full article: 800 words @ columbus dispatch
School: University of Kansas
News: Two design students win a business competition (not a design competition) with a product design for the elderly
Quote: "We are pleased that [designers] Jana and Ann have illustrated their ability to transcend boundaries into the world of business," said Greg Thomas, chair of the Department of Design. "Design today really means taking a holistic approach, which requires our students to be engaged in many different disciplines. This is a great example of where we need to be."
Full article: 600 words @ kansas city infozine
School: University of Guelph
News: Engineering students win Dyson-sponsored comp with one-handed bike brake for the handicapped
Quote: "The award recognizes young designers and engineers that demonstrate the ability to think differently, persist through setbacks and create functional, innovative products that improve the way we live," said a news release from the foundation.
Name-drops: James Dyson
Full article: 400 words @ the canadian press
The excellent essay "A Focus on Use" reminded us about BadDesigns, a website often mentioned in our forums but which we never officially blogged about. BadDesigns was put up by Michael Darnell (a usability engineer at Microsoft) who lists a series of crappy interface designs in a variety of products and environments. Some are things we see every day, from cell phones and the light switches in our homes to speedometers and gas pumps, while others are things Darnell saw on trips overseas, like toilets in Holland and locking umbrella stands in Japan. Each one is photographed and problems are highlighted with arrows when neccessary.
Sadly, the site seems to have stopped receiving updates around '06, but there are still plenty of flaws/suggested solutions in nearly 40 different categories like "Unnatural ordering of control settings," "Things that don't work the way you expect" and "Things that are hard to handle." Darnell, are you still out there, can you hear us? Please fire up some updates! Unless one of you, dear readers, feel like picking up the torch...from its hopelessly unergonomic handle.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)"You never see an industrial design student taking engineering courses and vice versa. They work shoulder to shoulder in product development [but] with curriculums as they are, they don't collaborate until they've left school... They have contact with each other on the first day of the job." So says Francis DiBella, director of engineering technology at Northeastern, in "A Focus on Use," an excellent essay on how to fix workflow and communication problems between industrial designers and engineers.
"What's usually happening is designers throw the styling and concept over the wall to the engineers and when they see it the first time, they have to work out all kinds of problems," adds Bill Dresselhaus, principal of consulting firm Dresselhausgroup.
The 2,000-word essay isn't just mere bitching; it contains plenty of ideas for solutions. Cynics will be unsurprised to learn that the education- and technology-based suggestions will not be easy to implement, but then, nothing worth doing ever is. Judge the ideas for yourself here, and if you've got better ones, leave us a comment below.
via red orbit and american society of mechanical engineers
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Industrial designer Jorre van Ast (remember his Clampology?) came up with a killer way to extend the life of jars: design new tops for them. With his plastic add-ons, your old jars of Smuckers get a second life as sugar shakers, oil & vinegar sets, spice containers, and more. Check 'em all out here.
via design ws
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
A pretty nutty ad from Ford Canada on a more "human" car:
via d brain
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
From the Coroflot Portfolio of : Gina Reimann (New York, NY)
Featured Project : Next Simplicity concept
Gina Reimann's concept for Philips' Next Simplicity exhibition is a lighting design that uses LEDs and color sensors to alter its own hue.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
The newly sprouted collaborative social network Kluster launched today at TED. Over the next 72 hours TED attendees and Kluster's online community will develop an actual product--hopefully something that has a global impact.
The product may utilize basic hard plastics (no multi-injections, no silicones), sheet metals (no castings or forgings), and basic composites (no carbon, kevlar, nomex, etc). They may not use complex circuit boards, custom power sources, or hazardous materials. The end product should cost no more than $150 MSRP, and fully assembled, it should measure at or smaller than 8x8x12". Rapid prototyping machines and a team of modelers are standing by to make it all happen in 3D.
To join in, sign up at Kluster's registration page.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Nothing says "shaker" more than a pair of maracas. Naoto Fukasawa's Salt and Pepper Maracas are newly available at the Design Museum.
via notcot
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
Senior User Experience Designer
Method
New York, NY, USA
A Senior User Experience Designer creates excellent user experience design and deliverables for Method projects, according to user-centered design principles and Method standards. Independently, or working with a Director, as needed, a Senior UX Designer executes all user experience tasks, including project planning, research and analysis, requirements definition, product and interaction concepts, and interaction specifications, on a variety of platforms, including the Web, mobile devices, television, and product interfaces. On select projects, the Senior UX Designer will be the lead voice on a project for Method's UX approach, within the project team and in interactions with clients.
» view
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
This Thursday, Spotlight on Design : Innovation In New York's Streets will feature a panel discussion to explore the ways New York can be a more sustainable and livable city.
Join Deborah Marton, Executive Director of the Design Trust for Public Space, for a dynamic conversation exploring the intersection of design, innovation, sustainability, and accessibility in New York's public realm. From bicycle-friendly streets and redesigned taxis to blossoming arts and cultural neighborhoods, this is your chance to speak with the experts about the latest projects and innovations shaping our lives.
Guest panelists include Andrew Salkin, First Deputy Commissioner, NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, Davin Stowell, CEO and founder of Smart Design, Susan Chin, FAIA, Assistant Commissioner, Capital Projects, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Mary Ceruti, Executive Director of the Sculpture Center, and Ryan Russo, Director of the Bike & Pedestrian Planning Unit, NYC Dept. of Transportation.
Core77 readers are invited to attend this event free of charge (a $9 value) with RSVP. To reserve your spot call (212) 534-1672, ext. 3395.
Spotlight on Design : Innovation In New York's Streets
Thursday, February 28, 2008, 6:30 PM
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street
New York, NY
In this new Dwell video, you'll get to know Jake Barton of Local Projects, a designer who views exhibits and experiences as an opportunity to immerse and involve the user. Local Projects prefers local voices over curatorial authority and is partnered with Thinc Design as the design team for the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center.
According toTom Dyckhoff of the Times, "If you aren't flash you won't get the cash." Fashionably speaking, bold metallics and geometric crystal shapes are all the rage in building-wear right now, but everyone's starting to notice that nu-rave just tries too hard. The wedge and the stepped profile shapes are labeled as "Like, So Over" and polycarbonate cladding is suitable for seniors, at best. Read Heights of fashion in the world of architecture: Gehry to Koolhaas to get the details on who's best dressed and what to look out for next.
via unbeige
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
With promising new breeds of Australian designers in the making, Springboard has been launched as a national mentorship program to aid creative businesses develop a competitive edge both locally and internationally through sustainable design innovation. 100 hand-picked applicants will experience a year's worth of guidance in successful entrepreneurship.
Applications are now being accepted for the 12-month program that covers a range of topics including sustainable best practice, contractual law, IP, financial management, the media, manufacturing, retail and export markets. Mentors include former brand consultant for Apple Computer Bradford Gorman, eco-design specialist John Gertsakis, and Swedish market strategist Mats Ekström.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)The Datron High-Speed Milling Machine cuts through metal stock like butter!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)The NYTimes has a provocative piece in yesterday's Science section entitled The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors, and it's a must-read for designers. Somewhere between Paul Budnitz's argument that designers have to make sacrifices and Barry Schwartz's breakdown of the Paradox of Choice, John Tierney's piece introduces some intriguing MIT studies but makes sure to drive home the implications of those studies. Here's our favorite bit:
Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops' cooking pots and burned their ships.He explained this was to focus them on moving forward -- a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.
He is one of the role models in Dan Ariely's new book, "Predictably Irrational," an entertaining look at human foibles like the penchant for keeping too many options open. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a warrior who conquered by being unpredictably rational.
When was the last time you crushed your client's cooking pot? Or your own?
Find the article here.
Find the book here.
Your correspondent was getting into a rental car with a well-endowed female friend. From the passenger side, I heard the sound of her opening the driver's side door--followed by a sharp expletive. "What's the matter?"
"I guarantee you a man designed this car," she said, hand on her chest. "Did you ever get in a new car, pull the door open and hit yourself in the tits?"
Female car designers are definitely few and far between, with a few standouts (Chelsia Lau has been a chief designer at Ford since the '90s, and Nissan's Dianne Allen was lead designer on their Titan pickup), but that may be slowly changing. At next month's Architectural Digest Home Design Show in New York, Lincoln will be pushing "auto chick power" by introducing Joann Jung, Amy Kim and Jennifer Hewlett, three rising design stars who worked on the MKT Concept on display at the show.
Dynomighty's Magnetic Desk Dots are the latest executive toy you buy for your desk when you don't want to do a stitch of work. The superstrong magnets might have been a problem back in the days of floppy disks, but if you still have those on your desk, you're really not doing any work.
Desk Dots came out last year, but as you may recall they were sold out like crazy; now they're in full supply, and you can order some here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Dan Soltzberg's got a bulls-eye post around Gain's Design Meets Research, where Debbie Millman and Mike Bainbridge provide a tight primer to, well, design and research. But something Dan wrote in his post really resonated with me:
I see research very much as a generative tool as well as an evaluative one, and have started to question whether the concept of a border between research and design is really accurate or productive. At the front end of the design process, research is a way of surfacing opportunities and generating ideas. At later stages, it's a way of refining and validating these ideas as they become concepts and prototypes. In this way, research is a design tool in the same way that drawing is a design tool, except that at the center of the mechanism is the customer/user.
Certainly it's the wise designer who moves back and forth seamlessly between information and iteration, and eliminating the border between the two--even in how we talk about design practice--might be a very good idea indeed.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Photo: John Haslam
Carl Alvian's latest post on Coroflot's Creative Seeds Blog takes on the question of design competitions, and it's a must read for all designers. Here's our favorite passage:
If you're in it for the money, you're doing it for the wrong reason. While there are some pretty good prizes out there (Dell is offering $25,000 to the overall Re-Generation winner), the real benefits of a good contest are available to all entrants. The trick is not to view it as an employment opportunity, because it's not; it's a professional development and marketing tool.If designing for a competition were the same as designing for a client, the payoff would be poor indeed. But in many ways a well-designed competition is like The Best Client Ever. Think about the characteristics of a Bad Client:
::Non-specific and constantly shifting deadlines.
::Frequent changes in project scope.
::"I know it when I see it" design requirements.
::Wants you to do something just like you did for another client four months ago.A Bad Client offers too little information when you most need it--at the beginning--and starts making changes when you can least afford it--at the end.
A good design competition is the opposite of all these things. It starts with a clear, concise statement of constraints, target market, manufacturability requirements, and expected deliverables, all before you even agree to start working. It tells you exactly when results are due. It will never ever call you three months into the project to say the production budget's been cut by 30%. It has no idea what you've designed in the past nor does it care, so you're free to knock yourself off, or knock yourself out with a totally new direction. And if you blow it, nobody gets mad at you, and your professional reputation remains intact.
Read the full article
More Creative Seeds
One of SoHo's first stores (back in the '80s, when it was still filled with artist's lofts) was a store called Think Big! where you could buy novelty items like six-foot pencils and tennis balls bigger than your torso. Since then we've always wondered what people's fascination with BIG is, and we've not yet figured it out.
The obsession with the gi-normous, of course, is only growing. So here's our look (with pictures) at three BIG things:
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (5)We have to admit--while we've sat in countless design meetings where they discussed "cutting steel," and while we've seen injection molds before, we never actually witnessed the process of making one. So here it is, thanks to YouTube!
Have any links to cool videos of production methods? If so, help us out and leave a comment below, thanks!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)In exploration of the possibilities of nanotechnology in mobile devices, the Nokia Research Center and the University of Cambridge (Nanoscience Centre) came up with Morph. This concept demonstrates how mobile devices of the future may be able to flex, stretch, self-clean, utilize solar power, and achieve extreme transparency thanks to advances in the application of nanotech.
The Nokia Morph concept was launched in conjunction with MoMA's Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit and is currently on view until May 12, 2008.
One of our most recent board alerts asked whether or not sketching was still relevant in this design day and age. This time around, pdog followed up and asked, "Is Model Making Important?"
With so much sophisticated 3D modeling software available to students and professionals, is hands-on model making to be left in the dust?
Think back to those moments perhaps in school or at work when, after you've gone through several iterations, refined your idea in CAD, when you were hacking away at your foam model and had one of those "ah-hah" moments that led you to a better design solution than what you started with. How important is prototyping and fabricating for you?
So what do you think? Is Model Making Important?
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Check out Garfield minus Garfield, a blog entirely dedicated to showing Garfield comic strips without Garfield, which in turn leaves a crazed, lonely, and borderline psychotic John Arbuckle.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (2)
Assistant Professor of Interior Design
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Menomonie, WI, USA
This is a full-time, tenure-track, entry-level position starting August 25, 2008 at the Department of Art and Design, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Stout.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
...a kind of Jen Stark-inspired, most definitely sweet gif.
sweet gifs via ffffound!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
These out-of-place metal street signs are scattered about Toronto thanks to Mark Daye, whose aim is to make passersby contemplate the city's homeless population. See them all at Daye's Flickr page.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
In anticipation of a soon-to-be-realized retail store in New York City, NAU invites the public to discover the eco-minded clothing brand at an upcoming warehouse sale featuring merchandise marked 40% - 75% off.
5% of each purchase will go to Kiva, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending site, encouraging anyone to lend as little as $25 to an entrepreneur in the developing world.
NAU Warehouse Salw
March 6 - March 9, 2008
Thursday 11AM - 7PM
Friday and Saturday Noon - 8PM
Sunday Noon - 6PM
201 Mulberry Street (b/t Kenmare and Spring)
New York, NY
If you've got a buddy in the Service or watch CNN, you know roadside bombs, i.e. IEDs, are being used to devastating effect in Iraq.
The Humvee--the U.S. military's most common rapid troop transport--is flat on the bottom, an intentional design feature meant to prevent the vehicle's underside from snagging on any of the rough terrain and urban rubble it was meant to drive over. But the problem with a flat underside is that it provides an awful lot of surface area for an IED to slam into, meaning the vehicles are often penetrated by mines.
The New York Times takes a look at the U.S. military's new designs intended to solve that problem. A V-shaped hull will disperse an explosion outwards and is clearly the better way to go; and while that design feature isn't new--it's an idea from South African vehicles in the 1970s--the new generation of MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) transports implementing it is.
Click the link and read about the MaxxPro, the Cougar and the Buffalo, manufactured with many components from International Harvester (yes, the farm equipment company) and Mack (yes, the big-rig company).
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Are you a bibliophile with power tools, ready access to lumber and an open loft? Build yourself a "bookcase bedroom!"
See more shots of the process here.
via spiral pocus
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Another "sign of the times" type of product, this one a toy. (We'd hoped this was a gag, but apparently it's legit.) It's...an airport X-ray machine toy! That's right, the Scan-It Operation Checkpoint Toy X-Ray lets your child experience the thrill of being a Transportation Safety Administration employee!
It's no regular toy, folks! As the productpaganda says:
- Educational and creative play toy
- Helps children become acclimated with airport and public spaces security
- The device is both a fun toy and an educational tool
- When metallic items are present the unit beeps and lights up
"Educational." If your child didn't know what 4 ounces was, presumably they will after playing with this thing.
via jwalk blog
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
1. Cut
2. Assemble
3. Colorize
Check out Rodolphe Dogniaux' approach to designing cars at Design Matin.
(if you hate cars and love shoes, go here)
via todayandtomorrow
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (1)
If you thought the Apartment in a Box was cool, check out WebUrbanist's killer roundup of transforming furniture. From Murphy kitchens to modernist couch-beds to a dining-table-and-chairs-for-six that fits into a box, the pieces selected all look good whether folded or deployed, lacking that half-assed quality most multi-use furniture has (remember your college futon?).
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)This week the Museum of the City of New York is holding Spotlight on Design: Innovation in New York's Streets, a panel discussion on urban design and sustainability that may be of special interest to Core readers (see below).
How can we make New York a more sustainable and livable city?Davin Stowell (Smart Design), Deborah Marton (Design Trust for Public Space), Ryan Russo (NYC Dept. of Transportation), and several other professionals and city officials will be conversing about the latest projects and innovations in New York that have been shaping our everyday lives, streets, and neighborhoods.
Join [us] for a dynamic conversation exploring the intersection of design, innovation, sustainability, and accessibility in New York’s public realm. From bicycle-friendly streets and redesigned taxis to blossoming arts and cultural neighborhoods, this is your chance to speak with the experts about the latest projects and innovations shaping our lives.
It's $9 general admission and $5 for Museum members, seniors, & students, but MCNY's Communications Associate has helpfully informed us that attendance will be free for Core readers! All you have to do is RSVP at (212) 534-1672, ext. 3395.
Spotlight on Design: Innovation in New York's Streets
Thursday, February 28, 6:30 p.m.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029
These late night shots are by Sevcan Yardim, one of the fresh ID graduates from the METU (Middle East Technical University) in Ankara. In cooperation with the companies Arlight and Artful she developed the "Bamboo Light", a sustainable lighting concept.
After researching parks, gardens and the lining of plans she decided to integrate the lighting within its surroundings through working with bamboo. Sevcan notes that bamboo has a very pure, smooth, and flowing form which allowed her to create a modular concept for various lighting configurations. She stresses the importance of resource efficiency and powers this low-impact material with LED lighting for low energy use.
Apart from the Bamboo Light you probably won't find a lot of natural bamboo growing in Turkey but that might just be the surprise effect it needs to get noticed.
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Wis Design's new Twine tables are cleverly constructed of MDF table tops and steel wire legs to appear as if they were assembled with a needle and thread.
via pan-dan
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You can't jerry-rig any college dorm room shelves with these, but John Truex's bite-size Sugarblocks are perfect for making drinks sweeter. The sugarcube one-upper came up with the idea in collaboration with Spiceship's Audrey Russel.
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Check out the plethora of delectable creations showcased in this Bento Box Flickr pool!
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Industrial Design Engineer
M-Audio
Irwindale, CA, USA
M-Audio is looking for an inspired designer, with at least 2-3 years of professional experience, to join our growing design team. The ideal candidate has a true passion for design, an interest in the music industry, and the ability to learn new skills quickly.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)London College of Fashion graduate Guy Lloyd-Parker has been charged with blackmailing Volvo Design Director Geza Loczi, former BMW and Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker, and ex-Mazda designer Tsutomu Matan. The former student claimed that 95 of his sketches were bogarted by two college lecturers in 1994 only to later materialize as the Audi TT, BMW Z3, Mazda RX-8 and Volvo XC90. Lloyd-Parker's failed attempts to sue the school pushed him to threaten the designers for £90,000--an effort that has led him directly to a sentencing at Southwark Crown Court.
thanks jerry!
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Sighn, a woodworker of sorts, is currently in the process of producing 1,000,000 hand-cut wooden pieces that spell out "Its OK." The artist came up with the project as a means to utilize a boat load of scrap wood and has allotted an estimated 30 to 60 years to complete the entire "limited" collection. The cuts are being sold online and a new tree will be planted for each purchase.
Yes, we are aware that the possessive "its" is used as opposed to the more appropriate conjunction "it's" but an apostrophe might jank up the composition...so it looks as if art prevails over grammar in this particular case.
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Here are two anthropological clues, in the form of products with a tinge of tragedy, that say something about our modern lives. In an era when more and more of us are living single in cities and working our tails off, it's easy to see where both of these products come in:
Reuben Miller turned us on to the WMF 1, a coffeemaker for one that forces us to admit our 10-cup model operates at 10% capacity for about 360 days out of the year. When you're ready to admit you don't normally have nine friends over for coffee on the daily, take a look at one of these.
Similarly, the Workplace Dish Set is an admission that while we once shared lunch and laughs sitting next to our buddies on some construction girder, nowadays we mostly chew quietly and alone in front of an electronic version of the New York Times, trying not to get our Cobb Salad on the keyboard and praying the phone won't ring.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)YouTuber and Metacafe maven Razor G has posted a video on how to make a DIY metal detector, using an AM radio, tape, and a calculator; combining these devices will produce a radio frequency signal that will bounce off of metal, causing the radio to produce a tone. Of course, in this day and age, finding buried treasure won't be nearly as hard as finding an AM radio!
via lifehacker
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The latest from the Alessi "Dream Factory:" The Pop-Up Bottle Opener, Giovanni Alessi Anghini's stylish stainless-steel egg. You push the pressure-opereated device downward on the top of a bottle and the cap pops off and upwards, held tidily in place by a magnet. The only problem with devices like this is they tend to make everything else in your kitchen look kind of, well, crappy.
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That there is the SweetPea 3, an MP3 player designed for "ages 0-8." The 256MB capacity isn't huge, but hopefully by age "0" your kid hasn't developed that big of a music library yet.
Only adults can interact with the specially-designed volume control--it's the opposite of Casper, in that respect--and the SweetPea 3 is both Mac and PC compatible, solving at least one potential interfamiy squabble.
What to put on the device? Well, a separate company called RockabyeBabyMusic is doing a brisk business converting the songs of grown-up bands (including Green Day, U2, the Rolling Stones, and Nine Inch Nails) into lullabyes. And if baby-fied Zeppelin or Metallica is more your speed, they've got those too.
Man. Remember when you could keep babies entertained by jangling a shiny set of keys in front of them? Well, welcome to the revolution.
via dvice
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Paola Antonelli's exhibitions for MoMA often feel like a science fair planted in a museum. Her current show "Design and the Elastic Mind" is no exception, showcasing the fertile relationships between design and science, sculpture, engineering, architecture, and computer programming. Alex Terzich attends the press preview and opening, where he interviews Chuck Hoberman and Peter Hall, and sits with Paola Antonelli for a longer interview the following day.
With backgrounds in sculpture and engineering, Hoberman is a kind of live prototype for the ideal Elastic Mind contributor. He specializes in the design of transformable objects at scales ranging from toys to tents to full-scale architectural enclosures. His kinetic sculpture "Emergent Surface" was commissioned by MoMA specifically for the show and he discusses its origins and ideals.
Peter Hall is a critic who has written extensively about product design, data visualization and emergent cartographic practices. His essay "Critical Visualization" is featured in the exhibition catalog. On opening night he weighs in some of the work in the "Data Visualization" section of the show and outlines his essay on critical visual practice.
Paola Antonelli began her curatorial career at MoMA in 1995 with Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design. Her exhibitions are consistently popular, challenging and expansive. In this interview she reflects on opening night and our emotional attachments to objects.
LISTEN NOW (36 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
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For those of us raised in the '80s, the new KITT from the updated Knight Rider could be seen as blasphemy--it's not even a Trans-Am, for chrissakes! But let's set aside authenticity concerns and take a look at the designer behind the makeover: Harald Belker, a man with Syd-Mead-like capabilities. The man's done tons of design for Hollywood flicks, and you can check out his portfolio--along with yet another well-worth-checking-out Photoshop rendering tutorial--on his website.
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Adobe makes at least two products many of us designers can't live without, Photoshop and Illustrator. Both are software, of course, and we first heard tell of Adobe possibly moving into hardware courtesy of a Popular Science write-up back in April of '07. The gewgaw in question was to be a sort of camera superlens, comprised of 19 lenses clustered together that would enable the user to change the focal length of a picture after it was taken using Adobe software.
Since then we'd heard nothing more about the Adobe Light-Field Lens, but a video has recently surfaced on techeblog indicating the lens is definitely real! Check out a short but sweet demo on the lens' capabilities below.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)We can't even remember how many coffees we drank just yesterday, but Cristina Braga's got the whole year of 2007 on lockdown. The Digital Culture student at The University of Porto's Fine Arts School got her basic stats in check, from email and photos to music, movies, money, and more.
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The vandal in you can express freely (and legally) whilst sending a note to a loved one using Suck UK's Wooden Postcard.
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Art Director
Liberator
Atlanta, GA, USA
We're LIBERATOR - A 5 year old manufacturer presenting an emporium of love-style and sexual decadence in one cool brand. We're upscale, mainstream and exploding with a staff of 140 people housed in a 3 acre facility. Our in-house agency (6 creatives) is expanding and looking for an Art Director to help develop our 2008 campaigns and international franchise rollout. You will be delivering a flow of content to 3 websites, POP, monthly print ads, and collateral in a hip entertaining way.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
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Don't let keming happen to you!
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Blue Lounge, the same outfit that brought you Cableyoyo, just announced its newest desk-un-cluttering invention, the Space Station. You won't see any spacecraft docking here, but there's plenty of room for Phones, iPods, business cards, peripherals, and documents.
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Ordering deli food in New York used to be...well, not pleasant, but it was certainly efficient; during the era of mom-and-pop delicatessens, competition was stiff, and serving impatient customers quickly was a prerequisite for that business' survival. But with the current prevalence of absentee-owned delis manned by slack-jawed ex-cons and high school kids, Rude but Efficient New York Service has gone by the wayside, leaving only the first adjective.
Perhaps the Teraoka Deli Touch Pen will solve this problem. A classic example of mating existing technology with a yet-to-be solved problem, the pen, which is essentially a barcode scanner, lets customers order by clicking on photos in the menu. No more waiting for disinterested counterfolk to stop texting bank heist details to each other--the order goes directly to the kitchen.
The pen set-up rents for 45,000 yen a month, or about US $420, including 30 pens, the server and printer. Cheaper than a touch-screen set-up and won't stare your customers down when they ask for extra mayo.
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Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)New on Design Observer, Alice Twemlow ruminates on critical design as it relates to graphic design, but there're a lot of choice cuts (and links) for the product design enthusiast. Here's the start:
The Audio-Tooth Implant receives digital signals from radios and mobile phones and transmits the sound along the jawbone to the ear. The conductive foam Electro-draught Excluder can be used in the home to deflect stray electromagnetic fields. The purpose of both of these hypothetical products is not to perform a function in the conventional sense, neither as a product nor a source of information. Rather, they are intended to be provocations or hypotheses through which their designers can collect the responses of the people who use them."Critical design," as outlined by its key proponents, the interactive designers and e