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Hot on the heels of our entry about the Soap Bank, a reader sent us a tip for another brilliant way to recycle soap. Unfortunately the video is unembeddable, but do click here to see it, it's short and sweet.
thanks Judson!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (10)
According to an interview with Germany's Die Zeit weekly newspaper, Philippe Starck is ashamed of ever taking part in product design and plans to call it quits as a designer within 2 years.
"I will definitely give up in two years' time. I want to do something else, but I don't know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself ...design is a dreadful form of expression."
Claiming that design is officially dead, Starck predicts future designer types to fulfill the roles of the personal coach, the gym trainer, and the diet consultant. (And here we thought a sedentary life of Doritos and Solidworks was our calling...)
As Starck finds a hole to crawl into, his explosive statements will probably stir the design pot, at least once around ...and we can't say we're not pumped to witness his career twist in a couple years. If it involves being a fitness guru, will his workout studio and exercise videos be well-designed?
thanks sandy!
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (15)
The last time we saw tile used to decorate the living area of a space was...well, Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner, a/k/a Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis Brown house. Might that be changing? It will be if Italy's Rex Ceramiche has anything to say about it: check out their '08 Neoedonisme line, made for the bedroom and living room. If this catches on...buy stock in Tilex.
via trend dir
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)This is a great example of mass production combined with manual production. The knives in this video start off as strips of rolled steel that are cut into blanks, precision-honed by a grinding machine and shaken around in a huge bowl of polishing stones. Then it travels down the assembly line to a bunch of men and women who sharpen, buff, polish and de-burr the knives multiple times; we expected them to have band-aids all over their fingers, but they're consummate pros.
What we've described above are just the production methods used for the blade; the video also covers how the bone handles are made and how the whole kit 'n caboodle goes together at the end. All told, these simple-looking knives go through at least a dozen stages of production.
(Load the video and you can skip the first 22 seconds, which is an idiotic logo screen and techno music lite.)
via nat'l association of manufacturers blog
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO), the same people that brought the "Good Design Award - 50 Years" exhibition to the Salone in 2006, present "Japan Design 2008 - Innovation". 15 established Japanese industrial companies were selected to participate for their use of high technology, proactive approach towards design and acute cultural awareness. Products and prototypes on display will focus on mobile communication, vehicles for individual use, personal electronic gadgets, furniture and interior goods that represent Japanese design of today.
Pictured above reading left to right, i-REAL from TOYOTA, Solar Cell Charger from SANYO, MEDIA SKIN from KDDI, NEOREST Hybrid series from TOTO, WoodShell (Concept Design) from Fujitsu and the SHUN Sommelier's knife & Champagne Cork Opener from KAI.
JAPAN DESIGN 2008
Fondamenta Jahier
Via Solari 37-39 /Angolo Via Stendhal
April 16-20, 2008
Daily: 10 am - 10 pm
Technical Assistant to CEO
Autodesk
San Rafael, California
If you haven't had enough AutoCAD, work for the man himself. "The role of Technical Assistant to the CEO is a newly created role. In this role, you will serve as an indispensible and trusted advisor, attending meetings with the CEO, providing responses to technical inquiries regarding Autodesk's family of products, and interacting with Autodesk's key customers."
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
New York's Pier 94 drew massive crowds for the 10th Armory Show, one of the worlds largest contemporary art fairs. While recession fears may have attributed to a more conservative choice of artists featured, many European visitors enjoyed the weak US dollar ensuring massive crowds every day. One noticeable trend was a move towards more sculpture/mixed media pieces and less paintings. Pictured above is John Water's 'Study Art Sign (For Style or Glory)', one of a series in six commissioned for the Armory Show. More details after the jump.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)Hugh Graham asks some searching questions on designers, their role in consumer culture and the philosophy of it all in this thoughtful post. Here's a snippet,
Should designers work toward the end of aspirational consumer culture? Can the design industry, broadly defined, reposition and reinvent itself to provide value and sustainability while still creating desire?Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (3)When I was at Northwestern, I took some classes from a Professor of Philosophy, David Michael Levin, who once asked us whether having a choice was important in our lives. Specifically, he was asking about the difference between choice and the appearance of choice. For instance, he asked, is it important to be able to choose between Crest and Colgate?
[...]
The problem ultimately is that all this consumption fills some sort of void in our lives, at least temporarily. And by feeding the void in our lives, designers are providing the stimulus that keeps the modern economy moving.
Okay, we know that the amount of negative space in the seat shaft is slim, and that the cable's gonna be similarly slim, but the winner of the most recent One Hour Design Challenge to design a better bike lock is RBAid's "TheftProof Bike" seat lock system. We liked that this solution embraces and exploits the behavior that people are already engaged in, and the fact is that this concept never failed to put a smile on the face of anyone we showed it to. So charm gets you half-way RBAid, but it would've been nice to see some iteration on external coiling, or another approach that preserved the "they're already taking the bike seat off" insight, but stood up to robustness constraints. (Oh, and bonus points if the spelling of "combonation" was ironic.)
Some notables: Special mention should go out to tadatadatada's "belt system," thinksketch's "integrated bike lock and pump," sprawlers' "don't lock your bike; ride your lock," kallol mohanty's "lock it graphically," and Jesse Daniels' "blue ink 'sposion!"
Check out these and other submissions right here.
Big thanks to everyone who participated in this 1HDC, and congrats, RBAid! Hope you enjoy your $200 gift certificate at Harris Cyclery!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (8)
We featured "Concrete Curtains" earlier but what does concrete have to do with lightweight architecture? Researchers at the Kassel University are exploring new synergies of constructions and materials - including a combination of membrane constructions and concrete.
To create this lightweight building out of concrete, a flexible skin with an embedded membrane structure is inflated with air and filled up with a special concrete mixture such as UHPC (Ultra High Performance Concrete). Once the substance is hardened a solid concrete skeleton allows the building to be finished from the inside.
Instant housing such as these concrete-based Concrete Canvas Shelters are made to save lives in refugee camps. If Kassel's research works out well, building a solid house might become as quick and easy and as blowing up a big balloon?
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (5)
Triers try, but doodlers do. Words to live by for sure. Check out 38 pages (yes, 38 pages) of what designers are busy doing when they are in meetings, on the phone, or just good old procrastinating from doing what they are supposed to... post up a few of your own while you are at it. Thanks to poster Dygitalvision for the sketch above.
Posted by: yo | Comments (2)XXX
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)XXX
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We were staring at that little 2mm dot on the top of our Macbook, which the manufacturer gleefully informs us is...a microphone. An amazingly convenient technological triumph, yes; but it's also a sad reminder that a once-beautiful object, a device that truly signified "industrial design," is gone forever.
Folks, we've got a new object fetish, and its name is: vintage microphones! Click the link below for our image roundup, and gosh darn if these things ain't beautiful.
If you're looking for an interesting experience, Belgrade Design Week are seeking volunteers to help with pre-conference planning and onsite assistance during this their modern2 conference (May 8-10). The following volunteer positions are available: office assistance, local arrangements, onsite arrangements, registration, transportation, hosting. If you are fluent in English and interested in getting involved, send your CV to:
nina@belgradedesignweek.com
The 3rd Belgrade Design Week runs May 5-11, 2008
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
British design studio PearsonLloyd are presenting new work with Bernhardt, Martinez Otero and Walter Knoll at this years Salone. The new bar stool project for Walter Knoll is made from a single moulding incorporating a foot rest, seat pan frame and features a unique gas lift actuation mechanism. There are no visible fixings yet the chair is possible to take a part for repair and recycle if needed.
Concept
The stool has been designed with the upholstery in mind so that it can be replaced and repaired with all parts being disassembled ultimately for recycling. There are no visible fixings on the product and the main assembly is push fit making it efficient to assemble and easy to build. It's unique, in that it's Walter Knolls' first, fully integrated plastic product but still draws on the heritage of high upholstery with an innovative design to the seat pan and seat cover.
Technical notes
Our ambition was to optimise the structure in terms of material use. FEA (finite element analysis) was used extensively to ensure that the injection modeled structure was both producible in terms of moulding technology but also in order to use no more material than was necessary to satisfy the most stringent test requirements. All parts can be easily and quickly disassembled with minimal mechanical intervention to enable either repair or recycling. The chair itself is height adjustable and rotates through 360 degrees of movement. The base structure, when not assembled, is extremely compact which means shipping is reduced to a minimum in terms of volume and weight.
You can catch PearsonLloyd here:
Salone Internazionale Del Mobile
Pavilion 7, Stand A19
& here:
Studio Light
Zona Tortona
Via Stendhal 36
The sunlight-window relationship is a simple one: during the day the former passes through the latter, giving us interior light. But Australian designer Damien Savio's Lightway is a window that can conceivably extend that relationship into a 24-hour affair.
The Lightway--details of which are still proprietary--works by absorbing sunlight during the day, storing it in a battery, and giving that light off at night. The time ratio is quite good--four hours of sunshine will give you six hours of 60-watt shine. Savio went with louvers rather than straight glass for his first model, because the individual louvers can be removed and used like ambient flashlights. The OLED-loaded device has been nominated for the Australian Design Awards-Dyson Student Award.
"Whenever I do a design I just want to do something different and something that stands out," says Savio. "I like that with this, you don't even know it's a light until it's on."
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Debate time: Why are we so often wrong about the way new products and services will affect our lives? TV, said radioheads, would kill our imaginations. The VCR and the DVD, said movie studios, would kill their business. The ubiquity of computers was supposed to bring us paperless offices.
The latest mistaken prediction was that the internet--a simple way of sending electronic correspondence--would precipitate a sharp decline in snail mail. Of course, just the opposite has happened. Postal markets worldwide are continuing to grow. Germany, one of the largest European mail markets, saw increased overall volume of one billion pieces from 2003 to 2006. New Zealand's mail spike has been directly linked to the internet. In America alone, eBay is responsible for an estimated 1 billion packages a year that wouldn't have been sent when people couldn't see the contents of your attic online; Netflix has been shipping 2 million movies a day since at least 2005; and most of us are now getting a paper bill in the mail we didn't get 20 years ago, the DSL bill.
Which is not to say we're always wrong: the telephone did in fact lead to a decline in personal, handwritten letters, cell phones make us drive like jerks, and the music business is most definitely dying. (That latter fact, however, may have less to do with MP3s and more to do with the fact that most new music, well, sucks.) But we're not putting this entry up so we can pat ourselves on the back for correct predictions--we're interested in what makes us wrong. How can we, as product designers, look past the obvious and truly understand what global trends will really mean to us as end-users?
Suggestions please!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (11)
OPOS will present a series of personal accessories by designers that exclusively use a vegetable tanning leather process. Their hope is to raise awareness of this alternate to the more common chrome tanning, and while it is a slower method of production, the results have a much lower impact on the environment. The exhibition takes place at the 'asap' (as sustainable as possible) space and will feature work by:
Massimo Varetto
Antonio Cos
Luisa Lorenza Corna - Max Pescio
Studio X
Gianmaria Sforza
Joevelluto
Carlo Trevisani
Fabio Bortolani
OPOS Exhibition
asap space
Corso Garibaldi 104, Milan
April 16 - 23, 2008
Daily: 10.30 am - 7.30 pm
Monday: 3.30 pm - 7.30 pm
From MIT Technology Review, a so-bizarre-it-must-be-true story on plans already in the works to make sure it doesn't rain on the 2008 Olympics, no matter what.
The details of how this gets done are mighty impressive, starting with a supercomputer-driven weather tracking system that gives hourly forecasts for the Beijing area, specific to within a kilometer. Once an errant cloud is spotted though, the big guns are hauled out. Literally.
Then, using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city's weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.
The obvious implications of technological hubris are dealt with in a smart and balanced way in the remainder of the story, with nods to some of China's other massive technological undertakings like the Three Gorges Dam, and a brief but engaging history of weather control systems across the globe. Worth a read, if only to see what it looks like when you take "designing your environment" to its logical extreme.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (4)
The 2008 Dwell on Design Conference will be held on June 5th and 6th in Los Angeles, the very city that will be the focus of many discussions and lectures in the realms of sustainability, architecture, urban planning, interiors, products, and landscapes. The very long list of speakers includes Eric Garcetti, Council President of LA, Benjamin Ball of Ball-Nogues Studio, Enrico Bressan, Principal at Artecnica, Jenna Didier of Fountainhead Design, Monica Gilchrist and Walker Wells of Global Green, Leo Marmol of Marmol Radziner, and many, many more. The Exhibition, open on June 7th and 8th, will feature a marketplace where visitors can check out new products, interiors, pre-fab structures and more design-y stuff from over 200 exhibitors. This weekend will also feature home tours of LA's Westside Single Family Homes and an inside look into Downtown urban living.
Dwell on Design '08
June 5 - 8, 2008
Los Angeles Convention Center
Conference : $349 ($149 for students)
Exhibition : $25 ($50 at the door, complimentary for trade)
Hey remember Pure Design? It's most recognizably known for the blobulous clubby fixture that is K-Rash's DJKREEMY table and it's back on the scene with a brand new sector of children's items. Formerly a quirky/modern home products and furniture manufacturing company, Pure Design recently reemerged as a less-funky curatorial retailer of sorts, with stuff for sale online and a physical location in Corning, NY.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
Senior Industrial Design
Rubbermaid
Huntersville, North Carolina
Want to work in an environment where your designs can be prototyped in house? If so, check out this Senior Industrial Design position located at Rubbermaid's new, well equipped studio in North Carolina. "Design process will focus on developing patentable features that drive competitive advantage with an emphasis on end user needs, human factors and ergonomics. Solutions must address performance, functional improvements, marketable features and design for manufacture."
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
In one of the most impressive furniture hacks we've seen lately, Norway-dwelling Smilodon made an etched-glass door, from scratch, with engraved glass lit by LEDs. And with no tripod to shoot the project on, he hacked one out of a chair and an adjustable mop handle.
via bit tech net and techeblog
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Last night's third-only screening of Aaron Rose's Beautiful Losers took place as part of AIGANY's Small Talks series, and seemed to be the hottest ticket in town. (Indeed, Debbie Millman's remark upon entering the space was that she could've sold her ticket for $100 many times over!) The film looks at a group of 90's artists, musicians, and filmmakers who collated around New York's legendary Alleged Gallery (weirdly, no Wikipedia entry as of this writing). Shining its light on Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine, Shepard Fairey, Mike Mills, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee, Stephen Powers, Thomas Campbell, Jo Jackson, Ed Templeton, and Aaron Rose--with a fantastic score by Money Mark--Beautiful Losers presents each and every one of them as a most satisfying treat. You get excited when the camera makes return trips throughout the film ("oh great--more Harmony! Oh perfect--more Margaret!), and the overall craft and care of the thing belies the fact that this is is Aaron's first film. It's a heartwarming (and at times heartbreaking) movie, but in the end, this film is an artifact of absolute, undeniable life-affirmation. Honest--when the credits roll you want to watch it all over again, and it sends you out into the street believing in the power of creative expression and personal vision. Rose, during the post-screening Q&A, drove it home: "All we wanted was to make a film that would inspire people to go out and make things." He did.
(Above: beautiful, winning, poster by Keith Scharwath.)
This portrait's perfectly fitting for the Apple overlord himself.
via swissmiss
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)Not content to simply appropriate the entire canon of 80s dance-pop in their musical explorations, French superstars Justice have taken the conceptual video mash-up to a whole new level with this, their recently released video for DVNO.
The idea is pretty straightforward: illustrate words and phrases from the song using visuals derived from familiar TV graphics from the early days of CG. But the execution is nothing short of spectacular. In a breathless initial viewing, we caught hints of an HBO movie bumper, the (original) Battlestar Galactica title sequence, 20th Century Fox's intro reel, the Stephen Bochco Stephen J. Cannell graphic that ended every episode of The A-Team, and something that might have belonged to ABC Afterschool Special. Anyone who grew up watching TV in the 80s may find themselves reeling from the resurrection of so many nearly-forgotten cliches, and blissfully so.
A new high in seamless video retro-fabulousness, and a hell of an object lesson in the subtle power of nostalgia.
Via Design Observer
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (1)
Industrial Design
Giant Bicycle
Newbury Park, California
"At Giant we strive to get people outside having fun on bikes. So if that irrepressible feeling of anticipation, each time you gear up for a ride, is just something you can't keep to yourself, then Giant is the place for you."
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Forget bike rack & theft proof bicycle design competitions for a second, and dive into the world of Takuya Sakamoto's photography. If you're in New York, don't miss the open bar at tomorrow nights opening.
New York Bike Dreams
March 27 - May 10, 2008
MEMES
3 Great Jones St, NYC, 10012
Opening Party
Thursday, March 27, 2008
19:00 - 22:00
RSVP: rsvp-at-concre.net
The eVolo book presents the best 60 projects of the '06, '07, and '08 Skyscraper competition. Founded in 2003, the eVolo architecture group challenge students, architects and designers to question what the skyscraper will be in the beginning of the XXI Century. The site's sample pages are loaded with some great ideas and renderings, pictured above is an urban ski mountain concept by Natalie Ghatan.
Thanks Bruno
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
The next weeks we'll be featuring new applications of well-known materials to refresh our material thinking. We are starting off with a very usual material indeed: concrete!
--
Please update your bookmarks if you are still filing concrete under "rough and clumsy". The Concrete Curtain by Memux architectural design from Vienna redefines the use of concrete with this unusual application.
The curtain might have the looks of a thick fabric but is actually a set of small concrete elements gathered on a flexible mesh of geo-textile. The play of light and it's sluggish movement by the wind gives concrete a more soft and poetic character.
via bright
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)
Bruce Sterling writing about the Cornish Pilchard, the Chilean Blue Egg Hen, the Cypriot Tsamarella and the Bosnian Sack Cheese?
It's Bruce's entry into a very intelligent article on the Slow Food movement, the self-appointed anti-McDonald's, a "revolution" whose aim is a "new culture of food and life."
The Feng-GUI heat map service is an automatic alternative to eye-tracking. The heat map is a composition of several algorithms from neuroscience studies of Feature integration theory, Salience, Visual Attention, eye-tracking sessions, perception and cognition of humans. Or in English: "What people are looking at?"
Google's heat map? No wonder that they score well in brand ranking.
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (2)
Core friends from the flatlands Tuttobene are back for their 5th consecutive year presenting work from 28 young designers. They're also taking over the Nhow Hotel basement to create a Tuttobene Design Forest, a space which can be viewed through the glass floor entry of the hotel. And Tuttobene cyclists will be roaming the streets of the Zona Tortona offering directions and perhaps even a ride if you can swing it. Don't forget to register for the party unless you like watching from the door.
Tuttobene
Spazio Mortara
Via Mortara 15, Milan
April 16 - 21, 2008
Tuttobene FOCUS on NATURE
Nhow Hotel
Via Tortona 35, Milan
April 16 - 21, 2008
From Here to There will offer reflections and lessons from the frontlines of design research. Core77 superfriend Steve Portigal, along with Dennis Doordan, editor of Design Issues, Dan Formosa of Smart Design, Jason Severs of Frog Design and many more will be sharing their insights. Here's the pitch:
This event is initiated and organized by students from the Master of Science in Design and PhD in Environmental Design and Planning programs in an effort to facilitate learning about design research in the context of academic and professional practice. Crafted to maximize interaction, the symposium will include plenary sessions with ample time for conversation, as well as afternoon workshops to deepen understanding of specific methods and topics. The intended audience is anyone who is curious about the practice of research within the context of design.
The event is FREE to all.
For questions contact Tamara: tfc (at) asu (dot) edu
More details here.
Art Direction, Design
PUMA North America, Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts
Successful candidates will direct and manage the production of the brand’s creative materials combining influences of sport, fashion and lifestyle. They will also work closely with the internal production and design team to bring new campaigns to market in a wide variety of creative executions including print, outdoor, in store, and on line channels.
Some expectations: Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and/or relevant field of study, or 5+ years experience in similar field, a thorough understanding of print process, color theory and typography, and experience in the fashion, athletic and/or apparel industry is a plus.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Studio Leung's new project Printable Offerings re-interprets the Chinese tradition of burning paper gifts for family and friends who have passed away.
Concept
These gifts are made of paper and come in many product types which are purchased in selected Chinese shops and supermarkets worldwide. Printable Offerings aims to preserve this Chinese tradition with an updated selection of gifts, ready to be downloaded as PDF files, assembled and offered to loved ones who have passed away. The selection ranges from the aspirational iPhone to quintessentially Hong Kong objects such as Tempo pocket tissues and the Octopus travel card.
Download & Print
Collection 1 has been designed in time for the Qingming Festival (April 5th) - a festival which encourages people to enjoy the Spring season and visit the graves of departed ones. The collection focuses on everyday objects that play a huge role in Chinese culture, such as the Octopus travel card and Bic biro. Collection 2 will be made available on July 15th, one month before the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Learning business processes is seen as the exclusive domain of the management graduate and not that of the designer, however as teachers at NID we realized that without this knowledge being integrated into the product creation and development process, the impact of the new product or service offering would be essentially incomplete.
From Prof MP Ranjan of NID's Design Concepts and Concern's class blog on the systems design of business models - check out these entries on "Information strategies for research", "design opportunities in water" and more.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
The Washup, designed by Sevin Coskun, solves two problems at once. It makes use of the washing machine's waste water to flush the integrated toilet at the bottom, and also puts the washing machine up above the toilet itself, saving space in small apartments. This is one of the entries from the Greener Gadgets competition - check the others in the full site.
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (6)Be sure not to skip the very last "ferberizing" step or you'll end up with a hole-less button--as explained by Miranda July, who may or may not (okay, probably won't) have a future in teaching production methods.
via design observer
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (3)
The next 'Inside the Designer's Studio' talk takes place this Wednesday with Dror Benshetrit.
Dror Benshetrit, principal designer and founder of Dror, is a rising talent who has come into his own in the past five years. The Tel Aviv native and graduate of the renowned Design Academy in Eindhoven, Holland, has made a mark in the design world, consistently producing objects that create conceptual poetry through narrative transformations.
IDSA New York presents: Inside the Designer's Studio
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
7 pm at Design Within Reach
142 Wooster (btwn. Prince & Houston)
New York 10012
$10 IDSA members : $15 non-members : $5 students
In search of design opportunities embodying "mass-customization", recent Pratt ID (Master's) grad Martin Konrad Gloeckle churned out a collection of Un-Readymades, objects that "express the involvement of the end-user in the creation of the final product." In a modern world filled with preconceived "choices", Gloeckle's concepts "aim to inspire, encourage, and enable consumer involvement, creativity, and a deeper experience."
For some more in-depth info check out a recent interview with Gloeckle regarding this project over at the serendipitously monikered Mass Customization blog.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
If you're looking to upgrade that Duct Tape wallet you made last year, but not quite ready to drop your hard earned cash on a freitag, then instructables might just have the answer.
Industrial Designer
Nokia
San Diego, California
Nokia is in search of Product Designers who have a great understanding of human behavior, brands, trends and a willingness to learn. This position will involve collaboration with Nokia partners throughout the Nokia organization and will therefore require a high level of design skills and insight, an appreciation of diversity and a strong personal drive to discover new opportunities in device and experience solutions for the end user.
» view
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Most car hacks are frivolous; performance tuning and cosmetic fluff. But the most arduous, challenging, and functional aftermarket process we've seen is completely armoring and bullet-proofing a car, thanks to an excellent in-depth look by Crooked Brains.
It's more than just slapping a few kevlar panels on here and there; directly above is a shot of overlapping armor plates being welded to the interior frame, and below is a shot of the punishment these cars can be exposed to. (That's an actual photo of a car that came under attack in Iraq, sourced from Lasco International.)
Part of the challenge is indubitably cosmetic--returning the car to its normal appearance after adding ballistic protection...
...but the larger difficulty is making sure the car is still mechanically sound, despite all that added weight. What can go wrong? Take a look at this letter written to Lasco, by the transpo' contractors who own the shot-up truck pictured above:
[Regarding] the way your Suburbans are holding up under the harsh climate and road conditions here in Iraq....from the point of view of the drivers, the [Lasco] vehicles are holding up far better than the 9 other Suburbans manufactured...by another company. These other Suburbans are having electrical, mechanical, and structural problems. The armor plating is coming loose, front fender supports are cracking, radiator supports are cracking, door hinge bushings are breaking, rear hatch pistons are failing, (most hardware is breaking because it is not mounted sturdy enough) and most windshields are cracking in the corners.
Significantly tougher than dropping in a turbo and adding a spoiler, we'd say.
Click here for shots of the whole process.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
"Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this change without significant alteration, and the more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be," writes Clay Shirky professor of Interactive Telecommunications at NYU in his new book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
Definitely pick up this book, but while you're waiting for your amazon package to arrive, check out some of these fantastic podcast interviews with the author.
Here's one from Business Week's Innovation page and more can be found on Shirky's site.
Posted by: Xanthe Matychak | Comments (1)
We're loving Worth1000's latest P-shop contest:
In this contest your challenge is to take modern products and display them in a vintage light, through advertisements. You can also reverse the challenge and take vintage products and display them in a modern way.
And best of all,
Hit List: iPod or iPhone. Use 'em and get disqualified.
Check 'em all out here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Our favorite showertime activity: Take a tiny, used bar of soap, jam it onto a new bar of soap, and squeeze like heck. Add some hot shower water and presto, you've successfully created a soapglomerate. (It's not exactly CERN, but we like to think on some level we've achieved molecular fusion.)
The folks over at DesignNoDoubt don't seem to share our enthusiasm--they've designed something called the Soap Bank, a kind of porous stocking that holds used bars of soap, rendering them usable within their own little gallows. We can't deny it's inventive...but we prefer the soap-atom-smashing.
via yanko design
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Designers can be found thinking about everything from world peace to a better pasta shape. Frequent board poster, Choto asks "What are you designing now?" The answers quickly spanned the extremes, including diapers, pimp trackers (yes, pimp trackers), DV cams and toilets. Check it out here and weigh in with your latest project... vaguely enough to get around your NDA that is... and ip_wirelessley, good luck with that pimp tracker.
Posted by: yo | Comments (1)
Michael Randle was there in 1958 when Holtom explained his idea: matching the 'N' for nuclear & a straight up-and-down 'D' for 'Disarmament,' with a circle around it. "That's the symbol, very simple and straightforward," Randle recalled. "It was that explanation coupled with his vision of what the march would be like, his sketch of what the march would be like, that really sold it to us and we said, 'Right, we will adopt that.'"Not without controversy. It was inevitable that Holtom's simple three lines and a circle would bewilder at least one of the anti-nuclear campaigners.
"He looked at it and he said, 'What on earth were you three thinking about when you adopted that symbol? It doesn't mean a thing and it will never catch on.' Of course, he was thinking of the traditional things of a broken rifle, or a dove or something that would be immediately associated in people's minds with peace, and if you're looking at it now it's impossible to separate it from all the history that has gone on since."
Impossible, almost, to imagine some history without it.
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Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
Fumiko: How would you both define Super Normal?Jasper: My opinion is that the design world has drifted away from normality, forgotten it's roots and the basic notion that we designers are supposed to take care of the man-made environment and try to improve it. Super Normal is a bridge between the two worlds, an attempt to reunite them. It's not easy to write a formula for the Super Normal object, I'm not sure it can even be planned. An object becomes Super Normal through use. As designers we can aim at achieving the Super Normal by being less concerned with visual aspects of an objects character, by attempting to anticipate the objects likely impact on the atmosphere and how it will be to live with.
Naoto: I think it's probably fairly easy to understand the things or situations that come under the heading Super Normal. One is looking at something that is normal and saying, 'That's really normal'; these things are those that have permeated daily life, things that we don't find any element of design in. Another is a new design that takes the essence of something that everyone recognizes and perceives as normal. When people look at these things, their expectation of seeing something that has been 'designed' is somewhat betrayed, and they come out with things like 'That's so normal' and 'Why is it so...normal?!'. With this kind of comment, what's being expressed is the perfect meshing with the original normal object, and we're reminded that perhaps the continuation of a good relationship that has been around for a long time is better than anticipating something new. I think maybe the moment this hits us is what Super Normal means.
Here's the Supernormal design exhibition blog, gallery of design and the supernormal design philosophy
Thanks to Dave Tait for the link!
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)On design related initiatives ,
'This is a very big win for design,' says Design Council chief executive David Kester. 'Design is being set out as an important part of the innovation process for the first time. There is a long history of defining innovation by a narrow script of science and technology, so this is a big shift from Government.'Minister for Innovation Ian Pearson believes that design is central to innovation and that innovation is key to improving public services. 'Building design into the services of local authorities and Government departments is going to be important for the future,' he tells Design Week. 'The contribution of design to innovation hasn't been emphasised enough until now, but user-led innovation always clearly demonstrated the importance of design in developing new products, processes and new ways of working.'
More highlights after the jump
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (1)
On the hunt for a safer, more accessible, and even cooler-looking way to lock up, the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), in partnership with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the support of Google Inc. and Transportation Alternatives (catching breath), invites you to design a better city bike rack. The aim of the City Racks Design Competition is to yield superbly designed sidewalk bicycle racks and generate new bike parking concepts for the interiors of commercial and residential spaces. The winning sidewalk rack design will be installed by the City as its new standard for bicycle parking. The winning indoor design will be installed at Google's NYC headquarters and possibly some City-owned buildings.
The jury consists of Patricia E. Harris (First Deputy Mayor, New York City), Janette Sadik-Khan (Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation), Ellen Lupton (Curator Contemporary Design, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum), some Google Representative (TBA), Steve Madden (not the shoe guy, but Editor-in-Chief of Bicycling Magazine), Duncan Jackson (Industrial Designer, BillingsJackson), and (what the...) David Byrne (Talking Heads overlord, Musician, Artist, Cyclist).
City Racks Design Competition
Registration Deadline : April 30, 2008
According to an article on VNUNET, a team of DARPA-funded researchers (also known as "boffins") has devised a way of instructing robots to find and retrieve items identified with a simple laser pointer.
The robotic arm that carries out the command is know as El-E, "named for the arm's resemblance to an elephant trunk." EI-E can apparently grasp and deliver several types of household items including "towels, pill bottles and telephones."
Now, they're really sure about this, right? I mean, this isn't going to backfire? Because I'd hate to think what might happen if a laser pointer got into the hands of an evil-doer.
Posted by: David Womack | Comments (4)
Softbank/Toshiba's latest cell phone (coming out April 2nd in Japan): more than meets the eye. The 815TPB has AI that lets it express its "moods" through the LCD, and poseable limbs that are hopefully not hooked up to servos--last thing we need is this little bugger ringing and running away from us because he's not in the mood to serve as a conduit for our calls.
via softbank mobile
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)The first two times your American correspondent witnessed folding side-view mirrors in use was in Japan and Italy, where drivers actually had to pilot their cars through spaces with insanely tiny tolerances. And the most boastful parking job witnessed was in San Francisco--parallel parking a stickshift on a steep uphill incline.
But this one's got to take the cake--do you think you could park your car backwards in a space with only a one-centimeter tolerance? In Japan, of course, such an act would become a televised competition:
via tv in japan
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The most recent TED conference was captured in writing, on video, and through photos, as always and as expected. But a new medium was tested using Autodesk's BigViz system (Wacom tablets and Sketchbook Pro) and the artistry of visual cartographers David Sibbet and Kevin Richards who captured each presentation live and on the spot. The sketch-blogging session yielded over 700 sketches which have been rounded up into a hefty 200-page "book" that you can download as a PDF.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (0)
As frequent consumers of bananas--you can never have enough potassium--we couldn't help but smile at this somewhat silly but somewhat functional banana-holding device. What's the point? It keeps your bananas out of the fruit bowl and bruise-free. We suppose the same results could be achieved with a hook and string, but sometimes designers have to have their fun too.
via delight
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)Dazzling in a creepy, special effects kinda way; horrifying when you actually smell them. (Let's just say that in this new climate of toy safety concerns, the outgassing fumes of these admittedly magical orbs are strong enough to fell an elephant.) So ya, you might want to just forward this video rather than going out and buying them for your offspring.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Product Designer
Bic Violex S.A.
Athens, Greece
Located in Greece, the R&D Shavers department is looking to hire an Industrial Designer. The ideal candidate should have a degree in Product/Industrial Design and 3 or more year's experience. The position available is responsible to research and develop new concepts and prototypes for shaving products.
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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Designer Shkinder Maxim from the Ukraine submitted his Transformer into the Tancher Electronic Design Contest. Coming in third place, the communicator consists of three main parts able to rotate 360 degree around a specially designed axis. The only thing this multi-use electronic communication device is missing is a printer. It is stocked with a mobile telephone, photo and video recording functions, a multimedia player and projector, and last but not least a 3-D scanner, just in case you needed one in your back pocket.
Also check out:
1st place: Magic Mirror by Gorlov Timofey
2nd place: Flash From the Light by Peter Zsolt Koren
On April 3rd, a one-day conference will take place at Pratt Institute's Kullman Center to shed light on and discuss innovations, new techniques, and long term social and sustainable potential in modular construction and pre-fab architecture. Speakers include Andrew Blauvelt, design director and curator at the Walker Art Center, Charlie Lazor, co-founder and partner of Blu Dot Design, Ada Tolla & Giuseppe Lignano, co-founders and principals of LOT-EK, Michael Meredith, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and many others.
Pre-Fab Futures : New Agendas for Mass Customization in Architecture
April 3, 2008, 8 A.M. to 7 P.M.
The Kullman Center @ Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Architecture 2030, the same people who brought you the Face It webcast and Reverberate competitions, has trumpeted a call to action for the upcoming Earth Day weekend. The BYOBlue campaign is rallying the nation to fight against coal-fired power (one of the most major contributing factors to pollution and global warming) by asking everyone to wear blue from April 19 - 22 of this year to signify their vote for "No Coal." On the 22nd, you can also call Congress at 202-224-3121 and ask for an immediate 'Moratorium on Coal' to put the kibosh on the construction of any new coal-fired power plants.
Posted by: Jeannie Choe | Comments (1)
This year's theme, 'The surprising world of Moroso' is taken from a quote by Patrizia Moroso in Elena Commessati's book Cavalicco Friuli Mondo, "To be good, you have to be surprising. Innovative through and through, but that doesn't necessarily mean being unsettling. Surprising is the right word".
New designs will be introduced by Tord Boontje, Patricia Urquiola, Ron Arad, Ross Lovegrove and Tokujin Yoshioka. The stand at the fair ground has been designed by Patricia Urquiola and Moroso's showroom will be transformed into the 'The Little Wild Garden of Love' by Tord Boontje, to showcase their new outdoor collection.
Moroso
April 16 - 21, 2008
Salone Internazionale del Mobile
Pavilion 8 - Stand C25/D24
&
The Little Wild Garden of Love
April 17 - 21, 2008
Moroso Showroom, Milan
Via Pontaccio 8/10
Hours: 11.00 a.m. - 9.00 p.m.
As the States wait in anticipation for the arrival of the Smart Car, the Smart Car brand have released 'Sideways: A Smart Art Project', which assembles a fresh collection of work evaluating the way in which we think about the environment and mobility.
Inhabitat has the lowdown.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Though we don't think about it often, cell phones are revolutionary in that 20 years ago few of us had them, and now everyone's got one. Like many products, their designs currently suffer from a "hit" mentality, where a new design becomes a must-have for an ever-shrinking amount of time; anyone remember the Razr, or the Star-TAC?
A Forbes article takes a look at different approaches to cell phone design, from Neonode--the most innovative cell manufacturer you've never heard of--to the big dogs, like Nokia with their $4 billion R&D department, and Sony-Ericsson with their "Clamshell Center of Excellence." Motorola's messing with alternative energy sources while carrier T-Mobile is looking to students at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design, who are in turn "staking out their local Starbucks" in a bid to see what well-caffeinated cell users do. Click here to witness the amusing scramble of all the players trying to knock one out of the park.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Comparing product design and websites, Godin points out the number of steps a toaster requires the user to complete in order eat. Did the designer ever stop to think about the effort?
We recently acquired what might be the worst toaster in the history of the world. It's pretty fancy and shiny and microprocessor controlled. And it makes toast.But there's what I have to do to use it:
1. Choose the number of slices, and bagel or bread.
2. Remember whether it counts the slices from the left or the right (the left).
3. Insert the bread.
4. Push down the handle.
5. Choose toast or defrost.
6. Make sure the darkness level is right. (This doesn't count, because it usually is).
7. Press on.
8. Wait till it beeps.
9. Lift the handle I pressed in #4.
10. Turn it off.Most toasters, of course, consist of steps 3 and 4 only.
Read the rest of his post on simplifying life for the user.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
Would-be British design students and Sir James Dyson are surely waiting with bated breath for a local UK council's decision: the Bath and North Somerset Council was supposed to vote yesterday on the application from the Dyson School for Design Innovation, scheduled to be built in Bath and opened later this year.
The BNS Council has been objecting to the school--ironically, on "aesthetic grounds." An earlier planning report claimed "The height, scale, design and materials are harmful to the setting of listed buildings and to the character and setting of adjacent conservation and World Heritage sites." Though the final decision was to be made yesterday, no word was available at press time.
Dyson has been planning to open the school since at least '06, to get young Britons excited about design and make the UK into a more competitive design force. If the council rules against him, we doubt the setback will phase him; this is a man who went through a reported 5,126 iterations of a vacuum cleaner before perfecting the 5,127th, which then made him one of the richest men in the world. We'll keep you posted.
via design week uk
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)Apparently they listened to this song on repeat during the entire making of the movie, it makes you work faster