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Looking for a weekend distraction? Spend some time perusing Robert Forsythe's treasure trove of 250,000 out-of-date public transport timetables. The former Curator of the Scottish Maritime Museum from 1986 to 1989, Forsythe's "prime collection is that of Transport Publicity materials largely but not exclusively of post-war British Isles interest." Decipher that and you'll find a mosh of everything from ferries and waterway ephemera to de-regulated bus timetables. Useful, eh?
thx John! (Doors of Perception)
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
Byrne said the space looks like a fluffernutter.
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, the guy that made awkward dancing cool (nice try, Napoleon Dynamite) and subject of the best Muppet parody ever, opened a new installation today in the Battery Maritime Building on South Street in Manhattan.
"Playing the Building" (up through August 10) is an organ hooked up to the room's beams and columns. They shake, clank, and whistle when you press the keys. Anyone can sit down and play, just don't try to bang out "Crosseyed and Painless," unless you want it to sound like you're playing it on a rusty pipe. Which you are.
Posted by: William Bostwick | Comments (0)
We still haven't gotten around to actually using their services, but Minneapolis-based rapid molding company Protomold has got the Coolest Promotional Shwag prize all wrapped up. First, they sent us the infamous purple cube, making sink marks, pass-core features and screw boss design a cinch to explain. Arriving in the mail last week, though, was something that tops even that: the Demo Mold. It's essentially a super-simplified injection molding tool, complete with runner, ejector pins, slide action, and enough annotation to make the exhaustive process of describing the problem with undercuts to your client/manager a thing of the past.
On top of all that, it's a nice thought-provoker: when tooling time and cost drops to the point where you can manufacture an object to do your explaining for you, what's next?
Free to the industry; click here to order one.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (1)Check out some of this week's clogger highlights below:
>>New Gallery up at Core77: New York Design Week 2008
>>Future scenarios - coming to terms with the end of the era of growth
>>Postcards From Berlin: Fresh Photos From The DMY 2008 Design Festival!
>>More Muji: Design competition, "found" objects, and 90-degree socks
>>The top 8 mistakes in usability
>>Social networking for the elderly
>>Slootweg's design skills are a bit rusty (and that's a good thing)
>>Technological determinism isn't so groovy anymore
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
During the American roadtrips of our college days, every rest stop had the same bank of porcelain sinks that you'd see in a roadside diner, gas station or truck stop. But lately we've noticed they've all got Bradley Corp "Lavatory Systems," which are more design-y. Question is, why? Are they cheaper? Do rest stop owners actually care about aesthetics?
It appears to be a combination of things. Bradley's sinks install 50% faster, have tankless hot water heaters, infrared controls to cut down on the germies, and they typically spread one soap dispenser among two sink basins under the assumption that not every sink will be in use at the same time.
Whether they're any easier on the eyes is a judgment call, but we appreciate that design and efficiency are becoming more integrated into even the basest of American institutions.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Okay, this wasn't my idea and I promise I did not come up with the title (though it's got plenty of resonance for me). On Tuesday, June 10th at 7pm, I will be moderating a discussion produced by 02NYC with an all-star panel: Wendy Brawer from Green Map System, Tamara Giltsoff from ozolab, David Reinfurt from Dexter Sinister, and Damon Rich from the Center for Urban Pedagogy. And it will be at Cooper Union's Great Hall. Yikes!
Here's the pitch:
Designers as a group exercise significant leverage to create cultural influence and catalyze social change, for better or for worse. Given our growing awareness of the ecological, political and social impact of unsustainable consumption, what responsibility (and what means) do designers have to change the course? Join us for an inter-disciplinary panel discussion about how designers are addressing the systemic challenges of ecological design.Our focus is on non-product-oriented design processes--on rethinking and reframing our purposes. For example, thinking outside the (very important) box of greening the supply chain, in what ways can/does design enable people as producers of meaning, rather than of waste?
Ten bucks at the door and no RSVP. Hope to see you there. (Site)
It's a PR push for them, and a good look inside a car design studio for us--Mazda has recently flooded Car Body Design (main site here) with a slew of content:
- Design People takes a look at the people in front of the drawing boards.
- Nagare Design Language gives a comprehensive look at the design process of their Nagare concept.
- Design World discusses "design DNA," concept sketching, and follows the route from concept to production.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' right now:
curbly
green design that isn't ugly
dexigner
Design 21: Social Design Network announces winners of Power to the Pedal design comp
western front
The earthquake's a-coming, and ID students create emergency housing
billionaire boys club
The Neptunes' Pharrell Williams designs a chair (and it ain't pretty)
new scientist
The closest we can come to 007's "Q" gadgets
arbroath
Hell in a handbasket: Monkey's brain controls robot arm (with video)
slippery brick
iPod vending machines in Macy's
The Fifth Annual Games for Change hosted by PARSONS The New School for design starts June 2, 2008:
Game developers from New York and around the country will join together with nonprofit leaders to discuss a burgeoning area of game development: digital games with a civic bent that are meant to raise awareness and educate children and the public about important social issues. A highlight of the festival is a keynote address by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who will discuss a new interactive curriculum she is developing that will educate schoolchildren about the court system called "Our Courts".
During Games for Change there is a new one-day workshop funded by the MacArthur Foundation that teaches non-profit professionals how to make social issue games. And to top it off, don't miss expo night featuring Microsoft's Environmental Games Contest Finalists from around the world!
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Showcasing the best in cotemporary Brazilian Design, The IDEA/Brasil Awards took place last night with an Oscar-like fanfare in São Paulo's Teatro Frei Caneca. Organized by Objeto Brasil in association with the Apex-Brasil, the award is endorsed by the IDSA and is the first time the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) has been held outside of the United States.
53 Designers and Agencies were awarded prizes for work ranging across the full spectrum of consumer and commercial goods. Highlights included the 'Phenom 100' private jet from the Brazilian aircraft manufacture Embraer, the 'Super Bossa' pendant lamp by designer Fernando Prado, 'Max Door' by design agency No Design, the 'Ziplux' outdoor light-totem by Komlux, the awesome 'Stark 4WD Flex' off-road jeep by Questo Design and TAC, the 'Gear Cube for wheelchairs' reducing 50% the amount of energy expended by Ronem Perlin, and the playful 'Goma Stool' from designer Renata Moure.
In the next few days we'll be posting more detailed reports and interviews with some of the amazing Brazilian designers we've met in the last week, and for anyone lucky enough to be visiting São Paulo in the next 2 weeks, don't miss the finalists work on display at the IDEA/Brasil exhibition on the 7th Floor of the Teatro Shopping Frei Caneca.
Click through for more action from the opening party.
Two green innovations that almost seem too good to be true:
The NatureMill kitchen cabinet composter only draws 50 cents of power per month, but will allegedly turn your table scraps into compost in just two weeks, without attracting the insects and vermin that can plague urban applications of composting. It's hard to tell from the crappy product photos, but it's about the size of a paper shredder. Retails for around $300.
The Lifesaver water filtration bottle is designed for simplicity--you dunk it into dirty water to fill it, use the integrated pump to get the water through the filter, and can then drink the clean results. Takes under a minute to process and can be used for over five years. The catch? $460 retail!
via green home and inhabitat
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Aircraft Interior Designer
Quore Design
Blagnac, France
Successful candidates need to have a minimum of 5-10 years of experience designing interior environments. We seek strong 3D modeling and sketching skills with high quality 3D interior rendering skills as well. You also need a degree in interior design, Architecture, industrial design or comparable education and experience.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)If you got a kick out of the current Wired Magazine's cover story on Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green, and wondered what the greener-types thought of it, well, the editors were good enough to give Alex Steffen a rebuttal right in the book itself.
Ah, but there's more. Here's Alex on yesterday's Worldchanging:
The discussions we see today -- whether we're talking energy sources, farming practices or fashion choices -- are not even the right kind of debate. Unable to mentally grapple with the idea that we need to be aiming for total sustainability right now, we talk to death the same series of inadequate baby steps. Faced with the need to reinvent the material basis of our civilization, we argue paper or plastic.Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (4)If you want truly dangerous bright green ideas, go way out beyond what the conventional wisdom thinks is possible. The conventional wisdom's sense of the possible is irrelevant to reality; it's being melted by climate change and planetary crisis faster than an Alpine glacier. Think, instead, of the implications of ideas like zero energy, zero emissions, zero waste, closed loops, true-cost accounting for the value of ecological services, product-service systems, visible flows, totally transparent backstories, open innovation, green infrastructure, etc. These concepts are really weird, full of new insights and critical uncertainties -- and they, or ideas like them, are very quickly going to become the operating principles of our entire society. If we want to avoid a catastrophic collision with ecological reality, we need to change our thinking.
Our ideas of what's normal, or even what's possible, will not outlast the next decade. Unfortunately, Wired's list of heresies is a list of normal, contemporary approaches (nukes, tree plantations, factory farming, living in the Sunbelt suburbs) and current environmental commonplaces (cities are good, China can be green, carbon trading needs reform) packaged in a way designed to shock and titillate.
What would have been far, far more heretical is to do for planetary sustainability issues what the first issues of Wired tried to do for information technologies: explain why the whole current debate was stale and out-of-touch, and attempt to illuminate a new way of thinking that to the folks back home seemed unfathomable, often crazy, but which turned out to be more right than wrong -- to predict the present in a way that changes our understanding of the world in which we live. There is an emerging culture of real, bright green hand-waving brilliant heretics out there, and the reading public deserves to know what they think.
You could be forgiven for thinking a "Metacycle Design Competition" has something to do with two-wheeled vehicles, but that's not the kind of -cycle they mean; think "recycle," not "bicycle."
To metacycle is to prolong the useful life of an obsolete object by transforming it to have a new function. The metacycle community was created to increase product longevity through design and rapid prototyping technologies.metacycle.ca is launching a design competition offering a grand prize worth over $15,000 CAD. The competition asks participants to choose one of 10 selected objects and transform it into a new, functional and eco-responsible product. The winning concept will be developed by a team of professional designers and a physical model of the concept will be sent to the originator of the idea.
Deadline is June 30th, more info available here.
via designophy
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)Photoshop novices will find these videos intimidating, but those with a decent understanding of paths, masking and brushes will be interested by these auto renderings. Several hours of work crunched into roughly five minutes!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
In one of the cooler interface designs we've seen, German engineers Matthieu Deru and Simon Bergweiler hacked a Wii Balance Board into a PC interface; thusly rigged, it can be used for, among other things, virtually surfing the planet using Google Earth. Check out the video:
via makezine
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
No more hot dog-a-la-lighter-fluid! Thanks to our friends Mike and Maaike there's a new way to grill up your favorite tubes of meat. Their Baja BBQ Firepack is a smartly designed charcoal packaging that lights instantly and burns away in the grille, making the barbeque experience simple, clean and chemical free.
Made from 100% recycled biodegradeable paper pulp, the package contains 2 lbs of natural lump charcoal and features an integrated chimney that creates perfect hot coals in 15-20 minutes without the aid of chemicals or lighter fluid.
Manufactured by Lazzari - patent pending - and soon to be available at gourmet supermarkets.
WAY more pix after the jump.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Paul Julius Martus (Grand Rapids, MI)
Featured Project : Handwrench
The "original Handwrench" by Paul Julius Martus is in a class all by itself. Love it or hate it.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
It's gettin down to the wire over at Core77's 1 Hour Design Challenge, "Design Some Kick-Ass Speakers!"
You've only got a few hours left to enter - take an early lunch break and get crackin!
Brief:
We bet you have a set of computer speakers on your desk that resemble some form of a gray blob that cost you about $10 USD. Kurt Solland, VP of Design for, Harman Consumer Group has been doing everything he can to make that bet a long shot. For this challenge, Core77 invited Kurt to join the 1HDC as a guest moderator. (Did ya' hear that?!) So we ask you to crank up the tunes and crank out your best spin on a computer speaker design with whatever means you can scratch together in an hour.
Last Call:
Thursday, May 29, 2008
9 AM PST (4 GMT)
Jury:
Winner will be selected by the Kurt Solland and Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.
>>> Click Here to Enter Your Submission <<<
Via infosthetics, realities:united's overhead digital clock composed of fluorescent light fixtures is definitely not a good idea for clock watchers, but might be nice for the rest of us. Watch the time-lapse movie below to see it in (quick) action.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
The pit-stop between Milan and Art Basel, New York Design Week 2008 (May 17-20) presented a hearty collection of the best the Design World has to offer.
>> view gallery
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' right now:
the new york times
Chairs with "talking points"
businessweek
Nussbaum on Chicago: "Mayor Daley 'gets' design"
design taxi
Slovenia's 21st Biennial of Industrial Design
arabian business
Linksys opens European Design Center in Denmark
mobility site
T-Mobile's sleek new MDA Compact IV
pc mag
Motorola's Giugiaro-designed spiderlike router-thingy
seattle pi
Medical-device designers take note: biomedical device industry on the uptick
Lately we've noticed design (both good and bad) has crept into an unexpected place: commercial bathrooms. Remember when paper towel dispensers were just a tin box with that minimal handcrank? And if you've ever worked in a restaurant and had to refill one, you hated that they were opaque, meaning you'd have to open it to see if it was due for a refill or not.
Nowadays most paper towel dispensers are translucent, and many lack that germ-retaining crank. Some are sensually shaped while others have a clinical, hospitalized aesthetic. There's also a new batch of dispensers coming out of China that seem rather complicated; were we forced to design those, we'd walk away from the project and announce "We wash our hands of this whole thing."
Sources after the jump.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Design Manager, UED Yahoo! Help
Yahoo! Inc.
Sunnyvale, California
The Design Manager collaborates closely with product management, visual design, and engineering teams, and will directly manage a design team that consists of interaction and visual designers.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)In today's business climate, is it possible for rivals to collaborate even as they compete? Apparently so, according to a New York Times interview with Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley: though P&G and Clorox are competitors, P&G actually developed Clorox's Glad Press-and-Seal wrap.
"We set a goal, that half of the innovations we take to market should have external front-end partners," Lafley explains. "We'll accept innovation help from any source, even competitors.... So we compete like crazy with Clorox on cleaning products, but partner with them on wraps."
What we found most interesting is Lafley's forward-thinking view of product innovation:
Lafley: ...We have regular innovation reviews, where we move ideas and best practices around our 22 businesses.Interviewer: And yet only half of your product innovations succeed. Why isn't the rate higher?
Lafley: I don't really want it to be. Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they'll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs.
Lafley recently wrote The Game-Changer, a book on business innovation, with management consultant Ram Charan.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Dell is goin Green! (At least in the competition sector, that is.) We blogged the five finalists from their "Regeneration: International Green Computing Design Competition" earlier this month, while waiting for the final award winner to be determined by popular vote.
Vas Obeyesekere of Point Innovation took the top honors last week for his Evolve concept (see image above) - check out the concept and an interview with the Texas-based designer here; check out the other finalists here.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
digital world tokyo
"Spreadable electronics" may enable OLED screens to power themselves
pink tentacle
One step closer to digital wallpaper: Shinoda plasma produces massive, superthin and flexible displays
autoweek
The business woes of Italian car design firms
furniture style
Umbra names new Design Director
boston herald
Finland: design powerhouse
targetwire
Smart Design's Dan Formosa on "Next Generation Product Design"
san francisco chronicle
A comprehensive look at all the "greenery" from the ICFF
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
We designers can have a positive impact on the environment by spec'ing out green-friendly materials, but that's for products and stuff we're working on now. What about all the junk that's already been made? Chains like Whole Foods have switched from plastic bags to paper, but what about the plastic bags that have already gone into the wastestream at an estimated rate of 500 billion to 1 trillion a year?
Help is here, from an unexpected source: Canadian high school student Daniel Burd, who has reportedly discovered how to speed up the decomposition of plastic bags using a specific cocktail of bacteria. Left on their own, plastic bags can take centuries to decompose; with Burd's brew, it allegedly takes three months!
Also, here's a bizarre tale (with photos) that you'll swear is an urban myth:
A dolphin in a Chinese aquarium mistook a floating plastic bag for food and ate it. Obviously this could kill the dolphin, so surgery was performed to try to remove the bag. After the surgery failed, aquarium authorities then enlisted the help of the world's tallest man, 7'9" Bao Xishun, to reach his long arms into the dolphin's stomach to remove the plastic bag manually.
via dvice and no plastic bags
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)This is why I love the internet. And the best? The "Now lets see him do that with a load of dirt in the wheel barrel" comment.
Thanks Kris!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)The theme of this year's Muji Award International Design Competition 03: "Found Muji." What does that mean? It's a philosophy borne of their recent line of products:
...We currently offer "Found MUJI" products, which were developed by discovering the good points about merchandise that has been used over long periods of time, were created by humans, and were born out of daily needs.[For example] we "found" that socks hand-knitted by Czech grandmothers were characterized by a 90-degree shape, which perfectly fits your feet. We tried them on and felt that they fit comfortably on our heels. We then discovered that the shape of the machine-produced socks we usually wear doesn't fit our feet owing to manufacturing reasons. So then we realized that we could provide many people with comfortable 90 degree socks produced by machine. In this way, a factor found in Czech tradition, culture, and wisdom was converted to a new MUJI product befitting our modern age.
Also, this ain't your run-of-the-mill design competition--the judges take it so seriously that last year, Competition 02, there was no Silver Prize awarded! Click here to see those results, and click here for the results of Competition 01.
Entry period is from July 1st to July 31st.
via jean snow
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
No more packing your student projects into storage! Blue. (pronounced BlueDot, but no relation to this BluDot) is a brilliant initiative that sells consumer products designed and made by Dutch students during their study at the Industrial Design department of Delft Technical University in the Netherlands. Products like Crispijn Westen's Salt and Pepper set and Goran Aleksijovski's Aluminate lamp are two examples of, yet again, a strong Dutch Design collective.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)Here's an interesting statistic: While the iPhone is popular, Nokia "sells more phones every week than Apple has sold since the iPhone's introduction" (italics ours). Guess there's a difference between being popular and global.
The above statistic, from Charter Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder, was mentioned in a Times article on the upcoming iPhone launch, which has been widely forecast for June 9th. That's a little over a week away--or in Nokia terms, a few million phones.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Should you happen to be in Ontario for the summer solstice this year (shouldn't we all?!), drop by the Solar Collector, a solar-powered, web-connected, interactive sculpture by Matt Gorbet, Rob Gorbet, and Susan Gorbet. The form is made up of shafts faced with solar panels that are oriented to reflect the angles of the sun through the changing seasons. During the day, the sculpture collects energy and at dusk the lights on the shafts come to life with graceful patterns that are created by the community via the web.
Join Gorbet Design on June 21st at 8:30pm, 100 Maple Grove Road, Cambridge, Ontario, to see the sculptures come to life.
If you're stepping out to grab a coffee, decency requires you ask your co-workers if anyone else wants one. But on the way back to the office, you curse your own decency as you juggle multiple hot cups and the phone rings or you need to pull out your keys.
A nifty solution is this carry-bag for coffees, apparently from a chain. As the page showing the bag and the comments on it are in German, we were unable to get more info about it, but Google Translator did let us read some excellent comments like these:
So I find it great. This hole every day I think decaffeinated coffee with 0.1% milk. The will for me gepustet extra cold, so I opened my mouth or by not verbrenne get stomach pain. You are all so common :-(Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
NYC photographer Mr. Toledano's artful, and eerie, photo series of offices that have gone bankrupt looks like a Herman Miller showroom gone awry. It's kind of like, if Jean-Paul Sartre shot furniture catalogs. Click here for the series.
via dumptrumpet
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Industrial Designer - Sporting Apparel
The Coleman Company, Inc.
Hydraulic, Kansas
Aid in the aesthetic development of new products from concept development, brand identity and product aesthetics. Participate in new product development by contributing to the overall aesthetics, color, branding, graphic design and application to the product. Coordinate with other resources to accomplish project goals.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Short and sweet piece on common mistakes made in usability research. Here's a bit about the delusion caused by "Conducting Pretend Research":
Let's pretend our user's name is Jane. Let's pretend she is 38 years old, drives a purple Prius, reads mystery novels, loves bulldogs, and likes to go sailing. Let's pretend she comes to our website and likes feature A but not feature B. Therefore, we should develop more things like feature A. See? We're very customer-centered.
and an outline of the entire piece:
- Not conducting any customer research
- Making decisions based on made-up user profiles
- Conducting the wrong type of research
- Using predefined tasks in usability tests
- Not inviting stakeholders to attend usability tests
- Not prioritizing findings from usability tests
- Not relating research to business objectives
- Missing the larger strategic picture
via Good Experience
Posted by: Xanthe Matychak | Comments (0)
It's gettin loud over at Core77's 1 Hour Design Challenge, "Design Some Kick-Ass Speakers!"
Brief:
We bet you have a set of computer speakers on your desk that resemble some form of a gray blob that cost you about $10 USD. Kurt Solland, VP of Design for, Harman Consumer Group has been doing everything he can to make that bet a long shot. For this challenge, Core77 invited Kurt to join the 1HDC as a guest moderator. (Did ya' hear that?!) So we ask you to crank up the tunes and crank out your best spin on a computer speaker design with whatever means you can scratch together in an hour.
Last Call:
Thursday, May 29, 2008
9 AM PST (4 GMT)
Jury:
Winner will be selected by the Kurt Solland and Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.
>>> Click Here to Enter Your Submission <<<
In Our Own Devices, Jill Lepore at the New Yorker reviews "The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America" by Maury Klein and "A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium" by Robert Friedel.
Check out the whole article but we've quoted some of the juicy bits here and after El Jumpo
Historical narratives in which machines drive history look like this: x machine produces y kind of society. "The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," Karl Marx wrote, in "The Poverty of Philosophy," in 1847. Lewis Mumford, in his meditative 1934 "Technics and Civilization," made this swap: "The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age." For Klein, Edison flipped the switch on "a new era in American life," the age of abundance.This logic is usually called "technological determinism," and is something that Mumford himself, during the course of his career, repudiated and vigorously attacked as "a radical misinterpretation of the whole course of human development."
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (1)
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
daniweb
Open source laptop design: CAD files available online for the ultra-portable "Openbook"
hollywood reporter
SK Telecom building "a $1 billion digital content and industrial design complex in Beijing by 2013"
edie
Eco-design: "Design can determine 80% of the whole life costs and carbon footprint of a product..."
Reuters
Googleader Page wants to use dead TV airwaves for faster internet
macnewsworld
Ridiculous speculation about an Apple iCar
greenbiz
Xerox's erasable paper: they're either saving the environment, or putting shredder companies out of business
businesswire
Philips purchases Lightspace Interactive Technology for future project
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
In this age of DVDs and flatscreens, the reason people still go to the cinema at all is because some things are better bigger.
Take Muji for instance--anyone who's been to the larger Muji stores around the world is bound to be disappointed by the tiny Muji outposts in, say, Seoul's Myeong-dong or New York's SoHo.
Come May 30th, NYC Muji is finally upstaging their SoHo shop with a Muji mothership. Deceptively called "Muji Times Square"--it's actually at 40th and 8th Ave, three blocks off from its namesake--the new digs will feature 4,350 feet of no-frills goodness. The grand opening is scheduled for noon, and the first 500 to show up will get a free "non-linear" Chronotebook planner.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
And you thought those full-scale car sketches the trans guys did were big...Eric Nordenankar uses a GPS tracker and an extremely detailed set of delivery instructions to enlist DHL help in sketching his mug across the surface of planet earth. A little bedhead is in evidence up in the Arctic Ocean, but otherwise, nicely done.
See process images and movies at the aptly titled website BiggestDrawingInTheWorld.com
via Design Observer
----------------------------------
UPDATE: Yes, it's a fake. After getting featured by Gizmodo, Hack A Day, CNET, Ze Frank, Design Observer and plenty of others, Nordenankar added the text "This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time" to the bottom of the page. This has since been amended by a similar message, in red, at the TOP of the page.
And yes, it did seem a little far fetched that a student could convince DHL to fly planes in loops off the coast of Madagascar, but we can't be too perturbed -- it was a pretty convincing "project."
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (9)We've seen furniture-for-tiny-spaces a million times, but the Spaceless fold-up floor from Sandy Lam actually makes it all disappear! Designed to be either a permanent structure added during building construction, or a removable/detachable system that can be added to any existing balcony, Spaceless folds up for use or folds down into the floor and goes away.
Fingers crossed there's a fold-away bed/sofa/fridge model coming soon...
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
This weekend, Berlin celebrated its yearly design event (formerly known as DESIGNMAI) now organized by the DMY organization who created a platform for creative things, talks, workshops and parties one of Europe's most creative cities.
A central exhibition at the Arena anchors a five-day DMY 2008 festival with over 150 designers showcasing their latest works. Some 36 ALLSTARS exhibitions are spread out all over town making sure that an inspiring tour along the city of Berlin is included.
What happened (and is still happening) this year? -- See more pics after the jump!
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)
This Thursday, May 29, listen to food-related design criticism at the KGB bar:
Design curator extraordinaire Paola Antonelli deconstructs the art and science of the pasta shell. Design essayist and author Akiko Busch will treat us to her delicious musings on the vegetable peeler which, when seen through Busch's eyes, reveals the poetry of the kitchen. And Paul Lukas, who recently blasted Heinz EZ Squirt Blastin' Green Ketchup, will take us on a lo-fi historical tour of butcher-chart design.This event is part of a bi-monthly series of reading nights, organized in anticipation of the Fall 2008 launch of the Design Criticism MFA program at the School of Visual Arts. All are warmly invited to attend.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We're totally digging the designs of Dennis Slootweg. A Dutch designer who's been cranking out his stuff since graduating from the Den Haag's Royal Academy of Art in '97, Slootweg is slated to show at the Netherlands' upcoming 100% Design.
The man works not just with metal, but with rust. Check out the work of one of the only designers whose toolbox is probably stocked with tetanus shots:
Two things that surprised us about the diminutive Smart Car: One, it gets relatively crappy mileage--33 m.p.g. city--and two, that it did fairly well in crash tests, as you can see in the IIHS footage below.
The crazy cats over at Fifth Gear conducted their own test, sending the Smart slamming into a concrete barrier at 70 m.p.h.
While seeking out the Smart's crash test footage, we also stumbled across some Russian footage of a crash test of a passenger train. And man, there is definitely a part of this train that you don't want to be sitting in!
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Industrial Designer
Bocci
Vancouver, British Columbia
Bocci (www.bocci.ca) is growing and looking for a full time Industrial Designer to join our team. Under the creative directorship of Omer Arbel, you will play a key role in the design and development of new products and provide design support for our existing line (products range from furniture to lighting to electrical devices).
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Today Samsung launches their Jasper-Morrison-designed 'fridge, the Side-by-Side J-Series. Interestingly enough, the rash of blog posts announcing this product back in September all appear to be using the wrong photo--what people mistook for the J-series seems to be the RS21F model, below left; Morrison's design is below right. As you can see, the exteriors don't appear terribly different.
Samsung UK's product page makes no mention of one of the J-Series' blogger-ballyhooed design features: "a 'Z' shelf to maximise space usage and bottle storage." We'd hoped to have shots of these to show you but alas, getting Samsung to send a European-market 'fridge to our American offices for testing is something they're...cool on. (Sorry.)
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Well, for a holiday workday, this item sure has been burning its way through the aggregators. Some nice fictional products, and some silly ones too. Our faves are the (hightech) external touchscreen, and the (low-tech) double-lidded peanut butter jar (natch). Knock yourselves out on the rest.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Australian David Holmgren, the cofounder of the permaculture concept has just launched a new global scenario planning website - Future Scenarios.org A snippet from the Energy Bulletin elucidates,
Holmgren says his future scenarios will help both policy makers and activists come to terms with the end of the era of growth.[...] uses a scenario planning framework to bring to life the likely cultural, political, agricultural and economic implications of peak oil and climate change."Scenario planning allows us to use stories about the future as a reference point for imagining how particular strategies and structures might thrive, fail or be transformed," says Holmgren
Future Scenarios depicts four very different futures. Each is a permutation of mild or destructive climate change, combined with either slow or severe energy declines. Scenarios range from the relatively benign Green Tech to the near catastrophic Lifeboats scenario..
Here's a link to Holmgren's 12 design principles of permaculture
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
The school booths at the ICFF get better every year, and are increasingly presenting student work with a singular theme rather than highlighting individual projects. Dana Getman from Yale University of Architecture gave us the lowdown on their Egyptian inspired furniture.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
What happens when a PhD materials scientist and a fashion trend forecaster get together to predict the future? Sounds slightly far-fetched, but this was exactly the premise for Left Brain/Right Brain, a Design Week-concurrent (but not -affiliated) presentation held at The New School in Manhattan earlier this week.
Andrew Dent, Material Connexion's chief materials librarian, formed the Left Brain part of the show; Li Edelkoort played Right -- for those not familiar with her stuff, she heads Trend Union, a trends, colors and materials forecasting group, and judging by the turnout and price tag ($300 for two and a half hours), enjoys much respect in the fashion and architecture communities she serves.
Dent's half consisted of a rapid rundown of sustainability-oriented developments in a half dozen different material groups, featuring several choice informational sound bites. For example:
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
-Humans have made more concrete than any other material on earth, and its production is responsible for between five and seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
When design students, like Ben Arent, engage in extensive user research, I take notice.
Jive is a proof of concept for a new communication device - a range of 3 products designed to get elderly technophobes connected to their friends and family.
Unfortunately, Ben doesn't give information on whether the concept was iterated further based on contextual user testing. This would definitely be necessary to make sure the product would actually be used by the elderly.
Steve's got a nice romp through some inter-cultural design collisions--from subway card swiping to the inevitable potty conventions. Here's a little taste:
Sometimes the best surprises come when I am sure that I know what I'm doing. In using the self-check at the local Tesco grocery store, I recognized the terminal and software from the self-checkout register at Home Depot in the U.S. and proceeded to swipe and bag my items as usual. When it came time to pay, the voice prompt told me to insert my card into the "chippenpin device." Later I learned this was Chip-and-PIN, a European standard where credit cards and/or ATM cards have an extra layer of security via an embedded chip, and an associated PIN. These readers have a different form and swipe gesture, with the card sliding in at the bottom of a standalone keypad. Being new to this concept, I proceeded with my nonchipped credit card, putting it in and out of this slot to no avail. After I ceased my futile swiping and just paid with cash, I realized the familiar vertical card-swipe slot was tucked alongside the bezel of the monitor, a different piece of hardware than the "chippenpin." I wasn't even putting my card in the right box!
Get the whole article by starting here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Check out some of this week's clogger highlights below:
>>NY Design Week Coverage: All posts in one place!
>>First World Industrial Design Day on 29 June
>>UK to use power of design to fight crime
>>Merger between Danish Design Center and Index:
>>Herman Miller's award-winning Lifework
>>High tech underpants by Philips
>>A rare interview with the elusive Jonathan Ive
>>Fake TV: the continuing appearance of useless products
>>Book Review: Decoding Design, by Maggie Macnab
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Workspace Group URBANTINE PROJECT, offers unrecognised architects the chance to see their experimental work built and displayed during the London Design Festival, September 18-21, 2008.
Speed is the name of the game in this 'Fast Architecture' Competition. The challenge is to design a 6m x 5m x 4m structure which can be built in 48 hours and disassembled in 24. Innovative material and creative assembly concepts, such as modularity and preassembly, will be valued.
The winner will receive a £10K budget to build their design.
The deadline for competition applications is June 10, 2008.
Museum of Design Atlanta hosts Made in GA an exhibition celebrating local industrial design:
Taking the viewer inside the world of industrial design, MADE IN GA tells the story of design and manufactured products through a local lens. The exhibition provides insight into how design impacts our community and our lives and draws attention to design's role in social, environmental and economic issues."MADE IN GA highlights a myriad of product design originating in Georgia," said Carie Davis, the exhibition's curator. "We hope to raise awareness of local businesses that support quality design and provoke thought among viewers about the products they bring into their lives."
The exhibit will feature examples of product development at various stages in the design process, including concept sketches, renderings, study models, prototypes, digital models and marketable products. The local designers and businesses showcased in the exhibition, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Goody and Benedetto Guitars, all support quality design. Student work from the industrial design programs at the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Georgia Institute of Technology will also be displayed.
Made in GA will open on June 5 and run through October 18 at MODA, free to the public.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
It's tiny. It's a table.
Presented by Kikkerland Design, this table is a replica of the piece designed by Jan Habraken and Sergio Maninno for the Kikkerland Design booth for the ICFF. The 3D modeling was executed by designer Jozeph Forakis.
Here are some details:
The actual Big Table is 13ft, or 396.24cm 396.24cm = 3,962.4mm 3,962.4 divided by 500 = 7.9248 The Little Big Table is exactly 7.924mm in Length, or precisely 1/500th scale.In other words, if you take 500 of the Little Big Tables and line them up end-to-end, they will be the same length as the 13ft Big Table.
The 3D modeling of the Table took over 20 hours: most of that time spent perfecting the "draping" & "folding" effect of the tablecloth to get it just right.
It is made using ultra-high resolution 3D-printing technology, with a special resin that is used, among other applications, for highly detailed, high precision, small scale jewelry.
The Bordeaux color is the natural color of the resin... which is a good thing: at this scale, any attempt to paint the Little Big Table would have dramatically diminished the surface detailing and would been the equivalent of adding 3-5cm of thickness in scale!
The Smallest Table in the World will be entered for consideration in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
You know and love Molo for their paper-expanding seating and wall pieces, but now they've gone up top for some cloud-like form explorations. The boothiere didn't know where the project was going yet, exactly, but the effect was beautiful, and we thought we'd shoot this vid for you.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Gregory Buntain's got everything from bling to boxy on his super-simple site. This recent grad just won a Target design award for his intension table, made of salvaged hard wood and an industrial O-ring (which provides tension to hold the encapsulated joining legs within the table surface).
We're also big fans of Carbon, Salt & Pepper table bling. Functional and fashionable, they bring a bit of glam to dinnertime.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
Ah, how culture has shifted. In 1968 if you cruised the boulevard in a Mustang Fastback while everyone else was driving Ramblers and Beetles, you'd turn heads. Forty years later you can achieve the same effect by breaking this Xentex dual-screen prototype out at Starbucks while Thinkpad and MacBook users look on in envy.
It's currently for sale on eBay.
via engadget
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : ToMA (gerkens) (Brussels, Belgium)
Featured Project : Gardening Tools
No need to hide these beauties in the toolbox. ToMA's Gardening Tools are slick enough to leave as out as lawn ornaments.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)It's no secret that urbanite motorists take pride in our parallel parking skills, with San Francisco probably presenting the highest level of challenge (try parking on an upwards incline while driving a stick, you'll see what we mean). But this must-see bobcat operator, apparently tasked with loading his vehicle onto a flatbed with no assistance, has skillZ with a capital Z.
via neatorama
"I really like the design process and doing custom work, but it's very difficult to make a living at it," says Vancouver-based designer Glenn Ross, who's got a rather unusual career arc. After he found a wood-bending vacuum press and some woodoworking tools at an auction, he began using them to produce furniture in earnest; but it was his dog that led him to success.
"It was one of those epiphanies, staring at that ugly pet feeder," Ross now says, referring to Oliver's food dish and all the crusty grossness and mucky floor gunk left behind when a big dog sticks his snout into a pile of Alpo in the corner of the kitchen.Sensing there might be a market for a pet food dish not quite so hard to look at, he designed and built a stylish raised feeder fashioned out of bamboo, maple, cherry and wenge veneer, as well as hammered aluminum. The feeders come in a variety of sizes, with stainless steel bowls.
Ross' creations were good enough for Architectural Digest's "Great Design Issue," and his eye-catching WoWo collection is, if you'll pardon the expression, the cat's meow. Check out his full line here, and read the full article here.
via vancouver sun
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Programme Leader Interior & Spatial Design
British Higher School of Art and Design
Moscow, Russia
You will be fluent in English and possess capabilities and experience in architecture and spatial design combined with excellent ability to communicate. You will have in-depth specialist knowledge and demonstrate experience in at least three areas of the following fields: architecture, retail, residential and commercial interiors and branding. You should also have skills in graphic visualization, e.g. sketching, rendering, AutoCAD. Teaching experience is desirable but not mandatory.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Edward Austin took top prize in the 2008 Design Directions competition's "Ceramic Futures" category, sponsored by the UK's Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). While Royal College of Art student Austin is undoubtedly a young buck, the contest itself is the oldest we can think of--it's been around since 1924! (Previous winners: Leonardo da Vinci, "Rock Drawing Slate;" Unknown Caveman, "Wheel.")
Austin's winning design is for a vegetable peeler and cheese slicer made from zirconia (the stuff that, in crystalline form, cheapskates can use to propose marriage). We like that Austin's design not only considers the end product, but also thinks heavily about the manufacturing process:
[Austin's designs] include sections that can be sacrificed in the [manufacturing] process, specifically to hold the fine blade edges in place during firing. This enables the pieces to be fired upside down, which minimises warping and keeps the blades straight. These sections are removed in the sharpening process, using progressively finer grinding media on a wheel.... The pieces are also only fired once, saving fuel costs and adding environmental credibility.
The RSA Design Directions winners site has just gone live today, and while it's no fun to navigate, you can check out the winners and runners-up in the fifteen other categorieshere.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Not only can you stalk your ex via the internet, you can stalk companies, too. We love how Apple fanatics relentlessly forecast the company's future offerings by tracking their job openings.
The latest in the iPhone category: an open slot for Lead Camera Design Engineer, meaning iPhone shutterbugs will eventually have a better camera, and two other positions--Senior RF System Engineer and Product Design Engineer--than apparently mean the device is receiving some sort of wireless upgrade. (We didn't link the latter position because, interestingly enough, it's been removed and presumably filled between the time we first read the post and now.) More detailed analysis available here.
Ideally your ex would apply for one of these jobs, so you could do one-stop stalking.
via iphone world
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Listen-up!
It's time to design some kick-ass speakers!
Brief:
We bet you have a set of computer speakers on your desk that resemble some form of a gray blob that cost you about $10 USD. Kurt Solland, VP of Design for, Harman Consumer Group has been doing everything he can to make that bet a long shot. For this challenge, Core77 invited Kurt to join the 1HDC as a guest moderator. (Did ya' hear that?!) So we ask you to crank up the tunes and crank out your best spin on a computer speaker design with whatever means you can scratch together in an hour.
Doors open:
Thursday, May 22, 2008
10 AM PST (5 GMT)
Doors close:
Thursday, May 29, 2008
9 AM PST (4 GMT)
Criteria:
Judging will be based on quality of presentation and whether or not your work could have realistically been done in 1 Hour (this is an honor system).
Prize:
Publicity in Core77 May Newsletter, publicity on Core77 Blog and bragging rights that Kurt Solland chose your design (neener neener neener!), plus a secret prize hand-picked by the speaker-guru himself!
Jury:
Winner will be selected by the Kurt Solland and Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.
>>>Click here to enter your submission<<<
read more about Kurt after the jump...
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
designspotter
Laser-engraved skateboard decks by Piotr Woronkowicz
mocolocoRyuji Nakamura furniture in Shinjuku
fun foreverMario Bellini's "ravioli made of air" LED Stardust
engadgetThe Zune gets ads
engadgetThe iPhone gets geotagging
josh spearHypTV's 2008 Skyscraper Festival
funfurdeBastard chair made from leftovers
coolhuntingDutch dock-cum-office building
itech newsAcer's Predator series gaming machines
J-ListJapanese-market products by Elecom: iPod case, folding headphones
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Possibly as soon as in the next few months, the large hadron collider nearing completion at CERN outside of Geneva will be smashing little tiny particles at obscene speeds into one another in the hopes of finding the elusive Higgs boson, the so-called "god particle" that may provide teleological hope to the Standard model of physics. That said, some pundits (and even a few scientists) have postulated that the tiny black holes that might be created when particles collide in this enormous underground atomic racetrack might not fade away as quickly as predicted, which may pose a very unlikely, but still paranoia inducing risk to mankind.
I bring up this hypothetical of impending doom in part because it's emblematic of pattern recognition. While we don't yet know what the physicists will find, that doesn't mean we don't have guesses (like the doom and gloom above). In fact, several theories already exist, including multidimensional vibrating strings and branes that form the constituent particles of our universe, even though we only exist in three dimensions, plus time. So while there really isn't any empirical data about multidimensional N-space and our puny brains can't even conceive it, we've got brilliant physicists postulating its existence. Even scientists see patterns everywhere. The human condition makes us see giraffes in the clouds, Jesus burnt into our toast, and buy into malarkey like astrology and numerology. I like to think of myself as scientific, but I don't really know much about physics, so I know better than to postulate about whether the large hadron collider will kill us all. I'm simply not qualified, and a large part of science is an awareness of when to suspend judgment.
Maggie Macnab's Decoding Design applies the science of mathematics to design elements of typography and graphics, so it should totally be up my alley. As an occasionally aesthetically-impaired former mathematician who happens to work in design, I love that the restrictive rules of the grid let me manufacture an appealing layout without exercising any artistic judgement. The grid, that end-all-be-all of layout, is modular arithmetic. Decoding Design addresses shape and form numerically, but it also does a lot more, and that's why, as someone who does know something about number theory (as opposed to numerology), Maggie Macnab's book is both wonderfully fascinating and endlessly frustrating.
A small design firm here was recently hired by an unusual client with an unconventional request: The Ethiopian government commissioned Brandhouse to come up with a logo that will make consumers feel like they are drinking a luxury when they have Ethiopian coffee. This month, the Ethiopian government is releasing the logos for three varieties of Ethiopian coffee beans that it hopes will eventually appear from the burlap sacks that are used to transport coffee beans to coffee cups in cafes. It is the first time the country has introduced a brand for its major export.
The logos are the culmination of years of sometimes-bitter wrangling between Ethiopia, British charity Oxfam, Starbucks and the National Coffee Association, a trade association for U.S. coffee importers, wholesalers, retailers and roasters. The Ethiopian government has argued that companies such as Starbucks should sign licensing agreements for its coffee. Oxfam supported its cause and last year, the Seattle coffee chain reached a deal with Ethiopia to license, market and promote Harar, Yirgacheffe, and Sidamo coffee.
Full story courtesy the Wall Street Journal
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (3)
Sr. Package Designer - Hot Wheels
Mattel, Inc.
El Segundo, California
Mattel, Inc. is seeking a Senior Packaging Designer to join its Hot Wheels Packaging team! Packaging for Hot Wheels extends into all products related to the car market and we're looking for someone with strong market awareness coupled with super cool design skills and a strong enthusiast of cars and related industries. We are seeking a hands-on experienced designer with hot, new ideas.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Can't afford CS3? Check out Aviary , a suite of free internet app's that do everything from image editing to typography to music to 3D to video. Want proof? This hi-speed Emma Watson sex-change tutorial is all you need. (Eeeewww...)
They're definitely not for everyone, but we're liking Italian company Bandini's take on the bathroom vanity; their pop-y designs are a marked departure from the current crop of sharp-angled offerings out there. Lots of great pics up on their site.
via trenddir
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Sit back and enjoy all the New York Design Week videos we've got so far. And check back for more!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Selling Architecture that Sells: A Nordic Perspective on Quality Commercial Design: May 22, 2008, Ljubljana castle, Slovenia:
Architecture conference 2008 addresses the the challenge of producing quality architecture that meets the needs of makers, users, the larger public, and commercial good.The Architecture of the Nordic countries enjoys an extremely good reputation around the world, and in Slovenia in particular. It serves as something of both an inspiration for and a model of strong, innovative, high-quality design and enduring design integrity.
Invited offices:
JDS, Denmark: JDS Architects: Pixl to XL
OlssonLyckefors Architects, Sweden: Beyond Preconceptions
Valvomo, Finland: Interior Architecture as Corporate Identity
Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter, Denmark: New Spatial Materiality
JKMM / Teemu Kurkela; Finland: Human Sculpturesque Technology
a-lab / Adnan Harambasic, Oslo, Norway: Joining Forces
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We sincerely hope this is a gag: the Fake TV "uses an array of colored, flashing LEDs to create the illusion of the stroboscopic effect of a television," apparently so thieves walking by will see the flickering in your window and move on to greener pastures.
Do we need this, do the numbers bear this one out? Are our lands so roaming with robbers that somewhere they had to set up a factory to crank these things out? D'you reckon this is what the inventor of LED's had in mind? Sure, the Fake TV burns less juice than leaving the regular TV on, but where are we supposed to put this thing, in a fake entertainment console?
Hell in a handbasket, folks.
via technabob
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (9)Core77 is a huge fan of Danish Crafts, and this year didn't disappoint. Check out this video of Bo demo-ing Thomas Bentzen and Peter Johansen's Stakit, an ironic but useful leaning chair.
More everything at the site.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
Core's official Ping Pong Squad was on patrol at the ICFF challenging anyone that crossed their path to a game of black light table tennis. Konstantine Grcic didn't flinch for a second, click through to see more contenders!
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)Designer and Torontonian Luciano Lorenzotti gives a quick walk through some great examples of re-purposing done right, taken from Umbra's limited-run U+ collection. Scouring Canadian thrift stores, the designers take mismatched glasses, busted stuffed animals and old casette tapes, and turn them into pieces of functional art you not only want to buy, but can buy: everything described here is shortly to be available through Umbra's website and select retailers.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
OK, in the context of world peace and national disasters, we know it's fluff, but how often do you get to hear Madeleine Albright talk about jewelry?! Ever the arbiter of good taste, the Madame of all Madames discusses her take on the role of brooches and diplomacy with Amanda Christine Miller from the Huffington Post. Accessories aside, Albright goes on to touch on the branding of America and the inevitable "re-design" the next President will face. Gives a whole new meaning to "Creative Director," eh?
Watch it here.
I'm a sucker for a running line of any kind--fences, breadcrumbing, that last scene in Big Night (talk about wrecking something through YouTube recontextualization; honest, don't you dare watch that)--anything that's contiguous and just a little bit meandering.
Conjuring Boym's black tape stunt for the 1999 Vitra Neocon showroom several years ago (can't find a pic anywhere), ICFF booth Aykuterol Design used the device to marvelous effect, conjuring shelves, lighting, and coat hangers from a single piece (well, seemingly).
See more of their work at the site.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
In more "materials that are bad for you" news, BPA, a chemical found in hard, clear plastics like baby and sports bottles as well as epoxy resin, is apparently something you should avoid.
In studies of laboratory animals...BPA changes play behavior, weakens gender differences, decreases sperm count, stimulates prostate cancer and causes ADHD symptoms.
As a designer, what do you need to know about this? With papers on the ills of BPA "being published at the rate of about one a day," manufacturers are getting hip to its dangers and are coming up with alternatives; if you're in a position to spec out materials, you may want to have a look at these.
These [safer alternatives] include glass baby bottles instead of polycarbonate ones -- the Glass Packaging Institute recently reported a surge in demand for these -- and natural resin for lining cans instead of epoxy. Japanese manufacturers started using natural resin in 1997, and two years later a study found that BPA levels had gone down significantly.
As a consumer, what do you need to know? Don't put polycarbonate plastics in the nuke or the dishwasher; heat makes the BPA leach out of the plastic, and into you, faster. Read all about it here.
via la times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)Every time a new material comes out, people get excited, and manufacturers assume it's safe; it's only years later that we discover that the plastic we drink out of or make baby pacifiers from actually releases endocrine disrupters, and that asbestos is not something you should breathe in.
Now research is coming to light showing that carbon nanotubes can have the same effect as asbestos and eventually lead to cancer.
Within days of being injected into mice, the nanotubes -- which are increasingly used in electronic components, sporting goods and dozens of other products -- triggered a kind of cellular reaction that over a period of years typically leads to mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer, researchers said....the preliminary evidence of cancer risk is strong enough to justify urgent follow-up tests and government guidance for nano factory workers, who are most likely to be exposed, experts said. Others called for labels to guide consumers or recyclers, who might encounter the material when incinerating or otherwise destroying discarded nano products.
via washington post
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Senior Project Manager - Industrial Design
Panasonic
New York City, New York
Collect knowledge, process and know-how from working and collaborating with external design offices to accumulate information and knowledge. Gather a sense of values from the many projects promoted and build a knowledge base. Research and report on hints, trends and local design that is closely related to local culture. Research special themes.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
During the dotcom boom, a friend who worked at one of the big dogs complained to me about the office-wide Aeron chair policy. "After sitting in one for ten hours, you can't go home and sit in a regular chair," she said (leading me to bring to her attention a Russian geographical feature, the "Crimea River").
That point was echoed in an M-Live article describing the Body of Work award given to Herman Miller's Lifework collection, which seeks to make the home office as cush and chic as the office office. With designs by Blu Dot, Industrial Facility, Kaiju Studios and Korb + Korb, Lifework goes on the market in August.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Clare Beale of The Independent gets a call from Apple asking her if she'd like to talk to the man behind the design of her MacBook. Here's a snippet from the interview,
Asking him what good design really is seems like a good place to start. "Oh, that's a tough question," he groans. "The word design is everything and nothing. We think of design as not just the product's appearance, it's what the product is, how it works. The design and the product itself are inseparable."Apple is unique, Ive says, by being in the hardware and the software games; design permeates through everything. "We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products.
"That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it's very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely. And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have. We push each other, we're very self-critical and we'll take the time to get the product right."
For many people working in the creative industries, the bedrock of Mac believers, Ive is a hero, a creative genius: the man who transformed computers from grey boxes to objects of desire, design statements.
Via the Core community board's very own Lingmeister
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (1)Fritz Haeg talks about his piece, Animal Estates 1.0, now on view in the Whitney Biennial. "Estates" is a first edition project in which Haeg made homes for animals in the places where people live in cities, in suburbs, and on private properties. A nice alternative to all of the ways we try to deter wildlife from settling in anywhere near us.
They say they don't need money
They're living on nuts and berries
via current.tv
Posted by: Xanthe Matychak | Comments (0)
Half a year ago I wrote about Irene Pereyra & Tom Klinkowstein's diagrammatic narrative, "a day in the life of a networked designer's smart things or a day in a designer's networked smart things, 2030".
So before you start thinking that everything interesting happens either in New York or California, here is an invitation to an exhibition of their work. It will take place at at the DesignCenter Winkelhaak in Antwerp, Belgium, on June 6, 2008 (4pm - 7pm).
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
As children, two things we never thought we'd grow up to do: buy jeans in China, and sit in furniture made out of concrete. But "bi-coastal design and fabrication firm" Concreteworks has been striving to get us to do the latter since 1991.
Founded by architectural designer Mark Rogero, Concreteworks makes tubs and lounges out of the humble material when they're not rigging up restaurants, residences and retail spaces with their custom concreations.
To see more of their work and learn about concrete--colors, finishes, how they handle the edging, etc.--check out their site.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Alexander Kneller's Side Chair 2 looks even more massive IRL than it did in photos of its premiere at last year's London Design Festival; we thought it would be hard to justify putting one of these in our place, until we saw the nifty--and huge--slide-out storage compartments. (Please note that both halves slide out; we were regrettably unable to get a shot of both sides doing so.)
Jettisoning a bookcase and transposing their contents to the SC2 seems like a good, clutter-reducing space swap.
The inspiration for the shape of the SC2 is pretty clear--check out Kneller's Side Chair 1 (in black).
>>View all NY Design Week posts
After graduating from the UK's Royal College of Art, industrial designer Nick Crosbie formed Inflate, a UK-based company that produced inflatable household objects like fruit bowls, lamps and chairs.
Crosbie subsequently realized inflatable objects had immense potential at trade shows and exhibits--vendors could inflate and deflate large exhibit structures, making them easy to transport, not to mention visually distinct.
Inflate now produces designs ranging from the closet-sized Office in a Bucket to the gi-normous Trident structure (both pictured above). Check out the full line-up at their site.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
There's something to be said for the clever tricks designers use to hide parting lines from injection molding, but we loves us some rotation molding. Elegant, expensive and with invariably sexy results, rotomolding gives you lightweight pieces with angles and shapes you just can't get any other way.
Azuamoline has put the tech to great effect with their polyethylene Flod stool, one of those you-gotta-see-it-in-person-to-appreciate pieces. Photos just don't do it justice--and on that note, here are some of the weirder publicity shots we've seen of the thing, available from the site:
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Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)At Design Observer, Jessica Helfand's got an all-too-short piece on the dramatic role of computers in Iron Man: The Screen Behind the Screen. Here's the sweet spot:
Without giving the entire story away, let's just say that [stark's] newly-minted conscience involves saving people instead of annihilating them, and that the locale for such efforts is somewhere in Afghanistan. And therein lies the essential irony: socially networked and globally interconnected, the illusion is that we're within reach of anything and everything. But with the real world in political, economic and environmental turmoil, the more we sit behind the screen, the more helpless we actually feel. In this context, Stark's odyssey is more than an action film: it's a psychological thriller, and a sociological fantasy. Here, perhaps, the paradox of our inner-connectedness comes full circle: we're all online constantly yet at the same time, we're powerless against our real enemies. What better fantasy than to imagine yourself capable of mouse-clicking your way to flights of supreme heroism like Tony Stark?
Nice, right? Well, as in many DO posts, the comments offer some beautiful gracenotes (albeit on another of Helfand's points). Here's Sam Potts:
I have to disagree with this thesis: "...this is a film in which the computer is incorporated, like a cast member, into the development of the plot itself." This movie, more than Minority Report, should clarify the difference between hardware and software. Iron Man (from the name on down) is all about hardware -- the robots that more or less build the suit around Stark are characters; the various screens inside the helmets do nothing plotwise. You get some cool 3D rendering software split across multiple monitors, but compare that to the robot with the fire extinguisher, who is so anthropomorphized that it gets laughs. It's all about the robots.But for all its excellent gadgetry, I left this movie really bothered by the power-chord-driven fetishized military bravado. Courage Under Fire depicted similarly heavy-metal-driven tank assaults, or maybe it was Three Kings, but you clearly got the message that there was something wrong and possibly insane in all of it. At a time when our super-hi-tek military seems pretty well emasculated, I bet they're loving this shit at the DoD.
The real illusion of this movie is that American technology is potent. The most blatant reading of this movie is that American technology is a total fantasy. More popcorn, please!
Break it n shake it! The Fragile Salt n Pepper Shaker by Mey & Boaz Kahn Product Design is a ceramic vessel that only becomes useful when you break it. Gives a whole new meaning to the spilled salt superstition, eh?
On the other hand, if you like to keep things unified, here's the Salt and Pepper in One from Mimi Kirmachi that incorporates both seasonings in the same unit. Mmm.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Okay, so not a very good idea, but after you've built one of these or bought one of these or these, you gotta set the mood, right?
More info here.
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)Scrappy eco-design startup Knoend is based out of San Francisco, and put together a decidedly rougher, more environmentally aware booth than most of what we've been seeing at the ICFF so far, and you gotta love the enthusiasm and Tinker-toy minimalism to the products they're showing. Here they demonstrate a bamboo ply table/stool/table that re-configures by friction fit; a bit wobbly and barren, but inventive and intentional -- two things in short supply at the Javits this year.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The second session of Metropolis's Design Entrepreneurs Presentations brought with it a fresh crop of idealists and thinkers. With a wide range of humanitarian agencies presenting, the only universal seemed to be that design-based aid is still done on a shoestring budget. After presenting several successful efforts from Project H, Emily Pilloton admitted that she "was operating a non-profit with an empty bank account and living with her parents," yet her slides amply demonstrated that she was getting things done. So there do seem to be costs to humanitarian design, but they seem largely borne by organizational managers rather than donors. Cameron Sinclair, founder of the well established Architecture for Humanity, ominously summed up the state of affairs in international aid with his thoughts after receiving a request from the UN regarding recent crises in China: "When you call someone with seven people in their office and you ask them to help five million, well ... the world is f***ed." Nervous laughter ensued.
And yet, Sinclair then proceeded to virtually overwhelm the audience with a succession of well-executed projects that were doing a great deal of good in the developing world (and the not so developing parts of the US). Meanwhile organizations like the New York Industrial Retention Network, represented by Tanu Kumar and Tzipora Lubarr showed the hard work they had done in establishing the networks needed to make sure that manufacturing in the US stays vibrant, while Rug Mark's Nina Smith ensures that children in the developing world aren't toiling away to make cheap products for overindulged Americans. All in all, it was very clear that there was no shortage of desire to make for a better world among the design community. The deeper question was how, and while it wasn't exactly stated explicitly by any one of the presenters, listening to them as a whole made the solutions pretty clear ...
The awards are in, and "the big chair" won! Students from the the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author program were each given an IKEA chair to reinterpret (macho, superstitious, bipolar, ambitious, etc.), and these were collected in what proved to be one of the more delightful experiences at the ICFF. Designed by Nigel Sielegar and produced by Kevin O'Callaghan, the booth was awarded top prize of the whole shebang.
If you can't make it to the show, you can see 'em all at the site.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)If you're more construction than constructivist, you'll definitely want to check this video out. Bocci has designed an electrical outlet that sits flush with the wall, so you don't have any of those "unsightly" switch plates to deal with. Kinda cool solution for a problem we didn't know we had, and a nice break from all the lamps and sconces in neighboring booths. (For next year, we want a "live demo" with actual spackle!)
And for those of you who want to celebrate your switch plates, look no further.
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As part of their Designed Conversation course, Savannah College of Art and Design students partnered with Growing Hope of Union Mission to create a portable homeless shelter. We've seen a lot of these over the years of course, but building it onto a folding lounger is an inspired idea. Watch it go here.
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
With New York Design Week winding down, be sure to hit the Design Boom Mart at the ICFF. In it's fourth year, the mart showcases design souvenirs and limited edition pieces by young creators. Some of our faves were the cell-phone rocking horse by 25togo (top), Nervous System's algorithmically created silver necklaces (middle left), Mixko's Precious Golden Sh*t Necklace (ahem - middle right) and Reikokaneko's Egg Soldier Cup (bottom).
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Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
From the basement at Vitra's Meatpacking District showroom, a bit of divine simplicity. While the reception and party swirled upstairs, a smaller more contemplative crowd strolled through Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukusawa's collection of 180-odd examples of what they've termed Super Normal Design, and it's enough to restore your faith in objects.
Some obvious selections here, including a pair of Fiskar's scissors, several Muji entries (who knew they did a bike?), and some less familiar but very much at home pieces too. Also a bit of self-promotion: Morrison has several stools and chairs, and PlusMinusZero shows up a few times too, but who can really blame them? Lovely, and worth a look.
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Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
According to The Register, Philips is taking wearable computing one step further with underpants ("pants", "briefs" or "smalls" in British English) that monitor the wearer's blood pressure.
The hi-tech undies have sensors sewn into the waistband that measure the wearer's pulse wave velocity - the rate at which pulses of blood stream through a person's circulatory system. By measuring the time it takes for one pulse to pass between two sensors, the smalls will be able to calculate the wearer's blood pressure.
(The photo is from the Philips patent application.)
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Freelance Watch Designer
Fortress International
Carlsbad, California
New watch company in the Action Sports Market seeking experienced watch or accessories designer. Must have a good sense of current trends in fashion and accessories.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Danish Design Center (DDC) and Index: announced today that they are now joined within one organization, with Index: being a subsidiary company of DDC, 100% owned by the latter.
Index: is a global non-profit network organisation based in Copenhagen that sponsors awards every second year, the famous Index: Award, for design to improve life.
The merger will allow for a stronger international branding of Denmark as one of the world's leading design nations. With more integrated resources, the new structure is also better positioned to be a key player in carrying out the Danish Government's design policy.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Belgian artist Benjamin Verdonck brings his oversized nest to the Weena in Rotterdam.
via reaction [beta]
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
The European association of plastics manufacturers, Plastics Europe, commissioned UK futurist Ray Hammond to write a book about the world in 2030, with a special focus on the challenges for plastics.
Changing demographics, extreme weather conditions, peak-oil, resource-conflicts, surveillance society, hyperreal leisure time, robots, sustainable globalisation, healthcare revolution, virtual companions, biodigital interfaces, the global brain, new retailing, ...
A summary of the book including a first response of the plastics industry on the challenges ahead, can be found here.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
The Metropolis Conference on socially responsible design kicked off in the ICFF Theater this morning. Each speaker talked about their own practices and then how they balanced (or integrated) their socially responsible pro bono work into their work. With an open floor plan, nearby exhibitors could hear the presenters and window shoppers could catch an earful from Fritz Haeg or from Yves Behar as they wandered past. The ebb and flow of traffic and the occasional flashbulb of the crowds gave a visible indication of the design luminosity of the presenter. The endearingly cute $100 laptop prompted its fair share of flashes, though since Behar was using it as a gesticulating extension of his arm, it proved somewhat immune to photography.
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Posted by: Robert Blinn | Comments (0)
Check out this list of Core77's event coverage of New York Design Week in one easy-to-browse place.
NY Design Week 2008: Parsons BFA Show at Felissimo
NY Design Week 2008: Housewarming Party
NY Design Week 2008: Gallery Of Functional Art Party
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: It's raining light!
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Konstantin Grcic on the Myto Chair
NY Design Week 2008: Core77's Black Light Ping Pong Party
NY Design Week 2008: BluDot couch sitters
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Uhuru
NY Design Week 2008: Bait-and-Switch
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Straight Line Designs
NY Design Week 2008: Hardcore Finnish Design Show in the Meatpacking District
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Laurie Beckerman Design
NY Design Week 2008: Miranda Meilleur
NY Design Week 2008: Spring 3D "Bring it to the Table" Exhibition
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Monacca
New York Design Week 2008: ICFF: Design Entrepreneurs: Make Good and Prosper
NY Design Week 2008: Super Normal exhibition at Vitra
NY Design Week 2008: Design Boom Mart
NY Design Week 2008: SVA booth winner!
NY Design Week 2008: Bloc Lego candles
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Azuamoline
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Inflate
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Alexander Kneller
NY Design Week 2008: ICFF: Concreteworks
NY Design Week 2008: Aykuterol booth
NY Design Week 2008: Core77's Ping Pong Squad take over the ICFF
NY Design Week 2008: Left Brain/Right Brain
VIDEOS:
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: ICFF Surprse!
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Industrial sludge in the Meatpacking
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Koncept Lamp
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: SCAD Safe bed
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Bocci wall plugs
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Knoend Ecodesign
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Salt and Pepper in one, then two
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Umbra U+ Collection
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Stakit at Danish Crafts
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Molo Cloud-Somethings
NY Design Week 2008: Video Drive-by: Yale University of Architecture
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
If you are in NYC Friday evening, May 23rd check out the this years Fresh Dialogue event:
IN/VISIBLE : Graphic Data Revealed : Fresh Dialogue 24
The visual ethics required in information graphics increase the designer's burden from faithful executor to editorial arbiter. How do design choices affect the integrity of the data being portrayed? Can information graphics and the designers who create them ever claim pure objectivity? John Maeda, newly appointed president of RISD, world-renowned designer and innovator, will engineer a conversation with three designers who specialize in visualizing information. Steve Duenes guides the New York Times graphics group in print and online; Andrew Kuo cleverly quantifies feelings through his meticulous charts and diagrams; Fernanda Viegas explores the social side of visualization at IBM. Together they will examine a range of current and anticipated trends in visual journalism: judicious simplicity over seductive complexity, data- and story-driven visuals, and the increasing demand for dynamic versus static information visualization.Friday 23 May 2008 6:30-9:00PM : The Times Center Stage
The New York Times Building : 242 West 41st Street
6:30-7:00PM Check-in : 7:00-9:00PM Presentation
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Monacca's seductive Kaku briefcase, above, came out in '04 and was Good Design'd in '06, receiving mucho press in between; what's gotten less media play are designer Takumi Shimamura's other creations. We got to see more of Shimamura's Japanese cedar magic up close at ICFF:
Lamp and purse,
calculator,
Fujitsu concept laptop,
backpack and zabuton (seating surface).
And in a rather Apple-like move: New for '08, the Kaku in black.
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Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Remember those one- or two-week design exercises you had to do in school? Natasha Chetiyawardana and Michael McDevitt do too, and threw a similar challenge recently at 22 European and American designers for Spring 3D's Design Week offering, a lovely little conceptual show called Bring it to the Table.
Essentially a tightly constrained product design charrette with an eye toward commentary on eating habits and the politics of food, Bring it to the Table gave its participants a mere two and a half weeks to come up with a place setting to make viewers think.
Results are largely one-liners, but clever one-liners, and nicely executed too: see McDevitt's Spam Lite, a simple play on words with a deeper implied question; Steve Butcher's Better Living, a weight loss program based on portion control through cunning amputation of fork tines; and Cecilie Egerberg's Size Zero Salad, which creates a calorie free meal by simulating the fragrances of healthy foods. Most impressive, considering the time constraint, is Stijn Ossevoort's Wishing Table, an electrolumenescent place mat that asks diners to speak their wishes into an enhanced cup and watch the floral patterns in the woven mat glow in acknowledgement (video coming soon).
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Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
If you're starting to get a bit bored of furniture at New York Design Week, one of the most drop-dead gorgeous diversions is designer/silversmith Miranda Meilleur's work at the Javits. The photo above doesn't do it justice, but if the term "rococo modern" can be thrown around, Miranda's catching.
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Abitare, the bilingual (En/It) Italian architecture and design magazine, has two features on Nori Oxman (blog), an architect and researcher currently based at MIT, whose work was recently shown at the hit show "Design and the Elastic Mind" at the New York MoMA.
You can choose between Anniina Koivu's introductory descriptive piece "Neri Oxman: nature's logic and design" or Bruce Sterling's story, entitled "The New Materialism", where he brings her approach to life, literally by letting us imagine being Neri Oxman, and wonders how she will deal with "the snake in her garden".
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
These days you'd expect anyone with an anthropology degree and ID leanings to get a job with Nokia or frog; but Brooklyn-based Laurie Beckerman is keepin' it gangsta with good ol' handcarved furniture. Her Tete-a-Tete Rocker and Filing Tree (above) are patents pending;
Beckerman's latest creation, the Cobra Desk (just above), brings to mind an animal hated by another anthropologist we'll be seeing shortly.
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Kohler's Karbon articulating kitchen faucet seemed to get all the press recently (and indeed you can test drive the thing at the ICFF), but if you like your articulation a bit on the drier side, check out Koncept's Z-Bar LED Lamp above.
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Best of the Meatpacking District off-site shows so far: Hardcore Design, a collection of new work from Finland, much of which actually looks new. Perhaps it's the relative cultural separation Finland has from the rest of Europe, and by extension the design world in general, but there's some unusually clever, well-resolved work here.
See Arihiro Miyake's Trush-in Extension Cord above, a cord management solution that looks like it might actually manage cords and be at home next to your desk; and the Saas Instruments Desklamp 340Y, which finally gives us an industrial aesthetic LED desk lamp that doesn't look like a Bauhaus rip-off. If you want to see its concrete base, or any of a dozen other pieces we didn't shoot, drop by the showroom on 14th St. this afternoon between 12 and 6.
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Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Senior Industrial Designer
Smart Design
Barcelona, Spain
Smart Design is seeking talented Industrial Designers with outstanding creative vision and strong leadership abilities for our Barcelona studio. You must be capable of working on projects that range from broad design strategies to focused design implementation. You have at least 5 years experience that demonstrates a solid, in-depth product development background and practical experience building client relationships.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Designer Judson Beaumont's influences start off familiar, then go a little weird: Frank Gehry, Philippe Starck...Dr. Seuss, Pee Wee Herman.
We can't help but be envious of any designer motivated by fun, Judson Beaumont's Straight Line Designs clearly has less corporate influence than most; with design that has been "greatly influenced by kids and their liberal acceptance of the bizarre," his company produces furniture aimed at children, movie and TV prop services, retail, and private residences.
With pieces like the Canned Bench, below, one can't help but wonder--is it profitable? It's profitable enough to run an eight-man shop out of Vancouver, so Beaumont, we hope, is laughing all the way to the bank.
Straight Line's website is here, Beaumont's sketchbook is visible here.
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Well, not meaning to pile on to the previous post, but one of the most interesting things going on in the meatpacking district today was this "found art" swirl of industrial paint and sewage water at the corner of Hudson and Gansevoort. Kinda mesmerizing to watch, and you can take any editorial comment you like from it. We did.
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the hangover from a raucous night of black-light partyin', but we really can't take the bait n' switch routine anymore. Hard to know whether to laugh or cry when an "exhibit" consists of nothing more than a badly designed chair in the window of a fancy boutique. We did a bit of re-con today and found a couple of the best more-than-disappointing events the Meatpacking District has to offer:
In the gallery category
Invite reads:
Much Assembly Required
Cocktails: May 18, 3-5 pm
ADAM, 678 Hudson St
Introducing the "ego" lamp collection by Viktor Jondal, a Swedish, New York-based product designer.
Reality is:
Three lego-towers-cum-lamps (yup - Lego towers) are jammed into the corner of ADAM, a high-end clothing boutique filled with more fashionistas than designers and more Balenciagas than Birkenstocks. With nothing other than throngs of ladies-that-lunch and their small dogs on site, 'Much Assembly Required' is enough to make you run the other way. Or break out your Lego set from kindergarten.
Sound bite:
"What's this all about?"
"I dunno...."
In the exhibit category
Invite reads:
The High Line Viewing Station
May 18, noon-5 pm
Hospitality Suite, Caledonia Design Center
450 West 17th St
Get a glimpse of the High Line from the exclusive Caledonia Design Center thanks to Related and Architects Newspaper.
Reality is:
The view IS pretty amazing, but the "Hospitality Suite"? Nothing more than a cramped, overfurnished 10x20ft model-apartment for the sales office of the Caledonia, offering "luxury loft living" at a - ahem - ridiculous cost. A stealth marketing move that ended up duping half of Design Week attendees into strolling through a sales pitch while munching on stale cookies.
Sound bite:
"I'm confused. Isn't a loft an industrial space with high ceilings, big windows and tons of open space?"
"Well, this is a 'luxury' loft."
Sigh.
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Designers Jason Horvath, Manny Flaherty and David Gaynor, along with product developer Maria Cristina Rueda, comprise Uhuru. The small, Brooklyn-based firm combines Shaker furniture philosophies with modern sensibilities, resulting in pieces that are both folksy and contemporary.
Even more interestingly, Uhuru operates like furniture makers of old that harvested their wood from local forests--but Uhuru's forest, in this case, is Manhattan:
One of the materials we are using most right now is reclaimed Heart Pine. This first growth wood, which is virtually extinct due to over harvesting a century ago, is extracted out of buildings being taken down in NYC. Not only does it have a beautiful grain and a rich color but it really is one of the most local materials available to furniture builders in New York City.
Take a gander at Uhuru's work here.
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Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
The atmosphere was decidedly up at the Javits yesterday, but that didn't mean it was any less exhausting tramping up and down the aisles for hours on end. This scene was too precious to pass up, with two visitors taking a break in front of BluDot's lifestyle poster. (Or was it the other way around?!)
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Thanks to everyone who made it out last night, we're sure the Sunday regulars at the New York Table Tennis Federation will appreciate playing in the aftermath. Look out for complete coverage in the gallery soon, there's a few more for now after the jump.
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Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
Major design crush object Konstantin Grcic took the stage yesterday afternoon at the Javits Center, to talk for an hour and a bit about his studio's newest baby: the BASF-sponsored one-piece plastic Myto Chair. An hour might seem a bit long to talk about a single piece of furniture -- a simple chair, especially -- but this was a fascinating talk, for a couple of reasons.
First off, it actually is something of a revolutionary design. Developed as a three-way partnership between KGID, German chemicals giant BASF, and Italian manufacturer Plank, the Myto wasn't even originally going to be a chair; Grcic was asked to simply develop a product to show off Ultradur B, a high-performance polymer previously used primarily in the auto industry. A chair was chosen as a clear, understandable expression of the unique strength and flow characteristics of the material -- designers with a background in injection-molding look at the chair with some astonishment, at its stiffness and thick sections without a hint of sink mark.
Second, Grcic's thought and design process has always been, and continues to be, a singularly fascinating and grounded thing. Unabashed about the long, arduous detailing process required by such a technical project, Grcic displayed a rendering from 6 weeks into the development cycle, noting "as you can see, it's pretty close [to the final product]. Well, actually, it's not close at all!" Hundreds of tiny alterations followed, and Grcic did a handy job of summarizing necessities like mold flow analysis, KGID's extensive use of full-scale sketch modeling, and multiple rounds of rapid prototyping (see tiny SLS, handed to BASF engineers as a sort of mid-project souvenir, above).
Grcic got noticeably more excited describing the manufacturing processes (there was a picture of him lying in the injection mold) than talking about, for example, the process of color selection ("We mold it in black, white, and grey, and some other colors people expect of a plastic chair...") A nice antidote to the shiny, production-ignoring perfection seen elsewhere at the fair.
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Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Niti Bhan is up in arms about Alice Rawsthorn laudatory article on the design of the One Laptop Per Child, published in the International Herald Tribune:
"What is the purpose of good design if there is no one who can use it? Like the mythical tree that falls in a forest if no one heard it crash, is a product's design any good if it remains on a museum's pedestal? [...] What is the purpose of a design award for a product that failed to meet its own creative brief?"Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
In case you missed it, David Byrne wrote a sweet piece for the NYTs honoring the passing of our favorite master of montage, Robert Rauschenberg. Here's bit:
Bob's way of talking was a challenge to many - he spoke in constant puns and metaphors, like a stream-of-consciousness poet, and one had to suspend traditional forms of speech, understanding and discourse and go with the flow. It was liberating, if you could hang in there, and never mundane. Conversation was like one of his pieces: a crazy mishmash of images, multiple layers and references, and a spray of allusions that were simultaneously silly, profound and beautiful - he was the Neal Cassady of the art world. His life, and his relation to those around him, was just like his work; there was no separation and he never went out of character. The love of the world that was in the work was also in the man.
From a press statement by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid):
World Industrial Design Day is a new global initiative to provide professional industrial designers and design enthusiasts with an opportunity to promote a global understanding of design and all that it encompasses.First declared on June 29, 2007 on the occasion of Icsid's 50th anniversary, the international observance is an occasion to mark the development and evolution of industrial design throughout the course of its history, as well as accentuate industrial design's role in improving the economic, social, cultural and environmental quality of life around the world.
Through a series of international events World Industrial Design Day will present an engaging variety of initiatives highlighting the many contribution designers and academics have made to the discipline of industrial design relative to the study of design theory, research, and practice.
29 June is also the start of the World Congress of Architecture in Turin, Italy. A large amount of architects, designers and design thinkers are on the speakers list
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
According to the New York Times, this is the amount of food an American family throws away each month, an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, and that's not even counting food lost on forms and by processors and wholesalers.
"It happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American. [...]The numbers seem all the more staggering now, given the cost of groceries and the emerging food crisis abroad. [...]
The problem isn't unique to the United States.
In England, a recent study revealed that Britons toss away a third of the food they purchase, including more than four million whole apples, 1.2 million sausages and 2.8 million tomatoes. In Sweden, families with small children threw out about a quarter of the food they bought, a recent study there found. [...]
The Department of Agriculture estimated that recovering just 5 percent of the food that is wasted [in the United States] could feed four million people a day; recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million people."
This sounds like a compelling case for a design solution to me. The article mentions a number of service design initiatives, basically food rescue organizations that pick up excess food from cafeterias and restaurants and then either provide it to homeless people, donate it to livestock farmers or compost it.
But more could be done:
"There are also efforts to cut down on the amount of food that people pile on their plates. A handful of restaurant chains including T.G.I. Friday's are offering smaller portions. And a growing number of college cafeterias have eliminated trays, meaning students have to carry their food to a table rather than loading up a tray."
Browse also the Wasted Food blog to find out more.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (4)That design has the power to affect behavioural change is something we've always understood. Architectural spaces are a prime example of this. But the UK is taking the lead to turn their concerns into action in a meaningful way.
A few days ago, the UK Design Council hosted a conversation between 40 leading designers, a number of young people and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to explore ways that design can be used to protect young people from crime, particularly the theft of 'hot' products such as mobile phones and MP3 players. Here's a snippet from the story,
The focus is on generating innovative design briefs which offer a clear business opportunity for manufacturers who will be encouraged to develop them into the next generation of crime-safe gadgets. [...] Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said:"I am delighted that so many of our best designers have contributed their time and expertise to today's event and I look forward to seeing genuinely new and commercially viable products flow from it. The role that good design can play in cutting crime is well established but success depends on effective partnerships between Government, the police and the design industry."
"We have made a clear commitment in last year's Crime Strategy to bring design into the centre of our fight against crime and to receive such strong support from our partners is extremely encouraging."
Imho, conceptual work in this area will be even more valuable in the emerging markets at the bottom of the pyramid where gadgets like the mobile phone have become such an important part of people's livelihoods and theft is far more common due to the challenges of poverty.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)A crowd-pleaser at the Javits. Wait for it...
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Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
With preparations for tonight's Core77 party, it was hard to see much of the work at the Javits Center today, but there were a conspicuous number of chandeliers in evidence. Maybe it's their overt exuberance in the face of, um, challenging days ahead in the world, or just an explosion of technical and material indulgence--either way, these things are happy, happy, happy. Here are three favorites from the "north end" of the Convention Center, all amongst the Contemporary British Design booths. Cheers!
Top: Laelia, by Sharon Marston
Bottom: Looplaa, by Rachel O'neil; Chandelier, by Emerald Faerie
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Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (1)
Samsung and Surface Magazine teamed up to present work from Sam Baron, Arik Levy, Jeff Miller and Marre Moerel who were asked produce pieces interpreting the new Samsung series & LCD TV. This theme was a little lost, or should I say dominated by the overwhelming party crowd, that and the fact that you couldn't sit on the art furniture didn't help. Despite the return of winter for a day and endless rain, the party was packed, the vibe was good and there was a strong sense of enthusiasm for the coming weekend.
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Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Housewarming, the event produced by I.D. magazine, in partnership with Smallpond and Matter, presented collections from Tom Dixon, Established & Sons and Thorsten Van Elten on the 34th floor of a brand new condo with vertigo inducing floor to ceiling windows, the Manhattan skyline views are stunning. It actually felt like a genuine housewarming party, well one for your super wealthy friend who's family just purchased the entire floor--because they can. Once again, Tom Dixon's distinct style stood out adding a layer of warmth to an otherwise brand new sterile looking apartment. Official Core77 ping pong ball invites were given out to a lucky few for tonight's party, the C77 Ping Pong Squad will be handing more out today at the ICFF.
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Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
ICFF doesn't officially start until Saturday morning, but the offsite events are in full swing, starting with the Parsons School of Design senior project show, (very) loosely organized around the theme "A Good Life" (why do we always have to give these things themes, anyway?). Like most student shows, it was inspiring, exciting, and extremely mixed in execution -- but perhaps a bit more hopeful than usual, owing to an unusual tack Parsons is pursuing in the area of private sector partnership.
>>View all NY Design Week posts
The tack is, they don't do private sector partnerships, but instead require all students to find and work with a non-profit organization with a cause allied to the topic they wish to pursue for the project, which lasts the entire fourth year of school. In some cases this yields some wonderful results: Amelia Amelia (her real name's Amelia Lnu, and if she doesn't become a famous designer with a name like that, it's nobody's fault but her own) worked with Materials for the Arts to create {UN}WANTED, a line of beautifully detailed hybrid furniture from cast-offs found on Manhattan streets, and Vivian Lam paired with both an American non-profit and a Cambodian NGO to create a line of ethereal bamboo canework lighting produced by Cambodian artisans. Other stand-outs included a matchbook-based promotional line designed to remind first-worlders of the reality of child soldierhood, and a composting system for urban elementary schools.
Robert Kirkbride, an associate professor in the program, explained that the student/non-profit affiliation will only get more formalized in coming school years, creating an exciting and viable alternative to the traditional corporate sponsorship that so far holds the standard for Real World Experience in the ID academic world. Execution of the projects so far is pretty good -- we were impressed by the clarity of many of the graphic and video displays, and the research books accompanying them, more rigorous than you often see in these types of shows. The underlying problems being addressed were a little more uneven. While we applaud the intention, several of the projects seemed to be solving problems that weren't really universal or urgent: a rather unrealistic finger-glove for protection against the filth of the public restroom handle, for example, or a wheelchair/scooter for injured pets -- both were cute and nicely-detailed, but considering the gravitas carried by some of their co-presenters, they come across as a bit silly. Overall, though, hats off to a professional-looking show and a refreshing departure from the weightless styling that often plagues student shows.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Check out some of this week's clogger highlights below:
>>Book Review: Buying In, by Rob Walker
>>Things that oughtn't be flying
>>Core77 Video Drive-by: Maker Faire: Long Now
>>Serious Play 2008 Coverage: All posts in one place!
>>Coroflot's Creative Seeds: Want to Save the World? Just Ask. By Carl Alviani
>>Gravity Free 2008: Man vs Machine
>>NY Design Week 2008 Preview: Danish Crafts - CC 12
>>Designing out crime: abuser-centred design
>>Nike 706, Beijing: 100 Innovations Photos
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
"Dr. John Todd's comprehensive design strategy to bring about a carbon neutral world, in the opinion of this jury, best embodies the bold, visionary approach to large scale societal transformation pioneered by Buckminster Fuller." said the Buckminster Fuller Challenge jurors in a statement about their decision.
Dr. Todd's visionary proposal touches the coal mining ravages of the Appalachian mountains and proposes a brighter future based upon a carbon neutral culture and an ownership economy in which the people of these regions owned their own lands, resources and enterprises.
We applaud John's claim for more considerate use of our resources through more designing and less mining - and we are sure that the $100,000 prize will support his current efforts in making a blueprint for a post coal era and carbon neutral economy for the coal land regions of Appalachia.
Curious? Read more about his proposal here (including a wonderful "A Tale of the Future") or ask Dr. Todd for yourself if you can make it to the award ceremony on June 23rd at The Center for Architecture in New York City.
I always thought failure was the best way to learn. Check out this post by zippyflounder, digging up some of the best inspirational failures of all time, and as always, contribute some of your own. Picture via the Fail Blog.
DRB's culled some cool in-construction photos of China's OMA-designed CCTV building. In construction since '04, the structure is slated to be completed in time for the Olympics, when coverage will be projected along its undersurface.
The two towers were connected in December of last year.
Below is a photo (from Wikipedia) of the progress made by last month.
For some eye-catching photos of the construction process snapped by the prolific Flickr community, click here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)In a post Maker Faire wrap-up, Carl Alviani sits down with Sherry Huss, lead organizer of the Faire, and Shawn Connally, Managing Editor of Make Magazine, to discuss, among other things: the new DIY ethic, efforts to "make more Makers," and the apparent contradiction of an environmentally sensitive event that involves blowing things up.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Pacific Northwest College of Art is pleased to present a PNCA+FIVE Idea Studio, featuring Susan S. Szenasy, Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis magazine:
Friday, May 23 | 10:30 am. Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Avenue, Portland Oregon: Free and open to the public
The conversation, Green with Envy: How Innovative is PDX in the Quest for a Sustainable City, explores internationally recognized sustainable communities, examining the capacity to successfully merge art, commerce, higher education and urban planning.Metropolis magazine, known for its commitment to the coverage and advocacy of sustainable and collaborative design, examines contemporary life through all aspects of design: architecture, interior design, landscape design, product design, graphic design, crafts, planning and preservation.
As Editor-in-Chief since 1986, Ms. Szenasy is internationally recognized as an authority on sustainability and design. Ms. Szenasy is in Portland as a distinguished guest of PNCA, where she will receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the 2008 commencement address.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)This one's been doing the rounds but it's too good not to share!
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
In today's NYTimes, an almost-fascinating-enough piece on Shades of Green, the customized mouse-ear experience for military personal and their families. Such a great gesture. Here's a taste:
Although Major O'Rourke's Iraqi quarters were hardly spartan--he lived in an air-conditioned trailer with satellite TV--they didn't rival his family's here. Rooms are on a par with those of top-level Disney resorts charging $350 a night, but cost as little as $89.The only element too reminiscent of Iraq, he said, was being woken up by the late-night fireworks in the Magic Kingdom. "I swear to god," he said, "it was just like an artillery barrage."
Oops.
Thanks tortor for the tip!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Professor of Fibers
Savannah College of Art and Design
Savannah, Georgia
Experience in teaching beginning and advanced level computer aided textile print design using NedGraphics Vision Texcelle, Photoshop and Illustrator is desired. Candidates should have experience in teaching a variety of hand rendering processes to create textile print designs for a range of end uses. Knowledge of surface design, pattern development, and fiber processes to integrate art, craft and design philosophies would be of benefit.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Wallpaper Magazine is pitting teams from six European schools against each other in a design competition. The six schools--Paris's Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs, Barcelona's Istituto Europeo di Design, the Istituto Marangoni in Milan, Hamburg's School for Applied Science, Switzerland's Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne, and Budapest's Moholy-Nagy University for Art and Design--will form teams to design a product inspired by the Mercedes-Benz GLK.
For more information, click here (and tell us if we're the only ones who found the site difficult to navigate and draw information from).
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)According to bicycleretailer.com, bike manufacturer Cannondale is putting together a sort of product dream team, its new Advanced Product Division:
APD is a global group of engineers and industrial designers led by Torgny Fieldskaar, Cannondale's global director of industrial design and advanced products. "The group that we've assembled includes the most forward-thinking minds in the industry. They should be working at NASA. Fortunately, they chose bikes," Fieldskaar said.
For a look at some interesting, older images of pre-APD Cannondale concepts (photos below), click on one of these links from Vintage Cannondale: 1, 2, 3.
This SLR concept, alas, is a prime example of what happens when a designer tries to "push the envelope" without doing any research. We've seen concepts that weren't awesome making the blog rounds before, but never one with as many flaws as this one, which is why we bring it up.
The design, which is essentially a monster lens without the camera body, is touted as being optimized for one-handed operation, which would supposedly make it more stable; the opposite is true. In actuality camera stability comes from three points--one hand on the lens, one hand on the body and the eyepiece pressed against your unmoving head. Taking away one of those points has the same effect as removing a leg from a table.
Other points:
Ill-considered ergonomics: a) removing the weighty camera body from a lens of this size will create balance problems and fatigue if you're shooting multiple shots, and b) how do you set this camera down during a long shoot--are you meant to stand it on the lens, or watch it roll across the table?
Camera life and maintenance: the concept is comprised of multiple moving parts, a maintenance no-no. Ask a pro shooter, particularly a travel photographer, what tends to fail first.
Inaccurate ideas: the ring-flash wrapping the lens is tagged as "optimal lighting," which it hardly is; any shooter will tell you a ring-flash is specialty lighting only good for certain situations--go to Flickr and search "ring-flash" to see for yourself.
Poor interface: A powerful element that distinguishes one camera design from another is its interface--the Canon G9, for example, has a dial on top for ISO, making it extremely fast and easy for the shooter to adjust for changing light. Having quick access to controls is often the difference between getting your shot or not. This concept appears to have given minimal thought to how to control and tweak a camera's various features, as indicated by an almost complete lack of buttons, dials and switches.
Out-of-touch with developing technology: The hubbub in photo tech is around the current work being done with water lenses--where focal points and apertures are determined by electrically-manipulated droplets of shape-changing water, rather than heavy pieces of shifting glass. This will make lenses smaller, not bigger.
We're all for pushing the envelope and experimenting with alternate forms; what worries us is when ill-conceived concepts get widely publicized--we feel it damages the credibility of industrial designers.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (12)
The turn of phrase "buying in" could mean ponying up enough coin to get a seat at a high stakes poker game or changing one's mindset to encompass a radical ideology. Rob Walker is the author of the "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine, so he is clearly familiar with ambiguously subtextual titles (since consumption connotes both a state of obsession and its untidy aftermath . . . both of which should be viscerally familiar to most Americans). His new book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, delves into the attitudes of the global consumer in the age of plenty, and, well, we aren't too pretty.
Walker carries the reader on a frenetically paced tour of senseless consumption spanning from Viking ranges to custom high-tops. Along the way he introduces the reader to a diverse cast of characters like Dietrich Mateschitz, the entrepreneur who brought the world Red Bull, the sponsor of both the Flugtag air races, and in the opposite direction, the late night drunken falls of people who've imbibed too much alcohol along with the cough syrup caffeinated punch of that narrow little can. Other characters include an assortment of white guys without any discernable street-cred who've managed to build clothing empires around hip-hop and urban culture, and even viral marketers who pretend to be customers, proselytizing to others about the merits of products (and apparently not always disclosing their affiliations).
By presenting both uber-consumers and the professionals who deal with trying to sell us the stuff to fill our endless appetites, or the holes in our souls, Walker indirectly addresses what he coins the "pretty good" problem: What distinguishes a product when assembly lines or underpaid third-world workers can make even the cheapest products "pretty good?" Since quality really isn't much of a criterion any more, there must be other signifiers, and that's where our subconscious steps in.
Most of us have been inundated with advertising for our whole lives, so on some level we know that we're being sold ... which is why some hipster crowds gathered around PBR precisely because they weren't being given the hard sell. So if somebody cracks open a can now, knowing that the trend is played out, what does that act of consumer disobedience say about them? Now that PBR is so "yesterday," shouldn't that make it cool again? Plus, the conception of consumption as a statement is in itself reflexive. In other words, if a hipster cracks open a can in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, are they still being cool? It gets pretty meta.
Posted by: Robert Blinn | Comments (2)
Call for Entries
The Chicago Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the Chicago Furniture Designers Association (CFDA) are collaborating to launch a competition and exhibition of furniture design at the Chicago Cultural Center, opening in October 2008 and running through May 2009.
Theme
The focus of this competition is to push the envelope of our common conceptions of furniture and explore new roles furniture could take on. Each of the selected works will maintain an element of deception, be it visual, material, mechanical, or functional.
Submission
Deceptive Design is open to anyone in the greater Chicagoland region from students, to designers, and non-designers.
Deadline
May 27, 2008
Troika is a multi-disciplinary art and design studio based in London, founded in 2003 by Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel, who met while studying at the Royal College of Art. They are possibly most well-known for their Cloud installation for British Airways in Heathrow's new Terminal 5 that was featured on Core77 in January.
Apart from the Cloud, they also created 'All the Time in the World', a 22m-long electroluminescent wall along the entrance to the First and Concorde Galleries lounges. They comprise an unusual combination of disciplines, ranging from graphic and motion design through to engineering and interactive artworks. Andy Polaine talks with Sebastien Noel (right) and Eva Rucki (centre) about Troika's inventive approach and the secret life of electronic gadgets.
LISTEN NOW (39 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
If you've got a booth at the ICFF during New York Design Week and want some relief (you know, for bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, checkin'-out-the-competition breaks), you need look no further. Some enterprising grad students from Pratt have put together a service where you can book them for the times you need, and count on them to come through. What's in it for them? Here's what:
Well, we figure that we help YOU out, and in return, we get to develop a working relationship with people in the design world. Advice, interactions, necessary admittance badges, introductions and business cards are all that we ask for in exchange for some sweat and elbow grease with a smile. We think it's a win-win situation, don't you?
Check out the initiative, pick your helpers, and find their emails at the site.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Laurent Corio has served up a nifty solution for all you jet-setters who drink coffee from Paris to New York. His espresso cup lid-cum-saucer transforms to suit both street and cafe culture. Smart solution, but where's the packaging for the snotty French waiter in all this, Laurent?!
Posted by: elle* | Comments (2)
Work stress: we all have it, few of us do anything about it. Here's the latest photographic "proof" of work stress taking its toll, as this Japanese newscaster goes from "hey!" to gray in a mere three years. He's like the portrait part of The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Thank God tomorrow is Friday.
via albotas
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (7)
Thursday morning's only a tad too early to be thinking about cocktails, so head on over to Bombay Sapphire's Designer Glass Competition and vote for your favorite submitted design. If only we got a free martini for every vote cast....
The competition finals will be held in September in London; we'll keep you posted.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
And just like that...it's over. Back to earth. Gravity Free 2008 wrapped up an invigorating three days with the themes of patience, perfection, and participation.
"The Cardstacker", Bryan Berg wowed the audience with feats of card-building prowess. Using repetitive geometry of grids and verticals, Berg holds the world record for the tallest house of cards. He took us through his canon of cardboard-creations, focusing on the engineering and tenacity it took to construct everything from state-fair displays to the recreation of the Chateau de Frontenac. He disclosed his leaf-blower technique for "takin-the-house-down" and humbly admitted that he starred in the Bravery's recent video, "Time Won't Let Me Go". Underneath all the skill, Berg emphasized the foundation of his work: "a simple idea... [that] does so many things."
Jake Barton followed with one of the most inspiring combinations of technology and human experience we've seen here. His firm, Local Projects, focuses on creating specific solutions for different projects and fostering place-based content. He showed examples of designing a process vs a product, explaining his work on Story Corps, a National Oral history project (fyi: it's closing today in Grand Central station. GO!) with soundbites of memories brought the audience to tears. (Note to all you lovebirds - there's nothing more heartfelt than proposing to your significant other in a time capsule!) Similarly, their Memory Map project for the Smithsonian FolkLife Festival used participatory action to tell the history of New York by New Yorkers. The event allowed visitors to share their stories of the city and build a communal vision of New York culture together.
When asked what he thought of the future of storytelling, Barton admitted that the virtual "archiving" of our lives would eventually make media obsolete.
paraphrased
I believe tools like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr will accumulate so much media that eventually we will reach a tipping point...there's just too much out there. People will seek out other ways to tell stories....maybe even going back to shaking hands and sitting down with another real person.
A perfect note to end on; for, after all, isn't that the point of all this? To meet, greet, laugh, taste and smell this big 'ol world we called "designed". Nothing could be more delicious. Or dangerous.
Till next year....
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
If ya like the Feist, and ya like the iPod, well then, you might want to cozy up to them both with this sweet iSweat.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Last day at Gravity Free. Our morning started off with a collection of heavy-hitting experience-gurus.
Tom Hennes, the museum-maker-master, asked us to ponder "How Dangerous an Exhibit Designer can Be?" (chuckles from the audience). He turned philosophical by then discussing the role of a museum in society, citing his work in South Africa: a "museum of storytelling, using the objects and narratives in the [space] as resources where visiting groups [can] use these tools to create new narratives." He envisions this to be a "place to try out dreams," reaching beyond its walls to bring different tribes and cultures together.
Hennes warned designers to be wary of "unexamined assumptions", "fixed meaning" and the "chaos of democracy" when creating work. He emphasized the need to evolve meaning and view work from the broadest possible perspective. Never one to mince words, Hennes stated,
We too easily drink the Kool-Aid of our clients...Choose your work wisely. I think [we] can actually change the world.
With equally heroic aspirations, Auturo Vittori took the stage. Trained in aerospace design, Vittori's ideals are steeped in innovation and exploration (tinged with the sweetest italian accent!). Recently, his work has taken on a humanitarian focus. Projects like the Air Tree (above) use moss filters to bring fresh air to urban environments while simultaneously creating oasis of communal interaction. Vittori emphasized the need to take action and re-invent our environment:
"The world planet is our space ship...we are no longer passengers, we are the crew...we are responsible. As designers everyone can do something...we can use our creativity, our ideas. We have to do it for our childrend, for us, but most especially for our spaceship...which is our planet."
more after the jump...
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
photo: Megan Ann Rucker
What happens to all those hopes n' dreams? Carl Alviani's got a call to arms for designers over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog. Here's a sneak peek:
...talk to practically any student or recent graduate, and nearly all of them will attest that they want to improve the world, solve problems of waste and poverty through better design, make a positive impact, make a difference. Even kids who want to do nothing more than draw cars and shoes all day will light up when explaining the fuel cell technology that drives their roadster, or the compostable uppers on their high-tops. This was true when I was in school, five years ago, and if you ask someone who studied a creative profession 10 years ago, it was mostly true then.As far as I can tell, the change occurs in the first year or two out of school. The bravado nurtured by professors and studio-mates rapidly withers in the harsh conditions of the job market, leaving the junior no less able to devise green strategies, but deeply doubting his or her right to voice them.
What's the issue here?
...one of clout, or perceived clout, and it results in a double-sided silence: management doesn't ask for more conscientious solutions, and design doesn't tell...[A] degree of license enables discussions that would otherwise never occur. Imagine for a moment you went into every client or management meeting knowing your suggestions would be granted that kind of weight. What would you do with it? Judging by conversations I've had with professional colleagues, I'd suspect that issues of sustainability and social benefit would be broached far more frequently, even if they weren't always enacted.
>> read entire article <<
The Dutch Postcode Lottery and and cross-media event PICNIC present the PICNIC Green Challenge, a call for products and services that contribute to an eco-friendly lifestyle, directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and score highly on convenience, quality and design.
Just like last year, the entrant with the best idea will win €500,000 ($770,000) to execute the winning plan, and receive expert coaching and a starting list of customers!
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
There's some inevitability about Michael Bierut taking on this object, a favorite of industrial designers if there ever was one. Here goes:
Charles F. Brannock only invented one thing in his life, and this was it. The son of a Syracuse, New York, shoe magnate, Brannock became interested in improving the primitive wooden measuring sticks that he saw around his father's store. He patented his first prototype in 1926, based on models he had made from Erector Set parts. As the Park-Brannock Shoe Store became legendary for fitting feet with absolute accuracy, the demand for the device grew, and in 1927 Brannock opened a factory to mass produce it. The Brannock Device Co., Inc., is still in business today. Refreshingly, it still only makes this one thing. They have sold over a million, a remarkable number when one considers that each of them lasts up to 15 years, when the numbers wear off.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Hypebeast have pics of the Nike 706 - 100 Innovations temple exhibition that just opened in Beijing, 88 days before the Olympic Games opening ceremony on 08.08.08. Taking the classic museum audio tour experience one step further, visitors are given an iPod Touch preloaded with 100 tracks and the story behind each of the Nike innovations. Also check coolhuniting for more pics.
National Geographic's Man-made has a great segment up called "Tokyo: Living Small in the Big City." In addition to photos of space-tight designs, there's an informative video of architect Yasuhiro Yamashita (photo above), designer of Tokyo's Penguin House, discussing how to use three design tricks--admitting light, manipulating sightlines, and playing with ceiling height--to make a small space seem big. Click here to watch.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Glynn Kerr: World Famous Motorcycle Designer and MCN Columnist will speak at A&S BMW Motorcycles tomorrow May 15th, 6:30-8 p.m:
Although you may or may not recognize his name, if you've ridden a motorcycle in the past 25 years, you've ridden something that has been designed or influenced by Glynn.As the co-founder and President of the Motorcycle Design Association, Glynn has an exciting presentation for us about the development of motorcycle styling. He'll share photos and sketches of prototypes, as well as demonstrate the actual design process! This will be an informal presentation and your questions will be welcomed!
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Students from the MFA Design Department at School of Visual Arts have prepared a witty collection of one liner chairs to present at this years ICFF.
...The students were challenged to re-purpose a raw wood IKEA-brand chair based on contemporary cultural touchstones like disco, suburbia and machismo, and the resulting products were created under the guidance of SVA Chair of 3D Design and MTV designer Kevin O'Callaghan.
MFA Designer as Author
ICFF, Javits Center
May 17-19, 10 am - 5 pm
May 20, 10 am - 4 pm
Click through for close ups
Core77 Broadcasts: Live at the Nokia Design Studio in London
Nokia has over 300 designers worldwide, and ships over 1.2 million products everyday. So we were anxious to attend Nokia's recent London design event, offering a curtainpeek at their design process, ethnographic wanderings, sustainability initiatives, and plans for the future. Listen in as we chat with Younghee Jung from the services and UI design team, Rhys Newman from the Homegrown Project, and Anton Fallgren and Aki Layneh, two industrial designers out of the Copenhagen studio--all of whom share an enthusiasm for the power of design and an appreciation of the responsibilities inherent in creating the next generation of connectivity artifacts.
LISTEN NOW (31 min.) | iTunes | More Broadcasts
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)The WSJ has an article up on a rather complicated topic: "non-traditional trademarks," or the copyrighting of three-dimensional shapes. Two examples of this form of copyrighting, which should be of interest to industrial designers more and more in the future, are listed: the obvious one (Apple trademarking the shape of its iPod) and an obscure one (Yamaha trademarking the "arcing water spray produced by its personal watercraft").
Needless to say, the average designer will find the copyrighting process nearly as opaque and frustrating as working with Marketing; but the article breaks the process down into five easy pieces. Click here to read.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Web Design
NYTimes.com
New York, New York
This person will primarily be focused on developing online creative, but will occasionally work in print media as well. A strong competency in logo and identity development and/or Macromedia Flash development for user interfaces and marketing promotions is a plus. The position will also include design documentation, producing isolated instances of code and general assistance in the design process.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh all designed iconic chairs; but it was Raj, Dwayne, and Rerun--the cast of What's Happening--that sat iconically. Every time they were in Rob's Diner they turned the chairs around and straddled them backwards.
Raj and the boys would have felt right at home in Andrea Ruggiero's Tempo chair, an unusual seat that forgoes a back in recognition of the fact that, well, there are plenty of people who don't sit normally. The brief from Swedish furniture manufacturer Offecct asked Ruggiero to explore "new ways of sitting," and the NYC-based designer came up with an attached surface that can be used as a laptop perch or a writing surface.
Would the Tempo be comfortable long-term? Maybe or maybe not, but that's besides the point:
Tempo addresses the need for informal, transitional seating in public spaces--where people transiting from one fixed or formal situation to another can sit and have a short break, take notes, type an email, or have an impromptu meeting."Offecct's brief presented a distinct opportunity and helped identify a need for informal short-term seating in public spaces," explains Andrea Ruggiero. "However, the tricky part was resolving the ergonomic issues associated with the different sitting positions, while ensuring that it could be used comfortably by a diverse user group." Prototype testing and user evaluation was conducted with a broad range of users, ranging from petite females to large males.
We know at least one large male who would've loved the Tempo. RIP, Rerun.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
We just took delivery of our custom ping pong ball party invitations and soon to be customized paddles. Look out for the official Core77 Ping Pong Squad handing out the balls this Friday and Saturday all over New York Design Week. And just incase you miss out, RSVP here to get your name on the door and receive the secret location details for Saturday night's BLACK-LIGHT-PING-PONG-EXPERIENCE!
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
Day 2 ended with a rousing presentation by three cultural influencers: Bob Gruen, Massimo Vignelli, and Karim Rashid.
Gruen started it off with a moving presentation on his experience as a Rock photographer. From John Lennon to Greenday, Gruen is responsible for some of the most influential music photographs of all times. He cited his desire to work with "not what's known but what's interesting." His father was an early source of inspiration and drive, prodding him at an early age to seek out his own way. It's "better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission," Gruen stated. Such gusto cleared a sensational path that, he admits, is not easy at times:
There's a huge fear factor in being a free agent. I am afraid of getting up in the morning...I'm afraid of falling over...Fear is the adrenaline that keeps me going...I crave peace and quiet but i thrive in chaos.
It is this energy that Gruen admires in other artists:
I prefer people who are seeking solutions rather than creating problems...Society is afraid of people who make their own rules - they can't conain them...[This is] the job of an artist...to dream up new ideas.
He went on to describe the work of musicians like John Lennon, the Clash and Bob Dylan as artists who had power and meaning behind their work that catalyzed society. This, for Gruen, is essential:
If you're not living in the present then you're wasting your life.
more after the jump
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
Visit Method's people against dirty blog for more information.
Starting today until June 7th, Method is hosting a pop-up shop in SoHo (550 Broadway between Prince and Spring) just in time for you to stock up on everything you need to clean out the no-man's-land under your bed and unidentified sides of your sink. Not only is the store brilliantly designed like its products, but there's tons of swag involved! Jump in the "dirty little secrets" cleaning confessional photo booth to admit to the world (or at least south of Houston) your love of hard wood floor cleaner, check out the aroma stations, trade in your toxic cleaning products for one free Method product, and mix and match purchased products in a green tote at the register! And, really, who can resist a complimentary green tote? So get your dirty self down there sometime in the next three weeks from 10am-7pm and clean up!
Posted by: Alison | Comments (1)
In a man-vs machine face-off, Chipp Kidd, renown book jacket designer, and Janne Kyttanen, rapid prototyping guru, took the stage in front of a hungry crowd. Kidd walked us through the best (and worst) of his career in book design. His unconventional methods (throwing a bucket of water on paper to produce Burroughs' 'Dry' cover!!) and his skillful artistry demonstrated how unique ways of thinking lead to successful design. He emphasized the role of limits when creating, stating "The more you are limited the more you are forced to think."
On the other side of the industry, Janne Kyttanen presented work from Materialise, the rapid prototyping resource. From tiny shoes to lamps, Kyttanen emphasized the role of speed in his creation process, as well as the joy of being able to make "anything he wants". He recounted the story of designing a product in the length of a cab ride from JFK airport to the MOMA in New York. When asked about his pace of work, Kyttanen happily admitted it was his dream to work on projects that only take one or two days to produce.
During Q&A the designers were asked about the role of hand vs technology. Neither discounted the other, but Kidd left us with a quote to chew on (man we're hungry!):
paraphrased
I was part of one of the last generations of graphic designers to be trained working by hand. That experience trained me in the IDEA, to be concept driven vs technically driven. That's something we can't lose. The idea, the concept is king.Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
Relationships were the theme of Tuesday morning. Theo Jansen kicked it off with his stunning kinetic explorations of life . Ever the wise sage, Jansen demonstrated how his "genetic algorithms" come together to poetically create everything from "stomachs" to "muscles." Theo also divulged his early work as a painter and the rogue stunt of launching a flying saucer over his hometown in the Netherlands. The scheme made national news, Jansen became a minor celebrity for a few days and never painted again. Quite a start to one of the most prolific careers art and engineering have ever seen.
Deborah Adler followed with an inspiring presentation on her Clear Rx pill box design for Target. She spoke of her development process while a student in the Masters program at SVA. Deborah decided to take on the project as her final thesis in response to a near-death illness her grandmother contracted by mistakenly taking her husband's medicine instead of her own. Adler started researching pill packaging and discovered a wealth of problematic design issues "aching to be solved." The project resulted in neatly prototyped packaging made from plexi-tubes and doll-house material (remember those days?!). Her handiwork paid off and resulted in Target buying her design. After months of development work the packaging launched in Target stores across the country. Numerous design awards later, Adler's process is an exemplary story of taking personal interest to a universal level, from "Design for One" to "Design for All."
With a presentation that resembled more spoken word than academic discourse, Stephen Brown, “the Antichrist of Marketing," barraged us with piercing elephant noises (ouch) and circus curtains (ooo) while speaking about "Failing Better," the notion that all successful people have failed miserably. (who knew the Colonel was a freelance gynecologist before his KFC empire took off at the age of 60?!) Brown followed up with a discourse on customer-marketer relationships, emphasizing that metaphors are the rogue elements of commerce. "The trouble with relationship marketing is that it tries to build a social bond between the brand and the consumer," he stated, when in reality, no such social bond exists. What does exist is a business bond. Brown cited Ryan Air as a great example of no-nonsense marketing, a brand that offers a simple promise with no social or emotion strings implied. Simply put, you get what you pay for - a fine note for all to take to heart.
The super touchscreen technology known as Multitouch is a revolutionary advance in interface design that makes the iPhone possible.
As shepherded by Jeff Han's company Perceptive Pixel, it enables CNN to present election results in a novel way, becoming "a stupendous way to explain a lot of complicated data."
And perhaps most importantly, multitouch means we can play huge games of Missile Command without that lame-o trackball.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
From a design standpoint, birds look like they can fly. They're small, light, feathery and they've got, you know, those wings. But did you ever realize every manmade thing that can fly, from blimps to 767s to Sikorsky helicopters, don't look like they can, or should?
Here with more proof of that is a Japanese kite. Doesn't look so big in the top photo, right? Well how about the one below?
Obviously it took a lot of bodies to realize this project, and we'd love to see the meeting that made it happen:
Kite Guy 1: I think we should make a kite this big.
Kite Guys 2 thru 50: How big?
Kite Guy 1: This big.
Kite Guys 2 thru 50: Okay!
Lastly, here's a shot of something else that oughtn't fly: a twisted airplane that caused great concern last year for everyone, at least for the 10 seconds it took them to realize it was Photoshopped. Why, internet, why?
kite via tokyo times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
It's a sunny morning in Chicago and bleary-eyed Gravity Free attendees are slowly waking up with a tour of the Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit. The 2,500 square-foot domicile, conceived by Michelle Kaufmann Designs and built by All American Homes, is surprisingly at home on the East side of the Museum.
An inspiring start to a jam-packed day: Theo Jansen, Massimo Vignelli and Karim Rashid are all on deck. Check back for more soon!
What would George Jetson drive? If he was a scooter kinda guy, the modded Kybele CyberScooter, above, probably wouldn't be a stretch. This and a host of truly incredible scooter mods, with both pics and links, are up on Pink Tentacle. (Photo above from autobloggreen; photo below from tokyo scooter's Flickr page.)
Industrial Designer
Quality Bicycle Products
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Our ideal candidate would have experience within the bicycle industry, wrenching on and riding bikes, professional product design and development experience, and a passion for product design.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The UK Design Council has published a designer's guide to designing out crime from products, systems and services with advice from those who've done it, young crime victims and technology experts.
The site also contains an overview of graphic, product and systems that tackle hot product crime, including the Bikeoff bicycle stands, orange school projectors, the Immobilise online security service, anti-theft number plates, biometric security for mobile devices, service design for secure bike hire schemes, and cutting crime at a Birmigham hospital through improved wayfinding and increased natural surveillance.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
With the technology still prohibitively expensive, fully interactive signage could remain in the realms of cinematic fantasy, but three recent, small-scale projects using architecture and dynamic content might point the way forward, writes Scott Billings in UK's Design Week magazine.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Stefan doesn't care about kerning!!
Yup. You heard it here first. We were up close n personal with the king of graphic design.
Here are a few choice, albeit paraphrased, sound bites from Sagmeister's round table discussion at Gravity Free:
Sag on Pencils vs Illustrator:Young designers today are as skilled on Illustrator as I am with a pencil. It's a tool. So fine, treat it as a tool, but not as a solution.
Sag on sabbaticals:
Gaps are a possibility for re-organization
Sag on Art vs Design:
I like making things that are useful for the world. Design bridges that gap between conceptual art and marketplace.
more after the jump
The afternoon of Day 1 at Gravity Free was filled with inspirational presentations from architect Michelle Kaufman, milliner Rod Kennnan and the guru himself, Stefan Sagmeister.
Focusing on a design-build strategy, Michelle Kaufman presented her modular pre-fab green homes. The factory-made homes are designed for clean living and built in a factory using the most efficient and environmentally friendly materials possible. Details like tiles made of recycled Chardonnay bottles (yes -- now you can drink and save the world!) and energy monitoring systems made her homes not only beautiful in form, but also function.
Rod Kennan, a New York-based milliner, followed by taking us through a tour of his hat-making techniques and inspiration. Kennan makes fancy head-gear for everyone from Puff Daddy to Brad Pitt. There's no "special" treatment involved, just excellent craftsmanship and attention to detail. As he stated, "I don't ask Brad Pitt for movie tickets and he doesn't ask me for hats."
Highlight of the evening was, as usual, Sir Sagmeister himself. Breaking the ice with a story about a boner and Coney Island (?!), Sag led us through his latest body of work, Things I Have Learned in My Life. From the billboards of Paris to an installation of overripe bananas, Sagmeister's work continues to provoke and inspire. We've got a loose transcript of his round table talk coming up, so check back in a few.
Quite a day! Especially when it ends with a reception in a submarine. That's right. Day 1 at Gravity Free ended 30 feet below ground in the first German sub ever seized by Americans. Not a bad place to have a martini.....
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
It's the year of Dangerous Minds at Gravity Free. Session 1 was kicked-off by presentations on fashion, fantasy, and fearless-ness.
Hailing all the way from Dubai, Charles White - often called the father of modern illustration - took us on tour of his evolution as a painter, "before" the world of Photoshop, to his modern-day role of mega-sculptor/environmental-designer. From his hey-day in New York as a skinny kid with long hair, White was known as the 'airbrush illustrator.' " I was always the 'airbrush illustrator'" he noted, " All my friends were illustrators, but i was the 'airbrush' illustrator."
Such specialization offered White the opportunity to become one of the foremost illustrators of our time. He pioneered paintings in chrome and depictions of famous floors, chock-full of flies and cigarettes (which he admitted were often a cover-up to splotches or mistakes). Success in the 2D world paved the way for his present day work as an environmental and experience designer on projects like Treasure Island and Atlantis. Most astounding is the power of White's pen, (er...airbrush?) translating an energy and life into these environments unlike any computer rendering we've ever seen. Could REAL drawings possibly be more REAL-life?
Super Cuties, Ryan Genz & Francesca Rosella took the stage next to present their work designing wearable experiences. Renown for their Hug Shirt, Genz and Rosella charmed the audience with a series of Fashion-cum-technology pieces that pushed the boundaries of Wearable Tech. Based on their 3 point process of 1) Feasibility (in terms of technology), 2) Sustainability (as a business and service model) and 3) Desirability (through user research), they presented the Cell-Phone dress, an On-the-move Skate Hoodie, and a series of kinetic clothing that does everything from change colors and pattern to send your loved one a secret message. Overall, the goal was to create intimate experiences through technology; for, as Ryan stated, "Portable does NOT mean wearable. Just because I strap a laptop to my belt doesn't mean I am wearing it." Proof that the technological revolutions really are, at heart, design revolutions.
Jaime Drake, a self-proclaimed society designer with a "dangerous" bent for color, closed out the first session with aplomb. Dressed in a stellar pink suit, Drake took us on a whirl wind tour of his latest, greatest (and loudest) interior designs. (Yes, that's him on the motorcycle above). Influenced by a painter mother and printer father, Drake was surrounded by color at an early age. Taking it to heart, he developed a signature style of 'mix', combining classic and modern details with vibrant colorways that led him to designing for the best of 'em (even NYC's very own Mayor Mike Bloomberg is one of Burke's clients). Ruthless direction and a strong artistic voice add to Burke's success. He offered advice on how to curate those hard-to-place "antiques":
"If it's your grandmothers, then fine we keep it; if it's something horrible you bought last week then it's GOT TO GO."
A totally OTT ('over the top', to quote Drake) romp that left us all remembering the point of design: experience experience experience.
This is from a few months back, but in response to our recent mention of the OLPC roll-out in Peru, we were recently reminded of an interesting alternative to/criticism of the laptop model of educational computing in the developing world.
Featured in the "Reply All" section of the Wall Street Journal last September, an email debate was hosted between Walter Bender, then president of the OLPC non-profit, and Stephen Dukker, CEO of NComputing and proponent of a thin-client model for bringing low-cost computers to global classrooms.
The exchange is a little long-winded and self-aggrandizing, but refreshing for its brass tacks discussion of such boring but crucial aspects of the project as economics, distribution and scalability. After all the aesthetically influenced talk about OLPCs potential for success, it's nice to see how it stands up under scrutiny more concrete than "but it looks like a toy!"
Read the article here.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Takeshi Miyakawa's interesting Fractal 23 bureau makes use of every one of its cubic inches, even if it's not immediately obvious to the user. You can see more of the Brooklyn-based designer's work here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Gravity Free, the Multidisciplinary Design Innovation Conference, is kicking off NOW in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. We're on-site, peanut stash in hand (yum!!), so fasten your seat belts n ' stay tuned for live-bloggin' updates throughout the day.
A quick sampling of some of the homegrown technology that makes the Maker Faire such a kick: There's some bizarre transit, in the form of ACME Mufineering's motorized cupcakes; a "giant, fixed-gear, two-person dicycle" called Unwheeldy (hard to describe, but watch and it'll all make sense); and Tom Sepe's Whirlygig Emoto, a steampunk'd electric cycle complete with 15-mile range and, um...operating steam whistle.
Indoors, things were just as charming: Sisyphus V uses a rotating magnetic arm to propel a steel ball through sand, creating Zen-garden geometric patterns; that crazy ferrofluid you keep reading about populates the hand-cranked Magnetoscope, turning magnetic fields into impossible-looking 3D artwork; and the spooky moving images of a homemade camera obscura turn out to be the result of something as simple as an LED light and some bits of shiny foil on a turntable.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
You'll Be Fine is a website featuring health topics on sex, drugs, and video games by Joshua Hester.
The Ninth Annual School of Visual Arts MFA Design Department Thesis Exhibition entitled "Pitch" is on display now. If you haven't seen the show check out the reception tomorrow night May 13th from 6-8pm at the Visual Arts Gallery:
The MFA Design Department prepares students to excel as both form givers and "authors" of original concepts across a broad range of media. Building on fluency with the languages of graphic design and typography, the department focuses on the independent creation of ideas. With the aim of transforming designers into entrepreneurs, the program encourages students to think for themselves in creating objects of value to others, drawing inspiration from visual communication in the fine as well as applied arts.The Visual Arts Gallery, located at 601 W. 26th Street, between 11th and 12th avenues, 15th floor, is open Monday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm; closed on Sundays and public holidays. Admission is free. The Gallery is accessible by wheelchair. For further information call 212.592.2145.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Good design takes time. Years ago when B.K. Chakravarthy of the Industrial Design Centre in Bombay came across a rusted mailbox, he "felt shameful that being a design professor, we could not do any good design in the public domain." India's mailboxes were difficult to empty, rusted easily and filled with water during monsoon season, making many hesitant to use them. Chakravarthy solicited the Postmaster General's assignment to "design a maintenance-free postbox" and turned the problem into a student assignment.
[Concepts were] collated into a series of idea sketches using engineering plastic, sheet metal and stainless steel, and prototypes were made. The final product is a sleek affair with a stainless steel body with a red beak-shaped lid that slides on top. It's sleek, elegant, easy to install and user-friendly--you can even use the surface for writing.
That was back in 2005, when 30 of the mailboxes were produced; three years later they are finally going into mass production, starting with a run of 200. And you thought the mail took a long time to arrive....
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
CC 12 is the 12th collection for the Danish Crafts Collection launching at this weekends ICFF. Curated by architect Karen Kjærgaard, the products selected from 24 designer/makers are all about commitment and ethics touching on subjects including safe sex, animal welfare and fair trade - but treated with an element of humor.
Crafts Collection 12
ICFF, Javits Centre, Booth 1022
May 17 - 20, 2008
View more events: New York Design Week Guide 2008
This Thursday will be the opening of "Object Factory," a new exhibit at Toronto's Gardiner Museum featuring industrial ceramics. With over 200 pieces on display from both artists and industrial designers, including Cindy Sherman, Ettore Sottsass and Masahiro Mori, the exhibition will run through September.
"Object Factory" is being guest-curated by Marek Cecula, the owner/principal of Modus Design. Click here for more info.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Most Mac users who've switched to Leopard will tell you it's a pain in the neck; but Leopard's remote access feature came in quite handy for Mac user Kait Duplaga. When her laptop was stolen, Duplaga turned on the remote access--and used her laptop's built-in camera to snap a photo of the thief as he used her machine. Police were then able to nab the suspect and get most of Duplaga's stuff back.
Kind of reminds us of last month, when someone used an iPhone to track a stolen truck.
via cnet, ny times and macsimum news
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Industrial Design Intern
Bose
Framingham, Massachusetts
We are looking for a highly motivated Industrial Design student to intern in our Advanced Development Industrial Design (ADID) group for six months' time beginning in July or August of 2008 at our Framingham R&D Center, about 20 minutes from Boston. The Advanced Development Group's mission is to push the envelope, explore new ideas, technologies and trends; and articulate them into tangible product opportunities for future products or business ventures.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Check out all of Core77's event coverage of Art Center's Serious Play Design Conference 2008 in one easy-to-browse place. Congrats to the organizers, and good luck with clarifying the "bi-annual" over the next two years!
Serious Play 2008: Art Center Turns on the Fun
Serious Play 2008: Hockenberry and the Space Dudes
Serious Play 2008: Play Study, Places to Play, and Playing With Paper
Serious Play 2008: Google, Second Life and *Magic*
Serious Play 2008: Opening Night Target Party
Serious Play 2008: Tuxedo Travels and Mentos With Coke
Serious Play 2008: John Maeda Rocks!
Serious Play 2008: frog's Crows and Eames' Elephants
Serious Play 2008: Paula Scher, Seriously
Serious Play 2008: How Things Work, Inside/Outside
Serious Play 2008: Bruce McCall, Aimee Mullins and Your Moment of John Oliver
For those of you not hangin' out on in California after Serious Play this weekend, stroll over to Brooklyn Designs. Hosted in Saint Anne's Warehouse, the show features the largest mix to-date of furniture, tabletop, and decorative arts. Be sure to check out Kiel Mead's unique display of jewelry and Furthurdesign's modern glass objects by William Couig (above). An added bonus this year is the new Cash n' Carry boutique - a sure-hit for those of us still searching for that perfect Mother's Day gift! - as well as the stellar group of speakers lined up to through-out the day.
All this content makes us wonder, once again, why Brooklyn Designs happens the week before ICFF? If only the visiting design world could get a glimpse of this first-hand!
Thru May 11th.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
Home stretch!
"I don't know what I'm doing here," says Bruce McCall. He doesn't own a cell phone and paints on paper. But he did work in the automotive industry after a love of sports cars as a kid. And you can totally see this in his work as a painter and illustrator of probably a zillion New Yorker covers. He even had a show called "Serious Nonsense." You can divide his outlook on life into these themes: Retrofuturism, Techno-Archaeology, Faux Nostalgia, Hyperbolic Overkill, Shamelessly Cheap and Urban Absurdism. ("The brainless rich are the most fun to make fun of, so I do a lot of that.") But he's got some pretty striking design detail in there: Each features a miracle of modern technology or a marvel of industrial design, perfectly-rendered down to the bolts on the edge of his tanks (engaged in a polo game, of course).
As another person with a disability (he uses a wheelchair), John Hockenberry says that Aimee Mullins looked at her amputee status and took it not as an opportunity to lead a normal life, but as an "invitation to improve all physical appearance." You might have seen her in the Matthew Barney films slinking up the inside of the Guggenheim. In her adventures of designing the self, she saw the space between where her leg ended and the ground began as potential. Mullins' legs were amputated at the age of one and she shows the history of clunkily designed prosthetics. She first began to play with them by turning her feet around for substitute teachers (she even made one faint). Skiing, her ankles never hurt and her feet never got cold, so she could stay on the hill all day. And height? Well, she can be however tall she wants. "I'm usually 5-foot-8. But today, I'm 6-foot-1," she says. "Why be restricted to generic code when genetic code didn't show up for you?"
Plus the best ideas for her legs come from NASA engineers, Hollywood makeup artists, sculptors, so they look at it as a blank slate for innovation. Her running legs are modeled on the legs of a cheetah. And Alexander McQueen carved her a pair of exquisitely-carved wooden legs which she wore in a fashion show. And backstage Naomi Campbell wanted them. Mullins had to explain that they didn't really fit her. Now they're at the Met in the Costume Institute.
After a generous introduction by Hock (and a nice fakeout by Chee & Co.), Daily Show correspondent John Oliver quips: "If what he says is true, we're all doing to die." It's been three days of potentially-a-bit-too-Serious Playing, and thank god Oliver's brand of comedy doesn't need much explanation: "Analyzing comedy is like dissecting a frog. You don't learn anything, and the frog dies." So I won't try, but I will tell you that the audience is convulsing. He may have had some points in there about using your hands, or experimenting, or not being afraid to fail. But really? He's just funny. However, he does leave us with this lesson: "If you think like a child, your problems get smaller."
However, if you think like a child, you can't slam three Googletinis at the after party. So for the next hour--at least--I'm thinking like an adult.
>>Read all Serious Play 2008 posts
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (0)
David Macaulay is good at showing how things work (Cathedral, Ship, Mosque, Mill). For his newest book, The Way We Work, he wanted to show how our bodies were constructed, so it was natural for him to think of the human body as a gigantic "machine." So the body is presented like a series of rides at Six Flags. No joke! It's a universe of bodily landscapes and blueprints for life where a duodenum is two stories tall. Protein chains are stacked like Campbell soup cans. Cells are assembled like a social network diagram. Tissue making is organized into a dirty laundry room. Oxygen enters red blood cells on an assembly-line roller coaster, organs get trucked in on semis, and liquids course through the body as irrigation ditches then whitewater rafting courses.
My personal favorite is a bolus (remember that word?) of broccoli being photographed by tourists from a walkway as it plunges down the thorax. And of course it all ends with a "fantastic rectum" (Macaulay's words, not mine) where waste management trucks ship it all away. "We don't usually have the time to look at the smallest details," he says. "We get so caught up in scale we just think we can't understand something so big." But that's not true, he says. "By dismantling it we can observe why it works."
Always the overachiever, Paula Scher actually looked up what 'play' meant in the dictionary. Play equals what we usually think of, kids playing, but it also means gambling, and if you're not gambling with your work, then you're not, as they say, in the game. But being 'serious' about something, says Scher, is very different from being solemn--when you're solemn, that means you're not playing anymore.
During what she calls her youthful arrogant years, she detested Helvetica (You remember her badmouthing Helvetica, don't you? Saying it was the typeface of Vietnam?). But her hatred pushed her into a very serious "brat"-like play with all the crazy Art Deco-like type you've come to know. And this resulted in some pretty serious work. But she didn't get serious about it again for about 14 years, when she worked on the Public Theater's identity. And suddenly this amazing, very serious, very playful work emerged that shook up everything in design. But what happened? "New York ate my identity," she says. Designers everywhere ripped her off, organizations copied the look. So she had to switch it up, and all her work since then has been solemn. Solid, but solemn.
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (1)"Be careful what you say at cocktail parties," says Joshua Klein from frog. In his case, he mused over a drink that someone should really teach all these crows flapping around here to do something useful. Someone else said that was a stupid idea, so that made Klein want to do it even more. Crows live everywhere that humans do for the most part, so there's a lot of them. And they're smart. Check out the video above, where crows drop shelled nuts onto the street where they're sure to get run over by a car in order to crack them. Brilliant! But what was notable to animal behavior scientists wasn't that they used car tires as nutcrackers, it was the fact that crows were actually learning from each other. This ability to learn cultural behavior is what makes crows exceptional. So Klein designed a vending machine that gave a crow a peanut when it inserted a coin into the machine. And guess what--the crows started to figure out that if they went out in the neighborhood and got more coins, they'd get more peanuts. So not only could crows be employed to pick up all the loose change on the streets, if you trained them to bring it to your house, you'd be rich. Amazing.
Then the lovely Eames Demetrios is onstage and it's a beautiful sight. He's standing before the famous Dot pattern designed by his famous grandparents, and he's also standing in front of their two red Plywood Elephants by Vitra, who are the stars of "A Gathering of Elephants" a delightful little film Demetrios made. From playing with plywood to making films, Charles and Ray never delegated the understanding to someone else so they wouldn't miss out on play. Plus--major bonus for Demetrios--"The great thing about having grandparents who made toys is that they always felt like it was important to be on the cutting edge of toy technology." When it the Super Ball came out, Charles said in an interview that it represented the greatest design of the year. And then Demetrios' brother promptly used one to break the third story window of their house. This didn't please Ray but it delighted Charles, in fact, the degree Charles valued the most was an honorary degree from clown college. Demetrios says that Charles and Ray would be very upset to see material objects used as status symbols in our current culture. The most valued things shouldn't be expensive things that are exclusive, rather they should be things anyone can do, like learning a language--something that proves the time and effort spent; devotion to a craft over the ownership of objects. He closed with a quote from a forthcoming book of Eames quotables: "At all times love and discipline have led to good times and a good life." The Eames stamps are out June 17, which is Charles' 101st birthday and the perfect day to send someone a real letter that shows both love and discipline.
>>Read all Serious Play 2008 posts
Here's an unusual design problem: how do you make a clock that only turns 30 times in 10,000 years? The Long Now Foundation, showing here at last weekend's Maker Faire, has addressed this challenge in a clever and rather beautiful way: given the weight and slowness of the clock they want to build, they're replacing ball bearings with a mesmerizing series of flexors that "pass" the clock mechanism along, rather than rolling. Lovely video, thoughtful treatment of a really abstract concept, and the website is worth a check too.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Design Within Reach has partnered with Domino Magazine to host tonights opening night party for BKLYN Designs:
Held from May 9-11 in DUMBO, Brooklyn, BKLYN Designs, now in its sixth year, is an annual show featuring Brooklyn-based designers and manufacturers of contemporary furniture, lighting, rugs and decorative accessories as well as panel discussions and speakers, design presentations, a walking tour, and other activities throughout the weekend.The opening party will be Friday May 9, from 8-10pm at the Brooklyn Heights DWR Studio at 76 Montague Street. Free issues of Domino will be available, and there will be food, cocktails and musical stylings by the Studio's resident DJ, Nathan Ursch. Design Within Reach and Domino will give away one pair of gunmetal grey Marais AC Chairs, as seen in the May issue of Domino.
For those who would prefer not to make the 12-minute walk from DUMBO to the Heights, Con Edison is sponsoring a shuttle bus leaving from BKLYN DESIGNS at St. Ann's Warehouse, 38 Water Street, at 8 pm for the party.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
John Maeda! John Maeda! hit the stage this morning wearing a super snazzy crumpled silver jacket (or maybe the iron didn't work in his hotel, but no matter: he wears it well). "I'm getting kinda tired of talking about simplicity, actually," he says, "So I'm going to do complexity." I feel a major Maeda crush coming on.
Maeda grew up working in his father's tofu factory and like all creatives, his parents told him not to be creative. Instead he majored in math at MIT, but he just so happened to start working when computers got visual. He became a self-professed "icon master" until he discovered Paul Rand. And realized how bad he was at design. So he went to design school. He started learning how to make his design work move and flail about on the screen and his design teachers told him to stop it. And it was right around then he noticed a now-famous quote from Rand: "A Yale student said, 'I came here to learn how to design, not to learn how to use a computer.' Design schools take heed."
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (0)Cyclecide Bike Rodeo is a group of bike-obsessed Bay Area makers who take their "traveling pedal-powered carnival that is fun for people of all ages" to events up and down the West Coast. Here we've got a few seconds of their cycle-driven carousel flinging some kids about at a frightening pace; see their website for videos of their other contraptions.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Here is a competition that you probably trained for back in middle school when any blank surface was a possible medium for your rebellious artistic streak. In fact you might even have answered this brief exactly: apply your own style to a pair of Chuck Taylors. The difference now is that instead of getting in trouble with mom or the authorities you might win a trip to Converse! Check it out here.
Posted by: shaggy | Comments (0)
This morning is like the college humor portion of the conference, except for John Maeda, who was sandwiched in here but he deserved his own post. Late-add Douglas Campbell is nowhere on the schedule and hits the stage like a Sinatra impersonator doing the 3am shift at Circus Circus. Even after two days of magicians, jump ropers and jugglers, his jovial frat-guy demeanor is probably the most unsettling one coffee into the morning. What's a bit more disturbing is that he's wearing a tux. As one-half of Tuxedo Travels he and a friend traveled from Asia to London wearing only tuxedos. On April 1 (of course) they embarked on their epic journey to have fun, but they ended up donating money to organizations and doing goodwill deeds along the way to create a "trail of happiness" in their wake. Of course the trip also included plenty of rice wine binges, amnesia-inducing herbal baths and nudity, with the photos to prove it. Now Campbell wants to expand the flock, if you will, and he's calling on designers to help him design a broader audience participation experience. But he doesn't need any help with the tux, however: Apparently it's made from some superfabric that you can wash in the shower--while wearing it. Which doesn't make too much sense since Campbell seemed to be plenty comfortable with the tux off.
And now it's time for another Serious Play Surprise! It's the Mentos and Coke guys! After chatting about their sudden brush with fame--they even got contacted by the Bellagio fountain guys, sweet!--a kiddie pool comes out and they drop six Mentos into a Diet Coke liter for a small on-stage geyser. For you nerds out there, the reaction is not chemical, it's physical, and it's called 'nucleation.' In fact, it's not Mentos-specific, anything small with the same surface area will do the trick. Now the guys are headed back home to work on another experiment--using 46,000 pads of Post-It notes.
>>Read all Serious Play 2008 posts
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (0)
At first glance the Myhab appears to be another design for temporary disaster housing; in fact it's designed for a more frivolous purpose--housing festival-going hippies and groupies. No longer will music-lovers have to roll around in Mother Nature's grit at Lollapalooza-like shows; the recycled-plastic-and-cardboard Myhab provides foam mattresses, temperature insulation and a lockbox where you can securely store your psychotropic drugs.
You can rent a Myhab structure for specific festivals at their website (thus far, festivals in the UK only); Myhab rentees also have access to the festivals' on-site "Myvillage"--a collection of showers and toilets, so you don't have to learn about poison ivy the hard way. At 120 pounds (US $240) it ain't cheap; but while the alternative is free, it's also called mud.
via hippy shopper
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
RT, RM, AF, SLS; that's Rapid Tooling, Rapid Manufacturing, Additive Fabrication, and Selective Laser Sintering. For those of you not up on Rapid Prototyping, read this Modern Plastics article for a primer, as well as the latest developments in the field (and more plastics acronyms than you'll know what to do with).
Looking for something to do with Mom this weekend? Sign up for the Inhabitat Mothers Day Green Design Tour Sunday, May 11 at 2pm. Inhabitat's Jill and Abigail will lead you on a personal tour of Green products at Brooklyn Designs (opening this weekend!).
They're taking a limited number of participants. Email them at inhabitat at gmail.com to reserve your spot! And Mom's.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
If CDs are dead, then records are even dead-er, right? Not if it's up to Aleksander Kolkowski. This engineer-cum-artist is carving a new niche for our old music with his vintage record-cutting machine. The handy tool re-purposes old CDs by 'overwriting' existing data and cutting grooves on 'em so they can be played on a turntable. All you have to do is show up with a track, an old CD, and voila! Off you go with a brand "new" 45RPM single. Now if only I could find my turntables.....
via boing-boing
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
iLounge has launched a "Design the Next iPhone" competition. They're looking for originality, innovation and a bit o' humor:
We will be looking for six total winners for this contest - three grand prize winners will receive Apple's next-generation iPhone, courtesy of iLounge, and three runners up will receive $100 iTunes Gift Cards. Our plan is to pick two winners with "advanced" iPhone designs, another two for "simplified" iPhone designs, and two more for funny iPhone designs. The grand prize winners will be our three favorite overall entries. Use these design ideas to inspire your work and you'll have the best shot at winning a next-generation iPhone of your own.
Get crackin here!
What can you do with waste paper apart from filling up your dustbin? Jens Praet knows! One Day Paper Waste is a little table/console, obtained by taking shredded confidential documents, mixing them with resin and compressing them into a strong mould... End result: a new interesting object that has the strength of wood.
Every document tells a story. By shredding confidential documents, part of its information remains mysteriously visible. One Day Paper Waste gives new life to these documents, that's the real beauty of this product.
Check out more waste paper concepts at Jens' website (don't miss his "black edition").
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (2)
Senior Designer
JDK Design
Burlington, Vermont
Work with an international mix of forward-thinking people and brands. JDK Design in Burlington, Vermont, seeks senior graphic designers with 5 years of experience and an intimate knowledge of the youth-oriented action-sport or video-gaming culture. Our designers have mind-blowing creative talent, a ceaseless desire to shape what's new and what's next, and uncommonly good presentation skills.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The winners of Cooper-Hewitt's 2008 National Design Awards have been announced. This year's first prize and two runners-up in the Product Design category were all New-York-based firms: Antenna Design, Boym Partners and Karim Rashid. To see the winners in all of the categories (Architecture, Communications, Fashion, Interior, Landscape, Design Mind, Corporate Achievement and Lifetime Achievement) click here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
If you've ever wanted to have a double-Dutch team at a party but worried that a bunch of people wearing ties and heels wouldn't jump, forget it. Design folk were pushing each other out of the way to hit the ropes at the Target party. And nothing goes better with jumping up and down repeatedly than a red apple-something-deadly served in red flashing martini glasses and a fry bar. A DIY fry bar, with chili, ketchup, cheese sauce, truffle mayo, chipotle mayo, blue cheese mayo (did I forget any of the mayos?). And candy, so much candy, I had a really hard time deciding what to stuff my pockets with so I stuffed them with red velvet cupcakes instead. We walked away with Crayola crayons, Cynthia Rowley jump ropes and "green" Target bags. Except they were red, of course. Do you see a theme?
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (2)
Remember this guy? After more of the rockin' 80s soundtrack (more Madonna, please!), we have Irene Au, director of user experience at Google (it seems somehow dirty and obvious to link to that). I know, you don't always think Google=design. But to her, fast=design, easy=design and profitable=design. Au shows a video from their usability labs where they studied behavior and eye movements of probably the worst Googler in the world (he was shopping for a flat-screen television and Googled "television"). Yet it proves a good point. In its success, Google's user experience has undergone a huge transformation. When they started, they were only used by tech-savvy Silicon Valley hipsters. Now 70% of their traffic is from outside the U.S and they've had to completely reconsider how they are used in places that aren't, like, American. Here's one especially striking comment from a clip she shows of cell phone user research. It's shot in India, where a woman opens a window in her house by rolling up a plastic tarp on her tent: "We can miss a meal a day, but we cannot miss a day on our mobile phones. It will affect all our work and our lives." So look forward to that option somehow incorporated into your new Google Phone.
Now we're entering Second Life. Well, not really, but it's a slideshow of images from the metaverse. Second Life founder Philip Rosedale loved stuff like Star Trek so much he built a roof hatch with a garage door in the ceiling of his room as a kid. He says the parallels of SL growth are so similar to the internet in the 90s that we should not be afraid of alternate universes, especially since, according to Rosedale, Second Life will someday be bigger then the web(!). Huh? Well, he says, because the web connects text to text, whereas a place like SL connects infinite imagery and descriptions and users' creations. But although he is standing in front of images of chesty women in swan costumes, Rosedale barely scratches the surface of the whole Second Life culture and all of the ahem, ethical issues therein (like, he just casually mentions that you can buy a baby in Second Life). Also? He is way too good-looking in real life to be the ultranerd he professes to be. He's like the Ryan Seacrest of gaming. He is probably the only person in SL whose avatar is actually less attractive.
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (1)
The puff-tastic sameness that pervades the language design firms use to promote themselves has bugged us for a long time, but leave it to Design Observer regular Steven Heller to finally take the gun to this particular barrel of fish.
In a wickedly precise article on the AIGA website Tuesday, Heller gives a bit of history on the relationship between designers and the written word, and then steps back to let modern design firms (attempt to) speak for themselves. The results are horribly familiar, and raise the excellent question of how it got to be this way.
The list of samples is long and telling; we dare you to read all the way through the list without either glazing over or dissolving into a giggle fit. A few choice entries from section one: Happiness Is a Warm Client:
* The process begins with analysis, immersion into the client's situation in order to define the true problem.* Our primary concern is with our client's success in their business.
* The basic need of most clients who come to us is to fulfill a business function.
* Our primary concern is to solve the client's communications objective.
* Our goal is to meet our clients' visual communications needs by applying an approach based on discipline, appropriateness and ambiguity.
[huh?]
Read the full article here.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Here's another in a long list of careers to sign up for at this conference: Stuart Brown is a play expert at the National Institute for Play. From the chaotic games of Medieval times to polar bears nuzzling the necks of huskies (instead of chomping on their jugulars), he actually studies play. Most notably, how its absence in childhood leads to violence in grown ups. So think about that the next time your kid is wailing because you told her it's time to put away the Polly Pockets. The reason for this is that play is not only essential for intelligence and developmental behavior, but it's also essential for trust. Brown says the case of the "wooden" Al Gore is a different example of a potentially play-deprived youth (but not in a violent way). This person probably didn't have a whole lot of play in his past--long days spent working, studying and trying to be like dad--but once he got to play around with his slide show....well, you saw the change. So take a cue from Al and think back to your most creative, joyful moment in your past. Start building ideals from that notion into how you live your life now. It should be just as much a part of your life as sleep and dreams.
As principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Elizabeth Diller's architecture is all about play--and they sure do like playing with water. Their Blur Building in Switzerland screwed around with weather systems by turning a buildings walls into mist from the lake it sat in. Another art project created a frozen lake made from branded waters from around the world. At the Biennale in Venice this year they're actually going to use water from the canals to make the best espresso in the city (really, you must tell us how that goes). Diller also is working on the High Line, that abandoned elevated railway through Manhattan. Playing with the definition of a public space resulted in their ideas being so vibrantly embraced that starchitects wanted to build near it, celebs like Ed Norton wanted to get involved, and David Bowie had a benefit concert for it...that was actually nowhere near the High Line. And isn't that kind of the measure of success for your entire life? When David Bowie supports you, you can retire, right?
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (0)
Smart / Models is a one-day event scheduled for Saturday May 17 at the Times Center in NYC. The conference will feature presentations by five design firms describing their five different business models. According to the web site, the day will cover 'the overlap between smart design and business smarts." Sounds like you'd be smart to register while there are still tickets left!
Cool poster design by Sam Potts!
Posted by: StuCon | Comments (0)
Top, the Globo Chair by Stefano Big can have its backrest removed and be conjoined with others to form a bench, and it also stores its own ottoman inside its seat.
Bottom, the Ooch armchair by Sanniadesign is basically a stacking collection of pillows in a frame; when three of your hippie friends come over, all of you can sit on the floor.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
SHORT poster. Check out pages from the book on VA's website.
Just when you thought enrolling your kids in yoga and teaching them Japanese was enough, Sydney based firm, VA, has developed a coloring book for the artistically cultural elite. Limited to 1,000 copies worldwide, SHORT is an 82-page masterpiece filled with outlined works from selected artists and designers that your child (or who are we kidding, you) color yourself. And—bonus—every book comes with a poster by Stefan Marx and Chris Hopkins. Later this year high-end Japanese fashion label, BEAMS plans to run a line of limited-edition VA Editions | SHORT tees taken from the features of seven SHORT artists. Currently the only distributors are in Australia, Japan and the UK, but that shouldn't stop you from dreaming up your own fancy coloring book right in your own studio.
Posted by: Alison | Comments (0)
After one too many flashing red cocktails at the Target party last night (seriously, one was too many), a first glimpse of master of ceremonies John Hockenberry was just the caffeinated jolt the crowd needed this morning. In his signature opening video, Hock asked his kids (two sets of twins--adorable!) to give us conference-goers some advice about how to play seriously. Short answer: "You can't! It's playing! It's not supposed to be serious!" Kids say the darndest things.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist George Smoot (who was totally jump roping last night at the party) is wearing a seriously playful tie to kick off the morning. He's going to begin at the beginning. The very beginning, like the beginning of the universe, and he brought with him some perspective, as in, Hubble Telescope-perspective. It's CSI: Universe, examining the design principle the universe used to assemble itself. Lots of Big Bang "trashcans," pretty hyperspace fly bys and "billions and billions"-speak.
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (1)TechShop is one of those things that makes so much sense you wonder why it hasn't been around forever. Based in Menlo Park, CA, it's a massive, public, subscription-based machine shop and fabrication studio that actively encourages the mechanically curious to get their hands dirty and start making things. In addition to all the routers, laser cutters, welding equipment and RP machines they run, TechShop also offers low-cost classes to get newbies building as quickly as possible. Founder Jim Newton walks us through a few of the toys they brought over to demonstrate, and mentions a bit about expansion plans too (Portland, OR and Durham, NC by the end of the summer, seven more locations next year--check the website to see where).
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We hate going to those artsy bar-cafes where the Male/Female signs for the bathroom have been replaced by abstract symbols. We don't want to puzzle things out on our way to the loo--any additional step between us and the toilet is a hindrance. But for those of you that find such signs entertaining, here are a couple links to galleries of them: 1, 2.
Warning: NSFW...unless you work in one of those artsy bar-cafes.
via pagog and offbeat earth
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Designed for the "locavore," Local River, created by Mathieu Lehanneur and Anthony van den Bossche is a home storage unit for fish and greens. This DIY fish-farm-cum-kitchen-garden is based on the exchange and interdependence of two living organisms - plants and fish.
Here's the dirty stuff:
The plants extract nutrients from the nitrate-rich dejecta of the fish. In doing so they act as a natural filter that purifies the water and maintains a vital balance for the eco-system in which the fish live. The same technique is used on large-scale pioneer aquaponics/fish-farms, which raise tilapia (a food fish from the Far East) and lettuce planted in trays floating on the surface of ponds.
Simply put, now you can have your fish, lettuce, and eat 'em too! The ultimate goal of Local River is not just decorative, but functional too -- serving as an aquarium/refrigerator it allows fish and greens to cohabit until .....um.....dinner time rolls around.
On view at Artists Space from 25 April to 21 June 2008.
Check out more pix after the jump.
Established late last year, DesignTalks is "the online community for the UK design and manufacturing industry, and the ideal place to debate the hottest topics of the moment. As well as providing an online debating environment, we also produce whitepapers and other resources designed to help manufacturers get the best from designers - and vice versa."
Their latest whitepaper is on Design & Sustainability and can be downloaded, free, here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)New York City is getting more film and TV crews (Ugly Betty will finally start shooting here, in the city the story's set in, rather than in sham L.A. studios) due to a recent tripling of the tax credit awarded by the city to production companies.
Now the state of Michigan is using a similar strategy to attract creative businesses. If you're looking to set up an architecture or design firm (graphic, interior, fashion, and yes, industrial) or a broad range of other creative businesses, you become eligible for the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) tax credit, previously available only to those in the manufacturing sector. As bureaucrats try to revitalize a struggling Detroit, it will once again be up to the artists (SoHo story, anyone?) to renew and revitalize. More info available here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Sr. Web Designer
Lucky Brand Jeans
Los Angeles, California
Partner with the Lucky Brand Jeans creative team as well as participate in the daily brainstorming and discussions of the LuckyBrandJeans.com business team for design and business related strategies.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The UK's upcoming Design Show Liverpool looks set to be an exciting event; spanning "furniture, glass, ceramics, lighting and eco-design to garden products, clothing, jewellery and fashion accessories," there will also be workshops and an opportunity for show-goers to contact designers and commission projects of their own. Runs from June 19th to 22nd; more info available here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)We first blogged this low-cost wind turbine from Engineers Without Borders last month, but here's a Maker Faire guided tour of the thing, given by Matt McLean, one of the literally hundreds of engineers who make up the organization. Turns out bike parts, electrical conduit and Teflon tape have more uses than you think.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Okay, I know, I swore I was out, but only the kind folks at Core77 and hundreds of thousands of dollars could entice me out of my live-blogging retirement. So after working back up to my blog flexibility with five excruciating weeks of deep phalanges stretches, here I am, in Pasadena, California, at the third Art Center Conference, Serious Play.
And boy is it ever nice over here in the Wind Tunnel. Maharam fabrics unfurling from the ceilings, cushy Steelcase chairs, even tables for us live-bloggers so we don't walk home with MacBook battery burns on our upper thighs. Our cruise ship director Chee Pearlman takes the stage with images of the patron saints of fun design, if you will, who will be looking over us on our three days here. Charles and Ray Eames on a motorcycle, Tibor Kalman holding a gun-printed issue of Colors to his head, Ettore Sottsass and that kickass red Olivetti typewriter. She then introduces the first of many conference surprises. OMG a double-Dutch techno dance break! It's Bring It On with jumpropes!
Keynote speaker Tim Brown* of IDEO is sure to mention first and foremost that he sure does love to play with Legos®. (My question is, how much did they pay for that mainstage product placement?) Brown has some audience participation for us to do. First, everyone is given 30 seconds to draw their neighbor. Lots of laughs and lots of "I'm sorry, you aren't really that fat/ugly/alien-like." Brown tells us that David Kelley started IDEO around the concept of play, so he could work with his friends (now numbering 550) and have fun at the office. Big creative companies always have something that defines their corporate culture and IDEO's is their Finger Blaster, a Wham-O-like foam slingshot device. That they invented. Of course. And wouldn't you know it, but we all have one taped underneath our seats. So...giant targets go up behind him (Is this more product placement? They're sponsoring tonight's after party.) and Brown is getting pelted with hundreds of Finger Blasters! Wheeee! Now this is serious play!
Kids love boxes, Brown says, because a Tickle-Me-Elmo only does one thing, while a box could do anything. It's the habit of exploration and looking for lots of possibilities that makes us creative. An academic named Robert McKim--now officially my favorite academic of anything-- studied the effect of psychedelics on creative in the 70s. He gathered 27 men from engineering, physics, math, architects, and furniture designers and gave them mescaline. He asked them to find out how many uses they could create for a paper clip. But along the way they also figured out some other stuff, like the design of an electron accelerator. "It wasn't the drugs," says Brown. "It was the fact that the drugs shocked them out of the normal way of thinking." Uh huh. And the purple coyote in the corner that told them how to design the electron accelerator.
A Western-raised first grader spends 30% of their time in construction play. In the grown up world, Brown says David Kelley calls this "thinking with your hands" or building multiple prototypes very quickly. Brown contrasts video of kids playing with blocks with Frank Gehry building models (you can definitely see the resemblance; they both really need to comb their hair). And then he shows shots of IDEO engaging in role play to gain empathy for their audience. Um, how cool is it to work at IDEO? It looks like you get a preschool art cubby full of craft supplies and then you get to dress up like nurses and ghosts and play bakery and store with large human-scale Playmobil setups. Oh, and infiltrate hospitals with video cameras strapped to your head.
The only caveat to all this play, however, is that play has rules, and you can't play all the time. So you've got to trust those around you to play and trust those around you when you want to be creative. Therefore, the rules for creativity (and this conference) are as follows:
· Exploration: Quantity
· Building: Think With Your Hands
· Role Play: Act it Out
· And put away your Finger Blasters when you're finished with them
Actually, I take that back, I'm offering $100 to anyone who can land one in John Hockenberry's lap during the rest of the conference.
*One very tiny item I have to include which I will do to prove this is live but also because it is related since Tim Brown was on the jury: The Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Awards have just been announced and I gotta give a big shout out to all the winners!
>>Read all Serious Play 2008 posts
Posted by: Alissa Walker | Comments (0)
If you are looking to furnish or decorate, consider this:
Real Simple, along with co-chairs Maggie Gyllenhaal, designer James Huniford and Real Simple's managing editor Kristin van Ogtrop, are hosting the fourth-annual Design on a Dime charity event to benefit Housing Works, the nation's largest community-based AIDS-service organization. The two-day event is free and open to the public May 9-10, with a kick-off party to be held on May 8th from 6-9 PM.During the event, thirty top-tier designers - including Sills Huniford, Thom Filicia, Charlotte Moss and Jamie Drake - will create breathtaking, one-of-a-kind room vignettes. People will be able to purchase the items in the vignettes at 60-80% off the retail price and all proceeds from the sale will benefit Housing Works.
Thursday, May 8 through Saturday, May 10 at the Metropolitan Pavilion (125 West 18th Street, New York City).
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
While we recently highlighted the trolling Poynor anti-innovation piece, we can't recommend strongly enough Gabby Hon's thoughtful and insightful rebuttal at Experience Matters.
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)
Inspired by the Mexican tradition of scaring off flies by hanging clear bags from the ceiling of taco kiosks (really?!), designer Jose Delao created the slick "Anty Fly." Handy and beautiful, this object makes use of water's natural ability to refract color and light, both properties which cause too much movement for a lil' fly to tolerate. The trade off? Troublesome pests stay away and your tacos live in peace.