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Henk Stallinga's 'Taste of Talking' salt and pepper shakers are conceptually a little on the strange side combining the mouth and ear parts of old bakelite telephone handsets with blinker lens caps from the original Morris Mini. We hate to say it but they do make for an interesting conversation piece at the dinner table. They're available for $22 US from Charles & Marie.
via dvice
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
Irish designer Simon Dennehy has developed ergonomic furniture for primary schools targeting know problem areas of concern including posture, chair height and the relationship to the work surface. He undertook detailed research into this subject matter during his M.A. and hopes that Perch will alleviate poor posture in school children which is linked to obvious symptoms like back pain and possible issues of poor digestion, nausea, headaches and bad circulation.
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Photo: David Maxwell for The New York Times
The New York Times reports on a new milk jug container designed with a flat top and rigid sides allowing the containers to be stacked on a pallet using cardboard bands and shrink wrap instead of milk crates. Introduced by Sam's Club last November, the cardboard and plastic can be recycled, it eliminates the need to maintain and wash milk crates and reduces the typical number of weekly deliveries from 4-5 trips down to 2.
The redesign of the gallon milk jug, experts say, is an example of the changes likely to play out in the American economy over the next two decades. In an era of soaring global demand and higher costs for energy and materials, virtually every aspect of the economy needs to be re-examined, they say, and many products must be redesigned for greater efficiency.
But not everyone's happy, consumers are complaining that the new square design is hard to pour without spilling the milk as the jug has no real spout. It seems like that's a small consideration for Sam's Club who estimate this method of shipping has reduced labor by half and water usage by 60-70 percent. Sam's Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in a cooler that used to hold 80.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (4)
OOF is a group of product designers who graduated from Ravensbourne College of Design & Communication in 2005:
Out of Office is a collective of British product designers that turn concepts, ideas & stories, into tangible and meaningful objects. These everyday objects aim to convey a thoughtful approach, & create a lasting relationship in people's lives.Since graduating, they have collectively have pursued internships & careers in various areas of design. Collectively they have worked for: Tom Dixon & Habitat, Droog Design, Motorola, and many more.
OOF are pleased to inform you that they will be exhibiting a selected collection of objects in the Mall Gallery at Canary Wharf, London between 29 June - 30 July.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
design hotels
Design Hotels Future Forum 2008
bbc news
Airbus unveils carbon fiber plane
bangkok post
Thainox Design Award Contest 2008: stainless steel product designs
baltimore sun
WALL-E flavored with a dash of Apple
marketwire
Massage tables get the design treatment
yahoo news
Alcatraz hotel?
the wall street journal
Talking About Design: Bang & Olufsen's David Lewis
PingMag gets the back story on Tokyo-based Canadian expat John Di Cesare's Parashell umbrellas & parasols. Working with a 73 year old umbrella maker in Ome, near Tokyo, he prototyped an idea he had back in Canada based on the shapes and forms of sea shells.
In Japan, everybody and his uncle has an idea for a weird-shaped umbrella. Seriously, if you go to the patent office you see. So I think for them, they were just like, "Here we go, another guy with a weird umbrella idea."
We've seen a few asymmetric umbrellas to tackle fierce weather, this one's more of a well-made elegant accessory and given the increasing awareness of the sun's harmful damage, there's certainly a growing niche market for the parashell.
Read Interview: pingmag.com
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As part of a nationwide effort to upgrade Japan's 570,000 cigarette vending machines with an age-verification system, 4,000 special machines will be fitted out with a face recognition camera that can determine if you're over the age of 20 (the legal purchasing age) based on a database of more than 100,000 faces.
Various face recognition hardware is currently being tested in Osaka and Kobe. One Japanese reporter was able to trick 2 machines using full page photos from a magazine, one of a man in his 50's and one of a female celebrity in her 30's. He was rejected though when trying to use a 1 inch (3cm) wide photo.
Most of the vending machines will require the purchaser to have a Taspo age-verification card, without one your only option will be to buy cigarettes over the counter or try your luck with one of the machines that offers the face recognition option. Something tells us getting your hands on a fake ID that no-one physically has to look at will be pretty easy!
view article: pinktentacle.com
On camping trips we've never had a problem driving tent stakes into the ground, but maybe you have. And maybe you just happen to have a cordless drill in that backpack of yours. In this situation you can use Screw Pegs.
Campfire time? No problem--break out that cordless circular saw and cut yourself some firewood, then light those puppies up with your MiG welder. Ah, the great outdoors.
via tool monger
For the OCD pianist: Like tickling the ivories, but hate germs left by other keyboardists? Try the Air Piano, created by FH Potsdam Interface Design student Omer Yosha. OCD or no, we bet Cornelius can't wait to get his hands on this thing. Not literally. You know what we mean.
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Check out this BBC video of the German "Supermarket of the Future," which appears to be an actual working supermarket, not some concept. Microchipped food packages, "intelligent freezers," cell phone bar code interfaces, and even interactive games in the seafood section.
By far the coolest feature is that you scan items (with your cellie) as you collect them; at the end your phone produces a single bar code containing the prices of everything, so you run that over the scanner for a superfast checkout.
To our readers in Germany--have any of you used this yet?
via bbc news
Senior CAD Textile Designer - Old Navy
Gap Inc.
San Francisco, California
Candidate actively researches current trends in color, textiles and styles (shops the market, attends outside fashion presentations). Fully responsible for creating and maintaining seasonal color palettes. May identify opportunities for increasing workflow efficiencies. May provide direction and guidance to lower level CAD Textile Designers as needed.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)i-D Magazine not ID Magazine collaborated with street artist KAWS for the July issue. Talking about this and other projects, the interview gives us a glimpse into his studio and some insight into what inspired a kid who grew up in Jersey City watching the smurfs and simpsons to create the KAWS universe.
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Current's got a very nice video of a fitted out 1949 Portland Pullman Railcar, "architect-designed" with a modern interior that looks pretty sweet to us. And yes, graffiti comes up near the end of the clip.
The designer, Marc Riera, is a graduate of SCI_Arc and based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to private commissions for residential and studio spaces, his work is focused around retail and furniture design. Interior fitment is by David Boyd / Studio Alloy, and the video was made by Tristan Mcallister.
Contact Marc Riera / viseblau at marcATviseblauDOTcom.
A new kind of ceramic material has been discovered by the Swedish chemist Saeid Esmaeilzadeh who accidentally cooled down a ceramic substance too fast.
Instead of throwing away the results of the failed experiment, he decided to research the substance. This turned out to be a kind of "super glass" with unexpected properties such as extreme hardness (harder than steel) and high index of refraction.
Saeid started the company Diamorph to commercialize his discovery. Right now, the company is cooperating with the wind power industry to develop more strong and lightweight bearings for wind turbines that have to withstand tremendous pressure and poor lubricant condition.
Congrats to Saeid not just for his research but also for adding some user perspective in the world of research. Saeid earlier said: "If I talk about atoms and bonds and nitrides, people fall asleep at their desks. But if I talk about this wind power plant and the problems we're wrestling with, then everyone wants to join in!"
via product
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (0)Yale 360 has a great interview with locavore Michael Pollan on the importance of shifting from environmentalism, which focuses on preservation, to sustainability, which focuses on a healthy relationship between industrial and biological systems. His argument for localizing food production also works for an argument to localize many other types of production:
One source of our sense of powerlessness and frustration around climate change is that we are so accustomed to outsourcing so much of our lives to specialists of one kind or another, that the idea that we could reinvent the way we live, change our lifestyles, is absolutely daunting to people. We don't know how to do it. We've lost the skills to do it . . . I think where climate change is taking us is to a point where many of us will need to take care of ourselves a little better than we do now. We will be less able to depend on distant experts and distant markets. We will need to re-localize economies all over the world because we won't be able to waste fossil fuel . . . These long supply chains are going to have to get shorter.
What do you think, designers? Is localized production possible? Comments please.
Pollan's garden-talk might not provide all the answers but it's sure got some good clues. Go ahead and read the full interview here
Our world is changing very fast, at an ever increasing pace and producing unexpected, sometimes disruptive, results. According to Guta Moura Guedes, the Portuguese curator of the exhibition "Flexibility - design in a fast changing society" (press release), designers must respond to this context by creating everyday structures and products that are highly adaptable or transformable.
Flexibility, defined as "the ease with which a system or component can be modified for use in applications or environments other than those for which is was specifically designed", is the leitmotiv of this must-see exhibition which takes place in the deeply unsettling surroundings of a fairly recently vacated prison in Turin, Italy - a space which is obviously not at all flexible.
But despite these constraints, Guta prevailed. Definitely the crown jewel of the events organised by Torino 2008 World Capital of Design, "Flexibility" is organised in two sections - a research part and an installation part - and raises a lot of highly valid questions.
The research section, set up in the central panopticon area of the prison, contains video installations showing examples of flexibility around the world, as well as examples of successful design objects and solutions dealing with this topic, grouped thematically: materials, shape, sustainability, spaces, body, services, cities, etc.
Nine designers or design teams - Bertjan Pot, Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa of Antenna Design, Ana Mir and Emili Padros of Emiliana, Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar, Giulio Iacchetti, Ross Lovegrove, Matali Crasset, Fernando Brizio, and Patricia Urquiola - were asked to make a site specific installation/project based on very open brief about flexibility, and the results are shown mostly inside the various prison cells of the women's wing.
The exhibition opened yesterday - at the eve of the World Congress of Architecture which starts tomorrow in Turin - and will run until 12 October.
Unfortunately there is no really good website of the show [hence this longer post], so you really need to see the exhibition on site, or get your hands on the catalogue, which also contains excellent essays by Ezio Manzini and Max Bruinsma. The press office of Torino 2008 assured me that photos will be uploaded soon. Meanwhile here is a short video that seems to have been shot yesterday.
Next door, in a disused railway repair hangar, you should go see "Torino 011 - the biography of a city" (some photos and videos), another spectacular exhibition explaining the massive urban transformations that have fundamentally changed this North Italian city in the last thirty years.
Both exhibitions are in concept, approach and execution driven by an international outlook and aimed at an international audience, yet they are also very much in and of Turin. Time for another visit to Italy, therefore!
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Alice Wang, a recent graduate of RCA, has designed a set of 3 cheeky bathroom scales that ease the ritual of weighing yourself (and maybe dieting, for that matter). In "White Lies," the further back you stand, the lighter you become on the digital display. Comments Wang, "The user can gradually move closer and closer to reality." In her "Half-Truth" scale, your partner becomes responsible for deciding whether to lie or come clean, since the display is on the front face of the device, out of the subject's view. ("Weighing scales can be harmful cause they don't have intelligence to judge when's the right moment to hit you with the truth.") Finally, "Open Secret" reveals your weight every time you weigh yourself by sending a text message to a desired mobile phone. Wang offers that "the receiver is then responsible to reveal the answer immediately, or the next time you two meet."
All of these projects were conceived as a reaction to Isaac Asimov's 1st law of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Here's more from the designer:
Artificial intelligence is a topic widely used in the media, however, exactly how far are we from such technology? Are these fears towards robotic developments necessary or purely irrational? What is it about these currently fictional characters that scare us? Are there existing domestic objects that already break this law? Weighing scales, although not performing physical harm, have been subtly damaging us psychologically. Should objects like these exist in a complex society like ours where people are more emotionally fragile?
See this and other work by Alice Wang at her site.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Well, while New Yorkers are all a-tizzy this weekend about Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls, others around the world are gearing up for World Industrial Design Day, "the first international observance created uniquely to provide an occasion to highlight the merits of the profession and its impact on the quality of life." They're a bit thin, but events are listed in Canada, Chile, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Tailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Now that's not to say that you can't host your own extravaganza to show off the profession, mind you, so fire up those RP machines and have some folks over to talk form and function. Got an event planned? Or just wanna meet up for beers? Let us know in the comments.
Here's a bit from the ICSID/IDA site:
On June 29, designers are encouraged to explore their creativity, innovation, vision and passion in recognition of the role that industrial design and designers have played in society. It is a chance to take a positive step towards accentuating industrial design’s role in improving the economic, social, cultural and environmental quality of life around the world.Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
state of design
"Design for Everyone" event, Melbourne and Victoria's newest cultural festival
frog design
frog design expands with new studio in Amsterdam
flickr
D&AD 2008 Student Award winners
open p.r.
yellow design/yellow circle takes five Red Dot prizes
dexigner
Cali designer Robert Radi: Fifteen years in the biz
daily commercial news and construction record
Big design: Ontario Region Steel Design Award winner
renewable energy marketing
Nominations for Eighth Annual Green Power Leadership Awards closes today at 5pm!
Photo by oskay
Looking to do some rapid prototyping in your all purpose design studio/bedroom but can't afford to buy in, Scientific American found five 3-D Printers that might be able to help you out. Pictured above, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories three dimensional fabricator prints large, low-resolution, objects out of pure sugar. To cut costs, the Evil Labs crew replaced the multi-thousand dollar laser with a $10 heating coil similar to what you'd find in a hair dryer--nice!
Fab@Home Model 1
Materials: Epoxy; chocolate; Boursin (a soft cheese)
Price: $2,400 - $3,600
RepRap Version 1.0 "Darwin"
Material: Biodegradable plastic or polyester
Price: $500 - $900
Candy Fab
Material: Granulated sugar
Price: Estimated at $500
Craftsman CompuCarve
Material: Wood; can handle acrylics and foam, too
Price: $1,899.99
Desktop Factory 125ci 3D Printer
Material: Nylon-based powder (laced with aluminum and glass)
Price: $4,995
via boing boing
Reykjavik based Sruli Recht has just completed a full size (imitation) 3 meter Polar bear rug, made from 15 Icelandic sheep skins. The sheepskins are cut and sewn together following the poster diagrams you find in old butcher shops which describe various parts of the animal. A limited edition of 10 rugs will be available in July from birkiland.com cleverly packaged and rolled tied up with two of his ~Elt belts.
Massey University ID student Alexander Wastney is the New Zealand winner of the eighth annual Dyson Product Design Award. Basketball player Wastney, listening to complaints about existing designs from his team's physiotherapist, came up with a lightweight, foldable, and comfortable massage table that travels on wheels.
The Dyson site's not yet been updated to reflect the 2008 winners, but once it is we'll have some video for you.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Reader and prolific photographer Shaun Hutchinson shot and collated a bunch of photos from Coventry University's 2008 Transport & Product Design students, who "recently won the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education for its work in Automotive Design." The photos are up as part of Hutchinson's "101 Reasons to Design" website, which has recently expanded to 144 reasons.
More photos after the jump.
thanks shaun!
In this video for Core77, Marco Perry of Pensa demonstrates the Tube Rotator, designed for Labnet International. (The design recently won the 2008 MDEA award.) The device is infinitely adjustable on both axes--taking the fuss out of testing messy fluids--and allows technicians to precisely determine velocity and agitation. Watch here as Marco shows before and after devices, describing the design process and coming up with a better solution. (For more on the Tube Rotator, check out the article on DeviceLink as well as this video. Ah, if we could only afford that background music!)
Lead Industrial Designer
Hewlett-Packard
Houston, Texas
As a strategic leader, the Lead Industrial Designer will be/have the following: Balanced Skills -- Strategic Thinking & Creative Direction -- Ability to develop design strategy and orchestrate creative direction -- Superior Hands-on Design Skills -- First and foremost an excellent designer, capable of creating visually stunning design solutions and experiences, especially that push the boundaries of form and materials...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The much hyped robot comedy from Disney/Pixar WALL·E opens in the US today. WALL·E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) lives alone in the year 2700 until he meets a sleek search robot named EVE and discovers a new purpose in life, we can all relate to that story and a journey across the galaxy ensues.
To celebrate our timeless fascination with androids, TIME put together a photo gallery We Love Robots featuring some of the friendlier looking bots actually created in recent years. And sharing more robot love, wired's gallery takes a look at the Best Robot Love Stories.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
We've been hearing about the boom in alternative energy research in Silicon Valley for a while now, but not so much in terms of actual marketable products. That may be changing, though, if Mountain View based Sol Focus is any indication.
Looking at the history of solar power, one of the biggest obstacles to its broad acceptance and application has been the high cost of manufacturing photovoltaic cells, and the relatively low output. Sol Focus has a solution that they think could revolutionize the industry, and it's so obvious you have to wonder why it took so long. Rather than make a large panel of pricey semi-conductors, they use comparatively cheap aluminum and glass mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a tiny chip of photovoltaic, both reducing the cost of the unit, and increasing the efficiency of electricity production.
According to the company's website, these dished panels use 1/1000th the active material of a conventional panel, and will produce power as cheaply as conventional (fossil fuel) sources by 2010. As an added bonus, they also look much, much cooler than the typical shiny black slab, offering a gleaming sci-fi gorgeousness that we wouldn't mind on our rooftop one bit.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (4)
Brooklyn artist Mia Ferrera Wiesenthal was recently announced as the U.S. winner of the 2008 Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition for her "On the Rocks" glass. This September, Mia will compete in the Global Finals in London, which, for the first time, are hosted as part of the London Design Festival at Village Underground in East London. As first prizewinner, Wiesenthal gets $3,000 in gift certificates, an internship with award-winning designer, Sami Hayek (yup - he's Salma's brother) and a stipend to create her glass design for the Designer Glass Competition global finals. Not bad....
Posted by: elle* | Comments (2)
Trendhunter.com, the masters of compiling top 10, top 20 and even top 30 lists of popular culture trends have put together a gallery of 13 Innovations in Transportation & Future Transit. The collection is based on the premise that people are increasingly opting for public transport as they become more environmentally responsible. Surely it has nothing to do with the dramatic increase in the cost of petrol.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
bicycle retailer
CamelBak expands R&D with industrial designers
p.r. web
Academy of Art alums win International Design Awards Competition for Sustainable Design
thomasnet
Evo Design's recyclable kitchenware
p.c. world
Sony Previews 'Life With PlayStation'
design taxi
Red Dot Trendspots 2008
edmonton journal
Edmonton's Festival of Art & Design
crave
Chrysler to offer wi-fi-ready vehicles
100% Design Shanghai launched today and Core 77's correspondant, Simon Husslein, was on hand to catch a few snaps of the first official furniture and interiors show this city has seen. From June 26-28, the likes of Richard Hutten (check out that pink suit above!), Michael Young and Patrick Jouin will join creative directors Tobias Wong and Aric Chen in the Shanghai Exhibition Center to showcase design in one of the fastest developing parts of the world.
The piece de resistance is Wong and Chen's bamboo "void" (middle) that greets visitors upon entering the exhibit hall, symbolizing what Wong describes as a "void" of design in present-day Shanghai. "This is the beginning of a dialogue," he told us before launching the show, "It's time for Shanghai to address the design industry in a unique and modern way."
Stay tuned for more coverage coming soon!
You may have seen the Mercer study of the World's Most Livable Cities, but that's for regular schmoes; what are the best cities for design, and designers?
A list of the Best U.S. Cities for Design has been compiled by architectural firm RMJM Hillier; alas, only the 'States has been covered.
To come up with the list, RMJM Hillier compared U.S. cities with populations over 500,000 according to 10 design-related categories, including the number of buildings featured on the National Historic Register, the quality and quantity of public transit systems, the number of "green" buildings and level of sustainability, and the number of architectural and design awards won.
both via businessweek, 1 and 2
Perhaps one day, after a definitive link between cell phones and some kind of fatal brain disease is proven, people will look back on photos like the one above and say "What idiots!"
What makes us say that? Well, check out the photo below, and the countless others up at Consumer Reports' vintage product reviews. Folks, from 1936 to 1980, we have had a lot of bad ideas!
via laughing squid
"The next five years of lighting will have more change than the last 50 years," says Jon Sayah, the owner of Texas lighting boutique Lights Fantastic. In support of this theory, Sayah has just opened DS2, "a 'demonstration lab' for innovative and eco-friendly contemporary lighting." Read all about it here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Harri Koskinen's latest project is a chaise longue made from splint, a thin strip of natural untreated wood used by Finnish masters for centuries to make different-size baskets and containers for carrying and storing things. The material is identified with summers spent in Finland picking berries, mushrooms and shopping at local good markets.
The chaise is part of a current exhibition Fennofolk - New Nordic Oddity, at the Design Museum in Helsinki. The exhibition features 80 Finnish artists and designers were invited to analyze Finnish culture from a fresh perspective.
Fennofolk - New Nordic Oddity
June 11 - September 28, 2008
Design Museum
Korkeavuorenkatu 23
Helsinki, Finland
This week Kia Motors opened their Californian design studio in Irvine, with ex-GM'er Tom Kearns as chief designer.
Here's a link to an interview with Kearns, the man who penned Kia's Kue concept. Excerpt below.
Q: Other car companies rely on heritage, tradition and history to influence future designs. What are the advantages and disadvantages of designing for relatively new car company?A: One is that you have, as you say, a clean sheet of paper, and we can chart our own path from day one. I can guarantee you that a lot of designers at BMW, Audi or some of the other established brands with lots of history would love to have that. They're sort of handcuffed....
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
No-one really wants a USB hub right, but if your laptop manufacture skimped on ports and you have no choice, these official R2-D2 and Darth Vader USB hubs are about as good as it gets. According to technabob's loose understanding of Japanese, every 3 minutes R2's head spins and lights up, Vader's eyes glow and they both make authentic Star Wars sounds.
They'll be available in Japan at the start of July for ¥7,140 (approx $66 USD).
via gizmodo
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Experience Architect
Adobe Systems Inc.
Newton, Massachusetts
Adobe is seeking for an Experience Architect to work with the Adobe Consulting Team (AC) to design next-generation, rich client applications for strategic third-party engagements. A candidate's portfolio must demonstrate a broad depth of experience with emphasis on application, and user-interface design, while leveraging rich clients in innovative ways. The ideal candidate needs to be part interaction designer, part information architect, part usability expert, part business analyst, and all about user experience.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Julius von Bismarck's Image Fulgurator is a sure way to mess with peoples photos at any popular tourist spot. Using a flash-triggered sensor, a slide with your message is projected onto the surface of the target area at the exact time an unsuspecting tourist takes a photo. Providing they use a flash of course. The result is a photo with a secret message embedded in it that wasn't visible to the photographer when the shot was taken.
There's a video demonstrating the Fulgurator in action but it's not so great, we'd love to see some actual photo samples on the site, the idea is awesome. The project just picked up a 2008 Golden Nica award at ARS Electronica in the Interactive Art category and a patent for the device has been submitted.
via boing boing
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (7)
Inhabitat is ringing in summer with Green Giveaways! They call it a "competition", but there's no heat here - all newsletter subscribers are eligible to enter free of charge (if you're not already getting the newsletter shame on you! Subscribe!). The deadline is July 2nd for the chance to win Voltaic backpacks, hand-crank lanterns and more. Don't wait too long - freebies like this won't last!
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
German architect trio KINZO took inspiration from spaceships and jet fighters to fit out the new headquarters of Germany's leading tabloid and Europe's largest Newspaper 'Bild'. Owned by publishing giant Axel Springer, the newspaper was recently relocated from Hamburg to Berlin providing an opportunity to stream line the editorial work flow and make a drastic shift from the traditional newsroom aesthetic.
While the press release assures us the design is as functional as it is unusual, you wouldn't want to catch yourself on one of those legs in a last minute rush to meet a deadline. We could be wrong, KINZO just picked up a red dot award for their new office furniture system KINZO AIR based on the same idea.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
If you've been following the turmoil over at Art Center for the past couple of months, last night provided some resolution: Richard Koshalek, Art Center's president for the past 9 years, will not have his contract renewed. (Yup, that's a nice way of saying exactly what you think that's saying.)
All of this is a culmination of a grassroots movement demanding that school officials put more money into students and education than into what some considered to be less productive projects, namely, Koshalek's push for a 50 million dollar design research complex designed by Frank Gehry.
The whole thing was set off by a blog post from Nathan Cooke, an industrial design student, on May 14th, complaining about the lack of recycling consistency post-Art Center Conference. (We were actually nearby as he was circling the trash cans filled with vinyl conference posters, scratching his head in disbelief.) Beyond the green critique, Cooke went on to the other issues of tuition, compensation, and the Gehry initiative:
Student tuition has been raised 5%% consistently over these past two years so that Art Center can "remain competitive," or so the little letter I receive in the mail states. Well, I'm glad someone in Art Center was able to find the $385,068 in 2005 to pay Gehry Partners to design our new "advanced technical center." A facility that has yet to break ground, and will not be finished before any attending student graduates.Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
This conceptual challenge may require some brain power:
Eastern/Western, Traditional/Modern, Global/Local, Exquisite/Mundane, Inside/Outside, Ahead/Behind... These are the dichotomies that frame our perceptions of the world. We can break through these lines of demarcation and definition, although it takes great fortitude to live in such uncertainty. In Chinese, there is a word, "Chu Ju."This word is most commonly translated as discrepancy, inconsistency or uncertainty. Yet "Chu Ju" means, most literally, "In/Out". It is the concept of simultaneously coming and going. It is a paradox; one that exists even though the laws of reason state that it cannot.
For the 2008 Taiwan International Design Competition, we invite you to explore the contradictions that arise from the word "Chu Ju". As you explore this concept, don't look for truths, but instead seek inspiration in the face of uncertainty.
The Categories
Professional Section : Product Design
Student Section : Product Design, Visual Design and Digital AnimationQualification
1. Participants may enter as an individual or as a group.
2. There is no limit to the number of submissions.
3. Each work may be entered in one category only.Professional Section
Gold 1 winner : $500,000 in prize money and a certificate
Silver 1 winner : $200,000 in prize money and a certificate
Bronze 1 winner : $100,000 in prize money and a certificate
Honorable Mention numbers of winner : $10,000 in prize money and a certificateStudent Section
Gold 1 winner : $400,000 in prize money and a certificate
Silver 1 winner : $200,000 in prize money and a certificate
Bronze 1 winner : $100,000 in prize money and a certificate
Honorable Mention numbers of winner : $10,000 in prize money and a certificate
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
The only thing that sucks after painstakingly stitching photos from a 360 degree shoot together into a panoramic strip is how insignificant it looks when you finish. The aspect ratio makes it tiny on screen forcing you to zoom in and if you're thinking of printing it, you better get a large continuos roll of paper to have any impact at all.
Photojojo.com has a simple step-by-step tutorial to transform your panoramic strip into a striking looking planet (and a square print) with a little help from photoshop. The type of scene you shoot will dramatically effect the outcome, not to mention the quality of source material but you knew that already.
Check out flickr for some great examples.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)Weekly finds from the 3D world:
Rhino
Bunkspeed releases Hypershot direct rendering plug-in for Rhino (beta)
AliasStudio
Joshua Maruska (designer of the Clover coffee maker) gives a great tutorial on real time rendering
SolidWorks and Autodesk Design Review
Using a Wiimote to run 3D CAD
Multiple Packages
So, which CAD software has the most users, anyway?
CAD Insider laments the implication of similarity among CAD programs at a recent PTC presentation
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Takumi Yoshida (Loughborough, United Kingdom)
Featured Project : Rubbish Frame
Takumi's Rubbish Frame inspires reuse in the trashing process. Considering the designs simplicity, it wouldn't be hard to fit a few of these under your sink. Recycling rules!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
like cool
HP's new touchscreen computer hits the market
news wales
UK students win Best New Aircraft Design, get 1,000 orders
cat iq
CAT-iq Design Competition seeking "new form factors for communication devices"
businessweek
Nokia to battle rivals with software
car body design
Design sketches and photos of VW's upcoming Scirocco
fortune
Who might succeed Steve Jobs?
gizmodo
In-depth look at the design of the TiVo remote
PingMag MAKE caught up with seventh generation shipbuilder Kazushi Takahashi, a natural opportunist whose advice to business success is loaded with battle survival metaphors and he has recently turned his hand to architecture.
The surface of the Gundam inspired Jimbocho Theater building in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo is welded together without using a single bolt. He has completed a number of unusual projects applying shipbuilding technology and construction methods.
Architecture is about straight lines and structural dynamics, while ships are about curved lines and fluid dynamics. Plus, another difference is that carpenters and architects can't make boats, but shipbuilders can make both ships and houses. But the basic science behind it, the arithmetic and physics are the same. That is the common thread between them.
Checkout the interview for the back story and few points of wisdom.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
Take a look at an article on Astro Studios, the San Francisco ID firm that co-designed the X-Box and Alienware's gaming PCs. One of their more interesting products was a gaming headset with a couple features gamers really appreciated: they could be directly connected to teammates' headsets, avoiding VoIP scratchiness and lag during crucial tournament competitions, and back at home, they have the ability to pick up cell phone calls and hear baby monitors. If your wife can't snap you out of playing Halo, maybe a baby saying "da da" can....
via venture beat
Here's a video of the new LG Decoy, the first phone with a detachable Bluetooth earpiece integrated into the design. Um...why has this design taken so long to get to market, did no one really think of this earlier? Like, say, when Bluetooth first came out?
What do you think of the detachable earpiece, do you like it, or would you lose it?
via pocket now
As of yesterday, the winners of the 2008 Red Dot Design Awards can be seen at an exhibit at the Red Dot Design Museum that will run through July 27th. (As of this morning the Red Dot website has not yet been updated to list the winners in a coherent manner, but hopefully that'll change soon.)
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
UK broadcaster BBC2 will be airing Philippe Starck's School of Design next year. The latest in a long line of "reality" shows, this one will pit 25 would-be designers against each other in a chance to win a six-month placement in Starck's Parisian agency.
"...This show can be a wake-up machine. It will also show that no one needs to be a genius to be creative. Creativity is accessible," said Starck.
"I hope these people will be good because if they are good, definitively, that will change their lives and hopefully improve other people's lives."
via the guardian
Motorcycle Designer
Honda R&D Americas, Inc.
Torrance, California
As part of the Honda R&D team, you will take motorcycle and power-sports products from sketches and renderings to overseeing the design development of full-scale clay models and mock ups. This will entail: Selecting techniques best suited to represent project, including graphics and technology. Coordinating feasibility issues with engineers on production projects...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
We're very happy to welcome back Nau for Version 2.0. The eco-driven outdoor apparel company were forced to close up shop six weeks ago when they couldn't raise the venture capital needed to move forward, a combination of an aggressive business plan and a nervous market in the current economic climate.
After numerous emails and support from a passionate customer base, they continued to seek out any opportunities to continue and Santa Barbara based urban wear outfitter Horny Toad have stepped in and bought the company.
Ian was surprised with how quickly their calls were returned. "I didn't have explain who Nau was. Most people said 'We've been watching you', 'We've been studying what you've been doing.' " Many said they weren't in position to help. But leads were pursued, and "A few days ago, a deal was closed, a lifestyle apparel company based in Santa Barbara, California, bought the rights to the Nau brand. That company is Horny Toad."
In the short term, Nau's clearance sale online will continue to help pay off creditors, plans to relaunch the website are under way and while their partner program will most certainly change, they intend to continue donating a percentage of every sale to environmental and humanitarian organizations. Nau 2.0 will take affect as of August 1st, 2008.
Treehugger has the full story.
via coolhunting
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
Nanotechnology, for all its recent growth and vibrant promise, still feels very sci-fi to us laypersons, what with all those buckytubes and nanoceramics. Lars Berglund of Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, though, is bringing the nanotech treatment to thoroughly familiar, if not boring, material: paper. By processing wood pulp with enzymes and high-pressure microfluidic chambers, he's been able to create paper with dramatically finer strands, offering some impressive improvements in mechanical characteristics. According to the article in MIT Technology Review, this "nanopaper" is "stronger than cast iron and tougher than bone," featuring a tear strength seven times that of conventional paper, and the ability to stretch by 10% before failure.
Applications suggested include extra-tough filters, membranes, packaging, and mechanical parts -- making that paper-core messenger bike in Gibson's Virtual Light one step closer to feasible.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (5)
Start liftin! It's time to design some powertools!
Brief:
Shhhhh...can you hear that? It's the sound of summer! (No! Not tight thong speedos and hairy backs!) It's home renovation time! All those Do-it-Yourselfers are crawling out of their dens to tackle this summer's To Do List -- men and women clamoring to Home Depot to buy the latest and greatest power tool to cut that next plank 2 inches too short.
Core77 is calling on you to design the next great consumer power tool. We've asked Brian Matt (Founder and CEO, Altitude, Inc.) to join in on the fun as this round's guest judge. Grab your Sharpies, do your best Tim Allen impression and get cracking on the best power tool design you can hammer out in an hour!
Doors open:
Tuesday June 24, 2008
12 PM PST (7 GMT)
Doors close:
Sunday, June 29th
9 PM PST (4 AM 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 Altitude chose your design!
Jury:
Winner will be selected by Brian Matt and Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.
>>>Click here to enter your submission<<<
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)This looks nutty, but actually makes sense.
Neal Adams (famed comic book artist) has long said the Pangaea theory--this notion that all of the continents were once joined together in a "supercontinent" hanging out on one side of the planet--makes no sense. The planet would be too imbalanced if all the landmass was on one side, and the water from the other side would rush towards the land, balancing it out.
Adams' theory is that the Earth is growing, and that all of the continents were in fact connected--but in their present positions, because the planet was smaller! Check out the CG animation of what he's talking about:
If this is true, it's good news for you if you don't like your neighbors; just wait a few millenia and their house will be farther away.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (10)
Criminy--a picture's worth a thousand words, but how many book covers is that? War of the Worlds, which has been in print for over a hundred years, has spawned hundreds if not thousands of covers. Check out this site, where people from around the world with various versions of the book continue to e-mail cover shots in, adding to a compilation that keeps growing.
Seen en masse, it's essentially a look at how graphic design and illustration has evolved over the last 100 years.
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
press portal
Product design interns in South African firm get practical
the toronto star
Brainstorming on new transpo' for Toronto
reseller
Samsung Instinct PDA "shows how disruptive the iPhone has become in cellphone design
art daily
RISD re-opens reno'd galleries housing "outstanding collection of Twentieth-century art and design"
calgary herald
Automakers renew focus on third-row passenger space
textually
iPhone: the most "porn-friendly" phone
product design & development
Product designers or other internal stakeholders: who has greater control over time-to-market improvement?
Plastic bag projects are a dime a dozen, but a plastic bag happening? Hmm..Over at Kiosk, Jason Rosenberg is facilitating a bag exchange through July 1st. The rules are simple:
1) Come with a plastic bag and leave with a different one
2) Come with a plastic bag and stay, chat a while, while Jason makes a related functional object from the bags brought in (a bag from a bag, a rain hat from a bag...)
Easy. And who knows, maybe somewhere between a Gristedes and Duty Free Bag you'll meet your one true love!
On view June 27 - July 1, 1-7pm (Jason on hand 3-7pm).
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
If you're a so called "travel warrior", then apparently the LiveLuggage power assisted (PA series) suitcase is for you. Weighing in at 10.6kg (23-pounds), the 12V NiMH rechargeable battery will provide you with 1.5 miles of assisted travel under a 32kg load. If you're thinking, hmmm... gonna have to get me 2 of these to compensate for the reduced packing space, at least you'll impress your travel partner with the savvy foresight to only pack the one recharging cord for both cases. With a price tag of $1,365 US, we're guessing the team at LiveLuggage missed the irony in the recent Derrie-Air prank.
via engadget
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
Yet another inventor is working on a zippy electric car that will save us and the planet from petrol. Yawn, call us in ten years when it's ready--
Oh, wait a sec. This time the inventor is Sir James Dyson. Apparently the electric motors he's been putting in his vacuum cleaners are half the weight of regular engines, but can turn five times faster than the engine in an F1 car. Hmmm. Think it'll work? Read for yourself.
via the independent
Lamp ooo! is the first collaboration between italian architect Sergio Mannino and dutch designer Jan Habraken. You would not be mistaken for recognizing a hint of Italian Design from the 80's, Mannino created his first furniture concepts at the Postdesign-Memphis gallery in Milan.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Senior Industrial Designer
ATOMdesign, Inc.
Phoenix, Arizona
Our next team member will be a dynamic thinker with leadership capacity to manage projects across a wide range of technologies and applications. They will have working knowledge of the key stages of product development ranging from strategy, research, design, engineering, prototyping and production. This person will embrace the entrepreneurial atmosphere that ATOMdesign was built upon by contributing to the companies own brand of innovative products.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Pass the Ammunition. Robert Brunner's co-authored a book called Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company.
More and more companies are coming to understand the competitive advantage offered by outstanding design.... But delivering great designs is not easy.Legendary industrial designer Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery [make] an incontrovertible case for the power of design in making emotional connections, deepening relationships, and strengthening brands. You'll learn what it really means to be "design-driven" and how that translates into action at Nike, Apple, BMW and IKEA.
You'll learn design-driven techniques for managing your entire experience chain; define effective design strategies and languages; and learn how to manage design from the top, encouraging "risky" design innovations that lead to entirely new markets. The authors show how...to extend design values into marketing, manufacturing, and beyond; and how to keep building on your progress, truly "baking" design into all your processes and culture.
The print edition oughta be out by August, but you can apparently pay the same price for a PDF of it here. There's also a chapter breakout of the book at this link.
Back when Palm Pilots (remember those?) were ascendant, we thought business cards would be a thing of the past and that we'd all be beaming each other our info via infrared.
Since that hasn't happened there's the WorldCard Ultra by PenPower, a handy-dandy business card reader that takes care of data entry for you. Stick a card in the slot, the machine does the rest. The Red Dot Design Award winner has multiple language support, and if you've got a Mac, it even drops the info straight into Address Book.
As part of LG Corp's "design surge", they're now opening their new European Design Centre in London:
LG's European Design Centre will house a multi-national team of 22 expert designers by 2009, from across Europe. The current team already includes British, Irish, Italian, French and German designers. They will design products for LG's entire range of consumer goods including; mobile handsets and devices, flat-screen TV's and audio systems, white-goods and other home electronics. It joins a global network of 6 Design Centres, which are part of a wider network including 29 Research and Development Centres. All together these Centres employ 16,000 staff - almost a fifth of LG's global workforce.
via newswire
In case your current multi-screen setup with the overclocked glowing tower and the Aeron wasn't earning you quite enough nerd cred, here comes the Emperor Workstation: a massive techno-womb that cradles you in ergonomic comfort, three 19" screens, THX Dolby, filtered air, and no reason to ever stop working. Most previews are focused on its potential as a never-get-up-except-to-pee gaming system, but we're thinking it's just the thing for those marathon CAD sessions. Price and specs to be released in late July.
via SolidSmack and GeeksAreSexy (and yeah, Gizmodo mentioned it too)
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (8)
From Scott Amron, the designer who brought us the super-sweet Brush & Rinse toothbrush waterfountain-maker, the Cash Money Clip is one of those why-didn't-I-think-of-that inventions. A dollar, a magnet, and a piece o' metal. (Me? I'd sacrifice a second bill and cover up the works.)
Buy it here. Or just watch the movie and hack one up yourself.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog Carl Alviani covers everything from letterpress to cleverness in a comprehensive article on business cards:
Hand Stamped "...you can make a new card out of anything printable, from plain white paper to the backs of photos, bits of wood, coffee cups, people's wrists, whatever. In a more abstract sense, there's something wonderful about reducing the card to its bare essence, kind of a graphic answer to the "People don't want lamps, they want light" conundrum -- people don't want business cards, they want information, and here it is, in its most elemental form."Way Too Clever
"This fortune cookie "card" would remind us of some of the tragic gimmicks our studio mates came up with when they had more enthusiasm than skill, back in school days -- except that it's fantastic..."Extra Wordy
"Ever notice what someone does the second you give them your card? They read it. And then they flip it over, to see if there's something on the back that they can read. There's an opportunity here, if you're good with words; those brief moments after the exchange you've got someone's undivided attention. If you can provide something interesting and compelling to read that explains who you are, what you're like, what you're good at or what you're looking for, there's much impact to be made."
>> view article.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
I met Freddie on a visit to RCA last month, and the prototype for his Highest Popping Toaster in the World was still a little rough. Now it's a gleaming white rocket launcher, and tomorrow it'll be unveiled to the press where Freddie will be going for a new world record for "highest toaster pop." (He's already set the record at 2m 60cm, but that was just the height of his ceiling.) On Tuesday, it rocks outdoors!
The Highest Popping Toaster in the World, or "The Moaster", took 3 months to build and utilizes a high-pressure CO2 gas system and mechanical ram. Freddie Yauner, who graduates from the RCA this year, made the toaster as the culmination of his "Because We Can" series of domestic objects created with slogans as starting points, "leading to mutated typologies that become inherently flawed through their excess." (Yup, that last part is quintessential RCA :)
"Everyone loves it when a toaster has a good pop to it," comments Freddie, "so i thought this was the logical next step, to create a new space in the market."
(One other logical next step might be to interest the Eppyboys in filming a symphony of these toasters in all their projectile glory. Seems like a good fit.)
Congrats Freddie!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
From the 3rd to the 13th of July, London goes from old town to college town:
Are you looking for fresh ideas, exciting new work and young designers who are bursting with talent and energy? Would you like to discover the next Tom Dixon, Vivienne Westwood or James Dyson?As the only design event to bring together over 4,000 graduates from across all the major disciplines, New Designers will bring you face to face with the next generation of design leaders.
New Designers 2008 will take place at the Business Design Centre in Islington, helping thousands of graduates to launch their design careers.
An exciting programme of talks will be running Thursday to Saturday during both parts of New Designers. These will include full days of: Metropolitan Works Talks, Design Nation Talks and the Crafts Council Makers Talks. The talks will take place in the Gallery Atrium at the Business Design Centre, and the programme is an open forum for graduates, tutors and visitors alike. All sessions are free to attend with a valid ticket to New Designers.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
electronics supply and manufacturing
Materials compliance solution gets eco-design capabilities
san fernando valley business journal
"High-end destination furniture" Agoura Design Center nearly complete
e.e. times
OLED research breakthrough to open up "freedom of design"
school of visual arts
SVA 3D Design students design salon and furniture for Bravo TV's "Shear Genius"
reed expo
Upcoming International Home Decor & Design show in Shanghai
design taxi
Michael Laude/Bose Corporate Design Center named Design Team of the Year 2008
bucks free press
A different kind of Iron Man: Tony Starch?
At a mere $399.99, Lego's Death Star (16" x 16.5") is one of those presents you generously buy your kids totally for yourself. So what do you get?
This amazingly detailed battle station features an incredible array of minifigure-scale scenes, moving parts, characters and accessories from Episodes IV and VI on its multiple decks, including the Death Star control room, rotating turbolaser turrets, hangar bay with TIE Advanced starfighter, tractor beam controls, Emperor's throne room, detention block, firing laser cannon, Imperial conference chamber, droid maintenance facility, and the powerful Death Star superlaser...plus much more! Swing across the chasm with Luke and Leia, face danger in the crushing trash compactor, and duel with Darth Vader for the fate of the galaxy!
Come on, you know you need one, click through for more pics...
If you're in London this week (and have a ton of cash to drop) make sure to visit Phillips The Birds, Bats and Bees charity auction. Featuring the likes of recent RCA grads Peter Marigold and Raw Edges' Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay, alongside veterans like Tomoko Azumi (above), Phillips is once again paving the way for the design-as-art discussion. To top it off, they're even goin' green on this one - sales from the auction will benefit Adventure Ecology's Sculpt the Future Foundation.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
Daniel A. Becker's Barcode Plantage project creates unique trees from the information stored in barcodes. An international code database on the internet provides details on the manufacturer and the country of origin of the product, the data is then analyzed to define positions, curves and the colors of the tree structure. As the algorithm is simply interpreting the data, there is no random aspect to the appearance of each tree.
The project adds a layer of transparency to the source of our products and was selected as the Grand Prix winner for output 11, which will be published later this year.
Currently underway at the Istanbul Modern is "Design Cities," which "tells the story of contemporary design through the focus of seven key cities, in each case looking at their decisive roles in the development of design. While focusing on how specific moments in the history of cities contributed to the evolution of design, the exhibition investigates the ways in which design has shaped contemporary culture."
Co-sponsored by Vitra and featuring 109 works by 64 designers, the exhibit looks at London, Vienna, Paris, Dessau, Los Angeles, Milan, and Tokyo. Check it out here.
Human progress dictates we "stand on the shoulders of giants," but it's also important to remember that sometimes, we need to fall off of the shoulders of short people who just couldn't hold us up.
In "When Design Goes Bad: Lessons from some spectacular product flops," the WSJ looks at missteps made by Apple, GM, Dean Kamen, and others, reminding us that "by remembering some of the most spectacular flops of recent decades, the next generation of designers has a better chance of succeeding where their predecessors failed."
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
PingMag recently visited Tokyo's RFID Expo and instead of taking the usual 1984 angle, like RFID tags embedded in school uniforms for teachers to monitor, they put together a geeked out photo collection of some of the more interesting chip designs. It's always fascinating to get a look into the culture of any creators who are working in a purely functional industry, more so when they use an opportunity to subvert or be humorous. Wonder if there's any core readers who've slipped a secret detail into a project purely for self amusement?
View article
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
Chances are if we're playing the word association game and we say "Dell," you're not going to respond with "lust." But the manufacturer of formerly beige creations is hoping to change that up by going from boxy to foxy.
Last year Michael Dell announced the company's new design philosophy of "product lust," and now Ziff-Davis' Larry Dignan checks in on the new designs, with a photo gallery and an analysis of whether Dell has improved their design capabilities.
CINA's new product range includes this delicate looking snowflake patterned USB flash drive, perfect when backlit and completely at home on any architects desk when not not in use. CINA are two New Zealander designers, Leslie Leung & Jason Wright-St Clair who are currently based in Tokyo.
via notcot
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
For those of you in NYC and eagerly anticipating the show, the Bucky Fuller Institute has organized a slew of events and celebrations this week, from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge ceremony to dialogues, roundtables, screenings, and a birthday party on Saturday!
Get everything you need to know at the site.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Since the beginning of the twentieth-century, science fiction has had a field day painting the appearance of the cities of tomorrow, created to host tomorrow's heroes and their adventures. Based on the political regime, the aesthetic elements, the infrastructures, the communication means, the developmental processes, the role covered by technology, all the cities of the future described in science fiction can be grouped into ten macro-categories which reflect the culture, the aesthetics and the design of a given historical period: TotalVille, BetterVille, JoyVille, NetVille, TradeVille, FadeVille, HyperVille, iVille, PostVille and ShipVille.
AfterVille. The Underground Exhibition (Italian site) is a great exhibition in Turin, Italy which showcases those ten urban models, those ten imaginary capitals along an itinerary involving ten stations of the Turin Underground. All you need for visiting it is a metro ticket that you can use to move from one station to the next, to view all ten exhibition installations in succession.
The exhibition, which is bilingual, is conceived and curated by Michele Bortolami and Tommaso Del Mastro from Studio Undesign, together with Fabrizio Accatino and Massimo Teghille. It is an Off Congress Official Event of XXIII UIA World Congress of Architecture Torino 2008. Here are the English display texts that go with each of the ten urban models.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
Product Designer
Case Logic
Hong Kong, China
We are seeking a high-caliber Product Designer to work out of our Hong Kong location. Candidates must be eligible to work in Hong Kong and must be fluent in Cantonese and English. Minimum 5 years product design experience in the cut and sew industry. Strong creative, artistic, and aesthetic skills coupled with solid knowledge of manufacturing techniques. Strong sketching skills and form development, oral and visual presentation, and communication skills. Strong knowledge of materials and processes including plastic and metal part design. Ability to present ideas that influence and inspire cross-functional teams.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
London based Olivia Lee's Limited Edition Designer Dolls truly embody each designer's signature style, Zaha's hair is dead on! We'd love to see a few more rock star designers added to the collection like an ornate floral Tord Boontje, a super-minimal beige block Naoto Fukasawa and maybe a true-to-the-materials Tom Dixon. Before you get too excited, It looks like these are not in production yet, Karim was shot on-site in the London Design Museum shop.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (4)
If you've been following the DIY resurgence of the past few years and don't quite know what to make of it, The Institute for the Future has put together a fun little graphic trying to summarize what the whole "maker" thing is about, complete with reference websites and a brief to-do list for those interested in getting more involved. David Pescovitz, a research director at the Institute, and editor-at-large for MAKE, among other things, wrote a nice introduction to the map shortly after last month's Maker Faire. It's available online as a CC-licensed PDF, and worth a glance or two.
via evanyares and boingboing
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Above: Ebb video from Amy Jenkins
From June 29 through September 28th, Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium will host a provocative exhibition entitled "1% Water", featuring various artists and designers commenting on both the medium and the message. Here's the pitch:
1% WATER is an exploration of our relation to water, the ideas that are shaping current change and how this is being translated into experimental environments, designs and concepts that are shaping a new water consciousness. Although 70% of the earth's surface is water, the exhibition title 1% WATER refers to the amount of water that is actually available for human consumption. Factors such as the world's rapidly growing population and our increasing consumption, climate change and pollution mean that even this relatively limited and unevenly distributed resource is under threat. Water--one of our basic needs--has become a critical issue. The World Bank predicts, "If the wars of the twentieth century were fought over oil, the wars of this century will be fought over water." While water is both essential to our existence and a portal to our dreams, we have developed a dangerously negligent attitude to earth's diminishing resources that is no longer sustainable. The personal bond that once connected humans with the source of life has been broken. 1% WATER aims to be a catalyst for change, reconnecting us physically and psychologically to water and helping us to shape a sustainable future.The exhibition explores themes such as AbUse, Sacred Waters and Reconnect through works by artists such as Atelier van Lieshout, Brandon Ballengée, Elina Brotherus, Edward Burtynsky, Amy Jenkins, Michaela Nettell and Studio Orta, designers such as &Made, Doshi Levien and Fulguro & TJAW and graphic designers Karlssonwilker, as well as key historic pieces.
+More pics after the jump.
All information at the site
Following the school of thought that the best cure is always prevention, Make Magazine details how you can camouflage your slavishly maintained bicycle into something that looks like it's from Mad Max to ward off would-be thieves. Judging by the remains of some sad-looking bikes chained to various parts of Manhattan, we're not entirely convinced this is enough to save your ride, but it still looks like a fun project for the weekend.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (4)
Self-depreciating egg man Darcel blogs one disappointing moment after another as he navigates his way through the hispter scene of New York. He's stopped by the MET, Guggenheim, The Whitney, suffered St Patrick's Day, survived Vegas, hates his clothes and loves a drink.
via style.com
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Chris Hacker might be on the cover of I.D. Magazine, but these hipsters are promising to go even greener. We love the packaging, and the tone of the site is nice and flip, but does that posture translate when you're ordering, say, some penicillin? Maybe not. Still, we wanna see what they're going to do with the copy on condoms. "help, I have to be ready"? (Send in your own in the comments!)
via trendcentral
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (5)
Wallpaper posted some great behind-the-scenes footage documenting the projects of this year's 'Designers of the Future' winners at Design Miami/Basel, well 3 out of 4 of them. Each designer filmed their entire process working with concrete from start to finish and sped it up into these short clips:
Kram/Weisshaar Video
Vendome Series
Max Lamb Video
Solids of Revolution
Martino Gamper Video
'terazzo' Table Surfaces
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
wall street journal
Fun! ID Prof (who designs Crate & Barrel housewares) on panel to destroy cookware through testing
your west valley
"Architectural evangelism": Church design gets people talking
newswire today
Fox Head, Inc. Rewards Art Institute Students for Their Innovative Designs
chicago sun times
Chicago's "Design in the Age of Darwin" exhibit
design week u.k.
So what exactly is universal design?
northern advocate
New Zealand ID'er (and Dyson finalist) designs pig-carcass hauling pack
design taxi
Red Dot Award Presentations '08 coming up in Essen, Germany
The Swiss Architecture Museum presents a redefining architecture exhibit, showing now until September 21st, 2008:
Exactly 100 years after Adolf Loos wrote Ornament and Crime, a manifesto that effectively relegated ornament in architecture to the peripheries of the discourse, "Re-sampling Ornament" takes a first step towards tracing its re-emergence. For decades the language of architectural ornament has remained largely unspoken, but for a few memorable post-modern architectural experiments. Yet from Owen Jones 'Grammar of Ornament' to John Ruskin, Gottfried Semper, Louis Sullivan and William Hogarth - and contemporaries such as Kent Bloomer, a rich vocabulary of opposing and often contradictory theories exists to be readapted, re-sampled, and once again applied at the heart of architectural practice.Crucial to a new reading of ornament in architecture is its enduring relationship to nature. "Re-sampling Ornament" reasserts the right to enjoy the intelligent conceptual play with beauty and to rediscover sensuality in current manifestations of ornament in architecture. According to the architectural historian Kent Bloomer, there are malleable and erotic 'Bio-Keys' that span cultures and histories, as though there were some deeply rooted genetic code of ornament. Ruskin's "Curves of Temperance and Intemperance" sought the geometry of virtue in ornament, one that William Hogarth traces with scientific exactitude in the curvature of bones and the lines of a woman's pelvis. Today, computer-aided design can bring forth organic forms in architecture as well as stretching artifice to its extremes.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Lomographic Society & Staple Design launched a limited edition "Chakras of Colorsplashing" camera box set last night at the Reed Space in New York's Lower East Side. The Colorsplash camera's barrel can be rotated through a range of color flash filters that dramatically saturate the subject in the foreground. Staple Design customized the camera referencing their iconic Nike Dunk Low NYC Pigeon and packaged it with a hardcover photo book featuring over 1000 images submitted by die-hard lomographers from around the world.
Click through for more pics from the opening.
Manager, Packaging, Branding and Retail Design - TOYS
Disney Consumer Products
Glendale, California
Design and oversee approvals for fresh, market right and on-brand materials for Girls and Tween Properties. Responsible for the fulfillment and tracking of assigned projects. Identify research and analyze trends, competition consumer, retailer and industry needs within all packaging categories. Ensure products meet all Disney quality brand and property objectives.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Cloud is an organic sculptural landmark that responds to human interaction and expresses context awareness using hundreds of sensors and over 15,000 individually addressable optical fibers. Constructed of carbon glass, spanning over four meters, and containing more than 65 kilometers of fiber optics, the Cloud encourages visitors to touch and interact with information in new ways, manifesting emotions and behavior through sound and a dichotomy of luminescence and darkness.
Located in downtown Florence outside the Fortezza da Basso. the Cloud is part of the "Redesigning Fashion Trade Shows" project that Pitti Immagine runs with MIT Mobile Experience Lab. It is a long-term project to creatively rethink the trade show concept and propose innovative technologies, perspectives and sensory experiences for fashion trade shows.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Under the heading Accidentally Amazing Design Blogs, Afrigadget.com has got to be among the most fascinating, without trying specifically to appeal to the ID community. Recently named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2008 (though it's been around since 2006), the site is a frequently updated survey of home-grown craft and technology from across the continent, with a strong focus on the sub-Saharan region (Anyone know of a similar site for North Africa? We're curious.)
The more predictable water pumps, nut shellers (see pic above), and creative recycling projects are in full effect, but also some distinct instances of technological leapfrogging: the image below, culled from Jan Chipchase's excellent blog, annotates a typical cell phone service and charging station in rural Uganda, and includes in the same post some discussion of technology hacking sub-cultures in practically every developing country on earth.
For all the talk permeating the design communities about appropriate technology, creative re-purposing, and design for the other 90%, looking through blogs like this one gives the distinct impression that we're missing the boat -- design solutions for the developing world may, in fact, be coming along quite nicely without us.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Seattle based Semigood Design pointed us to their danish inspired cantilever Rian Stool, which is as understated and quirky as their name. Producing custom made pieces for almost a decade, Semigood are committed to sustainability, crafting their furniture from wood considered to be the most abundant hardwood in the States and sourced from FSC certified forests in the Mid-West and North East.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
MoMA's design shops have been running with city/country mini-themed collections for a while now and the book Tokyolife: Art and Design in their latest Destination Japan store is an essential addition for any Japanophile design-junkie.
Tokyolife is a lavish, whip-smart insider's guide to the last few years of cultural production in one of the world's great centers of creativity, and is organized around the physical city, and the role of the megalopolis itself as both the site and inspiration for an unprecedented explosion in design and the visual arts.
Tokyolife: Art and Design
By Ian Luna, Lauren A. Gould, Tom Mes, Jasper Sharp, Yoshida Mika, and David G. Imber
Brandimage and the Chicago chapter of the IDSA are cosponsoring Sustainability Workshop 3 next Thursday, June 26th in the windy city. Experts on prduct and package design sustainability will be presenting, with tons of networking and all that good stuff. Here are the deets:
Brandimage Office
990 Skokie Blvd, Northbrook, IL
6- 9pm (speakers at 7; cocktails at 8:30)
Free, but limited. RSVP by June 24th to greenstormingATlagaDOTcom
More info here
Star Wars here we come! Telepresence technology has been around for a bit, but Digital Video Enterprises has just taken it to another level. They recently unveiled the DVE Telepresence Stage, a portable telepresence system for projecting realistic life-size people and floating 3-D objects onto a stage environment. As if that wasn't enough, they also created the DVE Huddle Room 70, a telepresence group system with a hidden, eye-level codec and a frameless display image.
With gas prices at an all time high, $59,000 to $84,000 for one of these may just be a viable option!
Posted by: elle* | Comments (2)
Say goodbye to crappy paint jobs - Infectious is a new venture that mixes famous graffiti artists with car art. Starting at the low price of $35 (gasp!) these vinyl adhesive graphics let you pick n choose your style without worrying about permanence (or crazy muralists).
The inspiration? Two words: "gorgeous ass". Seriously.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (4)
Raw-Edges duo Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay's Volume seats are made out of big sheets of pattern paper or wallpaper, folded into a hollow structure and filled with expanded polyurethane foam. They're currently exhibiting alongside designer Peter Marigold at the Fat Galerie in Paris until the 28th of June, 2008.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
design management institute
DMI's upcoming 33rd Annual Design Management Conference
businesswire
WOW Technology Launches World’s First Ergonomic Vertical Mouse
design taxi
Brno Biennale Association Hosts Taiwan/Czech Republic Design Exhibitions
forbes
Europe's Most Innovative Countries
easier property
Innovative capsule kitchens on display at Sugar House
the world
Ford's Design Veep Jack Telnack: Four Decades
nyt home & garden
Unsettling Ideas on Furniture Design
Projects like these beg the question, at what point do you pull out. Chinese company Harbin Smart Special Aerocraft spent 12 years and $4.1 mil. to build a working flying saucer to carry out aerial photography and geological surveys. With a maximum flight time of 40 minutes, it makes google earth a pretty cheap alternative (we jest). If they are going to insist on building a saucer, it would be way cooler if they took some styling direction from Jack Frost's 1958 "flying Jeep" project.
via dvice
Speaking of steampunk... Design Boom recently posted an interview with Sci-Fi writer, futurist, and design critic Bruce Sterling. Check it out.
Here's what he has to say on sustainable design:
see the immense moral dilemma over plastic shopping bags. the bag is not the problem, it's the entire production system that delivered the contents of the bag. designers might think 'oh, I'm going to wrap it in cotton instead of poly vinal chloride'. it's a complete non issue! it's just a burst of political correctness.
And here are your words to live by for the day: "I try to not wear anything I can't sleep in." Amen, Bruce. Amen.
Posted by: William Bostwick | Comments (1)
Industrial Designer
Innovative Design Engineering Animation
Ahmedabad, India
Responsibilities include development of design criteria based on research, ideation, design and development of finished mockups, client communication, user testing and validation, and coordinating activities with various development partners inside/outside of IDEA for prototyping and short run manufacturing.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Rob comes on stronger than he's used to in this essay published on ChangeThis (a collection of manifestos for CEO-types--honest). In The Invisible Badge: Moving Past Conspicuous Consumption, he discusses the true motivations for acquisition and display, moving past Veblen through Virginia Postrel, landing somewhere over the (Maslow) rainbow. Here's a nice taste:
In his book about luxury, Living It Up, scholar James Twitchell compared the effect of certain rarefied, high-end brands with a dog whistle. As an example, he pointed to the various sorts of logo treatments on a Prada bag. A bag with a small logo would likely be more expensive than one with a big logo--and one with no logo whatsoever would be the most expensive of all: Only true cognoscenti would "hear" it. "This was connoisseurship applied to consumption," he wrote.During the course of reporting my book Buying In--which deals with the intersection of personal narrative and consumer behavior in some detail--I had many interesting conversations with young creators of a newer generation of brands (I call it the "brand underground") that take Twitchell's dog whistle idea into a new realm.
These brands--like Barking Irons, or The Hundreds--may be unfamiliar to you if not are a participating in the subcultures they are part of. But they do communicate participation in a subculture, and in a way that has a lot more in common with Twitchell's dog whistle than with, say, the aggressively flamboyant regalia of punk: As in the luxury arena, you need the proper background to understand what you were seeing. To everyone else--underground arrivistes, Twitchell might say--the brand symbols mean nothing and probably don't even register. Brand underground badges are, in effect, invisible.
And this is not a failure; it is the goal. It suggests a tighter relationship between the brand producer and the brand consumer, and speaks more directly to that most crucial relationship: the relationship between the consumer and consumed.
If the underground logo is a badge, it's one that is most noteworthy for how few people can see it.
Download the PDF here.
General Motors and Chevrolet recently announced details for the 2009 Corvette ZR1, it's the fastest production car GM have ever built and possibly the most expensive, starting at $103,300 US. Autoblog has a comprehensive high-res gallery of the ZR1 and details from the press release here.
Follow the Corvette ZR1 through the entire production process on the assembly line.
MoCoLoco caught up with Lighting designer Art Donovan who's recently embraced the world of Steampunk 30 years into his career as a designer. He defines the term, "Steampunk" as an umbrella title for everything from "New Victorian" to "Retro Futurism", "Diesel Punk" and "Goth".
All of the concepts start with a thumbnail sketch then I go straight to cutting the metal and wood. Mostly every part is made by hand- but there are times when the design needs a bazaar embellishment that can only come from the lot of antique machine parts that I have. Sometimes I get real lucky- like the 'Baby Slinkys'- PERFECT for modding a tubular light bulbs.
Read interview
Who knew interference typography would come back into fashion so soon. Little Factory's Uppercase, Lowercase and Number scarf collection made from micro fibre suede will surely please any typophile, well maybe once summer passes.
Photo: Heather White
Love or hate them, IKEA opened their first Brooklyn store at 10am this morning to a sea of people, some who've been waiting since Monday to score free giveaways for early customers. Plans to open the IKEA store were met with a lot of resistance from the local community who fear increased traffic will dramatically change the neighborhood. IKEA is expecting to attract 18,000 shoppers on weekends. Time will tell if their even bigger concern of Red Hook transforming into a massive big-box retailer zone will come true.
Unlike other cities, many New Yorkers get by without a car, grocery shopping is typically done at a corner store and supermarket trips are limited to what you can carry home walking. In a bid to make the new IKEA more accessible, a water taxi and free shuttle buses from 2 subway stops are available. And for the over zealous shoppers who pick up a few too many extra's, IKEA is offering a next day delivery service, van rentals on site, as well as vehicles for Zip Car members.
View more of Heather White's pics from this morning on flickr.
Weekly finds from the 3D world:
Inventor
New UI concept being previewed for Inventor 2009 -- download here
SolidWorks (but applicable to other packages as well)
Ten common mistakes in designing parts for rapid prototyping
Pro/Engineer
More tips on complex surfacing in Pro/E - eight tutorials on using the Boundary Blend feature
Solid Edge
A preview of Solid Edge's "radically different" Synchronous Technology release
Alias
An older but still excellent tutorial on curvature continuity in surface modeling
2007 Winner: Leap Frog by Donn Koh
The BraunPrize 2009 International Design Award is open to all industrial designers, who are still studying, or who completed their studies after March 2006. The BraunPrize has always been entirely independent of the Braun product range. Designs should be developed with user' needs in mind showing applications which support them in their everyday lives - in the home, at work or school, during sports and leisure activities or in the context of health and personal care.
Prizes
Winner: €12,000 in prize money and a (paid) six-month internship in the Design Department at Braun.
Finalists: € 5,000 each
Deadline: January 31, 2009
Nooka produced 15 of these glow-in-the-dark Zub watches for Kanye West's "Glow in the Dark" tour featuring Lupe Fiasco, Rihanna, and N.E.R.D. West pretty much scored all of them himself so it's doubtful you'll ever get your hands on one unless he decides to unload a few on ebay.
And not to be left out, Brooklyn Machine Works presented West with an exclusive glow-in-the-dark version of their popular "Gangsta Track" bike for the tour's opening night in mid-April.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
For those of you who like to refill, reuse, and rehydrate, there's a new water bottle coming to town, and it's a serious design contender on aesthetics, ergonomics, materials, and manufacturing. KOR partnered with core-fave Gaylon White and the Eastman Innovation Lab on the project, utilizing their Bisphenol-A (BPA)-free Tritan copolyester. They partnered with California-based RKS on a one-handed lid latch system (no lost caps!) that seals the bottle even when laying flat, and they tapped manufacturing partner Nypro to gate the part so there would be a clear, lens-like bottom. Here's Eric Barnes, founder and CEO from Kor: (We really like the "from KOR" part, natch.)
One of the top priorities for the KOR ONE was durability--bottle materials and construction had to support a long product life to be in keeping with KOR's pillar of sustainability. The bottle had to be made of materials that were as healthy for consumers as they were for the environment. The product had to be easy to drink from and have a "big gulp" feature to allow a high-volume, thirst-quenching flow. The bottled had to be easy to refill from a sink, a refrigerator, or a water cooler. The cap had to offer one-handed operation and be impossible to lose. All these features and more had to be delivered in an eye-catching package that appealed to consumers seeking a luxury product to elevate their lifestyle. Buying the final product should make consumers feel good on at least three levels...they're doing something healthy for themselves, they're doing the right thing for the planet, and they're treating themselves to a premium product they can be proud to display in their homes, in their offices, and on the road.
More info and pics after the jump.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (8)
Davis & Warshow have another unconventional showroom program for their New York City Spring Street location, tonight from 6 - 9pm:
Davis & Warshow has created "Show Snapshots," a new series dedicated to bringing the best elements of top industry tradeshows to the metro New York architectural and design community.For the first "Show Snapshot" installment, Wednesday, June 18, Davis & Warshow has partnered with The Architect's Newspaper and its editor, William Menking, to present "Coverings: The Green, Beige and Beyond of Tile & Stone." Menking, who recently attended Coverings 2008, the premier international tile and stone expo and conference, will share his observations on the best of the best products from the show, along with the latest in sustainable innovations, eco-friendly building alternatives, and cutting-edge trends in the category. The evening will also feature a question-and-answer session and cocktail reception. To rsvp for tonights event, please call 212.966.3759 x265
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Kottke alerts us that the Charles and Ray Eames Stamps are finally available from your post office, or online at USPS.com
(Now we just have to wait for the DWR Eames Stamp Display Frame available in either anodized bronze or snowfall white.)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
Model Maker - Finisher
Apple
Cupertino, California
Work with the Apple industrial design team to create appearance models and mock-ups used to evaluate and communicate industrial design directions, forms, and details of future product concepts. Ideal candidate should have 5+ years of product model making or equivalent experience. Requires an advanced knowledge of all model making phases and processes with emphasis on machining and finishing.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Wired takes a look at a camera hack invented to shoot Solo Avital's documentary 'More than 1000 Words' which follows independent photographer Ziv Koren into the front-lines of the most dangerous war zones in the world. A simple mechanism was mounted to Koren's still camera that filmed him and his point of view at the same time.
In post production, the ability to combine still photos with video of the shot being taken gives the viewer an incredible insight into the photographers mind, you can literally see when and what he chooses to shoot under very stressful circumstances.
This story-telling technique was a byproduct of needing a way to get close to Koren while he works without getting in his way, having a camera crew follow him would be both dangerous and draws to much attention from the subject. Speculated as a new photographic language, it's ideal for the Internet where short clips can easily be embedded into news stories instead of still photos.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
This Thursday, HOW is hosting a career-development webinar titled "Planning Your Design Career," hosted by HOW Conference speaker and career expert, Jeni Herberger. It's a live, one-hour session beginning at 4 p.m. EST/1 p.m. PST. Interactive with questions and all the good stuff! Here's the pitch:
This session is targeted toward designers who perhaps want to own a firm, lead a team, or learn more about business strategy so they're indispensable to their employers. Participants will learn:-How to identify hidden career goals
-How to create a 2, 5 and 10-year career targets
-How to use their personality traits to reveal their career path
-How to look at their personal life to refine their professional life
-How to keep on track while remaining flexible
(Those all begin with How. Duh.)
And here's the best part: HOW will sweeten the deal and offer $20 off a registration (discount price = $49). Use this code to receive the discount when you register: desjn19
All the info is here. Register here.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Sci-fi blog io9.com featured this excerpt from classic comic strip Flash Gordon (known to you Aussies as Speed Gordon...whatever), as an example of how good a job the strip's writers did of creating a diverse and varied alien planet. What's monopolizing our attention, though, is the bizarre effects of a sponsorship by Union Carbide: present-day cinematic product placement efforts have got nothing on the golden age of comics, looks like.
Various Union Carbide products, collected under the Bakelite moniker, are mentioned by name no less than four times on one page, starting with a polyethylene identified by catalog number, and finishing off with a laundry list of polymers most materials specialists would be hard pressed to rattle off. Apparently phrases like "I'll send you the resins so you can extrude your own, Ronal" were common parlance back in the day -- at least for intrepid space heroes.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
It only took 10 years and 10.8 million euro but finally the folks in Maribor, Eastern Slovenia have a world class soccer stadium. Designed by OFIS Architects, the stand seats 12,500 spectators, houses four gymnasiums, a fitness club with swimming pools, shops, and restaurants.
Check bustler.net for details and photos.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Element's PUSH boards are engineered to get the most pop and best flick out of your skateboard. The construction combines carbon fiber and Featherlight Helium technologies with their patented air frame chambers that run the length of the board. The result, a lightweight deck ideal for high impact skateboarding.
via coolhunting
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Running the blogs this afternoon is Borrow My Pen? from Fred. Jokes aside, there's an interesting twist here for designers who spend their lives trying to make products exceptionally desirable. Here, not so much.
Seen at PerpetualKid, ohGizmo, Geekologie, and more!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
Pingmag's Vending Machine Extravaganza delves into the extreme world of Japanese vending machine culture. They look at everything from a recent move to implement face recognition software to police age restrictions on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes, to the truly cashless machine where you're asked to watch a 30 second commercial instead of paying for your purchase. Is it worth it?
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Blue Art Studios are back with a new addition to their Modern Classics poster collection--the A-Z nero poster--perfect gift for your budding designer niece or nephew.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)
The OAN launched its latest competition yesterday. Sponsored by Google SketchUp, "Sportables" invites designers, architects and dreamers to design a portable sports product library, product development studio, and soccer field. Here's the pitch:
Nothing connects kids like the power of play. In areas of great need are opportunities to use sports as a catalyst for social change. Where resources are scarce, products can be distributed to deliver vital services. In many parts of the world sporting activities, especially local and traditional sports, are being incorporated into a variety of programs geared toward helping youth address a broad range of issues affecting their lives. By emphasizing a "team" approach, these programs help impart the skills needed by the next generation to overcome the many challenges faced by their countries, from poverty to HIV/AIDS, malnutrition to low educational access. The Sportables play area and product library aims to provide the youth in communities with limited resources the opportunity to play sports safely, securely, and frequently.Transport yourself to Capao Redondo, a densely packed, but colorful, friendly and energetic settlement on the outskirts of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Here the youth run through the narrow alleys and small spaces mimicking the moves of football heroes like Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, but in bare feet. Open space is a premium, and not always available (i.e. market spaces). Your challenge is to design a solution to create a highly demountable, portable sports product library, product development studio, and futsal (soccer) play area. This "pop-up" facility will be deployed to provide much needed (and desired) jerseys, shoes, and balls to communities that would welcome and use them to inspire change for youth of both genders. The design should comprise of a structure and construction mechanism that can unfurl to provide a space to rent sports gear as well as a safe space for youth to play, but must be re-packaged securely to protect the goods and equipment when the play area is not used or space is not available, or when it moves from one location to another.
All details at the site. More competitions here.
138,000 recycled Tokyo Metro tickets were used to make a giant pixel art homage to Astro Boy at the Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku. The mural, 10 x 7ft, is a part of a temporary installation to celebrate the opening of Tokyo's new Fukutoshin subway line.
via pinktentacle
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
u.n. news
UN intellectual property agency welcomes African move on industrial design pact
globe and mail
Montreal's Periphere Design aims to bring cool furniture design to budget-conscious buyers via new retail outlet
hp
Hewlett-Packard's hot new TouchSmart (with video demo)
furniture world
American Society of Furniture Designers Names Judges For 2008 Pinnacle Awards
popular mechanics
Wannabe DIY'er? Start simple: build a bookcase
auto spectator
BMW wins telematics award
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Jiang Qian (Wuxi & Shanghai, China)
Featured Project : go with me
You've heard of the chain gang, now here's the bike chain; a modular system that let's you link up or ride solo, electric-style.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
As everybody is reporting, Will Wright's long-anticipated Spore Creature Creator trial is now available for download. (Curiously, I was at a conference last week where Spore was "demo'd for the first time," but I also saw it demo'd back at PopTech in 2006!) Nevermind, this thing should blow the doors off the, well, universe actually (many universes, in fact), but if you can't wait for the full release on September 7th, get your jollies with the demo this morning. For designers who love to make stuff, and who dream of having a tool like this for sneakers, mp3 players and modular furniture, this is a 200-meg download of pure, iterative, prototypical fun!
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
We caught a glimpse of Helmut Smits's work over at Designboom. Interest peaked, we took a look around his website and discovered two new (old) faves pictured above:
Left: 'The Deo Roller', a side table with roll-on deodorants as feet. Not only does the table move around freely, but it releases a shower-fresh scent when rolled. Once empty, the roll-on's can be easily replaced with a trip to the local pharmacy.
Right: 'The Real Thing', an installation to filter Coca-Cola into clean drinking water.
Nuff' said.
It used to be that you won wars by getting your guys to kill their guys. The Vikings, the Romans, and you name it knew you either had to get more guys or better weapons.
Then warmakers got crafty and started bombing factories, oil depots and supply lines. If you can't get your truckloads of bullets up to the front, and if you can't gas up your superior jet fighter, it doesn't matter how good your tech is, or how many guys you've got.
What's our point? Logistics matter, and it's how you win.
Just look at electric cars. We've been hearing about them for how long now, and how many of us actually have them? Why are they so expensive and out-of-reach?
The latest company hoping they can finally make electric cars a widespread reality in the U.S. is Scandinavia-based Think Global, who's bringing their product Stateside in '09. They are hoping to succeed based on at least two angles: design and logistics.
Even more than its well-funded sponsors or cutting-edge technology, the Ox's killer app could be its design. To date, most electric cars available in the U.S.--small, unsafe, and underpowered--have been intended strictly for the earliest early adopters and the most faithful green believers. In contrast, Think's senior vice-president for design, Katinka von der Lippe, says the Ox is a "real car, a big step away from the cuteness of [other] electric vehicles."The company's business model, says James, is similar to that of PC maker Dell (DELL), which fueled its rise by ruthlessly optimizing its manufacturing and supply chain. Think's ultralean manufacturing system lets it build production facilities for about $10 million, compared with the billions invested in new plants by old-line manufacturers. That means more factories closer to customers, further cutting costs.
In addition, factories "could also be the retailers," says James, which would add a unique element to Think's branding. The company, he says, will be profitable if it can sell 10,000 vehicles a year. At 20,000 to 30,000 units in annual sales, Think can cut its component costs in half.
That focus on innovative manufacturing, in addition to the high-tech Ox itself, may ultimately set the company apart from previous attempts--and, Think is betting, finally help jump-start the U.S. market for electric cars.
via businessweek
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
Product Designer -Toys & Games
Patch Products, Inc.
Beloit, Wisconsin
Patch is a family owned toy company specializing in entertaining games, imaginative puzzles and creative toys. Patch provides competitive salaries and great benefits along with an on-site cafeteria, fitness facility, and child care center. Patch is located in beautiful Beloit, WI nestled between Milwaukee and Madison and less than 90 miles from Chicago.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Air rage is easy to come by. God forbid if you or the guy next to you needs to get up during your in-flight meal; you have to clear the whole folding tray before flipping it up for egress.
This is one of the issues addressed by design consultancy James Park Associates in their seat redesign for Japan Airlines. (Alas, the changes are only going into First Class.) The table--a freakishly long 79 by 38 centimeters--can be pushed away while fully laden, so top-dollar passengers can let their bathroom breaks keep pace with their Sauvignon swilling.
The new seats also have more armrest padding and are constructed using carbon fiber--remember last week's post, when we told you airlines are trying to lighten their loads? And for the sake of privacy, the seat partitions are higher; now your fellow passengers won't know you're actually watching The Incredible Hulk.
via designweek
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Ford designer J Mays sums up the recent evolution of large automobiles:
Since 1990...there has been an explosion of SUV sales. That entire decade was the decade of the SUVs. Then every manufacturer did their version of post-SUV, whether you call them CUVs or crossovers or people movers or whatever. But they all looked, tasted and smelled like SUVs or minivans.The Flex holds seven people comfortably, but there's not a hint of minivan.... There's no sloping front screen, no sliding side door.... It's not an SUV. SUV has come to be shorthand for high emissions and low gas mileage.
He refers to Ford's new Flex station wagon, a seven-seater which looks rather like a Scion that drank more milk growing up. AutoWeek's full interview with Mays can be read here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
Recent Parsons grad Ben Chase has taken the now-very-common sustainable technology thesis project to a higher level than we're used to seeing. According to his website and press release, the prototype consists of modular components to facilitate easier upgrades, idles at a mere 27W power consumption, and more importantly, it works, running Windows with 95% functionality, on a recycled 18 inch monitor and 80GB hard drive.
Chase also wins points for approaching the issue of sustainable computing from an unusually sober point of view:
Fundamental to my thesis is the notion that simply making a less toxic or less consumptive product is not inherently "sustainable". Companies designing sustainably need to make lifecycle design their central focus, but more specifically, need to understand the end-user's experience as the consumer is ultimately the most important participatory member of the product sustainability cycle.
Obvious from photos on the website is the fact that, in Chase's on words, the project "did not focus on aesthetics for this prototype," and there's no getting around it -- it is kind of an eyesore. But as a bold step towards realistic alternatives to the current state of technology manufacturing, it's downright gorgeous.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (1)
Even the most hardcore lego fans will be impressed by Anders Søborg's scanner built from a Mindstorm NXT kit. The NXT image scanner can scan and save images as a BMP-file in the NXT's flash memory. Images can be saved in either 24-bit true color, 8-bit color or gray scale.
Wanna make one? Anders' has posted a link to the 227 steps at the bottom of this page.
via dvice
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)A few print items recently might leave you with the impression that Buckminster Fuller was either battling a Napoleon complex or merely indulging one to the fullerest. Certainly, in our constant quest to find the "emotional center" of any story, this kind of analysis is all but irresistible, but we'd love to see more ink (or pixels) thrown at the principles of efficiency, lightness, and utility, along with--okay--his personal demons and extra-curricular activities.
Here are some choice, deflating, lines:
Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker:
Toward the end of his stay [at Black Mountain], Fuller and a team of students assembled a trial dome out of Venetian-blind slats. Immediately upon being completed, the dome sagged and fell in on itself. (Some of the observers referred to it as a "flopahedron.") Fuller insisted that this outcome had been intentional--he was, he said, trying to determine the critical point at which the dome would collapse--but no one seems to have believed this.
James Sterngold in The New York Times:
In Mr. Baldwin's view those episodes missed the point. "Focusing on the affair is like spending all your time thinking about van Gogh's ear instead of his paintings," he said. "It's very off track." Mr. Katz disagreed, saying that the seemingly crazy writings were important because they showed that in recurrent dark periods Fuller was not trying only to persuade others his ideas were important, but to persuade himself that he mattered. The letters, Mr. Katz suggested, were a form of self-encouragement as Fuller struggled to find a reason for going on.
Phil Patton, also in The New York Times:
Despite Fuller's talk of borrowing construction methods from the aircraft industry, Burgess built the car using many of the nautical methods applied to a racing boat. The chassis was aircraft-grade steel, but the body was an ash wood frame with aluminum tacked to its sides and a roof of taut, painted canvas. The crude suspension was made up of a Ford beam axle and leaf springs turned sideways. The tail was omitted.
Go ahead and read these pieces then if you'd like to get to know the man first, but maybe consider waiting until after you've seen the show if you're more interested in the machines. Or hell, just wait for the next season of Celebrity Rehab. (They do those posthumously, don't they?)
Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe is at the Whitney from June 26th through September 21, 2008.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (2)
Joshua Heineman has been adding new life into old digitized photographs from the New York Public Library using simple gif animation trickery. Pictured above is a Cassiano indian at San Antonio Mission, said to be 136 years old, circa 1880.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (3)
photo: jek in the box
Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog Carl Alviani interviews 5 design professionals about their average work day, asking one simple question, "How do you get all your work done?" Here's a snippet:
Given the large fraction of us who work to a ticking clock, whether as a freelancer, in a consultancy, or through a corporate budgetary allotment, figuring out The Trick to being productive all day, every day, is of great concern. The problem, as most of you are probably already aware, is that there is no Trick, just as there's no Secret to Being Creative...Janna - Freelance Interaction Designer: "My workflow is very very random. I'll work at ten o'clock at night if that's what seems to be working, and I'll sleep in 'til ten am if that's what I need....I know there are people out there who need a schedule, but I am actually the opposite. I basically just need one thing a day, to get me moving."
Lyza - Web and Mobile Device Developer: "I'm a co-founder of the company where I work, so I hold to a pretty regular schedule: come in between 9:30 and 10, leave 6 or 6:30. Occasional weekends...I'd say it's a good day if I get 4 to 6 billable hours in."
>> view article
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
If you can't make it to Central Saint Martins Product Design Degree Show this week, all the work is on flickr presented in a series of easy to view concise storyboards.
Pictured: AnyBrush by Yuanyan Li
Central Saint Martins
BA (Hons) Product Design Degree Show
Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AP
Friday 13th June 12:00 -18:00
Saturday 14th June 12:00 - 18:00
Sunday 15th June closed
Monday 16th - Thursday 19th June 12:00 - 20:00
Belgium designer Benoît Deneufbourg's 'Woodenlegs' lamp is made from spun aluminum and oak, and is produced in 3 sizes. He recently exhibited at DMY in Berlin and the Salone Satellite in Milan. Check his site for more of his clean-looking furniture and lighting projects.
via notcot
Last chance to get involved:
2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This means 20 years of openness, interaction and free spaces, enabling creativity to explode unlike at any other location.We are calling on all designers, thinkers and makers to seek out partners from other disciplines and to reflect together on the question of what Berlins's special allure is about and why this is a place where so many people are constantly designing, thinking and making.
From all submitted entries the 20 best teams will be selected and invited to further develop their ideas and to personally present their projects in London as part of the exhibition. Furthermore all exhibition entries and additionally submitted concept sketches will be assembled together following the exhibition in a book with the title "20 Jahre Kreativmetropole Berlin" - 20 Years of the Creative Metropolis Berlin.
Create Berlin Goes London : Exhibition : Dray Walk Gallery @ Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, East London, September 18-21, 2008. Open daily from 10 AM.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
china economic net
Original design boosts bicycle industry: China's recent International Bicycle Design Contest
network world
India's product design outsourcee Wipro can now develop prototypes
business weekly uk
UK SolidWorks team to Demonstrate SolidWorks 2009 at Cambridge Event
ad week
Cannes Ad Fest on this week: this year, Cannes Lions to Intro Design Prizes for the first time
neatorama
100 Thing Challenge: Living With Just 100 Items in Your Life
Packaging Design is definitely the redheaded stepchild of the ID world: sometimes it's done by ID'ers, sometimes it's done by graphics people. Have a look at some of the faves picked out by Belgian-based design firm Duoh as part of their "Inspiration Series."
To hear creatives tell it, napkins exist solely to have ingenious thoughts, ideas and schematics scribbled on them. Avery Holleman developed that trope into a PC concept--and won Microsoft's Next-Gen PC Design Competition. Not only did he land $20,000 for his troubles, the design was apparently handpicked by Bill Gates, winning the Chairman's Award as well.
Next up: Apple needs to make a tablet we can wipe our mouths on.
via tg daily
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Above is a photo of auto enthusiast Brad Bonning in his aluminum Bonning Roadster, which has just undergone Australian road certification testing. Should Bonning's three-wheeled vehicle be approved and find the appropriate funding, it will be perhaps the first mass-produced automobile that runs on garbage. The engine, developed by sustainable technology firm Eco Nova, runs on refuse.
We say "appropriate" level of funding because while Bonning has already had offers to produce the car, he's turned them down for reasons of economics; the car's goal is not just to be produced, but to be affordable. "To have [the car] become a really expensive, elite product is the opposite of why I did it," Bonning tells the Australian Daily. "If it costs the same as a Porsche or a Ferrari, it defeats the purpose."
via the daily
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)
This is one way to build out your portfolio and ramp up your skills, Swedish designer Josefin Kvist is on a mission to design a new piece of furniture and blog a scaled model everyday for 90 days. Core's only advice, "completion triumphs perfection". We're not sure who coined the term but we doubt it was a designer.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
User Interaction Designers
pilotfish
Munich, Germany
We are an international team of user interface, graphic and industrial designers and mechanical engineers from all around the globe. With our specialisation in electronic products (communication, entertainment, computing, life care), we cater for international brands such as Acer, Asus, Avaya, BenQ, BMW, Hansaton, Heineken, Logitech, Mini, Siemens. For our Munich office, we are looking for creative and proactive Senior and Junior User Interaction Designers with a proven track record in the field of visual communication and interaction design.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
An MIT-designed building with walls made entirely of water was unveiled Thursday at the opening of the Zaragoza World Expo in Spain.
The Digital Water Pavilion [...] is the first of its kind and illustrates the potential of digital architecture to create spaces that dynamically adjust to people and conditions.
"The design for the water pavilion grew out of a central challenge: How to make fluid, reconfigurable architecture?" said [Turin born] Carlo Ratti, head of MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory. "Our building aims to stand as a possible answer to this endeavor."
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Intellipedia project for information-sharing within the nation's intelligence community is still in the early adoption phase a couple years after its launch, but has become a brand name for an entire suite of related Web 2.0 technologies, two CIA officials involved with the effort said Tuesday.
Intellpedia's core is a wiki, built with the same software as Wikipedia. It resides on three different networks, designated unclassifed, secret and top-secret. Over the past couple of years, the initial project has grown to include an instant messaging client built with the Jabber platform, a tagging system similar to del.icio.us, RSS feeds, image galleries and even the CIA's version of YouTube.
via Smart Mobs
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Hhmmmm. In the Fashion and Style section of the NYTs is an "illuminating" piece about the sustainability movement's greatest enemy. No, it's not the SUV or manufacturing waste. Apparently, it's all of the chatter about it. This chatter is called "Green Noise" and it's leaving our fellow Americans feeling overwhelmed and confused.
Pause. Long Pause.
We'll admit it. Bad news, in general, is kind of overwhelming. And green noise is what the sustainability problem sounds like - bad news. That said, sustainability values are not so complicated. Make the world a better place. Our choices aren't only paper or plastic, they also include - don't buy anything today. Or, don't buy anything that was made by a child working six, twelve hour shifts a week (harder than you think).
What about the dos? We don't want the economy to crash, right? Do spend your money on a service or on helping an economically disadvantaged person start or maintain a small business. Stop worrying about "little things you can do to make a difference" and look at the big picture. Make the world a better place. For real.
Now that's fashion and style!
Posted by: Xanthe Matychak | Comments (1)
John Thackara has just published an extensive and in-depth interview that was done with him and Sunil Abraham for this month's Cluster magazine in a special issue published for the World Congress of Architecture which opens later this month in Turin, Italy.
"The only meaningful task of design now," Thackara says, "is to help people transform the ways they obtain food, energy, materials, and water - in cities, or outside them. This kind of design is of course "political" in that it opposes the demands of industrial society for limitless resources in a world whose carrying capacity is finite."
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)Based on user feedback from the likes of all of you (well, some of you), we've added a new forum: Local Design Happenings. Post in any local events, lectures, happy hours, art shows, reviews and pictures from events, parties at Brett NYC's place... whatever.
Posted by: yo | Comments (0)
On interactive skins, Mr. Bangle might be pretty hot with the GINA concept (see earlier post) but Berlin's WHITEvoid people can be credited likewise for their latest facade system.
"FLARE is a modular system to create a dynamic hull for facades or any building or wall surface. Acting like a living skin, it allows a building to express, communicate and interact with its environment."
The system consists of a number of tilting metal flake bodies which reflect light and are act like pixels. Last month, the first prototype was presented at the NEXT art & technology exhibition in Arhus, Denmark. See FLARE (+ video) yourself!
thanks paula paula!
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (2)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
designweek uk
Young designers sought for Philippe Starck TV show
huliq
Saab Promotes Creative Design
mad
Welsh educational initiative: Product design must evolve to address sustainability issues
unplggd
How to turn your iPod touch into an e-book (with video demo)
haaretz
Jerusalem students use design to save falcons from extinction
courier mail
Queensland Design on Show Awards winner: underwater pogo stick
the age
Personal outsourcing: how to shorten your workweek
Popular Science's article Building the Real Iron Man, takes a detailed look at the evolution of exoskeletons. The first patent for a mechanical suit appeared in 1890, but it wasn't until 2000, when Darpa began a seven-year, $75-million program called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation that something close to Iron Man's suit has appeared. Checkout the gallery for a brief timeline of exoskeletons, both real and imagined.
If you can tolerate the narration, this video profiles a wearable robot suit developed by SARCOS that enables soldiers to easily lift 200-pound weights. It will take a long time for this military driven technology to trickle down but it does lead the way for unmanned autonomous robots to perform dangerous tasks such as cleaning up chemical spills and in the medical world for artificial limbs.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
By now you've seen or heard of the Voodoo guy cutting his birthday cake with a Macbook Air; here are some more alternative uses of laptops we'd not thought of.
via crooked brains
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Clearly, what our society really needs is a faster way to drink beer. Many a night we've ordered a beer in a restaurant and lamented that they refused to bring us a funnel and hose.
Here to solve that problem is the Bierstick, a sort of hydraulic pump that holds two cans' worth of beer. Put your mouth on one end, press the other end against the wall and you're well on your way to cirrhosis of the liver.
The device is fairly cheap, about twenty bucks. And come September, 'round Gamma House way, there's going to be a huge contingent of freshman pledges who'll wish this damn thing was never invented.
via crunch gear
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
That's a shot of the winning design of the Tour Signal, by Ateliers Jean Nouvel. A competition was held to reinvigorate Paris' La Defense neighborhood:
This project's ambition is to create a strong hub at the heart of the Greater Paris region, creating a significant draw at the same time as establishing a relationship between the project and its natural and built-up environment, embodying the various temporal considerations which strengthen the links between a project and its environs.
Details of Nouvel's winning design, for a 71-storey tower, are available here, and a look at the other competitors' work--all impressive--can be seen here.
via dezeen
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Mechanical Engineer/Prototyper
SC Johnson
Southeastern, Wisconsin
Responsible for driving product innovation by rapidly reducing ideas to practice through prototyping. This position also supports the development of mechanical systems and design for new products.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
The Fractal Table debuted at the Materialise.MGX exhibition at Zona Tortona in Milan earlier this year. Developed by Platform Wertel Oberfell together with Matthias Bär, the table can only be produced with rapid prototyping to make the treelike stems that grow into smaller branches until they get very dense at the top. While it may not be the easiest table for cleaning food off after a Euro Cup session, it is an interesting exploration of rapid prototyping and it's limits.
via mocoloco
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
[oops. turns out this sold out in the first 48 hrs. Cheers Rob!]
If you're in NYC tonight (Friday), you'll want to be at the Art Directors Club to listen to Rob Walker talking about his book Buying In, then interviewed by Danielle Sacks of Fast Company. The event is produced by our good friends at PSFK, and should be a great evening. And the sweet poster above? They'll be given some away, so either come early or stay late--they're not saying.
Doors open at 6:30, 106 W 29th St., and free.
All details here.
Background on the poster here.
Read Core77's review of Buying In here.
Mancunians have a new addition to their cityscape. Tim Hensal's entry won the Diesel Wall competition with his piece Suck, 29m x 18m. Four cities are participating Diesel's large-scale public space art competition and there's still time to submit an entry for New York & Barcelona. Not sure about the cult user requirement to upload a file but you could probably just roll with it.
Zurich
Winner: Andreas Marti
Manchester
Winner: Tim Hensal
New York
Deadline: June 21st, 2008
Barcelona
Deadline: September 15th, 2008
From the Coroflot portfolio of : vanessa marie robinson (brooklyn, NY)
Featured Project : 47 hangers
Hang out, sit down!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (1)
In response to a brief titled "Make Time for a Green Cause," NY-based design trio Rich, Brilliant and Willing came up with a new way of telling time: nature-based. Great metaphor, just not sure how it gets us out of bed in the morning...
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
The Center for Urban Pedagogy, (CUP) is seeking designers with an interest in research and public policy for the next issues of Making Policy Public. Designers chosen through the juried submission process will receive full attribution for their work, an honorarium of $1000, and publicity through CUP.
There are 4 topics for posters:
1. Predatory equity takeover of affordable housing
2. Detention & deportation
3. New York City street vendor regulations
4. Discriminatory barriers for formerly-incarcerated jobseekers
Deadline: June 16, 2008
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)A great video spotted on Swissmiss.
So did he get the job???!!!
(Please answer in the comments. Beau, are you out there?)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (4)
WORKSHOPPED 08 has taken on the theme 'Design Matters' inviting 32 designers to showcase their furniture, lighting and product design. The exhibition is now in it's 8th year and will be the largest single event of Sydney Design 08. Past exhibitor Adam Goodrum (2005) recently had his Stitch chair produced by Cappellini.
WORKSHOPPED 08
August 13-23, 2008
Opening: August 12th, 2008 (invite only)
Chifley Plaza, CBD
Sydney
And we're only mentioning the fact because many Core readers are aware of Bill's other qualities: smart, creative, experienced, and well-versed in the culture of effective innovation. Buxton impressed a hundred or so designers and marketers at the Portland World Trade Center last night with a 90 minute talk based on his latest book Sketching User Experiences, and managed to be engaging, witty, and really nice the whole time. Even after: post-talk pints at a brew pub around the corner found him enthusiastically discussing finer points with attendees for a good two hours after.
The talk, sponsored by local chapters of Siggraph, CHIFOO and ACM, essentially summarized his arguments from the book: that framing the question of what to design is as important as getting the design right; that "sketching," in its broadest sense, is crucial to this process; and that engendering a corporate culture that encourages these actions, and the acquisition of skills for creating and reading sketches is crucial, especially given the degree to which technology is affecting the lives of average citizens who aren't interested in becoming technologists.
It'd be too much to re-hash the entire presentation -- that's what the book is for, and it's an excellent read -- but here are a few choice quotes:
"Early in computing, technological problems predominated, and were solved by technologists. In the beginning, the users were the designers. The architecture of computing is essentially unchanged since the days they were refrigerator-sized. What's changed is, these technologies are affecting all of our lives."
On the growing attention the business world is giving to "design thinking": "There was even an article on it in this month's Harvard Business Review. I read it...and...didn't recognize much of anything in it."
On the need for sketches and concepts to be plentiful and disposable: "Hardly any of your ideas are going to end up in the product. If it's a good product."
On multi-disciplinary design teams: "The age of the Renaissance individual is long over, but not of the Renaissance team."
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
It's now official: SVA has taken the wraps off its new MFA in Interaction Design program, slated to begin in the Fall of 2009. Core super-friend Liz Danzico will be heading up the program (who conceived the program with the ubiquitous Steven Heller), so right away all you interacters (actors?) will be in good hands. And early faculty lock-ins are stellar: Christopher Fahey, David Womack, Jason Santa Maria, Karen McGrane, Khoi Vinh, Paul Ford, Matt Owens, Rachel Abrams, and Jeffrey Zeldman.
Core77 wishes Liz much success with this endeavor!
Official word here; Liz's blog post here.
Thanks to the original core super-friend Steve Portigal for the headsup!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Photo: edscoble
The London Transport Museum is joining the action at this year's London Festival of Architecture (June 20 - July 20) with a Flickr scavenger hunt. Teams will race against time and each other to decode a series of cryptic clues, the first team back with all the right answers and best picture on Flickr will win. The intention is to expand the publics awareness of the weird and quirky history of the London Underground and capture some of these overlooked design elements.
London Transport Museum Scavenger Hunt
Sunday July 6th, 2008
Covent Garden
Registration Deadline: July 1st, 2008
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
times online
The latest "careers in industrial design" article
uv online
Innovative Norwegian UAV design unveiled
hot news stiri
Renault to pit design centers against each other in competition
l.a. times
Raymond Loewy plates go on the block at Rago Arts and Auction Center
torontoist
Design criticism: Torontoist is not happy with T-town's new street furniture
cadalyst
Autodesk online student community reaches more than 300,000 members
apple
Snow Leopard preview is up...and it's almost as boring as Windows
Vice President, Off-Air Creative: VH1
MTV Networks
New York, New York
Supervise the entire creative product of VH1 Off Air graphics (print) including premiums, advertising, merchandising, and marketing materials. Oversee the VH1 Creative photography department. Provide strong leadership and serve as an example of VH1 Creative philosophies by providing inspiration, motivation, guidance, training and management...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Visitors to Vietnam will invariably end up riding in a cyclo, a pedicab contraption that resembles a bicycle making love to a wheelchair. During a street stop in Hanoi, we tried helping our driver "scooch" the vehicle sideways and discovered the damn thing was apparently made out of cast iron. Our driver, needless to say, was all muscle, from years of 12-hour shifts.
Ex-cycloist Tran Van Tam has come up with a better vehicle of his own design: a battery-powered pedicab that costs less than US $0.20 for 60 kilometers of travel. Though Frankensteined out of a Honda motorcycle and bicycle spare parts, Tran's vehicle is aesthetically pleasing and made the top three in Ho Chi Minh City's Technical Creativity Competition.
"Although I am only a driver without diplomas or certifications, I am lucky to have experience on the roads for more than 20 years, which has given me some knowledge about mechanics," said Tam, who filled info gaps by doing internet research to complete the vehicle. His goal, he said, was to make it "green and clean."
What Tam needs now is backers: The bike can be manufactured for US $1,840 to $2,450, which sounds inexpensive but is still out of reach for most cyclo operators. "The price will decrease considerably if it's mass produced," Tam points out.
via thanh nien news
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Checkout instructables guide to customizing Kid Robot's Munny doll into a sweet pair of speakers. According to creator fungus amungus who posted the hack, the dolls didn't require any extra weight in the bottom to keep them balanced. We'd love to up-the-anti and see one with a subwoofer.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (2)You could spend a week this summer lounging at the beach, camping in the woods...or studying in Milan under Ross Lovegrove!
Italy's Scuola Politecnica di Design SPD is holding "Deep Design Summer School," a series of one-week programs under people who have stuff at MoMA. Lovegrove kicks it off at the end of this month, with a week of working on outdoor furniture. More info here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
"Mechatronic subsystems" that are "robust, high speed, ultra reliable, energy efficient, flexible and easily adaptable." What are we talking about here? And just what is that thing in the photo? We're talking about packaging machinery design.
The European market for packaging machinery is forecast to grow at an Olympian 8% per annum to reach 13mEuro by 2008...some analysts put the figure higher yet.So packaging machinery would seem to be a good market to be in, especially as other engineering sectors do not appear to be in such good shape.
Read all about why designing these machines is "not easy" here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)Core77 contributor Steven Heller goes all audio on us in delightfully describing various campaign merch on NPR (yesterday). Listen to the interview here; some previous pieces here.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A great Deb Solomon interview from the NYTs Magazine special architecture edition with former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa. He expresses deep passion for the democratic values that sidewalks convey, especially in developing cities. Here's a bit:
In developing-world cities, the majority of people don't have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality. [However] we are designing cities for cars, cars, cars, cars, cars. Not for people. Cars are a very recent invention. The 20th century was a horrible detour in the evolution of the human habitat. We were building much more for cars' mobility than children's happiness.
Ah, but his passion for pedestrians, specifically his banning of sidewalk parking, cost him his last election. When asked if Penalosa sees himself as a city planner or politician, his response is honest and humorous, "I was almost impeached for getting the cars off the sidewalk. At heart what I really am is a Colombian politician, but a bad one because I lose elections."
This rainy Turkey-Switzerland (2-1) was yesterday... you might not hear us Europeans overseas but the UEFA EURO 2008 soccer event unleashes a lot of emotions. Besides the performance of great sportspeople, also materials play a decisive role in winning or losing as demonstrated by the ball itself!
Bayer MaterialScience and Adidas joined forces to develop this piece of high-tech sports equipment which goes by the name "EUROPASS". If we take a closer look, we see that the ball has little goose bumps.
Thomas Michaelis, Project manager Ball Development (great title!), notes that this so called "PSC" texture gives the ball more strength and spin. PSC stands for Power-Swerve-Control, or in other words, providing players more power, more spin and more precision - in all weather conditions (see photo).
So far, back to the game...
Posted by: Aart van Bezooyen | Comments (1)
A few ad campaigns have manifested the lo-res pixel into the real world to make this point but this one's done well.
via notcot via comunicadores.info
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (11)Ever wondered what kind of prices collectable design furniture can pull, a quick look through the catalogue for tomorrows auction at Phillips de Pury & Company in New York is a good start. We picked out a couple of desks if you're looking to upgrade the home office.
JEAN PROUVÉ
"Director" desk, ca. 1950
Estimate: $40,000-60,000
MARC NEWSON
Syn Studios, Tokyo, Japan, 1996
Estimate: $300,000-400,000
PHILIP MICHAEL WOLFSON
"LineDesk PINK", 2008
Estimate: $18,000-24,000
GIO PONTI
Double-fronted desk, ca. 1950
Estimate: $30,000-40,000
Phillips de Pury & Company
Auction: 2pm
June 12th, 2008
450 West 15 Street
New York
The Canadians have been up to it for years and finally getting the world (well, maybe just the UK) to follow suit. What is it?
Milk Bags!
Yup. Mega-market Sainsbury is launching milk sold in recyclable plastic bags across 35 of its stores today, followed by availability in 500 stores within a year. The pouches are aimed at reducing packaging waste. Sounds ingenious, but this is nothing new - Coop tried launching milk pouches in the 70's and Sainsbury's in 2001, both with little success; however, a spokesman for Sainsbury said: "The jug that was used seven years ago was a more primitive design. The format was popular and we now have a milk jug that we're satisfied offers the level of convenience that customers will want - no mess, no waste." (Times )
For a sneek peek, first check out the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones "road test" one of the new specimens, then watch the real experts do it:
Max Lamb was one of four designers named Designer of the Future at this year's Design Miami/Basel. Each designer was invited to create a new object, installation, or series using concrete and wool. Graduating from the Royal College of Art with a Masters Degree in Design Products in 2006, he spent a year designing at Tom Dixon Studio, established his own practice and is currently teaching at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)Weekly finds from the 3D world:
Rhino
Hidden Secrets Wiki
Alias
Quick camera-aiming trick for creating sketch underlays
CATIA
CATFORM sheet metal plug-in allows advanced analysis of stamped metal part designs
Pro/Engineer
Frequent Core board contributor Bart Brejcha shows off WildFire4.0's surface manipulation capabilities
Synergy starts today in Cincinnati:
Brand and design are evolving into a unifying element, creating synergy across the enterprise, a synergy that is imperative to business success. Design, brand, and business are a powerful combination, representing the entire customer experience--connecting customers, companies, and innovation. Together, they make the promise, set the expectations, affect every experience.At DMI's Brand/Design 20 Conference, leading experts will explore synergy, collaboration, and strategy. Learn best of class methods and tactics to achieve organizational success through effective integration, cross-disciplinary communication, and management. Meet and interact with your peers from around the world. Experience three days of learning, inspiration, community, and sharing.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Packaged food-stuffs need two things: cleanliness and shelf-life. Here are two great examples of their manufacturing process: On the dry-side, the Republic-brand conveyor belt/dryer uses blades of air to dry-off products. (Recognize that technology? It's the same stuff the Dyson AirBlade hand dryer uses!) More energy efficient than other compressed air blowers, it saves manufacturers money and makes sure your Tomato Ketchup doesn't land on a shelf with smudges of goo.
On the stability side, this mad-scientist demo from Vacuum Barrier Corporation explains the process of injecting liquid nitrogen to keep food-stuffs fresh. It's the process that results in the "ppphhffffizzz" sound when you open a jar of peanuts or a bottle of water. Now if only Dasani came with the smoke too...
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Nike have released the first soccer boot with a molded carbon fiber upper, seven layers of carbon composite material are interwoven with TPU and polyurethane. It took three years to develop this version of the Vapor, the new upper design eliminates the lasting board putting the foot closer to the ground for better performance.
via uncrate
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (5)You guys catch that season finale of Lost, where the 'copter starts running out of fuel? "Jettison everything that isn't nailed down!" yells the pilot, hoping the weight savings will keep them aloft.
As a Times article reveals, these days the major airlines are also trying to lighten their aircraft, to conserve expensive fuel. Designs for lighter seats and drink carts are not enough; airlines have started washing engines after each flight (accumulated dirt gets heavy), filling bathroom sinks with less water, and are even debating lightening the dictionary-sized pilot's manuals!
Now folks, we all know the airlines don't love us--to them, we're basically freight that complains--so how long will it be before they push these desired weight changes on us, the passengers?
Core77's suggestions for how to lighten plane loads
- Immediately prior to boarding, force all passengers to use bathroomPosted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
- Ban all loose change on flights
- Rip out the half-finished crossword puzzles on in-flight magazines
- Only hire former jockeys for flight attendants
- Replace heavy peanuts with much lighter popcorn
- Encourage passengers to diet in weeks leading up to flight
- Fasting monks or political protesters receive better seating
- Each passenger must carry at least 3 helium balloons (the buoyancy adds up)
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
l.a. times
Dissension at Art Center College of Design
electronics supply & manufacturing
How to develop a green product development strategy
the scotsman
UK parking meters turn fifty; British design icon?
business wire
For green moms and dads: the eco-friendly diaper bag
digital downtown nyc
NYC's Digital Downtown show opens tomorrow
design taxi
Trends of Tomorrow on Display in Design Lab
earth times
Herman Miller racks up more awards at Chicago's NeoCon 2008
The Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London is packed with Graduate Art and Design Summer shows. We caught glimpses from cor-e-spondant Victoria Kirk who was on-hand to grab some snaps. Looks like, beyond the plethora of over-designed chaises, the Product Designers Market, produced by Middlesex University students, stole the show. Featuring work like Adam Amos' knock-down furniture (that's right, he uses magnets instead of blots n' screws!), the market was a welcome combination of smart engineering and flawless design. Check out more here.
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
In the dead of winter, it seems absurd to be paying for electricity to run a refrigerator and icebox when it's well freezing outside. Similarly, running a dryer in a heatwave seems nuts, particularly when the utility bill shows up. Energy costs are on the rise.
Just a reminder that as temperatures soar and you reach for the A/C button, you can offset your increased carbon footprint, however slightly, through the simplest of product designs: a hanging rack. We picked up the IKEA fold-flat model above for US $17 and are putting the heat to work for us by hang-drying everything. (Our previous summertime energy-saver, a clothesline, was cheaper and folded just as flat, but it wasn't as purty.) Now if we could only figure out how to store meat outside in the winter....
Even tho' we're a few days late on this, we had to post the 7in7 project for the logo alone. ITP Resident Researchers have set themselves the challenge to complete 7 creative projects in seven days back-to-back. Check their blog 7 in Seven for daily updates and to see how this creative boot-camp unfolds.
via make
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)So THIS is how they got secret decoder pamphlets into Captain Crunch cereal! Pineberry Manufacturing's Hi-Speed Friction Feeder can do up to 600 parts per minute, which means more secrets per second than we know what to do with!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Design Intern
Todd Bracher Studio
Brooklyn, New York
After 10 years in Europe I have relocated the studio back to New York and am in search of extremely talented interns to collaborate with. I only except the best who are motivated to work close and hard to reach a high level of design. Specifically the positions are for versatile and 3D skilled individuals who can take sketches to a high quality working 3D level for internal developments and presentations / renders. (not for production)
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
I hate the expression "hump day," but this certainly fits the bill. Coming dangerous close to a perpetual motion machine, all you need to do is watch the video to motivate your crafty side! We're going to save this for the weekend, but if Wednesday's truly get you down, then yes, make this a lunch-time project today. Our question: Will it work with Kool-Aid? (Probably, but as soon as you drink some, you'll bust the physics.)
Full plans here.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)There's no such thing as a free lunch: Providing a glimpse at the kinds of innovative pricing Apple and its carriers may use to take market share, British carrier O2 will be giving iPhones away for free--provided you sign up for a two-year contract with at least $88 per month in fees. O2 will also be targeting businesses, with free phones given for every 24- or 36-month contract.
Was this strategy devised by O2, seeking to sign up more customers, or suggested by Apple as an aggressive bid to move more product, or a little of both? The business-targeting, in particular, seems to be Apple moving on Blackberries. Either way we find it interesting because Apple products have traditionally competed on design and emotion, not price. Is there a different Apple on the horizon?
via information week
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More on yesterday's Bimmer philo essay, Wired has a great article on BMW's GINA Light Visionary Model concept car. The body is made from a seamless polyurethane-coated Lycra fabric stretched over a moveable aluminum frame allowing the owner to change the car's shape. Purely conceptual, there is no intention of this technology ever going into production.
Chris Bangle, head of design for BMW, says GINA allowed his team to "challenge existing principles and conventional processes.""It is in the nature of such visions that they do not necessarily claim to be suitable for series production," company officials said in unveiling the car Tuesday. "Rather, they are intended to steer creativity and research into new directions."
GINA (Geometry and functions In 'N' Adaptions) has been in development for six years, the working model is built on a Z8 chassis and has four panels which take about two hours to put on.
Chris Bangle explaining the design process.
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So by now most of us have been made aware of the existence of the North Pacific Garbage Patch, a slowly swirling collection of plastic debris, floating north of Hawaii and generally making life uncomfortable for sea creatures, and consciences uncomfortable for product designers. While harrowing, this man-made monstrosity has always been a little too non-specific to evoke a coherent response: it's the size of Texas, twice the size of Texas, or bigger than the continental US; it's an island, a gyre, a soup; it's a sign of the coming apocalypse or no big deal.
In an attempt to make the whole thing a little more real, Vice Magazine's thoughtful, often fantastic video site VBS.TV has put a small group of grumpy, cussing, passionate documentarians on a boat and sent them out to film the thing. The results are both more and less dramatic than what most of us probably imagined.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (2)Ever wonder how your coffee bean bags and candy bar wrappers get made? Here's a double whammy review from the East Pack Convention 2008 featuring the MATRIX Packaging machine (an all in one folding-filling-printing-sealing solution for bagged products) and ILAPAK machinery (a Horizontal Flow Packaging system for flat, sealed products).
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Yarisa Kublitz's "Passive Aggressive Vending Machine" is to satisfy the urban dweller with a bit of angst but too much pride to take it out on a public phone box. Insert a coin, select some fine china (poor lucky cat) and watch him smash into pieces as he hits the bottom of the machine. Maybe this is for emo kids without Grand Theft Auto IV.
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Eco-funerals are nothing new: we've seen the coffin industry take off with cardboard, recycled paper and even vintage models, but few are the designs that actually marry form and function. Enter the eco-urn Spirit Tree, a biodegradable cinerary urn that transforms into a living memorial in the form of a tree. Granted, the topic is a bit morbid, but the design is lovely. Fill the biodegradable urn with the remains of a loved one and cover it with the semi-porous shell top. Once planted, the bottom disintegrates, leaving room for a tree to grow through the center. The shell top remains intact until the tree trunk has grown to maturity, thereby breaking through the material and standing alone.
"The Spiritree offers a poetic life-from-death metaphor as a celebration of the loved one's memory, transforming the funeral rite from one of sadness into one of hope, all while promoting environmental restoration and awareness" said its creator, Jose Fernando Vazquez-Perez.
That's right, to top it off, the Spirit Tree is the only funerary product that is not only carbon neutral, but carbon negative - the life of a tree actually offsets the carbon emissions generated by the cremation of a body and then keeps capturing CO2 as it continues to grow. How's that for a lifecycle?!
Posted by: elle* | Comments (1)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Marco Pardo (Madrid, Spain)
Featured Project : LHAuS (Madrid)
Sure, cigarettes are soooo 2007, although we can't help but love this Lucky Strike Smoking Club design. Hot!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Here's one for the marketing books, Mozilla wants to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in a 24 hour period. Using the power of social networking sites to announce the official date for the launch of Firefox 3, they're counting pledges and just passed the 1 mil. mark.
The first two versions of Mac OSX were internally code-named Cheetah (10.0) and Puma (10.1). With version 10.2, Jaguar, the big cat names were part of the branding.
What followed was Panther, Tiger, Leopard, and now...Snow Leopard. Why the obscure "Snow" Leopard? A brief look at the animal kingdom will tell you they're running out of cats.
As Snow Leopard is version 10.6, we can assume the remaining three iterations will be Cougar, Lynx, and Lion, in some Jobsian order. Cougar, in particular, should be a fun one to brand; we're looking forward to that "I'm a Mac" guy being set upon by a thrill-seeking older woman (who might, ironically, be wearing something in a Leopard print).
A Samsung viral wonders if it's possible to create your own piece of peace.
Swedish designer Fredrik Färg's 'Coat' chair references classic details found in tailored suits and menswear. The chair plays with the fabric folding and pinning it to create a simple elegant form.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
ny times magazine
Solving overcrowding through design: "vertical suburbia"
real estate business news
Architecture Firm of the Year KTGY Group wins Housing Gold Award For Best Affordable Senior Apartment Community
neatorama
The internet is making you stupid
nyt bits
the new iPhone's cheaper, but the data plan ain't
media bistro
UK combats terrorism with design
science daily
Biometrics at the gait: we can identify you by your walk
artemas quibble
Designer, "urban archaeologist and mad scientist" A. Jason Ross presents new collection
Are you a hardcore auto design fan looking for some meaty reading material? Check out BMW Design Group's 2,300-word treatise on their design philosophy, "GINA."
The acronym stands for Geometry and Functions in "N" Adaptations, but since we rewatched "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" last night, we think it rhymes with "China."
via the auto channel
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (2)Heading to Ikea to pick out furniture sounds fun, but can be taxing. So imagine having to pick out 26,000 pieces of furniture.
That was the (recently completed) task faced by the city of Toronto:
The city's $1-billion contract with Montreal-based Astral Media Inc., with 26,000 pieces to be installed over the next 20 years, is the "largest private-public partnership in the history of Canada," according to Mayor David Miller, who added that it is also the "largest street furniture contract of its kind in Canada."
So, "street furniture," what does that mean? We're talking bus shelters, benches, bicycle posts, garbage bins, information kiosks, newspaper boxes, and a self-cleaning, wheelchair-accessible public toilet system that rings in at $300,000 a pop.
While some city councilmen are understandably psyched about the facelift, others are cautious:
...the chairman of the industrial design program at the Ontario College of Art and Design said "it remains to be seen how effective the street furniture works when it is built into the urban landscape."
They'd better hope it works well; I've tried returning a couch at Ikea and can't imagine multiplying the process by 26,000.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
Arik Levy's got a thing for cubes. First it was Baccarat, now it's Miami. The Rove Gallery presented Levy's Cubic Meter storage system at Design Miami show in Basel this year. A seven-in-one module, the system can be configured to create endless amounts of storage solutions. An edition of 5 Aluminum Cubes are available to the first lucky billionaires who can afford 'em. For the rest of us, there's also clear oak wood and blackened oak wood (each editions of 12).
Catch 'em while you can.
via dezeen
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)
Senior Footwear Color and Materials Designer (m/f)
PUMA AG
Herzogenaurach, Germany
Some required skills: Three dimensional design/footwear design, product conceptualization, tech pack specification, color/material selection, graphic design/surface treatment creation, application to finished goods, sample creation, manufacturing processes, global market dynamics in footwear...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)Brace yourself for the loss you're about to witness, apparently it wasn't working anymore but still!. Founded in Oregon in 1980, SSI specialize in building mobile shredders for on-site size reduction. Their site features a video archive "Shred of the Month" where you can watch all sorts of stuff get destroyed including bicycles, bowling balls, a piano, tires and even a torpedo.
via dvice
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Javier Crisitiani's compact lounge chair LAMI is for indoor and outdoor use, constructed from as few parts as possible, the chair uses 100% standard metal components with no wasted material. Magnetic leather pads are suggested for longer periods of use but this will surely take away from the appeal of the racing stripe.
via designspotter
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (1)
Designers & engineers are typically slaving to remove impossible bulk and visible fasteners from their designs, products made for abuse fall into a category of their own. With an aesthetic characterized by exaggerated rubber details, industrial sized grips and a beefed up housing that says "what ya lookin' at", style.com has an interesting snapshot of what's on the market today (surprisingly not one oakley product made the cut).
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Cost reductions and brand image benefits accruing from investing in sustainability initiatives and reporting these to consumers are beginning to pay off for consumer product goods manufacturers, according to a new study (pdf) conducted for the Grocery Manufacturers Association by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Read more (Marketing Daily)
Check out also these GMA Environmental Sustainability Summit presentations
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)We've mentioned IDES in these pages once or twice before, but an astute reader has pointed out that in addition to selling content and supplier info, the self-described "Plastics Web" portal also offers a pretty deep collection of expert articles on a wide range of plastics selection and design topics.
The Plastics Design section offers 30-odd articles on subjects from snap-fit design to replacing metal for lower part cost, and a greater array are available as downloadable PDFs at no charge (though it looks like you have to register to enjoy such classics as "Victrex High Performance PEEK Polymers for Food & Beverage Processing") Some of it's pretty dry and esoteric, but the more general ones, like Steve Maki's guide to thermoplastic selection, can be godsends. Great for avoiding dumb mistakes before engineering calls bullshit on your design.
Thanks Michael!
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (1)
This just in from the Times UK: British engineers have built a generator powered by footsteps. Bury the contraption under the floor of a building and it turns tiny pressure changes into usable energy (this guy's good for a couple of watts). They say the crowds in the London Underground's Victoria Station alone could power 6,500 light bulbs.
The idea is that the built environment is a living, breathing, moving thing. We can get energy from waves and wind, why not sidewalks? Here's a taste:
David Webb, a structural engineer at the consultant Scott Wilson, which is in discussions with Network Rail and with retail firms to install the devices, said: "It's just picking up on the fact that all structures move a bit. This technology says, okay, we can do something useful with that energy."In addition to floors, the technology could also be installed beneath railway lines and on road bridges to exploit the energy of passing trains and vehicles.
But I think they're forgetting an untapped energy mother lode: dance floors. I mean, isn't it obvious where the inspiration for a light-generating sidewalk came from?
Posted by: William Bostwick | Comments (4)
Well folks, the curtain's been pulled off the new 3G iPhone. They somehow made the darn thing thinner, with a Macbook-Air-like tapered profile. Front looks the same, back looks slightly different. Recessed headphone jack replaced with a flush one, so bye-bye adapter!
Some material swapping: the once-plastic side buttons are now solid metal, while the previously metal rear housing is now molded plastic.
The kicker for us was the new price: Just $199 for an 8-gig. Crazy considering this thing was going for $599 just a year ago.
Our thanks to Engadget for the every-ten-seconds updates! (Wired, we liked yours too, but EG had the purty pictures.)
And...Apple's just updated their site with the deets. You've got a month and two days 'fore you can get your mitts on one.
Taking out a Gold award for their Maxdoor at IDEA/Brasil, Nódesign are one of the freshest agencies to emerge from Brazil in recent years. Commissioned to reinvent the 'door' for a luxury loft development, the interactive solution combines a number of playful and practical features including, video capabilities, a touch-sensor lock eliminating the need for keys, built-in secure mailbox and the red dots are actually configured to display a life size apartment number.
We've seen some exciting motion graphics come out of Brazil in the last 2 years, and Industrial Designer's should take note of Nódesign's video above to showcase their project. If you can ride out the loading time on their flash-intensive website, it's worth downloading the PDF case-studies which are a great example of graphic rich presentations that tell the back story behind their work.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)It's gross. It's hilarious. It's ingenious. Can't decide what we think of this review of BBQ (The Best of the Best Quality) Chicken's Col-Pop chicken nugget-cum-soda-cup carrier. Sure the engineering is brilliant, but for a company that touts "healthy" fried chicken options, isn't the Col-Pop carrier the anti-thesis of all things good-for-you? My mother would not approve....
Should you be in Copenhagen, stop by the Tom Christoffersen gallery to see Henrik Menne's sculptures. Using low-tech machinery, the pieces literally come to life in the space. A combination of process, balance and organization, Menne's work deals with both rigid systems and chance. We'd love to see videos of these!
via Make
Posted by: elle* | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
apple
Apple online stores are currently down--worldwide (as of 11am EST)
engadget
starting at 10am PST/1pm EST, keep tabs on iPhone release here
derbyshire
Student wins placement at Virgin Atlantic with airport lounge design
business news
Chicago-based HumanCentric adds more human factors specialists
business standard
Package designers take note: FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) spending more on package designs to increase market share
burlington free press
A look at the small firm behind the Everhouse, Katrina-inspired modular house design
money control
Study recognizes N.K.O.T.B. Lenovo as "overall leading PC notebook maker;" product design among top reasons for placement
Looking to score some R&R on your next factory visit to China, you might be able to convince your boss that tacking a few extra day's onto the trip to visit Shanghai is just what you need. 100% Design Shanghai had a soft launch last year and this year's event will roll out under the supervision of creative directors Tobias Wong and Aric Chen, both New York based creatives. The 100% Design event debuted in London in 1995, launched in Tokyo in 2005 and has now expanded to Shanghai serving as a platform to showcase contemporary furniture and interiors.
100% Design Shanghai
June 16-18, 2008
Shanghai Exhibition Centre
1333 West Nanjing Road
At last - breath fresh air while cycling! Designer: Luke Pannell
Visit the third generation of Made in Brunel this week, June 10-12th at the Business Design Centre, Islington (London, United Kingdom):
Design and Engineering should be understandable. Made in Brunel showcases new, creative and innovative thinking. It is a platform for graduating students to share their ideas with the wider world.Made in Brunel is driven, managed and realized by a team of dedicated students. In addition to their heavy academic workload, they have volunteered to plan, execute and deliver this collection of work to a global audience. Their passion, drive and enthusiasm characterize the spirit of Made in Brunel.
This year Brunel will also be joined by groups of international students from other Universities such as Tsinghua University in China, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Delft University in the Netherlands and Rhode Island School of Design from the US.
Click here to read more about the spirit of Made in Brunel.
Find more great design events at the Core77 Calendar.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)This is just frightening: Do four cell phones actually generate enough radiation heat to pop popcorn, or is it a hoax?
via wired
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (3)
Our fave crafter site, Etsy, is running a series called A Dude's Perspective in order to lure more male makers and shoppers. Here's a recent interview with marketing guru, Seth Godin, who shares some thoughts on a dude's perspective, but even more interesting thoughts on the allure of small design and small production.
Here's a tiny bit:
Big used to matter. Big meant economies of scale. (You never hear about "economies of tiny," do you?) People, usually guys, often ex-Marines, wanted to be CEO of a big company. The Fortune 500 is where people went to make. . . a fortune.
And then small happened.
Enron (big) got audited by Andersen (big) and failed (big.) The World Trade Center was a target. TV advertising is collapsing so fast you can hear it. American Airlines (big) is getting creamed by Jet Blue (think small). BoingBoing (four people) has a readership growing a hundred times faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people).
Small means the founder makes a far greater percentage of the customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them, quickly.
Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.
Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.
Small can be beautiful, y'all. Especially when given the option to shop local.
Posted by: Xanthe Matychak | Comments (0)
Yep, Samsung's releasing their Omnia handset "in line with the iPhone release," says a Samsung spokesperson.
There's only a few hours to go until Steve Jobs is expected to announce the next-gen iPhone today in San Francisco. The build-up has inspired a frenzy uncommonly seen for product designs, putting Jonathan Ive in league with J.K. Rowling and Steven Spielberg--you work on something that everyone talks about for months prior, a press frenzy builds, you release it, and people spaz out to get it.
But yeah, back to this Samsung phone. It's got a haptic interface and we hear it's pretty good. And in just a few hours you're going to forget you ever read this.
via korea times
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)It looks like Polaroid took a cue from humanizing-technology masters at Pixar with their commercial for the PoGo inkless portable photo printer, seen at the CES earlier this year. This is a challenging transition for Polaroid as they go digital, and while some people may be prepared to tolerate the sub-par picture quality in the spirit of disposable sticker-photo fun, they might want to pay more attention to product design itself. Part of Polaroid's cult-like appeal has been the camera artifacts themselves, the PoGo device lacks charisma with a generic housing that could easily be mistaken for any number of portable hard drives.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
The Industrial Design Centre (of IIT Bombay) opens their 2008 Design Degree Show today.
The exhibition will [display] the design solutions of graduating students from the streams of Visual Communication, Interaction Design, Animation Design and Product Design.
Features re-thinks of everything from gas canisters to fire extinguishers to children's furniture, from the top design minds at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. To check out the projects, go to this link, click "enter," then "project," then hit the list of names on the left.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)
If you're in NYC, don't forget about tomorrow night's discussion produced by 02NYC with an all-star panel: Wendy Brawer from Green Map System, Tamara Giltsoff from ozolab, David Reinfurt from Dexter Sinister, Damon Rich from the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and moderated by Allan Chochinov from Core77. 7pm at Cooper Union's Great Hall.
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)
Associate Designer - Handbags
BCBG Max Azria Group
Vernon, California
Responsible for daily correspondence with mills, tanneries and factories; sample requests; style and swatch approval updates. Organization of Design Room which includes: Design samples library, sample leather & fashion inventory, sample hardware & trims inventory, organization and maintenance of trim reference binders, design binders etc...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
"Many [concept designers] have been out working for 10 years and they have no personal artwork to show for it," says famed renderer/designer Scott Robertson. "About 90% of the time, studios will never release the rights to the artwork to be shown by the original artists."
Robertson and a group of designers have formed Design Studio Press to showcase that other ten percent, as well as designs produced off the clock, to readers worldwide. With categories like concept design, transportation design, creatures and characters, sci-fi, and others (check 'em all out here), the publishing house has an impressive array of titles. And when Syd Mead writes you a forward, you know you're pretty much the real deal.
The L.A. Times has an interview with Robertson here.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Photo: bhaggs
The web has been buzzing for weeks with rumor sites and mainstream media speculating what the next-gen 3G iPhone will offer. Expected to be announced today, Steve Jobs will grace the stage at Apple's annual Worldwide Developer's Conference in San Francisco at 10:00am PT (1:00pm ET), and as usual engadget will be on the ground with their blow by blow live coverage.
Speculation for the new iPhone includes, running on the 3G network, real GPS, a thinner design, a gloss black plastic housing, a smaller screen, photo geotaging, higher-res camera and a $200 rebate from AT&T.
And according to Wired, it's not all bad news for competitors like Palm and RIM, they have also enjoyed increased sales, much in the same way the iPod advanced the market's adoption of MP3 players in general.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
On this hot hot day in New York, the Times Op-Ed has a sweet meditation from our friend Jessica Helfand--a little taste from her upcoming book, "Scrapbooks: An American History."
As I read, I soon become immersed in her life, putting the pieces together from the multiple fragments she left behind. her scrapbook is packed with telegrams, photographs, love letters, invitations and newspaper clippings, hair ribbons and candy wrappers. A regular fixture on the society pages of the local newspapers, she led a life filled with parties and dances and teas and luncheons, many given in her honor during the summer of 1920. Come autumn, she was to set sail for a year in Switzerland, to attend finishing school.And then something shocking happened: on June 8, during a bridal dinner for her cousin edward, given at the home of elinor’s parents, there was a robbery.
Go get the PDF's here (choose the "all summer months together" one)
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)As part of the publicity juggernaut for Buying In, Rob Walker chats with the SF Chronicle. If you've been reading about the book on the blogosphere, there may not be much new, but this snippet about the author himself was interesting (especially since the Chron ran the publicity shot on the first page of the article while this exchange happened on a later page).
Q: I read that you dislike having your picture taken, and even refused to use it on the book jacket.A: I am guilty of getting a book and looking at the author. Then you have this picture of the author in your head and you're thinking about that when you're reading. I don't want that. I want the reader to not be thinking about what I look like or how old I am. I know that some of these things come up indirectly in the writing. But I feel like in the writing they come up when they are appropriate. I did acquiesce in the sense that there is a publicity photo of me. But I didn't want it on the book just because I feel like what I am doing is communicating in words on a page and I want to keep it that way.
We wonder how many authors/designs/directors/artists/architects/musicians we may recognize by face without being able to name or describe one of their works.
Posted by: Steve Portigal | Comments (0)
When I read articles by Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of the International Herald Tribune and the former director of the Design Museum in London, I am always somewhat irritated with her very strong focus on designed objects rather than on the design process.
In her latest story on what constitutes good design, she (briefly) addresses two topics that are so important in contemporary design: design that "shapes our experience" and the cradle-to-cradle approach ("the way it was designed and made, and will be eventually be disposed of").
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
The Social Design Site is an online platform committed to foster a discourse for social design on a broader level, and to build a community around meaningful projects and dedicated individuals. Social design projects from across the globe are exhibited here to highlight different aspects of our social world, and to sharpen our common understanding of social design in context and practice.
Check the 7 minute presentation video
via CPH127 and Kate Andrews
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
A special architecture edition of The New York Times Magazine is available online. In "The New, New City", architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff explores instant cities like Dubai and Shenzen, that didn't exist 30 as cities thirty years ago, whereas in The Exigent City Jim Lewis discusses the phenomenon of refugee camps having become de facto cities, and cities having become extended refugee camps.
Highly recommended reading.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
With some products, you can tell which country they came from just by looking at them. (A comment on the bed-mounted shotgun rack we posted on read "they state clearly that this product is made in the USA, as if anyone would doubt something like this comes from anywhere else in the universe.") And this Robot teddy bear car navigation system from IXS so, so clearly came from kawaii-culture Japan.
Think Teddy Ruxpin with a GPS hookup: the furry prototype gestures as he speaks, presumably to point out directions. Even better, he smells your breath for booze when you get into the car and offers warnings. And if a talking teddy bear urging you not to drive doesn't tell you you're drunk, we don't know what will.
via pink tentacle
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Sometimes it feels like the whole concept of a World Expo for countries to showcase their culture, technology and exports is a bit antiquated given cheap air travel and internet. It is however a great opportunity for designers and architects to indulge in some highbrow design statements at the taxpayers expense with pavilions that only serve one goal, make the other countries look out-dated and less appealing. Design duo William Brand & Annet van Egmond will be help dress up the VIP lounge in the Dutch Pavilion at Expo 08 in Zaragoza, June 14 - September 14, with their 'Night Watch' chandeliers. The pavilion is designed by Totems Communication and Architecture and will be decorated entirely with Dutch design.
Winners of the 17th Concrete Architecture Awards have been announced, three prizes were given, as well as four citations. Pictured above, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart by architects Ben van Berkel / UNStudio.
Check bustler.net for the overview on 2008's cement masters.
Until we live in the utopian future of wireless 'everything', the good folks over at BlueLounge are here to help with the latest addition to their family of minimal-looking-cord-concealing-space-organizing home accessories, meet the CableBox. True you could easily make your own but like everything, it's price point puts it in the "my drinking time is more important" category.