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The Mehrzeller (multi-cell) caravan concept from Graz, Austria takes faceted design to whole new level. An online application generates the design based on a customers specifications resulting in no two caravans exactly the same—just incase driving this polygon camper on the autobahn doesn't express your individuality enough.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (4)
The latest 1 Hour Design Challenge ends tomorrow night, and it only takes an hour to enter and win! So fire up those tablet, get out those Prismacolors, and get in this. Guest judges are Bopanna Ulliyada, Chris Chung, and Ryan Henbest from Timbuk2, and 1st prize winner will receive a Custom Timbuk2 bag, with custom fabrics and trim!
>>See ALL the entries so far and add yours here.<<
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Protect The Human is a new open community site created by Amnesty International UK. Amnesty International is a movement of people from around the world standing up for humanity and human rights.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
Crain's has been doing their 40 under 40 since the early 90s, but our vote for most interesting stories of young entrepeneurs goes to MIT Technology Review's slightly younger and smaller TR35--a selection of 35 technologists, scientists and inventors doing some genuinely game-changing work. Obvious highlights include Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame and JB Straubel who made the Tesla Roadster a reality, but some of the lesser-knowns have perhaps even more remarkable things to offer: Michelle Chang, for example, a researcher at Berkeley, is coaxing microbes to synthesize fuel and pharmaceuticals, while Harvard's Robert Wood shows off some utterly convincing robotic flies; the smallest yet devised.
Detailed PDFs of each subject are available, and unusually detailed for this sort of feature, including profiles, images, technical briefs and video.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
This two-day international design policy conference, which will take place in Turin, Italy on 6 and 7 November, will provide a global platform for the high-level exchange of ideas, insights and best practice from the many different countries developing, launching and maintaining effective design policies. An international line-up of speakers and panel members drawn from governments, industry and design will address strategic and tactical issues on design policy in developing and developed economies. Keynote speakers include Peter Dröll, Head of the Business Unit in Innovation Policy for the European Commission; David Kester, the Chief Executive of the UK Design Council; and Yrjö Sotamaa, President and Professor, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland.
The design policy conference coincides with the 'International Design Casa' - a series of international exhibitions and events at various venues across the city of Turin (opening on 5 November), and an extravaganza of contemporary arts, highlighted by the international Artissima arts fair (opening on 7 November) and the Daniel Birnbaum curated exhibition 50 Moons of Saturn. Make sure to stay until 8 November for the Contemporary Arts Night.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Since the first use of tools to achieve goals, design has been born as a response to problems and needs. Sadly, since we now live in a thoroughly designed world, many of our problems are themselves secondary consequences of prior acts of design. Collecting striking photographs with interviews and original essays, Actar's latest book/magazine hybrid, Verb: Crisis, edited by Mario Ballesteros, Albert Ferre, Irene Hwang, Michael Kubo, Tomoko Sakamoto, Anna Tetas and Ramon Prat, addresses architectural and design responses to the problems of our modern age.
Nowhere is the collision between man-solution and self-induced problem clearer than in the book's opening aerial time lapse photographs of Dubai. In only a few years, a fully completed city seems to have risen from the desert, grown only from oil, money and hope. Yet behind all of the investment, buildings like the Burj Dubai stand as a monuments to disequilibrium. As is done in each chapter, descriptive prose and photographs are followed by philosophical inquiry. Boris Brorman Jensen observes that Dubai's very existence attempts to answer the question of whether a city can be created from scratch, and its success or failure will be born out over time. While Dubai works as a microcosm illustrating the ability of human beings to manage their environments, later chapters explore cases of varying scale: from single building housing projects to massive plots like the Fresh Kills landfill.
Posted by: Robert Blinn | Comments (0)
Droog Design have given their website a much welcome overhaul, it's hard to remember the last version but it was a little too designed with individual hyperlinks on every word in a sentence--very annoying. This one is a huge improvement and does a much better job presenting their impressive collection of work and designers.
Check out photo's from their exhibition A touch of Green in Milan earlier this year here.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
With the rising costs of fuel, airlines are taking extreme measures to lose weight. Many companies in the States are persuading passengers to travel light by charging a fee for additional checked luggage. Air Canada's regional carrier Jazz is taking it one step further and removing life vests to lighten the load.
Safety cards now ask passengers to use their cushion as a flotation device in the event of an emergency. While their rationale makes sense, we'd rather see design improvements like Marc Newson's thinner seats for Qantas and maintain our illusion of safety for a little longer.
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The entries are coming fast a furious now for the latest 1 Hour Design Challenge: Back-to-school Bag.
Picking a few recent highlights, from top-to-bottom are LT21's Hard Shell SquatPak, elliotts21's Le Mondrian, and Bbarn's Campus Media Bag. We also dig Savage's ModPac, nourmalaeb's Velcrometre (LOVE the name!), and idfarmer's totally awesome Nomadstic!
There are 3 days left to enter your design--we intentionally scheduled this to give you the whole long weekend if you're in these parts--and it only takes an hour to enter and win. So fire up those tablet, get out those Prismacolors, and get in this. Guest judges are Bopanna Ulliyada, Chris Chung, and Ryan Henbest from Timbuk2, and 1st prize winner will receive a Custom Timbuk2 bag, with custom fabrics and trim!
>>See ALL the entries so far and add yours here.<<
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Admit it--when you hear the words "copyright violation," the first place you think of is China; you probably don't think of, say, Home Depot.
Well, check out the two lamps up top. Recognize 'em? Can you even tell 'em apart? Here's the deal, from an NYC tipster:
Right now the Home Depot on 23rd Street [in Manhattan] is selling an almost exact copy of the Starck-designed Miss K Lamp by Flos. Only [Home Depot's version] is missing the half-chrome plating on the inside of the shade, which is the whole concept of the original design, and the plastic quality is substandard. Also the chrome "collar" is el cheapo and has no engraved branding on it as with the Flos lamp. The price? Only $21.97! About 1/10 the price of the Flos lamp. From three feet away, they are all but identical.The [Home Depot] lamp is actually produced by Hampton Bay, who should really know better than to pirate intellectual property. It is one thing for companies to knock off vintage design classics, but for a supposedly legitimate company to out-and-out copy a design currently in production by a living designer like Starck is really over the top. For shame!
thanks Bradley!
I have to say I don't love this guy's font, but it's a cool way of thinking about hand lettering. And further proof that architects really just wish they were graphic designers... (BURN!)
For more handwriting tips, check out Matthew Frederick's 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. Crushing on the chick with a pocket full of Microns and an Eames chair tattoo? Write her a love note she'll appreciate. Frederick's tip: write in highlighter, then outline the letters in black pen. So classy.
Posted by: William Bostwick | Comments (8)
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
salon
Ask the pilot: Who cares what planes look like?
wired
Gadget Designers Push the Limits of Size, Safety
brooklyn eagle
Pratt Design Student Recruited To Steer GM Into a Green Future
medical news today
Medical Design: Burnt Kids' Pain Lessened By Distracting Device
scoop independent news
Eco-coffin designer awarded again
spiked
The rise and rise of 'anti-design'
washington post
'iPhone Girl' Finds Fame And Fear On The Production Line
PureAustrianDesign have relaunched their website just in time for Vienna Design Week. Anyone familiar with the PAD exhibition platform that regularly tours the international design circuit will know these guy's are instrumental in fostering home grown Austrian talent, other countries looking to promote their own design culture should start taking notes.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Scribemedia's got a nice video with Simone Giostra, who's company Simone Giostra + Partners (along with Arup, natch) designed the 20,000-square-foot LED wall powered by solar energy. The GreenPix Zero Energy media wall covers the facade of the Xicui entertainment center--not far from the Bird's Nest--absorbing solar energy during the day and using it to power the display at night. And if you thought the olympic's opening ceremony was all about "people as pixels," this video takes on the question "what happens when you don't have that many pixels" to begin with? Well, you stand further away, of course.
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)A bit late on this, but make sure you don't miss Steve Portigal's 4th column at Interactions Magazine, discussing the challenges of delivering design research insights to clients, and the need to take time so that they're wise, appropriate, and meaningful. Tough to pick just one sample from the article, but here's a nice bit on the notorious focus group:
Last summer I sat in on a focus-group-like session. We were at the end of a long table of people whom we had met in various observations and interviews throughout the previous week. One of the clients who had commissioned the work was sitting at our end of the table and operating the video camera--no small task, with about 12 people engaged in conversation. At one point she turned to me and asked: "We don't need to get this stuff right now, do we? Nothing's happening, so I can stop recording?" Surprised, I encouraged her to keep the video rolling. Editing in-camera may have worked for Hitchcock, but it's absolutely not the way to go for any sort of user-research process. It's not that each moment in such a session is dripping with raw data that will strongly inform any recommendations, but rather that you don't necessarily know the value of what's happening in the moment that it's happening.
Request the PDF of Hold Your Horses here.
The excellent Portigal Consulting blog here.
This isn't strictly design-related, but it's interesting nonetheless.
I've got a buddy who writes for the newswires, where it's all about getting breaking news out first. So when they get a whiff that something might happen--say you hear a rumor that a certain CEO has contracted a fatal illness--they'll often pre-write the news of it and put it on ice. When the event comes to pass, they plug in the numbers and post it.
Well, apparently Steve Jobs' obituary (17 pages long, for chrissakes) was written by the staff over at Bloomberg, and Wednesday someone accidentally hit the "Publish" button. The mistake was swiftly retracted, but not before Gawker cut-and-pasted and reposted the whole thing.
For the record Jobs, thank God, is absolutely fine.
One of the most controversial events on the international creative awards calendar, the results of the 5th Annual Chip Shop Awards were recently announced at the Edinburgh International Festival.
The term 'Chip Shop Advertising' is UK slang that describes work that is more about winning plaudits for its creators, than business for clients. Attracting the sort of creations normally banned by conventional award schemes, the Chip Shop Awards aims to celebrate raw creativity that has not had a chance to shine in the past in the same way outlandish fashion not suitable for the High Street is celebrated on the catwalk.
More after the jump.
Innovative User Interface Designer
Nokia Research Center
Palo Alto, California
The newly formed Innovate Design Experience Animate (IDEA) team at the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto is seeking talented designers to define and carry out research, design, and development focused on
innovative user interfaces for mobile devices, and services to accompany them.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)One of the most encouraging trends in African development work over the past few years has been an increased focus locally maintainable technologies. In contrast to some of the debacles of the 70s and 80s, in which NGOs and foreign aid groups would swoop in, build a road, hospital or dam, then swoop back out again, dooming the project to disrepair within a few years, projects that are constructed and maintained by local craftsmen are gaining a lot of attention.
A recent example, via the always amazing Afrigadget blog, is the Elephant Pump, a fantastically effective, fantastically low-tech method of getting water out of the ground, and alleviating the significant burden of long-distance water fetching that inhibits development in much of the world. The pump, based on a long-established Chinese design, is constructed from locally fabricated parts, then built on site in less than a day. The video here shows one example, in Malawi, that costs less than US$500 to build, and goes together in four hours.
It's not the only locally appropriate pump system out there either. In the past decade or so, several such designs have started making their way across the continent, including the Afripump and the partially IDEO-designed MoneyMaker. Proof that good design can be more than just pretty. It can be beautiful.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
We've blogged this "competition" before, but we just got tipped that Architecture For Humanity and Lulan Artisans' project, End Human Trafficking: Sustainable Livelihoods, is only 150 votes from the next round! (Amex will fund 5 winning projects to the tune of $2.5 million--1st prize gets 1.5M, then 500K, then 300K, then 2 at 100K.)
Here's some info on the impact the project will have:
We currently support over 650 weavers, spinners, dyers and finishers using a holistic approach to produce eco-fabrics in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and India. Our goal is to increase the number of artisans to over 6,000, thus expanding our reach to more weaving families and communities. We will work with international and local architects to build inventive, replicable off-the-grid weaving centers. Each building design will be shared through Creative Commons licensing so more communities can benefit.
>>Nominate this project and get them through to the next round
View the top 50 projects here.
Lots of NYTimes today, but this is too short and too sweet to miss. (Though it's an insane infraction to blow the punchline in a headline. My bad.)
Posted by: Allan Chochinov | Comments (0)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Joshua Longo ( Brooklyn, NY )
Featured Project : Shelburne Museum Exhibition
Joshua Longo made his debut at BKLYN Designs last year, and he now has a show in the Kalkin house at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont: Longoland: It May Be Contagious May 18 - October 26, 2008.
Longoland: It May Be Contagious is the second installment of Shelburne Museum's Emerging Designer Series. This season Brooklyn plush artist Joshua Longo lets his imagination run wild in Adam Kalkin's shipping container house on the museum grounds.Longo transforms the interior gallery space into an imaginative environment - Longoland - inhabited by quirky plush animals and furniture inspired by Longo's playful and off kilter take on the ordinary.
Way to go Joshua! More picks after the jump.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
The Draganflyer X6 UAV RC Helicopter is a surveillance nut's dream come true. The compact 'copter flies steady with its three rotors, enabling the on-board camera to record smooth video of whatever it's surveilling.
While the device is cool, it isn't new; two years ago the brainiacs at MIT came up with the Swarm Health Management Program, whereby craploads of these UAV's are networked into surveillance teams that can track moving objects and hand tasks off to each other, rather like a zone defense in basketball.
The MIT footage features an older quadrotor design and their apparent sentience is well-creepy; it's not embeddable but you can watch it here.
via makezine
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
design taxi
Museum of Fine Arts Houston Celebrates 10 Years of the Design Council
businessweek
Antenna Design: Bridging Art and Commerce
leds magazine
90% of OLED thickness is glass? Not anymore: Vitex and Novaled to cooperate on OLED thin-film encapsulation
marketwatch
Upcoming Mechatronics 2.0 Expo in Detroit
scoop independent news
Integrating sustainability into business decisions
manila bulletin
Philippines can't compete with Chinese mass production, so looks to design and handicrafts instead
hpc wire
Product testing: software simulations vs. physical testing
A Times article details how ID superstar Marc Newson, who also serves as creative director for Australian airline Qantas, has designed the cabins for Qantas' A380. And while the spacious A380s are rightly called superjumbos, the devil lies in the details:
...the design language of the Qantas A380 is defined less by what the passengers see than by how they feel. Given that flat beds, cashmere blankets and other airline "innovations" are instantly copied by the competition, Mr. Newson has tried to distinguish Qantas's superjumbo with intelligent detailing derived from the old-fashioned design process of analyzing every component to identify how it could best be made and laid out with the latest technology.Giving economy passengers an extra inch of leg room is a prime example. The seats in first class are 6.5 inches wider, and those in business class 20 inches longer than the ones in Qantas's 747s. But the airline was stingier with extra space in economy and premium economy. The only way to compensate was by making the seat backs slimmer. Mr. Newson's team did so by developing a lightweight carbon-fiber shell with Recaro, the German manufacturer, which used similar technology in seating for race cars.
Unlike other "flying palace" designs typical of the A380s, Newson's design is more stylistic/futuristic than pure luxe. Read the article here, and see how Newson's done everything from considering the shape of the plates to quieting the cries of babies.
Creative Senior Manager : Design For All & Sustainability
Target Corporation
Minneapolis, Minnesota
If you have knack for spotting a brilliant idea in its infancy, and a genius for nurturing the idea to its fullest potential, here's your opportunity. This position plays a key role in defining and communicating Target's key differentiators: Smart design and designer partnerships, enhanced by a commitment to sustainability and an understanding of our guests' need for value. Your keen eye for crisp, intelligent advertising will oversee campaigns that inspire consumers through broadcast, print and new media; your responsibilities will include being a visionary for the Target brand.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)Weekly finds from the 3D world
Rhino
RhinoCAM 2.0 now available in Beta
RhinoScript.org - a site for the free sharing of scripts for Rhino users
Gallery of Rhino models used in film and set design (check out the Gotham City dump truck from The Dark Knight)
Autodesk
Autodesk introduces Flexible Software Delivery
Inventor
Do not taunt the Navigation Bar
Pro/Engineer
A short Intent Manager tutorial
Using 3D Annotation: PDF tutorial
SolidWorks
Simulation Tabs in SW 2009
General 3D CAD
Berkeley team develops interactive tool for exploding 3D views
The Register reports that an astute Finn is offering a bastardized version of Google's search engine that ignores sites served up by Google itself.
"Inspired by a recent New York Times piece that questioned whether the Mountain View search monopoly is morphing into a media company - which it is - Finnish blogger Timo Paloheimo promptly unveiled Google minus Google. Key in the word "YouTube," and the first result is Wikipedia."
According to The Register, Google minus Google is built with the Google Custom Search Engine and "conveniently filters out domains such as YouTube, Blogger, Gmail, Knol, Orkut, and - most importantly - Jaiku. In other words, it removes Google's conflict of interest."
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
When choosing a vehicle, women want design options that offer flexibility, allow them to connect to the outside world and offer more storage space.
These are some of the key findings from a study conducted by Johnson Controls in the United States and Europe, in response to the recent women-focused trends and market indicators highlighting the increasing buying power of women.
The company will utilize the data to inspire and drive industrial design and new product development that meets the evolving needs of women.
photo: Johnson Controls
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
It kind of looks like something from Quake: The Shooter fire extinguisher concept fires CO2 bullets rather than foam, meaning you get to terminate the blaze with extreme prejudice. Only thing this baby's missing is a bandolier for the bullets. Designed by Eunjung Kim, Yangwoo Kim & Junyi Heo.
via yanko design by way of dvice
A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
designweek u.k.
U.K. Department of Health: Design Bugs Out
irish times
Renault takes a step backwards, introducing a new SUV
manila bulletin
The Philippines: Interior design students 'hit' the runway
india p.r. wire
India: City based Ticket design's Ticket to success
dvice
Next hands-free input device: your tongue
c scout japan
Tiny island + urban tourists = experiments in cashless society
marketwatch
The Female Perspective on Cars: Study Investigating 'What Women Want' in Vehicle Interior Design
The Third Line, one of the UAE's most avant-garde art galleries, is bringing a multi-disciplinary exhibition titled Roads Were Open/Roads Were Closed starting September 6 to October 2, 2008, that explores conflict in the Middle East beyond the stereotyped propaganda and prejudice through artworks and a series of movies that will play at the gallery as well as Cine Star cinemas at Mall of the Emirates.
Roads Were Open / Roads Were Closed is an interdisciplinary exhibition which maps varying approaches and practices around the experience, perception and memory of conflict-related trauma. Works by Fouad Elkoury, Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige, Tarek Al Ghoussein and Laila Shawa (whose " Weapons of Mass Destruction" is featured above), will be featured along with a panel discussion with the artists, and a series of films shown over the duration of the exhibition
more after the jump
From Wright student Paolo Soleri's "arcology" (architecture + ecology) cities to Japan's Mega-City Pyramid, from floating city concepts to Dubai's proposed Ziggurat, have a look at some big thinking on alternate ways for metropolii and nature to co-exist.
via drb
Apparently, now is a very bad time to visit the Bay Area:
via current
Retrothing's got a post up lamenting the death of the Automat, that low-hassle, tip-free dining experience of the past. But the Automat is still around, albeit in pockets: the Netherlands has got their FEBO chain, and NYC is home to Bamn on St. Mark's.
Hit the jump for large pictures, and remember a time when your food wasn't brought to you by a frustrated, Shakespeare-trained actor who despises you.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (4)
Two from Reuben Miller:
You've all seen that wooden LED clock; now check out the Maple cell phone designed Hyun Jin Yoon and Eun Hak Lee. It took Silver at this year's IDEA awards and we're dying for it to go into production.
Those of you that watched Monday's video of Japan's Good Design Expo might have been wondering about the Segway-esque machine people are seen zipping around on. It's the Winglet, Toyota's answer to (or rip-off of?) Dean Kamen. Video:
Anyone who's ever taken a color theory class at an art school knows that you can create harmonies and tensions simply by juxtaposing specific hues. And all the nominees' stylists employed this to full effect...
more after the jump
Posted by: toolgirl | Comments (1)
Industrial Design Manager for Consumer Major Appliances
General Electric : Consumer & Industrial Appliances
Louisville, Kentucky
Generate new product features and appearance concepts that maintain product leadership position with specific focus on areas of visual brand character, perceived quality, usability, and relevant value-added features... Represent the end-user from development phase through production... Drive innovative productivity improvements to increase competitiveness...
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Imagine if you took today's best graphic designers and set them to work producing not advertisements or marketing brochures, but propaganda to promote American values. Starting in the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression, that's precisely what happened when the federal government tapped the nation's unemployed commercial artists for the Works Progress Administration poster division. Working out of nearly 20 regional workshops, they designed posters to promote safety, good health, community involvement, and other social values.
Utne Reader has a slideshow of some of these posters and many rare ones reproduced in a new book by Ennis Carter- Posters for the People (Quirk Books, 2008). Here's a snippet on Carter herself,
Carter, 42, was working as a young organizer for the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group in the late 1980s when she found herself, out of necessity, making her own posters for events and rallies. It was the age of Kinko's, and Carter mastered the art of photocopy-style guerrilla poster-making. Along the way, she became captivated by the power of graphic design to communicate social messages and gradually shifted the focus of her work in that direction. In 1996 she founded Design for Social Impact, a low-cost graphic design agency for public interest organizations.
text and photocredit: UtneReader
image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Brooklyn-based product design outfit MAKE have a sideline project called CAKE which serves as an outlet to realize their self-initiated products. The latest addition to their collection is the octopi cup made from stoneware re-interpreting the classic mint julep cup.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (2)
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Peter Castellucci ( Cranston, RI )
Featured Project : Garbage Lamp
When you're done drinking, light up!
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Wired catches up with extreme x-ray photographer Nick Veasey who works with industrial x-ray machines typically used in art restoration, electronics and the military.
Working with high doses of radiation isn't always easy. To minimize a patient's radiation exposure, medical x-ray techs grab their blurry stills in a fraction of a second; Veasey needs to bombard his subjects with ionizing radiation for as long as 12 minutes to get crisp shots. So to capture human forms, Veasey works with either skeletons in rubber suits (normally used to train radiologists) or cadavers that have been donated to science. When a corpse becomes available, he has at most eight hours to pose and shoot before rigor mortis sets in.
Veasey's book simply titled X-ray is due in October and he's currently building a $200,000 studio with 35-inch-thick, lead-lined concrete walls which will let him see through almost anything.
Posted by: squee.gee | Comments (0)
Having a quick-release strap on your messenger bag could be good if you're a frequent brawler; and for the less violently-inclined, it's just plain ol' neat. Flickr user L. Marie, through comprehensive photo instructions, shows you how to mod yours here.
A 30" LCD; we all want one, but will it change your work habits? Kevin Kelly thinks so:
The first thing I noticed was that the number of times I printed out hard copies of documents went down. Before, I would print copies of diagrams, specifications, and other reference material so that I could easily refer to them while working. Now I have space on the screen to have these visible. I wouldn't say I've made it all the way to the "paperless office," but it's gotten a lot closer.Within a few days of using a large screen I began to experience a much more significant effect, though: when more of the things I needed to look at were already in view, the amount of time spent on visual context switches went down. Having more documents in view not only reduces the time consumed by the switch, but also the "recovery time" needed to remember what I was doing. A related time savings is that when a document I may need to switch to is visible, it takes less time to realize that I need it.
The display fills a lot more of my visual field - so much, in fact, that it took me a week or so to get used to how far away the left and right edges of the screen were. In the end, I found that this made it a little easier to concentrate (since my attention was less often directed toward wherever I'd been keeping the notes that wouldn't fit on the screen).
I found that once I got used to the idea that most things could be expanded to a size that required no window scrolling, I began to "think big" about a lot of things: my spreadsheets got bigger, my diagrams got bigger - and more unexpectedly: the size of the kind of thing I thought I could handle got bigger; and because I was much less often having to chop things into smaller pieces so that they could fit, things got simpler.
Less paper consumption, easier to concentrate, bigger thinking? What's not to like? Prices are dropping, too....
Other than with graphics and modeling programs, is rare that a piece of software gets designed specifically with the needs of designers in mind, but UK-based ProofHQ looks to be bucking this trend a bit. The first online collaborative tool we know of made specifically for creative professionals, ProofHQ is essentially an elegant replacement for the endless stream of emails, YouSendIts and FTP transfers most of us use to review and approve design documents.
Much of the functionality of the application is pretty familiar: anyone who's used Basecamp, Campfire, or even Google Apps will recognize the project-oriented sign-in system, and mark-up tools are reminiscent of Acrobat.
What sets it apart, though, are the details: multi-page files can be uploaded and reviewed; navigation and version tracking is clean and intuitive; file support includes several different image types, including native Photoshop); and specific views are maintained when switching through versions and pages, allowing easy comparison with minimum fuss. They've also gone out of their way to make it as flexible as possible, allowing ProofHQ documents to be embedded in websites, blogs and Basecamp sessions, and providing a Flickr-like drag-and-drop uploading client.
According to CEO Mat Wilkinson, support of additional file types is next on the agenda, including some 3D formats (eDrawings and Acrobat 3D, maybe?), saving us some huge headaches down the line.
Demo movies here.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
As someone who's lived in no-shoes-allowed-in-the-house Asian environments, I love the idea of the bottom of your shoes being a cleaning element rather than a filth-attracting dirt magnet; at the same time I realize these $8.95 Slipper Genie Microfiber Cleaning Slippers are completely dorky. But I feel it's a step in the right direction, no pun intended.
via as seen on tv
You can put this on the shelf right beside your new state-side Muji CD player. Australian designer John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen (now based in San Francisco) offers up The Hidden Radio, a quiet little concept with some poetic ergonomics:
The product attempts to be silent both visually and functionally by having the cap in the downward position. By lifting up the cap the user proportionally increases the volume. The further the cap goes up the louder the sound gets. To tune the radio you simply rotate the cap and receive feedback of tuning quality via the LED on the front.
Learn more at hiddenradio.johnvdn.com.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
spring fair
Design festival and mag tap 15 grad designers
jec composites
DIY Car
reliable plant
Manufacturing: Mistake-proofing product design
nyt tech
Turning Point for Touch Screens
marketwatch
New Website to Assist Die Casting Product Designers
the auto channel
AvtoVAZ at the Moscow International Automobile Salon
inside retailing
Finding The Trends Before They Affect You
It's hard to breathe new life into something as old and ubiquitous as Coke, which is not to say people aren't trying. Five years ago Coca-Cola's design chief David Butler was given the mandate "We need to do more with design. Go figure it out," and since then he's been discovering the difference between great ideas that will never make it and doable ideas that humbly solve existing problems. Read the full tale here.
via businessweek
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (0)
Sara Huston's work nicely subverts our expectations about the behavior of objects--here, furniture--but still provides the function we look for in the end. Above is the Lifestyle Coffee Table (which she will customize to your favorite magazines), and below, the Expectation 5 cupboard, which, I suppose, is really a shelf...or a drawer. Well, you get the idea.
Here's Sara in her own words:
I allow for signifiers of use, such as a door, shelf, or a drawer, with these elements becoming just enough information for the viewer/user to relate to. Through this denial I start to uncover ways furniture communicates and challenges viewers/users to question their expectations of something they are familiar with. The viewer/user then can begin to locate meaning because of this familiarity and start to make sense of the piece. It is important to me that my works challenge how people see art and design and the differences or similarities they have, they can begin looking at both in a new way.
See more of her work in her Coroflot portfolio or at sara-huston.com.
Scientists are now building a new kind of robot capable of self-assembly and doing tasks too difficult or too dangerous for human beings.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
Gabe White of Small Surfaces blog points us to this slideshow of concept mobile phones emerging from an unusual partnership between Yamaha and KDDI.
Posted by: Niti Bhan | Comments (0)
Product Designer Bags
Crumpler
Zurich, Switzerland
You will be expected to start off your Crumpler experience by an intensive 6 month work training in Vietnam, during which you will integrate into our Ho Chi Minh City team. Your job will be to develop and design new products for Crumpler's various lines. Mainly bags, but maybe also some apparel, shoes
and other special projects.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0)
Since opening the doors at their new location last year, Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft has been falling over itself trying to become the design museum so many of the residents of this quietly design-obsessed town desperately want. Case in point, the upcoming ManufRactured show, opening this coming Thursday the 28th.
Curated by former ID Magazine editor Steven Skov Holt, among others, the show gathers together 16 artists and designers who've been doing curious things with repurposed materials over the past few years. Some recent high-profile projects will be on display, including Cat Chow's zipper dress, Dominic Wilcox's War Bowl, and at least one of Jason Rogenes' fantastic styrofoam packing insert lanterns (example shown above); admission is free.
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0)
Stuart Langfield recently completed these bumpers for MTV, perfect distraction if you're looking to avoid working for another minute.
Credits:
Design & Direction - Stuart Langfield
Animation - Jennifer Mackie & Stuart Langfield
Sound Design - Andrew Langfield
via notcot
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The exhibition 'From Now To Eternity' Plastic in design, aims to both celebrate and debate the ubiquitous use of plastic in design. 10 contemporary designers and design collectives were commissioned to rethink issues surrounding our growing mountains of discarded plastic.
Featuring: Committee, FAT, Hiroko Shiratori, Raw Edges, Rolf Sachs, Stuart Haygarth, Tom Price, Tomoko Azumi, Troika, WOKMedia.
From Now To Eternity
Sept. 19 - Oct. 19, 2008
Biscuit Building
10 Redchurch Street
London
Open
Wed-Fri: 2-6pm
Sat-Sun: 12-6pm
Photo: Lighting installation by Stuart Haygarth, LDF 2005
Wallace & Gromit have had a make-over and picked up a bit of modeling work to promote the soon-to-open Harvey Nichols store in Bristol. We're sure this will be a popular choice as no-one celebrates quintessential Britishness better than local claymation artist Nick Park from Aardman Animations.
Wallace wears an Alexander McQueen navy cashmere and silk suit, Dolce & Gabbana fitted white shirt and a Giorgio Armani tie. Gromit sports a navy silk Paul Smith scarf. Did Wallace lose weight for the shoot?
via style.com
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Can't wait for these to go into production, as I'm really sick of messing around iCables... The Holedar Earphones by Yoonsang Kim is a concept design that should garner lots of attention not just in terms of innovation, minimalism and function but also for the drop dead killer looks.
The unique shape serves several purposes. It fits snugly in your ear, easily loops together around your neck when not in use, and prevents bacterial growth which is 700 times more concentrated in regular ear buds. More after the jump!
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'Design thinking' is becoming very popular indeed. Now MAYA Design, the acclaimed human-centred design consultancy, is in the process of preparing the launch of a new company specifically devoted to the emerging need for design thinking in organizations.
The initiative is led by Chris Pacione, who was previously in charge of interaction design and customer marketing at BodyMedia, Inc., a company which he cofounded.
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (1)
Breaking the stereotype of organic clothing as crunchy, casual wear, the cutting-edge Danish fashion label Noir has just announced its plans to make its international debut with a stand-alone store in Dubai.
Noir not only purchases goods that support sustainable businesses in developing nations such as Uganda (about 70 percent of the line was made from certifiable materials), but they are also developing a collection of organic cottons to launch it's forth-coming sister company, Illumanati II later this year.
More after the jump.
It's only been a few days but already we're seeing some hot design action happening in this month's 1 Hour Design Challenge: Design a Back-to-School Bag.
Above designs (from top to bottom) are DesignUgly's sweet and clean rendering, personpeoples4444's super-economical Belt Bag, bak2_ID's design to with a detachable lunchbag, pinkygrl02's LaptopToGo, and jknodell's "School is hell" Student Field Pack.
We also love b.lutjens' convertable MitosisPack, mikeserafin's locker-savvy burlap number, and ineo's magnetic fasterners aimed at avoiding the dreaded Velcro "BRRIIIPPP" right in the middle of class!
There's a full week left to enter your design, and it only takes an hour (hell, that's all your allowed!) So get out those markers and enter to win! Guest judges are Bopanna Ulliyada, Chris Chung, and Ryan Henbest from Timbuk2, and 1st prize winner will receive a Custom Timbuk2 bag, with custom fabrics and trim!
>>See ALL the entries so far and add yours here.<<
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An idea that started way back in 1994 and sadly never went anywhere is designer Alexandre Verdier's Westfalia Verdier Solar Power vehicle. Like VW's fabled Magic Bus, Verdier hoped to build a culture around a recreational vehicle that would attract the countercultured. Features of the VSP:
- Rooftop sun-tracking solar panels- Pneumatic suspension for better stabilization in a stationary position.
- Sliding half-door on the passenger side with integrated folding staircase
- Passenger seat that mechanically transforms into stairs to provide access to second-stage area
- Swivel cooking range enables both indoor and outdoor cooking
- In the second stage area, a dividing wall with a sliding door and multiple windows
- Multimedia computer
The design won Germany's Caravaning Design Award in 2006...and promptly dropped off the face of the Earth. Their poorly-done media kit, filled with grammar errors, typos, and bad layout, serves as a reminder that these days, having a good concept without the business acumen behind it just isn't enough.
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (1)A bite-sized list of what's happenin' now:
dexigner
Portfolio 08: Industrial Design in Mar del Plata
financial times
A look at industrial design partnerships Fredrikson Stallard, Pearson Lloyd and Barber Osgerby
news blaze
Samsung Launches Innovative "Imagination Icon Series" Cultural Initiative
marketwatch
I.D. Magazine Selects Davison's Wrist Therapy Brace for Award in Annual Design Review Competition
marketwatch
VSA arts Hosts 2008 Educational Conference on Universal Design for Learning
psfk
PSFK Talks to ID-inspired Sci-Fi Sculptor Leeroy New
You need to watch the video to fully appreciate the true weirdness of Nervous Squirrel's second-gen Furby Gurdy. Feeling inspired? checkout the complete project documentation here.
via engadget
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Kate Rutter (Adaptive Path) recently started the blog StickyNote Ninja which is entirely dedicated to this handy and simple tool.
via DdUX
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken | Comments (0)
The latest addition to UK duo Mixko's playful line of products is a series of ceramic vases taking the form of an elbow & knee. They're currently exhibiting in Cornwall and next week in Moscow. The vases will be available at their online store shortly.
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As rumors of the supposedly forthcoming HTC Dream Android--an alleged iPhone killer--continue to circulate, Ziff-Davis' Jason Perlow (of the Tech Broiler) expounds on what his ideal handheld device would be.
My true "Dream" device would be a lot closer to the "Global Link" handheld in the late Sci-Fi series "Earth: Final Conflict", for those of you dorks that remember it.
Click here to read his entire (lonnnng) laundry list of desired features, or tell us: What would your ideal handheld do? Or have you got something close already?
Video coverage is now available of Japan's recent Good Design Expo 2008, sponsored by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization.
Good Design Expo...enables a wide range of visitors to get to know design, through programs that give a real sense of designers' presence in a variety of fields. The programs feature all kinds of products from businesses and designers in Japan and overseas, architectural designs from throughout Japan, designs used in advertising and communications, and futuristic design suggestions.
And yes, coverage is in English, with subtitled designer interviews.
via p.r. inside