A few weeks ago swissnex San Francisco hosted an SFMOMA Architecture and Design Forum panel discussion on the topic of Dieter Rams and the effect of Modernism on today's design landscape. Panelists included Yves Behar of Fuse Project, Cathy Baily of Heath Ceramics (previously), Markus Diebel of InCase (interviewed), and myself, Michael DiTullo of frog. The event was moderated by SFMOMA Architecture and Design curator Joseph Becker. We received some fantastic questions from the audience as well as from Joseph, including inquiries on the "tyranny of good design", what the shape of the designer of the future will be, and the impact of smart products on industrial design. I think you will enjoy the video below documented by Fora TV. You can jump to individual clips of specific questions on their site HERE.
Core77 welcomes James M. Harrison, Architect and Sculptor to our bi-weekly creative speaker series: The Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club hosted at the Hand-Eye Supply store in Portland, OR.
Last week John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design and author of The Laws of Simplicity visited the frog San Francisco studio. John presented to a group of RISD alumni and frogs about how the school is responding and influencing the world around it, and updated us on an initiative he is spearheading called "STEM to STEAM". STEM represents a movement to refocus education in the United States on the specific fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM to STEAM seeks to add Art to that formula, something I entirely agree on. The problems that will challenge us in the decades to come will not be the same as yesterday. Creativity is not a silver bullet, but coupling it with our more traditional focus on left brain learning will surely yield new results.
Before the presentation, I sat down with John in our studio library and we talked about what he is passionate about, as well as trading a few RISD stories. There are several RISD alum at frog spread throughout the world including Executive Creative Director Nick de la Mare (MID'95), and Creative Director Jonas Damon (BFA'93 ID). I myself am an alum (BFA'98 ID). Check out the video, which is a bit of a sneak peak into the type of content that will be covered in Designmind's upcoming "Passion" issue, and please, support STEM to STEAM! [Ed Note: For more info about STEM, read Andy Polaine's column from September's Design Education issue.]
While it's the Jobs biography I'm waiting on, a recent announcement has me curious: Discovery and NBC have apparently put together a one-hour documentary called "iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World," hosted by Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.
"Someone once said that to follow the path that others have laid before you is a very reasonable course of action, therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men," Savage said. "Steve Jobs was an unreasonable man. He didn't simply give the public what they wanted, he defined entirely new ways of thinking about our lives in the digital space: productivity, creativity, music, communication, media and art. He has touched, directly and indirectly, all of our lives."
I have no idea how long this documentary has been in the works for or if it has been hastily thrown together, but either way it's airing this coming Sunday, October 16th.
Join us for a presentation by Matt Foster of Foster Knives: "Matt Foster has spent his entire career working in the sporting goods and shooting sports industry. His professional experience with knives and design began at Gerber Legendary Blades. Noticing that there was a market niche not being served by existing makers and designers, he taught himself to design and make his own brand of knives. Experience gained from designing his own knives led him to design and create other products relevant to his career: scope mounts, shotgun stocks, gun cleaning equipment and firearms accessories."
"A Change In Trade: Why the Linear and Prescriptive Innovation Process is No Longer Relevant in a Digital World."
The design world is in a state of flux; the big agency and linear budget-busting approaches to solving problems are breaking down. New brands are born daily and old strategies no longer suffice to support them. This presents an exciting opportunity for the field of design to rethink its trade and either continue to innovate, or break.
David Thorpe, Oved Valadez, and Tom Lakovic of INDUSTRY discuss this shift in "A Change in Trade: How approaching design with an adaptive perspective is necessary in today's design world."
Grove will discuss the numerous benefits of local manufacturing, touching on the difficulties they've encountered in their mission to keep it local. Portland is known for it's strong DIY culture and artisan community, and Grove takes this spirit to the extreme by doing everything themselves. Joe and Ken will talk about how they transformed their idealistic vision into reality.
In case you missed it, SVA is live streaming 20 MFA candidates from the Designer as Author program as they present and defend their theses. It's a unique take on the public dissertation platform and a peek inside some of the bright young design minds of the future. They're at about the mid-way point right now but they'll be going until 8PM EST tonight. Pop by and weigh-in on the discussion!
Tonight, Core77 welcomes Katy Meegan of Em-Space Book Arts Center to our bi-weekly creative speaker series: The Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club hosted at the Hand-Eye Supply store in Portland, OR. Come early and check out our space or check in with us online for the live broadcast!
Zach Lieberman is a Brooklyn-based interactive artist, hacker and researcher. His installations and performance use custom built hardware and open source software to create new playful modes of expression--and always with an element of surprise! Zach's extensive body of work includes the EyeWriter project, a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system originally made for legendary LA graffiti writer Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE who was diagnosed with ALS in 2003. And the hugely successful iQ Font campaign for Toyota, Zach collaborated with typographers Pierre & Damiena and pro racer Stef van Campenhoudt to generate a typeface from tracking the movements of a car.
As a part of our Hand-Eye Supply duties we test out new product. Yesterday we gave this intriguing Japanese Saw a tryout! It incorporates an internal piston system that "puffs" air from a blow hole on to the work piece using the kinetic energy from the worker's hand motion. The "puff" clears away saw dust so that you can clearly see your cut line. It may seem gimmicky but as Japanese saws enable extremely precise cuts this is an indispensable feature!
"The Intellectual Palette; Design in the Kitchen"
Blake Van Roekel is the owner of Keuken and a co-founder of the successful and popular Art+Palate Supper Club. Her menus are inspired by art and design, literature and music resulting in meals that are thematic and unique to the time and place of the event. Her goal is to introduce greater levels of meaning to the food on our plates by not only stimulating our taste buds, but our emotions and intellect as well.
Our first speaker Mark Tieszen has spent 7 years as a professional Telemark skier. Mark's transition from athlete to designer gives him a unique perspective on the relationship between the designer and user in the process of developing athletic equipment. As a professional skier and consultant, Mark worked extensively with Crispi, an Italian company on the forefront of Telemark Ski manufacturing and design. The talk will focus on his experience working on the NTN Telemark boot and binding and the struggles of innovating in a field that is entrenched in heritage and tradition.
The British Design Council has just announced a live webcast on Friday, 26 March about the implications of recessions, networks and on-job-learning for designers.
Are recessions good news in disguise for designers? Has the downturn forced designers to value their networks? Is on-the-job learning better than no learning at all? These are the issues we'll be debating in classic for-and-against style. And there will be no fence-sitting - each debate ends with a vote, for the online audience as well as the one in the room.
Digital design specialist Simon Waterfall is our compere for the morning and the pairs of speakers debating the motions are celebrated product and furniture designer Tom Dixon and creative industries number cruncher Mandy Merron; design business advisor Shan Preddy and retail design specialist Callum Lumsden; and graphics grandees Mike Dempsey and Brian Webb.
Please click here to register for the webcast. The discussion will be from 9:30 to 11:00 AM GMT so for people who live in the US this would mean a rather early start. However, the discussion will be available as an on-demand replay within 48 hours of the event, so you can still watch it then - even though not participate live in it.
Architecture for Humanity, the non-profit architecture and design network of over 40,000 professional architects, engineers, and designers has issued a sweeping long-term reconstruction plan to help the over 2-3 million people without shelter. In just four days they've raised over $45,000 in individual donations and have pledges by a number of companies.
In this month's Installment, Rocko and Michael sketch up a Chair concept with a base molded out of recycled industrial wood waste (like those nifty shipping pallets). Notice how Michael uses a straight edge to harden up those lines once the design is set, but he uses it loosely and keeps it sketchy. The color is applied just as loosely to give the sketch some dimension and convey material breaks, but he doesn't over render it.
Episode 3 of Michael and Rocko's sketch demos. This month, Michael and Rocko tackle the current Core77 1 Hour Design Challenge and sketch up a hydrogen powered Dodge subcompact car... in 6 minutes. This is not sped up kids, this is the real time stuff. Notice how he works the overall form of the vehicle before he starts to visualize what the details are. Form before detail always. Rocko's music pick went a little more obscure, to make the bonus name that tune a bit more challenging. If you missed the first 2 episodes, see them here:
Justina and Luke sent in this drive-by walk-through from Designersblock, the curated exhibition in the heart of Covent Garden. Featuring over 50 international designers showing a wide range range of prototypes, objects, installations and projects, favorites were the Liquid Light piece by Chooi-Leng Tan, fabric/wallpaper projects by Assma Hussain, and YLEM's reflective Brilliant Wings.
Greta Corke, one of the three partners of DIY Kyoto, makes an introduction to Wattson - their latest invention. It is an award-winning product that helps you save money and do some good for the environment at the same time. Impossible you think? Go and see how it works.
Brett Lovelady, founder of ASTRO Studios in San Francisco, has just launched a new, separate company to produce professional gaming products. With ASTRO's 14 years of hardcore video gaming experience (having designed hit products such as Microsoft's Xbox 360, Hewlett-Packard's Blackbird Gaming PC, and the premium line of Alienware Gaming PCs and laptops), ASTRO is deep into the space, and noticed that there wasn't a brand focused on high performance products for pro gamers...and their gaming lifestyle.
In this video for Core77, Brett talks about the new company, ASTRO Gaming, and tours us through their first products--the A40 Audio System--comprised of a design-forward headset & Mixamp. The two products have reset gamers expectations (pardon the pun), and are helping to to take pro gaming to the next level.
DESIGN MIAMI 2011
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2011
DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2011
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2011
