Core77

Listen-up!
It's time to design some kick-ass speakers!

Brief:
We bet you have a set of computer speakers on your desk that resemble some form of a gray blob that cost you about $10 USD. Kurt Solland, VP of Design for, Harman Consumer Group has been doing everything he can to make that bet a long shot. For this challenge, Core77 invited Kurt to join the 1HDC as a guest moderator. (Did ya' hear that?!) So we ask you to crank up the tunes and crank out your best spin on a computer speaker design with whatever means you can scratch together in an hour.

Doors open:
Thursday, May 22, 2008
10 AM PST (5 GMT)

Doors close:
Thursday, May 29, 2008
9 AM PST (4 GMT)

Criteria:
Judging will be based on quality of presentation and whether or not your work could have realistically been done in 1 Hour (this is an honor system).

Prize:
Publicity in Core77 May Newsletter, publicity on Core77 Blog and bragging rights that Kurt Solland chose your design (neener neener neener!), plus a secret prize hand-picked by the speaker-guru himself!

Jury:
Winner will be selected by the Kurt Solland and Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.

>>>Click here to enter your submission<<<

read more about Kurt after the jump...

BIO:

Kurt Solland was surrounded by innovation all his life. He grew up with Norwegian Viking craftsmanship and the creativity of music.

For generations, the Solland family has been superior craftsman in machining and boat building. Kurt's father Merle brought boat building to extremes. Starting in 1955 and ending in 1995 he was among the few innovators to start racing Hydroplanes. Merle started building hydroplanes out of wood, capturing numerous water speed records. In fact the craftsmanship is so beautiful, they look like a beautiful piece of furniture. Like a modern day Viking, flirting with danger (in his case going 150 miles per hour on water) would give him a "rush" and make him feel more alive than humanly possible.

On Kurt's mother's side was the influence of Eddie Lund, known as one of the greatest names in Tahitian music. Eddie Lund went to Polynesia on vacation and ended up settling there two years later. He visited the local tribes and outlying islands to learn their music as well as their language. He wrote a substantial portion of Tahiti's music and started Tahiti records. Among his 400 arrangements, some have been featured in: Mutiny on the Bounty, South Pacific and Mister Rogers and Tanga Tika. Recently, French Polynesia is offering an "Eddie Lund" postage stamp to celebrate Tahitian music. Hearing these records inspired Kurt to play jazz starting in the fifth grade through college.

Growing up in this environment, Kurt Solland became skilled in machining, hydro dynamics and the arts at a young age. At 11 years old he designed components for hydroplanes and began inventing products. Now with over 80 patents and dozens of international awards to his name, Kurt has established himself as being a true innovator both in design and functionality. His philosophy is to create simple timeless design. In this high-tech world having so many choices and complexities, simple designs speak of a time when things were carefree and easy.

Kurt has the ability to solve difficult, complex problems in an elegant simple way. In the 90's he partnered up a friend to form MachineTech bicycle division. During that time, the trend in the mountain biking was to ride on "USA" products only. Because of Kurt's experience in machining, he knew that they could be clever and machine sleek, strong and easy to use bicycle components and differentiate them in the market place. Publications quickly featured MachineTech's products and coined them as the company that created "Art on Wheels". In addition, hard-core riders preferred these products for their superior performance and quality.

After the MachineTech days, he evolved as an independent inventor designing and licensing several fitness products. Respected fitness manufacturers are still using his patented mechanisms today.

On the music side, his love of music has been expressed by designing audio equipment for over 15 years. Today, Harman Consumer Group, a division of Harman International, hired Kurt to be their Vice President of Industrial Design. His role of setting the world design vision for multimedia has been confirmed and complimented with numerous awards.