Last week we showed you the nuttily high-level video quality you can now shoot with DSLR cameras, saving yourself a bundle; even at $2,800, Canon's 5D Mark II is still thousands cheaper than what a Pro HD camcorder would run you.
But you can easily piss those savings away with accessories--a company called Zacuto makes baseplate adapters you can attach your DSLR to, making it compatible with film-industry-standard tripods, steadicam rigs, dollies, shoulder mounts, et cetera.
Speaking of pissing away savings, Nikon has just released their D3X DSLR, which'll run you about eight large, before the government and UPS takes their cut. Gearlog's write-up on the camera is strictly by the numbers, but we love the new term they've used to coin the camera, which so handily encompasses most photography accoutrements: "Fexpensive."
via wired and gearlog
With the early devices that we used to consume media, form basically followed function: Radios had control knobs and a speaker on the front, televisions had screens front and center, and rabbit ear antennas stretched high to capture signals.
Nowadays screens have become little more than flat rectangles, and the need for set-top boxes like Blockbuster's 2Wire MediaPoint player, Netflix's Roku, and the Apple TV beg the question: How can form follow function when the functions are a bunch of transistors, microchips and wires?
The answer, apparently, is...more rectangles. Sigh.
Renzo Piano, Marco Visconti, Jean Nouvel; these are three of the star architects commissioned as part of a ten-year project to redesign the Ferrari automotive works, encompassing everything from the administrative offices to the assembly halls, finishing plants and wind tunnels.
"Ferrari is not a car, it is a dream, and the ingredients must remain innovative," says Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. Read all about where they make the dream in the Times' "The Prestigious Design of Ferrari's Factory."
For a fascinating, if slightly older look inside the factory, check out this link.
Close followers of car design already know about the "catfish g(r)ill" styling trend featured in the three cars above. (For us laypeople, the term refers to the vertically-oriented slits at the front corners of the car, by the headlights.)
The sharp-eyes over at Car Design Fetish know where they've seen the look before and reach wayyyy back, like fifty years, to bring you the source: The 1956 Club de Mer concept car, by Pontiac. And man is this thing sweet!
Call us crazy, but we think Pontiac oughta dust the old blueprints off and start cranking these out at the factory. Oh wait a sec, that's right, they're having some sort of financial difficulties right now. How far the mighty have fallen....
Randall Stross takes a reasoned yet contrarian look at everyone's favorite lust object, the Tesla Roadster. While anti-consumption seems to be the new black this holiday season, Stross fuses his economic logic with a soupcon of social justice.
If investors pass up the opportunity, however, why should taxpayers fork over the capital that Tesla needs? The Roadster is not much more than a functioning concept car that sells for $109,000. The company is requesting $400 million in low-interest federal loans as part of the $25 billion loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year.
The program is intended to encourage automakers to improve fuel efficiency, but should it be used for a purpose like this, as the 2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act? Can you conceive any way that federal dollars could be put at greater risk — and for no equity in return, keep in mind — to benefit fewer people?
...
Last week, I visited the Tesla showroom in Menlo Park, Calif., and took the Roadster out on the highway. As I headed back to the showroom and waited at red lights, ready to hit the accelerator and fly, I realized that I was experiencing a guilty pleasure derived not just from the speed available at my touch but also from temporarily possessing something that shouted to the world its exclusiveness.
British Royal Mail has announced a new set of UK design icon stamps that'll come out just in time for thank-you card season. The stamps honor the wickedest of British design, from Edward Young's iconic Penguin covers to Mary Quant's miniskirt (who knew?) to Sir Alec Issigonis's plain-old Mini.
Designed by British studio HGV (they've done three other series for the Royal Mail, all worth a look), the stamps release on January 13th, timed to the Mini's 50th birthday, and the Concorde's 40th.
They're nice and simple to a fault—not nearly as energetic as the designs they feature. Verdict: our Eames stamps still have the Brits licked.
More stamps (and no puns, promise) after the jump.
(via Creative Review)
continued...
The designers of General Electric's "Colossal Capacity" Frontload Washer & Dryer aim to remove at least two quotidian tasks from your domestic life: Loading your washing machine up with detergent, and inputting dryer settings. A feature they're calling their SmartDispense Pedestal "holds up to 6 months of detergent and dispenses the right amount, at the right time," while their CleanSpeak Communication System "reads" your loads and presets the dryer settings.
The physical design is kind of neat too, even if it does look like a Transformer robot in its dormant state.
As we do our shopping this holiday season, does it not seem a bit silly that we may buy electronics products that will come wrapped in cardboard, plastic and styrofoam, and then the recipient will throw that packaging away, and buy another product to hold the first product in? Not to mention that second product will also come wrapped in its own packaging.
We feel HP is on the right track with this rather brilliant idea--why not sell a laptop packaged in a laptop bag? Cardboard boxes and styrofoam, after all, are designed to protect their contents; so is a laptop bag, and it takes up a heckuva lot less space, meaning more will fit on a shipping pallet.
HP came up with the concept under Walmart's Design Challenge, which "asked electronics manufacturers to produce a product that would reduce environmental impact.... And the result was a winning solution that reduced packaging materials by 97%."
We know it's not practical to sell refrigerators inside of a 'fridge cozy, but for more portable items, if manufacturers can design cases that people actually want, we could be seeing the beginning of a very positive trend.
via c scout
[photo by Katie Sokoler/Gothamist]
Nowadays we've got green office buildings, green homes, and now, green nightclubs. As Gothamist reports,
Greenhouse [is] a new 6,000 square foot, bi-level club that opened last week in Soho in the former Club Shelter space. As the name suggests, they're working the eco-friendly angle here with (deep breath) high-efficiency heating, an LED lighting system, fabrics made from recycled materials, bamboo floor and wall coverings, and furniture made with FSC wood. Owner Jon Bakhshi, who is applying for LEED certification, tells the Times he spent at least 33 percent more on Greenhouse than he would have on a "non-eco friendly" (anti-eco?) club.
For hard partiers, this is a welcome ripple in the wave of eco-thinking slowly rolling across our planet; the last time I saw green at a nightclub, it involved not knowing how much Cuervo is too much Cuervo.
Designers' Open 2008
DESIGN PHILADELPHIA 2008
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ManufRactured EXHIBITION
VITRA DESIGN MUSEUM SUMMER WORKSHOPS
BICYCLE
FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW 2008
CERAMICS AND SOUND EXHIBITION
100 PERCENT DESIGN SHANGHAI
HAMBURG HARLEY DAYS 2008
BERLIN DESIGN FESTIVAL 2008
NEW YORK DESIGN WEEK 2008
MAKER FAIRE 2008
