The presentation centers around a 10-week project my graduate students in the SVA Designer as Author program completed around "designing a prosthetic arm," and we were incredibly privileged to have Aimee Mullins, Frank Wilson, John Kunniholm, and Elliot Washor come in as guests. Diana Lui shot portraits of the students at the conclusion, and I have to say that this was an incredible teaching (and learning) experience. Humbling, daunting, and elating at every twist and turn.
One of the students, Jackie Lay, is completing the project website which will include way more info on each of the student's work than I could include in the talk, but catch this video in the meantime for the story on the genesis, design, and development of the whole thing. I'll post a link to the project site as soon as it's up. Thanks again to all the students who made this happen--it was an incredible experience to be a part of.
Be sure to check out all the Compostmodern videos here.
We wanted to make sure you saw this video documenting Sophia Gardiner's development of a low-cost, low-impact, and highly sanitary loo, with the hope of transforming the (on average) two-pounds-per-person-per-day of human waste into a usable commodity.
If you're interested in hearing more from Sophia about poo, you can find her January review of Rose George's The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Wastehere.
Want to get some industrial designers riled up? Get them talking about how detached modern consumers are from the manufacturing process.
At some point in their education or early career, most product designers are faced with the realization that current standards of living depend on massively complicated networks of suppliers, manufacturers and distributors, and that hardly anyone considers their existence when making purchasing decisions. Initially a source of fascination, akin to discovering a secret world in your basement or something, it often turns to frustration. A repeated argument of the sustainable design movement holds that if people only understood how much effort and expertise, and how many resources went into the production of their inexpensive goods, they wouldn't be nearly so cavalier about chucking them in the garbage at the first glimpse of something prettier.
Rather than spilling more ink about this global phenomenon, Royal College of Art student Thomas Thwaites (MA Design Interactions) has turned to a demonstration, in the form of a toaster. He's been building one for the past several months from scratch, in the most thorough, radical sense possible: the project has seen him visiting mines and oil drilling platforms to obtain raw materials, synthesizing plastic for insulation, and learning to smelt iron in a microwave:
The irony of employing a complex device like a microwave to enable a relatively primitive manufacturing operation doesn't appear to be lost on Thwaites, and the project as a whole has a clear appreciation of the absurdity of it all. The commentary and description on his own site, and the coverage it received as a work-in-progress back in February on We Make Money Not Art, both point to a complex set of objectives and motivations. "The practical aspects of the project are rather a lot of fun," he observes. "They also serve as a vehicle through which theoretical issues can be raised and investigated. Commercial extraction and processing of the necessary materials happens on a scale that is difficult to resolve into the domestic toaster."
So, while this toaster is clearly ridiculous, are toasters in general? Thwaites is using a commercially available toaster that retails for four pounds sterling as a model for emulation, and places it atop a pedestal in his display, equating it to a work of art or high technology. Which, after reviewing the arduous process needed to build even a crude facsimile of it from scratch, it may very well be.
The Toaster Project will be on display at the RCA SHOW TWO in London, starting Friday, June 26.
Via Develop 3D. Photo Credits: Daniel Alexander (top and bottom), Nick Ballon (middle).
Honda's Global Small Car Platform, shared by the City, the Fit, the Airwave, and the Mobilo, moved the gas-tank from underneath the rear seats to underneath the front seats, allowing for more leg room in the back and a taller perspective in the front. While researching some of the Global Small Car Platform predecessors to the Fit, Thom Moran came across the ad for the City (see above) and subsequently assembled a small collection of early 80's Honda ads for the Japanese Market and sent them to us.
Aside from their sheer entertainment value (and strangely contemporary feel), we like these ads because they reveal what Western commercial culture from the 80s looked like from the outside, employing things like space jams, Madness (yes, the ska band), hot dogs and vague French-ness to depict their new cars in more "Western" contexts.
How do you test the durability of your new coffee table? Do you bust skateboard tricks off it? Light it on fire? Mount casters on it and go street surfing? And then make a video of it? Well you should. Like these guys.
Courtesy of Denver-based DoubleButter -- same studio that did the guerilla-style Rogue Bench installation in front of the Denver Art Museum a couple years back. Kinda silly, but it's hard to roll your eyes when the goods are so pretty.
Now this is how to finish off a Monday, courtesy of Andy Polaine blog. Here's Andy: "I've just finished up a chapter in my PhD about social play. Most of it is about online interaction, but quite a bit is about how to bring strangers together to make connections in public spaces. Serendipitously, Iain just posted this clip thanks to Knotty's. If you don't get why social networks work, watch this.
Eastman Innovation Lab has launched a series of design-inspired videos on their site, featuring the likes of Yves Behar of Fuse Project, Ravi Swhney of RKS Design, and Josh Nakaya of Art Center. The production values are pretty high on these, and if you're interested in the background, check out Gaylon White in Orbiting the Hairball.
The video with Ravi also features Eric Barnes, Founder & CEO of the KOR ONE water bottle we've gone on about.
We missed it at CES, but got a tip to rush over the the nearby Apple Store today to check out the folks demo-ing the ultra-tiny Optoma Pico PK-101 Pocket Projector for iPhone/iPod projector, a dynamo that connects to your iPhone/iPodTouch and projects an incredibly impressive image on a wall, ceiling, or t-shirt nearby. Boasting enough battery to project for an hour without using an adapter, we're anxious to see what enterprising designers will come up for this thing. Please forgive the movie-making on the video above--there was a session going on in the Apple theater behind us, and a bunch of people waiting to get their paws on the thing. Anyway, you get the idea.
And it's $299--price dropped for, you guessed it, Fathers Day.
Object convergence of a different sort. Nowadays technology is blurring the line between SLR cameras and video cameras, not only in the physical design of the cameras themselves, but the post-processing tech that enables us to do things like create video by piecing together stills.
Last year we showed you a video shot in Tokyo with Canon's 5D; the two videos embedded below are different in that they were rendered out of still frames. The first is more sober and meditative, and the second one is a totally nutty must-see--it was shot tilt-shift style, and viewing it makes us look, well, small as a species.
Continuum has put together an illustrative (and very watchable) video about their outlook and process. While they do begin to discuss what design strategy is and how it is developed, the video's primary focus is to indicate the importance of finding the "right" solution: the one idea that brings diverse insights together and fits into the tight space between meaning and profitability. The video suggests that finding this space requires good research and discussion practices, but also a bit of creative intuition:
The real challenge lay less in the technical problem but often...in trying to solve the human problem. It's about understanding their needs and their aspirations and meeting them in some way. So, we are serving them. But sometimes their needs are to be surprised and delighted, and they can't tell us how to surprise and delight them. That has to come from us, as creative people in our profession.
Also from the NYU's Interactive Technology Program spring show, a remarkable take on the venerable drum machine. Steven Litt has gone extra analog with his CrudBox, which drives hacked doorbell solenoids to bang on pieces of scrap material, creating a more organic sound than what usually emerges from a digital sequencer. The sounds produced can then be processed through all manner of effects pedals, which are also contained in the rather mysterious looking hard case body.
Definitely a different experience from the typical electro-beat sound, and you've got to love the dramatic red lighting.
The end-of-year show at NYU's Interactive Technology Program (ITP) is generally a mixed bag of art, design, and technological innovation, saturated with a sense of geeky wonder reminiscent of the coolest science fair ever. This years' was no exception.
Core77's survey of the 40+ student projects filling the Manhattan gallery was overwhelming, charming, and occasionally thrilling -- a good example being Christian Cerrito's Cobots, collaborative robots that require human interaction to properly function.
During Milan Design Week 2009, Core77 correspondent Brit Leissler sought to create a "Post Futurist Manifesto" through dialogues with some of the leading thinkers in the world of design. Interviewing designers, producers, publishers, gallery owners and sociologists, the dialogues centered around the new values that designers (and the design industry) should address, and the new approaches they ought to take in order to confront the paradigm-shifts that we are currently facing. Here's the point of departure:
100 years ago the futuristic manifesto was announced in Italy--to express the spirit of the era, break with all the conventions of the 19th century and replace them with new values. We all know that the futurism of the 20th century went terribly wrong at one point, and eventually ended in fascism. However, it is important to understand that initially it was all about liberation and freedom--aesthetically, politically and socially.
100 years later, the world is in collapse. The futurism of the 20th century has reached its end, and it is well time to create a post-futurist manifesto that seeks to define the true nature of the 21st century, establishing a new value system to replace the ruins of the old.
Check out all the dialogues below, including interviews with conceptual artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, designer Marti Guixe, publisher Sven Ehmann, and many more.
On some level Dell is still playing catch-up with Cupertino--their Adamo is milled from a single piece of aluminum, hmm--but the company has also made significant structural changes in the service of design.
As vice-president of Dell's global consumer industrial design organization, Ed Boyd is leading Dell's new approach to design on the consumer side. Boyd came to Dell from senior design positions with Nike and Sony, and has been working to build a worldwide design organization that now includes 120 people from every industry, including furniture, architecture and industrial designers.
Below is a video of Boyd discussing the company's latest products. It lacks the polish of, say, a Jonathan Ive soundbite, but it's a start:
Erik Griffioen is a young Dutch designer who will be presenting his works in Milan for the first time. He will have five works on display at Designersblock, and a few more at the Troom:
A couple of years ago Erik Griffioen changed his way of working and broke with his own rules. He started designing more intuitively and more from his imagination but without losing his visual signature. This opened a new creative door and resulted in a great number of new designs of which the Low Rider (based on a chopper) and the Spider are the most illustrative examples. Designing these metal chairs have also made him realize how important material and craftsmanship is for a design. This is why in his work, quality and durability are equally important as comfort and the creation of exciting design.
Stereo lithography, fused deposition modeling, rapid tooling, what does it all mean? Check out this "quick and dirty look at the four processes commonly used by industrial designers to create prototype concepts," put together by Karl Frankowski:
Atelierdorp founded by Otje Bastiaanse, Hilbert Tjalkens, Djim Berger, Rocco Verdult and Vera Teunen. LINK
"Atelierdorp is located in an abandoned church in the city of Eindhoven. Founded 3 years ago by Otje Bastiaanse, Hilbert Tjalkens, Djim Berger, Rocco Verdult and Vera Teunen with the aim to offer space for designers to grow. Over the years the church has developed into more then just simply a space for designers, it has evolved into a design family where people get a chance to explore their true creative potential.
Currently designers in the church are working new works for Droog Design, Rossana Orlandi, Art Basel, ICFF and the Salone di Mobile in Milan amongst others."
People like Bas van Raay, Nacho Carbonell, Julien Carretero, Ontwerpduo, Djim Berger, Joni Neelen, Veronique Lorne, Vera Teunen, Hilbert Tjalkens are proud to call it their working home."
While we'd first heard about the Pacemaker "pocket-sized DJ system" back in January of '08, it's only now that manufacturer Tonium has released "The Ultimate Music Machine," their first video promo. We love the device but would like to see less filler in the video, which feels like a combination between an old iPod commercial, a Devo video and Mummenschanz:
NEW YORK DESIGN WEEK 2009
MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2009
PICTOPIA FESTIVAL 2009
HOME AND HOUSEWARES SHOW 2009
TRANSVERSALE 2009
NEW YORK CITY TOY FAIR 2009
IMM COLOGNE INTERNATIONAL FURNISHING SHOW
NORTH AMERICAN INT'L AUTO SHOW '09
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2008
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2008
BICYCLE
100 PERCENT DESIGN SHANGHAI
