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OCTOBER 29, 1999
Powers of Two
If you watch TV these days, you realize that married couples like to argue, throw crockery and file restraining orders. Nice to know that at some point, there was a married couple who actually worked together, brilliantly, and made their mark on American industrial design. From the 1940s to the 1970s, Charles and Ray Eames* worked on furniture, buildings, films, photographs, and toys, much of which you can now see exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt.
Cool and on display: Hundreds of reference slides that the Eameses snapped as they traveled the world. An amazing amount of aesthetic info. And if you're nosy, they've got a bureau full of Charles' actual desk drawers as they were when he was alive; you can slide 'em open and check out the contents. Though sheets of plexiglass will prevent you from boosting his staples.
"The Work Of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy Of Invention" Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Tel: (212) 849-8400
Website: http://www.si.edu/ndm
October 12 through January 9
*For those of you who thought they were brothers instead of a married couple: Charles is the he, Ray is the she. Shame on you.
Whatever happened to "Starving Artist?"
The InterCommunication Center, a new-media art museum and laboratory in Tokyo, is awarding 10 electronic/digital artists up to 10 million yen each. That's about 94,000 clams on this side o' the pond, which is a lot if you're a regular joe like me and missed out on that whole internet-stock-option thing.
The deal is this: The ICC's biannual art exhibition, which opened last week, features interactive works by ten artists who apply from every which country. If you've made the cut, a jury panel gets together and decides how much money to throw at you, up to the aforementioned $94,000 cap. Jeez Louise!
I'd describe the selected artists and their projects to you, but you can check 'em out yourself by clicking right here: http://red.ntticc.or.jp/menu_e.html
I'll cut this short now, so I can get cracking on my own "interactive work" for next year's show.
You Own At Least One of His Inventions (Unless You're Amish)
He had a shockingly large impact on consumer products. Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony and product visionary, passed away in early October.
Morita & co. invented the 3.5" floppy disk, the CD, the home video system, the first consumer camcorder, and the first digital VCR. The Sony Playstation revolutionized the videogame industry. Sony's Trinitron TV won a friggin' ++++Emmy++++, for chrissakes, the first product design to do so. Back in 1957, Morita and partner Masaru Ibuka (the tech-wiz who brought Morita's visions to life) changed the radio from a big, clunky wooden box into something that fit in your pocket. More recently, the Sony Walkman became so ubiquitous that the word "walkman" has been added to major dictionaries. How's ++++that++++ for spreadin' it around. (And let's hope Bill Gates doesn't get "microsoft" in there.)
Believe it or not, the 1999 Harris Survey states that Sony is rated the No. 1 brand name by American consumers. Not General Electric. Not Coca-Cola. ("G.E.: We bring good things to life...after Sony does." "Have a Coke and a smile, 'cause 3rd place ain't so bad.")
Morita was the only non-American listed on Time Magazine's Top Businessmen of the 20th Century (a list that includes Thomas Watson, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Walt Disney. Now ++++that++++ would be one hell of a dinner party). A global thinker before global was en vogue, Morita moved his family to New York in 1963 to better understand American culture. He reportedly came up with the idea for the Walkman after seeing young people lugging boom boxes around in the '70s. "Young people cannot live without music," he concluded. (Good thing he wasn't hanging around 42nd Street, or we might have the Sony Assman.)
Throughout his career, Morita was a visionary who could cook up products before anyone realized there was a need. "Our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kinds of products they want," he summarized. And if that sounds dictatorial, consider his own philosophy of open-mindedness: "If you go through life convinced that your way is always best, all the new ideas in the world will pass you by."
Akio Morita was born in Nagoya, Japan on Jan. 26, 1921 and retired as Sony's chairman in 1994. He died on Oct. 3, 1999.
DaVinci on da Net
Way before Raymond Loewy was puttin' the pretty on sewing machines, Leonardo da Vinci (a/k/a "The Vinch") was scratching out 3-D designs with charcoal and parchment. The original industrial designer and Renaissance man, The Vinch was an architect, sculptor, painter, engineer, and scientist, as well as a musician. (Eddie Murphy, Don Johnson, I guess everybody wants a recording contract at some point.) And, in what is perhaps the highest flattery a man can be paid, he had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle named after him.
Now you can check out some of his inventions--and actually activate them, albeit virtually. Italy's National Museum of Science and Technology has produced the Virtual Leonardo Project, a website where you can use mouseclicks to put digital renderings of his contraptions through their paces.
In addition to the computer models, you can also see shots and HTML descriptions of his other works, including:
- an armoured car (amazing, considering bank robbers wouldn't be invented for another 350 years)
- the aerial screw flying machine (whose innovative 1-person design precluded Air Rage)
- a parachute (what're the odds this thing was tested by a willing subject?) - a self-propelled car (though the Town of Bedrock may have licensed this technology first)
- Leonardo's Ideal City (which kind of looks like the Lower East Side. Okay, maybe not)
The Vinch came up with stuff so radical and ahead of his time, it's a miracle he wasn't taken for a witch and burned at the stake. His flying machines in particular are very cool. And even though strapping yourself into one of these things would have resulted in your death, you gotta give the guy credit for trying. After all it wasn't for another 400 years or so that anybody would get it wright.
A hip feature: Downloading the Museum's "Webtalk" software enables you to "see," in real-time, other visitors logged on to the site. You are represented on screen by avatars, and can chat in real-time. Though I should warn you that making wise-ass comments like mine, or referring to The Master as "The Vinch," will win you no friends in cyberspace.
Check it out at:
http://www.museoscienza.org/english/Default.htm
Sit On It
Bill Stumpf, creator of the Aeron chair. This man has done more for your ass than any other furniture designer out there! Now you can help your own ass by taking his Master Class at the Cooper-Hewitt. Saturday, October 30, from 9am - 5pm.
Cost:
$100 for Museum and IDSA Members.
$125 for Nonmembers, convicted felons and people named "Samuel."
Call 212.849.8380 for info.
(Warning: Mentioning my name will get you banned from the class. So will going up to Mr. Stumpf and saying "I really appreciate what you've done for my ass.")
OCTOBER 18
Just Do It (Someplace Else)
If you wanna buy Nike threads, we hope you don't live in Barcelona; the sneaker giant has just been banned from selling its clothing in Spain. The reason? A Spanish clothing company, Cidesport, trademarked the name "Nike" for their own company back in 1932.(I'm sure the Goddess of Victory is thrilled about having sparked international court battles.)
But, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled, Nike can still sell their sneakers, just not their clothes. So those guys in Pamplona can still run for their lives in the latest pair of Jordans.
Sony's Latest Walkman...
...goes for 430 clams and can download music off the 'net.
Catch 1: You need a machine with Windows 98. (Sigh. We Mac users can see our future--we're clutching Blueberry iMacs and screaming as live lions chase us around an arena.)
Catch 2: The Walkman makes sure you pay for the music. That is, it will only download music that jives with Sony-sanctioned encryption systems (which you've gotta pay for), so forget about all those free music sites. It's the hi-tech version of Restrooms Are For Customers Only.
Interestingly enough, the Walkman downloads music onto a removable chip called, get this, a "Magic Gate Memory Stick." Sounds like something you eat at a Rave. These guys must name product by throwing darts at Magnetic Poetry.
Bigger Ain't Better
As Godzilla proved a few summers ago, Size Doesn't Matter. The recent car consumer attitude of Big=Safe, and the spate of SUVs that came with it, are apparently flawed. Recent crash test comparisons of the Chevrolet Impala (GM's glorified-taxi-style sedan) and the Dodge Durango (the kind of monstrous sport ute you buy if you have a recording contract with Puff Daddy) show surprising figures: in head-on barrier collisions, the Durango rewards you with three times the likelihood of head injury. The chest injury figures aren't so pretty either. Apparently the "rugged" design of SUVs incorporate stiff body frames, which absorb less energy in a crash, instead transferring the task to your (hopefully insured) head and torso.
As Richard Morgan of the Government's New Car Assessment Program recently commented to the New York Times, the larger sport ute "let[s] tremendous forces go into the dummy." Unclear if he's referring to the crash-test mannequins or the consumer.
Mad Macs
Seems like they just came out with the friggin' things, but here come new, improved iMacs, in three different versions. Apple can provide you with all the gritty details; just click here. But here's what you need to know right away:
- The new iMac: It's faster, has more memory, better sound, better graphics. It's quieter and the housing is smaller. Hell, I think it even makes hot chocolate. This one only comes in blue, dunno why. Price? $999, which seems devilishly cheap, or just devilish if you're upside down.
- The new iMac DV: It's a little faster than the basic iMac, has more memory, comes with a DVD drive, and is rigged up so you can connect digital cameras, color TVs and the like. Comes in all 5 colors. The dent in your wallet will be in the shape of $1,299. Also comes with video editing software and the notion that you, too can make hip, ironic independent films.
- The new iMac DV Special Edition: Same as the iMac DV, but with more memory, and it comes in translucent grey, hence the Special Edition moniker. Call me crazy, but I think changing the color is about as "special" as those annoyingly small Fun Size candy bars are "fun." The Special Edition will set you back a Special $1,499.
The new iMacs offer new options, too-for example, an extra 400 clams'll let you rig it up to communicate wirelessly with other Macs from 150 feet away. (Great for hacking your neighbor across the courtyard.) The next generation ougtha come with a trash compactor in the back so you can throw your old Mac right in there.
OCTOBER 8
> Trade Dress Question Before Supreme Court
On October fourth the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that would clarify when a product design is distinctive enough to have legal protection. The case involves an accusation that Wal-Mart had a line of clothes made under its own label in imitation of an existing line from a company called the Samara Brothers. A jury had found for the Samara company, and awarded $1.2 million in copyright and trade dress infringement damages. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the finding. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case based on Wal-Mart's argument that this application of the law would reduce competition in the garment industry, and that the Samsara clothes had "lacked a common theme." (New York Times)
> Akio Morita, Product Development Champion, Died October 3rd
Akio Morita was the founder of the Sony corporation, and he was 78 when he died on Sunday. He said: "Our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want. The public does not know what is possible, but we do." He fought for the unheard-of concept of a portable private cassette tape player, amid disbelief that the walkman would ever catch on. A little story, with significance, in his long and complex trajectory.
> STUDENT FACTORS 2000 :
Wanted : Students looking to bring together students and professional designers in an event that speaks about design from a student perspective.
When : Organizers are needed immediately for the 2000 Conference to get underway.
What : Student Factors is a 2 to 3 day event put on by a group of volunteer students in a major Canadian or Northern USA city. Previous events have been in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Past events have hosted workshops, ran design challenges and of course thrown a few memorable parties as well!
This event is ALOT of work so consider asking your school not only for sponsorship money but if you could earn a credit by running the event.
As a volunteer you can be the Big Cheese or perhaps help out with creative, fundraising, booking spaces and formulating the programming for the event.
Who : If you want to host the next conference please email Kirsten Dykstra at kirsten_dykstra@hotmail.com or Sarah Dobbin at sdobbin@cyberus.ca.
Note : Please be advised while they will love to start you off Sarah and Kirsten are NOT running the event.
MAKE YOUR MARK ON THE YEAR 2000 - email us now!!"
> National Medal of Arts to Designer
The 1999 National Medal of Arts winners are selected by the President from lists of nominees presented by the National Endowment for the Arts. They are chosen to honor people who have made "outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States." This year's winners were recently announced, and they included Michael Graves, who now straddles the boundary between architecture and design.
> "100 Best Products of the Century"
Americans who can read will have noticed the brouhaha over a recent list of the 100 best novels. We may expect a similar tempest in the teapot of this profession when B.M. Pederson's "100 Best Products of the Century" is publishe d this month by Watson-Guptill.
> A Product Concept for Each Letter of the Alphabet
Tony Indindoli sent us word from Australia about a project done by Innodesign with The Alloy of the UK at "Sydney Design '99" in which they created 26 new product concepts, one for each letter of the alphabet. They cover various product categories and can be seen in part at www.innodesign.com
OCTOBER 1
> Client Weirdness Watch
Procter and Gamble, in its role as a big advertising client, is restructuring its relationship with consultants by pinning fees onto the financial success of the product. The company, which has 300 brands around the world will start next July to base ad commissions not on the cost of ad placement, but on whether the product succeeds or fails.
The holder of one of these accounts, Roy Bostock, chairman and Chief Executive at MacManus Group, which owns an agency with P&G, has been quoted saying "We're all trying to drive top-line sales growth, and the agencies are going to charge after this in a big, big way." Which, of course, he could be expected to say. From one angle, Procter and Gamble's approach seems like a depressingly fatalistic tack to take; one would only put this liability onto the advertisers if one believed that there was, indeed, no particular merit associated with one's product it would neither succeed nor fail based on its actual qualities, but only on its marketing.
On the other hand, and this is why the subject is taken up in Core77 news, what is to stop clients from extending their liability (i.e., tying compensation) to the design consultants who develop products? The only reason it might work with soap is that the market may be so "mature," as they say, that the roles of the chemists and everyone else in the product development chain have no real impact on the quality of the product. But one might make similar arguments in design. And then where would one be? An article described this new contract as "holistic marketing" but it sounds more like: "stick it to the consultant."
> J. Abbott Miller New Partner at Pentagram
Abbott Miller, a graphic designer, theorist, writer, editor, designer and art director, has become a new partner at Pentagram. Miller is the founder and editor of "2wice" magazine, which is a (gorgeous) regular study of one subject. Recent issues have covered "Feet," and "Nature" with fine photography and writing. He and his wife, Ellen Lupton, have published essays and hosted seminars inquiring into design's most intellectual issues. They have recently been co-chairs of a design department in Baltimore, and have shared the Principal role at the New York firm Design/Writing/Research.
> Software for Life-Cycle Analysis
For anyone who has not heard of it yet, there is SimaPro LCA software for assessing the environmental impact of a product through its life cycle. Since its introduction in 1990, it has become the most widely used life cycle assessment software in the world. The software will pinpoint where the main environmental priority areas are and help to look for possible improvements. Check them out at: http://simapro.rmit.edu.au/ or e-mail the SimaPro team: simapro@rmit.edu.au
> SensAble Winner
A while ago we mentioned a competition that SensAble Technologies would sponsor at Siggraph '99 in LA. The idea was to show off their new modeling program and to give the best modeller on their un-released "intuitive" software, FreeForm, an unbelievable computer system. Well, the showing off happened and the winner was Paul Giacoppo of Industrial Light and Magic's computer graphics department who rendered a dinosaur, of all things. He won a $20,000 system with FreeForm, the new modeling system, and an IBM IntelliStation Z-pro.
> New York Design Open House
Firms that register by October 1 will be listed on a poster inviting 30,000 people to visit their studios on New York's open house day, November 10th. To sign up or get more information contact: Steve Russak, Chair, IDSA/NY at Smart Design, steve@smartnyc.com 212-807-8150
> Stock Photo Consolidation
More Stock Photo Consolidation as Getty Buys Kodak's Image Bank A few years ago the stock photo world was roiled by the news that Bill Gates' new digital firm had bought the venerable Bettman Archives. Now Getty Images Inc. has bought Kodak's stock photo agency, Image Bank, and will roll their holdings into its own collection of 30 million photographs. Image Bank has photos from the collections of UPI, Reuters, the Chicago Historical Collection, and the George Eastman House collection. Getty and Corbis are both located in Seattle.
> The Other Annual
The Yearbook of Industrial Design Excellence The IDSA's Innovation quarterly has just come out in its "Annual" version. It is a great showing of the 1999 IDEA winners, with groovy product photos, articles and a generally snappy format. Get one from the IDSA at: 1142 Walker Rd., Great Falls, VA 22066, or fax: 703 759 7679.
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