Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos 561 Clock by Marc Newson

No stranger to designing for time, Marc Newson recently collaborated with luxury watch manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre to produce the Atmos 561 mechanical clock. Atmos clocks will stay accurate for years powered by incremental temperature changes inside a bubble block of Baccarat crystal.

Their power source is a hermetically sealed capsule containing a mixture of gas and liquid ethyl chloride, which expands into a chamber as the temperature rises, compressing a spiral spring; with a fall in temperature the gas condenses and the spring slackens. This motion constantly winds the mainspring. A variation in temperature of only one degree in the range between 15 and 30 degrees Celsius is sufficient for two days of operation.

article: coolhunting

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Brazil: the natural knowledge-economy

The landscape for innovation in Brazil is changing fast. Research budgets are rising. Brazilian scientists and innovators are at the forefront of developments from biofuels to genomics and software. And Brazil is now the fifteenth largest producer of scientific publications, up eight places in under a decade.

A new report by the UK think tank Demos argues that Brazil is a 'natural knowledge-economy' where the intertwining of knowledge, skills and innovation with environmental and other natural assets holds the key to competitive advantage.

Very relevant for the design community is the chapter on culture, which discusses aspects of Brazilian culture that are pertinent to science and innovation: values, democracy, diversity and creativity.

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Sony makes e-book Reader compatible with other booksellers

In an effort to compete with Amazon's Kindle, Sony is opening up their Reader to be compatible with all publishers of e-books who use the EPUB standard. Currently Amazon offers over 140,000 titles while Sony is struggling with about 45,000.

"This upgrade opens the door to a whole host of paid and free content from third-party e-book stores, Web sites and even public libraries," said Steve Haber, senior vice president of consumer product marketing for Sony Electronics.

This is a positive step towards helping the e-book industry evolve in general. Read the full article here.

via engadget

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100,000 Portfolios at Coroflot.com - Our Portfolio & Design Job Site Flips to Six Digits!

We are proud to declare:
COROFLOT HIT 100,000 PORTFOLIOS !

That's right, some lucky designer posted their work at coroflot.com and rolled the odometer to 100,000!

For those of you who might not know: Coroflot is Core77's portfolio hosting / design job board / creative social networking site. It started out here way back in '97 and got its own digs a few years thereafter. It's been growing ever since and is now the largest site of its kind, serving up millions of page views of designers' work and 100's of design jobs each month.

Go check it out today, we have some cool additions in the works so sign up before the rush!

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Landrover Sculpture by Gerry Judah

Concept Designer Gerry Judah attached a bevy of Land Rovers to a colossal steel framework at the Goodwood estate for their Festival of Speed in England last weekend. The 34-metre high sculpture, which weighed 120 tonnes and consisted of nearly 3500 parts connected by 4900 bolts, was commissioned by Land Rover (surprise surprise) and was fabricated by Littlehampton Welding, which also made Thomas Heatherwick's East Beach Cafe.

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In the creative world, the only constant is change

Design is all about change, writes Alice Rawsthorn in her weekly International Herald Tribune piece.

"[Design] can help us to understand the changes in the world around us, and turn them to our advantage by translating them into things that make our lives more efficient or enjoyable, sometimes both.

If you rewind through design history, the most thrilling periods are the ones of the greatest change, when designers interpreted shifts in science, technology, behavior and politics for the rest of us. Take the explosion of innovation during the 1920s "machine age" and the 1960s "space age."

The pace of change is faster than ever today. Advances in technology are accelerating. The environmental crisis is deepening. The social and political systems that underpinned our lives in the last century are breaking down. (Ever watched "The Wire"?) All of these changes present designers with doughty challenges and exciting opportunities."

So how are designers responding?

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Geek out, get a p8t.ch for your website

Does anyone remember skim.com, the Swiss fashion label who raised a load of venture capital back in the dot com boom with their high-concept clothing that discreetly displayed a unique number fellow tech savvy insiders could email.

Fast forward almost a decade and you have the Commando Nerd patch, a mobile phone-readable physical hyperlink similar to the Semipedia project. Install the QRcode reader for the iPhone, take a snap of the barcode and you'll automatically be sent to whatever blog, link or YouTube movie the p8t.ch has been configured for.

>> see more

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New Milan Showroom for Fritz Hansen

Italian architect Stefano Tagliacarne, responsible for those Artek installations you might have seen in Milan & New York has completed the first Milan showroom for Danish furniture company Fritz Hansen.

A major challenge to Stefano Tagliacarne was to overcome the spatial irregularity of the showroom, composed by three levels of different size and shape. Tagliacarne links these three levels by the means of a big red column and a wood clad wall, both developing from the bottom of the basement to the top of the first floor.

The concept for the space highlights the brand's collection while emphasizing the classics of Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjaerholm and expressing the values of Danish culture in an Italian context.

Fritz Hansen
Corso Garibaldi 77
Milan

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Knoll Sued Over Mies van der Rohe Furniture Designs

Knoll who've held the rights to numerous mid-century furniture classics maybe in trouble. They originally sued Alphaville's customers for selling the 1920's Mies van der Rohe "Barcelona" designs, the case was dismissed and now Alphaville's president David Lee is striking back.

"...Our case will clarify the law and show that Knoll cannot keep others from using these 1920's designs that have been made by a myriad of manufacturers for over 40 years. We seek a full cancellation of Knoll's trademark registrations with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office."

view article

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Cyber Clean Slime

Vincent in Gattaca would have loved a secret stash of Cyber Clean slime. Detox your keyboard by simply rolling a dollop of the Swiss goop over the surface to collect fingernails, hair, food particles and everything else that made it in there. Now brace yourself:

Did you know that the average computer keyboard is proven to accumulate more germs than a public toilet?

eeek!

via boing boing

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Compact Stairwell Home

Next time your friends complain about lack of space in their apartment, point them to this ultra-compact stairwell dwelling completed by H2O Architects in France, June 2007. Built for the families teenager, the 12 sqm. house has four split-levels and is an exercise in extreme storage solutions.

While you probably spend more time on the steps then actually in a room, the house offers a place to sleep, work, live and wash--meals are taken inside with mum's cooking. Perfect.

via frame

>> see more

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Irwin's tape measure: no pencil necessary

Tool manufacturer Irwin has come up with a nifty tape measure: The Strait-Line. We're not sure why they lost the "gh" in "Strait," but we're glad they lost the pencil; the Strait-Line has its own integrated marking tip, so you can leave a cut line with the other hand free, and you no longer have to leave that #2 tucked behind your ear.

via toolmonger

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CityRacks Design Competition Finalists Announced

The finalists for the CityRacks Competition have been announced, entrants were asked to design better bike racks for New York City with the incentive that the winning design will be implemented as the cities standard for bicycle parking.

Pictured above is Andrew Lang and Harry Dobbs solution which allows for multiple locking opportunities, click through for more entries.

>> see more

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Penta Pendant Lamp

Italian designer Luca Casarotto's Penta pendant lamp was developed during a Foscarini Lab workshop. The lights intensity can be adjusted depending on your mood with sliding flat shades made from a recycled polyethylene.

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Treepac Shipping Box Wins IDSA's Ecodesign Award

Treepac is a reusable shipping container intended to replace cardboard boxes. Its structure is made entirely of sustainable wood-based polymer cellulose acetate and is used like cardboard packaging but is designed to enable and encourage people and companies to improve their environmental footprint.

Why replace cardboard? Design Researcher Dave Siedzik notes: "We were disheartened that recycling cardboard is a completely inefficient process." Essential's researchers, designers and engineers estimated that a recycled cardboard box can have up to eight uses but must be reconstituted in an energy-draining production facility each time. The Treepac, on the other hand, can be reused again and again.

The judges at the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) honored the concept with a Silver International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) in the Ecodesign category. Need more green inspiration? See all Ecodesign winners here.

Treepac is still a concept but you can enjoy some usage scenario's here.

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Paint Or Die But Love Me

No it's not real, but you've got to give French designer John Nouanesing props for his collection of concepts including this table which while needing some structural help is pretty fun.

via ffffound

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Rendered image of Jet Blue's new Terminal 5 at JFK. Courtesy Gensler.

Eero Saarinen and the new JFK Jet Blue terminal sneak peak

And finally, if you're in New York the next couple days, you can grab a sneak preview of Jet Blue's new $750 million terminal incorporating Eero Saarinen's iconic building at JFK. A discussion about the challenges and creative potential for redesigning New York City's airports will take place Wednesday July 30th, 2008 at 6:30pm.

Featuring Richard Smyth, Vice President, Jet Blue, who is in charge of the new JFK Jet Blue terminal; David Z. Plavin, consultant and former president, Airports Council International-North America; Charles Van Cook, P.E., Vice President, PB World, who plans airports all over the world; William R. DeCota, Director of Aviation, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and Jeff Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation, Regional Plan Association.

For free admission, mention Core77 when registering:
Call 212 534 1672 ext. 3395, or e-mail programs@mcny.org

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Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken for his contributions to this week's newsletter!

Please share the Monday Morning Must Read with colleagues, clients and collaborators. Many email programs do not forward messages in their original format, so please use this link: http://www.designdirectory.com/blog/newsletter

Email us your feedback and comments. We are looking for stories, case studies and global news on where and how design can make the difference.

Oakland A's New Stadium to get Touchscreens in Every Seat

If it's not bad enough having to look through a sea of back-lit mobile phones and cameras at concerts, the proposed interactive wireless touchscreens built into each seat at Cisco Field, future home of the Oakland A's takes us one step closer to the Buy n Large utopia envisioned in WALL-E.

via dvice

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Not Just Another Brick in the Wall

New York based Contemporary Architecture Practice created The Wall of the Future using state-of-the-art robotic manufacturing techniques for MoMA's exhibition Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling which opened last week.

The wall (9.6 x 7.6 x 0.8 feet) explores the possibilities of architecture in the near future combining space, structure and skin into a single form. While the title may sound a tad self-important, the concept highlights an intriguing trend we're seeing emerge in the world of architecture and generative scripting.

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Spring Water on Tap (?)

AT&T recently announced a contract with Spring Water On Tap, an Atlanta-based natural spring water supplier that maintains fresh spring water supplies in large local tanks for all of it's customers' personal uses.

The solution which attaches ultrasonic sensors and interlinked cellular-based modems to 65-gallon water tanks, allows the company to discern water levels and alert delivery trucks to bring more of the wet stuff. Claiming that "AT&T takes a very broad holistic view of RFID." Percy Jones, CEO of SWOT, says:

AT&T has enabled our company to provide customers with a seamless supply of fresh spring water at all times while unobtrusively monitoring the water levels in our customers' homes.

Given the fact that Georgia is experiencing severe to moderate drought in all but 5 counties, we're wondering: shouldn't they be using this for monitoring the aquifers instead?

Via RFID Journal

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The new bright red Italian train

Finally EU competition is also affecting Italian train service. Twenty-five red high-style trains, each with 11 carriages and 460 seats, will soon travel at 360 km an hour on the Italian tracks. Run by Nuovo Transporto Viaggiatori (ntv), an independent company, the trains will compete directly with Trenitalia, the main Italian train company.

See also here and here for more images.

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Couture Motorcycle Helmets for the Great Escape

No stranger to accidents, French designer Jérôme Coste has survived six cranial traumatisms, one of the contributing factors leading to his interest in crash helmets. Inspired by Steve McQueen, science fiction and Japanese biker gangs who eloquently blend street culture with vintage motorcycling, he founded Ruby in 2004.

>> see more

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Feel the Burn with Airun Plus Trainers

The Airun+ -- not to be confused with another shoe company using the "+" sign for their iPod combo -- is designed with a built-in Smart Technology Controller that calculates the exercisers' stats and recommends adjustments to their daily workout.

Intended for people focused on fat burning cardio workouts, the Airun Plus comes with two interchangeable weighted insoles based on the sandbag weight training principles. The lightweight insole weighs 106grams and the heavyweight insole weighs 588grams. The weights load the body resulting in accelerated weight loss and enhanced fitness levels. Apparently wearers can get the same value from a 30 minute exercise as they would from an hour long exercise using normal footwear.

The controller on top of the shoe wirelessly receives real time information from a sensor located inside the sole. The sensor not only measures the speed but also the weight applied from each step, a first in footwear technology allowing statistics calculating your performance to be collected more accurately. It may not play music but the idea is good, just don't trip while trying to read the display on the treadmill.

via engadget

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photo: FatMandy

The Clever Creative, Languishing in the Genius Trap, by Carl Alviani

It might take a genius the same amount of time to find what they are good at as it would a dedicated learner to practice their way into genius-hood. Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds Carl Alviani enters the dichotomy of the gifted the talented and the downright challenged in the creative industry:

More than in most fields, our careers live and die by our ability demonstrate specific skills, and our employability is largely a function of convincing those in charge that we've got them. And this is exactly why one of Dr. Dweck's "fixed mind-sets" can be so very damaging.

Think of it this way. Two students enter, say, an illustration program at a prestigious art school. One is convinced of her innate talent and skill, the other unsure, but deeply excited about learning and doing illustration, even if it doesn't impress the way her fellow student's does. The first has been told all her life that she has natural talent, and she's there to develop and express it, the second merely enjoys the process, and the acquisition of new skills. Who will wow the teachers first semester? That's an easy one. But who will ultimately be the more successful, able to grow, keep things fresh, take advantage of new media and technologies, avoid getting pigeonholed? That's probably an easy one too.

Unfortunately, the obsession with genius, already strong in North American and Western European societies, is inflated to legendary levels among creative professionals...

>> view article

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Frog Design Launches Print Magazine

Frog Design is jumpin' into print. Yup. They've just launched a new magazine called 'design mind', written by frog designers, technologists and strategists. We got a sneek peek at the debut issue - full of juicy articles on China's mobile market, the potential of in-game brand placement and the creative process. This publication has as a goal to "open up new channels for frog to communicate [their] thought leadership in a highly visual and dynamic way." (oh yeah, there's a website too.) It's a tightly designed, thoughtful tool that promises to publish 3 times a year. We're looking forward to seeing how this frog....er...flies.

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Droog Aalto wins Climate Competiton

Czech designer Jan Ctvrtnik has won the Climate Competition organised by Droog. A vase based on Alvar Aalto's famous design, but modified to express the effects of global warming received 32% of all votes by visitors to Droog's website.

The original Aalto vase was inspired by the outline of a Finnish lake and Ctvrtnik's design suggests how the lake's shape could change due to climate change. Ctvrtnik says:

Climate changes are visualised mostly by numbers and scientific measurements. In order to show changes, it is good to have a reference point. And so the Aalto vase became that reference point with its shape originating from the shape of a Finnish lake. The 'Droog' part of the title can be translated as 'Dry', obviously relating to global warming.

>> see more

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Icare motorcycle concept

The Icare motorcycle concept is a cross between something from Tron and "a kind of Porsche or Aston Martin for the two-wheeled world," according to France-based Enzyme Design, the minds behind the concept. It's intended to have a six-cylinder 1.8 liter Honda engine, which is more than what you'd find in some compact cars. Will it ever go into production? No word, but Enyzme's earlier L'atomo concept did, so future bikers will have some hope.

>> see more

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Cameron Sinclair vs John Thackara

There's a (heated?) dialogue going on between John Thackara and Cameron Sinclair over JT's recent piece on Design Observer. If you missed the original text, we blogged it a few days ago. Choc full of Thackarian nuggets on the benefits of staying in the backyard, the essay focuses on the benefits of locality and culture (which, by the way, happens to have striking similarities to a graduation speech funny-man Patton Oswald gave in June....read it n weep. please.) Regardless, Cameron Sinclair's got some interesting responses (to Thackara, not Oswald). Here are a few bites:

"I find it a little arrogant of writers to speak of design and architecture as a 'western' or 'developed world' notion - and then occationally insinuate the 'look at what they are forcing on them' self-guilt world view. There are designers, both licensed and unlicensed, all over the world. They are not divided by boundaries but by skill and desire. There will always be the Zaha Hadids and Karim Rashids of this world but there are also the Diebedo Francis Keres, the Rodney Harbers and the Yasmine Laris of this world. For as many designers working in the realm of architectural plastic surgery, there are just as many working in the emergency room. The difference is that the latter are not seeking accolades and therefore do not grace the covers of magazines and the design media. In addition to training more global architects we need to encourage and develop new schools of design where the work is. Ie currently we are training 70% of the worlds' architects in the developed (over developed) nations, yet 70% of the work is in emerging nations.

Yes, there are a dozen 'examples' where we can point to designers screwing up, getting it wrong, undervaluing the input of the community. Yet there are hundreds of stories where quiet moments of innovation have been an element of incredible change in a community. Most of us who are actually building look at bemusement to all the structures going up in Dubai and Doha - why are those deemed as great feats of 'design excellence' but yet a community led participatory process is often scrutinized by cynical, often western, eyes.

Perhaps it is time to write stories of the successes on the ground. Come join any of us, but do expect to pick up a shovel when you are on a site visit."

Read the entire response at Doors of Perception.

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Interview with Method's Designer Danny Alexander

Josh Spear catches up with industrial designer Danny Alexander who moved to San Francisco to join the people against dirty, Method just over a year ago.

Growing up I always loved to create. Whether it was origami, painting, assembling furniture, etc., I was always working with my hands. When I grew up a bit, I began to think that industrial design was the perfect combination of left brain and right brain thinking, but the thought of creating more junk to fill landfills weighed seriously on my conscience.

read interview

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Microsoft's Folding Arc Mouse

Microsoft's new wireless Arc Mouse folds down to save space during transit, anyone that's used one of those mini-travel mouse devices will appreciate the full size body. It's questionable whether the space saving benefits are really necessary but you know you'll look like the man breaking one out in the airport business lounge. It will retail for approx. $60 US later in the year.

via gizmodo

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Michael Somoroff Sculpts Light

Recently reinstalled at the Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent, NY is artist Michael Somoroff's Illumination I . Somoroff used a myriad of 3D visualization software to create the large-format sculpture.

Originally commissioned by the non-denominational Rothko Chapel in Houston, the 12-ton project is a cross between sculpture and architecture that gives sheltering form to the lighting conditions in a scared space. Based on images of various mosques and holy ruins, Somoroff began by building a virtual mosque with 3D compositing software. He applied a computer program that could chart sunlight moving through the mosque's window and across it's interior based on a specified date and location.

Somoroff then used modeling software to simulate the effects of forces such as gravity, space/time, and other atmospheric contingencies at the chapel on models of that light. The final translation of this light relied on CAD software and CNC milling to create a 20' high sculpture in foam which was then cast in fiberglass and finished in stucco.

A commercial photographer and TV spot director by trade, Somoroff views art as a spiritual practice whose purpose is to assist in the negotiation of reality, virtual or otherwise.

>> see more

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Oink Oink, Chocolate for Fat Pigs

Well anyone with a chocolate addiction, The Brooklyn Brothers (who have 2 offices, neither in Brooklyn) recently completed the packaging design for chocolate maker Fat Pig Chocolates. Fat Pig is an organic milk chocolate bar currently available in one flavor and they assure us it has none of the bitter after taste of regular milk chocolate.

Self confessed chocolate pigs who want to know more about what makes some chocolate taste better than others should check out BBtv's visit to the homebrew chocolate technology startup TCHO.

via ffffound

>> see more

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Special thanks to toolgirl and Mark Vanderbeeken for their contributions to this week's newsletter!

Please share the Monday Morning Must Read with colleagues, clients and collaborators. Many email programs do not forward messages in their original format, so please use this link: http://www.designdirectory.com/blog/newsletter

Email us your feedback and comments. We are looking for stories, case studies and global news on where and how design can make the difference.

Cradle to Cradle Motor Glider

Roland Cernat won the first prize at this year's Lucky Strike Junior Designer Award for his final-year project "Oriens", a sustainable and energy-saving motor glider. Based on the cradle to cradle principles, Cernat's design combines sustainable materials with an ecological energy concept including solar panels on the wings and body that create enough energy to power the motor. Don't worry, he included a back up fuel engine if needed. Cernat graduated from the University of Applied Sciences Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany this year and currently works as a freelancer.

rolandcernat.com

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A Pair of Flying Slippers: Phil Patton reviews the Buckminster Fuller exhibition at the Whitney

"An exhibition is a verb," writes Whitney museum director Adam Weinberg bravely, in his introduction to the catalog of the museum's Buckminster Fuller show, Starting with the Universe.

He is echoing Fuller's own famous phrase "I seem to be a verb." But in fact, a museum show is necessarily more like an arrangement of nouns. And this one includes nouns like drawings, photographs, and models, with a few verbs of video of Fuller talking.

"His vision is difficult to approximate and present, much less encompass in an exhibition," Weinberg continues. The show does the difficult ably enough, providing a good chronological sample, thoughtfully arranged.

>> continue reading

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Advertisement

Spark Design Awards 2008 Sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, Spark welcomes entries and designers from all disciplines and countries. Initial Entries Due: August 1, 2008

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RCA Show 2008

Super-human toasters! Cell-phone scales! Chameleon cars! This and more graced the floors of the RCA's 2008 show (June 21 - July 5). Core-o-spondent, Victoria Kirk, sent us a bunch of snaps from the Design Interactions exhibition. Click through to see evidence of what these UK creatives are up to....

>> more photos

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Book Review: Bottlemania, by Elizabeth Royte

After just posting a rather lengthy sustainability diatribe, reviewing Elizabeth Royte's Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It seems a little like environmental overkill, but her work is as much a classic David and Goliath adventure as it is a polemic. She opens with an interview with Dr. Michael Mascha, a self-proclaimed bottled water connoisseur, who advocates the careful pairing of pedigreed ground and glacier waters from around the world with meals during fine dining. While it would seem that such rampant consumerism virtually guarantees he's to be the easiest target in the book, the truth is a little more complicated.

>> continue reading

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SF uses wireless sensors to enable smart parking

This fall, San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation's most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment.

Drivers will be alerted to empty parking places either by displays on street signs, or by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones. They may even be able to pay for parking by cellphone, and add to the parking meter from their phones without returning to the car.

Read full article [New York Times]
Technical article [RFID Journal]

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New Core77 Gallery : Hamburg Harley Days

Custom details, tailpipes and tattoos! More than 75,000 bikers attended one of the biggest Harley Davidson events in Hamburg from June 20-22. Be sure to check out this gallery of rock n' roll of design by Core 77's Aart Van Bezoyeen.

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I.D. 2008 Annual Design Review Exhibition Photos

To celebrate I.D. Magazine's 54th Annual Design Review, Parsons The New School for Design is hosting an exhibition featuring innovative design work from the past year. There are eight design categories: consumer products, graphics, packaging, environments, furniture, equipment, concepts, and interactive media.

The exhibition translates exceedingly well from the printed magazine and is a remarkable improvement on last years efforts. The layout of the space ensures large crowds can easily get access to view work and small items that would otherwise be lost are cleverly presented in repetitive clusters to create visual impact.

Located in the recently renovated Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, the exhibition opens to the public today and runs through till September 28th, 2008.

>> more photos

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Praized - Trust Your Tribes

Praized - Trust Your TribesCongratulations to the guys over at Praized who's site officially made it's debut last week after 2 years of development. The new city search platform is designed specifically to be integrated into blogs and social networks allowing communities to rate and comment on businesses in their city, the example they give:

A Praized installation on a vegan blog will have completely different restaurant recommendations than on a meat-lovers' blog because the two groups have fundamentally different tastes.

Praized CEO Harry Wakefield run's MoCo Loco where you may have seen a beta version they've been testing called MocoLocal. The platform is free for publishers to install and comes pre-loaded with over 17 million US and Canadian local business listings, complete with contact info and location maps.

Learn more here

www.praized.com

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photo: Splodge

8 Keys to Writing a Killer Job Ad for Creatives, by Carl Alviani

You never get what you want, unless you ask for it. "A job that's well-defined is easier to fill, and a job posting (if that's how you choose to publicize) that's clear and compelling can raise your quotient of good candidates dramatically," says Carl Alviani from his most recent article on Coroflot's Creative Seeds. Here are some other good tips we found while reading through:

Avoid marketing speak.
Long lists of non-specific company characteristics (dynamic, insightful, engaged, consumer-driven, etc.), or applicant characteristics (hard-working, self-starter, team-player, etc) are generally ineffective. Not that these characteristics aren't important--because they are--but if you want to target the right job-seekers, you need to pick the few things you're really looking for and describe them, using examples if possible: if your position requires 60-hour weeks and the generation of 20 concepts a day, say that, not "hard-working and prolific."

Be flexible.
Teaching someone a new software package is much faster and easier than teaching them to lead a project team, or come up with innovative concepts, or perform well under a deadline. Too often, a job listing takes the form of a laundry list of skills: must use a Wacom tablet; must know Pro/Engineer; must code in Flash. While it's true that some jobs are so dependent on expertise with a particular tool that it's non-negotiable, long term success is often decided by more nebulous qualifications like enthusiasm, thought process and learning ability.

>> read complete article

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Ergonomidesign, Sweden: human-centered since the sixties

Ergonomidesign is Sweden's oldest established full service design studio. Founded in 1969 when Design Gruppen merged with Ergonomidesign, they have a long history of releasing award-winning human-centered design solutions based on a strong philosophy of user-centered innovation espoused by the founders.

Housed in a former missionary school in Bromma, a suburb of Stockholm, their space is as inspiring as it must have been designed - soaring ceilings, high rose windows, a sense that here is a home for grounding the beliefs and values that underpin their work.

>> continue reading

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Malaysian scientist reduces cost of producing Aerogel by 80 percent

Aerogel has remained in domain of government funded and commercial high-tech projects for years due to it's high cost. A new technique using the silica found in disposed rice husks after harvest could be the answer to making this material widely available.

Nicknamed "frozen smoke" because of its cloudy appearance, aerogel is made from silica, the basic ingredient in sand, and is 99 percent air by volume. The result is a nearly weightless and translucent material with a white powder that seems to float inside.

What makes aerogel so attractive is the combination of light weight with incredible strength and insulating properties...

...Aerogel can withstand mechanical pressure 2,000 times its own weight, making it suitable for bombproof panels. It makes good soundproofing material. Aerogel also can absorb oil spills and pollutants in the air -- NASA fitted a space probe in 1999 with a mitt packed with the substance to catch the dust from a comet's tail.

While the process is still a couple of years away from being ready to sell this new material commercially, the Malaysian government is funding a US$62.5 million project at Halimaton's university to speed things along. Good news for ID students who can now legitimately spec this material in their concepts.

View Article: International Herald Tribune

via Treehugger via PSFK

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Touched echo: Invisible Memorial for the Bruehlsche Terrasse in Dresden

Using bone conduction, a technology developed for hearing devices, the "touched echo" installation in Dresdon transmits sounds of the cities devastating 1945 carpet bombing through the visitors arms when they rest their elbows on the balustrade and hold their ears. Several custom made sound conductors mounted to the railing send sounds of the airplanes and bombs exploding through vibrations, it's completely silent unless you touch the rail.

Synopsis
"touched echo" is a minimal medial intervention in public space. The visitors of the Brühl's Terrace (Dresden, Germany) are taken back in time to the night of the terrible air raid on 13th February 1945. In their role as a performer they put themselves into the place of the people who shut their ears away from the noise of the explosions. While leaning on the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through their arm directly into into the inner ear (bone conduction).

touched echo
Performative Installation
By Markus Kison
03.10.2007 - 31.10.2008
Brühlsche Terrrasse, Dresden

via notcot

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Changing the Change - a call to action

Bill Moggridge (IDEO), John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Josephine Green (Philips Design), Geetha Narayanan (Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore), and Luigi Ferrara (Institute without Boundaries, Toronto) were only some of the speakers and guests at the highly stimulating Changing the Change conference that took place in the impressive Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre of Turin, Italy, July 10-12.

This outstanding conference "on the role and potential of design research in the transition towards sustainability" was the brainchild of Ezio Manzini (professor of industrial design at the Milan Polytechnic). Jointly organised by the Polytechnic universities of Milan and Turin (with extensive support from their masters and doctoral students), Changing the Change was part of the programme of Turin World Design Capital 2008.

In this longer article I have tried to open up this important conference to those who were not there, which is made easier by the fact that all 138 papers are already online.

>> continue reading

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Another Three-Letter Green Apparel Business Starts Up in Portland

While many of us up here in the Pac NW breathe a sigh of relief that Nau's grand experiment in green apparel is getting a second chance, another major entrant in the category is just gearing up. END Footwear stands for "Environmentally Neutral Design," and like Nau, it's got an illustrious Nike alum on board, it's got a deep commitment to sustainable manufacturing practices, and it's got a cool logo with three letters in the name. The major difference is that where Nau took high-performance outdoor wear and made it calmer, sleeker and greener, END is working the same voodoo on shoes.

>> more reading + pics

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Dolphin Inspired Fully Submergible Watercraft

And finally, ditch the jet ski this summer and pick yourself up the Innerspace Sea Breacher to fulfill those 007 childhood fantasies. Constructed with a F-22 Raptor canopy, the three-quarter-inch thick solid polycarbonate can withstand hard inverted landings and the sliding mechanism is tough enough to drive the Sea Breacher at full speed with the canopy wide open.

>> more

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Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and Niti Bhan for their contributions to this week's newsletter!

Please share the Monday Morning Must Read with colleagues, clients and collaborators. Many email programs do not forward messages in their original format, so please use this link: http://www.designdirectory.com/blog/newsletter

Email us your feedback and comments. We are looking for stories, case studies and global news on where and how design can make the difference.

2008 Annual Design Review Winners

I.D. Magazine's 2008 Annual Design Review winners are published on their website if you haven't had a chance to check out the latest issue. The biggest dilemma for judges this year was whether to acknowledge the iPhone or not; in the end they took a historical perspective and decided it had to be included. Good call!

view winners

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It's the Economy, Stupid: A macroeconomic primer for design(ers) and sustainability, by Robert Blinn

Last week the International Energy Agency called for serious investment into alternative energy and carbon sequestering. At the same time, United States Senate blithely blocked environmental legislation with many elected officials indicating that our suffering economy could not bear such a cost. While the gulf between these two modes of thinking seems irreconcilable, a reframing of terms may go a long way toward closing the philosophical distance.

Having studied economics as an undergraduate and then worked on Wall Street for nearly a decade, I feel relatively attuned to the economy and economic thought. Having read and studied design for the last four years, however, I've begun to realize that much of what I studied and practiced (in both design and economics) was based on misunderstandings and taxonomic differences between science, economics, politics, and design.

While it is tempting to treat sustainability as a production or a materials problem, such a view neglects the realities of our global economic system. To truly do "sustainable" design, the solution must reach beyond the drawing board and into economic reality. Economists and scientists have actually already paved the way toward robust arguments for sustainable energy and design, but to understand them it is first necessary to profoundly reframe the lens through which we view the world.

Politicians and naysayers will often object to sustainable initiatives on the grounds that they limit "growth" and increase "costs." While these arguments remain difficult to refute on a commercial level, two simple observations are enough to defuse or derail even the most economically sophisticated political arguments against sustainability. Market forces cannot align with the common interest of humanity so long as prices reflect costs and benefits that occur in: (A) displaced locations and (B) periods of time other than the present. This piece of knowledge casts an "inconvenient" shadow over our current system of production, but in doing so provides hope not only for the environment but also for our economic future.

>> continue reading

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Advertisement

Spark Design Awards 2008 Sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, Spark welcomes entries and designers from all disciplines and countries. Initial Entries Due: August 1, 2008

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Samsung's Green phones

Last week Samsung released their green "Eco-Phone," made of corn-based bioplastics and lacking in harmful lead, mercury and cadmium. They're also Energy-Star-rated, and an alarm feature beeps when the battery's topped off, so you don't leave it plugged in and drawing juice. For now, the Eco-Phones are only available in South Korea.

via akihabara news

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1 Hour Design Challenge: WINNER ANNOUNCED!

It's big, it's brawny, it's dude heaven! (No - not mud wrestling!) Power Tools! This month we challenged Core readers to flex their skills and design the next greatest piece of mechanical muscle in one hour or less. Together with guest judge Brian Matt of Altitude, Inc. we've narrowed it down to a selection that would make Tim Allen proud. Here are the results:

First Place: Air Force

Second Place: Hacksaw

Third Place: Thor Chainsaw

>> continued...

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Cool tools: manhole magnet

Speaking of tools, if you've ever seen a construction worker hoist a manhole cover open, you know why they're built the way they are. Here to provide some assistance is the Magswitch Manhole Lifter System, an ingenious combination of a simple lever and an on-off magnet; the 23-lb. tool will hoist 400-lb. manholes with no problem. And the price? "Very affordable when compared to the cost of injury," says the manufacturer's website. Wonder if that means it costs an arm and a leg.

via tool monger

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Harvard study questions 'Long Tail' theory

The Long Tail theory, as explained by its creator, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, holds that society is "increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail."

In a recent study Anita Elberse, a marketing professor at Harvard's business school, looked at data for online video rentals and song purchases, and discovered that the patterns by which people shop online are essentially the same as the ones from offline. Not only do hits and blockbusters remain every bit as important online, but the evidence suggests that the Web is actually causing their role to grow, not shrink.

Read more

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Photo Gallery Alert: 100% Design Shanghai

From June 26-28, the likes of Richard Hutten, Michael Young and Patrick Jouin joined creative directors Tobias Wong and Aric Chen in the Shanghai Exhibition Center to showcase design in one of the fastest developing parts of the world. Core 77's correspondent, Simon Husslein, was on hand to snap pics of this inaugural event. Take a look here.

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Zero Tolerance for Decorative Design, the ±0 Electric Kettle

Whether you're a minimal purist or stuck in a small apartment with limited counter space, you might want to consider Plus Minus Zero's latest offering, an electric kettle. Bordering on the ordinary, the small cylindrical kettle would look perfect with a coupe of ±0 mugs.

View more from their 5th Collection.

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John Thackara on North and South

John Thackara's got a wonderful piece up on Design Observer, jumping off from his refusal to take part in a swanky trip to discuss "design and development" and instead to stay home and do more good "in his own backyard." Well, not literally, of course, but here's some of the sweet spots:

I've never forgotten the time when Jogi Panghaal, one of Doors of Perception's co-founders, took me to a sleepy hamlet an hour from Bangalore. We encountered a group of villagers standing around a wide patch of ragi (a grain that is used to make dark bread) spread thinly over the road in a neat circle. Six chickens appeared to be eating up the grain, while the villagers watched and chatted. Why, I asked, don't you feed the grain in a bowl? The villagers laughed, and then explained that the chickens are eating tiny maggots, smaller than our eyes can see, which need to be removed from the grain before it can be stored. It's a smart, low-tech solution to a practical issue faced by farmers everywhere. But when I recently Googled "clean bugs from grain," the first link was to the "Opico Model 595 Quiet Fan Batch Dryer With Sky-Vac Grain Cleaner." I can't help but find this to be a clunker solution than hens in the street.

Read the whole piece here.

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Starck sees the light (and feels the breeze)

Philippe Starck is back--apparently the reports of design's death were greatly exaggerated--and Inhabitat takes a look at his new project, a mini wind turbine coming out in September.

The windmill can generate 20-60% of the energy needed to power a home, at a price point of around 400 Euros ($633). Not realistically within everyone's budget, but by combining creativity and elegance with ecology Starck will hopefully encourage more people to take greener steps. And for those who don't want their conservation pieces to be conversation pieces, a subtler version has been proposed.

The project was realized with the help of Pramac, a company better known for its petrol and diesel generator sets but one which has recently entered the renewable technology field. We can't help but think that Starck's latest design is a sign of his own transformation, marking the start of his new career as an advocate of sustainable design.

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"Fast" clothes

In this age of retail therapy, buying the right clothes is supposed to make you feel better. Can the right clothes also make you run faster? Nike seems to think so:

The Nike Swift System of Dress [increases] aerodynamic advantages on key parts of the body. Socks, gloves and arm coverings - an entire system of dress - were developed by Nike so sprinters could run faster. For example, the Nike Swift gloves and arm coverings have dimpled fabrics like a golf ball to cut wind resistance and allow arms to slice through the air faster. In testing, the design team found that compared with bare skin, the gloves and arm coverings reduce drag by 19 percent and the socks by 12.5 percent.

via businesswire

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"Toys for Pigs" by Sharon Geschiere Wins The First Design to Business Award

Dutch designer Sharon Geschiere receives the first Design to Business Award for designing the 'Wroezelaar', a play toy for pigs. The toys are made out of hollow cylinders filled with different kinds of food to stimulate the pigs' senses. She has been working with the LTO Nederland and the Dierenbescherming (a Dutch animal welfare group) to improve the modest lives of stalled pigs.

"Toys for pigs?" Yes, following European legislation, as from July 1st, 2007, pig producers in the Netherlands are compelled to offer some entertainment for their pigs. This decision was made because the animals could seriously harm each other when they get bored.

The Design to Business Award (D2B) is aimed at designers from Arnhem or the province of Gelderland and stimulates closer and more creative ways of working between designers and their clients.

via design.nl

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Student designers step it up: 2nd-year takes D&AD Awards

UK product design student Chi Shing Lo took first place in the D&AD Student Awards with his cell phone concept. And while his design is undoubtedly cool (large photos after the jump), we were more interested in the wake-up notice offered by D&AD Education Chairman Al Young, on the excellence of Shing and other students' work:

"The quality of work across the board was the best I have ever seen," said Young. "College standards have risen to such a height, that the judges agreed that much of the material exhibited by these students should have contended at a professional level."

"Winning an award at this level is significant," said Michael Marsden, Subject Leader for Product, Furniture and Industrial Design at Shing's De Montfort University, "especially as Shing is only a second year student and much of the competition will be final year students with far more design experience."

Note to the professionals: The students are stepping it up, so it's time to bring that A-game!

>> check out the larger images here.

via cellular news

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Photo: David Maxwell for The New York Times

No use crying over spilt milk, it's the cost of being green

The New York Times reports on a new milk jug container designed with a flat top and rigid sides allowing the containers to be stacked on a pallet using cardboard bands and shrink wrap instead of milk crates. Introduced by Sam's Club last November, the cardboard and plastic can be recycled, it eliminates the need to maintain and wash milk crates and reduces the typical number of weekly deliveries from 4-5 trips down to 2.

The redesign of the gallon milk jug, experts say, is an example of the changes likely to play out in the American economy over the next two decades. In an era of soaring global demand and higher costs for energy and materials, virtually every aspect of the economy needs to be re-examined, they say, and many products must be redesigned for greater efficiency.

But not everyone's happy, consumers are complaining that the new square design is hard to pour without spilling the milk as the jug has no real spout. It seems like that's a small consideration for Sam's Club who estimate this method of shipping has reduced labor by half and water usage by 60-70 percent. Sam's Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in a cooler that used to hold 80.

Read full article

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Perch - Ergonomic Furniture for Primary Schools

Irish designer Simon Dennehy has developed ergonomic furniture for primary schools targeting know problem areas of concern including posture, chair height and the relationship to the work surface. He undertook detailed research into this subject matter during his M.A. and hopes that Perch will alleviate poor posture in school children which is linked to obvious symptoms like back pain and possible issues of poor digestion, nausea, headaches and bad circulation.

perch.ie

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Michael Pollan on shortening supply chains

Yale 360 has a great interview with locavore Michael Pollan on the importance of shifting from environmentalism, which focuses on preservation, to sustainability, which focuses on a healthy relationship between industrial and biological systems. His argument for localizing food production also works for an argument to localize many other types of production:

One source of our sense of powerlessness and frustration around climate change is that we are so accustomed to outsourcing so much of our lives to specialists of one kind or another, that the idea that we could reinvent the way we live, change our lifestyles, is absolutely daunting to people. We don't know how to do it. We've lost the skills to do it . . . I think where climate change is taking us is to a point where many of us will need to take care of ourselves a little better than we do now. We will be less able to depend on distant experts and distant markets. We will need to re-localize economies all over the world because we won't be able to waste fossil fuel . . . These long supply chains are going to have to get shorter.

What do you think, designers? Is localized production possible? Comments please.

Pollan's garden-talk might not provide all the answers but it's sure got some good clues. Go ahead and read the full interview here

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A New "Super Glass" Material Discovered By Accident

A new kind of ceramic material has been discovered by the Swedish chemist Saeid Esmaeilzadeh who accidentally cooled down a ceramic substance too fast.

Instead of throwing away the results of the failed experiment, he decided to research the substance. This turned out to be a kind of "super glass" with unexpected properties such as extreme hardness (harder than steel) and high index of refraction.

Saeid started the company Diamorph to commercialize his discovery. Right now, the company is cooperating with the wind power industry to develop more strong and lightweight bearings for wind turbines that have to withstand tremendous pressure and poor lubricant condition.

Congrats to Saeid not just for his research but also for adding some user perspective in the world of research. Saeid earlier said: "If I talk about atoms and bonds and nitrides, people fall asleep at their desks. But if I talk about this wind power plant and the problems we're wrestling with, then everyone wants to join in!"

via product

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Cardboard bicycle

And finally, in thinking about how to thwart bicycle thieves, UK design student Phil Bridge reasoned that if the bike was only worth $30, it'd have a better chance of going unsnatched. His designed result? A fully functioning cardboard bicycle! Check it out at inhabitat.

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Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and Xanthe Matychak for their contributions to this week's newsletter!

Please share the Monday Morning Must Read with colleagues, clients and collaborators. Many email programs do not forward messages in their original format, so please use this link: http://www.designdirectory.com/blog/newsletter

Email us your feedback and comments. We are looking for stories, case studies and global news on where and how design can make the difference.