And the winner is...Zon Hearing Aid!

The people have spoken, and last night the People's Design Award was awarded to Stuart Karten Design's Zon Hear Aid. You can learn more about the device (and read comments) at the Cooper-Hewiit site, or just mosey on over to SKD and check the work out there. Congrats SKD and Starkey Laboratories!

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Book Review: Imprint, by Daniel Eatock

The inside cover of Daniel Eatock's monograph Imprint is covered with a rather exhaustive list of tasks that could be construed as either design projects or performance art pieces depending upon one's point of view. While certain items like "I have spent twenty-four hours in a pitch-black room, lying on a mattress with ear plugs in my ears, without eating or visiting the toilet," suggest David Blaine's feats of endurance, others stray from conceptual art into true iterative design. While his project to draw ten thousand circles by hand before selecting the best one sounds like an introductory sketching exercise (and the final circle is indeed nearly Zen in its perfection), the ream of A3 paper consisting of the other 9,999 imperfect circles stands as the real piece of art.

In the accompanying text Eatock admits that he's not an intuitive sketcher, instead describing the ideas behind his work as the true art. Instead I would posit that his process stands as his most substantial artistic achievement. Sometimes, the idea and the output fuse perfectly, like arranging an entire set of Letraset Pantone Markers according to the color spectrum and leaving them open to bleed into 500 sheets of paper. The resulting set of prints was both aesthetically pleasing and, I assume, easily numbered. Inviting participants to help to manufacture "the world's largest signed and numbered artwork" by signing and numbering labels themselves, however, is more intellectually than aesthetically interesting. Eatock works and has trained as a graphic artist, so his output isn't industrial design by any stretch of the imagination, but the process is the same. In effect, Eatock has made the process of the art into the art, and the results are both inspirational and humbling. I once heard that looking at a Picasso makes one want to paint, but looking at Rembrandt makes one want to quit. Miraculously, reviewing Eatock's prolific output manifests both urges at the same time. For any designer struggling to find a place to start, reading Imprint should be ample proof that almost any starting point will look brilliant in retrospect, provided that enough work, practice and repetition went into the final product.

>> continue

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Digital surfaces for the blind

CScout reports on how tactile surfaces are making technology and information much more accessible to people with visual handicaps, and features the Touch Sight Camera, the ReEnvision debit card reader, the Sentio watch (pictured), and the Saifu tablet PC.

"As a range of new interfaces and surfaces for digital devices are developed, it is becoming easier for visually impaired people to use devices sighted people take for granted. Tactile displays enable digital data to be felt rather than seen, making it easier for blind and partially sighted people to access the Internet, keep their credit card details secure, and take and archive pictures."

>> Read article

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MIT opens lab in Italy on sustainable building

The MIT Mobile Experience Lab, within the Design Laboratory, signed a 3 years strategic alliance with the Fondazione Bruno Kessler, a local research institute, to advance research in sustainable connected homes, including subtopics of renewable energy systems, sustainable architecture, social sustainability, and connected information systems to optimize home behavior and people's lives.

The project, which is promoted by the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, will conclude with building a full-scale prototype of a sustainable home with new technologies, materials, and applications.

(Also here several former Ivreans are involved including Dave Chiu, Hector Ouilhet and Silvia Gabrielli).

via Gianluca Salvatori

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Rubik's Cube + Pantone = Rubitone

Brilliantly simple. From the portfolio of Ignacio Pilotto, an Argentinian designer.

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DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Student Work at 222 Gallery

Last week marked the end of DesignPhiladelphia, but Gallery 222 is keeping Product 01 and Build 02, two exhibitions of work from two of Philadelphia's premiere design education courses, running through November 1st.

>> continued

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: A Clean Break

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: The Hacktory

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Matthias Pliessnig

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: SOS Stool by Josh Owen

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Using design to crack society's problems

Lots of interesting content in the November issue of Fast Company magazine.

Can design save the world? Hilary Cottam thinks so.
Alice Rawsthorn, design critic of the International Herald Tribune, profiles Hilary Cottam, founding director of the social enterprise Participle, on her use of design to try to change the world for the better.
[If you want to know more about Hilary, read the lengthy interview I did with her last year for Torino World Design Capital.]

Three more who design for society
Meet three visionaries who solve social problems with design thinking: Ezio Manzini (Politecnico di Milano), Marcia Lausen (Design for Democracy) and George Kembel (Stanford D.school).

Building a sustainable design community
Anya Kamenetz reports on the highly laudable Designers Accord: "Valerie Casey is rallying the creative community to her version of a Kyoto treaty for designers -- and her peers are signing on in droves. Now comes the hard part."

Green guru gone wrong: William McDonough
This long feature story is probably a bomb. McDonough, the architect who developed the "cradle-to-cradle" concept, is widely revered as an environmental guru. The article describes McDonough as a great promoter with good intentions, who creates projects with often very mixed or even failed results.

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Living: A new (Italian) pop-up in SoHo

Beginning today and running 'til December 20th, an ambitious new pop-up will take residence in NYC. Living the Italian Soho House will contain over 150 Lombardy-designed furniture and home accessories, film screenings, and panel discussions. Produced by Promos, a specialized division of the Milan Chamber of Commerce, the initiative aims to shine a light on Italian design. Here's more:

The idea behind Living the Italian Soho House is to recreate five spaces found in Italian houses by using elements and products from 35 of the most innovative design companies in Italy. The space at 172 Mercer will include a kitchen and dining room, living room with garden, office and entertainment room, bathroom/spa, and bedroom. There will also be a welcome room, which will host seminars, events, and presentations over Living’s eight-week residency.

The items on display in the house were selected by interior designers and include over 150 products from companies including Paola C, Bizzari, Bodema, Luceplan, Progetti, and more. Among the items will be seating, bathroom and kitchen furnishings, lighting, windows, flooring, tables, and more. All products on display will be available for purchase.

And we're confident they'll take American dollars.

All info at the site: www.livinglombardy.it.

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PopTech 2008: Scarcity and Abundance

PopTech 2008 kicked off last week in Camden, Maine to an enthusiastic and boisterous crowd. Addressing this year's topic of "Scarcity and Abundance," presentations ranged from energy awareness to cello lessons (!). WattzOn's Saul Griffith opened the session with an overview of his energy consumption monitoring platform. In its alpha phase, WattzOn allows users to visualize and understand their personal energy footprint. Highlights from the morning included Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of cultural "capitalising" (an analysis of processes that affect success and failure in society) and Paul Polak's call to arms for low-cost, sustainable design solutions in developing countries. The afternoon was ripe with expression as Marian Bantjes' (pictured above) spoke of her transition from traditional graphic design to "meaningful" design. "I started creating work that was meaningful to me..." she said, "and discovered it was meaningful to other people as well...I made a decision to stop working for money. And start working for love."

Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume critic, led the room through an exploration of scent and its relationship to history, culture and emotion (who knew patchouli smelled that way because it includes rotten LEAVES in its process?!). Ripe with anecdotes and hilarity, he cited the reason for differentiation between male and female perfumes as nothing more than "offering hetero-sexual men the freedom to wear scent in society."

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, ended the evening in great spirits with a presentation on the Art of Possibility. Conducting renditions of "Happy Birthday," he emphasized the need to "get up and conduct" in life, as well as the joy of making mistakes and embracing the present. His energy and optimism rang true with the entire crowd as he careened around the Opera House floor, using a young cellist's rendition of a Bach to offer insights on how to weave emotion and nuance not only into a musical piece, but everyday life. "I have a bigger dream," he closed the night with, "that you will live the rest of your life in possibility. That is my dream."

Check out more coverage on the PopTech blog.

>> PopTech 2008: Day 2

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Herman Miller reaches for the Holy Grail of chairs: One size fits all

Is it possible to design a chair that will fit everyone, whether short, tall, fat, skinny? Maybe or maybe not, but if any company can pull it off, it's Herman Miller.

Given this seemingly impossible task, HM's engineers came back with the Embody chair:

The Embody's colorful fabric seat hides a system of 94 plastic coils. Each compresses independently, allowing pointy bones or bulky wallets to sink in without causing nearby areas to sag. The designers also tuned the springiness of each coil based on its location. The coils under your thighs and the soft backs of your knees give easily so they don't chafe; those under the bones in your rear, which bear most of your weight, are the stiffest. Plastic caps on top of the coils tilt in any direction to hug instead of poke your curves.

via popular science

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Creative30 now open for voting

It's a bit broad and uneven, but the Volvo- and Vice-sponsored Creative30 competition/website offers some great creative eye-candy, in the form of 3-minute videos of some of the most phenomenally talented young designers and artists the UK currently has to offer. As the name implies, thirty subjects have been selected to showcase and talk about their work, which ranges from sculpture and visual arts to music, fashion and furniture design. Visitors to the site are invited to cast a vote for their favorite, and the winner drives off in a Volvo (runner up has to settle for 10,000 pounds in cash "to help launch their career").

>> see some of our favorites

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Hands on with Microsoft's touch interfaces

CNET News has published a small photo gallery of new user interfaces developed by Microsoft Research. The integration of physics engines looks quite promising.

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Couple makes good with self-designed iPod accessory

And finally, a tale of product success: Jeremy Huber found current methods of affixing iPod Nanos to the body--armbands, cases and the like--unsuitable for his weightlifting routine. He and wife Alissa devised the iStik, a snap-on plastic case containing four magnets, which corresponds with a thin plastic sheet also holding four magnets. The rest is simple: put the sheet inside your clothing and the case outside the clothing, and the magnets do the rest. You can now store your Nano on any part of your body covered by clothing.

(If magnets don't sound like such a hot idea, remember that this is for the Nano, so there's no hard drive to accidentally erase.)

While the object itself is neat, what we found more interesting was the success the Hubers found in a market glutted with corporations all trying to design a hit iPod accessory. The Hubers started by renting a booth at the L.A. marathon, where the hordes of runners saw the wisdom of the gizmo and quickly bought up all 400 of them. This led to an appearance on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, and the publicity boosted sales--with no dedicated retail space, just a website, the Hubers have racked up $50,000 in sales in just six months! No ID background, and not too shabby.

>> more images

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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.

That's a yacht of work

That there is the Sentori 58R, a 58-foot flybridge motor yacht designed by Christian Gumpold and Christopher Gloning for their postgrad industrial design diploma thesis at the University of Applied Science in Graz, Austria.

"The target is serial production," says Gumpold, explaining that an actual prototype will be ready by February of 2009. He and Gloning are in the process of founding a design studio specializing in naval architecture.

"The exterior design of the yacht is strongly inspired by automotive design and communicates a simple, clear linework, with the emphasis on a coupe-like appearance," Gumpold explains. "The interior design has the language of modern interior architecture and contemporary living, together with a number of highly innovative detail solutions never seen on a yacht of this size."

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DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Matthias Pliessnig

Matthias Pliessnig's bent wood furniture has been seen here before, but last night he introduced some stunning new pieces during his Debut Solo Exhibit at the Wexler gallery. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a large steam bent oak seating sculpture titled Providence. It's the result of over 5 weeks of careful planning, prototyping, bending, and forming. Also included in the gallery is a collection of mixed media sculptural studies that Matthias creates along with his furniture.

Hopefully we will see more bent goodness from Matthias now that his new studio in Philadelphia is up and running.

>> more images

>> also check out : DesignPhiladelphia 2008: SOS Stool by Josh Owen

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1 Hour Design Challenge: VOTING BOOTH

This month's 1 Hour Design Challenge is timelier than timely, focusing on the theme of voting booths. Everyone is welcome to take part, so fire up those pencils, markers and tablets and get in the game! Cause hey, participation is a central component of this one.

THEME:
Voting Booth

DOORS CLOSE:
Thursday, October 30, 2008
9 PM PST (4 AM GMT)

BRIEF:
As we approach the upcoming November election, the role of design and experience will once again take center stage. The ballot design fiasco of the 2000 election taught us that the ramifications of design decisions can be profound, so for this Core77 1 Hour Design Challenge, we invite designers to submit design solutions for the "voting booth." Designs submitted can include both voting machines and environments, but we are looking for strong concepts that explore the way we vote, where we vote.

HOW TO ENTER:
Participants must execute their design in only 1 hour, based on an honor system. Upload images and a brief text description of your design to the designated discussion forum.

Jury:
Winners will be selected by Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel of Winterhouse, creators of The Polling Place Photo Project (now a New York Times project) and founding editors of Design Observer. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure that the best designs win.

CRITERIA:
Judging will be based on quality of presentation, strength of concept, and ambition of idea.

PRIZE:
1st prize will receive a gift basket from Winterhouse, including maple syrup, t-shirt, a copy of Design For Democracy, boxes of Obama O's and Cap'N McCain's cereal, and other special surprises. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will be featured in the Core77 November Newsletter and on the Core77 Blog.

>>Enter your submission here<<

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Design-for-All Voting System from Norway

Given our current 1 Hour Design Challenge: Voting Booth, we are particularly keen on the Design-for-All voting booth, which just won the States Design Competition and will be developed for a pilot study for next year's elections in Norway.

Designed as a collaboration between KADABRA Product Design, Innovativoli Industrial Design, and Blueroom Graphic Design (all of whom share a studio in Oslo), the project is the centerpiece of a comprehensive set of voting materials comprised of a ballot box, graphic profile, signage and ballot. Here's a bit more from the team:

A voting system is not truly democratic until everyone who has the right to vote can do so without encountering physical or mental barriers. As the initiator of this project, the Norwegian state wished to focus on inclusiveness--a good voting experience for everyone regardless of physical or mental impairments. By including "elite users" in the creative process, all the elements of the voting experience are designed to be just as available to the visually impaired, wheel chair users, or illiterates, as they are to an "ordinary" user. The proposed project lifts the elections to a higher functional level, and injects a feeling of solemnity and pride both for the voters and the volunteers.

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Reusable shopping bag for outdoor gearheads

Scruffy canvas bags with recycle symbols on the side not really your style? Lightweight tent manufacturer NEMO has a snappy alternative for the rip-stop loving gear geek in all of us: shopping bags made from factory second tents. Pick one up here, and while you're at it check out some of their other green-leaning innovations, like tents made with bamboo poles and 90% recycled fabric.

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Business Innovation Factory 4

We were at the Trinity Rep Theatre in Providence for the Business Innovation Factory 4, a 2-day "conversation, not conference" and collaborative innovation summit. Storytellers (not speakers) shared their tales that exemplify and demonstrate social engagement and deep business value. The lineup was a veritable who's who of movers and shakers in the business of innovation and social entrepreneurship (doing good while makin' bank). Highlights include a welcome from Saul Kaplan, and presentations by Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises and Sweat Equity Enterprises, and Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz.

>> more opening pictures

>> Business Innovation Factory 4: Day 1 Wrap-up

>> Business Innovation Factory 4: Day 2 Wrap-up

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Peugeot design comp winner announced

Peugeot has chosen the winner for their design competition. Top prize went to Colombia's Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar for his folding RD concept, video below.

His 3-wheeled design is called the RD and like most of the other entries, it is small and made for driving on narrow roads. During periods of heavy traffic or when space is limited, it can fold upward and shorten the overall length by a substantial amount.

>> check out the video

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FindDesign now a Firefox plugin

For those of you who (understandably) like your google searches design-biased, you might already be using Find: Design. But now you can get the filter built right into your browser with this plugin. Happy surfing!

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SENS concept: a cell phone for the blind

Recognizing that the so-called "blind man's dimple" on the '5' keypad of most cellular phones is actually of little use to the blind, designer Takumi Yoshida came up with the SENS concept.

To improve interaction between the user and the phone, SENS combines touch sensors and regular mechanical keys to provide real-time audio feedback. When the user touches a key, the phone tells them what key has been touched without actually registering it as an input. The user may hover across the keys to gain feedback on which key they are touching. Once the user is sure their finger is on the correct key, they can then press it just like on any other standard handset; a click sound is then fed back to confirm the input. In order to eliminate the need for other people in public to also hear the audio feedback from the phone, SENS has an integrated Blutooth headset which ensures it can't get misplaced.

The concept was developed in conjunction with students from the UK's Royal National Institute of Blind People. Click here for more info.

via gizmag

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Apple design, old vs. new

It's not that we dislike having smaller, sleeker objects, but with Apple's announcement yesterday of new laptops, we couldn't help but notice how small the visual difference is between this generation and the last. Why? Because as objects get "tighter," well, there's simply less to design. Everything goes into the details; broad design strokes seem to fade in importance.

To see what we mean, hit the jump and take a look at these older Apple products, manufactured during a time when there was still enough meat on the product to hang some design onto, so to speak.

>> more historic photos

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Helmet patch to track Soldiers blast history

A low-cost disposable strip of plastic that can record a soldiers exposure to explosions for up to seven days is hoped to help doctors learn more about brain injuries. Soldiers are increasingly injured by experiencing multiple shock waves from powerful explosives, not necessarily from being hit directly.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) signed a $5 million contract with Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to develop the strip of tape which will contain printed electronics, analog memory, and sensors.

The information collected will be added to a soldiers medical records making it easy to track their blast history. 25 prototypes to test components are scheduled for Spring next year and 1,000 units for field testing are planned for 2010.

via dvice.com

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How can I be more strategic?

Victor Lombardi has written 8 short bulletpoints addressed to designers keen on becoming more strategic in their work. Here's a snippet,

Designers often ask this question. Sometimes I think the question arises from a genuine desire to be doing something else which is more strategic in nature, and sometimes I think what is being asked is, how can I convince or influence others to do things my way?

The answer might be the same or it might not. I've started to keep track of the answers I hear to shed some light here.

1. Change your title, brand identity, clothing, etc. in order to change perceptions of what you offer.
2. Charge more money so that only the people who have real strategic influence can afford you.
3. Bootstrap your way into different work.
4. Be strategic. In Porter's definition, strategic is long-term planning. Avail yourself of strategic tools both simple (e.g. roadmaps) and complex (futures analysis and design).

Have something to add? Go read the rest and comment here.

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Movable Braille timepiece by David Chavez wins Spark Design Award

Industrial designer David Chavez picked up a Spark Award for his movable Braille timepiece Haptica which displays a real-time readout in Braille using a military time format. He shares the Award with some industry-heavyweights including Fuseproject, Smart Design, Essential Design, James Dyson, One and Co, Pentagram and IDEO.

84 designs won bronze, silver, gold or the ultimate Spark! Award. The winning entries are on display until January 2009 at the Autodesk Gallery, One Market, San Francisco.

View Winners

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USA Lapel Pin designed by Michael Bierut

And finally, Men's Vogue magazine has commissioned Michael Bierut to design a "politically neutral" USA pin "in an attempt to end the flag-pin controversy." Comments Bierut, "I tried to defamiliarize a very familiar configuration of letters. A flag is a corporate logo. A monogram is much more private." 5000 of the pins are for sale with the proceeds benefiting a great nonprofit, Puppies Behind Bars.

Here's more on the organization:

The New York-based charity, which has been training prison inmates to raise service dogs since 1997, has recently turned its attention to veterans, with a new initiative called Dog Tags. The program provides dogs for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are physically injured or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The dogs, Labradors and golden retrievers, are trained to do everything from reminding their companions to take their medication to allaying combat-induced fears that make everyday life back home impossible.

Support the cause here.
More story here.

(Photo: Richard Pierce)

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Special thanks to Niti Bhan for her 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.

Growing furniture, the Venus chair by Tokujin Yoshioka

Tokujin Yoshioka's chair made from growing natural crystals will headline the exhibition Second Nature opening on the 17th in Tokyo this week. The Venus chair builds on his earlier work such as Honey-pop (2001) which used a honeycombed paper structure to obtain it's strength and the Pane chair (2006) made of a translucent spongy material called polyester elastomer. The Venus chair is grown in a tank, the production process half controlled by Yoshioka and half left up to nature.

The Second Nature exhibition will feature work from Noriko Ambe, Makoto Azuma, Campana Brothers, Asuka Katagiri, Ross Lovegrove, Kaiji Moriyama & Takeshi Kushid, Yukio Nakagawa ikebana and Tokujin Yoshioka.

>> more pictures

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Stepmothers of Invention: Branding Firms Enter the Industrial Design Fray, by Carl Alviani

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to sell what we design--people would just know. When Industrial Designers imagine utopia, it's not only full of beautiful, functional products, it's also full of consumers who recognize them instantly and without prodding. Persuasion, in the form of logos, ad campaigns, and the ever-broadening array of activities known as branding, has attained the status of Necessary Evil to many of us. Designers--as we repeatedly tell each other in school, in the studio, and at conferences--are all about function, emotion and progress; persuasion is for shills.

If we're honest about it though, we'd have to admit that branding and ID have been intimately related for a long time. Moreover, a lot of product designers have made their careers by getting in on the branding game in the past couple of decades. It shouldn't come as any surprise to hear that the same thing is starting to happen in reverse--branding agencies are doing product, and they're doing it fairly well.

Should product designers feel threatened? Depends on who you ask.

>> continue

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Spain throws its hat into the Eco City ring.

One of the more unexpected charms of driving through the Spanish countryside is the proliferation of windmills, especially in the windier, higher plateau areas in the north of the country. We're not talking about charming medieval ones that Quixote took for giants either -- Spain is rapidly becoming one of Europe's leaders in green energy, and broad acceptance of wind power is a big part of it.

As if an annual 30% growth rate in wind energy weren't enough, the Spanish are also going after the sustainable living thing in a more immersive way, with plans released recently for a completely carbon-neutral city on a pair of hills in the storied Rioja wine-producing region. Consisting of 3,000 homes, the Logrono Montecorvo Eco City will include wind turbines and photovoltaic cells to supply all of its own energy needs, and just received approval from the local government.

>> continue

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Core77 Photo Gallery : FreeDesigndom 2008

FreeDesigndom 2008 is the first edition of a new annual design and fashion event in the Netherlands, with four-week program of festivals, exhibitions and symposiums including Experimenta Design, Hacking IKEA, Sustainable Design Collective and Red Light Fashion in the heart of Amsterdam.

>> view gallery

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Japan's Hakusan Porcelain company discuss their design driven approach

PingMag caught up with Keiichi Matsuo of Hakusan Porcelain, an eighth generation ceramic company in Nagasaki, Japan. His father introduced a design-based approach to traditional crafts in the 1950's employing designer Masahiro Mori.

As the story goes, the famous industrialist Konosuke Matsushita was disembarking from an airplane after a trip around the world when he said "This is the beginning of the Design Era." My father heard that and thought, "Oh, so that's what era it is. But, what is design? If Konosuke Matsushita says it's the Design Era, then it must be so. OK then, let's hire a designer. I wonder where we find one of those?"

Peaking in 1980, a slow decline set in as sales began to drop off year after year, the economy burst and by 1998 Matsuo thought he was going under. Things changed for the better when he sidestepped his distributors and began exhibiting at Tableware trade shows. The collection was met with a positive reaction and the company discovered a new audience for their contemporary minimal range.

Read the full interview here.

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Book Review: The Design Entrepreneur, by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico

Frank Kozik's brightly colored toy smoking rabbit for Paul Budnitz's Kidrobot typifies the intersection between graphic design and product design. Is it a product design, graphic design, or art? Perhaps it is simply a masterful exercises in anti-form, since its shape needs to be serve more as a canvas than a standalone product. Steven Heller and Lita Talarico's The Design Entrepreneur: Turning Graphic Design into Goods that Sell profiles Kidrobot, along with around fifty other companies who have managed to convert graphic design into "goods." Some, like Shepard Fairey's Obey posters, can be produced as pure printed graphics, while others, like Constantin Boym's "Buildings of Disaster" manifest as matte grey 3-D objects, though admittedly with graphic sensibilities.

The Design Entrepreneur is structured with introductions written by Heller and Talarico, followed by a series of case studies. Each case study consists of an interview with the designer, along with photos of finished products and inspirations. The main emphasis, however, is on the entrepreneurial process. Nearly all of the subjects started small and without clear business plans. Their companies grew organically by making one-offs, selling to friends, and just having fun. Only later did the enterprise grow to a scale that required management. While this should be heartening news for aspiring product design entrepreneurs, I couldn't help but wonder whether turning graphics into goods is simply somehow, well, easier than it is for industrially designed products. With digital design tools and large format CMYK printers it seems as though graphic design ambitions lend themselves more to modest beginnings than hundred thousand dollar injection molds. Fortunately, with the advent of 3D printers and CAD visualization, making products and prototypes is getting easier by the year. So as startup costs fall, and Heller and Talarico's book about goods made by graphic designers may have a lot to teach those of us involved in capital-intensive product design.

>> continue

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"Muji To Go" lands at JFK

If you're traveling through JFK (and have some cash to burn) you'll soon be able to pack a little lighter; Muji To Go is opening an outpost at the New York airport in two weeks, as they did in Hong Kong's airport earlier this year. With nearly 400 items focused on "travel and mobile," the 596-square-foot store expects to see high traffic. If it takes off, no pun intended, you can expect to see more Muji To Go at an airport near you.

Click here to download the Muji To Go catalog.

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just imagine...what will life be like in 2020?

CNN, in collaboration with Ericsson, looks at the future in 2020.

In addition to feature articles focused on people such as Ross Lovegrove and Rem Koolhaas, the site contains entire sections on the future of nature, cities, space, living spaces, community, health, transport, and education.

The same site also features an article on interior design of the future, with a extensive photo gallery.

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Seoul Design Olympiad - A design festival of Olympic proportions

Most event organizers would be content with producing a three-day conference featuring 20 speakers from around the world, including Ross Lovegrove, Daniel Libeskind, Yves Behar, Kim Young-Se among others. But the Seoul Design Olympiad has greater ambitions. The conference, which concluded on Sunday, was just one element in a month-long celebration intended to promote design and the design industry to the public in leading up to 2010, the year Seoul will be officially designated as the World Design Capital.

Other elements in the program include a design business exhibit, a young designers market with more than 50 participants, a design competition exhibit housed in three tents showcasing more than 100 entries, a car design exhibit, a street furniture exhibit (designed by citizens!), fashion and lifestyle exhibits, a custom art installation that literally wraps the entire Olympic Stadium, installations from more than 20 schools and continuing presentations from speakers world wide.

The best part is that the entire event is free of charge and open to the public. So the consumers of all this future-looking knowledge, for the most part, were not a select group of industry insiders, who already know and believe in the power of design. Instead it was a mainstream audience, young and old, including families with children, something you don't usually see at a design festival. The city of Seoul has done a great job in promoting ideas and visions usually confined to the halls of art and design schools to the mass market, and should serve as a model for how other municipalities world wide can help educate people about the power of design in ways that easily relate to their daily lives.

>> lots of pics!

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eco:Drive

At the Paris Motor Show a couple weeks ago, the Italian car manufacturer Fiat unveiled eco:Drive, an innovative, easy-to-use social software application that helps drivers improve how efficiently they drive. It analyses their driving style and helps them to use less fuel by reducing their CO₂ emissions and to save money.

(and make sure to choose the correct language - choices are English, French, Italian and ...International English)

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Why Apple doesn't 'do' concept design

On the Counternotions blog, the author - known only as Kontra - writes at length about the concept of releasing concept products that many companies such as Microsoft, Nokia and various automobile manufacturers indulge in. He points out that Apple doesn't 'do' concepts and hasn't released one to the public since the eighties then tells us that 'real artists ship'. His post expounds at length on Steve Jobs' approach to visionary product design and Apple's strategy of releasing real products not just concepts. Here's a snippet,

Pretenders don't quite understand that design is born of constraints. Real-life constraints, be they tangible or cognitive: Battery-life impacts every other aspect of the iPhone design - hardware and software alike. Screen resolution affects font, icon and UI design. The thickness of a fingertip limits direct, gestural manipulation of on-screen objects. Lack of a physical keyboard and WIMP controls create an unfamiliar mental map of the device. The iPhone design is a bet that solutions to constraints like these can be seamlessly molded into a unified product that will sell. Not a concept. Not a vision. A product that sells.

It turns out that when capable designers are given real constraints for real products they can end up creating great results. In Apple's case, groundbreaking products like the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. Constraints have a wonderful way of focusing the mind on the fundamentals, whereas concept products can often have the opposite affect.

Concept products are like essays, musings in 3D. They are incomplete promises. Shipping products, by contrast, are brutally honest deliveries. You get what's delivered. They live and die by their own design constraints. To the extent they are successful, they do advance the art and science of design and manufacturing by exposing the balance between fantasy and capability.

So, what do you think? Should companies release concept designs or simply wait to launch the products?

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Vienna Design Week 2008 Highlights

Pure Austrian Design (PAD) have posted a few highlights from this year's Vienna Deign Week which will continue through till Sunday. Taking place in their home city, PAD's contribution was a huge bubble showcasing Austrian furniture in the main courtyard of the MuseumsQuartier. Given the wet weather, the installation was possibly the best solution for an outdoor exhibit.

Pictured above, the exterior of the Liechtenstein Palace where the opening party took place, PAD's oversize bubble at the MQ, Marie Rahm & Monica Singer from Polka, Czech designer Maxim Velčovský (Qubus design) and new wine glasses from Polka produced by LOBMEYR Vienna.

>> more pictures

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Flying car or drivable airplane?

And finally, scheduled to ship in late 2009, the Terrafugia Transition is one step closer to realizing the flying car. The Transition is being designed to be a factory certified Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) that just happens to be street legal.

To qualify as "light sport," the Transition will have to weigh around 1,300 pounds. That's 500 pounds less than a Smart car, but the Transition will be as long as a Suburban and, in places, just as tall.

The first flight test of a fully functional proof-of-concept vehicle is scheduled for next month, over 40 customers have already put down a deposit with the anticipated purchase price of $194,000. Popsci caught up with Terrafugia co-founder Carl Dietrich, 31 to get the story on the roll out.

>> more pictures + a movie

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Special thanks to Niti Bhan 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.

Harman Kardon Makes Crystal Bling Speakers

Ok, we're over the crystal-bling craze, but crystal-bling-steampunk?! Yep. Hold onto your blowtorches n' chisels, design fans, the new Harman Kardon GLA-55 speakers are exactly that. Kurt Solland, the VP of ID at Harman and Core 77's very own 1HDC judge, gave us the low-down:

"The idea was to meld high-tech with craftsman styling and pushing 'Steam Punk' in an elegant way. For the technology side, there are integrated digital amplifiers with special drivers and a proprietary port to allow this to be your complete sound system. All you have to do is plug it in, throw away your old 'boxy' speakers and enjoy. For the design side, I balanced the outside, inside and refractive aesthetic. The outside surfaces had to work harmoniously with the inside surfaces which both had to combine with the refractive nature of the facets…whew! It a way it was kind of like painting with light by utilizing each individual interior as an art installation, it certainly was a very delicate 'chord' to balance just right."

And when you consider these are stuffed choc-full of treats like a 100-watt bi-amplified digital amplifier coupled with DSP equalization, Atlas AL drivers and woofers, PLUS a CMMD tweeter as well as optimisation for digital sound -- oof! -- these beauties won't stay quiet for long. To top it off, the faceted cut-glass enclosures house touch-sensitive volume controls. Yowzas.

>> more pictures

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"Peace" by Daniel Chang, Graphic Design, a final poster from a transdisciplinary studio, instructors Martha Rich and Esther Watson, Illustration

Deserve Your Dream: Design Education and Advocacy, by Mariana Amatullo

Social impact projects that come into the classroom and burst out into the field are thrilling. The rush of creativity and the synergy of many minds working together can result in purposeful design projects to great effect: generating tangible solutions that make a lasting difference in people's lives.

Historically, designers have always strived to create positive social change, and many celebrated efforts--think back to the Bauhaus--started in schools. Both of those things remain true today. In fact, design education has a larger role than ever to play in challenging the status quo around the wicked problems of a crowded planet. Despite, and perhaps because of, the world being in such turmoil, this is a very exciting time for design and designers. I firmly believe that with an expanded tool kit, designers can be instrumental contributors to a conversation about the future that it is getting increasingly layered and multidisciplinary. If we are ever to reduce or curtail dire societal ills and achieve sustainable development--by definition, prosperity that is globally shared and environmentally sustainable--responsible design needs to be front and center as part of the equation. (For an engrossing state of the world report, see Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, by the economist Jeffrey Sachs.)

Educational institutions are vital labs for creative inquiry, entrepreneurial force and experimentation. As such, they can act as a powerful nexus for projects about critical issues that engage students in meaningful work. I have a front row seat in this dynamic field as the lead of the college-wide program Designmatters at Art Center College of Design. At the college through Designmatters, we constantly challenge ourselves to instill in our projects an empathetic approach, and to deliver "real-world" outcomes that have a killer aesthetic. At the root of the process, I am guided by a frontier-like impetus to create unusual alliances that cut across traditional boundaries between development and non-profit agencies, government and business sectors.

>> continue

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1 Hour Design Challenge: Sick-Ass Car Rendering Winners!

The results are in and we are proud to announce the winners of the latest Core77 1 Hour Design Challenge: Sick-Ass Car Renderings! There were a ton of great entries in this competition, and the added value of seeing time-lapse movies of the renderings as they happened over a 60 minute period was a fantastic treat. Thanks to everyone who participated, and make sure to check out all the entries in the forum.

Our esteemed judge on this this challenge was Ralph Gilles, VP of Design at Chrysler and designer of the Chrysler 300, who had the following overall impressions:

The contest was a great reminder to me of how much fun automotive design as art can be. The variety of styles was cool but I really enjoyed the rare opportunity to watch creation happen real time. Core77 should have more of this on file as it can be really helpful to aspiring designers and is simply a treat to watch.

Click here to meet the winners...

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The art of innovation

The Art of Innovation, a report by NESTA, the UK innovation endowment, explores how fine arts graduates contribute to innovation in the creative industries and beyond, and what policy makers can do to support their contribution.

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Book Review: Process, by Jennifer Hudson

Glossy product design books usually relegate details like ideation sketches, prototypes, parting lines, and injection molds to a supporting role, but Jennifer Hudson's Process: 50 Product Designs from Concept to Manufacture puts them front and center. Highlighting projects from both up-and-coming designers and design luminaries, Process showcases the hours of effort that disappear behind the scenes and are rarely seen by the consumer. Fifty products are each given about a page of explanatory text and are supported by three or four pages of photographs of early prototyping work. Everything from sculptural vases to functional electronics is shown from its birth as an idea to its eventual manufacture. Process reveals all of the details of industrial design that graphic designers (or book editors) might find a bit dull and it shines because of it.

>> continue

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Pininfarina launches electric car

Pininfarina, the legendary Italian car design company, launched a new electric car, called B0 [pronounced B Zero], at the Paris Auto Show.

This car is not a prototype. It is a mass production model - the first Pininfarina branded car ever - with the first units coming off the production line at the end of 2009, after which production will be ramped up gradually based on the availability of the batteries.

Built in Turin by Pininfarina-Bolloré, a joint venture formed by the two family-owned groups, the B0 electric car is a fully-electric vehicle without any carbon dioxide production, having been designed from the ground up with that aim in mind.

Dedicated to the memory of Andrea Pininfarina who was a firm believer in the project, the elegant four-seater, four-door hatchback can be recharged in a matter of hours from a standard domestic main socket and has a range of 250 km (153 miles).

The B0 has a top speed that is electronically limited to 130 km/h (80 mph) and features potent acceleration, reaching 60 km/h from a standing start (0 to 37 mph) in 6.3 seconds. The B0 also features solar panels on its roof and hood, so as to help recharge its electrical power reserves.

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Designing a desktop alternative in Milan

A group of Italian researchers, led by Giorgio De Michelis, is developing a new "design-driven" way of organizing the contents of a PC, covering both the hardware and the software.

The project - named Itsme - is run by a spinoff of the Bicocca University, which has the sole objective of designing a radically new personal computer concept that is able to easily handle the vast amounts of information and relations, that current desktops and laptops have difficulties with.

The team involved wants to replace the desktop and folder metaphor, as it is not capable of managing the complexity of relations and interconnected histories, with a new one based on the concept of stories and venues.

A first prototype with an easy-to-use interface based on this metaphor will be launched in 2010 and first concepts and ideas will be discussed at the upcoming SMAU technology fair in Milan (15 to 18 October).

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Nursery of the Future shows you how to raise futuristic babies

When designers get asked to re-do a room of the house for publicity purposes, it's usually a sexy room, like the Kitchen of the Future, the Living Room of the Future, or maybe the Bedroom of the Future. More practical rooms, like maybe the Hallway of the Future, or Toolshed of the Future, not so much. So we're bummed that we missed this one day event from last week: baby stuff maker Similac pulled a bunch of innovative existing products together with some conceptual ones to create a Nursery of the Future show.

The event, held in a tent on Columbus Circle in New York last Wednesday, the 24th, showcased some clever existing products for baby, like Scott Henderson's "Mate" table setting for Skip Hop, and a leak-proof sippy cup from Thermos, seen above.

>> continue

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Sustainable Innovations at the Base of the Pyramid Conference, Helsinki

The Sustainable Innovations at the Base of the Pyramid conference has recently concluded at the Helsinki School of Economics where there were a number of speakers from both business and design as well as developmental organizations such as the UNDP and UNEP. The primary focus of the conference was on sustainable solutions - whether addressing the issues of climate change, the environment, waste, recycling or resources or whether business models meant to serve the poor profitably could be designed to be self supporting over time.

From the design point of view, Dr Prabhu Kandachar of TU Delft's Industrial Design dept spoke on the need for a systems approach that put the users at the center of the design and development process, rather than the profits. His comprehensive overview of the global scenario is available here "Base of the pyramid strategy - eradicating poverty with innovations? "

>> continue

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Bike Rack Design Competition Entries Unveiled!

Prototypes of the shortlisted entries in the CityRacks Design Competition were installed for public scrutiny at Astor Place in New York last week, the jury are welcoming feedback via comments on the official site and will announce the winner October 24th, 2008.

The competition brief specified for a surface mounted design which a couple of entries hadn't fully resolved yet. Most of the submissions are only intended to lock 2 bikes, multiple clusters would be used on larger sidewalks to accommodate more cyclists.

Another aspect of the competition is that the design should serve as a visual icon and promote cycling in New York, anyone living in the city will be familiar with the numerous bright green bike lanes that have appeared in the last few months as part of an overall initiative to make New York bike friendly.

>> more pictures and details

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Toward a European Internet-of-Things

Europe could take the lead in the next generation of the Internet. In a document entitled "EU Communication on Future Networks and the Internet", the European Commission has outlined the main steps that Europe has to take to respond to the next wave of the Information Revolution that will intensify in the coming years due to trends such as social networking, the decisive shift to on-line business services, nomadic services based on GPS and mobile TV and the growth of smart tags.

They also launched a public consultation on the policy and private sector responses to these opportunities, in order to prepare an upcoming Communication on the Internet of Things. This document will propose a policy approach addressing the whole range of political and technological issues related to the move from RFID and sensing technologies to the Internet of Things. It will focus especially on architectures, control of critical infrastructures, emerging applications, security, privacy and data protection, spectrum management, regulations and standards, broader socio-economic aspects.

A working paper on the Internet of Things accompanies the consultation by outlining the early challenges of this important development.

And to make sure you got the importance of it all: the French have even organised a ministerial conference on it all.

via Bruce Sterling

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Cloning the clone: meet "Darwin" the RepRap 1.0

At the turn of the 21st century the Raelians captured the world's attention with the suggestion that human cloning was being attempted within their ranks. The notion that we can reproduce the precise DNA of another being, has inspired great science fiction, real scientific discovery, and a lot of controversy. The world of design now has its own cloning story: enter the RepRap 1.0 (short for Replicating Rapid prototyper), designed by Adrian Bowyer to produce the majority of its own component parts. Bowyer's RepRap 1.0, nicknamed "Darwin," evolved out of the desire to realize John von Neumann's mid-20th century proposal for a "universal constructor" -- that is, a machine that could copy itself. While the RepRap only reproduces its component parts, still requiring human assembly (leaving the dream of self-assembly yet to be realized), Bowyer points out that humans are themselves excellent assembly machines.

>> continue

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Jet Man crosses the English Channel

Another contender for the title of Rocket Man is Swiss airline pilot Yves Rossy who just flew across the English Channel wearing a homemade jet-propelled wing in under 15 minutes.

The carbon composite-wing weighs about 121 pounds (55 kilograms) when loaded with fuel, and carried four kerosene-burning jet turbines that kept him aloft. The wing had no steering devices -- Rossy moved his body to control its movements.

He wore a heat-resistant suit similar to that worn by firefighters and racing drivers to protect him from the heat of the turbines. The cooling effect of the wind and high altitude also prevented him from getting too hot.

>> view video

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3D body scans used to create 2D sewing patterns

The T-shirt Issue is an experimental project by Berlin designer's Mashallah Design and Linda Kostowski who converted the 3D files of 3 digitally scanned bodies into simple polygon forms that were used to generate unique 2D patterns for the garments.

>> continue

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f@%k the Rain

And finally, our sentiments exactly. Available here.

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Special thanks to Margaret Maile, Niti Bhan, 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.