Ukrainian designer's lamp has that gangsta lean

The Anemona lamp, by Ukrainian designer Igor Pinigin, is like a Weeble that can commit to its leanings; heavy glass balls hidden inside the base provide stability, no matter which way you tilt it. Working prototypes were exhibited at Moscow's SaloneSatellite 2008, though there's no word on if it will go into actual production.

>> more pictures

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The "O" in Obama

New York Times art director Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender, whose firm designed the ubiquitous Obama "O."

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The most important piece of software for an Industrial Designer

Jason Morris, a professor at Western Washington University's ID program, has just posted up the findings of a year-and-a-half long survey of software requirements for ID jobs, summarized above. Taken from an admittedly small and arbitrary sample--200 or so job postings in IDSA Perspectives--the results point out a few trends worth considering.

1. 2D visual exploration is still the most important, and Adobe is still at the top of that heap. No surprise there.

2. Illustrator edges out Photoshop for the first time. Apparently rapid iteration and adjustment is winning over s3xy hawtness.

3. SolidWorks muscles its way into first place among 3D CAD. A little surprising considering it was originally engineering software, but it's hard to argue with something so easy to learn (and backed up by all that marketing).

4. Alias is still the most requested surface modeler, creaming Rhino by nearly 2 to 1. Again, it's a limited sample, but we thought it'd be a lot closer than that.

5. Pro/E: it ain't dead yet. In fact it's doing pretty well. In fact it's kind of kicking ass. The latest WildFire doesn't look half bad.

6. AutoCAD and 3DSMax are losing favor, which is only fair--they're mostly for architecture and construction after all.

7. Not a single explicit modeler on there...yet.

Does this jive with your own experiences? Let us know.

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Recessionary design: a boom time for creative energy

In her weekly column in the International Herald Tribune, Alice Rawsthorn argues that design has always coped well with austerity, and is especially well-equipped to do so now.

Of particular interest are the examples of the work done by the UK-based service design consultancy Live|Work.

>> Read article

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Christmas for your phone

Black Friday ain't even here yet, but HK manufacturer More-Thing is already prepping for the holidays with their Noel Collection of iPhone cases, now shipping. Question is, come January will the slim-fit metallic casings look like one more thing you've been tardy in removing, like that plastic Santa on your roof?

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How to rob a bank without money?

"How can you rob a bank in a world without money?" wonders science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, one of the collaborators of the new foresight project KashKlash.

KashKlash is a lively platform where you can debate future scenarios for economic and cultural exchange. Beyond today's financial turmoil, what new systems might appear? Global/local, tangible/intangible, digital/physical? On the KashKlash site, you can explore potential worlds where traditional financial transactions have disappeared, blended, or mutated into unexpected forms. Understand the near future, and help shape it!

Imagine yourself deprived of all of today's conventional financial resources. Maybe you're a refugee or stateless -- or maybe it's the systems themselves that have gone astray. Yet you still have your laptop, the Internet, and a broadband mobile connection. What would you do to create a new informal economy that would help you get by? What would you live on? E-barter? Rationing? Gadgets? Google juice? Cellphone minutes? Imagine a whole world approaching that condition. Which of today's major power-players would win and lose, thrive or fail? What strange new roles would tomorrow's technology fill?

Besides Bruce Sterling, the initial collaborators are Regine Debatty (of we-make-money-not-art), Nicolas Nova (LIFT) and Joshua Klein (author and hacker), who have been collaborating on initiating the discussion.

KashKlash is now opening up to you. You can join and follow the debate of our experts or contribute yourself by leaving a comment on the different matters or fill out our KashKlash questionnaire.

This public domain project is conceived and led by Heather Moore of Vodafone's Global User Experience Team and run by Experientia, an international forward-looking user experience design company based in Turin, Italy.

Check the project description for more info.

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Sustainab-ollie-ty

I thought by now there wasn't anything left to re-make using bamboo. I was wrong. Bamboo Sk8 has released... Can you guess? A bamboo skateboard. Arbor and Comet have been making sustainably harvested decks for a while now (under better brand names, too. Seriously, "Sk8"? What is this, 1995?), but this is the first all-bamboo, shortboard-specific company I've heard of.

Now that bamboo has entered the "action" sports market (we already have hard drives and t-shirts made out of the stuff), can we finally declare the trend over? What's wrong with good old-fashioned post-consumer recycled material? I'd also like to see a carbon-footprint comparison of local, sustainably-harvested lumber vs. imported bamboo (unless B.Sk8 buys local?).

(via Inhabitat)

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CityRacks Design Competition Winner Announced

Copenhagen designers Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve have won New York's CityRacks Design Competition with their floating circle design. Almost 5,000 cast metal 'Hoop' racks are planned to be installed throughout the city over the next 3 years.

Results
First Place: Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve (Bettlelab)
Second Place: Andrew Lang and Harry Dobbs
Third Place: Ignacio Ciocchini

View finalist's entries

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(Re)defining responsible retail @ Connect

Bamboo t-shirts and organic cotton underwear aplenty can be found at most eco-chic outfitters these days, but one urban Chicago clothier wants its business to wear green as well as its customers do.

Connect will work today to ensure future generations a fertile ground for the continued cultivation and evolution of conscious capitalism. Our professional and personal lives are grounded in positive exchange. Connect will only select partnerships that focus on social, environmental, and humanitarian solutions.

Connect is one of only two retailers to carry the entire collection from now-revived Nau, which is nestled amidst many other fashion-forward-thinking labels. The space is dotted with sustainable furniture that is available for purchase and serves as a rotating location for Connect's monthly fundraising events for various NPOs. And if you're a local, you can breathe easy knowing your delivery was transported via bike versus gas guzzler.

Check it out people!

Connect
1330 North Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642
312.890.3684

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Krink K-66 Steel Tip Marker

And finally, known for their distinct dripping ink effect, KRINK have released the K-66 Steel Tip Marker available in 10 colors.

Krink was developed by graffiti writer and artist, Craig "KR" Costello. Carefully seeking out ingredients that were not readily available, "KR" created a variety of homemade inks and markers fit for use in both street and studio environments.

All markers and inks are handmade in the USA, get your KRINK here.

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Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and William Bostwick 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.

Coroflot's 8th Annual Design Salary Survey now online!

Since 2001, Coroflot has been conducting its annual salary survey for the design industries. By contributing your 2 cents, you are helping to build an amazing resource for both designers and employers. It will take less than 1 minute: Get started here! (Then you can check out last year's results.)

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Dog lamp by Charles Kalpakian

Inspired by graffiti, nature, sculpture, lighting, music and souvenirs, designer Charles Kalpakian's playful lamp 'dog' stores books on his back and lights up by pulling his tail several times, a dynamo stores energy and provides light. Yazter recently interviewed Kalpakian here and there's a heap more work on his site hellokarl.com.

>> more pictures

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Coroflot Creative Seeds: Six things to consider when setting your freelance rate.

So, how much are you worth?

We're not talking in a philosophical, meaning-of-life sort of way, but the much harder, more immediate sort of worth: cash money, and your first client has just asked how much of it you want for an hour of your creative time. For anyone new to creative freelancing, picking a rate can feel nearly as tenuous as selecting a "card, any card" from a deck fanned out on a magician's table, but there does turn out to be some logic to it.

Over at Creative Seeds, Carl Alviani has a rundown of six things the remember when focusing in on that magic number; here's #5:

An hour worked is not an hour billed.

You only get to bill your client for time spent producing deliverables for them: the renderings, the prototypes, the presentations, the sketches, the research reports. One thing young freelancers are often astonished to discover is how, at the end of a long hard day, they've only generated 4 hours worth of work for their client.

It's a discouraging realization, but really it shouldn't be; that's just how freelancing works (it's how staff jobs usually work too, if we're ruthlessly honest in our accounting). There's time spent marketing yourself, time spent learning new skills, and time spent recovering from mistakes. There's also time spent on the phone with a professional acquaintance, reading blogs and sites relevant to your field, and responding to emails from potential future clients. This stuff is necessary too, but it's not billable. In fact, a good rule of thumb is that for every hour you bill, you'll be working for two. Once this settles in, five hours entered into a timesheet on Monday doesn't look so bad.

>>Read the whole article here.<<

photo credit: zoomar

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McDonald's Unbranded. Seriously.

News from Tokyo of a couple no-logo McDonald's opening up early this month. No weird clowns, no golden arches, no...anything really, just a black storefront with red trim and a big burger in the window. Taking a cue from In-n-Out, the menu's exactly two items long: quarter-pounder and double quarter-pounder. Further proof that red, black, and white is the king of all corporate color schemes, from Coke to the Nazis. Check the new website here.

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Call for engineers: help design an eye-mounted camera

When someone gets hit by a car, it's a tragedy. When they suffer permanent injury, such as losing an eye, it becomes a lifelong tragedy. When they seek to turn that tragedy into art, though, it becomes an opportunity, and a fascinating one at that.

Tanya Vlach is a fifth-generation San Franciscan who suffered just such an injury back in 2005, and has both the prosthetic eyeball and eye-patch to prove it. Judging by her blog, she also received a radically altered perspective on life and the nature of perception, and this brings us to the opportunity.

Tanya wants to put a camera in her head.

>> continue

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I'm an Aerostar, I'm a Cutlass Supreme

In the HuffPo (sure, we can call it that, why not?), aging rocker Neil Young (heck, what's a tired journalistic cliche between friends?) offers up a vision for How To Save A Major Automobile Company.

The big three must reduce models to basics. a truck, an SUV, a large family sedan, an economy sedan, and a sports car. Use existing tooling.

Keep building these models to keep the workforce employed but build them without engines and transmissions. These new vehicles, called Transition Rollers, are ready for a re-power. No new tooling is required at this stage. The adapters are part of the kits described next.

At the same time as the new Transition Rollers are being built, keeping the work force working, utilize existing technology now, create re-power kits to retrofit the Transition Rollers to SCEVs (self charging electric vehicles) for long range capability up to and over 100mpg.

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The Met's first interactive opera

The day's of projecting video live on stage to enhance the visual experience has come a long way, last Friday's performance of "Faust" at the Metropolitan Opera was the most sophisticated interactive technology they've incorporated to date.

...Microphones (not the broadcasting kind) which are attached to the singers and positioned over the orchestra gauge volume and pitch. A system of infrared lights and cameras detect motion; similar technology is used to catch people trying to cross the United States border with Mexico, Mr. Lepage said.

A flock of digitally created birds swirls during Faust's opening aria. As Mr. Giordani's pitch changes, the birds change directions. As the volume surges, they swoop. When soldiers, supported by cables, march perpendicularly up the scaffolding on a projection of grass, the blades waver and part.

For the water-reflection scene, a high-definition camera captures the image of the moving boat. The software flips the image upside down, creates a shimmer and then instructs a projector to play it back simultaneously on the screen below the boat. The movements of ballet dancers during the "Menuet des follets" cause projected images of curtains to flutter and billow. In the production's most striking moment a JumboTron image of Ms. Graham's face appears behind her, emanating flames, as she sings "D'amour l'ardente flame."

New York Times via PSFK

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Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs

An absolutely fascinating article over at DesignObserver by Adam Levy on a set of post-nuclear photographs and their provenance. Here are a couple tastes:

But think of Hiroshima and what comes to mind is the mushroom cloud. Awesome in its way, with its bulbous head and towering stem, it is nonetheless an abstract image freed from human agency.

The lack of visual evidence of the atom bomb's effect has helped us to forget its devastating impact. To see is to remember. Up until now, there have been few publicly available images of what happened on the ground when the first atomic bomb exploded. As a result, Hiroshima has become, as the novelist Mary McCarthy wrote in 1946, "a kind of hole in human history."

These images go some way towards filling in this hole in our historical memory. Taken during the weeks following the bombing, they show a landscape that is eerily vacant and quiet, like ruins from a vanished civilization. But why were they taken and by whom? And how is it that they ended up in a pile of garbage?

And just a little bit more:

These photographs are significant not only for their visual message but also for their very existence as a group, for their cohesive documentation of an event of which we have few other still images.

Although the images taken by the Physical Damage Division don't depict the human suffering of the atomic bomb they do provide a vital function. They say: this is what we, mankind, are capable of unleashing upon each other. Like ruins, they refer back into time (this is what we have done, are capable of doing) while simultaneously warning of a future we have not yet encountered (they give substance to our terror of the use of another nuclear weapon).

Read the whole essay here.

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Many thanks for this guest post just in from Ashley Thorfinnson and Sahar Ghaheri.

Snapshots from A Better World by Design Conference

Undergrads passionately conversing on leaf-littered lawns between rows of red brick buildings set an almost overly iconic stage for the learning and discovery at this weekend's A Better World by Design Conference in Providence, RI. There was a laidback optimism in the air as we wandered between events at RISD and Brown, where students and professionals with lofty dreams of saving the world came together to gain advice from those who have already begun creating a better world by design. A few highlights are below:

Cameron Sinclair, Keynote Speaker
Despite showing up late, we were psyched to kick off our weekend by catching Cameron Sinclair's spectacular keynote speech. We laughed, we were moved, and we were beyond-inspired to follow his lead. Declaring the need for an absolute systemic change in the design world, Cameron spoke about creating economic engines for reconstruction in disaster-stricken areas, and of the importance of treating communities and clients as equal partners in the design process. Quoting another, Cameron likened his organization, Architecture for Humanity, to an "Al Qaeda for good...with sleeper cells all over the world, ready to activate." By establishing this worldwide network, he illustrated the power of creating a highly responsive design community that effectively matches skills with needs--or as he put in yet another colorful analogy, "match.com for the humanitarian design world."

>> continue

>> Designing a better world: behind the scenes at A Better World by Design conference

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Bicycle-sharing mania takes hold in Europe

In increasingly green-conscious Europe, there are said to be only two kinds of mayors: those who have a bicycle-sharing program and those who want one.

Read article

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New Dutch five euro coin

Speaking of Europe, the new Dutch five euro commemorative coin by Stani Michiels commemorates architecture. Check out the design process. Really stunning work.

via Design Observer

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House Industries Exhibition Opening Photos

The exhibition Letters and Ligatures showcases recent work from the Delaware-based type foundry House Industries. Click through for more photos from the opening and if you're in LA, the show at Subliminal Gallery will run untill December 5th.

>> more photos

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Cupboards, cupboards everywhere, nor any place to sleep.

New York architecture studio HWKN (Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushner) has a new shelving system called the Wall Unitizer that looks kind of like a cupboard virus has sprouted and spread through your apartment. It's a bit of an Archigram-style take on turning the home into an extension of the body. The walls are everything you need: shelves, seating, desk space. Plus, if you live in a typical coffin-sized city apartment, everything's within arm's reach!

So far they've only done one, for some lucky client on the U.E.S. It was heavily customized, down to optimal chair and desk height, but I hope they think of mass producing this thing. More info on the shelves and the studio here.

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Selling SolidWorks in Rwanda

Great, short report on using CAD in sub-Saharan Africa over on CAD Insider. In this case, it's Chillington Rwanda, a factory in Kigali that makes wheelbarrows, stonecrushers, and other locally necessary machinery. The article follows an attempt by local consultancy Gasabo 3D, as they try to convince the factory of the advantages of 3D modeling in a business environment where computers are still relatively scarce.

It's an interesting read for the juxtaposition of the familiar (engineers sit around a table with tech drawings and calipers, debating the next step) and the bizarre (a broken crusher wheel is replaced by hand carving a wooden replica, which is then measured and made into a casting form), and for a peek at the future of CAD in emerging markets.

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Photo from AP: Chris Bensch, curator of collections, shows off the newest inductees into the Toy Hall of Fame, a stick.

Stick enters Toy Hall of Fame. No, a real stick.

Okay, technically, the Stick, Skateboard, and Baby Doll were inducted, but we're mostly interested in the stick part. You gotta hand it to those folks in Rochester for having the guts to do this, and to (sorry) draw a line in the sand with what any/every parent knows all too well:

"It's very open-ended, all-natural, the perfect price--there aren't any rules or instructions for its use," said Christopher Bensch, the museum's curator of collections. "It can be a Wild West horse, a medieval knight's sword, a boat on a stream or a slingshot with a rubber band. ...No snowman is complete without a couple of stick arms, and every campfire needs a stick for toasting marshmallows."

Guts indeed, given the backlash they must've received from one of their 2005 inductees: the cardboard box. We have no pick for next year; the cardboard box and the stick are it.

Thanks tort!

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SNIF tag: Social Networking for dogs

And finally, if you feel it's time for Fido to get into that whole social networking thing then this may be for you. The SNIF tag is a wireless gadget that clips onto a dog's collar. As you take your dog for a walk amongst all the other SNIF-enabled hounds at your local park, the tag records your dog's erm, interactions and shares the data with other tags.

>> continue

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Special thanks to William Bostwick, Mark Vanderbeeken and Steve Portigal 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.

Maarten Baas' 'Clay Furniture - Stacking Chairs'

UGLY: How Unorthodox Thinking Will Save Design, by Tad Toulis

Is 'Good Design' an asphyxiating dogma?
Design is a peculiar activity: It's a creative process, but a process that subscribes to and reinforces certain restrictive attitudes. It can be rigid and self-policing, since a profession that earns its living by discerning what is good and bad must necessarily become judgmental. Ultimately this judgmental nature creates and enshrines certain points of view, which left unchallenged, become dogma. Today, one could argue that this dogma, generally predicated on longstanding ideas of 'rightness' and 'beauty' is choking the profession down, and worse yet, stifling its creativity as it faces some truly great problems—problems which if handled with new thinking and true creativity, will define the substance, practice and contribution of a generation of designers.

Pretty: Right priced beauty
But wait. Truth and beauty are good things, right? Not necessarily. Design's traditional preference on establishing 'order' has had the consequence of driving a collateral and unchecked pursuit of beauty. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, of course, and as such is subject to the vagaries of cultural bias and popular opinion. By degrees this pursuit of beauty has gradually been replaced with the much more predictable and less admirable accomplishment of achieving 'pretty'. And while consumer culture, planned obsolesce and design culture in general have benefited soundly from the creation, production and documentation of pretty things—the pursuit of pretty hasn't pushed the discipline of design into the tighter, less comfortable and ultimately more rigorous inquiries that outside forces (sustainability for example) are aligning to demand of us.

How might product designers better position the discipline to take on the hairy problems of sustainability, economic uncertainty, global competition and the like? Well, one thing is for certain, simply co-opting present patterns of consumption into activities and services linked to conservation won't get us there. That path might work if the world population of 6.5 billion was to stay fixed, but with an additional 3 billion consumers arriving to the party by 2050 we'll need to find more expedient (read: more creative) solutions.

>> continue

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Ron Arad 'Guarded Thoughts' exhibition photos, New York

Ron Arad's 'Guarded Thoughts' exhibition opened at New York's Friedman Benda Gallery last night presenting a new body of work continuing with his mix of cutting-edge technology and hands-on craftsmanship. While security did their best to prevent fingerprints (on everything), it was a free-for-all on the mirror finish ping-pong table.

A retrospective of Arad's career spanning 30 years opens at the Centre Georges Pomidou in Paris on November 18th, 2008, and will subsequently show at the MoMA in New York in 2009 and The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2010.

>> continue

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Tokyo Design Festival 2008 : All posts in one place

Check out Core77's event coverage of Tokyo Design Festival in one easy-to-browse place:

TOKYO DESIGNER'S WEEK:

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: 100% Design

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: Brent Comber

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: 100% Design & Blickfang

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: 100% Design - First Impressions

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: Kicks off Today

DESIGN TIDE TOKYO:

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Tide Main Exhibition

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: DMY

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Claska & Cibone

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Prototype Exhibition

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Frank Gehry

VIDEOS:

» Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: Video Drive-By: Michael Young

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Video Drive-By: Claudio Colucci

» Design Tide Tokyo 2008: Video Drive-By: Shay Alkalay & Yael Mer

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Core77 Photo Gallery : Designers' Open 2008

Designers' Open 2008 is one of the biggest design events in east Germany. During three days (24-26 Oct.) in Leipzig, we captured the power of a young design generation during a creative fight club, design exhibitions, historical art fair, and downtown specials.

>> view gallery

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Pentawards - 2008 Packaging Design Award Winners

Core77 pals The Die Line have published the winners of the 2008 Pentawards packaging design competition at their site. There are 11 pages of gorgeous and ingenious packaging projects to review there. Shown above is the Coca-Cola Alu Bottle designed by the Anglo-American Turner Duckworth agency. Congratulations to all the winners.

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Coroflot Creative Seeds: Questions for Jordan Nollman of Sprout Studios

Even if you don't recognize Jordan Nollman by name, you probably recognize a lot of his work, and definitely recognize the names he's worked for: Astro, IDEO, Ziba, Eleven, Razorfish, etc. After a successful six years at Astro, though, Nollman has decided to leave, in favor of working independently for personal care product firm Clio, and his own Sprout Studios.

Over at Creative Seeds, Carl Alviani has a nice little interview with Jordan, touching on royalites, his career so far, the attraction of going indy, and where all the designers in Boston live. Here he is on the importance of design school:

A lot of the basic, practical stuff, you can learn in high school: drawing and computer skills. What I learned in design school, more than anything, was how to talk to people and learn things from them. It's funny, I didn't actually receive my degree until three years ago--I had three Spanish classes to complete!--but I don't think a single employer ever checked up on this. If you've got a good portfolio and good references, that's what they pay attention to.

>>Read the whole interview here.<<

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World Economic Forum summit in Dubai produces design manifesto

The World Economic Forum's inaugural Summit on the Global Agenda, which just closed in Dubai, was billed as a new and unique gathering of the world's most influential thinkers - leaders from academia, business, government and society.

Structured in a network of over 60 Global Agenda Councils, the Summit provided a platform to share ideas and collaboratively address some of the key issues on the global agenda, with the aim of becoming a "brains trust" for solving major international problems.

The reports of each of the Councils are already online. The Council that dealt with design chose to write a design manifesto.

The group was chaired by Chris Luebkeman, director of global foresight and innovation for ARUP, and included Paola Antonelli, senior curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tim Brown of IDEO, Brian Collins who now runs his own ad/marketing company in his own name, Chris Jordan, a photographic artist, Toshiko Mori of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Bruce Nussbaum, assistant managing editor at Business Week, Alice Rawsthorn, design critic at the International Herald Tribune, Milton Tan, Executive Director of DesignSingapore Council, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and Arnold Wasserman, chairman of The Idea Factory in Singapore.

Others in the group who couldn't make it to Dubai were Chris Bangle, director of design for BMW, Hillary Cottam, founder of Participle in the UK, Kigge Mai Hvid CEO of Index in Denmark, Larry Keeley of Doblin, John Maeda, President of RISD and William McDonough.

Other reports to read are the ones developed by the Global Agenda Councils on the Future of Mobile Communications, the Future of Media, the Future of Entertainment, the Future of the Internet, the Geography of Innovation, Strategic Foresight, and Technology and Education.

via Bruce Nussbaum

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Interview: Designing and developing the Wii Balance Board

Here's a pretty fascinating (and long!) interview with two of the developers of the Wii Balance Board which, if you think about it, must have been a bear to design; nothing like this had ever been made before, and the developers knew if they couldn't keep the costs down, their project would be axed.

Inspiration for the device came from some pretty strange sources, not the least of which was...Sumo wrestlers. Read on.

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Online Flash-Based Mass Customization Application, or... "Design Your Own Coaster!"

No, we didn't start doing inkblot personality tests... this one comes from studio:ludens who is developing some interesting digital design tools. After a couple of testing weeks, they now launched their epa:kato application, or beter "design your own coaster!"

With this online design tool, you can play with shape, patterns and repetition to create a unique design. Click here to try for yourself!

Note: don't expect a monkey proof product - the developers actually wants you to drop comments, critique, questions, suggestions for improvement or praise here.

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Studio Jo Meesters launched "Odds and Ends, Bits and Pieces" at last month's Dutch Design Week, a collection of four pieces made entirely from 34 discarded wooden beams and 16 leftover blankets. The ongoing experimental project TESTLAB aims to reuse discarded materials by combing craftsmanship with mass production techniques to create new types of furniture.

The basic principle in Jo Meester's work is sustainability. By integrating various aspects of craftsmanship, sophistication, and detailing, Meesters aims to imbue his projects and products with an emotional value. In this way, he emphasises his commitment to the creation and perception of a bond between object and user.

>> more images

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Cradle to Cradle Design in Practice at Nutec 2008

"Can products and materials be healthy for humans and the environment, combine functionality and aesthetics, be produced with fairness in every aspect - and be economically successful at the same time?"

The answer is: "yes!" according to over 100 experts and more than 50 suppliers who will present themselves at the upcoming Nutec 2008 event in Frankfurt, Germany (12-14 November 2008).

Nutec stands for: Nutrients - Upcycling - Triple-Top-Line - Eco-effectiveness - Community, and focuses on the use of natural resources in closed cycles and rethinking the way in which products are designed.

The event is being organized by the Messe Frankfurt in collaboration with the EPEA (Internationale Umweltforschung) and Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart and should be a trend-setting congress and exhibition for the use of materials, products, and services in an entirely new approach.

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The Year's 50 Best Inventions

Time Magazine released its list of the 50 best inventions of the year. The winner? A home DNA-testing kit. The Speedo LZR is on the list, and so's the spinning skyscraper, the memristor, three different electric cars, and a new ping pong serve. There are a couple surprises (namely, the LHC didn't come in first! Holla back, Hadron!), and a few head-scratchers. Annoying blog posts came in at #42. Srsly?

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Coroflot's 8th Annual Design Salary Survey now online!

And finally, since 2001, Coroflot has been conducting its annual salary survey for the design industries. By contributing your 2 cents, you are helping to build an amazing resource for both designers and employers. It will take less than 1 minute: Get started here! (Then you can check out last year's results.)

 

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Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and William Bostwick 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.

[Apologies for the delay on the newsletter; now it's extra special!]

SPR Pressurized Rover

Designing for Space: Core77 visits NASA's Industrial Design Team, by Glen Jackson Taylor

Evan Twyford and Carl Conlee are two of three industrial designers working in NASA's Habitability Design Center (HDC), and in just over 2 years they have transitioned the department from one that dealt only with small isolated ergonomic projects to working on arguably the most exciting project at NASA today—a next generation pressurized lunar rover. Since working at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) they have had robots walk past their office door during meetings, experienced zero-gravity flight, had their bodies 3D scanned, and worked alongside some of the most talented engineers and scientists in the country. The thing is, NASA doesn't actually have an industrial design department. They don't even have a design department. Not technically, anyway.

Pictured left to right: Richard Szabo, Travis Baldwin, Carl Conlee and Evan Twyford

Meeting the team
"Things have changed so much since we started, people here don't really understand what Industrial Design is or how it fits into the bigger picture. But once they work with us and see the services we provide—visualizing information, realizing concepts—they see the value of what we do," explains Evan.

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Tokyo Designer's Week 2008: Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry doesn't typically do one-off pieces but after much convincing, he agreed to design the visitors bench for the World Company building in Tokyo, Japan's largest fashion house with over 90 labels and 3000+ retail outlets. It was just installed a few weeks ago and we were able to sneak in for a closer look last night while they were hanging a banner in the front for design week.

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>> View all Tokyo Design Festival posts here.

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1 Hour Design Challenge: Voting Booth Winners!

The results are in and we are proud to announce the winners of the latest Core77 1 Hour Design Challenge: Voting Booth! There was a wonderful selection of entries in this round, and the lead up to November 4th provided some nice design fuel. Thanks to everyone who participated, and make sure to check out all the entries in the forum.

Our esteemed judges on this this challenge were William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand of Winterhouse, creators of The Polling Place Photo Project (now a New York Times project) and founding editors of Design Observer. Here are their overall impressions:

Voting is a serious civic activity--perhaps the most important citizen engagement in a democracy. The challenge of one-hour solutions for voting booths might seem to run contrary to the scope and complexity of the enterprise, but we are nonetheless impressed with the range of solutions offered here. Some are serious, some are playful, and some are politically ironic. A carnival ride where you see the future implications of your vote? A monkey with a tamborine superimposed between the candidates? Throwing rocks at the portraits of the candidates you least like? We are amused. We are going to (generally) error, though, on the side of serious proposals, these being serious times. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to all who took the time to participate.

And now for the winners...

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Core77 Photo Gallery : DesignPhiladelphia 2008

Our DesignPhiladelphia 2008 gallery is now online with images covering a full week of events in the city of brotherly love. Highlights include Philly Heart Design local designer exhibition, A Clean Break: Pop-up Neighborhood, Make:Philly Art Cart Derby, and many lectures and exhibitions. Enjoy!

>> View Gallery

View all DesignPhiladelphia 2008 posts:

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: SOS Stool by Josh Owen

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Matthias Pliessnig

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: The Hacktory

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Two Days Left

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: A Clean Break

>> DesignPhiladelphia 2008: Student Work at 222 Gallery

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New JBL Eon's designed by RKS

JBL has just dropped the latest set of EON portable loud speakers, designed by RKS, and band-types at the Core77 office say, "we want these," citing the triple handles as a very desirable selling point. Seeing as we don't have a practice pair though, let's go to the press release. Read to the end for the best part:

The full, foam-backed, perforated metal grill provides an added measure of protection to internal components, while offering a clean, uncluttered look to the entire line. The speaker's shape, like the EON's power, projects from the rear of the speaker where the amp is housed. "The design flows from the back of the speaker in a single, accelerating curve," explained Lance Hussey, RKS Vice President of Design. The bold port vents provide a visual accent and evoke fond memories of the original EON.

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Book Review: Desire: The Shape of Things to Come, by the editors of Gestalten

Desire: The Shape of Things to Come, by Gestalten Press is visually interesting on every page. The oddly framed and somewhat flat front cover's picture of simple wooden furniture and gaudy gold tableware is by no means representative of the elegant furniture designs contained within. The introduction by Andrej Kupetz sets the tone by explaining the context of 21st Century design as a natural successor to the functionalism of Louis Sullivan's edicts and the visual expression of the Memphis movement. I still find the description of eras from the last fifty years as "modern" and "postmodern" somewhat confusing, but since it has become common usage I understand the authors need to use the terms. More interestingly, however, the remainder of the book does provide some new and useful (though not likely to become common usage) categories for recent design movements.

After the introduction, the book is structured in four parts: The Modernists, The Inventors, The Taletellers, and The Entertainers. Each section has a short introduction detailing the movements and their major players. The layout includes a mix of full bleed photographs, silhouettes and nicely gridded pictures with descriptive text. For some work, short background essays on the designers accompanies the photos. A lot of the furniture included in Desire transcends the neat categorization that the author provides, but is equally effective at provoking the emotion to which the title aspires. Though much of the work profiled here is more exhibition piece than industrial production, any reader is likely to discover something to lust after. For me, it was Kjellgren and Kaminsky's "Pompous Fat Armchair" which looks like set design from the Matrix met an 80's couch and a folding umbrella in an S&M club. Since that may not quite be your thing (and both the designers and myself admit that it isn't normally ours either), I encourage readers to find their own wish list inside.

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Ben Fry on the intersection of art and technology

On this Business Week podcast, Ben Fry, co-developer of the Processing open-source programming environment and recent winner of the prestigious Muriel Cooper Award for interactive digital communication, discusses the ever-increasing crossover between art, design, and technology.

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Network Citizens

Social networks are providing tremendous opportunities for people to collaborate. But until now, thinking has focused only on how organisations can respond to and capitalise on networks. This report by the UK think tank Demos argues that we have to look equally at how networks use organisations for their own ends. That is where the new contours of inequality and power lie that will shape the network world. We have to face networks' dark side, as well as their very real potential.

Bringing together in-depth case studies of six organisations, Network Citizens maps the key fault-lines that people and organisations will have to address in the future world of work. Not doing so puts at risk the very qualities we had invested in them: openness, innovation, collaboration and meritocracy. Since networks can act for good or ill, incubating the talents and ideas of the many, or promoting the interests of the few, the need for a new set of responsibilities is growing. If we are network members, we must be network citizens, too.

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TechShop previews its new Portland location, by Molly Purnell

TechShop, the membership-based machine shop for DIY gearheads, has been a favorite of us here at Core for a while, getting glowing mentions here and here. The biggest criticism we've always had of the place is that there's only one of them, and it's in Menlo Park, CA, which is great if you're a Silicon Valley tool nerd but annoying if you're a tool nerd anywhere else.

Thankfully, that's starting to change: after more than a year of anticipation, several of the planned expansion locations are starting to see some action, first at the Durham, NC Techshop, whose building was previewed in July, and just last week in Portland, OR, where Core contributer Molly Purnell hopped on a bus to the industrial section of nearby Beaverton to check out the new space, and talk to some other excited makers. Here's what she found:

On the bus I get to know Dave, a self-proclaimed inventor and maker who's excited about TechShop's CNC router. Dave builds Fretted Dulcimers which are apparently coming back into fashion in the Japanese hand-made instrument market, and he needs access to the shop in order to build prototypes.

Dave seems to be the typical clientelle of TechShop; a maker with big dreams, little space, and no equipment. TechShop's goal is to remedy this situation for the 300 or so potential members that came to the opening event. TechShop plans to have milling machines, lathes, welders, a laser cutter, an electronics shop, blacksmithing tools, a finishing room, workstations, a 3D printer, and of course the coveted CNC router. Along with all of this equipment there will be a tool and materials shop, a small library and a communal kitchen.

The greatest benefit of Techshop will be the probable development of community. The owner of TechShop, Jim Newton and the Portland shop manager, Denney Cole, claim that the community is one of the greatest drawing powers for continued membership. Most builders know that another's experience and knowledge is the best tool available.

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Emily Pilloton and Project H in the LimeLight

An existence as "makers of stuff" has long been accepted but, more recently, it's been thrown out many a proverbial window by designers worldwide. To set things on track to where they always should have been, Emily Pilloton founded Project H, a non-profit organization that puts design to work for humanity, habitats, health, and happiness. Its latest project is Design for Education, an initiative to design tools to improve teaching and learning in both the US and developing markets.

Learn extensively about what Project H is up to now and Pilloton's P.O.V. on the future of design over at Ecolect LimeLight.

I'd love for communities, both in the US and in India, Africa, Asia, and beyond, to begin to view design as something we rely on to solve our problems- one of the first lines of defense in ameliorating social ills. Design can be a form of capital, a form of public health, and a vehicle for social and political progress. I hope that Project H becomes proof of that.

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image credit: Curventa Bloodhound SSC

She gets lousy mileage, but man is she fast

We're conflicted about putting these images up because yes, we're supposed to be designing green vehicles to save the planet, not land-rockets that go over 1,000 miles per hour; but darn if this thing doesn't look cool.

You read that right: Curventa's Bloodhound SSC is a car (well, a land-based vehicle, anyway) designed to hit 1,050 m.p.h., which would make it faster than a bullet fired from a .357 Magnum. The three-year mission is still in progress, and if an actual production model ever sees the light of day, we can tell you they needn't include a seatbelt and airbag; slam into anything at those speeds and you will probably disintegrate entirely.

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New human-centric innovation university in Finland

During a recent speech Professor Yrjo Sotamaa, former Rector of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (TaiK), described Finland's educational strategy to remain at the forefront of innovation:

The new strategy aims at strengthening the core competencies of Finland through a radical university reform. And it is turning innovation thinking 180 degrees around to human-centric thinking. It does not lessen the importance of technology and business know-how, but in the future the innovation drivers are stronger tied to the needs of users and the opportunities on the market. The shift to user-driven innovation highlights the importance of design. Design has a huge and very new potential for innovation."

Aalto University, scheduled to officially open its doors in Autumn 2009, is a new university being created through a merge between the Helsinki School of Economics, the University or Art and Design Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology. The merge between the three universities will create a new science and art community from the three universities of technology, business studies and art and design and provide possibilities for multidisciplinary and strong education and research.

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Johnny Lee, YouTube, and the future of prototyping

Is Prototyping finally entering the pop-cultural lexicon?

Where it was once an opaque techno-fabulous term used by Q in James Bond flicks, or forming the dubious core of a Star Trek episode, we've now got a word that actually has meaning for the average TV viewer. "Prototyping" arouses interest and fascination, but lately it's also started feeling accessible, like a sexier version of building a birdhouse in the garage with your dad.

Case in point: in addition to reality TV phenomena like Project Runway, Mythbusters and Junkyard Wars, all of which feature on-the-fly construction as part of the drama, we can now count Discovery Channel's Prototype This, which not only uses the term in its name, but invites viewers to submit ideas of their own. This is a marked break from the established depictions of hi-tech: people pay attention when Apple rolls out a new product, but Steve Jobs never asks viewers to suggest what they ought to be working on next.

Now it looks like Prototyping may have its greatest advocate yet, in the form of recent Carnegie Mellon grad Johnny Chung Lee, whose YouTube video explaining how to hack a Wiimote into a VR display has earned him a TED talk, a pile of job offers, and over six million views. If you haven't seen it yet, you pretty much have to stop whatever you're doing and watch it right now:

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Attack of the Human Vending Machines!

And finally, Japan loves vending machines (jidoohanbaiki, I think). Food, books, clothes -- get it all by pushing a button. And remember this? They're so ubiquitous you can wear a vending machine suit and blend right in (kind of).

Taking this obsession to its illogical extreme, on November 18th, Uniqlo invades Times Square with an army of Human-Powered Vending Machines. Provocative commentary on the depersonalization of retail space design, or bizarro publicity stunt?

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

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