Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009

Deadline is January 15! In association with CEA, Core77 hosts this year's Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009, challenging designers to create the next generation of greener gadgets. Once again, finalists will be JUDGED LIVE at the Greener Gadgets Conference, this year slated for February 27th in New York City. Prize money is $3000 for 1st Place, $1000 each for 2nd and 3rd Places. Fire up those markers and tablets and get in the game!

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Book Review: Manufractured, by Steven Skov Holt and Mara Holt Skov

Manufractured by Steven Skov Holt and Mara Holt Skov introduces injection molded plastic packaging into the arts and crafts debate that William Morris and John Ruskin championed over a century ago. The industrial revolution passed long ago, but the debate about whether mass produced products or handcrafted one-offs were better for society continues. Personally, I'll take my food containers without phthalates, thank you very much. I suspect the authors would agree, but the world is still littered with PVC and polystyrene parts, and that’s what Manufractured addresses. Kirill Shelayev shot and covered the Manufractured exhibit for Core77 at the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft in Oregon where it will be showing until January 9, 2009, but for those of us who don’t feel like making the trek to the Pacific Northwest in January, the Skov Holt’s (apologies, but I’ll use "Skov Holt" rather than "Skov Holt and Holt Skov" throughout the review for simplicity) book Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects can stand in for the exhibit with thoughtful text and plenty of photographs.

In their introduction, the authors note that the end of the 20th Century seemed to toll the death knell for the Craft movement as even the Museum of American Craft became the Museum of Arts & Design in 2002, but that aside from changes in nomenclature the Craft movement remains alive and well in the post-Industrial age. Prior book reviews such as Desire and Process have echoed this claim: As mass production makes pristine industrially produced affordable to the general public, subsets of society will run counter to this trend, seeking legitimacy and uniqueness in hand crafted goods, complete with flaws. After an introduction spanning from Ruskin through Marcel Duchamp and on to the Droog collective, the Skov Holt's highlight eleven designers/artists/ craftspeople who've begun to use previously manufactured objects as their raw materials. Although my personal aesthetic favorite, Brian Jungen's installation Cetology, an apparent full scale whale skeleton made of hundreds of plastic lawnchairs rather than bone, was included in the introduction rather than the Manufractured exhibit itself, the subjects of the exhibition, from Cat Chow's dresses made of only fasteners to Devorah Sperber's Pantone cap pixilated art do not disappoint in their visual appeal.

>> continue reading

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Volkswagen Bio Runner Concept

Derek Jenkins, Patrick Faulwetter and Ian Hilton from Volkswagen/Audi Design Center California put together this concept for the Design Challenge Motorsports 2025 competition last month.

In the Bio Runner, the rider is positioned inside a protective cage on a motorcycle-like saddle with controls attached to the hands and feet. These controls manipulate all wheels via synthetic muscle-based suspension which offers unparalleled control and traction.

Checkout LA Auto Show's complete gallery of entries including hi-res images.

>> more pictures

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Advertisement

2009 Braun Prize Established in 1968, the international BraunPrize competition aims to promote the work of young designers, highlight the importance of industrial design and increase the profile of innovative product ideas globally. Entry Deadline: January 31, 2009

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Nokia's 4-way Xmas patent

iPhone ShmiPhone--Nokia filed a patent on Christmas Day for a new type of communication device, one with a rather unusual form factor: It folds out into four distinct parts. Two of the parts act as a screen, apparently straddled by some type of flexible screen, while the other two serve as a keyboard.

There's no word on when this device would come out or what, specifically, it would do, but it will be interesting to see if Nokia can seize the design high ground and spawn its own wake of copycats.

via engadget

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Materiology

From the publishers of Frame and Mark magazines comes Materiology, the creative industry's guide to materials and technologies.

Targeted at architects and designers, this illustrated text book provides in-depth information about the characteristics and application possibilities of dozens materials and technologies.

Materiology is intended for all creative professionals who rely on materials and technologies -architects, designers, stylists, artists and the like, from students to experienced practitioners - and is written in a style that conveys a wealth of information in a language that's easy to understand. This book covers everything there is to know about materials and technologies in one single volume.

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Decorative tile system by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

Clouds by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec are an extension of the North Tiles they developed for Kvadrat in 2006.

The tiles are made of one element and are attached by special rubber bands. Creating your own piece is quick and easy, whether you want a simple design or a complex decorative screen or wall. You can easily arrange and re-arrange the tiles to reflect your individual style and bring new ideas into your home, time and time again.

According to Anders Byriel, CEO of Kvadrat, soft textiles are making a comeback in the public space and in private homes.

>> more pictures

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Kurrency: A lamp made out of dollar bills

Stuart Karten Design has created a piece of discursive design sure to hit home during these fiscally-obsessed months. Kurrency Chandeliers are hanging lamps are made out of paper money, available in dollars, euros, and pesos (no Monopoly version, yet). Here's the part you can take to the bank:

As US taxpayers become the owners of the economy's most toxic investments and the stock market continues its volatile plunges and surges, many Americans are tempted to store their money under the mattress. But we've devised a better idea: hanging your money above the dining room table.

Kurrency is a new series of chandeliers made from genuine legal tender. "In today's economy, there is perhaps nothing so beautiful as cold hard cash," designer Stuart Karten says of the chandelier's materials. "But money is beautiful not just because of what it buys. Bills from all cultures display intricate artwork, unique textures and, most importantly, a beautiful translucency under light."

>> more pictures

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Creative solutions in tough times

Alice Rawsthorn reports in the International Herald Tribune on how, as the recession deepens, 'social' and 'service' design are becoming all the more relevant.

"The 20th-century notion of the lone "designer-hero" (there were depressingly few "heroines") shaping his projects from start to finish was always illusory, but the new approaches to design require far greater collaboration, not just with fellow designers but with experts from other disciplines like economists, social scientists, anthropologists and programmers too. Designers also have to make the leap from a material culture where their work generally had a definitive outcome, such as an object or image, to one in which they are applying design thinking to analyze problems and develop solutions that are neither visible nor tangible."

>> Read article

Photo: Freeplay Foundation / International Herald Tribune

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Hand-made toys Malawi style

Speaking of service design, Avik Maitra, a recent Masters in Architecture graduate from Colombia University has started making toys from recycled materials for children in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Last week, I talked with a specialist in early childhood development. She said that in the villages, boys make their own cars such as these, while girls pretend that corn cobs and bottles are dolls. Unfortunately, the cobs don't last very long, and the bottles can be sold to recyclers, making them too valuable to be used as toys. (To me, these improvised dolls are much more heartbreaking than the cars, which are simple but also kind of cool. Maybe that's just a personal bias, and I have yet to see the dolls, since they're mostly kept indoors.) Children will also sometimes use scrap bricks as building blocks.

Avik is documenting his 8 month research fellowship in Malawi on his blog where he's researching the architectural needs of local orphanages, experimenting with natural methods and design ideas for preventing malaria and developing a girls academy.

Avik has placed an open call to businesses and factories in Malawi and nearby to donate industrial leftovers for the development of architectural projects and toys.

via inhabitots

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A captivating force at RISD helm

A captivating force at RISD helmThe Boston Globe has published a long article on how John Maeda, formerly associate director of research at the MIT Media Lab and since six months president of the Rhode Island School of Design, is shaking things up at this venerable institution, by cultivating an open-source administration and openly-engaged student body.

"Maeda doesn't think he has all the answers. He thinks that everyone around him has the answers and sees his presidency - and the opportunity to empower the community he leads - as nothing short of a reestablishment of democratic principles."

>> Read article

Photo: Victoria Arocho for The Boston Globe

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PAPIER bags by Stefan Diez

Stefan Diez's PAPIER bag series for AUTHENTICS are one of the more elegant use's of Tyvek we've seen in a while.

The idea for PAPIER came whilst considering the development of travel accessories for the extremely successful KUVERT bag series, which was also designed by Stefan Diez. Initial trials with various materials were not so successful, as they were not light or flexible enough. Which led to the idea of turning the actual paper prototypes into new products - but using strong, wear-resistant Tyvek, which look so much like paper, instead of paper.

The PAPIER bag series will be available in January 2009.

>> more pictures

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CES 2009 Preview: Energizer Solar Recharger - even works for iPods

Not only does Energizer's Solar Recharger handle regular rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, it's fitted with a USB port for charging almost any USB powered gadget. Expected to retail for $49.99, the device will come packaged with 2 zinc-based rechargeable AA batteries. Considering this will shortly be on the market, it definitely ups-the-anti for anyone considering entering the Greener Gadgets Competition.

>> continue

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An open letter to the New York Times

Cameron Sinclair, cofounder of Architecture for Humanity, writes back to the New York Times in response to an article written by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff that he thinks reinforces the perception that architects are somehow not solving the real world problems faced by ordinary people when they decide to build. He disagrees. Here's a snippet:

This is the new architectural revolution, filled with pragmatic optimism and an understanding that designing for the other 98% is much more rewarding than responding to the desires of the few. And, it is already underway.

Nicolai Ouroussoff "dreams" of re-hiring the biggest names in the profession to lead this revolution. To us, that's like hiring the designers of the Hummer to rethink our transportation and energy policies. It's not that they couldn't or wouldn't do the work (many already are), but why call on designers who spent the better part of their careers building ever-competing, energy-consuming, sky-piercing structures, when you could hire any of a myriad of qualified (if less well-known) firms already experienced and engaged in rethinking the built environment?

We encourage Ouroussoff and the New York Times to pursue a deeper examination of the changes taking place in the field of architecture. If President-elect Barack Obama and his administration truly want to reenergize this country with a New Green Deal they should engage those who are best equipped to deal with the challenges we face in the coming decades, not the past. We should hire the emerging professionals already practicing sustainable design and not just a few high-profile architects. Because for these professionals committing time to the projects that matter most is not a dream. They are already hard at work.

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Kapero Office by N59 Arkitekter

I wonder if there's a no shoes policy for employees at the new Kapero office in Stockholm designed by Swedish architects N59.

>> more pictures

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Coming up in February: interaction'09 in Vancouver

IxDA Interaction 09 is set for February next year. Since "next year" isn't all that far away, at least temporally if not conceptually, let's take a look at the event.

Six keynotes: John Thackara, Genevieve Bell, Dan Saffer, Fiona Raby, Marc Rettig, and Kim Goodwin.

Two days of workshops including: So you want to be a Hardware/Software Interaction Designer, Drawing Ideas, and our Well, we did all this research...now what?

And then a huge number of sessions, parties, presentations and something called at Tangible Interaction Cafe (with a Microsoft Surface, the conference Segway of the new millennium). See the schedule here and see you in Vancouver next year!

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Manufacturing Grace

And finally, when Grace Jones first broke onto the scene over twenty years ago, many thought of the gender-bending pop icon more as a Jean Paul Goude media creation and personality than a true talent. Indeed image has always been an integral part of Grace Jones' music career, her visual identity being almost as important as her voice. Now, the artwork for her latest album, Hurricane, brings new meaning to the the idea of dancing confectionary...

Collaborating with Tom Hingston Studio, Ms. Jones once again works the conceit of the popstar as visual commodity, in this case featuring life-size versions of herself made out of chocolate.

>> more pictures

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Special thanks to Niti Bhan, Steve Portigal, 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.

Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009

In association with CEA, Core77 is proud to announce the launch of this year's Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009, challenging designers to create the next generation of greener gadgets. Once again, finalists will be JUDGED LIVE at the Greener Gadgets Conference, this year slated for February 27th in New York City. Prize money is $3000 for 1st Place, $1000 each for 2nd and 3rd Places.

We were thrilled with the response from last year's competition, and in addition to the prize money, winners, finalists, and several notables received an incredible amount of press from magazines and websites around the world. Since this year's competition will also incorporate public online voting during the 2-week period before the conference, top designs will be receive unprecedented media attention. This is an amazing chance to use design to contribute positively, so we encourage all designers to get in the game!

Entry deadline is January 15th.

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World's first energy generating revolving door installed in the Netherlands

Natuurcafé La Port in the Netherlands recently installed a rotating door that captures kinetic energy generated by pedestrian traffic. Designed by architects RAU and built by Boon Edam, they claim the door is the first realization of this concept in the world generating roughly 4600 kwh of energy each year—granted it's not much but surely a step in the right direction.

via inhabitat

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Advertisement

2009 Braun Prize Established in 1968, the international BraunPrize competition aims to promote the work of young designers, highlight the importance of industrial design and increase the profile of innovative product ideas globally. Entry Deadline: January 31, 2009

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CompostModern Conference 2009: February 21

We've been fans of the CompostModern conference since its inception in 2003 (last year was a standout); here are the details on this year's installment:

Compostmodern is fertile ground for sustainability by design. Presented by the San Francisco chapter of AIGA and the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design (CFSD), this interdisciplinary conference explores the range of design thinking necessary to create a socially and ecologically responsible society. Designers, manufacturers and business leaders come together to find inspiration, share knowledge and explore real world opportunities for transforming products, industries and lives.

Compostmodern 09 will be held at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on Saturday, February 21. This year's conference demonstrates how sustainable solutions converge in our interconnected world as design, ecology, social impact, business strategies and economics intersect. Speakers include Eames Demetrios of Eames Office, Allan Chochinov of Core 77, climate strategist Michel Gelobter, Nathan Shedroff, Project M founder John Bielenberg, Emily Pilloton of Project H Design, and Autodesk Sustainable Design Program Manager Dawn Danby. GreenBiz editor and sustainability author Joel Makower will reprise his role as emcee.

Get more info and (very affordable) tickets at www.compostmodern.com.

Can't make it? This year the conference will be webcast live (and available for 90 days afterwards). Details also at the site.

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Local Motors Boston design competition winners announced

Local Motors does it again with their city-specific auto design competition, this time focused on Boston. The question asked: "How to design for a town full of history and brimming with antithesis?"

As usual the entries were manifold and high-quality, and auto design fans may recognize winner Mihai Panaitescu's name--he's the designer who took top prize in last year's Peugeot design competition.

Get your Friday eye-candy fix by peeping all of the entries here.

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NYU's 120-foot monitor will give you a tan

New York University's ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) assembled a 12-by-120-foot monitor and built a course around it entitled Big Screens. The course's singular assignment: What do you do with a screen this big?

Responses by 12 students are up on their website; those of you familiar with ITP's work would have accurately guessed that the answers deal with abstract interactions rather than, say, watching the Superbowl on it. Check 'em all out here.

via hack n mod

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the designer's dilemma

Mikal Hallstrup of Designit.dk frames the dilemmas faced by designers, particularly when their product is intended for an entirely different culture or geography. Here's a snippet:

Prabhu Kandachar, associate professor at TUDelft, told a story that illustrates this ethical dilemma perfectly. A company developed an affordable ultra-sound scanner for the Indian market. It was meant to improve pregnancy healthcare and pregnant women's quality of life. But the company soon discovered that the scanners were being used for gender selection.

How should the company deal with this? Stop designing? Seek answers from the ethical experts? Keep designing, learning and trying to solve something that seems unsolvable? Or proactively attempt to design new behaviour patterns and value sets in the country so the product is used as intended? That's according to a western value set, at least.

As a designer, I think the way forward is focusing on context. Address and understand the underlying contradictions - whether they be cultural, economic or social - and make the solution fit. And most importantly, remember that policies and visions alone won't bring tangible differences to users' everyday lives - to achieve this, we need well-designed products and services.

What do you think is the responsibility of the designer? What is the role of ethics in product design?

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Vaja cases

As our society gets more and more gadget heavy, an entire industry has formed around designing cases to hold those gadgets.

Vaja's beautiful, high-end, mostly leather products are worth a look. They manufacture cases to hold cell phones, cameras, laptops, MP3 players, et cetera. Josh Spears also has a closer look at their new clip system (below) which, while we're not sure we'd use, is different enough that you oughta know it's out there.

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PowerUp Canada

Canadians for climate leadership: PowerUp Canada is a new website aimed at educating and encouraging Canadians to lobby their elected officials toward better environmental policies. Here's the pitch:

Countries around the world are proving that well-designed laws and policies create jobs and stimulate the economy. Germany has created a quarter million green jobs ramping up clean energy. Israel is building a nation-wide plug-in electric car network. The United Kingdom is putting people to work retrofitting buildings and saving its citizens money with green building mandates.

PowerUP Canada is a citizens' coalition to launch a green economy and brings together many who have never considered themselves "environmentalists." All of us have been trying to do our part but our actions are swamped by big industrial decisions. So we are driving towards stronger laws and government stimulus for the clean economy. In September, five of Canada's living Prime Ministers joined Canada's Association for the 45+, business leaders, the Canadian Jewish Congress, United Steelworkers along with other associations, experts and regular citizens in a national call to action: "Time to get serious on climate change."

Learn more, donate, or start lobbying at the site.

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Night & Day Backpack for Cycling

Brooklyn-based designer and avid cyclist Vanessa Marie addresses the dilemma of being safety conscious while riding, and maintaining a level of street cred with her 'Night Day Backpack'.

The concept behind the backpack was to create a chic look with (hidden) versatility. The flaps have magnets inside of them with 3M Scotchlite material on the underside. During the day the flaps are held in place magnetically and at night - before jumping on your bike - you flip them up to become super visible.

A variation with smaller squares for writing pixel letter messages to drivers behind you could be fun. Vanessa is second year Masters in Industrial Design (MID) candidate at Pratt Institute.

>> more pictures

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New design compeition launches: Design the Screens of the Future for Nvidia

We're happy to announce the launch of a three-part design competition, presented by our friends at Nvidia. The first theme for this competition is to "Visualize the screens of the future." We've seen an explosion in the ways people get their information--from dashboard touchscreens and head-mounted displays to ebooks and green technologies. Screens can be personal or communal, data-rich, or optimized for entertainment.

For this design competition, we're challenging all designers to visualize the screens of the future, using any technology, material, interface, or embodiment. Your design can be an e-ink belt buckle or an LED-clad sports stadium, a dynamic computer desktop or a simple watchface.

But hurry - the entry deadline for this first phase is Dec. 28, 2008. Use your down time over the holidays to stretch your design muscles. Winners will get the NVIDIA Quadro CX card bundled with the Adobe CS4 Master Collection. Good luck!

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Author of Designing Gestural Interfaces sounds off on touchscreen desktop possibilities

Speaking of screens, Dan Saffer, author of the hot-off-the-presses Designing Gestural Interfaces book, writes to us:

With the launch of HP's TouchSmart and TX2 computers, I'm occasionally asked what a purely touchscreen system would be like for a desktop. (It's rumored that Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel is currently working on one, and of course, the iPhone, Instinct, Dare, et al have touchscreen OSes for mobile.) With the publication of my book last week, I thought I would discuss what some desktop concepts could be like.

Check out Saffer's thoughts here, and order (or download!) Designing Gestural Interfaces here.

thanks dan!

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"Organic Resourcing": Incubators made from car parts

The Science Times featured a story both inspiring for its design thinking and heart-breaking for the problem it addresses. Design That Matters has contributed its efforts toward a low-cost neo-natal infant incubator...made from car parts. We love projects like this, and look forward to the term "organic resourcing" finding its way into the design vernacular alongside its like-minded sibling, "appro-tech". Here are a couple snippets from the article:

"It's so frustrating to see these preventable deaths," he said. "They won't name babies in Aceh, Indonesia, until they're two months old. It's a cultural adaptation to expect a death."

[...]

In truth, experts say, the developing world doesn't need more incubators. It needs incubators that work. Over the years, thousands have been donated from rich nations, only to end up in "incubator graveyards--most broken, some never opened. According to a 2007 study from Duke University, 96 percent of foreign-donated medical equipment fails within five years of donation--mostly because of electrical problems, like voltage surges or brownouts or broken knobs, or because of training problems, like neglecting to send user manuals along with the devices.

Read the whole thing here.

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Screw-less folding chair design

The "Good-bye Screw" folding chair (designed by Taiwanese student/teacher duo Fang Po-hsiung and Chen Chun-tung of Shu-Te University) uses no screws in its construction and is designed to be assembled in about sixty seconds. Made from gas-injected polypropylene, the GBS has won a Red Dot award in the Design Concept category. Fang and Chen are currently seeking backers for mass production.

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FLOTspotting: Malaria Must Go, by Andrew Stordy

From the Coroflot portfolio of : Andrew Stordy (London, UK)

Featured Project : Malaria Must Go

Recently coming out of the RCA's Industrial Design Engineering program, engineer/designer Andrew Stordy has put an enormous amount of thought and effort into developing a system to reduce infections from malaria--the world's single largest killer of children. Starting with an extensive research trip to Tanzania, the Malaria Must Go project seeks to work in conjunction with existing anti-malarial technologies like pesticide-impregnated mosquito nets, offering a pair of products that repel and/or kill mosquitoes with locally-sourced materials.

The two prototypes--a charcoal-powered mosquito killer (shown above) and a modified mosquito-repelling oil lamp--are explained and demonstrated in a long but fascinating video on Stordy's website, and the work has earned Stordy both an IDEA Gold award and a 2008 Dyson fellowship, among others.

It's rare to see this sort of research-driven, holistic problem solving at the student level, and even rarer to see it applied to such an urgent, global problem. Deeply encouraging.

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Early New Years resolution: Murketing's challenge to commercial persuaders

And finally, a bit early--but then there's never a bad time for a good idea, is there?--Rob Walker has proposed a New Years Resolution to ad agencies and allied professions on his Murketing blog, and we couldn't have said it better ourselves: rather than resolving to be "good" by working for clients that do "good" things, he suggests something a little more basic:

Pick an idea that you believe in -- with social or environmental responsibility at its core.

Now go out there and use your persuasion talents to advance that idea in the public sphere. Change behavior in ways that do not involve buying your clients' stuff, that do not involve the profit motive at all.

Do it because you -- yes, you; not an entrepreneur or a brand that you work for; you -- actually believe in something, and you stand for something, and you have ideas, and you care.

Don't look for a client, pro bono or otherwise, who has values. Just have values.

While not directed specifically at designers of other stripes, the suggestion translates well across many disciplines.

>>Read the whole post here.<<

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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.

Cannondale Stealth Concept Bike

The F-117 Nighthawk may have been retired but its spirit lives on in Canondale's Stealth Concept Bike which debuted earlier this year at the Eurobike Show in Germany.

The styling direction of the Cannondale Stealth Concept was, as the name reveals, inspired by Stealth fighter jets, which have a very distinctive edgy shape in order to be invisible on radar. Another source of inspiration was last year's Lamborghini Reventon sports car, whose faceted surfaces and custom flat paint lend the car a unique and stealthy appearance.

>> continue

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Book Review: Art & Sole: Contemporary Sneaker Art & Design, by Intercity

Let me disclaim one thing before I get into the beautiful details of reviewing Art & Sole: Contemporary Sneaker Art & Design; I'm profoundly unhip. Even though I visited my grandmother in NYC on a yearly basis and spent a few years of grade school in Asia, I spent high school in Nebraska, so my insecure trend-following formative years were a world away from city graffiti or Tokyo fashion. That said, Intercity's Art & Sole blew me away. For those of you like Turtle on Entourage who relentlessly follow tiny variations (and limited editions) of sports-themed footwear guaranteed never to see a basketball court, you have my deepest apologies if I confuse an Air Max 90 for a 95. But for the rest of us, Art & Sole should be an eye-opening visit to the wild nexus between commerce, guerilla art, mass production and customization that is limited edition sneaker design.

Art & Sole is divided into two parts: "Sneakers & Art" and "Art & Sneakers" (I thought four ampersands in one sentence might be a few too many). Despite the palindrome, the titles are pretty self-explanatory. "Sneakers & Art" showcases collaborations between artists and sneaker manufacturers. Much of the work consists of vivid graphic art applied to the (occasionally literal) canvas of a major brand sneaker, but some of it showcases the very leading edge of industrial design: laser etching, CNC stitching and algorithmic patterns. Both the one-offs and the oxymoronic mass-customization series impress with beautiful photos and succinct and clear explanatory prose for those of us who don't recognize names of sneaker designer / graffiti artists like Futura 2000, but also of some surprise footwear icons like John Maeda. The second part, "Sneakers & Art" includes sneaker inspired 2-D art that, while cool, shouldn't be nearly as interesting to industrial designers as some one off custom jobs like Takara Tomy's Nike Transformers, fully articulated transformable sneakers. Just as amazing as the content of the book is the fact that Intercity managed to catalog and photograph hundreds of customized sneakers, many of which were produced in extremely limited runs, and all of which appear to be in spotless condition. For anyone interested in where popular fashion is headed, and where industrial design is likely to follow, Art & Sole represents quite a catalog of possibilities.

>> continue reading

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Advertisement

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One Factory, One Forest: Design, Ecology and Micro-Economic Development in Guyana, by William Gordon

For the past year I have been developing furniture with a factory named Liana Cane in Georgetown, Guyana. As I write this, a chair I designed there a year ago is sitting in a container on a dock in New Jersey waiting to get through customs. I have been waiting a long time to see this chair and for this project to be completed. My excitement is combined with the anticipation of returning to Guyana in January to work on a new project in the rainforest, and is checked by the long road ahead to get the products I have already designed to market.

Once the chair is released from customs, I'll then have to negotiate with an irate man named Lennox who kept it—and several other items—as stowaways in his container; he will have to bear the burden of the overages and duties that are building everyday as it sits on the dock. It has been delayed by U.S. customs looking for drugs in products from Guyana—just one of the many barriers to trade when you live in small, developing economies. This is why he is so mad. Jocelyn, the owner of Liana Cane, wrote me today that if I "chat him up," give him some cash "towards his worries" and don't mention her name because she "really cussed him off when he asked for more money," he might give us the chair we have been trying to launch for a year. This is not a typical vendor relationship. Jocelyn is also not your typical factory owner. But it all makes sense after having spent time in Guyana.

Through it all I can't wait to return and start it again.

>> continue reading

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Core77 Photo Gallery : Euromold 2008

The 15th edition of the EUROMOLD fair takes place in Frankfurt (3-6 Dec.) covering the product development process from the first idea to final finishing. This year we take a closer look at new materials and technologies, research projects, and the works of upcoming designers.

>> view gallery

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Human Rights: Student Voices at Art Center

Beginning last week and running through January 4, a 25-poster exhibition called Human Rights: Student Voices will makes it U.S. debut in the Great Hall at the Pasadena Central Library. Organized by Art Center College of Design and sponsored by France Los Angeles Exchange (FLAX), the show premiered this summer at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. (It was designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in Paris in 1948.)

More info at the site.

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Architecture Lecture Posters from Fall '08

Speaking of posters, Archinect have published a comprehensive round up of recent Lecture Posters from Fall '08. Good resource for anyone tasked with designing their own school's poster in the future.

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Better Place follow-up: Israel's first plug-in parking lot

For those following the exploits of NewDealDesign as they partner with Better Place to make the world a...um...more accommodating environment for your electric car, we've just gotten word of a milestone.

The photo above is not a rendering, it's the first real-life manifestation of a plug-in parking lot as designed by NewDeal, and it's online and operational in Tel Aviv. Anyone with a depleted car looking to get on with your emissions-free commute, get yourself down to the Cinema City parking lot in Pi-Glilot post haste.

Read the Guardian's story on Better Place here.

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Alissa Walker's totally awesome design poem

At the latest de LaB (design east of La Brea) design event, Alissa Walker read her poem, The Night Before Layoffs--a fantastic piece referencing everyone from Frank Gehry and Richard Koshalek to Brad Pitt and Maarten Baas. Here're the first few stanzas. Click on for more deliciousness!

The Night Before Layoffs
by Alissa Walker

Twas LA in a downturn and all through downtown,
Not a crane was stirring; no foundations in-ground.
The scaffolding covered the buildings with care,
In hopes that the financing soon would be there.

Eli Broad was asleep, on his piles of money
With $30 million for MOCA nestled close to his tummy.
And Gail Goldberg was snoozing, so was Mayor Villaraigosa,
Telling staffers to wake them when all this was over.

When on Bunker Hill there arose such a clatter,
Louder than NIMBYs in the Republic of Santa Monica!
Upon this disturbance the journalists swooped,
If only to prevent bloggers from getting the scoop.

The electronic billboards gave off such a glow
That the luster of iPod ads was on objects below.
When what should our wondering eyes next detect,
But a hybrid Lexus, and eight starchitects!

Continue reading...

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Chewy morsels of design thoughts

Luke Wroblewski gives us Design Skills for Strategy: the short version

* Pattern Recognition: allows us to identify relationships within information. (the data).
* Story Telling: gives us a way to organize data into something meaningful by focusing on a big idea and supporting messages (the synthesis).
* Visual Hierarchy: gives us a way to tell the story effectively (the means).
* Empathy: allows us to make the story memorable and impactful (the meaning).

Read indepth explanation here.

Rob Tannen summarizes tips for creating effective design competition entries after his experience as Juror for the ID Magazine Annual Design Review, a snippet here,

The judging process is based on expert review and consensus - in other words the criteria changes from year to year based on the expertise, opinions and criteria of the particular judges in each category. At the same time, the nature of the judging process - one full day of going through a large number of entries - suggests the following to submitters:

1. Treat the Entry Process Like a Design Project: Successful designs meet the needs of their users. [snip]

Brianna Sylver writes on the application of tools and techniques from the field of design to human relationships on her new blog "Designing Marriage", taking design thinking a step further than possibly imagined. Here's a snippet from her introductory post back in October,

First things first, let me just mention that I'm not a marriage therapist. Nor am I a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor, life coach, or belong to any other profession where I might regularly engage in activity where I advise people on how to operate in their daily lives. What I am, however, is an innovator, a designer, an ethnographer, a problem solver and a facilitator. The content of this blog will be rooted in the spirit of innovation, invention, iteration, and prototyping and how these principles apply to marriage and your most intimate relationships. [...] Over the years, I've found the same methods and frameworks that I use in my consulting work at Sylver Consulting to be quite helpful in opening the lines of communication with my husband of two years, Adriano Galvao.

>> continue reading

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Herman Miller Thoughtpile: Penny for your thoughts? (Penny = free Embody chair)

We need to print a retraction: Herman Miller's new Thoughtpile website, which we mentioned in our review of the Embody chair, is giving away a free Embody once a week, not once a day.

Even still, readers interested in a free $1,600 chair should definitely hit the site up. To recap: Thoughtpile asks a new question each week, and asks you to answer, or vote on other answers. Previous questions have been:

What's one thing you'd redesign to make your world better?
How can we keep our cities vital?
How can technology become more human?
What's a green idea that could help the economy?
How can the workplace foster more innovation?
How can we lead more productive lives?

At the end of each week, the answer with the most positive votes then wins a free Embody. You stand a good chance of winning because the site has not yet reached critical mass--there's not that many answers, and the quality of them varies widely. So hit the link, cogitate, and enter!

This week's question: "How can we become better consumers?"

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Design as Advocate for Social Change: The Mayan Project

The IDP (International Design Partnership) is taking a page out of eco-tourism's book by trying to connect underprivileged areas with dollars from wealthier nations. But they're replacing tourism with, interestingly enough, product design:

Eight top-class designers from South-Africa, Great Britain, Peru, Chile, Mexico, the USA, Germany and Australia are meeting in Mexico City...to develop a merchandising concept for traditional products from the Maya cultural stronghold Mani in order to improve the local living conditions.

At press time there was no linkable information on the 'net concerning this project, though we have managed to get ahold of an interview with German participant designer Carsten Buck. It's titled "Can social change be initiated by design?"

For a detailed explanation of the project, and the Buck interview, click here.

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New and improved CritBuns come with their own product ecosystem of cruelty.

We didn't hear about it in time to include it in our Holiday Gift Guide, but have no doubt the latest version of CritBuns would be right up there in the hallowed 77 otherwise. Perfect for the design or architecture student in your life, CritBuns were conceived by founder Joe Gebbia after an 8-hour drawing critique at RISD in 2000 and the numb asses that ensued.

Since starting production in 2005, the portable foam cushions have racked up an avid following and a mini-culture revolving around the occasional absurdities of the critique process for which they were designed. Our favorite portion of the site for now: CritQuotes, where readers are invited to submit their own gems from especially rough session:

-"You could have blown your nose on this and it would have looked better."

-"Those flanges look like shit."

-"So what drugs made this alright?"

Submit your own, or buy a set of CritBuns for someone you love, here.

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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.

Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009

In association with CEA, Core77 is proud to announce the launch of this year's Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009, challenging designers to create the next generation of greener gadgets. Once again, finalists will be JUDGED LIVE at the Greener Gadgets Conference, this year slated for February 27th in New York City. Prize money is $3000 for 1st Place, $1000 each for 2nd and 3rd Places.

We were thrilled with the response from last year's competition, and in addition to the prize money, winners, finalists, and several notables received an incredible amount of press from magazines and websites around the world. Since this year's competition will also incorporate public online voting during the 2-week period before the conference, top designs will be receive unprecedented media attention. This is an amazing chance to use design to contribute positively, so we encourage all designers to get in the game!

Deadline is January 15th. Here's what you need to get started:

Overview
This year's Greener Gadgets Conference will take place on February 27, 2009 in New York City. As part of the event, Greener Gadgets has once again partnered with Core77 to generate outstanding design innovations for greener electronics. This design competition challenges established design firms, emerging designers, and design students to come up with new and innovative solutions to address the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development. The top 50 entries will be published on the web for voting and commenting, and top finalists will be showcased live at the Greener Gadgets Conference for judging by an expert panel. Awards will be given out at the end of the conference program, and winners will be showcased on Core77.com, GreenerGadgets.com, CE.org, and Inhabitat.com.

Design Brief
We invite designers to explore the concept of "Greener Gadgets." Designs should seek to minimize the environmental impact of consumer electronic devices at any stage in the product lifecycle. Areas of sustainability to consider include:

1. Energy
2. Materials / Lifecycle / Recycling
3. Social & Educational Development

Participants are encouraged to consider their designs as part of the entire product ecosystem, and should think as holistically as possible. Designers may choose to focus their entries on a particular area of human enterprise (learning, playing, communicating, etc.), or a particular context (work, home, school, etc.), a particular material, or a specific device. Entries may also seek to create new paradigms for products and services.

Ultimately, we are looking for "great gadgets" of the greener kind.

Click on for more details.

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Core77's Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide 2008: 77 Design Gifts Under $77

We've just unleashed our 3rd Annual Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide: 77 Design Gifts Under $77 featuring items that span high and low-tech, craft, books, philanthropy, DIY, fashion, food, utility, and some just crazy-enough-to-work stuff too.

We're also featuring 2 Core77 Exclusives at the top of the list: Throwing Star Magnets, and BottleBob—a device for magically inserting a straw into a soda bottle cap.

And in these tight times, note that the list features 36 items under the $25 mark!—sure to help you find something great for your friends and loved ones.

Start Shopping!

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Core77 Photo Gallery : Tokyo Design Week 2008

Two unofficially competing events make up Tokyo's Design Week, 'Tokyo Designer's Week' anchored by the 100% Design show and 'Designtide Tokyo' (September 30 - November 3rd). In addition, a number of satellite shows and parties take place at various shop and gallery spaces during the week.

>> view gallery

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Expandable bookcase design

We're totally digging the new extendable REK bookcase, by Rotterdam-based designer Reinier de Jong.

REK is a bookcase that grows with your book collection. The more books, the bigger the bookcase. The zigzag shaped parts slide in and out providing as much space as needed. Regardless of the quantity of books REK will always be full.

Also with the different spaces that appear you can arrange your books according to their size.

The five-part bookcase is finished with white high-gloss laminate on the outside surfaces, and warm grey stain laminate on the inside. And this is no one-off concept that will never see the light of day--you can order one right here, if you've got 5,500 Euros.

Ironically, the only way I could afford one of these is if I were to sell all of my books. Man, if O. Henry was putting together a gift guide....

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City Eco Lab

Design Revolution or Social Revolution? Reflections from Saint-Etienne

Last week we posted a review of Saint-Etienne by Marcia Caines of Cluster and edited by Mark Vanderbeeken of Experientia. Here's a snippet:

Saint-Etienne celebrates this year the 10th anniversary of its International Design Biennial in the context of economical instability and systemic global challenges. Design is on the cutting edge of social and cultural change and cities, regions and stakeholders take their positions, but designers hesitate before pushing the boundaries of their industry serving discipline.

On arriving in Saint-Etienne, the city doesn't immediately strike you as a place of design. Post-industrial scars are visible almost everywhere, despite the TGV connection, a clean and efficient tram system, tidy town squares and significant cultural sites such as the Museum of Art and Industry, the Cité du Design (ex-arms factory), the Museum of Modern Art and the architectural heritage of Le Corbusier in Firminy.

It is evident that what qualifies Saint-Etienne as 'design city' is its endured and successful industrial history. The manufacture of arms commenced in 1535, the first French railway (from Saint-Etienne to Andrézieux) was opened in October 1828, and in 1899 60,000 people were employed in the textile industry. From coal to arms, cutlery to textiles, the industrial influence on this town has left a legacy of technical know-how, innovation and creativity. Over the years industrial design combined with weighty investments in the educational sector of the city and the region have preserved a genuine belief in the potential of design and ensured its presence in the everyday life of the city's inhabitants.

>> continue reading

>>View all of Core77's Saint-Etienne coverage here.<<

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Plastic Man: An interview with Kartell Chairman Claudio Luti

Japan's Daily Yomiuri newspaper managed to score an interview with Kartell CEO Claudio Luti, no small feat--interviews with Luti are few and far between, at least on the internet. (Two of the other pieces you can find are an interview by Dwell Blog's Jordan Kushins, and "The essence of good design: A discussion with Claudio Luti of Kartell" by Ma Che Bello's Andrea.)

It's too bad there aren't more interviews with the man, he's got a lot to say:

Luti: ...I think there's a lot of confusion between industrial design and art. If an artist or a designer thinks of realizing a single piece, then he or she is an artist. In industrial design, the goal is to produce in large numbers. If you can't do this and choose instead to make a single piece, you're not involved in industrial design.

"Industrial" means creating something with machines to produce a product that has a minimum usable life of 10 years. Our approach is completely different [from art]. You have to work out a manufacturing process, choose materials and be aware of fashions--to stay abreast of trends. It's not easy to put all this together successfully. It's much easier to make industrial objects that don't have any inherent charm.

Read the entire interview here.

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iPhone case enables the blind to access touchscreens

Portugal-based designer Bruno Fosi has developed a prototype iPhone case that would enable the sight-impaired to use the device. The silicon case has debossed, tactile logos, icons and characters, yet is still thin enough for the screen to register touches. Used in conjunction with text-to-speech features, it opens up a world of possibilities for those without sight. Not to mention the blind could eke out some extra battery life by turning down the backlight.

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Shanghai's Interior Lifestyle Fair

Core 77 Core-o-spondent Aric Chen stopped by Shanghai's Interior Lifestyle Fair this month - check out his thoughts on the state of Chinese design below (and some sweet pics after the jump!)

Not even China, with its once-unstoppable 12 percent growth, has been immune to the global economic slump. But there's still plenty of room for expansion -- if the 200-plus firms showing their wares at last month's Interior Lifestyle China fair are any indication. Mounted in Shanghai by the German juggernaut Messe Frankfurt, the event took over the Soviet-built Shanghai Exhibition Centre for the second consecutive year, drawing the likes of Alessi, WMF and others angling for yuan as dollars, euros and yen dry up. But while the show was a mixed bag overall, it nevertheless offered optimism for yet another area of growth: namely, the development of contemporary Chinese design.

Consider Process Warm, an installation sponsored by China's Space magazine that featured work by over two dozen local designers and firms who want to give Chinese design a jumpstart. There were playful, colorful side tables, lounge seats and bookcases by the Shanghai firm Mooma. Perforated, ceramic cylinder lights from Urban Tribe. State's no-frills notebooks displayed in corrugated-cardboard shelving, and designer Song Tao's black-lacquered furniture with a Chinese inflection. Most striking, however, were the zoomorphic, reclaimed-wood seats and benches by Liu Feng of PEP Art + Design. "We just wanted to gather together," says Liu, who also curated the showcase with Song and fellow designer An Ren. "All of these designers are our friends."

>> continue

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Autodesk University 2008: All posts in one place!

Every bit of Core77's coverage of the meganormous Autodesk University 2008 conference in Las Vegas is right here for your free and easy browsing. Take a gander:

Autodesk University 2008: Getting schooled, part 2.

Autodesk University 2008: Gray Holland on the mathematics of "It Just Feels Right."

Autodesk University 2008: Getting schooled.

Autodesk University 2008: Cabbages, pumpkins and crumpled paper bags -- where Scott Robertson gets his inspiration.

Autodesk University 2008: Burt Rutan on innovation.

Autodesk University 2008: A keynote you've heard before (but they haven't).

Autodesk University 2008: And we're off.

VIDEOS:

Autodesk University 2008: Digital Prototyping demo video

Autodesk University 2008: The Lenovo W700

Autodesk University 2008: Design Slam Round One

Autodesk University 2008: Cintiq + AliasStudio = rad.

Autodesk University 2008: Other things you can do with rapid prototyping.

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HTC buys One & Co.

It's official. Today it was announced that HTC, the Taiwanese mobile giant, is acquiring One & Co., the San Francisco-based ID firm. (Or maybe that's too pedestrian a description: The Forbes piece says "Taiwanese giant seeks a guru of cool.") Either way, look for some pretty swank handsets shortly, we'd say.

Forbes.com story here.

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What if?: A Design-Oriented National Endowment for the Arts on Design Observer

William Drenttel's got a wonderfully impassioned essay up on Design Observer, calling for new imperatives and ambition for NEA, and offering up a bucketful of suggestions below the fold. Here are a couple sweet spots:

However, one discipline under the auspice of the NEA portfolio made little progress during these years: design (or, in the vocabulary of the NEA, the "design arts"). Design was not prioritized with major national initiatives; no designers serve on the NEA's advisory board, the National Council on the Arts; and only three designers (Viktor Schreckengost, Florence Knoll Bassett and Lawrence Halprin) out of 80 named for the National Medal of Arts during the Bush years. In fact, there were virtually no important design policy contributions enacted during the Bush Administration with the exception of Laura Bush's endorsement of the National Design Awards for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

[...]

Designers are deeply associated with the current generation of thinking around innovation and their services and expertise should be brought to the table at the NEA. Every study in recent memory has shown that the arts lie at the core of urban renewal and the economic well-being of our cities. And, as the research mounted by Dana Gioia had demonstrated, we are better citizens when the arts help us participate fully in our culture and democracy. But today there is a particular urgency--given the dramatic economic and political issues before us--in stepping forward to make significant and lasting change.

On the heals of last month's U.S. National Design Policy Summit, (indeed, Dori Tunstall chimes in on the Design Observer piece), there's much to think about in terms of a coordinated effort here. The notion of "official design policies" is cropping up all over the place--in many cities and countries around the world--and one could argue that the urgency and scale of some of the problems we're facing necessitates such an approach.

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Beating planned obsolescence--at a price: Red Camera's latest

"Why do you want sixteen megabytes of memory, are you crazy? You'll never need that much." These were the words the computer salesman said to my friend's dad back in the '90s.

Is it possible to design products, in these times of exponentially-growing technology, that can "beat" obsolescence, planned or otherwise? The Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, founded by Jim Jannard (who also founded Oakley), is damn sure trying. You guys may remember the plan behind their Red One camera, released last year:

...Modular and upgradeable, the RED ONE camera is a future-proof acquisition system you can build upon. RED ONE's modular design means you can upgrade with us as we add new features and accessories, as well as benefitting from performance improvements with each new free firmware upgrade.

Last week Red announced their latest, the Epic X, which has a targeted release of Summer 2009.

>> continue

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General Ford Chrysler Motors?

What will become of the American auto industry? As leaders of the Big Three prepare to return to Washington, hats in hand, to beg for help, more than one analyst is calling for the Big Three to turn into the Big One.

Newsweek, Car Magazine, Independent Investor and even Air America Radio host Ron Reagan are all calling for the three companies to combine into one entity:

...Detroit actually has parts worth saving. Melding them into a single entity could buff up its best brands, like Chevy, Ford and Cadillac, while leaving the clunkers (Pontiac, Mercury, Saturn, et al.) by the side of the road. It would take a healthy dose of Nietzsche's "creative destruction," but that's preferable to total destruction....

What do you think? Would this once again make America competitive on the global auto stage, or do the problems run deeper than a merger would solve? And more importantly (to us), what does this mean for American car designers?

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Coroflot Creative Seeds: Questions for Aaron Hayes of Courage Bicycle Mfg.

There's a lot of bike love here on Core (here, here, here, and here, for example), both on the part of our readers and some of our bloggers too, and why not? The bicycle is one of the world's great examples of good design: utilitarian, refined, efficient and available in mind-blowing variety, from the $60 K-mart kid's bike to to the $6000 carbon fiber road demon, and everything in between. It also offers plenty of opportunity for individual craftsmanship too, especially in the realm of handmade frames, as featured in the Core77 gallery on the North American Handmade Bicycle Show earlier this year.

As luck would have it, the exhibitor that took the Best New Builder prize at that show is closer to the design world than we thought: his name's Aaron Hayes, and he's an industrial designer. Formerly with Ziba, he is now the founder of Courage Bicycle Manufacturing, a custom bike builder in Portland, Oregon.

Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog, Carl Alviani caught up with Aaron over email last week to ask him a little bit about making the transition from the studio to the workshop, and how his background in ID has helped. And what he misses too:

Is there anything you miss about consultancy or freelance ID work?

I miss always being surprised by the ingenuity and insights from my peers. It can get a little lonely working by yourself day after day, and it's easy to start second guessing things when everything goes through one filter. I also miss the comfort of a direct deposit paycheck...

For any designer who's given some long hard thought to switching careers to something more hands-on, it's worth a read.

>>Read the whole interview here<<

Photo: David Regen

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Just in time for christmas travel, Superfuture relauches

And finally, the map-making masters over at Superfuture are seeing the year out with a complete overhaul. Offering a highly curated travel guide to hard to find shops, cafes and restaurants globally, the site's independent review format predates the 2.0 era of user-based guides. It's worth taking note of the beta-launch disclaimer but a quick scan of what's install for 2009 look's great.

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Special thanks to Marcia Caines 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.

360 Paper Bottle

The 360 paper water bottle from Brand Image is an attempt to address 60 million plastic bottles thrown away daily in the United States (of which 86% become garbage). The paper vessel is made from 100% renewable food-safe resources, fully recyclable and versatile in a number of potential liquid categories.

>> more images

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What would a US National Design Policy need to look like?

Design policy gatherings are fashionable these days. First there was an international design policy conference on 6-7 November in Turin, Italy (that I reported on in detail here on Core77). Then a few days later major U.S. professional design organizations, design education accreditation organizations, and Federal government design assembled on 11-12 November in Washington D.C. for a National Design Policy Summit (also briefly mentioned on Core77).

Last week Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, associate professor of design anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the main organising force behind the U.S. event, gave some more background on what seemed to have been a very systematic affair:

The 2008 US National Design Summit was organized as a two-day super-intense workshop with the goal of creating a shared actionable agenda of U.S. design policy for economic competitiveness and democratic governance among the professional design associations, design educational bodies, and the design-related Federal government agencies.

>> Read story

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Advertisement

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Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: All posts in one place

We've put all our Saint-Étienne Design Biennale coverage in one convenient post here, so check out the info and videos. All Biennale info is at the festival site.

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Energy Solstices, by Anais met den Ancxt

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Citrus Clock, by Anna Gram'

Core77 Video Drive-by: Debra Solomon + Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking at Eco City Lab, Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008

Core77 Video Drive-by: Francois Jegou + Sustainable Everyday at Eco City Lab, Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: More assorted projects

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Assorted projects

Core77 Video Drive-by: Prism (no-wire) Ceiling Lamp by BoYoung Jung & Emmanuel Wolfs, Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008

Core77 Video Drive-by: Reservoir Dog by Charles Maze, Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008

Core77 Video Drive-by: John Thackara at Eco City Lab, Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Eco City Lab

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Come on over!

Photo above: Clothes-Sofa by Sébastien Cluzel, Philippe Deray, and Quentin Simonin

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Photo: Ornella Orlandini | Torino World Design Capital
Review by Mark Vanderbeeken (Experientia) and Marcia Caines (Cluster)

The Best Design Policies Are Local: A review of the Shaping the Global Design Agenda Conference

The days after the American presidential election are clearly a period of reflection. Newspapers and magazines are full of thoughtful articles, and conferences seek to define the new agendas and directions for our world to move towards.

The World Economic Forum gathered about 700 global thought leaders in Dubai for a summit on some of the key issues on the global agenda.

An international conference in Turin, Italy, last week had a much narrower focus, and tried to outline what constitutes good design policy.

The event, which was organised by Torino 2008 World Design Capital in collaboration with Michael Thomson, director of Design Connect (London), comes at a time when a major discussion is emerging internationally on design policy and innovation.

>> continue

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RISD launches new site

College websites are notoriously difficult to maintain, keep vital, and imbue with a sense of place. John Maeda's made RISD's a priority, with an updated "microsite" just launched. Here's John:

I can't tell you how many people have come up to me and expressed their errrr...complex...feelings about our main website here at RISD, which hasn't been given real love in many many many years. I'm proud to say that we've been getting swimmingly positive feedback on the new RISD Online Viewbook microsite--it's a small sign of things to come in the future for RISD's online presence. Thanks to the RISD Media+Partners team for lighting this important beacon of digital hope. And be sure to click on the VIDEO button--it's quite satisfying. Happy upcoming Turkey Day to all!

And to you too.

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Usability and Design: Cultivating Diversity

Over 250 participants are expected to attend the first European regional conference of the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) early this month.

From December 4-6, 2008, the beautiful baroque city of Turin, 2008 World Design Capital, will host the conference, themed "Usability and Design: Cultivating Diversity", with important contributions being made by companies such as Google, IBM, Oracle and many others.

The conference will concentrate on overcoming the traditional professional divide between the concepts of usability and design, with a particular focus on uniting the diverse cultures and practices within Europe

>> Read article

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Finally: Where to recycle anything and everything, at a location near you

Something we Yanks were thankful for last Thursday, and all days to come, is earth911.com, which lets you quickly find the nearest place to recycle all that crap you've got lying around your house--dead batteries, old clothes, cardboard boxes, et cetera.

In the search fields you just type in a) what you've got, and b) your zip code, and the site spits out the nearest locations complete with a map and listings of what else that particular institution will take off your hands.

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User Research Friday, review by Janna Kimel

Can you learn about design research and user experience in a bar? Why yes! says Nate Bolt of Bolt|Peters, the brains behind User Research Friday. On Friday, November 7, we travelled to San Francisco, CA to check out this bi-annual event. The event brought together design research and user experience professionals for education, conversation and the all important networking.

The big conferences can be great - CHI, IDSA, IXDA - but there was something great and very tangible about this short and fairly small gathering. 150 people gathered for 5 hours to learn and network - then it was gone.

>> continue

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Better Place announces Bay Area electric car infrastructure plans; New Deal designs the hardware

Missing from much of the talk about electric cars has been how to charge them up--"just plug it in" sounds simple enough, but when you're dealing with a 400 pound battery that takes 5 hours to juice up, electric vehicle infrastructure suddenly snaps into focus as a make-or-break part of the picture.

Palo Alto-based startup Better Place has been working on this part of the plug-in car puzzle since 2007; quietly for a while, but lately with some fanfare. Having already secured cooperation and investment to build infrastructure in Israel, Denmark and Australia, a major announcement was made on Nov. 20 that Better Place will be getting to work in its own back yard: the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have offered their enthusiastic support for a plan to install a $1 billion network of charging stations and battery-exchange stations throughout the Bay Area by 2012.

Getting the network right, though, turns out to be an enormous task. While the gas station network in the US has been evolving for a century now, the task for Better Place is to build something up from scratch in just a few years. To that end, they've enlisted SF-based industrial design powerhouse New Deal Design to work out the details. New Deal founder Gadi Amit explains that six in-house designers assigned to the project are responsible for "any physical embodiment of the charging spot," a task which he acknowledges may sound trivial, but is in fact "very involved."

The first major manifestation of this network is the charging post (see renderings, above), of which 250,000 are expected to be installed by the completion of the project.

>> continue

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Highway Star

Speaking of cars, Randall Stross takes a reasoned yet contrarian look at everyone's favorite lust object, the Tesla Roadster. While anti-consumption seems to be the new black this holiday season, Stross fuses his economic logic with a soupcon of social justice.

If investors pass up the opportunity, however, why should taxpayers fork over the capital that Tesla needs? The Roadster is not much more than a functioning concept car that sells for $109,000. The company is requesting $400 million in low-interest federal loans as part of the $25 billion loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year.

The program is intended to encourage automakers to improve fuel efficiency, but should it be used for a purpose like this, as the 2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act? Can you conceive any way that federal dollars could be put at greater risk — and for no equity in return, keep in mind — to benefit fewer people?

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Last week, I visited the Tesla showroom in Menlo Park, Calif., and took the Roadster out on the highway. As I headed back to the showroom and waited at red lights, ready to hit the accelerator and fly, I realized that I was experiencing a guilty pleasure derived not just from the speed available at my touch but also from temporarily possessing something that shouted to the world its exclusiveness.

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photo by Katie Sokoler/Gothamist

NYC Nightclub LEEDs the Way to Green Partying

Nowadays we've got green office buildings, green homes, and now, green nightclubs. As Gothamist reports,

Greenhouse [is] a new 6,000 square foot, bi-level club that opened last week in Soho in the former Club Shelter space. As the name suggests, they're working the eco-friendly angle here with (deep breath) high-efficiency heating, an LED lighting system, fabrics made from recycled materials, bamboo floor and wall coverings, and furniture made with FSC wood. Owner Jon Bakhshi, who is applying for LEED certification, tells the Times he spent at least 33 percent more on Greenhouse than he would have on a "non-eco friendly" (anti-eco?) club.

For hard partiers, this is a welcome ripple in the wave of eco-thinking slowly rolling across our planet; the last time I saw green at a nightclub, it involved not knowing how much Cuervo is too much Cuervo.

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G.E.'s new frontload is the camel of washing machines

The designers of General Electric's "Colossal Capacity" Frontload Washer & Dryer aim to remove at least two quotidian tasks from your domestic life: Loading your washing machine up with detergent, and inputting dryer settings. A feature they're calling their SmartDispense Pedestal "holds up to 6 months of detergent and dispenses the right amount, at the right time," while their CleanSpeak Communication System "reads" your loads and presets the dryer settings.

The physical design is kind of neat too, even if it does look like a Transformer robot in its dormant state.

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Steve Portigal: Some Different Approaches to Making Stuff

Steve Portigal's got another excellent essay in the current issue of Interactions Magazine, entitled, "Some Different Approaches to Making Stuff" where he breaks down 5 paradigms for the process (or belief) in how stuff makes its way into the world. Here's the setup:

Business case studies are the ultimate in reductionism: A complex business activity rooted in a specific context of people, company culture, time, and place is boiled down to a few key ideas. Consultants, designers, students, and people who read Malcolm Gladwell are especially prone to this form of simplification. Don't get me wrong-these simplified stories can be helpful as touchstones. We just need to remember that they are often apocryphal archetypes more than investigative summaries.

With that in mind, I propose an incomplete framework for how companies go about making stuff (products, services, miscellaneous). In characterizing this as incomplete, I hope to hear about other approaches that will flesh out the framework.

It's an extremely readable and useful piece, so subscribe to the magazine, or get the whole article by starting here.

Want more Portigal? Check out the audio podcast he did on Lunar's Icon-o-cast--a great primer on design research and insight generation.

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Coffee-Loving Astronaut Invents Space Mug

And finally, NASA astronaut Don Pettit may have discovered the cardinal form of all space vessels (har-har) to follow.

click thru for zero-g video!

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

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