New York Design Week 2009 in full swing!
The 2009 installment of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair opened this past Saturday at the Javits Center in New York, and Core's intrepid team of bloggers, photographers, videographers and assorted design nerds stormed the floor shortly thereafter.

Initial impressions include some of the same observations from Milan and, on a smaller scale, Brooklyn: a bit more restraint than in previous years, a stripped-down (some would say dulled-down) aesthetic, and a propensity for attaching "eco" to everything from kitchens to wall coverings to kiddie furniture. There are some unexpected flashes of brilliance in among the usual suspects, as always, making the process a rewarding one, for us as well as you (we hope).

Core77's got heaps of content flowing in, both from the Fair itself and from the numerous offsites throughout the city. As in previous years, all posts will be collected on a single EZ-reference page--see link below. In addition, we'll be tweeting impressions from the floor: follow @Core77 to stay in the loop.

>>Don't forget our Essential Guide to NY Design Week 2009 (Mobile version for your phone too!)

>>View all of Core77's New York Design Week 09 coverage

Milan Design Week 09: Post Futurist Manifesto Talks: All in one place!
During Milan Design Week 2009, Core77 correspondent Brit Leissler sought to create a "Post Futurist Manifesto" through dialogues with some of the leading thinkers in the world of design. Interviewing designers, producers, publishers, gallery owners and sociologists, the dialogues centered around the new values that designers (and the design industry) should address, and the new approaches they ought to take in order to confront the paradigm-shifts that we are currently facing. Here's the point of departure:

100 years ago the futuristic manifesto was announced in Italy--to express the spirit of the era, break with all the conventions of the 19th century and replace them with new values. We all know that the futurism of the 20th century went terribly wrong at one point, and eventually ended in fascism. However, it is important to understand that initially it was all about liberation and freedom--aesthetically, politically and socially.

100 years later, the world is in collapse. The futurism of the 20th century has reached its end, and it is well time to create a post-futurist manifesto that seeks to define the true nature of the 21st century, establishing a new value system to replace the ruins of the old.

Check out all the dialogues below, including interviews with conceptual artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, designer Marti Guixe, publisher Sven Ehmann, and many more.

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While much of the design community in New York was ramping up for Design Week last Friday, Coroflot.com unveiled the second installment of its Creative Confab series at the Art Directors Club, to a packed house of 140+ mostly mid- and high-level designers of the digital persuasion. The centerpiece of the three hour event, depicted above, was an hour-long panel discussion on the current realities of creative hiring, from some of the sharpest, most experienced professionals in the field.

Some great quotes from the panel after the jump.

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Designers Accord San Francisco Town Hall: Reflections and Photographs
on Thursday, May 7th, the Designers Accord brought adopters and design community members together for a third installment of the newly formed Town Hall meetings, hosted by LUNAR in their San Francisco studio. With the purpose of providing a forum for members to meet locally and discuss what it means to be active in socially and environmentally responsible ways within the creative community, these meetings have been gaining momentum over the past few months as designers, educators, business leaders, and students come together to participate in the sustainability dialogue.

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Is Design Too Important To Be Left Only To Designers? Bruce Nussbaum lays some kindling
The comments are gaining steam on Bruce Nussbaum's post Is Design Too Important To Be Left Only To Designers? over at BW. The post isn't provocative per se, but the thesis just might be. (My favorite comment: "Is Brain Surgery Too Important To Be Left Only To Brain Surgeons?") Here's the start from bruce:

There is huge anxiety among designers and design educators at the encroachment of business, education, health, energy, transportation and other fields into Design. The evolution of Design from an individual working intuitively to shape beautiful things into a collaborative process of discovering what can come next and making it happen is attracting people to Design for new ways to journey through these confusing and uncertain times. The failure of existing modes of delivering services to consumers, students, patients, travelers, etc., is making Design a hugely important system of reframing old problems and creating new answers. Design Strategy, for example, is new--evolving out of simple design.

via DO

Wave Sport Competition news: Limited Edition of 50 with the winner's design! 1 Week Left!
There is just 1 week left to register and enter the Wave Sport Kayak Hull Trip-Tych Graphics Competition - deadline for submissions coming up on May 25th.

And we're thrilled to announce that the Grand Prize Winner's design will go into production on a Limited Edition of 50 kayaks worldwide! In addition, the Top 5 designs will be applied to Fuse 56 kayaks and displayed at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market Show in Salt Lake City in July 2009, along with profiles of the winning designers. The Grand Prize winner will receive a $2500 cash award plus a Fuse 56 kayak produced with their design. The remaining 4 Finalists will receive a Fuse 56 kayak produced with their design, or $1000 cash award (in lieu of boat).

All-star judges are Peter Csonka (2008 Freestyle World Cup Champion), Gail Anderson (Creative Director of Design, SpotCo), Sam Moulton (Senior Editor at Outside Magazine), Robert Peerson (Lead Designer, Wavesport), and Eric Ludlum (Creative Director, Core77), so register to enter, fire up those sketchpads, markers, and tablets, and send us your best designs!

COMPETITION IS OPEN! REGISTER NOW!!

Ecovative Design's Greensulate: "The factory is the organism"
Earlier this year we posted about Ecovative Design's Greensulate material, which can be shaped into packaging material and is made from seed husks and mushrooms rather than polystyrene and petroleum. An Earth911 article takes a closer look at Greensulate's fascinating development process, devised by Ecovative principals Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre.

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Core-Toon: Fixie Features + Benefits
Artist: lunchbreath
More: View all cartoons

Object fetishism: Someone please explain
Years ago I was driving down Second Avenue when a yellow cab sideswiped me pretty bad. No one was hurt, though the left side of my car was shredded. The cabbie apologized and said his company would pay for the damages; in a country and city where no one likes to take blame, the guy was clearly a foreigner.

What surprised me most was my friends' reactions--they all seemed shocked that I wasn't freaking out about the way my car looked. "I don't really care," I explained.

"But you love your car," they said.

"No no--I love driving," I said. "Big difference."

What I've found is that when people discover you like an activity, they assume you love and venerate the object associated with that activity. Cooks are expected to polish their pots; surfers are expected to wax their boards lovingly; iPhone users are supposed to buy sexy little skins for them.

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Portrait of the artist as a young businesswoman
Kay S. Hymowitz writes in City Journal about how the design economy has turned bohemian outsiders into a new marketplace elite.

"If industrialization turned design into a modest profession, technology and globalization have expanded and glamorized it into its own economic sector. Call it Big Design.

Computers are the heart of Big Design. They propelled designers from the ranks of ink-stained wretches to those of postindustrial knowledge workers.:

>> Read article

RCA name switch: Industrial Design vs. Innovation Design. Either way it's still ID
And finally, The Royal College of Art's Industrial Design Engineering is looking for a new moniker; they're thinking of switching it to Innovation Design Engineering. Why?

'Industrial design has changed dramatically over the past 20 years,' says [designer Miles] Pennington. 'We are no longer approaching design as a purely object-orientated activity. The experience, system, service offering - indeed, everything around and supporting the product proposition - is now within the designer's influence.'

Miles Pennington is the new IDE department head and co-founder of the UK's Design Stream product/packaging consultancy.

via design week uk

Special thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken and lunchbreath 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

New NYC Confab lineup, featuring Khoi Vinh and Tom Nicholson
The creative employment field is a constantly shifting one, and the upcoming Coroflot Creative Confab in New York this Friday is no exception. After some re-shuffling, the one hour panel discussion that forms the heart of the event will now include two previously introduced speakers -- design recruiter extraordinaire Judy Wert, and Big Spaceship CEO Michael Lebowitz -- and two new additions about which we're just giddy: Tom Nicholson, CEO of leading digital design agency IconNicholson, and Khoi Vinh, Design Director of NYTimes.com, and author of pivotal design blog Subtraction.com

We'll have more background on each of these veterans as the week progresses, or just take a look at their respective sites for a window into some industry-defining thought on the process and business of digital creation. To hear all four of them discuss the current state of the professions, and meet like-minded creative professionals, get your registration on at the Confab event page on Coroflot here.

Back from Milan; revving up for New York!
If you missed any of our Milan Design Week 2009 coverage (still some coming in too!), you can check out all Core77 Milan coverage here. (Be sure to check out our huge gallery of images here.) And if you're trying to figure out your plans for New York Design Week starting out this coming weekend, view all Core77 New York Design Week coverage here. (Be sure to check out our Essential Guide to New York Design Week too!)

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Spend It Wisely: A Market Research Primer for Designers, by Brianna Sylver
"In the title and throughout this article, I've used the phrase 'market research' versus 'design research' for two reasons: First, 'Design research,' a term invented by the design community, is not recognized or known outside of this group; the term recognized by other individuals in business (and as an established profession) is 'market research.' I'm using this term then, as I believe it has more universal appeal and understanding. Second, when the design community refers to 'design research,' traditional methods such as focus groups and surveys are often dismissed, where more emerging methods like ethnographic research and listening labs get all the ink (or pixels). I'd like to help balance that out..."

>>Read article

Google's grass and goats
To clear the fields of weeds and grass at their headquarters, Google could have hired a lawn-cutting service; instead they went with a greener initiative.

...we decided to take a low-carbon approach: Instead of using noisy mowers that run on gasoline and pollute the air, we've rented some goats...

A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.

What we'd like to see next: elephants spray-cleaning the windows of the Googleplex.

CoreStore: Melissa + Campana Shoes & Exclusive Interview
On route to Milan last month, we caught up with the Campana Brothers to get the lowdown on their latest project for Brazilian jelly shoe giant Melissa. Exclusively for the month of May, we're happy to offer readers the chance to get your hands on the Campana Zig Zag and Campana Corallo shoes through our trusted partner store Epaulet. Located just across the bridge in Brooklyn, not only do they carry the largest choice of colors online, they're also offering free shipping for orders in the US.

>>Read interview

Core-Toon: Process Map
Artist: lunchbreath
More: View all Core-toons

Folding Skate Deck - A Concept Board
See more here - Thanks Loren!

"Mobility" concept wins Buckminster Fuller Challenge
It took a team of nine to win the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, namely, a team of MIT researchers and students led by professor William J. Mitchell, who took the top prize with their Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems:

Mobility-on-Demand systems utilize fleets of shared-use lightweight electric vehicles placed at automatic charging racks throughout a city. The CityCar and RoboScooter, both folding vehicles, along with the Green-Wheel Bicycle, minimize parking space and can be picked-up and dropped-off at any rack. Mobility-on-Demand systems maximize mobility and dramatically reduce congestion and pollution through energy and land-use efficiency.

Top prize is a cool $100,000, to be awarded at a conferring ceremony at the Chicago MoCA on June 6th.

Above is the winning team's RoboScooter, which was realized as a full-scale working prototype. It is, however, just a portion of the winning concept; you can check out the rest of it here.

Shoes designed in two parts, for a perfect fit, no matter the style
Here's a rather unusual footwear concept from a company called Skins:

[Our] innovative two-part, interchangeable footwear structures [consists] of outer collapsible "Skins" and an inner holistic orthopedic support section called the "Bone." The design allows consumers to purchase one inner section, the Bone, and numerous outer Skins, resulting in multiple style variations from the same pair of quality Bones, always with the same feel and fit no matter which Skin is being worn.

Skins' objective is to create a new attire concept that allows and encourages consumers to frequently change their footwear, while experiencing equal comfort in all designs of shoes.

The styles offered range from ballet flats and formal shoes to sneakers, skinned in leather, suede, and "exotic skins and high-tech fabrics."

Data, not design, is king in the age of Google
Can a company blunt its innovation edge if it listens to its customers too closely? Can its products become dull if they are tailored to match exactly what users say they want? These questions surfaced recently when Douglas Bowman (pictured), a top visual designer, left Google.

>> Read article

BKLYN Designs 2009: TMRnyc's wired table
There's some good stuff coming up for Bklyn Designs 2009. Above is the Side Wired Desk by Greenpoint-based TMRnyc, which was borne out of a frustration most of us have:

The Side Wired Desk concept came out of a desire to organize all the visual madness of cords, wall warts, and power bricks sprouting out of my laptop, monitors, hard drives and speakers, spilling on to the floor into an ugly tangle of a powerstrip, cat hair and cables. We are constantly needing to plug a camera or cellphone for a charge. The frustration of searching for a free power outlet to plug into nearby made me ask, "Why can't I just plug this into my desk? Why can't I just plug my desk into the wall with one cord and neatly plug in all of my other gear into the desk."

The design challenge was to make a great looking desk, incorporate a hidden cable management system and power source as well as making it fast/easy to get at the cable ends to rearrange things when as the situation arises. One of the solutions was to make the wire grommets a part of the design. The other solution was to make a hinged tray to manage the cables that can also hold hard drives and any other corded object that clutters the desktop.

After an extensive search there was no result for a desk that met my requirements so I thought. Hey. I'll make my own, then my friends started asking me to make Wired desks for them. We are a UL certified shop for our lighting so it was natural for us to make the jump to wiring up our furniture designs.

BKLYN DESIGNS on a Saturday afternoon...
Just got back from DUMBO and had a good time walking around the exhibition. Some highlights in the next few days, but for now, check out some of what the thing looked like. If you'd like more info, visit bklyndesigns.net. Or just get there on the first Brooklyn stop on the F and take in all of the neighborhood's (noisy) charm...in a good way.

More photos here.

Djordje Jovanovic's models: 3DS Max and a ton of patience
We get headaches just thinking about what Belgrade-based Djordje Jovanovic had to go through to produce these steam trains in 3DS Max. If computer modeling is your thing, check out Jovanovic's stuff on Coroflot.

Book review: Designing Universal Knowledge, by Gerlinde Schuller

Not so long ago, in the Cameron Crow eighties of "Say Anything," sitting down to read an encyclopedia or a dictionary would have represented the very pinnacle of uncoolness. These days, however, a surfer can view Wikipedia intending to find some pictures of the Chicago World's Fair and walk away with an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of serial killers in the United States (OK, the surfer was me, but I'm stable ... promise). Over a decade ago, one of the keynote speakers at my graduation gave a presentation on these things called "hyperlinks" and how they were going to change the world. I'll admit that at the time, the whole affair seemed pretty dorky, but the gulf between the boredom I felt while sitting in the auditorium and my enthusiasm about Wikipedia today encapsulates the difference between hearing about a new technology and actually using it.

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For New York Design Week...Host a Designer!
Live in New York? Love design? Know all the best places, and wanna share all that goodness? This year, Core77 has joined forces with Airbnb, making it easy to rent your room to designers from all around the world. Have extra space in your apartment? Post a room. Traveling to New York and want to avoid high-priced accommodation? Search the Core77 listings.

McMasterpieces
McMasterpieces is a temporary exhibition curated by Monica Khemsurov, who invited New York designers to create finished furniture pieces out of components from McMaster-Carr, an industrial parts supplier. Constantin and Laurene Boym, for example, have contributed an industrial coat rack modified with metal-filled repair epoxy. In Todd Bracher's Stick, a flashlight combines with copper wire and various diameters of aluminum tubing to form a lamp inspired by walking stick insects and deep sea fish.

Participants include: Lindsey Adelman, Ross Menuez, Constantin and Laurene Boym, Jason Miller, Leon Ransmeier, Sebastian E., Todd Bracher, Kristin Victoria Barron, Paul Loebach, Rich Brilliant Willing, Dror Benshetrit, Le-Bom, and Commonwealth. Pictured here are Coat Rack from Timeless Objects by Constantin and Laurene Boym, a nightstand from Kristin Victoria Barron, 34 Grams from Dror Benshetrit and Stick from Todd Bracher.

McMasterpieces
Ace Hotel, 20 W. 29th Street, 8th floor
May 16-18, 1pm - 6pm

Invisible Car running the blogs
And finally, last week's meme is "Invisible Car." See it here.

Thanks for the tip Victoria!

Special thanks to MarkVanderbeeken, lunchbreath, and Robert Blinn 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

Core77's Milan Design Week Galleries are up!
We've just flipped the switch on Core77's massive galleries of the best of Milan. From the fair grounds and Satellite to the Zona Tortona, Superstudio, and street life, we've got the most vivid, inspiring images from Milan Design Week 2009.

>> view gallery

Coroflot's Creative Employment Confab
Join us on Friday, May 15th, for the second installment of the Coroflot Creative Confab, a networking and knowledge-sharing afternoon for creative recruiters and professionals. The event centers around a one-hour panel discussion by four of the smartest senior designers and recruiters in the Tri-State area, plus ample time for open-format networking with mid- and senior-level creative professionals, and those seeking to hire them. See the Confab page on Coroflot for more details and registration information.

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Core77 Case Study: Modo's IV Pole for Cardinal Health, by Goo Sung
Every research project is a journey. This one started in Basingstoke, England, a small city 50 miles southwest of London in a hospital run by the National Health Service. I was there for Modo to think about IV poles—an ordinary piece of healthcare furniture. Modo researches, designs and builds carts and trolleys for medical devices and customers like Herman Miller, Steelcase and Philips. This project was for Cardinal Health, a $60 billion company.

Most projects start with a defined sense of opportunity—"Make it lighter," "Make it faster," "Make it cheaper." This project was different. Simon Annette, a Product Manager at Cardinal Health, had a vague sense that things can and should be better. Cardinal Health pioneered the use of software to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors, but despite Cardinal's many high-tech innovations, nurses still complained about the poles they used to transport infusion pumps. Simon wanted to change things, and he asked Modo to help.

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Core77's Essential Guide to New York Design Week!
Check out Core77's Essential Guide to New York Design Week, featuring the best exhibitions, events, and parties from the ICFF on out to Brooklyn, from the Meatpacking district, Soho, Tribecca, and Chelsea, to Midtown, the Flatiron, East Village & LES. Check the page often for updates, and don't forget to print out a set for your bag. Want it on your phone? We've got that too!

Got an event, exhibition, or some intriguing shit-disturbing going on during New York Design Week and not on our list? Submit it for consideration to calendar[at]core77[dot]com.

New Design Competition Launches: Wave Sport Kayak Graphics!
Core77 is proud to introduce its latest International Design Competition: Wave Sport Kayak Hull Trip-Tych - A Graphics Competition! Wave Sport has partnered with Core77 to create a new generation of boat graphics for their Fuse 56 river running / freestyle kayak. The Top 5 designs will be displayed at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market Show in Salt Lake City in July 2009. Winners will also receive a kayak with their own design. Click on for the brief!

Book Review: Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives
Midway through Richard Brereton's Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives, commercial artist and graphic designer Ed Fella confides, "in 1976 an artist friend gave me a sketchbook, saying 'Even though you're a designer, you think like an artist and should keep a sketchbook.'" Well, even if you happen to be a designer and you don't think like an artist, we at Core77 still think you should carry a sketchbook. Whether it's a modest moleskine with battered corners stuck in your back pocket or a fancy leather tome, sketchbooks can serve as practice pages, ways to fill time, as a finished products, or even what graphic designer Pep Carrio beautifully describes as "warehouses of memory."

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1 Hour Design Challenge Winners!!! Business Card Hacks!
The results are in! The latest 1 Hour Design Challenge: Business Card Hacks brought out some serious 3D creativity from the participants, and produced some utilitarian, ornamental, and just plain whimsical business card hacks.

Huge thanks to our sponsors on this challenge: UPrinting and to our guest judge Gino Orlandi. The Top 5 Winners will each receive 1000 free business cards, courtesy of UPrinting, and here they are (in no particular order):

"Business Card Pinhole Camera" designed by Yana

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"Mobility" concept wins Buckminster Fuller Challenge
It took a team of nine to win the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, namely, a team of MIT researchers and students led by professor William J. Mitchell, who took the top prize with their Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems:

Mobility-on-Demand systems utilize fleets of shared-use lightweight electric vehicles placed at automatic charging racks throughout a city. The CityCar and RoboScooter, both folding vehicles, along with the Green-Wheel Bicycle, minimize parking space and can be picked-up and dropped-off at any rack. Mobility-on-Demand systems maximize mobility and dramatically reduce congestion and pollution through energy and land-use efficiency.

Top prize is a cool $100,000, to be awarded at a conferring ceremony at the Chicago MoCA on June 6th.

Above is the winning team's RoboScooter, which was realized as a full-scale working prototype. It is, however, just a portion of the winning concept; you can check out the rest of it here.

Project Masiluleke in The Economist
Project Masiluleke, or Project M for short, has been a cause celebre in several design subfields since its primary announcement last October. The project, which centers on text messaging to distribute information about HIV/AIDS treatment in deeply afflicted parts of South Africa, has been warmly praised by interaction designers, proponents of socially conscious design, advocates of technological leapfrogging in the developing world, and much of the design and innovation press as well (like Fast Company...and us).

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Aaron Tang's disappearing stairs
And finally, Carl finally found the guy who did the cool folding staircase concept that we'd seen featured on so many "awesome staircase design" roundups: It's "Curious designer" Aaron Tang, who interestingly enough refers to his design as a door, or "an element of a wall that allows passageway to another environment when opened and restricts passageway when closed." You can check out the rest of Tang's book on Coroflot.

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