Archive for September, 2007|Monthly archive page
Donn won Braun
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Singaporean designer (and a recent industrial design graduate from NUS), Donn Koh, had recently clinched one of the most coveted prizes for industrial design students – the Braun Prize. Titled Leapfrog, the project helps children with spinal problems to switch between sitting, standing and walking seamlessly:
LeapFrog humanizes the assistive walker for the brain-injured child by combining stander and walker functionality – it transforms, and assists, in sync with the child’s intention to sit, stand or walk. Besides supporting physical development, sense of independence and esteem, LeapFrog also turns ‘painful’ medical engineering aesthetics into sociable, toy-like approachability.
One of the highlights of this product is its trait of being a hybrid product that can accommodate to the wishes of the user, rather than the other way round. Often we find products that reduces a user-state into a single-dimensional, lowest common denominator. The LeapFrog, however, has the innovative ability to scale to its user’s needs: in the sitting-configuration, it fully supports the user and demands nothing; when the user wants to stand up and walk, it knows to ‘retreat’ and surrenders some of that autonomy back to the person – that makes the LeapFrog a lot more human, and certainly less ‘cage-y’.
It makes me wonder also the possibility of developing this product for the other segments too. Having worked with some patients in a geriatric ward, I could see how this could potentially help the elderly who are too weak for sustained walking but feel too undignified in wheelchairs.
In any case, congratulations to Donn for a job well done!
Designing Fonts
I came across this series of images by font foundry MAC Rhino showing the design process for a font used by fashion retailer H&M. I think it’s really some great work, because at first look (and maybe even with second, third and fourth looks) you’d probably think it’s hand written with a typical marker pen used in retail shops.
I think this is one of the tougher tasks in font design – to mimic a very natural organic writing into a systematic font. The little nuances of every stroke has to be accurately captured, edited and re-edited (you can see some of that process on the top few images – the pencil mark shows the editing comments). We have seen how a font that mimics handwriting or scripts can easily become unnatural – you know it’s just a font (cue BrushScriptMT, perhaps the notorious Comic Sans even).
For this H&M font though, they’ve made it look effortless. I think that’s probably one of the defining elements of great design actually – an execution that looks effortless (when it’s most likely anything but).
Your First Crush
What was your first crush like? A creative and interesting (nonetheless sincere) angle that animator Julia Pott. Taking you down memory lane yet?
Blood Donation Ad
I thought this ad was very well done – an extremely elegant way to convey the message for the Blood Bank. The outline of a man and the Red Cross are respectively printed on either side of the hourglass, depicting the symbiotic relationship between the (potential) donor and the Blood Center – anytime one is short of blood, the other can help.
Agency: TBWA, Shanghai
The Tetris Grandmaster
Kinda makes us commoners feel downright pathetic doesn’t it?
Hand Shadow
Forming shadow patterns with a light source and hands are an old trick that everybody would likely have used to entertain themselves in those days of black-outs and power outage. But our tricks were probably nowhere as imaginative and well-executed as this one from artist Raymond Crowe.
Arc Light – Troja
If you’re looking for a arch-shaped floor lamp for your home, and you’re thinking “Damn, it’s so cliche to get the Arco!” – well here’s your salvation! The Troja light, by hansandfrans, offers a more modern take on the typology of an arched floor lamp. With its simple and yet distinct outline, it may eventually grow to be another icon in itself. A small peeve for me though is the look of the lights (3rd picture) – it makes it feel just a little too much like a lamp for an operating theatre.
The Art of Shattering Sculptures
I wonder how many figurines it takes to capture just one of these photos of figurines being smashed while seemingly being posed and arranged in a thoughtful composition. As the artist Martin Klimas explains,
Yes, the shooting environment must be controlled and kept consistent. The lighting is clear and direct, head on. My background is neutral, but bright enough so that the shattering object completely stands out. I drop the figurine from the same height in complete darkness while the lens of the camera is open. When the figurine hits the ground, the sound triggers the lights to go off for a fraction of a second. I do this procedure many times or until I find the one frame that is just right. I keep just one such picture for every figurine. Every attempt yields a unique outcome, so I need to look for the one that best expresses a transformation of the figurine into a new form.
More shattered works over here.
Smile Detection mode on Sony’s T200
So I just realized that the Sony T200 has a feature/mode known as the smile detector. When this mode is activated, the camera goes into a standby mode, capturing your subject once they flash their pearly whites. I don’t know about you – on my camera, there’s a long list of modes – night shots, sports, portrait, landscape, etc. – but I have never ventured past the first few options. This feature seems like one of those – enough to be marketed as a unique selling point, but not quite compelling enough to be useful in real life.
Or maybe that’s just me?
Pretty Recycle-bags
Garbage Bag Art Work trash bags aim to transform Japan’s unsightly neighborhood garbage collection points into instant works of disposable art. Produced by design agency MAQ, the bags come in three patterns — trees, fish and flowers — and they are colored to match Japan’s official color codes for various types of waste, each of which are collected on different days. Green is for recyclable trash, blue is for non-burnable and red is for burnable, so while livening up the appearance of trash heaps, the bags also remind neighbors about what trash day it is. Packs of ten 45-liter bags sell for 380 yen (about $3) at a select few Tokyu Hands and Loft outlets in Tokyo, or they can be purchased online here (Japanese).
To ponder: does making garbage bags prettier encourage people to recycle? Shown above are graphic-coded trash bags – one each for burnable, non-burnable and recyclable trash. Pretty artwork would certainly beautify the pile (we wish you didn’t have that much to dump though) – and this is perhaps much more emotionally engaging than the standard, stark (no doubt clear) coding systems like stark blue, yellow and green color-coded bags. More arty and less town-council-y.
Work done by design agency MAQ. [via Pink Tentacle]
