Gems Sty

The 08 Radio is a concept that interestingly fuses technology and plain old-schoolness. The tuning bar common to most analog radio receivers is magnified to a structural scale, while the radio itself (along with the speaker) travels along the rail to seek your favorite station.

I like how the screen seem to have unfolded and stretched straight horizontally, bursting through the sides of the plastic housing of the sliding unit to display its full content in one shot. The old-schoolness of the font and calibration, as well as the colors & materials on the speaker were also a delightful nod to the bygone style of the past.

The design is by Michael Silvanto, a part of the aivan! group based in Finland, whose website seem to have an even greater affinity for simplicity than their designs.

Back in the 1960s especially, Braun was among the very cutting edge in industrial design - they were the pioneer and the leaders that played a major role in defining and shaping conversations on aesthetics and design. Even today, modern design icons from Apple are still arguably very much inspired by the Braun aesthetics of the bygone era.

The Braun Prize is still very much a coveted prize for any design students in the world, though you’d have to admit, Braun itself as a corporation has faded somewhat significantly in its influence on the design world.

Industrial designer Joe Doucet noticed this issue, and took the initiative to start the speculative design efforts designed to reignite what made Braun great:

Doucet hopes the self-funded prototypes (presented to the manufacturer earlier this year) will help initiate a change in the Braun aesthetic, which, since Dieter Rams’ days as head of design, has “lacked distinction”. “It’s been 40 years since Braun was in the design museum,” says Doucet. “The products are still engineered very well, but there is no ethos. If you remove the Braun branding they could be by any other manufacturer.”

Here are his three speculative designs for a toaster, mobile phone and music player:

For me, I’d agree with the assessment that Braun has faded from design leadership in many (most?) of its consumer product segments. Perhaps they’ve decided that one-style-can’t-fit-all-demographics; perhaps no one could take on Dieter Ram’s hats. In any case, as I glance across the home appliances aisle now, it is difficult to pick out a Braun apart from its (imho) still very iconic BRAUN logo.

What do you think of Doucet’s proposals? Do they work for you?

[via iconeye]

Perhaps I should count myself deprived, or maybe just too young or something - when the NYTimes reported on artist Chris Burden constructing a 65-foot tower using stainless steel modular pieces, I was in awe. I’ve never seen or heard about these metal trusses before - and thought ‘Wow, these are like LEGO for grown-up engineers or something”.

It’s inspiring to see these basic building blocks stretched right to its limits:

“The fact that it is both a model and the height of a real building is bizarre,” she said. “It is simultaneously right and wrong from a traditional building perspective. And so it starts to play tricks on you.”

The pieces he used were stainless steel replicas of a toy commonly known as ‘Erector Set’s, which to my surprise was launched almost a hundred years ago back in 1913, and created history by being the very first toy to be advertised nationally.

Wish we’d see more (resurgence) of toys like these. Open-ended, as-challenging-as-your-imagination, and probably encourages kids (and adults!) to take interest, understand and marvel at engineering and construction ideas.

I need to play more.

[via momeld]

As the world becomes more connected through the tubes of the Internet, we’re certainly also seeing more and more graduation shows moved outline (or at least, duplicated somewhat) so that the results of the students toil can be shared across the world.

Here are some of the works from Central St. Martins, hosted on Flickr here; meanwhile I’ve picked up some that I thought were interesting:

Slow Down Fast Food - by Pearl Chung

Slow Down Fast Food explores how different food containers can pare down the original ‘fast’ intent of the fast food into a more gradual, spread-out ritual of food consumption:

In Slow Food culture, apart from the quality of food, it is important that whether people really enjoy what they are eating and whether they can find the pleasure from it. Therefore, if people really enjoy the process of food consumption, no matter what kind of food it is, all kinds of food can actually be Slow Food. I initiated a task to design a set of products to encourage people enjoy their Fast Food consumption and to have more sitting down occassion with the others while eating Fast Food.

Please Keep my Secrets - by Mayuko Sakisaka

Meanwhile, Please Keep my Secrets explores the evolution of communication between significant halves, and steps up to restore a bit of nostalgia and tangibility in the SMS-era:

Letters offer a more poetic and romantic medium than emails or texts. I feel that this is the vanishing quality of the communication in the digital age. I initiated a task to design an electric devise to transfer the potential of this older communication tool to the text message. Fundamental concept is to see how a mobile message from a boyfriend can be kept in physical object in more emotional way.

The Cult of Design - by Lee Yunn Si

This is a much more whimsical and playful approach to the whole thing about design superstars - they’re so super, the very image of them are now design collectibles:

Where consumption is the new religion, this project explores the growing worship of Design and seeks to stimulate discussion of this contemporary phenomenon. So, if you find yourself coveting these limited edition designer toys, ask yourself why.

BMW has just unveiled their latest concept called GINA Light Visionary - GINA being an acronym for their design philosophy behind: Geometry and Functions In ‘N’ Adaptations (I suppose GINA sounds cooler than GIFNA?). At my first glance, I thought it was not too radical - the initial impression was a concept that was probably a sportier extension of the Mille Miglia concept unveiled back in 2006.

But after going through the video (in Youtube above), I realized it was a rather radical and refreshing perspective of automotive design - this may yet be a watershed in automotive styling. BMW has always been experts in dealing with expressive surfaces (that are often sharply ‘clipped’), with one of their master strokes being the iconic negative curvature found along the sides of many of its sportier cars. But I think in GINA they re-thought the whole tradition of car body designs.

In typical automotive designs, you have a certain structure on which you add metallic panels on. You can style these panels in as many ways as there are cars on market now - but they are generally all seen as panels. The associated possible actions are linked to traditional metal sheet forming technologies - bending, rolling, cutting, etc., as the automotive designers think of themselves as sculptors, adding or coring away extra ‘clay’.

In GINA, instead of hard panels, the body is conceived more like a soft skin wrapping against a skeleton body. While it may very well be made of metal panels eventually just like any other cars, the important thing is at the design level, the ’skin’ metaphor brings out a whole set of different analogies and thus designs - you’re thinking about creases, pinching, pricking, etc. Design is thus by growing and subtracting the inner skeleton (which then defines the creases). I particularly liked the quote by Chris Bangle in the video: “…let’s let material talk in a different manner; and let the tooling be a different issue, instead of just a way to give us form.“

There are some other interesting features enabled by such a skin too: for example, there can be a continuous line on the sides, with the door creasing and folding away rather than opening/lifting. It could also consume less resources to build and drive, since the fabric would probably be lighter and require less manufacturing energy. Imagine also the possibility of changing the profile of your car exterior at a whim - in a fabric concept, it may be as simple as pressing a knob to rotate or shift the underlying skeleton.

It reminds me of Gehry’s Guggenheim too - which was for architecture another conceptual breakthrough: where technology has grown to such sophistication that we can in fact produce a building not by ‘ground-up’, ‘level-by-level’ structure which is then clad by facade. Instead, the building was defined much by its skin itself, its transformations and its refreshing organic lines.

In a way, I also felt it made the car more organic - it’s almost like a silent…monster. As it lifts it eyelid, the head lamps project its vision menacingly ahead; the unveiling of the bonnet reminds me of open-heart surgery; makes me think about Toyota’s ‘Human Touch’ ad too (haha both are somewhat creepy).

Overall, I must say this is one of the most refreshing and innovative concept cars that I’ve come across these years. There are many concept cars that are wild, interesting, etc. but I thought the GINA managed to tackle car design in a whole new perspective, while inheriting the qualities that make it a BMW.

Bravo to the design team!

(And if you’re the essay type, here’s their philosophy (wall-of-text!))

Time flies - the MUJI Design Award is round the corner again!

MUJI is pleased to announce the launch of its third MUJI AWARD International Design Competition. Its theme this time is “Found MUJI”. Since it was established in Japan 28 years ago, MUJI has maintained its approach of observing and thinking about everyday life. This involves taking a view of the world, learning from the wisdom of predecessors, discovering the benefits of something that has been used for a long period of time and translating these ideas into the design of products that are consistent with our current lifestyle.

Taking on this approach what can you create, when considering the life, culture and tradition of a particular region of the world, giving it a MUJI viewpoint, while at the same time respecting its origins? MUJI is hoping to receive timeless and convincing designs from around the world.

I particularly liked this year’s theme - it seems like it’d bring to surface a lot of interesting observations and subconscious rituals, and how that translates to products/designs. Deadline’s 31st July - start looking!

[Official MUJI Award website]

The 6th batch of Industrial Design graduates from the National University of Singapore will be hosting their graduation show at The Central (Singapore), from 30th May to 1st June. If you’re in town, do drop by and check it out. If not, you can always drop by their website, which also hosts some of their works:

Yamaha had exhibited a series of piano design concepts at the Milan Salone 2008. Titled ‘Keys’ in reference to the defining common element among all these concepts, they explored some alternative configurations or perspectives to the familiar piano - asking “what would a piano look like if it is used in another context?” At first I didn’t pay too much attention to it amidst the avalanche of visual candies pouring out at that time, thinking that they’re mainly just Yamaha tossing a few concepts to attract attention and all.

In fact they probably are just that. But if you look closer at each concept, there are quite interesting and thoughtful details with each of the 7 concepts that deserve more than a fleeting glance - these design details do demonstrate the thoughtfulness, the idea behind the design, and each new design is refreshingly suited for their new calling through various sensitive design touches:

Key Between People

‘Key between People’ is (in your current Internet lingo anyway) the grand piano brought to the social. In the traditional grand piano, the lid is lifted high up (like a bonnet) forming a formidable visual impact, accentuating the lone genius at the keys. In this concept, the piano is turned much more into a grand, flat table or bar-counter where people just hang-out, recalling the unifying, social dimension of music that perhaps get forgotten these days. The players and the listeners are placed on a level plane, giving a more direct and intimate connection between the two parties. The matte finish also makes the piano look more approachable and down-to-earth, in contrast to the traditional high-gloss piano black treatment.

Key as Gift

Key as Gift looks at the piano that gains connection and intimacy with the owner as it ages gracefully. The C-shaped band of bent wood juxtaposes well against the friendly and slightly-playful looking design - as seen through the flowery array of speaker openings and the softer, more rounded keys. As time passes by, the wood will age with a patina and impressions that you’ve left on it - the special little personal marks that eludes modern plastic gadgets - almost like something you brought out from your childhood.

Key for Living

Key for Living, with its rounded-rectangle silhouette - is more modern looking, having no problems fitting into a typical contemporary apartment or loft. It seemed to be designed with compactness and versatility in mind. For instance, it can be stood-up vertically at the corner of your room or something. Another interesting detail is the speakers which are placed in between the keys and the base - there are a total of 10 speakers and a subwoofer within for sound to emanate in every direction. I also quite like the row of round metallic button - I think it gives a visual highlight to the top surface.

Key for Journey

Key for Journey is perhaps the iPod of pianos. Housed like a sketchbook (with binded paper for the musical genius in you to perhaps jot down the more inspired tunes while on-the-go) within leather-bound covers, the authentic material finishing and the detailing are very exquisite and sensitive. Instead of the standard black-and-white, the finishing plays the role in differentiating the keys: high-chrome vs matte metallic. The juxtaposition gives a harmonious and yet refreshing feel to it. If you look closer, you’d also notice the diamond-knuckled metal dial at the side, and also the squarish metallic paper binding that comes in sets of 3s and 2s (reflecting the arrangement of the piano keys). I think these little design touches go a long way in lending character and demonstrating the designer’s sensitivity to the product.

Key in Cantilever

Key in Cantilever gives a much more simple and yet sculptural look. Composed basically of two rectangles - the piano surface cantilevered on the rectangular stand, it delivers a strong visual impact, accentuated by the quality of the extremely geometrical and straight-cut slabs of white marble. In its simplicity, it is very strong in the visual impact, distilling every element down to the purest of forms.

Key Like Jeans

Key like Jeans again plays with the idea of a well-aged, patina-inducing product. With a solid dark and smooth walnut body that is oiled to finish, you are reminded of a vintage guitar. Details like the screwed-in chrome metallic socket where you can plug your cables in, the keys that extend beyond the body’s footprint, and the heavy and solid feel of the walnut-wood encasement also help to give it the feeling of a classic electric guitar.

Key near Window

Key near Window has a bit of a retro-futuristic look, especially with the dark-tinted glass cover. Once you lift it up, you get a more soothing-tech feel as the embedded lighting and display shines through the white casing. The three distinct layers in construction - dark glass, white marble and dark wooden base - also help give the piano very different and distinct appearances.

All in all, as I looked through the design details in each of the concept, I must say I am quite impressed with how the designers modified the little design elements to suit each concept, and the result is a set of widely different designs that appeal in their own ways for their own contexts.

Head on to the official Yamaha Gallery to see these concepts. I do wish they designed their website as well as they did with the pianos though - the menus seem to be over-eager in popping up in some cases, and I’d say the short looping background music doesn’t show too well for Yamaha (who are supposed to be good in music?).

The old adage goes - ‘laziness is the mother of all invention’. Typically when a new invention comes up, it meets resistance for people who are used to the status quo, and denounce the new effort or time-saving invention as a farce, a device for the lazy. For instance, the automatic gear was once condemned as a luxury device for the lazy - “if you can’t even be bothered to stick out a leg and change your gear, why drive a car?”.

Of course, history has proven otherwise - automatic gear sticks are now very much the default in new cars. People get used to it, prefer it for the time and effort saved, and after a (short) while, the chorus of condemnation are all but forgotten.

That said, what’s your take on this?

Coming from a place that inherited the British wall plug (that comes default with on/off switches, eliminating the need to unplug), I never quite understood why’d anyone decide to have sockets without switches. Of course, that’s how a big chunk of the world operates, embedded in legacy lock-in - and as such it is up to individual designers to attempt to accommodate such decisions.

The Wall Cleat, designed by Karl Zahn, has very simple extensions above and below the standard socket - allowing one to coil extra cables around it. While particularly useful when the cable is unplugged, I could also see it as a simple yet effective device to manage cables that are almost by their very (evil) nature, messy.

A simple solution for a (not-so) simple problem.

[via NOTCOT]