Archive for the ‘industrial design’ Category
Digital Ruler
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At the first sight of this ruler concept by designers Shay.Shafranek the thought of ”this must be one of those ‘mesh-up-digital-and-physical-objects-experiment-again” sprang into my mind, almost in a knee-jerk reaction. But upon further consideration, it does have quite a lot of merit (if a little indulgent) in this combination.
This is a work done in conjunction with a PCB-manufacturing company. The most interesting bit, in my opinion, is the idea that with this digital-sensing modules lined up along the sides, you don’t have to line-up a “zero” point. You can start to pick and draw from anywhere, and the reading is automatically calculated from where your pencil first contacts the paper.
More advanced use of the idea also includes: adding distances (you can keep drawing and the ruler adds up the sum of the lengths); having units in different dimensions automatically (e.g. mm, inches);
Intuitive, simple, elegant solution that still retains the familiar a nalog ruler – you can be as advanced as you want with this ruler.
Great concept!
Folding UK Plug
This concept design for the UK plug’s been making the rounds round the web like wildfire – probably as a testament to how much people loathe the big, fat bulky UK 3-pin plug. Here’s how it works:
Sounds like a student concept project (anyone knows who I can credit?) It’s a concept design by designer Min Kyu Choi. There are certainly still many technical issues to resolve – putting numerous moving parts and hinges into that small an area will probably require a hell lot of (costly or difficult?) engineering to realize in a large-scale, cheap manner; the live wire looks really perilously close to the neutral wire in the assembly, etc. The final comparison for the 3-way plug was also somewhat unfair as the bulkiness of the plug-heads were also due to the transformer-circuits (e.g. in Apple’s plug).
That said, I loved how the design has approached this prickly problem and tackled it with an elegant and innovative solution (loved the fuse idea – makes it easier to change too!), while still maintaining the compatibility with the current sockets. Kudos to the designer!
Salli Saddle Chair
As an industrial designer, I am quite intrigued in the approach that this chair has taken to resolve ergonomic issues. The task chair design is always a complex and often rigorous one – it has to fit many people, be comfortable to be used for long periods, by many people of different sizes and statures, etc., and it is always welcoming to find new designs and innovations on it.
The Salli chair in the video above does tackle some of those issues – with a rather peculiar focus in the marketing: a big chunk of the ergonomic benefits it is extolling are specifically to address the comfort of the nether regions. I just wonder though the amount of emphasis placed on it throughout the entire video seems to be making it more awkward for people intending to buy this chair…
studio juju @Milan Fair
Singapore-based designer-duo Timo Wong and Priscilla Lui formed “studio juju” based on the philosophy of a hands-on approach to designing and crafting. For the Milan Fair this year, they’d be launching some of their collections:
Rabbit
None of the tables are the same in height, dimension or shape. The arrangement becomes fluid and, hopefully, will inspire an indefinite interaction when people sit themselves along the curves and place their cups on different heights and shapes.
One Shelves
A set of small boxes that can be nested together to take up the least amount of space and expanded without tools to form a big shelf. stack and arrange the boxes to fit different rooms.
Urbano Bin
In the recent years there have been some attempts at bins that specifically addresses the usage of plastic bags. The ‘Urbano’ is another similar attempt – with the design thoughtfully being doubled up as a plastic-bag storage:
Another twist to make this design even more compelling: extra bags can be stored under the one in use, pushed down by the handles and tucked beneath them. Replacing the bags, then, is even easier than in a traditionally designed trash can – you just pull up the new bag after your remove the old one and hook its handles around the catches provided.
My little question is just – when the bin has some rubbish in it (but not full enough to throw it away yet), you can’t really store it (it’s too much of a mess to lift the rubbish-bag up, tuck the bag in, and put the rubbish bag in again). But overall, neat design!
[via dornob, but who can I credit the design to?]
Too much (poorly designed) Information?
Came across this interesting design commentary by Joseph Logan, describing how a transparent window in the milk carton (ostensibly a good idea to have a quick, real time, reliable way to tell how much milk is left) degenerated into something that is a whole lot less elegant, simply by adding more and more visual elements (inappropriately too):
A designer suggested adding a little window on the carton to provide something easier for making a shopping list than a rough weight estimate. The first round of design review probably added the volume markers, which are innocuous enough but unnecessary for the majority of milk drinkers. Subsequent rounds probably added the wholly useless picture of the milk jugs and the placement of all this visually distracting detritus.
Is there anything beyond the little windows that substantially improves your ability to make decisions about the volume of milk? Of course not.
What is actually happening here is that a potentially useful addition to the good old milk carton becomes something cluttered and misleading, and it smacks of committee work. Will any harm come of it? Probably not. At most, it might be a little more confusing than necessary to anyone who bothers to look at it, which probably won’t be too many of us. Imagine safety diagrams on an airplane or in a chemical plant, though; how much distraction or confusion would be necessary to cause an accident?
Hear hear~ that is also something that I come across once in a while in my day-to-day job. It’s quite easy to slip into the chasm of “isn’t more of something good better?”, and forget the delightful balance and restraint that must sometimes take priority instead. Or to push design concepts all the way to the extreme ends of a cross-matrix – where subtlety is erased and diminished.
Problematically, these are also typically calls that you can’t rationally make a rule of. How do you know when ‘too much’ is, in fact, too much? In these times, it simply boils down to good judgment, clarity of intent and experience.
Breadcrumbs for Birds
A very interesting ideas – a direct upcycling if you will – as waste breadcrumbs get channeled into a feeder pod as birds’ food. Perhaps not exactly workable as it is, but I like the poetic connection in this design.
[via Tasarim]
Eye Clock
Certainly more whimsical than precise – Mike Mak’s Eye Clock gave me a warm chuckle as he links the eye movements to the hour and minute hands respectively.
BMW’s Hofmeister Kink
newmediacampaigns has a rather interesting article zooming in to a fine detailing on BMW’s automobile design – the Hofmeister Kink. As seen above (highlighted in blue) in the BMW 1500 launched in 1961, the kink describes the bend at the C-Pillar (rear pillar), representing a turn in the window lines that one may have expected to flow smoothly towards the rear.
The Hofmeister Kink (named after BMW’s design director at that time) persisted throughout BMWs – and according to newmediacampaign, as BMW became more established as a car marque with qualities of luxury, high-end and quality, the kink itself became a subtle element representing these qualities as well.
Other carmakers caught on, and the application of the kink helped to differentiate similar cars/platforms tweaked towards different market segment – for instance, the Taurus has the smooth lines that coincide towards a sharp angle, while the Lincoln MKS sports the kink.
Quite an interesting read – though I’m sure you will be able to find counter-examples, I thought this was an interesting back story to a design detail that most of us would never even have noticed. Head on the their full article for a more comprehensive read.
Earring Lampshade
The Sophia Lamp by babbaakcja is a clever parasite design – by perforating tiny holes onto the lampshade (which can form an interesting pattern), women can also hang their earrings on it, and transforming the aesthetic into a different, more personal one instead.
