Off to another design field research for about 2 weeks…The culmination of hectic busy-ness in a foreign land … here’s to a smooth, safe, data-ful and insightful trip for me.

Came across a video showing the carbon fiber rotary-weaving that is used to create the A-pillar of Lexus’ supercar, LFA, a car with a significant chunk made through advanced composite materials:

It’s awesome to see the complexity of the machine – the ins-and-outs to weave strands of carbon fiber – that goes into making a (visually and externally) much more elegant and graceful machine.

It is the tiniest of gestures in watch design – but it’s one that I’m loving. As a young kid without a watch I often had to steal glances off other people’s wrists to determine the time, and I’ve always appreciated people wearing watches with very legible faces. The “Sharing Watch” by Korean design studio maezm takes the concept a little further:

When someone asks what time is it, the wearer simply has to raise his arm: the watch face is rotated clockwise 90degrees, making it easier for both parties to read the time.

And it’s all achieved by simply (though really, this is probably the difficult part requiring very sensitive observation) discovering and communicating this very natural habit; and the rest of the design was probably straightforward with no modifications (minus the watch face orientation).

Clever!

I think anything I say would probably give away the punch line – so: quite the fantastic ad from Canal+.

Recently there’s been a flurry of weddings and invitations – something along the combination of friends around my age getting hitched, and auspicious dates/months/years. For those who are thinking of getting married, here’s a video to either stress you (if you’re a guy), or to lift  you to dreamy romantic imagination (if you’re a girl):

I thought it was a relatively simple proposal, but apparently he has more magic up his sleeves than Mickey.

You can see how much design lives in Apple’s DNA – the same type of care, consistency and quality that they put not just in the products that faces the external parties (iPods, ads, etc.) but internally as well. Shown above are the offer letters and HR paper work that was delivered - the signature Apple simplicity and elegance, even with the same type of punchy lines on the top of each page  (“Ah paperwork”; “Ready, set, go”) .

See the full “unboxing” or unfoldering in more detail over at Glyph.

Since young I’ve known from statistics in encyclopedias that redwoods are the planet’s tallest trees – the tallest of which grows in excess of 100 meters. While my mind could probably read the numerical figure, it probably doesn’t comprehend the actual immensity and awe of it. And that’s where the following video from the National Geographic help to give some perspective:

Such amazing mother nature, and what dedication and tenacity on the parts of the photographers to capture that magnificent image!

It’s one of those things that I’d label as ‘dormant trivia’ – curious questions that I didn’t know exist, even though on hindsight, the bigger question is “why didn’t I think of that question (and find out the answer)? Maybe it’s just me being particularly ignorant or slow – that this is general knowledge to everyone but me:

Why are car cigarette lighters so big (diameter) compared to the cigarettes they are supposed to light?

And today (finally?) I learnt the answer.

Phil Hansen paints the Mona Greasa with burger grease.

Quite an interesting stop-motion graffiti as the graphics on the wall come to life – must have taken a lot of effort and days to set it up … though I do wish the camera was a little less blair-witch.