This is a pretty cool spoof poster!
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Art for Geeks
How do you get computer geeks to be interested in fine art? By subverting them with modern geekiness, of course! There’s a Flickr set with some really funny alterations to classic art pieces – some examples are here:
Comments + Critique Time
You might’ve missed a rather interesting discussion in the comments of one of my earlier posts – about the patent and novelty issues on the MUJI winning entries. Scott, a designer-engineer-patent-agent hybrid brought up some interesting perspectives, and in our conversation I thought it’d be a pity that we don’t get to see the other entries.
The first one is called Postie. “It’s a simple bent structure that offers a day-of-the-week platform for POST-IT’s to help organize the THINGS TO DO and various meetings, etc per week. As you know, the mind works well graphically and this simple structure should help the worker visualize what needs to be done and by when.”
The other idea is the Tackie. Scott: “This one is a two-pin thumb tack that is designed like a coin (better grip) and further includes a curved slot that can receive a card for advertisement. I know using two pins for thumb-tacks is known, but not the combination of two pins and a coin-like handle and the slot. The thumb-tacks are also stackable for cleaner and safer storage.”
Personally for POSTIE, I liked the idea of using Post-Its as a medium for activity planning. Them being spontaneous and convenient gives a more flexible approach to laying out your schedules – adding an appointment simply means tacking on an extra note in the relevant space. However, the design solution felt rather clunky (despite it being collapsible) – it seems too much of a material structure for the sole purpose of delineating days. Could the same purpose have been achieved not by a metal product but maybe by graphics, especially as MUJI is rather particular about clutter.
As for the Tackie idea, I definitely agree on the easier-and-safer to store part. Most pins are cluttered in boxes which can be difficult/’prickly’ to retrieve. I was mentally trying to search for applications for these pins though – what are the wider applications apart from the notice board (which seems rather niche). Aesthetically, I think MUJI has a rather particular ‘fetish’ for being simple and not overtly attention-seeking. Maybe something like this?
Ride your Bike!
Loved the light-hearted, leisurely soundtrack that accompanies this ad encouraging more people to ride the bicycle in London. Perfectly encapsulates the mood of riding, don’t you think?
Global Package Gallery
If you’re designing packaging, you’d probably find the Global Package Gallery very useful as an reference for what have been done before. It’s an archive (still in BETA stage, though reasonably populated already) of packaging designs categorized into various types: beverages, food, electronic, etc. With more time the site might very well expand and become the grand daddy archive of good packaging.
Meat Part Keychain
Any of you can’t separate tenderloin from sirloin? Yeah, me neither. These little key chains called ‘Gotoshi Dissection Animals‘ help you distinguish each part of the animal. They’re not actually limited to only popular edible animals though – I doubt, for example, that you eat pandas on a regular basis.
What’s the catch (pardon the pun)? Well you’d have to learn Japanese first before you can understand the naming – so it may still be easier to memorize the anatomy!
iPhone Guitar
Give a man a fish. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Give a man (or for that matter, hopefully many men) an open platform in touch-interactivity, however, and you’d start to get really interesting and creative applications – quite certainly more than you’ve ever envisioned yourself. In this case – it’s for the Apple iPhone. Previously some concepts like Starbucks coffee ordering sprang up on the net – while perhaps useful I didn’t think it was particularly creative in harnessing the iPhone’s capability.
This one, however, is pretty cool:
While it’s still in a rather primitive state currently, it does show potential in really harnessing and leveraging on the iPhone’s touch-sensor capabilities. Imagine a guitar that fits in your pockets! Practice and pluck over with your earphones while you travel, to the accompanying MP3 tune on the phone! Too bad Apple’s still insisting on a closed platform.
Building 3D Models by Tracing
It seems like 3D modeling is getting easier and easier – trace the overall outline from a video and voila – you’ve got a material-ed and rendered 3d object! Of course this is the promotional video which means that everything works approximately 132 times better than the actual application. But it’s still quite impressive nonetheless to me. I believe that there will be a time where 3D modeling skills are like typing skills nowadays – everybody (kind of) has it, and it doesn’t matter that much anymore since it’s relatively much easier. While we’re probably still years or decades away from that, it certainly looks like software and AI for 3D are heading in that direction…
Whale Blimp
With all the talk about reviving the airship in the recent years – it seems like this peaceful and spacious mode of travel (as compared to the airlines which are still desperately trying to trim half-inches of leg rooms) could be back for a rebirth after the much-documented Hindenburg disaster. If they do come back, I’d wish for it to be in the form of this ‘Manned Cloud’, a concept airship developed together by Jean-Marie Massaud and the French national aerospace research body ONERA.
Airships are certainly no match for traditional airplanes in speed or efficiency – but it’s certainly much more relevant in leisure purposes like an ‘air cruise’. Capable of hovering at much lower altitudes (typically 500-1000 meters above ground), it brings being-in-the-air as an experience in travel itself, rather than simply a means-to-an-end. As described by Massaud:
Living in the sky, watching the Earth from above. Rediscovering the marvel of traveling, experiencing contemplation. Exploring the world without trace
Manned Cloud is an alternative project around leisure and travelling in all its form, economic and experimental, still with the idea of lightness, human experience and life scenarios as the guiding principles. The spiral of Archimedes is the driving force of this airship in the form of a whale that glides through the air.
I thought the form had the peace, grace and elegance associated with this mode of air travel. It sort of brings us close to nature again in appreciation.
Wallpaper Design Awards
Wallpaper, the art/design magazine that I’m sure many of us are familiar with, have just published the Wallpaper Awards 08, giving kudos and recognition to great designs in a wide field, including best city, public housing, fashion and even specifically grooming product.
As a product designer I am of course partial to the ‘domestic appliance’ category. With a jury mix that is more eclectic and varied than many typical design awards – including Donatella Versace, Tadao Ando and Wong Kar-Wai – the products selected all seem to ooze personality and soul. The winner is the Katamari 01 Speakers by Gizanze:
Other finalists include:
Alpha TV by Brionvega
Heater by Plusminuszero
L10 Washbasin by Boffi
Gorenje Kitchen Appliances by Ora Ito
What’s also really interesting is how they honor their winners. Instead of solely plastering the glamor shot of the product, they’ve also made a 15-second animation for each winner – check it out (total of 10 categories) !
