If you are the geek technician/engineer type (and your wife-to-be is to), why not propose with this set of unique rings? Designed by Kiley Granberg, it’s made of brass coated with 24k gold plating and a white zircon gem. Which made me ponder – so which is the man’s ring and which is the woman’s?
Modern technology and visionary architecture certainly brings about much man-made wonders. Have you seen them all? World Architecture has a very comprehensive Top 100 of the most viewed architectures – check it out to see if you can get inspired!
A while ago in my post ‘Visual Branding – More than a Mark’, I mused about the changing nature of a (company’s) branding identity. While the traditional notion of branding is a strong, iconic but static symbol, we are starting to see much more versatile branding identities that leave room for permutation and re-interpretation. An extract from that post:
They are often just as strong and iconic (if not more), but they have an added dimensionality and freeplay that allows for creative interpretations of the symbol, rather than just a static stoic symbol.
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It’s great though to see brands getting more alive and versatile. With the new mediums of expression (cellphones? Google Earth views?) and the Web2.0 culture of hacking and mashing, a versatile logo allows the audience not only to receive but also to actively reciprocate and reinterpret what these brands mean to them …
Shown above are Barack Obama’s campaign logos. While the top one is the official icon, there’s also a whole range of other icons that were tweaked to cater to the various niches while retaining the strong and very recognizable primary branding. The free-exchange nature of the Internet has definitely encouraged ‘mashing’ of different elements for customization. As a nod to the web culture, these logos are even available for download on his website, and at 96×96 pixels they seemed to be precisely targeted at web-uses such as online avatars for forums and instant messaging services.
If your company’s logo isn’t versatile enough to accommodate re-interpretation and transformation (hey, even politicians have done it), you might want to consider some change as well!
I came across and was very much inspired by the two ads above from Nike, titled ‘Defy’ and ‘Endure’ respectively. They were really wonderful in many senses. For both videos, a series of really expressive scenes extracted from sports played in slow-motion, coaxing and allowing the emotions from the sportsmen/women to really flow out to the viewer (with matching background music too).
‘Defy’ paints a picture of hope and of celebration of the human body – how great athletes seem to defy gravity and common notions of what is possible – aptly ending with the tagline ‘A little less gravity’. On the other hand, ‘Endure’ takes a straight look at the less glorious part of sports – the agony in endurance, defeat and disappointment, with the tagline ‘A little less hurt’. Juxtaposed together, they show poetically the humanness and the emotions in sports – and that they are very much simply two sides of the same coin.
If you have been inspired and motivated by the strength of human spirit in sports and endurance, be sure to also check out this story which has been floating on the Net recently, chronicling the superhuman feat of a 61-year old farmer who beat professional athletes in a grueling 875-km race, simply because he didn’t know he was supposed to stop and rest.
The RoboScooter is a lightweight, folding, electric motor scooter. It is designed to provide convenient, inexpensive mobility in urban areas while radically reducing the negative effects of extensive vehicle use – road congestion, excessive consumption of space for parking, traffic noise, air pollution, carbon emissions that exacerbate global warming, and energy use. It is clean, green, silent, and compact.
“We looked at existing folding bicycles and we looked at origami,” Mr. Mitchell, professor of architecture and media arts and sciences, said of the design. He said the students liked to call the vehicle “the cuter scooter.” The final show-quality prototype was presented at the Milan Motor show on November 6-9th, 2007.
Scooters are often the best form of transportation in some urban areas, be it the bustling but narrow alleys in developing Asia, or along roads in historic cities like Paris and Rome that have been constrained from accommodating to our modern forms of transport. Quick, agile and economical, they are perfect for zipping from point A to B – at the same time reducing some hassles associated with driving, such as parking space.
The RoboScooter from the MIT lab was the outcome of the collaboration between MIT’s Smart Cities group, San Yang Motors and Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute. Taking the versatility and portability factor even higher – this scooter features a foldable body unit, allowing it to be stowed neatly in crowded urban spaces and apartments. This was achieved with the use of electrical motors that are placed within the wheels, which eliminated the need for a drive-chain. The electric engine also create less air pollution – just what we need in the cities.
Overall I think the design is pretty well-done, especially considering the fact that it has only 85 parts (as oppose to approximately 250 parts in a typical gasoline scooter). Personally, there is a bit of lost-in-translation between the top render and the actual prototype – it seemed to have dropped some elegance/neatness along the way. Could it be the exposed wires and joints? Or maybe even the color schemes. But I think I’m asking too much… (Yeah, I also know one that side-view tends to conceal much more than the more unforgiving perspective…). So, well done MIT et al. – hopefully we’d see some of these on the streets soon.
I came across this software called Multiseat by a company called Userful. It lets you leverage the power of one physical CPU for up to 10 virtually separate users. As we know, CPUs and processors are getting ever more powerful, while much of what we do (email, browsing, etc) doesn’t really require the full strength. With this software, you can have only one physical computer for your home/office – everyone still works independently, running programs, opening files on their own display and inputs. This is especially valuable in commercial/public sector works where the computer is used to run small and simple programs – like a inquiry terminal in a library, or an Internet kiosk in an airport, for example.
This could dramatically reduce the costs needed, be it hardware or software. On the environmental note, this would certainly also consume less resources (be it electricity or in production of hardware) than having the full configuration. There seems to be some issues with software licensing though – can you only buy 1 copy of the software, or do you still need to buy by the number of people using? Perhaps that’s why it seems on their website they only have it for Linux so far.
Personally I’d hope it’d come onto the mainstream Windows too – and the bonus would be to develop wireless connections between the CPU box and the input/output (monitors, keyboard, mouse). One central wireless home server/computer for everyone’s needs. Perfect!
Here’s a pretty interesting design of a table that was designed explicitly and specifically for use at a construction site. The details in the design show. Made of rugged nylon, the fabric ‘bag’ transforms into a table when you open it up and sliding two standard pieces of plywood into it sleeves. You just hang the whole station onto two nails on the wall – a quick work for the folks at construction site – certainly much quicker than building (and later dismantling) a proper temporary table. The hanging rings are 48inches apart, so it fits nicely onto the ribs in the standard 16″ wall-stud system.
While the meshes hold various documents, there’s even some thoughtful bands for holding up rolls of blueprint at the corner. There’s also a power-cord outlet at the far corner of the table, allowing cables to be plugged for laptops etc.
As the blog ‘unpressable buttons‘ say – “Products intended for a wide range of users and uses often suffer from attempting too much versatility – it’s tough to be everything to everyone. But something which is this focused on being exactly the right thing for one specific use and user stands a pretty good chance of doing it!“
You can find this on Amazon here.
I was quite attracted to the graphics on these bags designed by Bagadesign – there is a certain delightful sense of irreverence, but the graphic is quite clever at the same time, incorporating the handles into the planning for the graphics itself. Adorable, aren’t they?
It’s a new year – and it’s the time for resolutions and such. For many, getting richer could be one of the targets this year, and being a millionaire is still many people’s dream. That magical milestone will still be elusive to most – nonetheless it’s a financial goalpost (or dream, if you’re less optimistic) for many to strive and aim for. Yet, it seems being a millionaire perhaps isn’t all that ‘rich’ anymore in the real sense.
Forbes did a scan of what a cool $1million can buy in terms of real estate properties across the world. In most of the major cities in the developed world, a sub-1000 square-foot apartment is probably all you’re gonna get. It’s only when you shift to the developing world (or a much less prime location) that you’re going to have some land under your feet.
In London you get a 1-bedroom 1-bathroom apartment at Primrose Garden. It’s the same story in New York, you might settle for a 650 square-foot condominium in Turtle Bay Manhattan. You could get some land in San Francisco – if a 1900-vintage Victorian-style home is your taste. But to get some real footage – like the villa or bungalow that you might envision yourself living in when you’re a millionaire – you’d have to venture into places like Kenya or Egypt. (Million-Dollar homes – from top: London, San Francisco, Egypt respectively)
So – two choices. One – realize that being a millionaire perhaps isn’t really that jazzy or *gasp* rich anymore. You probably can’t really ‘live it up’ for your life with that – and decide to work really hard to become a billionaire (now we’re talking). Two – realize that there are in fact more things to life than big (or even, small!) homes in prestigious addresses, and so decide to still work hard and achieve financial and other dreams, but keeping them still in rational perspectives.
A metal water pipe attached to the wall well above head level describes a complete circle before spiraling on itself and completing its journey at the shower head, located in the very center of the circle. If you want a shower curtain, all you need to do is to hang it from the water pipe, which doubles as a curtain rail: it could hardly be any simpler.
Ah! Cleverness and elegance in the solution! Why have two things when you can accomplish the objective in one? Designed by Matteo Thun & Partners, this shower head + curtain rail combo would certainly add an element of interest in your bathroom.
