Core77

Earlier, we spotted RAW COLOR's first project at the Dutch Design Week 2007. The project 100%JUICE demonstrated the power of natural color by extracting "natural ink" from vegetables.

Today, it's worth checking out RAW COLOR No.1, 2 and 3 which demonstrates their continued visual research on vegetables and examination of their internal structures. One of the results is a natural color map categorizing the diversity of vegetables by shades and families.

RAW COLOR is a cooperation between designers Christoph Brach & Daniera ter Haar and demonstrates the often unnoticed beauty of our everyday veggies.

More pictures after the jump!

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Get a Mac! We're not talking about the computer, we mean the ridiculously hot motorcycle designs by TriBeCa-based Carefully Considered, which sounds like an NPR talk show but is in fact a design firm, or a collective, or a consultancy. It's not really clear. Their self-description says "Carefully Considered is an army of one or as tailored as a project requires, with a movable staff of five designers, production artists and thinking folk." But whatever they are, you can check out more of their work here.

SDWorks is a commercial platform attached to Hong Kong Polytechnic University's School of Design, with two professors from that school having set the operation up in 2007. Writes Bernat Cuni, a Mediterranean designer based in Hong Kong and affiliated with the school,

SDWorks looks for cool and nice ideas from students, refines them, put them into production and sells the products. Then, the benefits are shared among the student, tutor and university. It is good, a fair way to bring to life the product ideas that are being generated within the school.

...The design and development is done within the university facilities, enriched by its staff's expertise, while the production and sales is powered by the University's network of quality suppliers and professionals.

Their latest project chosen for production is third-year student Cheuk Kee Lai's cool LED Mirror Watch, the surface of which is an ordinary mirror that reveals the time when the user presses a button. (The designer noticed that the need to wear a watch was diminishing, as everyone now carries time-telling cell phones, and thus came up with the additional functionality of a mirror.) Check it out:

The Mirror Watch recently took Silver in the 2009 Spark Awards and won a 2009 China's Most Successful Design Award. Next up: It's going on sale, to be launched next week at Detour, Hong Kong's Business of Design Week outreach program.

thanks bernat!

One more thing about Boeing's Dreamliner, which is fascinating from a manufacturing perspective: Rather than produce the behemoth at a single plant, Boeing has spread component production out over no less than nine countries (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, Australia, and India) with final assembly done Stateside. So how do they get the gi-normous, partially-finished fuselage from Nagoya, Japan to Charleston, South Carolina and then Everett, Washington? By using these beasts:

Those are what Boeing is calling "Dreamlifters," heavily modified 747s purchased from China that have a volume of 65,000 cubic feet. They're seven stories high and swallow more than 52,000 gallons of fuel in their tanks.

Boeing has stated that the Dreamlifters were made purely for transporting Dreamliners and that they will not be manufacturing any for sale. Which is too bad, because you just know that somewhere some oil sheik is looking at this thing going "I have to have one of these! I must!"

via flight story

Inhabitat's just launched their holiday gift guide (Green Friday?!), and there's a ton of great stuff in here. With categories like Tots, Mom&Dad, Furry Friends, and Heirloom, you are sure to find a forward-looking gift for everyone on your list, and just the browsing will be a great way to move you into the weekend.

Start right here.

Boeing has announced their much-delayed 787 Dreamliner airplane will finally make its maiden flight later this year. It's still just a test flight, meaning customers who have been patiently waiting for the reported 840 orders to be filled will have to continue waiting. The plane is roughly two years behind schedule.

Speaking of two years ago, we found some older concept work BMW Group DesignworksUSA did for the 787 to drum up early interest. The designers came up with a sort of split-level ranch with wings, a plane that a literal high-flyer could live and work in--with nineteen friends in tow.

By dipping into the cargo bay and with the liberal use of staircases, plenty of room has been created for a master bedroom, master bath with freestanding tub, a conference area, guest suites, a large-screen movie theater, a gourmet kitchen, office space, a cocktail bar, you name it. There's even one area with a glass-bottomed floor so you can look in on your car (a BMW, natch) stowed belowdecks. The only thing this plane is missing is a room to torture James Bond in.

via reuters and car body design

Good news for all you interaction designers out there. The IxDA student competition, culminating at the big IxDA shindig in Savannah, has extended its deadline for submissions until 11:59 PST, December 31st. (Deadline will give you one minute to slap on your New Years hat, grab your champagne, and begin the countdown.)

Also, they've opened up the competition to group/team submissions, but with one small caveat: only one person from a group can represent the group in the Stage 2 of the competition, and become a finalist with a full scholarship to Interaction 10 | Savannah. So start duking it out now!

For more information about the competition, visit http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition/

The official Design Observer report of the Aspen Design Summit group I was apart of is up, providing a great overview of the process and outcomes from the 3-day charrette. (Core77's overall reflection piece by Doug Powell is [here](http://www.core77.com/blog/events/a_report_from_the_aspen_design_summit_by_doug_powell_15337.asp).) Huge shout-outs to my amazing team members Maggie Breslin, Jaan Elias, Tim Brown, Henry King, Carol McCall, Margeigh Novotny, Jay Parkinson, Barbara Spurrier, Gong Szeto, and Helen Walters. Here's a little taste from the report:

Rather than being centered on the physician, the group envisioned that healthcare responsibilities would be distributed across a wider network. Austin.us would serve to refer individuals both toward the primary care team as well as from the primary-care team to other nodes of a community network.

Physician involvement in the network was deemed a crucial component of the association's success. Currently, a physician's time is frequently taken up with routine monitoring or reassurance of patients. These tasks could properly be accomplished at less costly nodes of the network, allowing the physician to practice "at the peak of their license." Patients conventionally desired direct physician contact. Therefore, a physician's reliance on the network should be explicit. For example, a physician could "prescribe" conversations with community health workers and/or volunteers as part of a given course of treatment, legitimizing the role of the community network. The physician's new slogan might be, "The doctor will connect you now."

In addition, the network would depend on paid community health workers who would monitor chronic conditions and act as patient advocates with physicians or help a given individual connect to other nodes of the network. While such an individual should have healthcare training, the group thought it was equally important that community health workers would have project management skills.

Besides the paid portions of the network, the design team imagined a network heavily dependent on volunteers from the community. Roles could include volunteer promoters (generalists, such as a pastor in Austin who routinely helped parishioners monitor heir blood pressure); volunteer promoters who are specialists (a grandmother, for example, who gives advice on parenting), or cancer survivors advising others on treatment; and supporters throughout the community.

Three great tastes that taste great together: A trio of Danish design forces, each with their own firms--Lars Holme Larsen of Kilo Design, Bjarke Ingels of BIG architects, and Jens Martin Skibsted of Skibsted Ideation--have all been collaborating together for years, so they finally decided to make it honest and combine into a single entity. On Tuesday they announced the formation of KiBiSi, an "idea-driven industrial design firm" based in Copenhagen.

Each partner contributes with intelligence and experience from within his specific field providing KiBiSi with cutting edge knowledge and knowhow within the fields of architecture, design, furniture, electronics, transportation, contemporary culture and lifestyle. Having collaborated on multiple projects for years Lars, Bjarke and Jens Martin decided to turn their intuitive inclination to work together into a full time collaboration.

Why is this exciting? Well, check out some of their collective work:

Above, in order: GMoMA "urban plan" designed for Ansan, South Korea; the AA table; the Knot light; the forthcoming Puma bike; the molded plywood EXPO Chair. Click here for more.

On Friday, Hong Kong hosts the International Symposium on Product Design and Innovation, featuring talks by designers from the UK, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Hong Kong and China, on the theme of "Tapping New Business Opportunities via Innovative Design." Kicking it off is the UK's Quadro Design Associates founder Phil Gray delivering a keynote on the changing state of ID:

"As recovery in the global economy starts so there is an opportunity for companies to assess how effectively they do business and what has to change to ensure a sustainable future," writes Gray. "There has never been a shortage of innovative people, just a shortage of companies that understand the value of creativity and how it benefits their business. Design is a key factor not only in the product outcomes but also in the way the outcomes are achieved."

Click here for the complete list of speakers.