Folks, you have to wonder why no one else thought of this a long time ago:
This headphones packaging design (released last month by the European branch of Panasonic) was designed by Berlin-based Scholz & Friends, a creative agency whose motto is "Surprise! Convince!"
The selection of earphones is huge and the products are often interchangeable. Only a packaging with a clear visual idea is able to stand out at the market among the generic packagings of the competition.
...The earphones show at first sight for whom they are made: for passionate music lovers.
...The new packaging was met with positive reactions from retailers and clients because it clearly stood out from the generic packaging of the competition. As such it helped to attract new target groups for Panasonic.
[Update: This project was originally and erroneously credited to a UK-based design firm, who posted the project on their site with no proper attribution, leading one to believe the work was theirs, whether by accident or negligence. Please note that the designer is Daniel Dobrogorsky.]
Daniel Dobrogorsky's Koolhaus concept is a faucet that lets you know how much water you're using--not just from the Koolhaus itself, but throughout the entire bathroom, even dividing the bath tap and shower tap into separate categories.
I'm not crazy about the form factor--seems like a part from an extreme athlete's bicycle--and the screen's a bit too small for my tastes, but I realize these things are subjective, and overall I find the concept solid. Am also glad Dobrogorsky left toilet water consumption off the display--while it's easy to take a shorter shower, I wouldn't know how to begin curtailing toilet usage.
We didn't think it could be done, but technology has advanced to the point where the Magic Tree air freshener may actually be supplanted by something more sophisticated.
"We want drivers to feel that they are healthier staying in the car instead of on the outside," a Nissan engineer announced at a press event in Tokyo yesterday. To that end they're looking into incorporating in-dash air purifiers designed by Sharp, air conditioners that spray a Vitamin C mist to moisturize skin, and special heated chairs--designed using NASA research--that promote better circulation.
There's no word on when these features (and a few additional ones) will make their way into actual production models, but maybe we'll get lucky and see them in Nissan's new electric Leaf car, which launches later this year. In the meantime you'd better stock up on Magic Trees before they start disappearing like the rainforest.
The Savannah College of Art & Design's ID department continues to impress us with its significant ties to real-world industry and the educational opportunities this affords to its students. SCAD's latest team-up was with heavy equipment manufacturer JCB, who collaborated with SCAD ID students on a re-design of their 3CX backhoe loader, show above.
The new 3CX features aesthetic changes to its loader arms, cab roof cap and engine hood that make it look more "rugged."
"We gave it more of an Americas look," said Chris Giorgianni, JCB's general manager for product marketing. "From a look and feel aspect, it's always been about the guts of the machine. Now it looks on the outside the way it performs."
The relationship [between JCB and SCAD] goes back three years and started with redesigns of accessories, like in-cab cupholders, assembly line workstations and skid steer loader attachments.
The 3CX was the first product redesign on which the company and the college collaborated. And it will be the first of many, Giorgianni said, given the results.
"The construction community is pretty tight-knit, and you end up with tunnel vision," he said. "The students challenge everything. They have virgin eyes. Every meeting we have, they mention some simple improvement that is an aha moment for us. We come away saying, 'Why didn't we think of that.' "
That's a prototype for an electric bicycle designed by Sir Misha Black, the influential UK industrial designer behind a 1946 exhibition called "Britain Can Make It."
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Sir Misha designed the 'Britain can make it' exhibition, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition was intended to boost morale by promoting the British manufacturing industry that was decimated after the war. Industry was to play a vital part in British post-war reconstruction. Sir Misha included a section called the 'benefits of good design', where he promoted good design as a force for social change.
Black was made the first president of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design in 1959, and was knighted for his contributions to industry and business in the UK. He is now being honored by ICSID on the occasion of what would have been his 100th birthday.
Photography has come a long way in the last 200 years or so, or even since the first megapixel sensor. Newly developed robotics and software are now making it possible to photograph the tiniest of subjects, the most magnified close-ups, or the broadest panoramas with ridiculous depth of field, quality, and gigapixel resolution.
At SIGGRAPH 2010, where pixels are on everyone's mind in some way, one exhibit focused exclusively on the topic. GigaPan, a company known for innovations in robotic camera mounts and custom image software, presented its latest hardware, software, and images. Using mounts that automatically move a camera's view across a selected subject, software can then stitch together the high-resolution image pieces to construct photos at the gigapixel level. We captured a video of the photography in action below:
The first video shows the iterative photographing of a circuit board to create a gigapixel image. The second shows the demonstration of the GigaPan Epic 100. The robotic mount/software runs at about $350.
A collaboration among Gigapan.org, Carnegie Mellon, NASA, and Four Chambers Studio, the exhibit illustrated how photography and imaging play a vital role in the study of biological systems, allowing new and better science in general, as well as extending the use of photography fundamentally.
Click through the jump for some of the high-resolution images on display at SIGGRAPH 2010.
"It is just as desirable to build a chicken house as it is to build a cathedral." —Frank Lloyd Wright
So opens the Poultry Project's 2010 Chicken Coop Design Competition, a call to farmers, designers, architects, artists, and locavores to design a chicken coop for use in urban and suburban backyards. The ideal coop should integrate "aesthetics with utility," helping chickens thrive so they can lay some eggs.
The winners will receive two cash prizes of $500 and $250, and the winning designs will be modified for use in Uganda, where the Poultry Project and TASO, a Ugandan organization) help AIDS orphans start small poultry businesses where they can earn money selling eggs.
The requirements of the coop are well detailed on the Poultry Project's competition site, including nesting zones, perches, and a light source. For more detailed guidelines and an entry form, click here.
You shouldn't need to look much farther for inspiration than the venerable Silkie Bantam chicken, pictured below (he's like a Muppet, my dream hen).
Thomas Feichtner has created a simple lamp especially for the designer's drawing table. With a simple change in position, the light emitted by the LED tube lamp changes from hyper-focused for detail work to more widely spread (but actually still pretty focused).
The lamp couldn't get much simpler: it's just a tube, an LED and a cable.
The light is not focused via a complex mechanical system or by adjusting a reflector but simply by putting the whole lamp into a horizontal position. Its construction allows placing it on the desk at two different angular positions. The lamp can be put down in a horizontal position with the illuminant slightly above the desk surface or in a vertical position with a maximum distance between the illuminant and the desk surface...only the sophisticated deformation of the tube provides the lamp with the benefit of adjustability. The interplay of angles, radiuses and lines results in an object which is conclusive in terms of construction and form.
Record label Ghostly will debut it's new label release format, the Totem, with the release of Matthew Dear's upcoming album Black City. More than a symbol or souvenir, these totems are an experiment in digital music delivery. providing a physical key to virtual content. Each one will be embossed with a unique four-character suffix that will allow visitors to access a private page on the internet, from where they can stream the album in entirety or download it. The Black City Totem was designed by the Boym Partners, who have created an abstract, indecipherable object emblematic of the album's sensibility. A video of totem production set to a Matthew Dear track can be seen below.
From Ghostly:
The MDBC Totem is both a sculptural representation of the themes explored in Black City and a symbolic conduit to the music itself. Vaguely reminiscent of one of the soot-blackened skyscrapers that might populate Dear's creeping, nameless city, the stacks upon the totem also call to mind the many shaped prongs of a universal power adaptor. In this sense, the totem is not simply a miniature building, but an abstract key to an unknown door. The branding of the totem has been purposefully reduced to its bare essentials—only the letters MDBC and unique three-digit suffixes are included—so that the totem's meaning remains discernible only to its beholder.
We love the idea of a small village (or large city) of totems on a shelf or table, each one holding a digital key to a different piece of music. Already can't wait to see the next ones.
The totems come in a limited edition of 100 (and an exclusive track). The objects will be available from August 3rd until they run out at The Ghostly Store.
You will: have a high level of general creativity and the ability to communicate these through hand and computer illustration; have a general passion for toys and developing characters/ boys action figures; be able to confidently articulate your designs to various stakeholders at all levels; have the ability to think beyond the 3D product, to the entire consumer experience; be familiar with using customer insights and research methodologies; and more.
Design at the End of
The Rural Design Vernacular 
Berlin Design Week 2010 
Design Miami/Art Basel 
Device Design Day 
Presenting the winners of the BetaCup Competition 
Book Review: Plastic Dreams 
Book Review: Box, 
COLAB 
Philadelphia University 
Open For Branding 
Starting Out: Stewart Smith
Ninja Throwing Star Magnets 
The Dreaded Killer Jellyfish of Graphic Design Favors 
Lounge Chair by Nico Klaeber
mystique vase by Ange-line Tetrault
Untitled by Frank Love
Berlin Design Week
Design Miami/Art Basel
Neocon 2010
Core77 speaks with Jonathan Ive
7
BERLIN DESIGN WEEK 2010
DESIGN MIAMI/ART BASEL 2010
NEOCON 2010
BESPOKE: THE HANDBUILT BICYCLE
The Design Comedy: In Defence of Irony 
COLAB: A Laboratory for Collaboration and Serious Play 
The Artisan and the Automaton: FedEx Office and Hope Bindery 
Infectious Ideas: Using Antimicrobial Copper Alloys in Hospitals 
Interaction + Product Design: A Peek Inside the Revo Heritage Radio 
Real Estate Bust: How Creatives Are Carving Up L.A.'s Empty Space 
Design Fancy: Carlo Heckman 
Design Salary Survey Results
Inventors and Innovations, edited by Duncan McCorquodale
Box, Bottle, Bag, by Andrew Gibbs
Vending Machines: Coined Consumerism, by Christopher Salyers
Innovation X, by Adam Richardson
Priceless, by William Poundstone
Design Meets Disability, by Graham Pullin
The Best of Core77: Our Favorites from 2009!
77 RIGHTEOUS Gifts Under $77
Essential Tips for the Design Professional
Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009
Read our back-to-school guide for design students. A must!
