Posted by
core jr | 23 May 2013
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Graduation is always an occasion for reflection, and even though Julia Davids is still six months away from completing her Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree at Stanford University, she is taking the end of term to reflect on her experience at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, a.k.a. the d.school. She easily surpassed her $150 funding goal (to purchase the ISBN) for her self-published e-book about her undergraduate experience—this is an exclusive excerpt of the second chapter.
Imagine you attend one of my design classes in Stanford's d.school at Building 550. Many of the structural elements of the building have been left exposed so that it has the feel of a partially renovated garage: cement floors, bare walls. Strange furniture is scattered about the floor; tour guides are known to explain that decorators chose "deliberately uncomfortable" seats to encourage activity. A smattering of professors and students have questioned the use of foam squares or wood blocks as chairs, but the seats remain.
You enter a classroom on the second floor, where 30 or so students populate gray plastic chairs. The room—in fact, the entire building—embodies the principle that furniture mixing is proportionally related to idea mixing. Utility pipes unabashedly expose themselves to you. You take a seat on one of the chairs, but your table scoots away from you because it is on casters. The rock music fades and class is underway.
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Posted by
Coroflot | 23 May 2013
wants a Senior UX Designer
in Seattle, Washington
If you're an interaction designer with strong organizational skills who does not believe in the conventional constraints of print vs. web vs. video and thrives on variety and challenge, Hulu wants you to be their next Senior UX Designer.
The ideal candidate combines a world-class design sensibility and skills; a desire to make a huge impact in the new and rapidly growing online distribution channel for premium video and a passion for working in a fast-paced, chaotic environment with intense, demanding, but fun-loving co-workers.
Does that sound like you? Apply Now
Posted by
Ray | 23 May 2013
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StokkeAustad - "The Woods"; Image courtesy of Maria Larsson / Home in the Woods
It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a serendipitous visit to a strong exhibition, especially during a week when there happen to be dozens of events to visit. (With the launch of NYCxDesign, New York's annual design week was as supersaturated as ever, what with the ICFF expanding into Javits North and Wanted Design nearly overflowing with exhibitors.) As with Field and Various Projects' Here & There, an unassuming exhibition was well worth the visit, and even though most of last weekend exhibitions have been broken down, packed and shipped by now, Home in the Woods will remain on view at 29 Mercer St in Soho (albeit by appointment only).
However, unlike Jonah Takagi's effort, Maria Larsson's exhibition is brimming with New Nordic and Swedish Modern quality, including vintage pieces by Bruno Mathsson and Sven Markelius along with works of art and design. As the sole organizer of the exhibition, Larsson readily admits that her role went far beyond simply curating the exhibition: an architect by training, she oversaw the buildout of the gallery space, as well as the PR and marketing.
Vintage table and chairs by Bruno Mathsson; leather goods by Tigerklo; stool by Lith Lith Lundin
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Summer's nearly upon us, and we here at Core77 will shortly spend a weekend at a cabin rental where we can sit outside and drink nice, frosty beer in between spirited bouts of wrestling. But there's a design problem: While we can wrestle out in the woods as good as we can in the office, having cold beer outside means hauling up a cooler, keeping that cooler well-stocked with ice, and downing the beer faster than we'd like so it doesn't go warm—and that accelerated boozing sometimes impacts the wrestling results. There's gotta be a better way!
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Posted by
Ray | 22 May 2013
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We've seen plenty of excellent work by Washington, D.C.-based Jonah Takagi here and there at various exhibitions and venues over the years, but we finally crossed paths during NY Design Week at a pop-up shop/exhibition for his new-ish retail venture Field. Although he launched the company with childhood friend Daniel Thomas last year, Here & There marked first major event in New York, a collaboration between the D.C.-and-Chicago-based brand and NYC's Various Projects, who stock some of the carefully curated goods at their flagship store in the Lower East Side, Project No. 8.
Billed simply as "an exhibition featuring an array of artists and designers invited to create objects on the theme of travel," the exhibition was a highlight of this year's design festivities.
Posters by Timothy Colmant
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Those with dedicated workshops of their own design have the luxury of placing their own power outlets. Bur for DIY'ers making do in mixed-use spaces, or tradespeople on jobsites, the chaos that is extension cords is a built-in part of any project: You need to keep the tool connection out of the sawdust pile, and arrange the cords in such a way that you and others won't trip over them.
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Don't forget
Featured Items
Posted by
Ray | 22 May 2013
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Rich Brilliant Willing's "Monocle" wall sconce
Although the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is notorious for its rather unflattering industrial lighting fixtures, many of the exhibitors at the ICFF happen to design lamps and lighting for the appreciably more intimate settings of the home or office, where (thankfully) we spend most of our time. Here's a selection of some of our favs, including several new offerings from our friends at Rich Brilliant Willing, Brendan Ravenhill and Patrick Townsend.
The Gala Chandelier comes in a variety of configurations
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This is crazy—see those yellow dots on the map? Those are the locations of some 20,000 known shipwrecks off the coast of America, all mapped by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration as part of their Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project. Many of those yellow dots are older sailing ships or coal-fired vessels, and it's no big deal if those sit on the bottom of the ocean; others, however, are World-War-II-era oil tankers torpedoed by the freaking Nazis.
Those tankers, and some other non-wartime wrecks carrying large volumes of oil, are a problem. It's only a matter of time before corrosion starts to release thousands of tons of oil from those ships into the ocean. Some 87 wrecks have been added to a national risk assessment report, with 36 of them deemed "high priority for a Worst Case Discharge." And these are just the boats that NOAA knows about; they estimate "it is likely that local knowledge will bring forward other vessels that [also] meet the criteria...."
If these ships start to leak, it is not just the poor Gulf states that dealt with the Deepwater Horizon disaster that will be affected:
The majority of the 36 higher risk wrecks identified in RULET are located off the North Carolina and Florida coasts. They reflect the intensity of World War II casualties in the Battle of the Atlantic. For the 6 Most Probable Discharge (10%) scenario, the high priority wrecks are located off of New England and Florida.
As this report was just released two days ago, any potential solutions have yet to surface.
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Posted by
Coroflot | 22 May 2013
wants a Product Designer
in Boston, Massachusetts
Goodbaby, the #1 juvenile products manufacturer in the World, servicing customer brands throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, wants you to contribute contribute to their process with your own personality and unique skill set.
You'll be working in an open studio in Boston's South End with a relaxed atmosphere and a multidisciplinary environment where people are expected to take ownership of their projects with minimal management. You'll need to bring 5-7 years professional experience, preferably with experience in juvenile or automotive products and a great, easy going attitude and personality.
Apply Now
Posted by
Ray | 22 May 2013
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Earlier this year, we came across the
3Doodler, a pen that allows the user to sketch far beyond the bounds a material substrate, namely paper. (Boston's WobbleWorks had more than quadrupled their $30,000 funding goal when we posted about the product at launch; by the time the campaign wrapped up a month later, they'd raised a whopping $2.3m)
Led by Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić, a team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Joris Laarman Studio in Amsterdam have developed a new, patent-pending additive manufacturing technology, known as
MATAERIAL. (Pun lover though I may be, it took me a moment to get the name.) The machine is essentially an articulating arm that can create three-dimensional objects on any surface, independently of a build platform.
By using innovative extrusion technology we are now able to neutralize the effect of gravity during the course of the printing process. This method gives us a flexibility to create truly natural objects by making 3D curves instead of 2D layers. Unlike 2D layers that are ignorant to the structure of the object, the 3D curves can follow exact stress lines of a custom shape. Finally, our new out of the box printing method can help manufacture structures of almost any size and shape.
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Posted by
shaggy | 21 May 2013
Hello Design Fans - Here is a wide image to kick off our new jumbo-tron Core77 format. Math is important, make it work for you, stay in school. Check, check. Keep your head down. Just a taste for now. - Edit: For those of you who are interested, the image is from Pratt's 1967 yearbook - a fair spell before Core77 was there - but still a favorite - Math: it's fundamental. Found here- p.s. if you have one of these we would love to buy it from you. Edit 2, : "The Fibonacci Sequence/ Reservoir Dogs Poster You Never Knew You Needed" Until Now.
Posted by
Ray | 21 May 2013
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While I understand the appeal of the golden ratio as a rational approach to aesthetics most people would probably agree that it's impossible to reduce beauty to a series of numeric relationships. Yet the myth persists, and it should come as no surprise that these putatively ideal proportions might hypothetically inform graphic design as well—after all, the very premise of digital software is to allow us to create vector images with mathematically unerring accuracy.
And of all the countless logos that we see on a daily basis, Apple's ideogrammatic fruit is a leading candidate for a hypothetically golden (or hypothetically rational, as it were) logomark. Fed up with the conjecture, Quora's David Cole recently decided to investigate. We won't ruin it for you, but it's a fascinating read, not least for Cole's highly systematic approach.
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You've heard the expression that [American] football is a game of inches. So, increasingly, is living in Manhattan.
This video of Luke Clark Tyler's apartment (captured by Kirsten Dirksen's Fair Companies) has racked up nearly two million hits, and for good reason: Tyler downsized from his previous 96-square-foot palace to shoehorn his life into a 78-square-foot studio. But what really makes this video distinct from other "tiny living" vids we've seen, and what should be of interest to the Core77 reader, is that Tyler is a trained architect who can design, build and install his own things, like his sideways Murphy Bed.
Also observe the little details, like how he's using eyehooks as toothbrush- and razor-holders and how the bottle-stays on his shelves are just wooden dowels held in place by two carefully-placed sheetrock screws on either side.
This is giving us a potentially cruel idea for design education—but before we get to that, watch the vid:
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Posted by
Ray | 21 May 2013
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Design agency smallpond looked to go big time for the inaugural NYCxDesign festival, entering the fray with the support of London's Designjunction. The new
INTRO NY show was modest in the best way possible, a showcase of smaller, mostly non-NYC design brands in a well-lit, street-level space in the heart of Little Italy (there was audible din from a parade two blocks over when I visited on Saturday morning).
If on-site retail—a curated
neo-utility pop-up shop—and refreshments seem to be par for the course at design shows these days, the backyard pop-up cafe was a nice touch (though I imagine it was rained out on Sunday).
In addition to furnishing the patio, San Francisco's
Council made a strong showing with products new and old. They've brought a handful of young designers into the fold since the brand debuted at ICFF in 2007, including Chad Wright, who was happy to discuss the
"Twig" chair that he designed for the brand.
The "Periodic" table by One & Co. was displayed front and center
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Posted by
core jr | 21 May 2013
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Reporting by Stefani Bachetti
The IIT Institute of Design held its annual Strategy Conference last week in downtown Chicago, a two-day event full of inspiring and interesting talks about using design thinking and innovation to solve complex issues. Socially conscious innovation was a common topic this year, from improving agricultural techniques in Africa to enabling University of Chicago students and professionals to collaboratively tackle major problems in healthcare, as well as revitalizing abandoned lands in Detroit with a community development and agriculture program.
Check out the sketchnotes below summarizing the ideas behind this year's event. You'll find synopses on speakers like Carl Bass with Autodesk, Catherine Casserly of Creative Commons, Stepan Pachikov, founder of Evernote, Bruce Nussbaum and Barry Schwartz from Swarthmore College, among others.
Click to view full-size images.
Carl Bass, President and CEO, Autodesk
Mark Tebbe, Operating Executive, Lake Capital / Stepan Pachikov, Founder, Evernote
Amory Lovins, Cofounder and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute / Kim Erwin, Assistant Professor, IIT Institute of Design
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Posted by
Coroflot | 21 May 2013
wants a Jr. Interaction Designer
in Palo Alto, California
You know how to translate complex business needs into well-organized, persuasive, and delightful web experiences, and Hewlett-Packard is about to re-invent the industry. Are you ready to drive that change?
As the Junior Interaction Designer, you will design a world-class HP digital ecosystem tying the HP web presence, mobile, and social together into effective marketing and communication. Bring your thought leadership skills, your passionate advocacy for the customer-user, and your desire to become an essential member of a smart, nimble team.
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Posted by
Ray | 20 May 2013
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Now in its fourth year, Noho Design District has taken on a few different permutations over the years, encompassing various pop-up exhibitions from a tiny Japanese butcher shop to a four-story lumber company headquarters (which happen to be on the same block, no less), reflecting both the changes within the neighborhood and the landscape of American design as a whole. Once again, our friends Jill Singer and Monica Khemsurov of Sight Unseen have masterminded a neighborhood-wide celebration of young and emerging designers. In addition to partnering with several co-conspirators such as Future Perfect and American Design Club, they've also curated the flagship Noho Next group exhibition, featuring 13 handpicked studios that comprise a showcase of design talent.
The exhibition took place over the weekend at Subculture, the event space in the basement of the 45 Bleecker Street Theater, which hosted Tom Dixon's London Underground exhibition last year. (I don't know if I'm dating myself with the reference, but I remember going to the Crosby Connection sandwich shop when they occupied the cafe a few years back...). Although it happens to be closing as I write this, hopefully our documentation can serve as future reference.
Misha Kahn, Brooklyn, NY
Misha Kahn
Misha Kahn
Misha Kahn × Chris Wolston
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Fabrican is a sprayable fabric that actually contains fibers, and after curing it can be washed and re-worn. It first created an internet stir in 2006, but for reasons only the internet gods know, Fabrican is now resurfacing on social media and often being mistakenly presented as new.
Don't get us wrong, Fabrican is amazing. But it is not new, and serves as a reminder of just how long it can take to bring a good idea to market, and how dogged inventors need to be. Manel Torres first conceived of Fabrican way back in 1995, when he was an RCA student studying fashion design, after watching a friend get sprayed with Silly String. Torres began to collaborate with chemical engineers, and by 2000 he'd filed a patent and set up R&D facilities at Imperial College London.
Three years later Torres formed Fabrican Ltd., and another three years went by before the blogosphere picked up on the stuff. Here in 2013, seven years later, there are still no announcements for commercialization; the "News" section of Fabrican's website saw its last update in 2010.
Has Torres given up? Doesn't look like it, as he's delivered several Fabrican-based TED Talks as recently as last year. We can only speculate as to what's preventing the appearance of Fabrican on store shelves, which is what we'd really like to see; while Torres is proposing industrial solutions targeted at the medical, automotive and fashion design industries, we think selling the stuff in cans and letting you guys figure out what to do with it would be a good way to go.
Hit the jump for some videos (one NSFW, if you work in Puritan America) showing the stuff in action.
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As we saw with NEMO Equipment's gear, clever design can enable air to play a significant structural role with camping gear. In NEMO's case, that air is provided by a pump.
Portland-based inventor Ryan Frayne is also experimenting with air, but he's zeroed in on a particular element of the user experience: How to get the air into the product. To that end, Frayne has focused on designing a special valve, and the results are pretty impressive. Frayne's Windcatcher design amplifies your exhalation, using physics I don't understand to multiply your air volume by a factor of 10 or 15—with the added benefit that you don't even have to put your mouth on the thing. Observe:
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Posted by
Ray | 20 May 2013
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Although this year marks their first ICFF, PELLE Designs actually dates back to 2008 or so, when co-founder Jean Pelle developed the first Bubble Chandelier. She met her future business partner (and husband) Oliver about ten years ago at the Yale School of Architecture, and each went on to work for major firms before setting out on their own.
The "Quadrat" series of tables takes its name from the German word for "square"; Oliver left his native Germany to study architecture in the States
Thus, their debut collection consists of iterations on the designs: the Bubble Chandelier is now UL listed, and they've just introduced a long version (not pictured) for a total of nine different shapes and sizes (they've also taken an interesting step in making all of the items available to order through an online store).
Jean noted that they make and hand-carve the Soap Stones in their Red Hook studio
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FRIEZE NEW YORK 2013
INTERNATIONAL HOME + HOUSEWARES SHOW 2013
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2012
BEIJING DESIGN WEEK 2012
Case Study: Designing Everything but the Food
WHY WE NEED A NEW HYPER-LOCAL MODEL FOR DESIGN ACTIVISM
IN THE HANDS OF GOD: INSIGHTS INTO DESIGN RESEARCH
WHAT THE FUTURE OF FISH CAN TEACH US ABOUT DESIGNING SYSTEMS
HarvardxDesign 2013: Event Recap
2009 Design Salary Survey
Diller Scofidio + Renfro Present the 'Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account'
After the Mayan Calendar, Fernando Romero's You Are The Context
"Why Shrink-wrap a Cucumber? The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging"
"Stripes: Design Between The Lines"
77 RIGHTEOUS Gifts Under $77
Essential Tips for the Design Professional
Read our back-to-school guide for design students. A must!
Biomimicry 3.8: What Would You Ask Nature
Changing the Face of Motocross
20 Years of Kikkerland
Discovering Chinese Design
