It is almost the weekend, so I will leave you with a handful of fun links for Friday afternoon. Designboom posted a few bike designs by Peter Varga, including the glossy modern folding penny-farthing concept pictured here. While you are at Designboom, take a look at all the recent posts tagged with ‘bikes”. It has been a popular subject for them lately.
In keeping with the modern penny-farthing theme, here is one that is not quite as polished, but is definitely a head turner. Believe it or not, this monster trike is a fixed gear too (with a very low gear to get that big heavy tire rolling). I don’t know how difficult this thing is to ride, but I would love to try it and find out for myself
The Bicycle is Art is a brand new blog, but they already have a couple of interesting posts. The “aluminum foil faux Porsche pedal car” almost challenges the Monster bike tall trike for sheer
Tâm điểm của triển lãm xe độ Special Import Car ở Tokyo cuối tuần trước chính là “anh chàng” Lamborghini Premier 4509 Limited đầy quyến rũ.
Diễn ra từ ngày 28-30/5 tại Trung tâm thương mại Tokyo Big Sight ở thủ đô Tokyo, Nhật Bản, triển lãm Special Import Car quy tụ gần 200 nhà sản xuất đã trình diện một loạt các model xe nước ngoài “độ” cũng như các công nghệ, dịch vụ của xe nhập khẩu.
Gây ấn tượng nhất tại triển lãm chính là siêu xe Ý Lamborghini Gallardo “độ” từ hãng Premier 4509 (công ty con của hãng độ Nhật Bản Veilside). Chú “bò tót” dũng mãnh trở nên thật bắt mắt trong nước sơn màu xám thẫm phủ toàn bộ thân xe kể cả đèn pha.
Cùng với nước sơn đặc biệt, Lamborghini Gallardo cũng “ngầu” hơn, đậm tính động lực học với bộ body kit mới bao gồm cản trước và sau hoàn toàn mới, phần hông xe, cánh gió sau và bộ khuếch tán mang kiểu dáng giống người anh em LP640 Super Veloce. Nhưng không giống như LP640 SV thiết kế ống xả đơn, Lamborghini Premier 4509 sở hữu ống bô kép ngoại cỡ đặt ở giữa ba-đờ-sốc sau.
Sử dụng hệ thống treo khí có thể điều chỉnh độ cao từ hãng Nhật Roveruta và hệ thống Nitrous Oxide (hệ thống khí Nitơ ôxit), siêu xe Ý hứa hẹn sẽ tăng cường đáng kể sức mạnh Tuy nhiên thông số cụ thể là bao nhiêu vẫn chưa được tiết lộ.
Lamborghini Premier 4509 Limited tấn công thị trường toàn cầu với số lượng giới hạn 300 chiếc.
Lamborghini Premier 4509 Limited tấn công thị trường toàn cầu với số lượng giới hạn 300 chiếc.
How users created a new sport by Innovating on the "fly".
In 1978 Jürgen Honscheid came over from West Germany for the first Hawaiian World Cup and discovered jumping, which was new to him, although Mike Horgan and I were jumping in 1974 and 1975. There was a new enthusiasm for jumping and we were all trying to outdo each other by jumping higher and higher. The problem was that . . . the riders flew off in mid-air because there was no way to keep the board with you—and as a result you hurt your feet, your legs, and the board.
Then I remembered the “Chip,” a small experimental board we had built with footstraps, and thought “it’s dumb not to use this for jumping.” That’s when I first started jumping with footstraps and discovering controlled flight. I could go so much faster than I ever thought and when you hit a wave it was like a motorcycle rider hitting a ramp; you just flew into the air. All of a sudden not only could you fly into the air, but you could land the thing, and not only that, but you could change direction in the air!
The whole sport of high-performance windsurfing really started from that. As soon as I did it, there were about ten of us who sailed all the time together and within one or two days there were various boards out there that had footstraps of various kinds on them, and we were all going fast and jumping waves and stuff. It just kind of snowballed from there. (Shah 2000). By 1998, more than a million people were engaged in windsurfing, and a large fraction of the boards sold incorporated the user-developed innovations for the high-performance sport.
Users are great Innovators.
A growing body of empirical work shows that users are the first to develop many and perhaps most new industrial and consumer products. Further, the contribution of users is growing steadily larger as a result of continuing advances in computer and communications capabilities.
Some facts that prove this:
• Annual sales of lead user product ideas generated by the average lead user project at 3M were conservatively forecast by management to be more than 8 times the sales forecast for new products developed in the traditional manner—$146 million versus $18 million per year.
• Empirical studies show that many users—from 10% to nearly 40%—engage in developing or modifying products.
• Studies have shown that these individuals are often strongly motivated to innovate by the joy and learning they get from this activity.
Well enough data....Democrathings.com is an online feedback and Research platform for product/industrial designers and DIY micro-factories created by two young entrepreneurs: one an industrial designer himself and the other one, the idea guy. You can listen to users' ideas, do research at low cost and get instant feedback in real time via online video streaming & interactive surveys while creating your own products in your screen. So once you have a design for a possible product you can:
• post the product online (public or private if you want)
• select demographics of possible users
• get instant feedback while talking to them live (love it, hate it...let them talk)
• get reports (numbers/charts so you can make better financial decisions)
• pay your participants...obviously at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.
Then what?...Well go ahead make those products and rock their world.
Democrathings is opening just 100 invitations for Designers of their web service...as of right
now (2/25/10) 50 have been awarded. Would you like to tap into users' ideas and make the
next best selling products?...Then check them out at Democrathings.com
Story and facts: By Eric Von Hippel. Democratizing Innovation 2007.
The Greenermind Summit is an unconference co-hosted by Net Impact SF and IDSA-SF on June 11-13th to bring together Bay Area sustainability professionals in a fun, engaging, and interactive weekend of discussion and collaboration.
Location: Mendocino Woodlands Cabins, Mendocino, CA
Cost: $150 for non-members, $140 for members of IDSA-SF, Net Impact, YWSE, Designers Accord, or the HUB. Cost includes lodging, lunches, and dinners. (Yes - it's a bargain).
Why Design Now?, the Cooper-Hewitt's fourth installment of the National Design Triennial, zeroes in on the segment of design that attempts to solve our biggest social and environmental problems. To best exemplify the international cooperation that lies at the heart of this outlook on design, the curatorial team extended their scope from domestic to global. Consequently, this show is the biggest yet. One hundred and thirty-four projects run the gamut from water-based eyeglasses to self-propelled high-speed rail.
An interest in environmentally- and socially-responsible design is not a prerequisite for visiting and enjoying the show. There's something for everyone. If you're not so taken with giant infrastructural proposals, fashion, new materials, and furniture are just around the corner. For me, the impressive Z-10 Concentrated Solar-Power System designed by Tarazi Studio, the demonstration of the New York Times Visualization and Interaction projects, and the Vertical Village by MVRDV were among the show's highlights.
Top: Z-10 Concentrated Solar-Power System by Tarazi Studio. Bottom: a scene from MVRDV's Vertical Village.
But, why design now?
The exhibition catalog suggests, "designers around the world are answering this question by creating products, proposals, buildings, landscapes, and messages that address social and environmental issues and opportunities," but there's a disconnect here: the designers haven't answered this question, they've only responded to problems and opportunities specific to their practices and contexts. The one hundred and thirty-four chosen projects represent just as many attitudes about design, and it's up to the Cooper-Hewitt to digest these and offer larger answers to the big, broad question they've posed. Unfortunately, the quote mirrors the stance of the Triennial: that the projects say enough on their own. They're left to fend for themselves in the sea of the exhibition, and, without sufficient explanation from the museum, it's difficult to understand them beyond face value.
If the Cooper-Hewitt's role is to clarify and present design to the general public, it's not a good sign that even a designer had difficulty parsing the message. This is not a problem of content, but one of form; the situating of the projects should be as important as their selection.
The NYC Hoop Rack by Ian Mahaffy and Marten de Greeve.
One particularly illustrative example is the inclusion of the NYC Hoop Rack, a circular bike rack by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten de Greeve. The project was the winner of NYC CityRacks, a competition sponsored by the New York City Department of Transportation, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, Google and Transportation Alternatives. Great, but why is this included in the Triennial as an iconic example of new design?
According to the museum's description, "a lack of secure bike parking is the main reason why people do not cycle to work." Again, makes sense, but this particular bike rack is cited as being an "elegant, no-fuss, minimal design" with nothing mentioned about how it addresses the lack of secure bike parking—other than being a bike rack, of course. Is it more cost-effective? Easier to install? More difficult to circumvent?
This piece was included to represent CityRacks' initiative to install five thousand more bike racks throughout the city—a story about the overlap between urban transportation, government institutions, capital, design, and visibility. But why should this be up to the visitor to deduce? The museum should have been more explicit about why this rack is important, why it was selected, and what the implications of the project are. Without clear analysis or placement, the Cooper-Hewitt misses an opportunity to show off a wonderful initiative and spark a conversation about pathways to developing new transportation infrastructure.
Visitors on opening night.
The show is organized into the categories of Energy, Mobility, Community, Materials, Prosperity, Health, Communication and Simplicity. These aren't bad, but offer little additional information when they easily could. The audience doesn't need to be told that projects about power are about energy, or that bicycles, trains and electric cars are about mobility. "Community" is made up entirely of architecture, which is confusing. And "Prosperity" refers to projects that respond to the needs of poor communities, but is grouping them together really the best way to show them?
Top: Type of tile vault used in the Mapungubwe National Park Interpretive Center. Bottom: Contour Crafting video demo.
A considered reorganization might provide more insight into the material. For example, the Mapungubwe National Park Interpretive Center, built using a 700-year-old tile vaulting construction method, is currently filed in "Community." Contour Crafting, a 3D-printer that outputs concrete, lives in "Materials." But, when exhibited together, these projects speak to the application of building technology—new and old—to fluid forms. Likewise, the previously mentioned NYC Hoop Rack ("Mobility") could elicit a completely different reading if displayed alongside the Center for Urban Pedagogy's Vendor Power! posters ("Communication"). Both suggest the importance of legibility in urban experience, whether in a system of bike racks or vendor law. The categories and sequence should bring provocative relationships like these to the surface, instead of leaving them at the simplest defaults.
Without a series of clear viewpoints anchoring the exhibition, two other, slightly troubling themes begin to emerge.
A folksy quality is ever-present, characterized by the use of DIY and craft materials like clay, plywood, rope, and carved wood in projects such as Greg Holdsworth's Return to Sender Eco Casket, David Trubridge's Island Seat and Cloud Light, Christien Meinderstma's Hanging Lamp, and Tjord Boontje's Witches' Kitchen Collection. In Holland Cotter's review of the show for the New York Times, he calls this aesthetic "comely" and implies that it's a result of prioritizing function over form, but this is generous. There's no reason that pragmatic, environmentally- and socially-conscious work should have to be comely. This is a particular visual style that is used to suggest "green" values, and extends to the exhibition design itself: the vinyl wall text is stuck to roughly-cut, honeycomb cardboard sheets. Barriers are made from cinder blocks incased in medium density fiberboard with steel tension cables running between them. The combination suggests that a responsible design must also have a handmade, earthy aesthetic.
At the other extreme, wild visualizations of the future stood out as a second motif. These include IwamotoScott's HydroNet, a rendered vision of San Francisco's power distribution network in 2108, Masdar Development, an Abu Dhabi city planned and built from the ground up to be the first zero-waste city in the world (also a rendering), and the E/S Orcelle Cargo Carrier, a solar- and wind-powered cargo carrier proposed by Wallenus Wilhelmsen Logistics. Unrealized, visionary proposals often propel progress, but the way these concepts are presented feels as though they are being naturalized as the present, without much critique, doubt, or comment. This is dangerous—at what point do we put design's wildest (socially and environmentally beneficial) dreams in check?
Top: Masdar City. Bottom: Hydronet by IwamotoScott.
To the Cooper-Hewitt's credit, these criticisms may have more to do with the nature of the beast than the institution that adopted it. There is no doubt that a triennial is a difficult thing to pull off, especially as our understanding of design continues to grow, fragment and merge. The object produced by a designer, for example, may not be the most important part of the story—if there's even an object to display at all. Often, the cultural and technological narratives that underlie the design may be more interesting. In other cases, new, unseen relationships, interconnections, and systems may be where the real action is. Figuring out how to present such complex work is perhaps more difficult than answering "Why Design Now?," and admirably, the Cooper-Hewitt has taken on both. I look forward to the next iteration.
As an ID'er, you're probably well familiar with unreasonable deadlines and overnighters; as with many creative fields, you'll undertake lots of projects which there simply isn't enough time for.
The flip side of that is a project that there's too much time for. Many of you will argue there's no such thing, but in my time I've seen instances of having a week to do something that could be done in a day--and the designers will fill that week with all sorts of theory-work and extraneous intellectualizing in the quest to live up to the billable hours.
That being said, here's my take on Three Ways to Overthink Package Design. (I can't say for sure these are the result of having too much time, but after seeing them, I sure wish their deadlines had been cut.)
1. Suggest the user interact with the package way more than they need to.
Thankfully this is just a student concept and not a product on the market. It's essentially an overcomplicated package for candy that turns into a sort of pop-up book:
2. Overintellectualize and overemotionalize the package.
Many of you will remember Tropicana's disastrous re-design from a few years ago, where they used color and graphics to make it more difficult to tell what was inside the package and added a cap shaped like an orange rind. The resultant uproar prompted backpedaling towards the original packaging. What you may not have heard is the explanation behind the failed packaging:
3. Add an environmentally-wasteful feature to the packaging in an attempt to make it stand out.
Ty Ku's Sake Liqueur bottle is beautiful on its own, yet the designers felt they should add an internal freaking light source, so that every time you pour it, the bottle lights up.
This is the packaging version of adding neon lights underneath your car--no one cares and no one thinks it's cool except the person who had it installed. Plus, now in addition to the glass, there's a little light bulb and a battery in there. Way to complicate the recycling process.
