Picture Perfect Shot

REC is a delightful camera that gives the subject an equal opportunity to view his pose as the camera clicks the picture. A rotating display at the back of the camera slides out to show what’s being captured in the frame. It may sound like a silly idea but I’ve had many good shots ruined because I trusted the photography skills of complete strangers. REC, you get my thumbs up!

Designer: Dongyeon Kim

E-Ink for Time Telling

Let’s have a glance at a watch that employs the now-famous and awesome E-Ink technology made famous by, if I’m not mistaken, the Amazon Kindle eReader. This watch is a double-down in that it uses E-ink to for both form and function, allowing the bold and radical lines to make the watch beautiful and very readily visible. This watch is made of glossy black metal, embellished with small chrome parts.

The display is adjusted with two buttons along the left side of the watch. The bottom display is the lighter gray of the background being used as the numbers display with the black merging with the black of the watch metal. Blasting off into hard bold, bold space with a metal stone.

Designer: Jonathan Frey

NAIAS 2011 :: Motor City Automotive Industry Night (MAIN)

The North American International Auto Show is the oldest, and many would argue, most important auto show in the United States. On the eve of the auto show press days, the Motor City Automotive Industry Nightdemonstrated the way a young, design program adds vitality to the industry. Design is where automotive innovation takes shape.

Keith Nagara (MAIN Organizer) with Lezley Anne models

In its inaugural year, the MAIN Event was an exclusive Detroit affair at the Compuware Building, for luminaries in the auto, design and fashion industries. Guests heard speakers, checked out forward-thinking product design and took in fashion designer Lezley Anne's signature whimsical creations on the runway. Keith Nagara, who heads up Lawrence Tech University's design program, coordinated the event.

Lawrence Tech Students

The MAIN Event gave Lawrence Technological University a chance to show off its growing transportation design program. "For how young the program it's a tribute to Keith Nagara and Lawrence Tech's visions," said instructor and automotive designer John Sgalia. "The level of students is tremendous."

"This event makes me realize what a good position I'm in at the school," said Emilio Feliciano, who is a first year student.

Rayann Laham (Paul Mitchell), Courtney McGee (model)

John Sgalia (Lawrence Tech), Mark Calcaterra (Transporation Design Board)

Tijana Dow, Michelle Byron (Revoution Design)

Tamara Warren, a Motor City native, is co-founder/editor of the car and culture blog Gotryke.com. Her articles have appeared in over 80 publications covering culture, music, the arts, automobiles and design. She has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Delta Sky, Nylon, Vibe, Automobile and Forbes Autos. Check out her work and Gotryke.comand her clips on Tamarawarren.com.

CreativeMornings: Milton Glaser in the SVA Theater

Milton Glaser spoke today at CreativeMornings at the School of Visual Arts. The designers able to arrive slightly late for work and students able to rub the sleep out of their eyes in the morning were in for a treat, beyond the free coffee and donuts. Glaser overflowed with so much energy and knowledge after eight decades of life that it was easy to imagine that the reason he had trouble hearing the questions at the end was because his brain simply couldn't handle any more content.

Thematically, Glaser wanted to talk about failures, but perhaps because he'd brought the wrong slideshow, or simply because his successes overwhelmed any chance of convincingly explaining failure, we were treated to a freewheeling philosophical exploration of his career. Glaser included lots of process models, of the Rubin Museum, of SVA itself, and much more. Midway through showing his exploration of pattern, printmaking and tapestry, he exclaimed that the design he was showing in PowerPoint was the carpet under our feet. Imagine that congruence in your own career.

It's nigh impossible to encapsulate the wisdom imparted, but we can leave you with a few Zen koan like quotations and paraphrases. (1) "Being able to explain anything is absurd," he explained. "Your fight with your wife this morning might have been due to something that happened when you were two." Or (2), "If that doesn't ring true to you, perhaps simply recognize that the greatest success you can have in your work is to sustain your interest in it." Milton should know.

Unfortunately, if you missed this morning's free event (sponsored byfreshbooks and mailchimp and), it can't fully be explained. While a new website is underway for CreativeMornings, be sure to check out theirtwitter feed or eventbrite for the next event.

CES 2011 Roundup, by Jordan Nollman

With almost 150,000 people in attendance at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, CES had the buzz of the 2007 and 2008 shows and the long lines at the convention center was a good indication that the market is booming once again.

From the design perspective, there was a lot of great color material finish (CMF) examples and some interesting forms. Speck has nice in-mold fabrics and House of Marley really did a kickass job using real wood and other natural material in its inspired products. (Ed. Note--check out ourpost about House of Marley!)

There was a ton of hype around tablets. With over 15 new Android-based tablets on the floor I was really expecting more compelling product.Blackberry's Playbook fell a bit short but the cases were cool. Motorola's Xoom and Artix with built-in phone charger were pretty dope as well. However, you won't see me ditching my iPad any time soon.

Razer's Switchblade mobile-gaming PC was probably the most innovative device I saw on the floor. A customizable switch-on-the-fly keyboard and 7-inch LCD screen means this little guy packs a mean punch for mobile-PC gamers. Razer also had a pretty sweet Tron-inspired keyboard and mouse.

The Casio Tryx was also one of the more innovative designs I saw. Its articulating design allows the user to set up and hold the video camera in an infinite number of configurations allowing you to capture any moment. Microsoft's new Multitouch & Arc touch mouse were pretty sweet as well and for those of you who have not tried out Kinex yet make sure you do.

See more of Jordan Nollman's Roundup at Sprout and make sure to check out his comprehensive Flickr Roundup!

The Faltazi Lab's heavily-considered Ekokook kitchen design

Missed this one the first time around: Ekokook is a holistic kitchen design project from 2010 by The Faltazi Lab design collective, and it is more than a series of pretty renderings; these guys have done serious research, as you'll see on their website, in their bid to introduce ecologically-sound practices into the modern home.

So what exactly is the Ekokook? It is a complete kitchen system that strives to reduce not only food waste, but electrical and water waste. While it's impossible to succinctly summarize the myriad details that The Faltazi Lab have considered, the following should give you the basic idea:

Our project is based on four essentials: waste management, kitchen health, reduction/consumption of energy, and intelligent storage. Our kitchen has built-in fittings for selecting, processing and storing all kinds of wastes: organic, solid and liquid. As well, the alternatives for conserving and cooking that we propose target a more healthy cuisine, one that uses fresh products raised locally, which are stored in bulk.

We include electrical appliances that consume less energy, such as twin-tier dishwasher, steam oven and refrigerator with compartments. We also try to use materials and fabrication processes that have the least possible negative impact on the environment and which are long-lasting.

Click on over to the Ekokook site to learn more (and yes, you'll actually be able to read the callouts in the photos on their site, where the images are larger).

CES 2011: House of Marley Audio

Audiophiles were all over the place at CES sampling and enjoying a wide range of new, high-end headphones and earbuds, many of which were endorsed or developed in collaboration with celebrities in the music, entertainment and luxury markets. With Ludacris, 50 Cent and Miles Davis-endorsed products in the ring, the line that seemed to stand out was from the House of Marley. The House of Marley's new line of eco-friendly earbuds, headphones and iPhone/iPod docks were developed to adhere to Bob Marley and the Marley family's values of equality, unity, sustainability and charity. As Elyse Kaye, Senior Product Manager from The House of Marley explains, "Materials for the products are sustainably sourced, and include FSC-certified wood, recyclable aluminums and plastics. Packaging is recycled or recyclable and a portion of each product sale goes to 1Love causes that focus on charities that benefit youth, planet and peace. Our hope is to create a movement, not just a product line." Check out the full video of our interview with Kaye below (and enjoy the music!).

Core77's "Sustainable Refrainables" Poster Design Competition Winners!

Congratulations to the "Sustainable Refrainables" Poster Design Competition winners as voted by the Core77 community. First place goes to the playful entry pictured above Reduce, Reuse. by framecio who wins a copy Adobe' CS5 Master Collection and $500 cash--Nice!

Second place went to Buy. Bye. by Fabio Furlanis, Ivo Arzenton, and Francesca Lorenzon, third to Hey. Clean Up Your Mess by Laura Polkus, and fourth to There is no Plan(et) B by Lee Willett who each score a copy of Adobe' CS5 Master Collection.

The Jury choice will be announced live on stage at Compostmodern, January 22 & 23 in San Francisco. Thanks to everyone who participated, voted, commented and helped to make the challenge a success (we had over 400 entries), and a very special thanks to our sponsor Adobe for making the generous prize packs available. Check out all the entries here, and don't forget there's still time to get a video response in for our Powers of 10 competition.

See you in San Francisco!

You design the inside, OKW Enclosures will take care of the outside

Part of the pleasure of being an industrial designer is getting to determine the exterior form of the object you're working on. But let's say you're designing an electronic gizmo--something like the scanner/signing board the UPS guy carries--and you're too consumed with the interface to deal with the form. Then what do you do?

What you do is go to an Enclosures Specialist company like OKW Enclosures, which has the proverbial shit-ton (European translation: "metric ton") of enclosures waiting for you to design guts for. As an example, check out their variety of ABS cases here. And they do more than handheld/arm-mounted--they've got desk-, wall-, rail-mounted enclosures and more.

CES 2011: ThinkEco's modlet

Sustainability was a key theme at CES this year. And, among the many eco-technovations on display, was the modlet, the modern electric outlet. Offered by ThinkEco, a NYC-based company that was founded in 2008 by a "team of concerned entrepreneurs," the modlet looks like a high-end, glossy, contemporary wall outlet. ThinkEco designed the inside circuitry of the modlet and worked with Spark Design in Connecticut for the industrial design. As David Kaiser, President of Spark explains, "In the case of the modlet, we wanted a design that broke away from the rectangular shape of a standard outlet. We wanted to develop a simple and friendly shape that wouldn't intimidate the user." The modlet certainly isn't intimidating--it not only looks friendly, but it seems to be user-friendly. It simply plugs into an existing wall outlet, and when an appliance is then plugged into it, the modlet wirelessly monitors and manages the power consumption of that appliance. Since many appliances continually draw power, even if no one is around to use them, the modlet can help to eliminate that wasteful use of power by intelligently scheduling outlets to automatically shut off power to plugged-in appliances when they aren't needed.