The InOne is truly an all-in-one computer. 22″ screen, keyboard, touchpad, speakers and a digital tablet are all built into one TRONtastic package. Everything is wirelessly connected and the tablet displays what your write and draw so you don’t have to look up at the screen. Interesting design, especially the keyboard.
I have been reading message boards for people who suffer from visual impairments and one discussion topic I found was how difficult it is to use rulers. The problem, especially with centimetres and millimeters, is that while the numbers on a ruler can be made bigger, the unit of measurement is fixed, so reading millimeters if you have problems with your sight becomes difficult.
Check out the New Rule. The solution is to have bigger numbered, higher contrast measurement bars that a sliding pointer runs along, displaying the millimeter measurement as numbers on a wheel inside the sliders housing. An arm inside the slider rests against the track and clicks each time it passes over a tooth in the track giving tactile and audible feedback of each millimeter although the designer admits the track would need more teeth than the prototyped version shown here. The second innovation is one edge folds over on a hinge. This turns it into a calliper so that accurate measurements can be taken quickly and easily. This was intended to make it easier for someone with poor sight to measure marks on paper as well as objects.
Designer: Product Tank
Although all watches are watches of time, not all watches are floating watches of time. This watch is one that takes into account the first through third dimensions, plus the fourth, which designer Matej Korytar says is time itself. Ironically, this fourth dimension is displayed in the third. This display has the capability to display the time based on gravity or relative to the head of the person whose wrist the watch is around. Need to see the time? No more need to move your arm, just look down at it! So very simple.
Of course the time display is only one of several the user can download for the watch, all of the settings controlled by the two ball buttons on the sides. If only this technology could work with 3D to the degree Korytar describes it – it’d be just like the holodeck! Fabulous.
Designer: Matej Korytar
As the world moves away from petrol, we have to envisage what the effects will be across all motor vehicles. This concept sport Modenas bike uses biofuel, specifically palm oil to burn pavement. The design is inspired by cenderawasih, a type of bird of paradise. The resulting shape is aggressive yet fluid. It’s not my cup of tea but I know many rocket heads that would love to take this to the tracks.
The thing on Duluth's website/catalog that draws the most attention from me is their copious use of fire hose canvas. Recognizing that this is a particularly tough yet pliable material, DTC makes pants, jackets, vests, parkas, bibs, coveralls, wallets, hats, bags, and even stretch pants out of the stuff. It's stain-resistant, tougher than duck canvas and their customer testimonial section has insane things to say about the material, from withstanding a wild boar attack (WTF?) to a marine construction worker who wears it over his wetsuit as an anti-chafing measure while doing underwater welding.
Check it out here.
In the years since being founded, Duluth Trading Co. has continued to release irreverent and innovative products that workers have a need for. DTC looks at simple but overlooked ergonomic needs, like the fact that when you're building, installing or fixing something you often need to crouch down or brace one leg up on something, which automatically tightens your pants in the crotch. In an effort to provide "Crouch without the ouch" and "man room," they released a line of jeans with a hidden crotch gusset. The not-so-subtle name: Ballroom Jeans.
DTC also recognized that there's a huge and largely unaddressed market of women doing manual labor, farming and fix-it work, hence their line of women's clothes and a dedicated area on their website called "Real Women" featuring a test panel, true stories and product testimonials. They've refused to use photographs of female models and instead use only actual working women who use Duluth's stuff.
In addition to the stuff they manufacture, I like the variety of unusual but useful gear they seek out and distribute, like wire benders for repurposing coat hangers, a dental tools kit filled with a variety of picks and tweezers (that I'll shortly be ordering to clean old grease out of machine gears), and military-developed "X-Treme" silicone-based repair tape that's stretchable, watertight, and acid- and melt-resistant.
Next I'll take a look at their "killer app" material.
A lot of tool catalogs cross my desk, and there's none I enjoy reading more than that of the Duluth Trading Co., a Wisconsin-based work-gear company that epitomizes the notion of "Yankee ingenuity." DTC started in 1989 with two tradesman brothers noticing a common jobsite phenomenon: Workers hauling empty 5-gallon buckets, of the sort that paint and joint compound comes in, to haul tools. Workers would "hack" these buckets to conform to their hauling needs, kitting them out with wire and bungee cord to hold a variety of tools.
Soon the brothers had developed the Bucket Boss, a canvas tool organizer that fit a standard 5-gallon bucket.
Shortly thereafter they released an eight-page catalog of tool storage and organizing products they'd developed, and by 1991 they turned a refurbished dredging barge on Lake Superior into their floating headquarters.
In 2002 Duluth developed their breakout hit, a simple innovation that essentially added three inches to the back of a T-shirt. Their Longtail Twas advertised as "the cure for Plumber's Butt:"
Now guys who bend over when they work have new respectability with clients and no longer frighten unsuspecting passersby.
The pop-up ass-crack was a prevalent problem that other companies perhaps thought too scatological to address, but Duluth took it on and was rewarded.
Nine years later Duluth has expanded into women's gear, opened a 140,000 square foot distribution center, and developed a line of innovative products we'll look at next.
Happy Monday! We have a special treat to help you jumpstart your week. Even with the arctic temperatures outside, this exclusive download guarantees to heat things up. Smart Design took some time at the end of 2010 to produce a calendar featuring their hot designers and even hotter designs. Thankfully, these pictures are too good not to be shared, and we got a chance to chat with the ladies of Smart to get the scoop. Clear some space on your wall and check out Mr. January...you can thank us (and Smart) later! Download the 10x10inch calendar here!
Students of automotive design and fashion at the European Institute of Design in Barcelona have joined forces to explore the futures of urban mobility, in collaboration with Iniciativa BMW. "Suits That Transport"—translated a little cagily from the Spanish "El traje que te transporta"— is the name given to an exhibition of the students final outcomes currently on public display on the Rambla Catalunya in central Barcelona.
The concepts on offer are imaginative to say the least. "Comme des Voitures" (above) supposes a mobile urbanite zipping through the city streets on boots soled with large ball-bearings whilst being bombarded with ambient and real time information on the intelligent visor. Similarly "City-Sking" offers up the idea of skis made for urban terrain—and a funky space-suit to match. Yet more blue-sky is the mysterious "Flying suit" (below)—what this inflatable-looking garment is intended to do we can only imagine. Oh and you heard it here first—black and white will be the new florescent hi-vis.
Smart-arse jibes aside—and credit where credit is due—we've got to give it to the participants for some highly creative concepts and some modelling of the highest order. Its great to see, as always, some imaginative energy being invested in alternative mobility solutions—even if they can verge on the Jetsonian on occasion.
This is the final entry of a series of Q+As contributor Tamara Warren conducted with designers from the NAIAS 2011 show.
Adrian Van Hooydonk is head of BMW Design Group. He was responsible for the new 6-Series Cabriolet, the 1-Series M Coupe and the MINI Paceman concept on display at the North American International Auto Show. Hooydonk speaks to the future of design, which he says will include lightweight materials, sustainable materials and well-designed user interfaces.
Another trend is that luxury is in the detail. We operate in a segment that is highly competitive and our customers are well informed about what makes the product good or luxurious, both in the exterior and interior. Our current designs are thought of in much greater detail. If you look at a headlamp now, compared to 20 years ago, it's a different world. Today a headlamp consists of 60 pieces. The same is true for interiors. Every little detail is designed to a much higher level than it used to be. It gives us a bit more work to do, but in the end it becomes a far more pleasing.
[Ed: For more on BMW design culture, check out this video interview with Chris Bangle, former BMW Chief of Design!]
Tamara Warren, a Motor City native, is co-founder/editor of the car and culture blogGotryke.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.com and her clips on Tamarawarren.com.
