May 26, 2004
Seattle Library
Finally, Koolhaas Seattle Library has opened its doors to the public. More here.
Design education is rubbish.
An interesting interview on icon magazine about the actual situation in design education.
Read it here.
"These are some of the opinions aired at a round table discussion hosted recently by icon and Nesta – the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The purpose of the discussion was to hear the views of design professionals who scoured last summer’s degree shows, talent spotting for Nesta’s Graduate Pioneer Programme. We expected a bit of moaning about the quality of some of the work they saw, but we didn’t expect such widespread criticism of the education system and the triviality of contemporary design."
May 24, 2004
The future on paper: Sony's CD
The future is close to nature!
Sony with Toppan Printing, have developed a Blu-ray Disc based on a paper substrate which promises to be more environmentally friendly and secure when destroyed than traditional discs, they say.
"Oil is a limited resource but paper can be recycled," says Taro Takamine, a spokesperson for Sony in Tokyo. "One of the initial advantages of the paper disc will be a decrease in the amount of raw material needed to produce a disc."
WiFi speed Spray
Cool! This revolutionary product is guaranteed to enhance the transfer of computer data through the air. It works at the speed of light and even penetrates lead walls. YES, SURE. Me gonna buy that, me wifi slow-slow, me buys spray cheap and Windows compatible!!!
Oh, my...
May 23, 2004
Material & Design meetings
Four italian cities will host the meetings for Material and Design, organized by studio Demetra in cooperation with the Ottagono magazine and Matech from Padova.
The meetings, supprted by ADI and others, will take place starting from May through Sept. in Stra (May 4), Bologna (May 13), Napoli (june 11) and Ancona (Sept 23). Aldo Cibic, Alessandro Mendini, Makio Hasuike and Marc Sadler will participate.
The initiative starts from the growing interest on innovative materials for interior and exterior design and the subsequent uses for designers.
The sponsors are: Alcan Alluminio (alluminium), Bellotti (wood), Omnidecor (glass), Refin Ceramiche(ceramic), Atoglas (acrylic panels) and Sikkens.
May 22, 2004
Business Week on IDEO
Bussiness Week is running a nice feature on design consulting firm IDEO and about the power of design in general.
More on Cardboard Design
This is another collection of sustainable cardboard design. The authors are young designers from the Design department of the University of Duisburg-Essen.
It seems that this kind of thinking is returning to get more popular.
Probably there is some hope fore mankind...
May 21, 2004
Beyond Boxes - Paper & Carboard Design
In Rome in the house of architecture, there is an interersting exposition about sustainable design with cardboard by known authors like Frank O. Gehry and others, but also young designers from the Department of Architecture "Ludovico Quaroni" of "La Sapienza" University of Rome.
ROME, 20-30 MAY (closure: sunday 30, 13.00)
CASA DELL’ARCHITETTURA - ACQUARIO ROMANO
Piazza Manfredo Fanti 47 – 00185 Roma
Kunsthaus Graz Website
This website of the Kunsthaus Graz , made by viennies design agency Lichtwitz is a really good example of very well made webdesign.
Simple appearence and excellent usability!
This shows that you don't need flashy grafics to do a stylish site, just good typo and layout work... in other words: design! The content must be in the foreground.
In this case it's an image taken from the Sol LeWitt Exibition open till May 30.
May 19, 2004
N.Y. 2012
Thom Mayne of Morphosis design for a 2012 Olympic Village in Queens.
In 1972 Thom Mayne founded the firm Morphosis to develop an architecture that would eschew bounds of traditional forms and materials;
that would counter the limiting dualism of modern and postmodern.
At Morphosis, their method has always been highly intuitive and reflexive. They understand their arena of operation to be one marked by contradiction, conflict, change, and dynamism.
And to that end they are interested in producing work that contributes to the conversation, that adds yet another strain to what some may hear as the cacophony of modern life.
Save your fingers
Had they invented this ingenious security system for sawing machines before, a lot of fingers could have been saved... It seems that distracted capenters now can get away with small cut and a mild shock instead of loosing something precious.
I always had a lot of respect (if not fear) of this machines but now they appear a little less scary!
May 18, 2004
Leipzig 2012 Olympic logo
Although it seems that the Olympic Summer Games 2012 will not be in Leipzig, i must say that I really like their logo (made by Netherlands oldest design agency Total Identity)! Simple but very efficient... You get the idea instantly.
I wonder what they will do with it now...
Probably it will end in some grafic design manual...
May 17, 2004
more on Casey
Check these out.
Some early works of the young Casey hosted by the evergreen MIT servers.
His website.
And this origami tutorial (but as I found out, the real problem with origami and "normal" people is patience, not difficulty).
'nough.
More iPod mini
Hitachi has announced to double their production of hard disk drives like the 1-inch, 4-gigabyte disk drives that are found in the iPod Mini.
US customers now have to wait up to 6 weeks before getting thier device, while customes in europe have to be pacient until summer to get their hands on one of this extremely well designed mp3 players.
Psyop's communication design
Good ideas in a highly distinctive design. To the ones who appreciate well done videos:
with some reserves...
A site that sets you on fire
this stylish portfolio site of german freelance grafic designer David Loehr, somehow reminds me of chris cunningham...
i really don't know why...
May 16, 2004
Casey Reas, Ivrea and the IDII...
Good stuff: www.proce55ing.net
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
"Processing is a programming language and environment built for the electronic arts and visual design communities. It was created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as an electronic sketchbook. "
Much more than that in our opinion, gotta spend some time on it!
First post
The development of designunits.com is almost complete!! Though there are still some bugs around, the code is 80% finalized.
IT WAS REALLY HARD.
so, now, we're ready to go LIVE!
P.S.: let us know what you think! leave comments, send emails...or just come visit us in the real world. Just stay in thouch. This is all about communication.