I always thought Sony's Digital Mavica digital camera from 1997, the one that took floppy disks, was the first digital camera; turns out I was off by almost 20 years. Check out this fossil:
Ancient, cassette-tape-using digital camera
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Kraft Foods is seeking an Associate Director of Design in Tarrytown, NY
Kraft Foods
Associate Director of Design
Tarrytown, NY
Elevate and leverage the full power of Design as a critical growth and business driver by integrating Design into the business, developing superior, innovative brand identities and excellent go to market executions. In addition, the position will play a key role in partnering and counseling effective design activity across integrated communications influencing strategy development.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
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Hand-Eye Supply: Hansen Tacker T-35 (Free USA Shipping for One Week Only)
There's a lot to love about the Hansen Tacker, the all-steel operating mechanism can handle a serious beating, it's light enough to use with one hand, and the positive trip-hammer action ensures you'll be dead accurate every time.
The industrial stapler known as the "Hansen Tacker" was invented by Augie L. Hansen in 1933, an entrepreneur with over 300 inventions and patents credited to his name. Made in America, each tool is painstakingly hand-built by a trained craftsman — a labor intensive process that guarantees high quality and a precision build!
The T-35 is Hansen's most popular stapler model, suitable for a wide range of fastening tasks including; upholstery, point-of-sale displays, loud-speaker silks, and of course for putting up fliers around the neighborhood. It holds 140 Tackpoints at one loading, is super fast to reload, self-contained and ready for instant, continual use.
Hansen Tacker T-35 - $49
Free USA shipping ends August 31, 2010!
• All-steel operating mechanism
• Chromium finish
• Lightweight, easily portable
• 7 inches long
• One-hand operation
• Holds strip of 140 tackpoints at one loading
• Tack-up jaw for easy inspection of working parts
• Includes one box of genuine Blue Line staples (5000 QTY)
See more great tools at Core77's Hand-Eye Supply
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MIT's 2010 Top Young Innovators under 35
Chris Rivest and SunPrint, a low-cost fabrication method for producing solar cells.
Today, MIT's Technology Review magazine reveals their 2010 list of the world's top innovators under the age of 35. They were chosen because their work—spanning medicine, computing, communications, nanotechnology, and more— was chosen for the immense change they are affecting in the world.
Chris Rivest, 28, was chosen for SunPrint, a technology that lowers the cost of solar cell production from $2 per watt to under $.50 per watt, absolutely necessary if solar power will ever fully displace coal and natural gas. The process, originally developed by Xerox for ink-jets, is called acoustic printing— a sound wave is focused onto a pool of ink, which causes droplets to spatter onto the surface of the print media. This (mystical) process is extremely precise, which reduces the need for expensive tools and materials or further processing. Read more.
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Lunapads or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Discomfort
There's been a lot of talk about innovation, maybe, maybe too much talk. While no one tells us it's easy, the fifth column cheerleaders, pundits, and bloggers do their utmost to make it sound fun. But innovation (whatever the hell it is) can often be very uncomfortable. If I were hawking innovation-boosting t-shirts (and who knows, if this column thing doesn't pan out, I might just), mine would proclaim "If it doesn't feel weird, you're not doing it right."
Let's take this ad for Lunapads:
When I saw this ad, I was exceptionally uncomfortable. [Note to empathy-free women and overly-enlightened men: you may not feel uncomfortable. But I did.]
But after emitting a sub-audible "ecch" and setting the ad aside, I paused and reflected on my reaction. Clenching ever so slightly, I went back to the ad and looked more closely.
There are so many signals here that buck the mainstream norm for "feminine hygiene." Where current imagery might feature billowing swathes of diaphanous fabric, smiling models and free birds winging on high, here we have two enthusiastic, potentially sexually aggressive women. Instead of handling the product discreetly, they are thrusting it towards us in celebration? Challenge?
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Marian Bantjes, Wallpaper*, and Dazzle Camouflage
Designer Marian Bantjes was recently commissioned by Wallpaper* Magazine to design the graphics for a Laser Sailboat for their upcoming exhibition at the Salon del Mobile in Milan later this year.
The result of the collaboration was a striking geometric all-over print, which Bantje's describes as:
I avoided the obvious of working with organic forms to go with the wind, water, etc., and instead work deliberately against those forms. I wanted to make something that was incredibly distinctive in the water, and which would disguise its speed and versatility.(more...)
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Why Great Ideas Can Fail
Designers are proud of their ability to innovate, to think outside the box, to develop creative, powerful ideas for their clients. Sometimes these ideas win design prizes. However, the rate at which these ideas achieve commercial success is low. Many of the ideas die within the companies, never becoming a product. Among those that become products, a good number never reach commercial success.
Why would brilliant ideas fail in the marketplace? The reasons are complex. Part of the problem is that design consultancies are outsiders, hired by one division of the company, but not necessarily accepted by the other divisions. A product, however, requires the support of the entire company: design and development, engineering and marketing, sales and service, supply chain and distribution chain. Products enter into a complex eco-system, both within and outside of the company. Successful products have to navigate a complex path. The idea and initial design is only one piece of the story.
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Apple preparing to take huge production method leap forward with "the most advanced manufacturing machine on the planet"
Apple's "special event" scheduled for next week (and probably heralding the arrival of a new iPod Touch) is intended to excite consumers, but it is yesterday's Apple news that's sure to capture the imagination of industrial designers.
As reported by Cult of Mac, Apple has or will soon have "the most advanced manufacturing machine on the planet," a prototype injection molding machine designed to accommodate Liquidmetal, the new material recently licensed by Apple. (The photo above is a "similar" machine made by the same company, Switzerland's Buhler Group.)
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UX Week 2010: First Impressions
Guest post by Russell Maschmeyer.
Adaptive Path's UX Week 2010 kicked off Tuesday at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, and it couldn't have been a better day for it; the first beautifully hot, summery weather I've seen since I landed at SFO earlier this summer. This year's UX Week promises an interesting line-up of game designers to meta-thinkers, each steeped in the study of people and behavior. You may consider UX folks nerds, but give us credit for being some of the most socially adept nerds you'll ever meet.
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The works of Jay Brett, Hollywood ID'er
RISD-educated Jay Brett's got a pretty kick-ass job: Industrial designer for Hollywood, building prototypes for superheroes.
Brett recently worked on the prototype build of a jet (in two versions, crashed and un-crashed) for the forthcoming Green Lantern movie, and it's presumably the plane that the titular hero crashes during his Hal Jordan test-pilot days. While no shots of the Green Lantern plane are publicly releasable yet, for obvious reasons, one project you can see is Brett's prototype of the Tron Light Cycle. While some of you may have spotted it at Comic-Con, Brett's got shop shots of the thing posted here. And you can also check out Brett's full book on Coroflot.
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Baseball cap carriers. There is now officially a bag for everything
Regular watchers of Entourage may remember the episode beginning with the birthday of Turtle, the Imelda Marcos of sneakers, which gave viewers a glimpse of his insane shoe closet and wall-length hat racks. Question is, how does a guy like that travel? The kicks I don't know about, but a company called New Era makes these amusing Cap Carriers, which come in two-, six-, and 24-capacity sizes. A combination of nylon and neoprene formed into crush-proof shapes keeps your lids from getting flattened like Turtle's ego.
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Variations on Normal: An exhibition of work by Dominic Wilcox
Analogue Books, a bookshop and gallery in Edinburgh, is hosting an exhibition of works by Dominic Wilcox, maybe most well known for his War bowl made of melted green army men, but also a prolific cartoonist, as seen at his blog Variations on Normal. The show will run from September 4th through October 2nd at the Analogue Books space at 102 West Bow, Edinburgh. Be the first to check it out at the opening and preview on Friday, September 3rd, 7-9pm.
See a few of Dominic's latest cartoons up top and after the jump.
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Felicia Ferrone: On Space
For the second installment of Chicago's newest design venue, the event-based Volume Gallery will show a new, limited-edition collection by Felicia Ferrone, entitled On Space.. The project examines the relationship between environment, space, material, and function.
The designs in On Space set new rules for engagement, creating innovative modes for social interaction. Ferrone leads the user to question fundamental archetypes; an occasional table is more than a vehicle for objects, a dining table has no host and a light fixture is unconstrained as it gently orbits overhead.(more...)
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CC14: Crafty Danish Designers
Making us Americans jealous yet again with their incredible government funding, Danish Crafts, a prime example of the kind of support Denmark bestows upon its designers, will roll out the new Crafts Collection, CC14, at Maison & Objet in September. This marks the fourteenth Crafts Collection, a curated selection intended to support and promote Danish designer-makers, connecting them with buyers, producers, and manufacturers through international trade shows.
This year's collection was curated by London-based designer Nina Tolstrup with a theme based in sustainability, and how it is good for business at all levels, from maker, to seller, to consumer. Twenty-eight designers created objects loosely interpreting the concept "re-think, re-duce, re-craft," using ceramic, glass, textiles, furniture and jewelry. Many of the resulting objects not only display the superior craft abilities of the designers, but also carry poetic responses to the sustainability theme.
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Why the layout of American cafes sucks (and why it may be about to change)
I like coffee, but I despise cafes. At least what we Americans have come to call cafes.
I respect the coffee bar, or espresso bar, as it's done in Italy. There coffee is not some fatuous beverage to be nursed. It's fuel, energy, a shot in the arm. There are few or no stools in a coffee bar and there damn sure ain't any couches. You walk in, put your foot on the rail, remain standing, maybe exchange a few words with the barista; he gives you your drink, you do it like a hot brown shot and then, most importantly, you get the hell out.
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David Rowland, designer of the 40/4 chair, passes away
Whether for fame, fortune or function, any industrial designer would be lucky to have one, just one, project in an entire lifetime that hits the big time--I'm talking MoMa, millions sold and magazine covers.
Industrial designer David Rowland, who passed away earlier this month, was one of the lucky ones. His 40/4 chair, of which you can stack 40 in a four-foot-high space, has sold in the multimillions. They're in the MoMA. And every space-tight place from church basements to submarines has a pile of them tucked away, ready to deploy.
Rowland designed the chairs largely on his own time in the late 1950s, but companies were not interested and his design lay fallow for eight years. Then a big-name architecture firm suddenly needed 17,000 chairs for a massive project at the University of Chicago and the rest, as they say, is history. Read the full story in Rowland's NY Times obituary.
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Core-Toon: Lifecycle Planning for Designers
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GE is seeking a Director of Design in Louisville, Kentucky
GE Appliances & Lighting
Director of Design
Louisville, KY
This executive level position will lead the vision for the overall creative process and elevate the design profile of the GE Brand.
Responsibilities include: translating business goals to the Industrial Design strategy, coordination of operational design needs with business leaders, growing capabilities to support new product categories, and delivering next generation industrial design looks.
The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.
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In-car computing for the luxury set
Something I've seen a lot of on my nocturnal Manhattan dogwalks: Idling ambulances and parked Lincoln Town Cars with the drivers in them, heads always inclined downwards at the same angle, eyes open, faces lit from a bluish-white source below. Get closer and you see they're on laptops, killing time while waiting for their next call to come in, and with their vehicle strategically parked near a building with good wi-fi.
As I used to drive an ambulance myself, I can tell you that these drivers are working-class guys for whom a laptop is a huge improvement over the dog-eared issue of the Daily News or El Diario that used to suffice as a time-killer. It's also a recent-enough phenomenon that having to wedge it between your lap and the steering wheel has probably not yet registered as a hassle.
But that's in the front seat. For wealthy passengers who ride in the backs of cars, that won't do. This, on the other hand, will:
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Siren Elise Wilhelmsen wins Time to Design 2010 with her knitting clock
2010's Time to Design Award was presented to Norweigan Siren Elise Wilhelmsen for her project Developing Time—Time Developing, a clock that knits 48 meshes per day, and produces one two meter long scarf per year.
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More Pages to Explore .....
