Tonight, Core77 is excited to present Zack Dougherty to the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club hosted at the Hand-Eye Supply store in Portland, OR. Come early and check out our space or check in with us online for the live broadcast!

Zack Dougherty: Panoview Imaging "Interactive Photography and the Dynamic Experience"

Tuesday, Feb. 21st
6PM PST
Hand-Eye Supply
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, OR, 97209

Zack will be discussing his work with panoramic imagery and the methods behind it. He will be demonstrating the use of his gigapixel photography coupled with interactive interfaces creating new ways to explore and experience digital photography and video. He will also be showing his new works in immersive 360° video. These videos give the user the ability to look where they want in a 360° video environment, creating a new dynamic experience for every person.

Zack Dougherty was born and raised in Mountain View, California. In 2001 he moved to Sacramento where he would study Astronomy and Astrophotography which quickly became his passion and a perfect platform to experiment on. During an excursion to Death Valley to test a robotic Near Earth Object tracking camera, cloudy weather lead him to use the camera to image the terrestrial surroundings. There he discover a new drive for photography and Panoview Imaging was founded shortly after. In September 2011, he moved to Portland to peruse an education in Industrial Design and continue his business in digital imagery.

Our friends over at Co.Design are pleased to announce their first design challenge, a joint effort with Porsche, with a brief that "stands out and piques the creative interest of talented designers." The challenge, in short, is to "Design an object smaller than a living room and bigger than a purse, which references three design elements taken from Porsche 911s of the past or present. (But not a car!)"

Submit your design by April 6th for a chance to win the grand prize: a one-year lease for a Porsche 911, or the cash equivalent of $20,000. After an initial pass to narrow the field to the Top 25, judges Jens Martin Skibsted (who's written on everything from space travel to culinary exploration for us), Dror Benshetrit (of Quadror fame) and Co.Design's own Cliff Kuang will select seven finalists. The lucky few who advance will have the opportunity to "revise their original rendering to refine their concept even further. Include more detail, more thought and more creativity" before the final public voting period, though the judges will have final say in the winner, announced on May 21.

Co.Design has a nice gallery of inspirational images of the new 911; for further resources so happens that we recently came across a short documentary series on the hand-made history of the Porsche 356 dating back to the 60's. Again, the primary criteria is to incorporate three Porsche-inspired design elements; any era is fair game.

See the full details here.

Well, it's almost a first: an industrial designer is poised to redefine product design by using a crowdfunding platform to launch his killer timepiece-inspired accessory for an iPod Nano.

The twist? It doesn't go on your wrist—it goes in your pocket. Obsolescence aside, the wrist is (or was) just one of at least two appropriate locations for a personal chronometer, and Melbourne-based designer Edwin Conan prefers the nostalgic appeal of the original place: in the pocket.

I have been wearing this very pocket watch everyday. Every time I pull it out to check time, it feels like I've actually traveled back in time and the world become black and white. It feels, special.

The iPocketWatch is a time instrument; it is also a time machine. And here I am, sincerely inviting you to share this unique feeling with me. With your support, not only can we make this iPW a reality, but we may also, and this is just a hope, bring the idea of the pocket watch back to life.

Nike's continued materials experimentation has yielded Flyknit, their proprietary blend of "yarns and fabric variations [that] are precisely engineered only where they are needed for a featherweight, formfitting and virtually seamless upper." The benefits of employing materials in this way are 1) a lighter weight product, and 2) less waste, as the Flyknit materials comprise the bulk of the upper, and 3) combining the comfort of a sock with the structure and support of a traditional hard-material sneaker.

As the company explains:

About a week and a half ago, we had a look at designer Jaineel Shah's clever pinch hanger. As is sometimes the case, the simple concept has inspired another hungry young designer to create his own version of an update to the old-fashioned clotheshanger: Rob Bye, a second-year ID student at Brunel University in London, sent us a link to his "Stretchless Hanger Concept."

It's at least as straightforward as Shah's design, trading the moving parts of the Pinch for just a little more sleight of hand in order to thread "Stretchless" through the first sleeve.

Those of us that grew up associating the word "flashlight" with a plastic Ray-o-Vac cylinder (or a metal Maglight for those with relatives in law enforcement) can't help but be surprised at the breadth of body styles now available. In terms of variety, a good company to look at is Pennsylvania-based Streamlight, who've seemingly designed a flashlight for doing everything (not) under the sun. Using a focused light to cut through darkness sounds like a simple task, but their product line-up demonstrates that the context of usage, and attendant form factors, can vary greatly.

Flashlight design starts with the basic limitations of whether you can use your hands or not, and then it spins off into a multitude of options: How big and powerful does it need to be? Does it need to be strapped to you, and if so, where? Does it need to quickly detach? Does it need to be hung from something in the environment? Are you fixing a leaky gas pipe? Firing a weapon? Breaking down the door of a burning building? Peering into a service panel? Working underneath a car?

With such a wide range of needs and models, you have to wonder how one company designs for so many different options. The answer is field research.

Streamlight is a "hands-on" company. We learn by doing, so we understand what our customers need because we're out there doing what they do, using the same lighting tools in the same ways. We go through firefighters' training. We take courses in low-light shooting. We're hunters, fishermen, outdoor and sports enthusiasts.... We believe it's our hands-on, real-world experience that leads to new ideas and innovations that set Streamlight apart....

We make it a point to get out in the field and talk to our customers. We hold focus groups to hear what they like about our products; but we're more interested in what they don't like, what needs to be improved, and what lighting problems have yet to be solved. Customer feedback helps us continually improve existing products and create new and better ones. Since the most extreme hazardous conditions are often in dark places, Streamlight created a complete line of safety-rated lights. For the industrial market, we've developed lighting tools that are safe to use even around explosive gases and in other potentially explosive atmospheres.

You've gotta love the company's tagline: "We Listen. We Learn. We Get It."

Hit the jump to see more of their stuff, or check out their full line-up here.

Senior Product Designer
Studio Dror
New York, New York

Multidisciplinary design studio Dror is currently looking for a Senior Product designer to lead the product division of the studio. The ideal candidate has 3-5 years of experience, is comfortable both leading and managing projects, directing interns, and is passionate, hardworking, and positive.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

From "Deluxe" (2005), by Ellen Gallagher

It's speculated that back in 1452 when Gutenberg was hard at work printing his infamous Bible, he actually had two presses set up: one for the more pedestrian texts of the day and the other exclusively for the Big Book. Maybe he didn't want his fancy Bible prep area messed up, but some historians think it means old Johann saw a clear division between exalted texts and less sacred printed matter and sought to keep the two separate in their production phases as in their distribution. I'll bet he never imagined that high and low art would one day converge on updated modes of his own printmaking technology. More than 550 years later both forms enjoy equal merit under the critical eye of the art world in MoMA's new exhibition Print/Out. The exhibition takes a look at printed matter from only the last 20 years, including pieces by printmaking collectives Museum in Progress, Edition Jacob Samuel and SLAVS + TATARS as well artists Martin Kippenberger, Robert Rauschenberg, Kara Walker, Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei, Lucy McKenzie, Marina Abramovic, and Yoshitomo Nara, among others.

With so many artists represented in one space you're easily overwhelmed by the sheer diversity of styles and intent, and it can be a bit tricky to make sense of it all. Why, for example, are pieces from the same series dispersed throughout the gallery on a black and white polka dotted wall, sometimes at heights up towards the ceiling? Is it to show that the intention of the two artist series (from Walker and Hirst) is not separate, as Gutenberg might have preferred, but part of the same movement as Ai Weiwei and his 1994 "Black Cover Book?" But where Hirst's Last Supper series plays with form (food presented like medication), Weiwei's intent is simply to spread information about modern art to an information-deprived China.

Disorganized or not, it's still an undeniable pleasure to witness so many artists having fun with the medium, like Philippe Parreno's "Fade to Black," a separate room with text and images 'printed' directly on the white gallery walls that can be viewed clearly only in the dark. Or Aleksandra Mir's "Venezia (all places contain all others)," which challenges our assumptions that printed materials carry a certain veracity. As an example, she printed a bunch of postcards for the Venice Biennale with the words Venice or Venezia over typical tourist images of beaches or snowy mountains—in other words, places that definitely aren't Venice.

The results are in for the Fentress Global Challenge Airport of the Future design competition, sponsored by international design firm Fentress Architects. Sadly, they have chosen not to display the winning concept boards at a legible resolution on their website, but from what little we can glean, the ideas of both the winners and finalists are fascinating. A central problem with airports is where to tuck them, and here we have a host of interesting suggested solutions.

First Prize winner and Londonite Oliver Andrew's proposal is for a floating airport built from pre-fab artifical islands. To locate an airport in the Thames Estuary directly addresses the problem of overtaxed Heathrow being unable to expand due to limitations imposed by surrounding communities. And the water would serve a dual purpose: Andrew's design calls for hydropowered electricity generation.

Third Prize winner Alexander Nevarez of Art Center suggests Pocket Airports, a network of micro airports that would be located within skyscrapers themselves. The idea is intriguing, though we cannot ascertain what form of propelled vehicle Nevarez proposes due to the website's poor presentation. A pity as we'd like to learn more about this concept.

Thor Yi Chun of Malaysia's University of Science won an honorable mention for his Aero-Loop concept. Again the details are not revealed, but judging from the photo it seems as if Chun is proposing circular runways, which would be a fascinating space-saving trick, assuming it's aeronautically and logistically possible.

It's not always so bad to be part of the 1%. Tokyo-based nendo is showing his newest collection of 1% products this April in Milan. This second release follows his 2006 inaugural collection which included light bulbs, furniture, vases and tableware—my favorite piece was the "Fruit Template," a witty take on a fruitbowl.

Six years later, nendo's new collection continues with the project parameters of creating a limited run of 100, but this time around the collection is more focused with five sets of ceramic tablewares that reflect the designers considered and delightful aesthetic.

Only 100 of each object will be made.

100 is the perfect amount: they're neither one-off "works of art" nor mass-produced products made in the millions.

Whether its the skill of the artisans or new technologies,

we want to make things that are only possible.

because there are 100 of them. Not more, not less.

To give owners the chance to experience the joy of owing 1%.

The 100 edition project "one percent products"

As someone who has to go through a lot of international press releases, I always admire the precise, no-nonsense wording of a proper German missive. "Outline your innovative competence by participating in [our] award," reads the brief for the MATERIALICA Design + Technology Award 2012. If the language doesn't tell you these guys ain't playing around, the entry fee will: 190 Euros if you enter by May 31st (though students get a break with a mere 25 Euro ante).

So what are the MD+T Awards? The eight-year-old competition is meant to "demonstrate the importance of materials for industrial design-oriented applications" and is broken into four categories:

Images and reporting by Ciara Taylor

Genevieve Bell, director of the Interactions and Experience lab at Intel, presented the closing keynote, "Rage Against the Machines: Designing our Futures with Computing," for Interaction12. The IXR lab, in Portland, specializes in exploring the ways in which technology can be integrated seamlessly into daily life, through re-imagining user experience. Bell asked the important question: Instead of designing interactions, what would happen if we designed relationships between people and technology?

Bell was animated and humorous throughout her talk on the final day of the conference. This might have been because she was warned that her presentation was the only thing standing between the attendees and the Guinness storehouse, where the closing party was held. In her introduction, Bell shared her background as a second-generation anthropologist focusing on cultural practice. She reflected on her initial recruitment meeting with Intel for the IXR lab. Intel told her that they wanted to learn about two things: women and the "ROW." "What does 'ROW' stand for?" she asked. Intel's easy reply was, "the rest of the world."

While Bell was on the search to learn more about women, "ROW" and their relationship with technology, she began to consider Intel's user group. Bell stresses the importance of knowing your users. She shared an image of Intel's perceived user and then another image of who she discovered was the actual Intel user. The image of the Caucasian middle class family, sitting around the television laughing on the couch was an unrealistic vision of whom Intel was designing for.

Intel perceived user

Intel actual user

Upon identifying the more realistic user group of a single man in a cluttered apartment, Bell began to explore the relationship between the user and their technology. According to Bell, one woman she spoke with during her initial research mentioned that all of her technological devices were like a "backpack full of baby birds." Each device has its own ring tone or notification. The user often has to reassure the device; for example if the user wants to delete something, the device has to be reassured that this is the actual chosen action. These machines seem to demand attention in the same way a baby bird relies on its mother for love and food.

The design team at Seoul-based design studio cloudandco, led by Founder/Creative Director Yeongkyu Yoo, is pleased to present their latest product design, the Bottle Humidifier. The designers note that the ubiquitous household object is often an inelegant or outright ugly device hiding in plain sight: "When the context of the humidifier as a product is considered—an object that sits on your desk or table for long periods of time—it is clear that design needs to be more considered."

Their solution, the Bottle Humidifier, is "at once a functional product and art object." The antibacterial plastic exterior shell comes in a matte white finish, while the thick glass reservoir at the bottom "allows the user to see the water level inside." The device is powered via a retractable USB power cable.

I'm into the idea of bringing back the pocket watch, but while the new Kisai Rogue Touch Pocket Watch looks gorgeous, it's by Tokyoflash Japan—which means you have to learn how to read the thing. I've never really understood the notion of sacrificing intuitive legibility for graphic style, but designers more enlightened than me will probably be all over it.

The surface of the Rogue is smooth and button-free, with some added functionality accessed through a touch interface that looks a bit clumsy to me. Decide for yourself after watching the video below, the touch stuff starts around 3:10.

It's tough not to be impressed with Netherlands-based designer Robert van Embricqs' "Rising" series of furniture, comprised of a stool, chair and table:

The Rising Chair was the first of the series. Van Embricqs explains how he went from sheet to seat:

The foundation of any chair is the flat surface you'll eventually sit down on. Using this notion as a starting point, I made several cuts in the flat surface and pulled up the different beam-like strands of cut surface. This created the preliminary but already distinct features of any chair: back, seat and legs. The rhythm of the wooden beams gives the chair an organic shape. The cuts are most visible when the chair is still down. But at that stage of the construction, I still didn't know what shape the chair would take in the end. This was determined by the various arches of the wooden beams the chair is made of. Folding the chair into its definitive form, as a creator, I felt a special connection to the material I was working with.

It's been two weeks since the Interaction12 conference in Dublin, Ireland. IxDA Dublin Redux events have already been organized and are occurring globally. Attendees continue to tweet and share the abundance of information they absorbed over the course of the four-day conference. Interaction12 consisted of 15 workshops, 6 keynotes, 80 speakers, and several planned activities around Dublin, Ireland. IxDA organizers put together a diverse group of lectures and events throughout the conference for attendees to experience.

To give you an idea of the amount of diversity, talks were categorized into subheadings such as behavior, theory, ecosystems, process, aesthetics, strategy, dialogue and gamification. Most talks were 45 minutes and on the final two days there were 10-minute talks breaking up the larger sessions. The keynote speakers began and ended each day, usually sharing a big picture idea that complimented the other talks programmed throughout that day.

Luke Williams kicked off Day 2, with his eye-opening and inspiring keynote on disruptive thinking, titled "The Disruptive Age: Thriving in an Era of Constant Change". He gave a similar talk at the Design Research conference at IIT, but at Interaction12 he challenged attendees to consider how to disrupt the cliches of interaction design. This was the kind of energy that was contagious throughout the four days of the conference. Not only did Williams inspire and challenge the crowd, but the first slide of his presentation was a common theme for the rest of the conference. He shared a slide of a tweet that he came across the night before his talk that said, "What is interaction design? Oh shit. Here we go..."

This was a common question and discussion throughout Interaction12. It was as if Interaction Design was having an identity crisis. It was an exploratory process where everyone was working together to challenge and discover the capabilities of the discipline. Some attendees even created a humorous video during the conference, "Shit Interaction Designers Say," styled after the "Shit Girls Say" YouTube meme.

Statistics say few of you share my full-blown Linsanity, and our non-U.S. readers aren't interested in the NBA. But I thought I'd share some aspects of the invention and evolution of basketball that all designers can relate to. In broad strokes, the story of the sport involves 1) Needing to solve a problem with limited resources and within limited confines, 2) Gradually improving equipment through better manufacturing technology and ingenuity, and 3) Modifying the original idea's design when unforeseeable human behavior—hacks, basically—kicked in.

Problem and Initial Solution

Basketball was invented because of crappy weather. In 1891 a guy named James Naismith (pictured above) was working for the Phys Ed department at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. He needed to keep his students exercising. But it was December in New England, where freezing rain and snow make outdoor sports impractical. The following is from Naismith's own resume:

OBJECTIVE

To create an indoor game that would provide an "athletic distraction" for a rowdy class through the brutal New England winter. Under orders from Dr. Luther Gulick, head of physical education at the School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College), Naismith had 14 days to create a game for a group of 18 students who were training to become executive secretaries.

While Naismith couldn't control the weather, he did have access to an indoor gymnasium. It wasn't the right shape or size for baseball, nor was an indoor hockey rink a possibility. He didn't want the physical contact and potential injuries of football or rugby, nor the guarded goals of lacrosse or soccer and the contact those could engender.

His solution was to invent a sport where players could only advance the ball by throwing or slapping it to each other; running with the ball, kicking it or wrestling it out of someone's hands was forbidden. And there would be no goaltender; instead the "goals" would be placed high up over the players' heads to preclude contact and provide the scoring challenge.

The Physical Equipment

The school janitor was reportedly tasked with finding two boxes to use as goals. The story goes that he came back with two peach baskets, and affixed them to the bottoms of the galleries on either side of the gymnasium, about ten feet off of the ground.

My doorknobs bore the crap out of me, and if I wasn't living in a rental, I'd replace them. The sheer amount of times I touch them every day going in and out would warrant it.

I've got my fantasy replacement knobs all picked out; I'm digging Modknobs' selection of modernist doorknobs, made from either hardwoods like walnut and oak or, get this, actual hockey pucks.

In its 19th year, the Student Design Competition sponsored by the International Home and Housewares Show announced this year's winning product designs from students representing institutions from around the country. The design competition's annual challenge to students is to redesign a current housewares product to meet the needs of the future or to create a concept for a new product. Winning projects are selected for their innovation, understanding of production and marketing principles and quality of entry materials.

Winning first place in this year's competition is Samuel Chen (Junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) for his "Cyclone" kitchen fire extinguisher and Mariel Piña (Senior at the University of Houston) for her "Ambos" grater/colander.

Chen's "Cyclone" is a first response product that helps put out kitchen fires utilizing a homemade solution of vinegar and baking soda. The design is stainless steel—elegant enough to sit in a tool tub on the kitchen counter or hang from a hook. Twisting the utensil's valve mixes the solution to spray a carbon dioxide foam. Because common kitchen ingredients are used, the tool can be used repeatedly unlike typical single-use products filled with hazardous propellants. "My product was sparked from the personal experience of a fire in my kitchen," Chen said. "Recognizing the panic and stress involved, I researched fires and designed an extinguisher to eliminate them in the most time and cost efficient way, keeping in mind an aesthetic and pragmatic design."

Piña's "Ambos" merges the function of a cheese/food grater and a colander into one product. Safe and ergonomic, her design is convenient for storage and reduces kitchen clutter. The lower center of gravity for the grater makes the "Ambos" more comfortable and stable. "My goal is to reconnect the user with the pleasures of simple living," Piña said. "Making an experience like grating cheese easy and enjoyable brings us back to basics. I also want to reduce the clutter in the home that prevents us from encountering life fully and wholeheartedly, so we can focus on simple tasks like cooking our own food."

With our Fast Track to the Mobile App program drawing to a close, we are proud to take a look at our winners, notables and finalists in the newly launched Fast Track Gallery.

Three winners, car-pal+, Cash Hound and Social Mints completed their apps in time for the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona next week. These three apps will be included in the featured apps on the demo Windows Phone devices Microsoft will be showing at the event February 27-March 1. The other 2 winners, Blackbelt and Bridge, are currently looking for partners and in development.

We are also proud to announce our 13 notables! Travel Trove, Project Mosaic, 1tap2send, YouTube Download, Meeting Planner, Get Reimbursed, MetroDiff, mHealth, SMS Scheduler, TASKMASTER, SlickFlow, Days Until and Draw & Tell are all available in the App Hub.

Check out our Winners, Notables and Finalists Gallery at
fasttrackapp.core77.com