Last year we noted there was an exciting new documentary being shot, called "Design the New Business." Spearheaded by designer/author/entrepreneur and TU Delft professor Erik Roscam Abbing, the doc is intended to demonstrate today's crucial interconnectedness of design and business by interviewing industry leaders from the likes of Philips Design, Intel, Volkswagen, Virgin Mobile, and many others.

We're thrilled to announce the doc is finished and ready to go! It'll be released on March 6th, free of charge, on its own website. Here's the completed trailer:

Associate Web Art Director
Coach International
New York, New York

Coach, founded in 1941, is America's premier accessible luxury accessories brand and a leader in international markets. They are currently seeking an Associate Web Art Director to ideate, develop and execute creative for Coach's International websites. The successful candidate will leverage his or her proficiency in web production to assist in the maintenance of all Coach International websites, as well as supporting the creative team across a variety of duties including but not limited to e-mail marketing, re-touching and ideation and strategy.

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The current era sees a great deal of cross-pollination between "interaction" and "product" designers, in part because their goals aren't that different. While one may push pixels and the other a mill, ultimately, they both serve users. What the iPhone and iPod demonstrated is that experience design trumps form factor every time. The iPod wasn't just a product; it was part of an ecosystem. Historically, product design also stood as a cousin to architecture, and 50 years ago Jane Jacobs observed that architecture itself could only be evaluated as part of an ecosystem, that of human behavior. Cross pollination doesn't end there.

Jon Kolko's new book, Wicked Problems tackles problems where the product itself is only part of the problem. Kolko aims to tackle are social and policy problems, and he subtitles his book "Problems worth Solving," though the very formulation of wicked problems undermines the notion of a particular "solution."

The solution is confounding in part because wicked problems are extraordinarily difficult to categorize or define. Indeed, in his original formulation, Horst Rittel listed ten characteristics of wicked problems, including the most troublesome first characteristic: defining wicked problems is in itself a wicked problem. From a philosophical standpoint, that's a vicious circularity... a paradox, not a problem. Basically, a wicked problem is one where (1) knowledge of the problem is incomplete (2) many stakeholders have varied opinions, (3) the economic impact is large and (4) the problem is interconnected with other issues, aka problems. Sounds like pretty much any issue working it's way through congress, right? Religion? Check. Healthcare? Check. Poverty? Check. Taxes? Check. War? Check.

Wicked problems are without a doubt interesting. That's why they make good dinner conversation, or why a discussion of global warming can turn to energy policy, post-colonial economics, war, puppet-dictatorships, and then the secondary and tertiary effects of the Russian conflict in Afghanistan, but it could keep going from there. While intellectually appealing, the very idea of a wicked problem suffers from reductio ad absurdum. Just like a four year old asking, "why?" any problem can be made or regressed into a wicked problem. Perhaps there's just one wicked problem: life.

Kolko, however, didn't "define" the term, he's trying to tackle it, which is only marginally easier/harder? In his appealing and insightful "Call to Action," Kolko derives a number of interesting conclusions, namely that social change requires companies to escape the constant drive for quarterly profits. Since most working designers get paid, and payment is a mode of capitalism, even the simplest activity takes place in a system of wicked problems. Quoting Kolko, "When designers have been in the workforce for 12–15 months, a curious thing happens with a tremendous level of regularity, and in equal measures in corporations and consultancies. These designers come to realize that their work is meaningless." We could certainly use a citation on that reference, but anecdotally, it's probably true. Kolko observes that even the simple act of designing a hammer can have diffused consequences, where the humble hammer designer may leave damaged fingers or deforestation as secondary results of an apparently simple act. He does not, however, explain how to resolve the question. Perhaps that's asking too much. When faced with an infinite regress, where does one stop?

Last week saw launch of the "Live/Work" Design Contest: our friends at Dwell Media and Design Within Reach are challenging designers to come up with a "classic of tomorrow" for the workplace, specifically the home office setting. To hear DWR CEO John Edelman tell it:

Design Within Reach is focused on making modern design accessible, which includes supporting emerging designers and educating consumers about their work. For us, the Live/Work Contest represents an exciting opportunity to partner with Dwell to discover new talent and simultaneously provide our customers with a workspace solution that improves productivity and helps them tackle everyday challenges.

The Live/Work Design Contest is open for submissions for duration of the month, and Dwell Editor-in-Chief Amanda Dameron notes that "this is an amazing opportunity for an under-the-radar or established designer to see a project realized"—that's right, the winner might just land a contract with DWR. To that end, the judging panel will select up to 10 finalists based on both overall design and production potential. The online voting period will run for the first three weeks of May, culminating with live voting at WantedDesign 2012, where the finalists will be on display. From there, five entries will advance to the final round at Dwell on Design, the West Coast's largest design fair, where they'll be on view at DWR, with an announcement of the winner on June 22.

The deadline for submissions is March 31st, so head over to the contest page on Dwell for more details!

Communities in China use a lot of outdoor furniture. And chairs, laundry, food preparation, morning ablutions all spill out onto the narrowhutong and urban streets. Because they do, everyday people create the infrastructure to support these activities. Much of the furniture is outside year-round, with owners making a minimal effort to keep it protected from the elements. When there is the threat of rain, for instance, they angle chairs against walls to ensure the rain runs off instead of puddling and potentially soaking the wood.

In the United States, the Shakers are often lauded for their carefully observed furniture designs, including their hanging furniture—grandfather clocks, bookshelves, chairs placed on racks with neatly spaced hooks, and defying gravity.

Image by Dave Morris/Flickr

Simple and elegant as the Shaker style is—including their signature practice of storing chairs hanging upside down—I'd argue that the Chinese DIY chair storage is just as, if not more elegant than the Shaker hanging furniture, since it can apply to most high-back chair designs and also works with any wall.

The type of noticeboard frame seen in my hutong photo is fairly common in Chinese cities, so the lean-forward approach with the hind legs wedged under the frame requires minimal preparation for use. And, in terms of effective user-friendly design, the subtle repositioning of a rained-soaked chair with one hand allows the owner to easily wipe the surface with the other hand.

We've all seen product placement on TV, or movies like Tower Heist that insert real-world newspeople like Matt Lauer covering the Thanksgiving Day Parade in order to lend it some verisimilitude. An interesting twist on these ideas is a scene from Ridley Scott's forthcoming Prometheus sci-fi flick, which depicts a TED Talk—from the year 2023:

We're digging the drone cameras. And we're also glad that TED Talks are still going strong in Scott's vision of the future, though it seems clear this Peter Weyland character is up to no good.

I'm not sure if it already sounds anachronistic to talk about 'shop class,' but I have vague memories of a wacky middle school Metals teacher and an altogether incongruous Printing elective at my high school. The equipment was invariably second- (or third-, fourth-, nth-)hand, long-patina'd with wheezy nostalgia—this was New England, after all—and the dubious tutelage at the calloused hands of gruff semi-retired tradesmen relegated this sort of education squarely in the past.

Which is precisely why a new project by a team of Stanford d.school students is so interesting: they're looking to introduce new generations of young minds—future designers and otherwise—to a new generation of young technologies. In short, "Sparklab is a big red truck filled with cutting-edge maker tools that goes from school to school, bringing the joy of building back to kids."

The Kickstarter project is the culmination of a yearlong thesis project for an enthusiastic crew of 20-something makers with the savoir-faire to realize the potential of 21st century fabrication tools not just for making things but for education as well. If the idea of a mobile shop class isn't appealing enough as it is, they have the blessing of IDEO Founder (and d.school prof) David Kelley.

In 1969 Mies van der Rohe built his famous gas station on Nun's Island, Canada, a prototype designed as part of a four-unit development project that included a full service car destination, from sales to repairs. At the time, it was the island's only gas station, but it's stood vacant since 2009. Now, however, Canadian architecture firm FABG is redeveloping the site into a community center. Right from the start, principal Éric Gauthier disclosed that "the project is not about the faithful restoration of a monument. It is an interpretation trying to touch and communicate the essence of an artistic vision formulated by someone else in response to a world that is no longer the same."

Still, they seem to be going out of their way to honor van der Rohe's original structure. For example, they've retained the gas pumps but converted them into air in-take and out-take devices connected to the new HVAC system. They've also left the prominent, cantilevered roof intact, restoring and repainting the beams and the brickwork. The building's original transparency will also remain one of the new structure's chief focal points, with designated interior spaces marked by colored floors. For an "interpretation" it's awfully faithful, but we're talking about van der Rohe here—what's there to improve upon?

In a move that many business analysts have dismissed as poor judgment, the Volkswagen Group has decided to partner with the Dark Side of the Force following the success of their earlier Superbowl ads. The new Volkswagen Magic Bus AT-AT is expected to clomp onstage at next week's Geneva Auto Show to (literally) destroy the competition.

Seriously though, after seeing those photos recently resurface--they first started making the blog rounds in 2009 before cropping up again last week—we've been trying to track down the original source to determine if it's a Photoshop job or not. While unable to find a conclusive answer, in the process of searching we stumbled upon a French website called Calcruiser whose raison d'etre appears to be Photoshopping Volkswagens.

The annual Design Indaba conference brings the most innovative design practitioners from around the world to Cape Town, South Africa. This year was the magazine's 15th conference and along with three days of speaker presentations, there is also an accompanying Expo showcasing South Africa's brightest design talent, now through March 4th.

All designers recognize collaboration as fundamental to the process of design. Whether it's collaborating across disciplines or within a single studio, the profession is strengthened by this unique tenet. On Design Indaba's opening day, the particular design philosophies of two speakers presented a challenge beyond their particular fields of food and landscape. What possibilities open when designers consider time and place as collaborators in their work? René Redzepi, an owner and chef of Copenhagen's Noma restaurant, leverages both to design a daily meditation on the plate. Dan Pearson, London-based landscape architect, delights in the unexpected dimensions of collaborating with time and place.

A Single Moment on the Plate

The best chef in the world is René Redzepi. The owner and creative force behind Copenhagen's Noma restaurant, Redzepi is credited with creating "New Nordic" cuisine emphasizing seasonal, local and foraged ingredients.

Courtesy of Phaidon

Known for his unexpected ingredients and flavor profiles, the chef opened his presentation with an element of surprise, a visual gag. Porters wheeled out a dead duck strung up on a rolling rack—fully feathered with a visible blood stain still red from the kill. The duck was a great metaphor for Redzepi's approach to food and designing elements on the plate: fresh, local unexpected and memorable.

When the restaurant opened in 2004, Redzepi faced an unconvinced audience. "No one believed that a restaurant serving Nordic cuisine could project into the future," Redzepi recalls. Although it took a moment to find its culinary footing, once it did, Noma turned the expectations for fine dining in Copenhagen on its head. The restaurant itself is minimal, its interiors dealing in the same pared down elegance as the food itself. Without the white tablecloth treatment, the food is clearly the star.

Tasked with the marketing for chocolate maker Cadbury, the UK branch of global creative agency Fallon erected a massive, Willy-Wonka-esque chocolate fountain at London's Westfield Shopping Centre. The 30-foot structure bubbles, gurgles and dispenses real chocolate, which you can see in the video at the bottom of this entry.

But first, we've got to show you Joyville, the Fallon-created fictional world where chocolate is supposedly made. The following depiction of Joyville is either a testament to inventive vehicle and set designers or a strong argument for letting creative directors dabble with psychedelic drugs:

Admit it, there is no point in that video where you could have predicted what would happen in the next five seconds.

As for that fountain, check it out:

Interactive Designer
Obama for America
Chicago, Illinois

Want to work on the Obama campaign? Obama for America is looking for a designer to join the online marketing team. They're looking to run the most effective, creative and innovative digital campaign in the history of politics, and their digital advertising team will be core to achieving the communications, fundraising and organizing goals of the campaign. The Interactive Designer is responsible for developing and executing ads including Flash banners, rich media, custom graphics and other design assets consistent with campaign style parameters.

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Saul Bass, the legendary graphic designer, has been getting a lot of play this month. First, his opening title sequence for Anatomy of a Murder has been masterfully restored for Criterion's new Blu Ray DVD, which also includes a behind the scenes look at his relationship with the film's director, Otto Preminger. And now Rizzoli/Universe Books is reprinting Bass' long forgotten children's book "Henri's Walk to Paris."

Written by Leonore Klein, who penned only a handful of children's books, the story is about a young boy who lives in a small French town and dreams of visiting Paris. If you can't guess what happens maybe the title will help you out. It may not be the most inventive narrative and these aren't even Bass' best illustrations, but even mediocre Bass is still really, really great.

Steven Heller commented that "virtually each tableau in this book of spreads could have been a Bass film poster," and "It looks as if he had taken the storyboard for a film title sequence and enlarged it to grand proportions." And no where is Bass' uncanny ability to convey mood and theme through image and typography clearer than on the cover. I love how the letters of the book's title becomes physical. Incidentally, these two "legs," if you can call them that, are all we ever see of little Henri—a singular touch from Bass, who never illustrated another children's book.

This concept video by digital effects house Aatma Studio Animation is both sweet and convincing. It depicts a fictional future iPad with a currently-technologically-impossible full-bleed screen, magnets in the edges so you can gang multiple iPads together, and a crazy-looking holograph feature. But enough talk, let's get to the goods; a picture's worth a thousand words and this video's got nearly 1.5 million YouTube hits and counting.

These days, there are more ways to keep time than ever before: our cell phones automatically update themselves through wireless networks; our computers keep sync with atomic clocks; even our cars, ovens and television sets keep track of and tell us the time.

Nevertheless, the watch endures as a classic icon of style, and it's thrilling to see how companies are trying to innovate on this very analog device in an increasingly digital world.

A recent post on Boingboing tipped me off to a fabulous new watch making the rounds online. With a steampunk-esque belt design, Devon's Tread watches rely on a system of belts, motors and pulleys to show the time. Like the NOOKA clocks I reviewed earlier, it diverges from the usual circle format, instead separating the minutes, hours and seconds into separate visualizations.

Part of the secret sauce in the watch's formula is how its powered. Most watches today rely on kinetic energy or a standard battery (and some aficionados still rely on wind-up). Devon's Tread runs on a their lithium polymer rechargeable cell that charges via wireless induction. According to the extensive manual (online as a PDF), you simply need place it in its futuristic display box and it begins charging.

Imagine designing something today that would still be in production in the year 2165. It's virtually unthinkable, no? Yet cabinetmaker Michael Thonet designed his iconic Chair No. 14, often referred to as the Thonet Chair, 153 years ago in 1859. And today, in Manhattan alone, you can find any number of bistros and cafes littered with them.

This quick, sub-five-minute documentary looks at the No. 14, hailed as "the most successful industrial product of the 19th century," and shows you how that came to be. The new-at-the-time bentwood manufacturing technology, an ingenious packing method that was a precursor to flatpack, and of course the design itself all played a role. (Don't forget to note the proper pronunciation of "Thonet," so you can be that person at the cocktail party that corrects everyone.)

People who make things by hand in America, particularly things made of wood, are a small breed of revivalists and family-legacy craftspersons. But one stable population of builders in little danger of being replaced by industrial robots are America's technology-eschewing Amish. Their population is estimated at 250,000, and while not all of them are able-bodied males, the ones that are still provide a sizable workforce.

Problem was, up until recently if you wanted to buy Amish goods, you needed to visit Lancaster or one of their other U.S. settlements. (It's not like you could fax them an order.) But lately they've either been letting the technology thing slide, or some enterprising non-Amish businessperson has partnered up with them, as there's now something I never thought I'd see: An Amish goods website.

The furniture sold on AmishHandcrafted.com is as stodgy as you'd expect, but what caught my eye are their line of steamer trunks made from maple and oak, with sliding tray inserts made from aromatic cedar.

Leather handles and brass or nickel hardware round out the $568 pieces, which seem pretty indestructible (though there is a $120 "old-world distressing" option, if you want them to look beat-up).

New York City's Storefront for Art and Architecture is pleased to present "DOUBLE [copies, fakes and replicas]," a Manifesto Series event on the occasion of the arrival and subsequent departure of Serkan Özkaya's David (inspired by Michelangelo in downtown Manhattan. The Turkish conceptual artist's piece, a golden rendition of the iconic sculpture that is (as the title of event suggests) twice the size of Michelangelo's masterpiece, is based on Stanford University professor Marc Levoy's computer model. He has stated that, "I wanted to use the potential of the 3D model to recreate the most precious man-made object; one which I had never seen for myself."

The name of the event also alludes to the fact that the sculpture is one of two copies of Özkaya's original piece from 2005, created for the 9th International Istanbul Biennial, which collapsed just days before the exhibition: "the artist later restored the damaged replica and cast two additional copies, one that remains in Turkey and one of which has been recently acquired by 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky."

David's journey from Istanbul to Louisville will include a day-long tour of New York City, where the artist currently lives and works, next Tuesday, March 6. "passing various landmarks [on a lowboy trailer], including Times Square, Museum Mile, and the High Line. The sculpture will be parked in front of the Storefront for Art and Architecture starting at 3pm."

The event at Storefront will include a live staging of manifestos, on the topic of Double by a group of distinguished panelists consisting of artists, architects, critics, historians and theorists, discussing the effects, desires and implications in the act of doubling, replicating or copying. The presentation of the manifestos will be followed by a discussion between the presenters moderated by Özkaya. Participants include: Christopher Eamon (independent curator), Cristina Goberna (Fake industries), Alana Heiss (Clocktower Gallery), Spyros Papapetros (Princeton University), Hrag Vartanian (Hyperallergic), and Ines Weizman (Architectural Association School of Architecture London).

The original 2005 sculpture, via Wikipedia

See the full event details here.

In 2009, a group of architecture students at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago designed the gorgeously minimal Field Chapel in Boedigheim, Germany, which won an AIA Honor Award in 2010. It was part of Design Build, a studio project that grants architecture students access to all aspects of the design process, from concept to construction—but only if they can get their project funded. Every previous Design Build studio has successfully funded and gone on to construct their project, and now this year's crop of students are reaching out with a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise money for The Barnsworth Exhibition Center, an exhibition space that will sit adjacent to Mies van der Rohe's famous target="_blank"Farnsworth House in Plano, IL.

When van der Rohe built the house in 1951, he clearly didn't anticipate the major flooding problems that have nearly ruined some of the spectacular furniture on display there, not to mention the extensive damage to the floors. The Barnsworth project would erect an additional exhibition space to safely house the furniture in case of another flood. To learn more about the project and to help fund Design Build, visit their Kickstarter page.

Perhaps more than any other era, the 60's and 70's seem to have a graphic identity in themselves, the upshot of high modernity, mass culture and a certain creative spirit that brought the psychedelic aesthetic into the mainstream. Over the course of the past half-century or so, the graphic style has been imitated and rehashed countless times—usually in intentional homage—to the point that the imagery is shorthand for those decades past.

For Eye Sea Posters, it's besides the point as to whether or not the aesthetic comes across as timeless or dated: they've unearthed a stash of dozens of authentic Polish movie posters from the mid-60's through the mid-80's, mostly in good-to-mint condition, selling the highly limited editions online. Founder James Dyer wisely chose not to divulge his sources, but he was willing to share a little background information on some of the designers.

Wiktor Gorka - L'Homme Orchestre (1972)

Like many of his fellow designers, Victor Gorka (1922–2004) has spent much of his adult life outside of his motherland; they've relocated other European countries, as well as the United States and (in Gorka's case) Mexico.

Andrzej Krajewski - Kapitan Florian Z Mlyna (Captain Florian of the Mill) (1970)

Andre de Krayewski currently resides in the Greater NYC area, where he continues to produce artwork in his signature Art-Deco-meets-Pop style.

Krzysztof Nasfeter - Ransom (1975)

Christopher Nasfeter hails from a slightly younger generation of artists whose move from Warsaw to Berlin mirrors his shift from graphic design to fine art.

Ryszard Kiwerski's enigmatic poster for Wladca Gor (1971) prefigures any number of indie rock concert posters from the past decade or so.

While a quick survey suggests that the majority of the films are Polish releases, a fair number of international titles turn up as well; we've highlighted some of these below...

Maciej Zbikowski - A Shot in the Dark (1968)