wants an Associate Creative Dir.
in San Diego, CA

This job is about more than just driving the creative branding of a dynamic leader in the pet-supply industry. It's about helping Petco realize their vision of healthier pets, happier people and a better world.

Petco seeks a dynamic, conceptual, highly creative leader to take the creative reigns of two of our emerging retail business chains, Unleashed by Petco and Pooch Hotel. The right hire will be motivated by constantly solving new creative challenges, really enjoy launching new products, and have 5 - 10 years experience leading branded creative campaigns and/or experiences across multiple channels/touchpoints.

Check out the details to see if you're a good fit and apply today before someone else does!

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By Mark Rolston, Cara Silver, Joshua Blumenstock and Jan Chipchase

The study, In the Hands of God (1.4MB PDF), explored the strategies adopted by salaried Afghans for mitigating financial (or more accurately asset) risk, the role played by extended families in levelling out drops in income, and reflects upon what this means for more formal financial services and the future of Afghanistan.

We also wrote up some thoughts on running research in higher risk environments, strategies for mitigating risk, and coping with extreme gender dynamics.

Jan and Mark will be speaking to the research at the World Bank in Washington DC, at an event hosted by CGAP on the 28th February. To join RSVP here.

frog presents In The Hands of God: A Study of Risk and Savings in Afghanistan
» Do You Want to Live?
» Mitigating Risk
» Extreme Gender Dynamics
» In the Hands of God: A Study of Risk and Savings in Afghanistan

This project was co-funded by the IMTFI and frog.

The most awesome thing I've seen all week: Portland-based physicist David Neevel has combined CNC and robotics with a dose of Rube Goldberg to perform a task of vital importance. Along the way he's had to make some stiff sacrifices. I know you think this video's going to suck, but trust me, it does not:

This is the second article in a series examining the potential of resilient design to improve the way the world works. Join designers, brand strategists, architects, futurists, experts and entrepreneurs at Compostmodern13 to delve more deeply into strategies of sustainablity and design.

We've all been there: it's another late night in the studio, and you've got hours of pixel-pushing and deck-polishing ahead. Your social life, if it exists, is under duress. The cramp in your mousing hand makes you wonder if it really is time to see that doctor.

Meanwhile your mind wanders from the task at hand to what you can do—what you can change about your "situation"—to close the gap between the seeming pointlessness of how you earn your living and the realization that your time and energy could be better spent doing something (anything!) more meaningful.

Like your brother who joined the Peace Corps in India. Or the industrial designer you read about who designed a new clean water system for a village in Tanzania. The architect who took a 6-month leave of absence from his job to build relief housing in Haiti.

It could be mere escapism to indulge such humanitarian fantasies but I think there's more to it, especially for designers. It's in our professional DNA to do stuff, to make things—and if we were trained well—to solve problems and have real impact on people's lives. Our hands feel tied when we're not putting them to good use.

Human need is everywhere
Humanitarian work shouldn't require quitting your job, uprooting your life and moving to another community. The eye of the storm for social injustice isn't always half way across the world—it's often right under your nose in the form of an urban food desert, children stuck in a cycle of poverty, a family who lives in your back alley.

Over the last 5-7 years, we've witnessed an explosion of programs dedicated to applying design methods to humanitarian issues in the developing world. Some have spun off as nonprofits; others are embedded in top design firms, universities or government. Philanthropic foundations are expanding their grant portfolios by underwriting innovative, designer-led initiatives that meet their programmatic interests. Both the design and mainstream media have caught on, helping to fuel more attention to the value of designers working in the developing world—amounting to more funding, more programs, and more opportunities.

...And here's the second most awesome thing I've seen all week: The guys over at Audi UK came up with a fantastic way to test out the RS 4 Avant, using methods that have no applicability whatsoever to real-world driving. I'm a little disappointed that the guns don't swivel, and the ergonomic placement of the triggers seems poor, but I did enjoy the secondary/tertiary/quatenary paint-delivering devices. I won't spoil the surprise(s) for you:

You're likely wondering how they captured some of those aerial shots, as having a floor-mounted crane amidst those drifting cars doesn't seem feasible. The answer is: Drones to the rescue!

Designers always seem to be on a constant quest for the next big material innovation. From the the first application of steam bending in the Thonet chair to things like Glass Snowboards, material exploration is forever married to object design. One of the materials making a minor resurgence in design projects is Tyvek—you know, the stuff you wrap around houses.

Made from polyethylene fibers, the synthetic sheet material is surprisingly strong and waterproof with a paper-like appearance. It would seem there are endless possibilities for what essentially acts like waterproof paper (such as Jiwon Choi's Vases), but among an incredible number of wallets and envelopes there are few other notable products on the market that incorporate Tyvek. At risk of inciting a Tyvek revolution, one might question where are all of the great design projects that make use of Tyvek? One of the cooler applications in the last few years is from New Jersey-based Civic Duty Shoes in the form of Tyvek sneakers.

Civic Duty has been around since 2009, headed by Steven Weinreb. The Tyvek uppers are dyed a variety of colors, allowing a bit of visual distance from their close relatives, the FedEx envelope and disposable work suit. While durability of the Tyvek isn't quite on par with traditional canvas or leather, they do offer extreme lightness and recyclability. While perhaps the perfect application would be a Tyvek portyanki—hard to deny that this is bold sneaker-vation.

The design of the shoes include a nod to classic high top, low top and slip-ons sneaker designs, but the material appeal of Tyvek might not extend too far beyond the design geek demographic. Either way, when you decide to invest in a new pair of kicks, remember that Converse high-tops don't employ the same technology as the construction site down the road.

Well folks, looks like 2013 is shaping up to be the year gesture control finally becomes available to the masses.

First up, the Leap motion controller that caused such a blog stir (we covered it here and here) will start shipping on May 13th, just about a year after they began taking pre-orders.

Hot on their heels—or forearms, I should say—is the Myo controller pictured above, an arm bracelet that you wear well above your wrist but below the elbow. Why the weird position? The Myo actually reads the electrical activity in your muscles, rather than relying on a camera.

This seems like a pretty smart approach, as the Myo can decipher complex finger gestures, flicks and rotations without requiring line-of-sight. That suddenly opens up a new world of interactivity that doesn't require the user be sitting in front of a camera-equipped computer, or dancing around in front of a Kinect. Peep this:

Looks amazing, no? If it works as advertised, it will have a much broader range of applications than the stationary Leap, and the Myo's price reflects that: The Leap's going for $80, while the Myo will run you $150. It's up for pre-order now and they're claiming it will ship later this year.

Over the course of three posts, we take a look at the highlights of the second edition of the Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW), which took place from February 16–24, 2013.

Colorful "Midgets" by Bastian Müller at the downtown Filser & Gräf gallery

Historical wardrobe area transformed into exhibition displays

Lifting the "Blackbraid" bicycle with a single finger

At the Alte Kongresshalle, we found a collection of exhibitions and company presentations. One of the highlights was meeting the lightest bicycle in the world. Manuel Ostner from PG explained how they developed a new procedure to produce braided carbon frames with Munich Composites resulting in the "Blackbraid" bicycle that weighs less than 5 kg, all (hand)made in Germany. [Ed. Note: Designer Jacob Haim also used this manufacturing process, as seen in our exclusive look at the RaceBraid bicycle from last November.]

Central exhibition at the Alte Kongresshalle

Sweaters made of recycled felt by the recyclist_workshop

The recent Ecodesign exhibition received no fewer than 140 entries but only a handful of them made it to the exhibition in Munich. Luckily, poster presentations explained the 14 winning products in detail (which can be seen here). Nevertheless we hope that this year's Ecodesign competition features more tangible entries. More information about the competition is available at the Bundespreis Ecodesign website (in German).

wants a CAD sculptor/Digital 3D Modeler
in Cupertino, CA

How would you like to influence the industrial design process and development of new products at Apple Inc? Here's your chance.

Join the Apple Industrial Design Team and apply your kick ass CAD sculpting skills to interpreting and defining the design intent of their industrial designer. Then, apply your phenomenal 3D modeling talents towards the development of product concepts, detailed appearance models, and renderings.

Make sure you bring your problem solving, organization, and interpersonal skills, as well as your solid enthusiasm for 3D modeling.

Apply Now

By Jan Chipchase

How do you feel when you're asked to do travel somewhere interesting but that carries a slightly higher risk of injury, kidnap or death?

I've run a number of studies to "lively" places, that carry with them a different risk profile than one normally encounters on corporate research. In each case I've needed to pull together a team that can stand up to the technical, physical and emotional rigours of the work. This is what I learned about "the ask".

The practical aspects of planning a short (~1 month) study in higher risk environments are relatively straightforward to pull together, but many are less-unprepared for the emotional highs and lows before, during and after the field study.

Before Going In-field

1. Elation at being asked, at the potential. Nobody says no to a travel adventure.
2. Realization as information is gathered, newspaper headlines are scanned the enormity of perceived risks sink in, the worst-case scenarios mentally play out. The lows are amplified by how it is communicated to peers/friends/family during stage (1). This is when the person who initially said yes changes their mind.
3. Normalization: more nuanced media/opinions are gathered, conversations with people in the know, on the ground, a better understanding of geography, place, the risk is put into perspective, bad headlines no-longer trigger deep lows. the researcher comes to terms with the idea of what it means to be there.
4. Occasional panic attacks: things that sneak up on you: a misread headline; an idle thought; a sense of what could be lost.

Following our recent announcement of an ongoing partnership with the IDSA, we'd like to invite our readers to enter the "CAD" Rendering Challenge in anticipation of the IDSA Northeast District Conference in Hartford next month. They've partnered with GrabCAD, with sponsors Keyshot and BikeID providing prizes for the winners, for a design competition with a particularly vibrant brief, in keeping with the conference theme, "The Color of Design":

Simply download any CAD model from the GrabCAD library—then develop it, re-arrange it, cut it, splice it, hack it... but most importantly implement color in a fresh and creative way.

Think about how color affects the design, improves the user experience and brings a 4th dimension to how an object, product, assembly or landscape is perceived. Use this challenge as an outlet for you and your design team to reimagine how we incorporate color into our creative process. Then submit your rendering to the Challenge in JPG format.

Our jury of leading industrial designers, engineers and graphic designers will evaluate and select the best and most creative submissions to be highlighted at the IDSA's 2013 Northeast District Design Conference "The Color of Design" in April in Hartford.

Enter by the March 25 deadline for a chance to win prizes such as a custom ride from BikeID, complimentary conference registration, Keyshot licenses and more.

See the full contest rules and regulations here (and check out some of the entries here.)

In 2002 Cam Brensinger was a RISD industrial design student on a camping trip. An experienced outdoorsman, Brensinger spent a miserable night on that particular outing to Mount Washington, due to using poorly-designed gear. He came back down the mountain with the seeds of his Masters thesis in his head.

After graduating later that year, Brensinger turned his thesis into a company: NEMO Equipment. By 2003 he had prototypes of tents featuring his brilliant AirSupported Technology, whereby aluminum tentpoles are done away with and beams filled with compressed air provide the tent's structure.

With AirSupported beams, setup is both fast and simple. Users provide the air via an included self-powered pump that can inflate the beams in as little as five seconds. Packing is greatly simplified, not to mention made lighter and smaller, as there are no pole sections to carry. And the design of the airbeams makes them able to withstand "more than twice the downward force" of standard tent pole. Lastly, they cannot be permanently deformed; bend them out of shape, and they spring back into position when the obstacle is removed.

The company thrived, and in 2006 Brensinger received some kick-ass validation: NEMO's lightweight, fast- and compact-packing Gogo tent drew the attention of a group of Navy SEALs, who contacted the company. A subsequent collaboration involving SEAL testing in Alaska spawned NEMO's Special Operations Shelters subdivision of products.

Tiny photo.
Huge impact?

The tech blogs have been aTwitter with news of a potential portable energy breakthrough. Heralded as possibly bringing "The End of Batteries," researchers at UCLA have succeeded in creating high-energy-density graphene micro-supercapacitors with a ridiculously cheap fabrication tool—the laser in an off-the-shelf DVD burner.

Let me back up a sec and cut through the tech jargon. What these supercapacitors can do is quickly absorb, store, and release energy. If they could be produced inexpensively—which they now can—they promise to do the same things batteries do, but way better. A supercapacitor-equipped cell phone would charge in seconds, not minutes. If scaled up to integrate with an electric car, overnight top-ups would become a thing of the past.

As far as the impact on product design, supercapacitors are made of graphene, which is thin, flexible and super-strong. Battery real estate is one of the big constraints in the design of portable objects, whether we're talking about cell phones, cordless drills or emergency lighting; imagine the freedom of form possible when that barrier is minimized.

But the greatest benefit of supercapacitors would be realized not just by individuals, but by the planet. Batteries use up metal and contain nasty chemicals required to create portable juice, and creating/disposing of these things causes environmental problems. Graphene, however, is just carbon—biodegradable and compostable.

Here are the two researchers, professor Richard Kaner and grad student Maher El-Kady, explaining the possibilities:

The Core77 Design Awards' mandate is to push the boundaries and reach of the design professions so it is a natural that we are teaming up this Weekend with Internet phenomenon Fab to put the word out to their broad, design-savvy audience. Check it out here!

You'll never guess where this is

In 1792, architect James Hoban won a design competition to create this house where, like, the President would live. They called it the White House and it was pretty cool, so we decided to keep it after Thomas Jefferson moved out of it. Then in 1814, British troops came over here and set the place on fire, because you Brits used to be a bunch of jerks. It took us three years to repair the damage, so I think you guys owe us.

Sometime around 1900, our visionary President Teddy Roosevelt added a West Wing, presciently predicting both Martin Sheen's career arc and the high Nielsen ratings a TV show by that name would garner. President Taft later added an office with a kooky oval shape, presumably because he hated the construction guys hired to frame the room out. And in the mid-1940s, as World War II wrapped up, we added an East Wing for the sake of rough symmetry.

Well, all that construction and renovation combined with British pyromania apparently took its toll on the building, because by 1948 it was a crumbling hunk of crap. The ceiling sagged six inches in some places and the Grand Staircase was in danger of collapsing. A Congressional committee was formed, and they urged then-President Truman to do what Americans do: Throw it out and get a new one. But Truman wasn't having it, and instead decided to gut the entire thing.

We're back in Chicago for the International Home + Housewares Show, where we bring you the best new products and gadgets from the annual event, featuring companies from around the world. As with last year, we're happy to have Design Programs Manager Vicki Matranga give us a rundown of what to expect:

Steelcase has announced that they've been studying what many of us have undoubtedly noticed: These days we do a lot more in our chairs than sit and type or mouse. With smartphones and tablets taking an increased role in our workflow—think of how many times a day you're interrupted by texts or the Facebook updates you've routed through your phone to get around your company's broadband blocking—we're leaning back, shifting, and fiddling with devices that aren't part of the work surface.

We undertook a global posture study in 11 countries, observing 2000 people in a wide range of postures, and uncovered nine new postures as a result of new technologies and new behaviors. We studied how the human body interacts with technologies and how it responds as workers shift from one device to another. Research revealed ergonomic implications that, if not adequately addressed, can cause pain and discomfort for workers.

They've distilled their research into an ultra-flexible (figuratively speaking) chair called the Gesture, which is slated for release later this year. We assume they're still working out the kinks, as all we've got for now is a teaser video:

I don't know if all nine of the positions illustrated above are truly new, but I have to admit I do five of them on a daily basis. (How about you?) Also, I'm looking forward to a future video where they demonstrate how the Gesture fits in with these positions.

See also: 'Curious Rituals' - Technology-Induced Gestures & Posture

wants an Account Manager
in New York, New York

Simply put...

...you've started out, you've got two or more years robust FMCG brand and packaging experience and you're looking for your next role. Fancy honing your skills on some of the globes most respected brands? Amongst some of the best peers in the business? If you do, it's high time you got in touch.

Apply Now

By Jan Chipchase

A frog team spent a week in Cairo for client research, workshops and keynotes shortly after the revolution. Our team of six worked out of a downtown hotel, syncing with three local guides over breakfast, before hitting the streets. It's good to have time to calibrate to the city, especially one that has gone through so much disruptive change—there's freedom in the air, and most people that we've spoken to recognise that the hard work in building what-next is yet to come. Tahrir Square is alive with the sounds of debate, face painted kids, and the detritus of protest.

A critical aspect of any project is the ability to set and manage expectations, which is often framed in terms of clients wants and needs. The week in Cairo comes with another set of expectation setting—helping colleagues and family understand what the team is up to, and appreciate that the news headlines represents a tiny sliver of what is going on the ground. I'm not surprised at the number of emails expressing concern, and I know how easily events in a far away land can spiral into a cycle of rumours that elevate danger and risk.

A long time ago, I realized that you should never ask the question to someone in the organisation if you're not willing to listen to and act on the answer. The consequences of questions about security in any organisation is that someone's job is (ostensibly) on the line if things turn south—and organisations are inherently risk averse. This is a problem if the decision makers don't understand the risks on the ground—hence the need to be proactive about setting the tone of the conversation.

Design is about problem-solving, but to some extent we're constrained in what problems we can solve by the boxes our profession places us in. Few of us have the juice to enact widespread control over every aspect of a project. As a result, some of us learn to know "our place," which is not necessarily a pejorative; some can accomplish amazing things within tight constraints. But others start blurring the boundaries between disciplines in an effort to effect holistic change.

Susannah Drake falls in that latter category. In this quick but informative chat, the dlandstudio founder explains how she realized she'd have to expand from architecture into landscape architecture to enact the changes she wanted to see—and that the Gowanus community in Brooklyn, home to a particuarly polluted and flood-prone canal, desperately needed.