Atari 1200 & A300 Vintage Concept Sketches

September 26, 2010, 5:11 pm

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Those of you that know me even casually know I savor a fine set of vintage concept sketches the way a sommelier might a rare bottle of Chateau Lafitte. So you can imagine my excitement when a co-worker at frog sent me this set of concept sketches from Atari, 1981 vintage.

" By 1981 Atari's home computer division began looking into replacements for the aging 400/800 line of computers. Several types of systems were conceptualized and in the end it came down to two routes. One was called the A-300 project which involved a new series of Atari computers which would work as modules and plug together to form a complete computer system. The second was an evolution of the A-300 project that shed all of the expansion and modular design for a low profile, high tech computer system which became the Atari 1200XL Computer System."

See the entire set of 18 images at the online Atari Museum here.

If you are like me, and you can't get enough of this stuff, be sure to check out the Vintage Concept Sketches discussion in the forum here.

Thanks to Amina Horozic for the tip

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Huge is seeking an Art Director in Brooklyn, NY

September 27, 2010, 7:18 am

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Art Director
Huge
New York, NY

HUGE Art Directors report to the Creative Director and work alongside the Client Services, User Experience, and Technology Teams. They are responsible for developing creative concepts and approaches with the project team, developing original design concepts as well as oversee project design all the way through execution. They are also responsible for presenting work to executive level client stakeholders and representing HUGE's visual design process and integrity at all stages of an engagement. Art Directors are also responsible for providing art direction and leadership to designers working on their project teams, scoping design phases of projects accurately and efficiently as well as attend pitches and industry events as required.

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London Design Festival 2010 On-The-Go: Raw Edges' New Bench

September 27, 2010, 7:49 am

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The last day of the London Design Festival is grey and rainy, but Raw Edges' Plaid Bench brings some cheery colour to Spitalfields Market.

London Design Festival On-The-Go posts are sent to Core77 via MMS by Shai Akram. For more, follow us on twitter.

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Disaster relief design & engineering: Rescue Wizard wins Red Dot

September 27, 2010, 8:21 am

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While a lot of industrial design projects start from client briefs of the "Design us a sexier coffeemaker" variety, there are also those projects that start from the discovery of a new material. Inventor Andy Morrison had been dreaming of a rescue winch for years, but the materials he'd need to build what he'd envisioned simply didn't exist. Then, in 2008, he discovered a type of rope that was as strong as steel cable, but only 1/10th of the weight. Around the same time Morrison watched news reports of China's devastating Sichuan earthquake, which reduced 600,000 structures to rubble almost instantaneously.

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London Design Festival 2010: The Pink World of Ineke Hans

September 27, 2010, 8:33 am

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The Aram Gallery for new and experimental design hosts the first solo show of Dutch designer Ineke Hans, entitled 'Mind sets'. The collection of objects and artifacts chart a journey through a thinking process, driven by Hans, through 'sign', 'stretch' and 'solve.' She presents a mix of objects that illustrate her ideas, whether produced on her own or curated from other people. Running until the 30th October.

More images after the jump.

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Electrolux Design Lab 2010 winners announced

September 27, 2010, 8:36 am

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The results are in for this year's Electrolux Design Lab competition, and before we get to the winner, here's a quick vid recapping the finalists to refresh your memory:

And the winner is...

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Arman Emami's improved paper clip design

September 27, 2010, 9:25 am

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I remember Henry Petroski's The Evolution of Useful Things book from my design school days, and the paper clip on the cover being touted as a more or less perfect product design. The humble clip performed its job well, used a minimum of materials and manufacturing processes, and there was nothing that could be practically added to it to increase its functionality.

Until now, that is. Designer Arman Emami's Clip-it, designed for Verbatim, is a flash drive paper clip that holds two to four gigabytes of data. Meaning Petroski's entire book will now fit handily on a paper clip, at least if it's a Clip-it. Pretty meta.

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A Bluetooth headset that records video

September 27, 2010, 9:41 am

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As a design blogger, you become an expert (or so I falsely thought) at glancing at a photo and being able to tell if it's a real product or a rendered concept. So I initially dismissed the Looxcie, above, as somebody's sophomore project that would get two weeks of blog love and then fall off the face of the Earth like the guy who played Jon on CHiPs.

But no, the Looxcie is a real product, for sale on Amazon, with reviews and everything. It's basically a Bluetooth headset with a tiny video camera on it. It records for a few hours at a time, but doesn't save any of the footage until you hit a button, at which point it essentially TiVos the last 30 seconds; presumably you wait for something video-worthy to happen, then pull the trigger.

So far the reviews generally praise the device while complaining about the video/audio quality and battery life, but this is clearly a product in its infancy that will see incremental improvements and, most likely, staying power. Unlike poor Larry Wilcox (I had to look it up).

"He's standing right next to me and
I still don't remember his name!"

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London Design Festival 2010: Designs for Hand Luggage Dimensions at Norweigan Prototypes

September 27, 2010, 10:46 am

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Keel Seat by Oscar Narud

The Norwegian Prototypes show on Leonard Street shows work from a cross section of contributors, ranging from students to established practitioners. The 14 designers were invited to submit products or furniture that could be transported in their hand luggage. The results were placed alongside an explanatory film, howing sketches and short interviews of the designers talking about their work.

Highlights include Oscar Narud's 'Keel Seat,' demonstrated below, and Sara Wright Polmar's 'Peggy' wall hanging system.

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Hand-Eye Supply: Plumen 001 Exhibition Opening Photos

September 27, 2010, 11:29 am

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Thanks to everyone who made it out to the Plumen 001 launch at Hand-Eye Supply in Portland last Thursday, and congratulations to Dara who won herself a specially converted Plumen for the US. The exhibition will be on display for a month, and for those of you who can't make it, checkout the photo's below.

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RCA Launch 'First Hand' Design Products Collection

September 27, 2010, 11:45 am

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Mark Owens Avatar Suit is one of the selected products from the RCA Design Products Collection

The Design Products Masters course at The Royal College of Art in London has recently launched its first commercially viable, serial run product collection. Curated by Design Products head of department Toord Boontje and senior tutor, Gareth Williams, fourteen products by thirteen designers have been chosen for the Design Products Collection, to be exhibited at the RCA until 7th October as part of the London Design festival.

Entitled 'First Hand,' this collection will give buyers direct access to new design concepts and innovative craft-making. Products in the collection have been chosen to demonstrate the diversity of conceptual approaches and technologies prevalent at the College--not only furniture, but also lighting, a clock, a radio, ceramics and jewellery.

Selected pieces range from El Ultimo Grito's Cardboard and Resin table, Oscar Narud's Keel Stool/Side table from Okay Studio and Marc Owens 3-d computer game avatar accessories, as well as work by more recent graduates from the DP course.

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Valencia Design Week 2010: Connecting the Dots Exhibition

September 27, 2010, 11:54 am

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First day at the Valencia Design Week 2010 today. First on the list was "Uniendo Puntos"—meaning "Connecting the Dots"—an exhibition intended to showcase craft and design talent from across the Spanish speaking world, with contributors from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and El Salvador.

The exhibition, curated by local designer Luis Eslava, will be on show at the Sala Estudio General. La Nau, Valencia until October 24th.

"Marks"—stickers for the ultra-anal by Ivan Exposito.

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MoreGood's Opensource D-I Y Unique Poster Service

September 27, 2010, 12:15 pm

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Amy Ricketts from MoreGood, a design collaboration based in London, has recently launched a free open source graphic design 'service' called D-I Y that allows users to generate unique design solutions for anything that can be printed onto an A4 sheet.

Based on a number of randomly selected stylesheets; the D-I Y design process asks the user to enter their information (none of which is stored by the service) and experiment with layout and typography with the aid of a background grid. A random image is sourced from Flickr and each print out has a unique number acting as an edition serial number.

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Boats, Barns, Bulbs: American Designer Brendan Ravenhill

September 27, 2010, 1:08 pm

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We took a little time today to explore Brendan Ravenhill's portfolio of works, after receiving photos of his Bare Light, a delicate, richly detailed version of the classic hanging light bulb. In browsing, we found that not only does Brendan produce lighting and furniture, but he's also a boat and barn builder, a sensibility that informs much of his smaller scale-work. Though the Bare Light is probably the most immediately striking piece in his repertoire, there is something wonderfully understated and poetic about his slightly off-keel tractor shed—both are pictured above.

See our selection of favorites from the wide range of his work after the jump.

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Caterpillar is seeking a Design Engineer in Peoria, IL

September 28, 2010, 8:37 am

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Design Engineer
Caterpillar
Peoria, IL

The individual will be responsible for concept, design, and development activities for the non-metallic trim elements (e.g., headliners, floor mat, instrument/control panels, trim covers, ventilation ducts, roof caps, etc.) on new cab programs.

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Robotic window cleaner, but I want a shower-bot

September 28, 2010, 9:01 am

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As an avid iRobot Scooba and Dirt Dog user, what I really want to see them invent is a robot that sticks to slick surfaces and cleans my shower. A robot version of Scrubbing Bubbles.

I thought this Windoro robot, from South Korea's Pohang Institute of Intelligent Robotics, would be a first step in this direction as it appears to cling to the vertical glass it's cleaning. Alas, after watching the video you realize it's actually two robots stuck together on either side of the glass, held in place by magnets. It's a cool-looking concept, but impractical for the situation where it would be most useful, skyscraper washing. Given that the windows on many high-rises don't open, attaching the Windoro to both sides would be pretty darn impossible.

StyleCowboys.nl | Windoro Robot to Clean your Windows from Stylecowboys on Vimeo.

via style cowboys

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Segway OWNER (not Kamen) who passed away invented a system for stopping floods and bullets

September 28, 2010, 9:30 am

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Amid yesterday's frenetic and often badly-worded Tweeting, you could be forgiven for thinking that Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, had died. In fact British businessman James Heselden, who owned the Segway company, was the one who met an untimely demise.

Who was James Heselden? Turns out he was an inventor too, and he made his fortune developing the Hesco Bastion, a clever system of constructing barriers that is used for both flood control and military fortifications.

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Service Design Network Conference: October 29th, Cambridge, MA

September 28, 2010, 9:40 am

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On October 29th, leading practitioners in service design will convene in Cambridge, Massachusetts for an intense and insightful one-day conference on the fast-growing discipline. Hosted by the Service Design Network on October 29th, the event will be preceded by an evening welcome reception the night before.

Registration is still open—after checking out the roster of stellar speakers, go ahead and book your tickets. Core77 is proud to be a media sponsor, and we hope to see you there!

Hit the jump for program highlights.

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Sweet (and freaking expensive) design solutions to dead cabinet corners

September 28, 2010, 9:56 am

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I'm getting ready to put some new base cabinets in my space, and since every square inch counts, I'm tormented by what I'm going to do with the dead corner. You know, that unfortunate box of space where cabinets meet at ninety degrees, and where you can't easily access stuff in the back without getting down on all fours and sticking your arms inside while turning your head to the side and making a "this really sucks" expression.

A lot of people stick Lazy Susans in there, but I knew there had to be more design-y solutions, so I poked around and found these:

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An escalator that gets its swerve on

September 28, 2010, 11:32 am

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The escalator was invented over a hundred years ago (in the late 1800s, believe it or not) and since then they've always gone in a straight line; but now, thanks to Jack Levy, an aesthetic upgrade has been developed.

Levy, City University London Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has patented the Levytator, an escalator that can follow curves by means of specially-designed steps that recall the sections of conveyor belt you see at airport baggage claims.

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