Milan-based designer Alessandro Garlandini is a co-founder of ilVespaio, "a creative workshop of social communication and design of eco-friendly products." After a fortuitous visit to a Whirlpool factory, Garlandini and his co-designers discovered the factory was throwing out components they no longer needed, some of them quite expensive.

ilVespaio couldn't let that stuff rot in the trash, and repurposed those parts into the Ri_piano table, made from a cooktop and reclaimed wood, and and the beautiful Scacchie-Re chess set, made from trashed Whirlpool components.

Hopefully a bunch of you are reading this and now thinking "Hmm, is there a factory near me?"

Check out more of ilVespaio's stuff on Coroflot.

We like this ESPN story about designer Michael Princip and his self-started project to redesign football helmets, because it shows Princip thinking not only about the design, but the business side of the project as well.

First, the design. The innovation of Princip's Bulwark design is to segment portions of the helmet in order to dissipate concussion-giving shocks:

Inspired by the vintage MacGregor E & H model helmet form lines, and modern day rugby helmets, the Bulwark helmet is the result of an idea where seam lines, or, a multiple sectioned helmet could be brought back to the modern day and utilize the best in anti-concussion helmet technology. The central focus of this football helmet is a multi-component anti-shock helmet design that has a single shell at the base, then a layer of energy absorbing material (air cells/gel) followed by another layer of multiple, or single hard shell(s).

As for the business side, Princip knows that helmet companies are well-established (Riddell and Schutt are the big dogs) and that he can't beat 'em, but would instead have to join 'em. As ESPN reports, "Princip doesn't want to compete with them -- he hopes to sell or lease the Bulwark concept to one of the established helmet brands and then be part of the development team that brings it to market." A smart way to go, particularly since business concussions are even worse than head concussions.

Missed this one the first time around: Ekokook is a holistic kitchen design project from 2010 by The Faltazi Lab design collective, and it is more than a series of pretty renderings; these guys have done serious research, as you'll see on their website, in their bid to introduce ecologically-sound practices into the modern home.

So what exactly is the Ekokook? It is a complete kitchen system that strives to reduce not only food waste, but electrical and water waste. While it's impossible to succinctly summarize the myriad details that The Faltazi Lab have considered, the following should give you the basic idea:

Our project is based on four essentials: waste management, kitchen health, reduction/consumption of energy, and intelligent storage. Our kitchen has built-in fittings for selecting, processing and storing all kinds of wastes: organic, solid and liquid. As well, the alternatives for conserving and cooking that we propose target a more healthy cuisine, one that uses fresh products raised locally, which are stored in bulk.

We include electrical appliances that consume less energy, such as twin-tier dishwasher, steam oven and refrigerator with compartments. We also try to use materials and fabrication processes that have the least possible negative impact on the environment and which are long-lasting.

Click on over to the Ekokook site to learn more (and yes, you'll actually be able to read the callouts in the photos on their site, where the images are larger).

Didn't see this one coming: Apparently SketchBook Pro, the drawing app many of us designers know and love, is also a favorite app of Oprah Winfrey's. Hence O, The Oprah Magazine and Autodesk have teamed up to release Sketchbook O.

The spin-off app is freely available until March and is launching in conjunction with the "Creativity Challenge" featured in O's February issue. Filmmaker Miranda July has provided five "assignments" that O readers can choose to illustrate in the app (i.e. "Designate a place for something that needs a place," "Reenact something you do every day in reverse") and users can send their illustrations into the O website, with the best to be included in an online gallery.

Of course, that's not the best part, there's more. Ready? ...LOOK UNDER YOUR CHAIR!

I know, there's actually nothing under your chair. Sorry, got carried away.

Maybe it's because the Adult Entertainment Conference was also in town, but the Trojan booth at CES in Las Vegas seemed to get lots of traffic. Trojan? Condoms? At the Consumer Electronics Show, you ask? Well, yes. Apparently in September of 2010, the Trojan brand entered the vibrator market with Trojan Vibrations, a line of vibrators and vibrating rings that help users enhance sexual pleasure. Presented as part of Trojan's new innovations, the design innovation here seems to be the aesthetic considerations that went into making these products acceptable to just about everyone. As Stephanie Berez, Product Manager for Innovation and Vibrations at Trojan explains, "When we set out to enter this category, we wanted to make sure to carry the brand attributes of Trojan (trusted, safe) through the product line. At the same time, we wanted to create a device that would be sensual." With their sleek designs in shades of purple (the color of sensuality, we're told) the products are also designed to be gender neutral and appealing to both partners. There's is also a level of customization that is built into every product--making the vibrators acceptable to a wide range of the market. Nice, friendly packaging too.

With almost 150,000 people in attendance at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, CES had the buzz of the 2007 and 2008 shows and the long lines at the convention center was a good indication that the market is booming once again.

From the design perspective, there was a lot of great color material finish (CMF) examples and some interesting forms. Speck has nice in-mold fabrics and House of Marley really did a kickass job using real wood and other natural material in its inspired products. (Ed. Note--check out our post about House of Marley!)

There was a ton of hype around tablets. With over 15 new Android-based tablets on the floor I was really expecting more compelling product. Blackberry's Playbook fell a bit short but the cases were cool. Motorola's Xoom and Artix with built-in phone charger were pretty dope as well. However, you won't see me ditching my iPad any time soon.

Razer's Switchblade mobile-gaming PC was probably the most innovative device I saw on the floor. A customizable switch-on-the-fly keyboard and 7-inch LCD screen means this little guy packs a mean punch for mobile-PC gamers. Razer also had a pretty sweet Tron-inspired keyboard and mouse.

The Casio Tryx was also one of the more innovative designs I saw. Its articulating design allows the user to set up and hold the video camera in an infinite number of configurations allowing you to capture any moment. Microsoft's new Multitouch & Arc touch mouse were pretty sweet as well and for those of you who have not tried out Kinex yet make sure you do.

See more of Jordan Nollman's Roundup at Sprout and make sure to check out his comprehensive Flickr Roundup!

Milton Glaser spoke today at CreativeMornings at the School of Visual Arts. The designers able to arrive slightly late for work and students able to rub the sleep out of their eyes in the morning were in for a treat, beyond the free coffee and donuts. Glaser overflowed with so much energy and knowledge after eight decades of life that it was easy to imagine that the reason he had trouble hearing the questions at the end was because his brain simply couldn't handle any more content.

Thematically, Glaser wanted to talk about failures, but perhaps because he'd brought the wrong slideshow, or simply because his successes overwhelmed any chance of convincingly explaining failure, we were treated to a freewheeling philosophical exploration of his career. Glaser included lots of process models, of the Rubin Museum, of SVA itself, and much more. Midway through showing his exploration of pattern, printmaking and tapestry, he exclaimed that the design he was showing in PowerPoint was the carpet under our feet. Imagine that congruence in your own career.

It's nigh impossible to encapsulate the wisdom imparted, but we can leave you with a few Zen koan like quotations and paraphrases. (1) "Being able to explain anything is absurd," he explained. "Your fight with your wife this morning might have been due to something that happened when you were two." Or (2), "If that doesn't ring true to you, perhaps simply recognize that the greatest success you can have in your work is to sustain your interest in it." Milton should know.

Unfortunately, if you missed this morning's free event (sponsored by freshbooks and mailchimp and), it can't fully be explained. While a new website is underway for CreativeMornings, be sure to check out their twitter feed or eventbrite for the next event.

The North American International Auto Show is the oldest, and many would argue, most important auto show in the United States. On the eve of the auto show press days, the Motor City Automotive Industry Night demonstrated the way a young, design program adds vitality to the industry. Design is where automotive innovation takes shape.

Keith Nagara (MAIN Organizer) with Lezley Anne models

In its inaugural year, the MAIN Event was an exclusive Detroit affair at the Compuware Building, for luminaries in the auto, design and fashion industries. Guests heard speakers, checked out forward-thinking product design and took in fashion designer Lezley Anne's signature whimsical creations on the runway. Keith Nagara, who heads up Lawrence Tech University's design program, coordinated the event.

Green is in fashion in the Hungarian capital, but the word is often just an empty trunk, a sales argument in a consumer world which forgot its ecological foundations long ago.

Case in point: the Design Passage exhibition which is running throughout the month of November in the Hungarian capital.

Aleksandra Sygiel reports from Budapest in CafeBabel.

> Read article

Giken Engineering Group is the name of a Japanese company that deals with thorny construction problems: How to build a highway in the side of a mountain, how to reduce railway renovation accidents, how to build tidal defenses, where to park your car or bicycle in a crowded city.

The 43-year-old company puts a lot of thought and even philosophy into their solutions--their Five Construction Principles are Environmental Protection, Safety, Speed, Economy and Aesthetics--resulting in some serious out-of-the-box thinking. As an example let's look at their attitude towards parking a car in a city, where Giken has presented themselves with an enormous challenge: They correctly conclude that parking a car "can not be considered a cultural activity which enriches our lives," yet they seek to make it so through clever design.

Criteria for Car Parking Systems (edited)

Door to Door Location. "Door to door" transportation is the most effective way of travel, so the ideal location of car parking is in the very place to be visited. However, places where people gather are normally occupied by existing facilities aboveground. Moreover these objective places are spread over populated areas. In short, an ideal "door to door" car parking needs to be medium sized (50 - 70 cars) and installed or built directly underneath every place to be visited.

Hit the jump for more explanation and photos.

Artist: fueledbycoffee
More: View all Core-toons

Giken Engineering Group's Eco-Cycle urban bicycle parking solution follows the same Five Construction Principles--Environmental Protection, Safety, Speed, Economy and Aesthetics--that they applied to the design of their carpark system. But the Eco-Cycle naturally takes up less space, requiring only a 7-meter-diameter footprint to store 144 bicycles. It's faster, too, at an average of just 10 seconds per storage/retrieval operation.

It's been in operation for at least two years in Japan, but is recently seeing a resurgence of interest on the blog rounds. We love how you just slap a card against the reader to get your bike:

Danny Choo has more complete footage of the entire procedure:

Image courtesy of Will Clayton

This Saturday, January 15th, Wikipedia will be turning 10 years old! To celebrate the founding of the project, NYU's ITP program is hosting a conference in collaboration with Wikimedia New York City, Free Culture @ NYU and the Free Culture Alliance NYC. Described as a "modified unconference," the format includes a dedicated plenary session, 5-minute lightning talks on wiki-topics and free culture, and open space discussions. Sign up here or see more information on the Wikipedia Day 10th Birthday Bash NYC page.

Learn more about birthday parties held around the world at Wikipedia 10 or create your own event to add to the list!

Wowsers--you thought Cameron's unseen dad in Ferris Bueller's Day Off had the crazy rare-Ferrari set-up, in that Mies-van-der-Rohe-esque house in the woods? Nah, that guy was a rank amateur. You need to click over to this Vanity Fair slideshow shot by Todd Eberle and peep the large shots of Ralph Lauren's personal garage/museum, loaded up with rare Ferraris, Bugattis, Benzes, you name it.

The attendant article indicates that these are "60 or so of the rarest, most valuable cars in the world." The cool part is that they don't just sit there like museum pieces--Lauren reportedly drives all of them.

It's just a few weeks until start-up company Heimplanet is schedule to release their no-pole tent. How does the thing stand up without poles, you ask? Using air:

Heimplanet - The Cave from heimplanet on Vimeo.

Definitely a wicked idea, with just one flaw I can see: The lighter weight and reduced bulk you'd have from not having to carry poles is offset by the fact that you'll need to bring...an air compressor. Or someone with really big lungs, like Placido Domingo.

no pole mio

Design is all about context. When that contextual information is removed, products can be very confusing. As designers we often see this when people are introduced to a new technology that is manifested in a design that breaks so strongly with tradition that they don't know how to use it. We often try to build in affordances that allow them to relate their current technology to their new technology. Think of how the play button from your Walkman went straight to you Discman, then to your iPod, and as a digtal button on interfaces.

Of course the opposite is true as well. I recently heard of a grade school child coming across a old corded telephone in a junk shop and exclaiming to her parent "look, this way you won't loose your phone!" ... not realizing it was a necessary part of the technology. I haven't seen it more well demonstrated or in a cuter form, than the above video! Enjoy a little Friday laugh at what todays kids think of your Gameboy you oldsters!

Thanks to ineo in the discussions forums for the tip!

The GOOD DESIGN 2010 award winners were announced recently and represent the work of thousands of designers from 37 nations. With 500 awards given in 2010, this was a record year for both volume of submissions and number awarded. The United States led the number of awards (178) followed by Germany, (134) and then Italy (50) in categories as diverse as electronics, transportation, furniture and technological innovations. Notable winners include India's Tata Nano car, Marc Newson's SMEG Oven, and Motorola's DROID phone. The call for submissions for 2011 is open and the deadline is July 1, 2011.

Founded in Chicago in 1950 by architects Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., GOOD DESIGN bestows international recognition upon the world's most prominent designers and manufacturers for advancing new, visionary, and innovative product concepts, invention and originality, and for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered ordinary product and consumer design.

A complete list of winners and the application for 2011's awards can be found at the Chicago Athenaeum website.

Senior Industrial Designer
Steelcase, Inc.
Grand Rapids, MI

Steelcase, Inc. is pursuing creative individuals with diverse interests and experiences to share our passion for exceptional design, designers that understand where design has come from and are willing to articulate where they think it should be going. People that solve problems with 2D, 3D and full-scale modeling, weigh global impact along with user delight and have a diverse knowledge of materials and their mechanical properties would be an ideal fit. If you are willing to observe the world to learn and better understand these issues, please apply.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

The ITP Winter Show 2010 brought a new level of polish to the presentation of this semester's plethora of reactive screens and new interfaces. There were more projects than usual from foundation classes like Intro to Physical Computing and Computational Media, but the immersive engagement of projects like Channels (paddling in pails of water to navigate a 3D environment), Cadence Chair (carefully control the speed of a rocking chair to resolve the video and audio), Pulse Drip (a mechanical readout of your heart rate from ink drops), Thought Bubbles (blowing bubbles releases users' ideas about bubbles), and Song Cabinet (rearrange objects and drawers to change the tune) belied their first year graduate course nature--to name just a few.

Moss was a popular material (Moss Invaders, Polymoss) this semester, as were furry creations (Monster Valley, Noise Nest), while newer classes like Designing Living Systems (Planting Steps, CrabSense), Video Sculpture (Write Me, Record Player, Dollhouse), and Basic Analog Circuits (time machine: inner landscape, REMI) also had strong representation. Projects reflecting popular concepts like instrumentation (Rain Drop, Musical Thread), wearable technologies (Smart Phone Jewelry, Fe Wearables, We Flashy), and tele-presence/awareness (WebCatting, Miriam's Boner) also had strong showings.

There were also a number of screen based data visualization, and even 3D, projects that simply weren't translatable into photographs, and I decided against invading the men's washroom to photograph the ITP WC project, but you can view those named above and more at our gallery.

>> view gallery

We're pleased to share an exciting promotion from our friends and partners at IDSA. With the deadline to enter this year's IDEA awards just two weeks away, registrants entering within the next week can take advantage of additional discounts and offers.

Register and submit your entry by Jan 21st and receive discounted half-price premium gallery listings for your design if selected as a winner, plus you'll be entered to win one of five passes to an upcoming regional district conference this spring. Don't wait, enter today!

Also be sure to check out Davin Stowell's (Smart Design) tips for creating a standout submission, and make the most of your entry this year.