Metro’s award-winning design team (Metro Design Studio) is seeking a talented and motivated Graphic Designer to provide graphic design services as a temporary employee (30 hours/week; initial engagement is for one year). The selected designer will work with Metro’s in-house creative team in our downtown Los Angeles headquarters under the under the supervision of Metro’s Creative Director and Art Directors.
View the full design job hereWe've seen Nixie-tube-based clocks before, but Italy-based Igor Gudiy has taken them to another level. Under the shop name NixieHorizonte, Gudiy is selling Nixie-tube wristwatches of his own design on Etsy:
The watch can display the time in either 12- or 24-hour format, as well as the date and even the temperature, thanks to an onboard sensor.
The user can choose from seven different brightness levels for the tubes, and they're not always on; you can either choose to illuminate them at the press of a button, or set it so that the built-in accelerometer detects when you've raised your arm to check the time and the tubes will then kick in. The user sets the illumination duration.
The body is milled from aluminum or brass, and the protective screen is Gorilla Glass. Surprisingly, the watch only weighs 70 grams (2.5 ounces).
The watch comes with a docking station made from wood and brass, and it charges via magnetic contacts. The battery life is "2-3 weeks with the accelerometer mode or over 1 month with manual ignition."
Each one is made to order and will set you back $852.
Here's a delivery drone Buckminster Fuller might have liked. While it's not quite a geodesic dome, this quadrotor developed by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems comes inside a cage-like sphere that protects it from impacts in flight, and keeps the spinning blades away from the fingers of the person catching it. Impressively, the cage can be folded into itself for storage, effectively reducing its volume by 92%. Take a look:
The full research paper on the design is called "An origami-inspired cargo drone" and can be read here.
Via Technabob
The Memphis College of Art, whose location sites them near the intersection of Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has been providing degrees in art and design since 1936. On the undergraduate level they offer BFAs in Animation, Art Education, Graphic Design, Illustration, Illustration/Comics, Painting/Drawing and Photography; BFAs in Fine Arts with concentrations in Drawing/Painting, Metals, Photography and Sculpture; and a BFA in Design Arts/Graphic Design. On the graduate side, they offer MFAs in Illustration, Metals, Painting/Drawing, Photography and Studio Art, as well as a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and a Master of Arts in Art Education (MAArtEd).
Sadly, yesterday MCA announced they will be closing their doors. "The Board of Directors of the College, facing declining enrollment, overwhelming real estate debt, and no viable long-term plan for financial sustainability, has voted to stop recruiting new students, effective immediately, and begin making plans to close the College," reads a statement from the school.
The Board vote resulted from a long process that eventually determined that an independent, private fine arts and design college is no longer financially sustainable in Memphis.
Currently enrolled students will be allowed to complete their programs, albeit amidst the sight of the school's buildings being sold off piecemeal to fund the "teach-out," which should wrap in 2020.
The Memphis College of Art, which is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, is a small (450-student), private college. Ironically, just two months ago it was announced that the University of Arkansas is establishing a new School of Art--following a generous gift of $120 million from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the heirs of the Walmart empire. For all of the negative rap that corporate money receives, at least some of it is being used to support the arts, and will hopefully shore up arts education in the region.
I think it's important, for the sake of diversity of upbringing in creative industries, that art and design schools populate the entire country rather than collecting along the coasts. Some design schools in the middle of the country thrived in those locations with access to local industry (for instance RIT and Kodak, CCS and Detroit's automakers) while others don't have such lifelines and must survive on their financial wits and ability to provide a strong education.
For those of you attending non-coastal art and design schools, where are you, why did you choose to attend there, and what do you see as the strengths/weaknesses of your school? Please sound off in the comments; the information could be valuable to high school students reading this who are trying to find the right school for them and aren't interested in the coastal options.
Want to join a company that is all about championing the power of play by creating quality toys and games for children, adults and families. PlayMonster is the perfect combination of playful and professional, and true play experts because we understand play for ALL AGES! The Product Designer is responsible for taking products from concept through production under specific timelines by creating renderings, sketches, layouts, designing products, quote packages and data analysis for products within the toy and game industry.
View the full design job hereThe Chevrolet Chevelle, particularly the SS (Super Sport) variant, is one of America's classic muscle car designs. It premiered in 1964 and went through several design upgrades over the years. Let's take a look at how it evolved, and you tell us when you think it started to stink. (Obviously it's tough to find good photos of these cars in their original condition, as the hot rod modders tend to take the best photos, so if you can please block out the variety of aftermarket rims and suspension heights.)
Yeah.
No turntable video of this car is available. In fact, no video footage of this car should even exist.
- What was your favorite year?
- And while it was clearly over by 1973, at which point do you feel the design of the Chevelle started to decline?
I spent this morning at NYC's Department of City Planning exercising some civic duty - participating in a rezoning meeting. Industry City, my former landlord, wants to get a zoning change for its large Brooklyn complex which is currently zoned for industry and manufacturing, enabling it to have more retail, commercial and office space, and a hotel.
Their main public argument is that they have pumped millions into the complex, which has about 6.5 million square feet of space, and have increased the number of tenant businesses from a hundred or so to over 450 tenants, and they want to continue expanding.
I decided to testify because Industry City is extremely savvy and great at public presentations. They typically frame their approach as that of job creation and opportunity. Very clever! Who would be against this? Politicians and other civic leaders generally don't hear from people like me (and meetings that take up hours in the middle of the day are not going to attract many small business owners). My main point was that you can build commercial and retail space almost anywhere else in the city, but there is a real shortage of industrial spaces. Industry City in general doesn't like real industrial companies. When I moved to the complex in 2007, there were - by their count - over 60 cabinet shops. That's a lot of woodworkers and for us, potential customers. Now there are way fewer, and my customers are disappearing to places outside of NYC. Slowly but surely the infrastructure that makes our business, and in fact any hardware or lumber business viable, is vanishing. At some point critical mass will be gone.
Industry City was acquired by new owners a few years ago, and to their credit they did invest money in the buildings. As folks who visited us back in the old space might remember, we had only a freight elevator, and if you came when the operator was on lunch, you earned bragging rights to the 5 story stair climb. Our wires were all exposed. The new owners put in an elevator, improved the wiring and made many cosmetic improvements. These improvements warrant rental increases, but that is not what animated the sale.
Instead, it was the hope of a handout. In NYC, zoning restrictions mean that landlords and property owners cannot do whatever they wish with a property. Industrially zoned land is the cheapest kind of land in the city, relative to other uses (residential, commercial, mixed). The restrictions depressed the valued of the complex, which was reflected of course in the sales price. As new owners, the new Industry City team spent millions not only on building improvements, but also on lobbying to get pesky rules - their zoning restrictions - waived.
I thought it was important to remind the City Planning Commission about a few salient points. Industry City might brag about jobs that they say they "created," but they aren't actual job creators. The jobs that are now in Industry City now were mostly moved from other parts of the city, or would have been created in other parts of the city. This is not true of the manufacturing jobs. Losing industrial space means losing industrial jobs like cabinetmaking and set building, both of which have made a steady march upstate or out of state. Creating more commercial and retail space, which could go almost anywhere, out of rare industrial space seems like a bizarre goal given the large number of vacant storefronts NYC now has because of on-line shopping.
Another important point for the City to consider. Most of the investment money for IC and other large developments comes from international sources. The results of their hoped-for windfall resulting from a rules change won't even stay local. The billionaire that makes the huge return isn't living in NYC, their taxes and donations will end up supporting some other place somewhere.
Did my comments make a difference? It's hard to know. Sometimes these public presentations are window dressing on decisions made long ago. But I don't regret speaking up on behalf of woodworkers and other industrial workers. If I don't, who will?
People all over the country read this blog and many of you will think - why don't you just move here - rent's cheap. But we like it here and if the Government would just enforce the zoning laws we have and not let any big company with a pile of dough for lobbyists challenge the law - we would be fine. All the industrial space in NYC is under constant attack from big investors and foreign money who know with a stroke of the pen they can make a killing.
Our jobs are at stake.
_________
This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.
A fishing town in Ísafjörður, Iceland is experimenting with a way to get drivers to pay attention to the road. What they've come up with is this optical illusion:
Artist Jenny McCracken did something similar in New Zealand:
As did the New Delhi Municipal Council in India:
And London:
And there's this dastardly one in Vancouver:
It's an eye-catching idea, but do you reckon these are effective after a driver has seen them more than a few times? I figure it'd like watching a 3D movie, where after a while you're no longer conscious of the effect.
The Only Clock is a digital wall/desk LED clock with a hollow round face.
When it comes to design, simplicity is often the best policy. The Only Clock was designed as a modern interpretation of a traditional analog wall clock. According to Dieter Rams, good design is as little design as possible. In the process of making the Only Clock, we were focused on essential design details—not burdening the object with redundancy. We used this philosophy to create an eye-catching and functional piece of art. Back to purity, back to simplicity.
Find your fit with Payless ShoeSource as a Senior Footwear Designer in our New York Design Office. You know who you are. And you know what moves you. That's why your chosen career should fit you as well as your favorite pair of shoes, every step of the way. And that's what makes a career with Payless ShoeSource the perfect fit for you.
View the full design job hereIt's not voyeurism if you don't look inside the window, right?
Mexican designer José Guizar, who's based in New York and spends part of his time "making super secret things at Google Creative Lab," has a sideline personal project: Capturing the essence, Adobe-Illustrator-style, of random NYC windows.
"The Windows of New York project is a illustrated fix for an obsession that grew in me when I first moved to this city," Guizar writes.
A product of countless steps of journey through the city streets, this is a collection of windows that somehow have caught my restless eye out from the never-ending buzz of the streets.
This project is part an ode to architecture and part a self-challenge to never stop looking up.
On Guizar's Windows of New York website each image is captioned with the precise location. They're oddly mesmerizing to look at, and part of the fun is seeing a familiar window and realizing it's right around the corner from you.
Via Kottke
It's been a while since someone's portfolio knocked my socks off, so I was pleased to come across the work of Scotland-based product designer Scott Jarvie, principal of Jarvie-Design.
I'm loving how Jarvie combines a mastery of form with both practicality and visual storytelling. As one example, take a look at this elegant package design for Macallan 18 and read the description:
Historically fine whiskeys have been packaged within boxes or tubes. These are linear containers that speak little of the unique nature of their precious contents. The vision for the MacAllan 18 Year Secondary Packaging concept was to celebrate the beauty of this magical spirit by referencing the bow of the barrow, the contour of the still and the arc of the pour.
This design journey began by considering what makes The Macallan unique – The 6 Pillars. Each of these pillars is represented as a facet of the structure, which was made possible through a pioneering a card manipulation technique that allowed complex surfaces to be derived from a single sheet of material.
Luxury is often associated with a decadent approach to material. We redefined this perception by using simple materials in an innovative manner.
The technical challenge of this packaging design project was to create a system that would allow the box to be top loaded on a bottling line. Our solution was to create an injection moulded bezel and top cap that are fitted by means of a non-returning deflecting clip. The top cap moulding also features a spring retention feature to hold the bottle closure.
I don't want to cut-and-paste the man's entire website, but I do want to show you enough to entice you to visit it. Plastic, glass, metal, wood, Jarvie works with it all. Check out this Cascade Box, which Jarvie designed, manufactured and patented:
Peep the joinery and details on his Y Table:
Take a look at his Undulus modular lighting system, "inspired by the beauty of cloud formations:"
Or this elegant Lakeland Cling Film Dispenser:
This Aperitivo Tray for Peroni, designed to be used in concert with illuminated tables to indicate occupancy:
This One Cut Chair, ten of which can be cut from a single sheet of plywood using a waterjet cutter:
There's plenty more to see over at Jarvie's site. Check it out.
Industrial designer Eric Strebel has already shown us some great techniques for building foamcore models, but this set of tricks takes the cake. Here he builds a model of a Bluetooth speaker, the design of which calls for both conical surfaces and compound curves, and reveals some clever techniques that come from decades of experience.
One particularly neat trick is that he constructs the frame of the model to be adjustable, so that he can play with the proportions in physical 3D to fine-tune them. He also shows you how by thinking ahead a couple of steps, you can create very accurate patterns using paper and can then transfer them to the foamcore.
Dive in and check this out:
- FoamCore Basics: Modeling Tips & Tricks for Designers, Part 1
- FoamCore Basics, Modeling Tips & Tricks for Designers, Part 2: Making Clean, Curved Shapes
- Brilliant Method for Forming Compound Surfaces with FoamCore
Hello! We are jones knowles ritchie We’re an award-winning global design agency who believe in the power of design to help brands grow. By amplifying and celebrating what makes brands unique, we help them get noticed and chosen. We work for some of the most famous brands in the world out of our studios in New York, London, Shanghai and Singapore. We are 27 years young and proudly independent.
View the full design job hereUnless you have experience with traditional boatbuilding or making traditional Japanese sake cups, you may not realize you can join two pieces of wood together--with no glue or sealant--in such a way as to make the joint watertight. Here master woodworker Frank Klausz reveals the trick taught to him by his grandfather, fabricating a helpful tool out of materials you probably have lying around:
It is indeed a clever technique, exploiting the behavior of both wood and water, and this is the first time I've seen it demonstrated.
For decades, automotive design has been limited by the components necessary to make the car run. The interior and exterior forms we can create evolve as the mechanics evolve. As our tool correspondent David Frane pointed out in his write-up on the Bollinger B1, "Traditional [vehicle] design flies out the window when you don't have to accommodate a transmission and engine." That's how you get a truck with the B1's cool pass-through:
General Motors' design team, too, is embracing what's possible with electric motors with their SURUS concept. The Silent Utility Rover Universal Superstructure, as it's known, is the most minimal example we've seen of a heavy-duty truck.
Meant to serve as a modular underpinning for end users who need to haul things, the SURUS is basically a quartet of wheel units, each with its own motor and each able to independently steer. Bound together by a chassis, the platform is intended to be equipped with self-driving software and can support a variety of form factors, depending on what the end user desires:
As we hurtle towards the future, I will say that the driver cab add-on looks positively passé.
The reliability of New York City's overtaxed, delay-ridden subway system has declined precipitously in recent years. Individual tales of woe abound on social media; after a recent three-hour delay, this student even missed his own graduation.
One of the worst commutes is the morning crush from overcrowded Williamsburg to Manhattan, where straphangers routinely have to let two or three trains go by before they can manage to squeeze inside. That's on the L line. In an attempt to solve this problem, this week the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) rolled out some retrofitted L-train cars which contain these:
If it's not obvious, those seats fold shut.
The idea is that by folding them upwards, more people can fit in the car if they stand in the space taken up by the seats.
Here's the problem: People are selfish jerks. No one who has scored a seat on a crowded NYC subway car is going to stand up, sacrificing their own comfort for the sake of the larger group. (As our manners as a society have declined, I've even seen sitters on the subway completely ignore the pregnant woman standing in front of them.)
The MTA has anticipated selfishness, and thus mandated that MTA workers lock the seats in the upright position during the morning and evening commutes. This sounds effective, if a bit Draconian. But this practice has given rise to two more problems. One is that the MTA has not clearly communicated to riders that the seats are meant to be locked upwards; this leads to commuters getting onto the emergency intercom to complain to the conductor that the seats are broken, according to the New York Post.
The second problem is that the workers do not unlock the seats when the train is empty, but instead on a timetable. This makes no sense. For example, after reaching the terminus in Manhattan and discharging its human cargo, the L-train is largely empty for the trip back into Brooklyn. But with the seats still locked shut, you have "people forced to stand in mostly empty cars," as the Post writes.
On Wednesday one of the retrofitted cars had to be taken out of service less than a day after it debuted, according to the Daily News.
A maintenance supervisor reported that vandalism was apparently the cause of damage to two sets of flip-up seats in a car, after an inspector at the Canarsie Yard was unable to lock the seats into position.
Metal brackets were bent and cables ripped out of one set of seats, while another set was reported broken. The train was later sent to a Brooklyn repair yard.
So to recap, we have:
1) Selfish Jerks
2) Lack of Communication
3) People Standing When They Don't Have To
4) Vandals
How can you solve for all of these? The solution is elusive. Sadly, the most effective solution is to knock out #1, #2 and #4 and live with #3 by doing what the MTA has done with the retrofitted cars on the E-line:
Seats were removed at the ends of each of the cars to increase capacity and reduce the time it takes for passengers to get on and off the trains. The seat removal is expected to increase the capacity of each train by between 80 and 100 passengers.
This is why we can't have nice things.
The Core77 team spends time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite finds from the World Wide Web:
A great interview with Derek Jenkins, the VP of Design at Lucid Motors.
The backstory on two new NYC parks inspired by the city's history.
A short history of Italian furniture company Cassina, on the event of the company's 90th anniversary.
A 1977 concept van from AMC. Crazy styling. Rolling, with no engine. Put an electric motor in it, add some autonomous vehicle tech, and it looks like it is ready to be a robotic uber for 2019.
Cuban designers are skirting the U.S. embargo—here's how.
"Wim Wenders on his Polaroids – and why photography is now over".
A look into how Snap's Spectacles glasses were a complete and utter flop.
Artists Sean Ohlenkamp and Rob Popkin literally spent years, and a boatload of pumpkins, to create the following animation. And if you're wondering how they could possibly carve such intricate patterns into something as inconsistent as the surface of a pumpkin, they show you at the end (as well as the fact that much of the music itself was created with pumpkins):
Writes the pair of their techniques:
Dozens upon dozens upon dozens of pumpkins were cut, gutted, rotated, scraped, poked, slapped, and banged to make this stop-motion animation and the music that bring it to life. It took a few years - pumpkins rot, schedules get busy - but we loved discovering the methods that worked and the many that didn't.
Many pumpkins were photographed twice. First as a nicely lit, carving-free plate. Then again after carving our designs and removing the top or back so we could insert a light. The two were then composited together to remove the lighting equipment. We re-used pumpkins where we could (fronts and backs and sometimes sides) but that wasn't always possible.
We often projected images onto the pumpkins to improve consistency between frames,, but due to each pumpkin's unique curves, it often took just putting it in front of the camera to check alignment. There were many animations that didn't make it into the final piece which seemed like good ideas at the time but ended up being too complicated and did not work (a carved heart that emerged and beat with the pulsing of the light, a complex halloween themed pumpkin zoetrope, and an animation of a tree that grows as the pumpkins sizes do among others).
…We hope this inspires others and can't wait to see what you create!
