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NYIGF 2011 :: Just for Fun

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This is a nice collection of fun things we spotted at the show. From a brass mustache wine key to a sliced piggy bank for pork lovers, here's a little dash of fun to end the day.

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Playsam Sweden makes beautiful wooden toys for kids of all ages. This miniature Roadster Saab is crafted after the very first Saab -- Sixten Sason's prototype 92001. And the wooden and metal wheel construction mimics the steering wheels of classic sports cars.

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Umbra, maker of iconic homewares like the Garbino garbage can, introduced the "Pongo" at this year's fir, a portable ping pong set. The retractable net stores ping pong balls in the stands and the plastic paddle handles pop out with a push of a button.

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IDEO is Seeking a Business Ops Lead in Cambridge, MA

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Business Operations Lead
IDEO

Cambridge, MA

IDEO is seeking a Business Operations Lead for its Boston studio. We are looking for an individual with strong analytical capabilities as well as the ability to build trusting relationships across a diverse design team. This person must demonstrate a collaborative leadership style, great communication skills, and an ability to thrive in a 'non-rules based' environment of innovation. At IDEO, Operations is about supporting great decision making, building trust and demonstrating great judgment We strive to build both a healthy business AND a generative innovation driven culture.

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Aava Mobile "Blackbox" Case Study, by Thomas Valcke

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Core77 was proud to work with Aava Mobile to create two distinct design invitational challenges. In the first phase, we combed through the 200,00+ portfolios on our site Coroflot.com to find the 5 most creative thinkers and sketchers in the world of consumer products. Each created sets of scenarios articulating the potential use-case scenarios of the mobile device. The second phase challenged one of the phase 1 participants as well as an additional designer to create more refined, rendered concepts closer to production pieces rather than blue-sky concepts. Both of the designers took the challenge seriously (and with delight) delivering incredible work that was both rigorous and imaginative. Core77 could not have been happier with the results, and we are gratified to continue making strong connections between designers and manufacturers.

As a celebration of the success of phase 2, we are publishing the case studies from each of the designers to share some of their learnings from this design invitational. Thomas Valcke, a Belgium-based product designer shares his process below.

PHASE 1
In concepting design options for the Lampi, the design challenge was to explore new form-languages for future Aava smartphone models and docking-stations. The hardware components and layout were setout beforehand so the challenge was a styling exercise: exploring forms and shapes to convey a certain kind of character and emotion. I began by exploring many form-languages (angular, organic, basic). After my initial exploration, it was clear that the challenge lie in styling an object that is nothing but a box without making the styling itself superfluous.

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Aava Mobile Design Invitational :: Case Studies for Phase 2

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aavaTwistBBOX.jpgLeft - TWIST, by Alberto Villareal and AGENT / Right - Blackbox, by Thomas Valcke

Core77 was proud to work with Aava Mobile to create two distinct design invitational challenges. In the first phase, we combed through the 200,00+ portfolios on our site Coroflot.com to find the 5 most creative thinkers and sketchers in the world of consumer products. Each created sets of scenarios articulating the potential use-case scenarios of the mobile device. The second phase challenged one of the phase 1 participants as well as an additional designer to create more refined, rendered concepts closer to production pieces rather than blue-sky concepts. Both of the designers took the challenge seriously (and with delight) delivering incredible work that was both rigorous and imaginative. Core77 could not have been happier with the results, and we are gratified to continue making strong connections between designers and manufacturers.

As a celebration of the success of phase 2, we are publishing the case studies from each of the designers to share some of their learnings from this design invitational.

>> Alberto Villareal and AGENT's "TWIST" Case Study
>> Thomas Valcke's "Blackbox" Case Study

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Aava Mobile "TWIST" Case Study, by Alberto Villareal and AGENT

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Core77 was proud to work with Aava Mobile to create two distinct design invitational challenges. In the first phase, we combed through the 200,00+ portfolios on our site Coroflot.com to find the 5 most creative thinkers and sketchers in the world of consumer products. Each created sets of scenarios articulating the potential use-case scenarios of the mobile device. The second phase challenged one of the phase 1 participants as well as an additional designer to create more refined, rendered concepts closer to production pieces rather than blue-sky concepts. Both of the designers took the challenge seriously (and with delight) delivering incredible work that was both rigorous and imaginative. Core77 could not have been happier with the results, and we are gratified to continue making strong connections between designers and manufacturers.

As a celebration of the success of phase 2, we are publishing the case studies from each of the designers to share some of their learnings from this design invitational. Alberto Villareal, Creative Director of the Mexico City-based design firm AGENT shares his process below.

Aava Mobile, a Finnish company founded in 2009 by a team of engineering wizards who built an open-source mobile device platform, asked AGENT to design their latest smart phone.

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Alberto Villarreal, the Creative Director of Mexico City-based firm AGENT explains their design approach: "We focused on making it simple, but with a twist."

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Glif guys, Part 1: Getting it Started

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Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt, designers of the Glif, were the first product designers to bring Kickstarter into the public consciousness. In the days before anyone realized Kickstarter could have a profound effect on the field of industrial design, the roughly $137,000 that Provost and Gerhardt received to advance the Glif shattered their expectations of doing a quiet little $10,000 project.

The two designers, who now operate under the name Studio Neat, took the time to sit down with Core77 for an in-depth interview on what this project has been like for them, from start to finish.

Provost and Gerhardt were refreshingly open about discussing the money, the manufacturing process, mistakes they made and things they learned along the way. The interview, which we've broken into four parts, should be of interest to anyone starting out in ID or thinking about Kickstarting a product design project.

Here in Part 1 they discuss the project's inception and how they got started:


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Summer Camp for Designers? SVA's Masters Workshop in Italy

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2010_postcard.jpgPostcard Design: Louise Fili Ltd.

Ready for a little Roman Holiday? SVA has two unique opportunities to study design this summer in Italy. Led by Lita Talarico and Steven Heller, co-chairs of SVA's MFA Design program, and Louise Fili, author of Italianissimo, the Master's Workshop is an integrated multidisciplinary program allowing participants to study graphic design and typography with leading designers, historians, archeologists and publishers. Considered the birthplace of western typography, the Venice and Rome programs will culminate in unique (and potentially publishable) print and Web projects.

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Kickstarter Project for Haptica Braille Watch

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Speaking of Kickstarter, David Chavez, the man behind the Haptica Braille Watch has launched his own campaign to fund the engineering, R&D, manufacturing and packaging to get this project on track to becoming a reality! We first mentioned this project two years ago when Chavez won the Spark Design award and interacted with some prototypes at last year's New York Design Week. Support Chavez and the Haptica Braille Watch by donating through Kickstarter here!

Haptica presents a logical alternative for the blind and replaces the archaic products currently available. It provides precision and discretion to the user and seeks to improve the quality of life for a consumer market that is oftentimes over looked. Like most products for people with disabilities, it's somewhat of a niche market. Many products in this category are clumsy and unappealing. Raising funds or finding a big company to back these kinds of products is difficult. By harnessing the power of crowd sourcing, a great concept can become a great product and we won't have to compromise the creative process. We'll be able to create a product that will be both functional and beautiful.

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Glif guys, Part 2: Manufacturing

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In Part 2 of this four-part interview, Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt (a/k/a Studio Neat) discuss the manufacturing process and challenges of the Glif, describe what it's like to see something you designed being produced, and explain why they chose to manufacture in the United States. See Part 1: Getting it Started here and learn about the original Kickstarter project that set it off!


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Glif guys, Part 3: Package Design & Fulfillment

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In Part 3 of our Glif guys interview, designers Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt discuss the unsexy but very necessary part of a project, the one easiest to overlook in the excitement of production: Taking care of the packaging. They also touch on the challenges of fulfillment, of actually getting the product into the consumers' hands. See Part 1: Getting it Started and Part 2: Manufacturing, and learn about the original Kickstarter project that set it off!

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Oregon Manifest 2011 :: The Ultimate Constructor's Design Challenge :: Core77 Exclusive

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Imagine a new generation of sustainable transportation for city-dwellers -- packaged in our favorite two-wheel vehicle, the bicycle. The Oregon Manifest design challenge is a marriage of American craft and global design thinking of the highest degree. A call for collective innovation in bicycle design, the Constructor's Design Challenge is bringing together three creative collaborations between custom bike builders and global design houses to rethink bicycle design for a new generation. In addition to these three collaborations, there will be 35 open builder entries and five student teams who will answer the call for innovation. Over the next nine months, we'll be tracking the progress of the three design house collaborations.

True to its mission, Oregon Manifest is itself evolving, this year laying out a secondary development path and bringing in some professional innovators -- you might know them as designers -- to participate. This new track pairs three of our profession's top firms -- IDEO, fuseproject and Ziba -- with custom bike builders, a plan that promises to yield not only some awesome new bikes but probably a fair amount of interesting friction as concept and craft rub up on each other. This is good news for you, and us, as OM has arranged to have these teams chronicle the entire 9 month process here at Core77! Each team of design x builder will be posting diaries to a new section of our site, they'll detail there, in words and picture, the process of creating a new generation of bicycle.

This year's Oregon Manifest is the project's second run, see our previous coverage here, and it has stepped up to an endeavor of international heft and scope. The inaugural edition was won by Tony Periera with a bicycle that met the standards and did so in style, but most interestingly introduced a novel integrated bicycle lock which exemplifies the innovative ideas that such a challenge encourages. The Oregon Manifest takes inspiration from Technical Trials that ran in France through the mid-century -- rather than racing, bicycle makers competed in manufacturing better and better equipment, yielding breakthrough innovations such as alloy rims and cranks. Yesterday, at a kickoff event in Portland, the Oregon Manifest announced the criteria for this year's challenge -- available for download here. The key for the design/build challenge is that these bikes must complete a circuit and be actually functional. Additionally they must pass muster with an all-star line-up of bicycle wizards in the form of a judging panel which includes Rob Forbes (founder of Public Bikes and Design within Reach), Tinker Hatfield (VP of Innovation Design at Nike), Bill Strickland (Editor, Bicycling Magazine) and Joe Breeze (Founder of Breezer Bikes) -- moderated by Ron Sutphin of the United Bicycle Institute.

It is this really incredible mix of elements that makes the OM so exciting for us. A grassroots operation to push innovation. In the field of bicycles. Springing from American craft manufacturing. Paired with design. Championing sustainable living.

It is actually a little much -- a sugar-rush combo of every reason why we do what we do here -- but we'll keep it together, take it in small doses and cheer them on at every turn. Hope you will too.

>> Oregon Manifest
>> OM Design/Build Chronicles at Core77

Photos courtesy of PDXCROSS

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Emily Rothschild's Medical Locket and Brass Pill Case

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We've written about Emily Rothschild's medical objects before including her Medical Nameplates and pill-popping carafe and glassware set and we're excited to see that she continues to think about aesthetic and functionality issues surrounding, "personal medical experiences and the objects that shape them." Her new rhodium-plated Medical Locket incorporates the design of her previous USB locket, keeping medical records safe and private inside the locket with a detachable USB drive. The nickel-plated drive itself can be engraved with the user's most essential information as well. Her Brass Seven-Day Pill Cassette is a beautiful alternative to the throwaway plastic kind you can buy at the pharmacy. As Rothschild explains, "there is also irony and humor in the jewelry box-like design for our generally less than pleasant medication experiences. Can something so familiar take on a completely new place in our hearts?"

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Glif guys, Part 4: Lessons Learned & What's Next

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In our final Glif guys interview installment, Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt relate what they would have done differently had they to do it all over again. They also tease what's on the horizon for them, discuss the difference between working for yourself versus working for others, and provide some advice for design students. See Part 1: Getting it Started, Part 2: Manufacturing and Part 3: Package Design and Fulfillment and learn about the original Kickstarter project that set it off!

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Teague's Tad Toulis Chairs IDSA 2011 Conference

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We're really proud to announce that our friend and columnist Tad Toulis of Seattle-based design consultancy, Teague, will be chairing the upcoming IDSA International Conference taking place in New Orleans this September. This year's theme, appropriate for both hosting city and industrial design, is Community. As Toulis outlines in the IDSA Call for Papers:

Catastrophe, whether natural or manmade, creates opportunity. Five years after Katrina stormed the Louisiana coast, and three years after the credit crisis tore a hole through the global economy--industrial design, like the city of New Orleans, finds itself ready to contemplate its future again. But as in New Orleans, where the conversation has progressed from mere recovery to envisioning a better city, industrial design finds itself contemplating what "can be" not merely "what was." For both the city and the profession one factor seems to invigorate all possibilities: the power of community.

As all of us here at Core77 know Community is an integral part of innovation and we look forward to continue our contribution to the dialogue of our community. Congratulations to Tad and we'll see you on Bourbon Street in September!

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Book Review: Exposing the Magic of Design, by John Kolko

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In our last review of a John Kolko book, Thoughts on Interaction Design Donald Norman wrote in the comments, "OK, you convinced me. I've ordered the book." We can't be sure that our review influenced his newest book Living with Complexity, but since Norman's work centered on frustrating objects, the extrapolation into systems was bound to happen. Kolko's new book Exposing the Magic of Design might seem superficially similar to Norman's to those of us in the industrial design field, but Kolko has profoundly different content.

Kolko's book is subtitled "A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis," and this reviewer joked that it sounded like an undergraduate film or semiotics course. Kolko himself states that "the ability to 'be playful' is critical to achieve deep and meaningful synthesis," but the tenor of the tome is far from the giant grin the author wears while using carrots as a "phone" on the cover of his previous work. Exposing the Magic of Design is blunt, direct, serious and self-assured. At less than 200 pages and full of diagrams, processes and methods, Kolko certainly didn't have time for any hand-holding. In this era of easy distraction, Exposing the Magic's interaction design requires complete attention. Perhaps that's the way the author meant it.

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Book Review: Exposing the Magic of Design, by Jon Kolko

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0

ExposingMagic_01.jpg

In our last review of a Jon Kolko book, Thoughts on Interaction Design Donald Norman wrote in the comments, "OK, you convinced me. I've ordered the book." We can't be sure that our review influenced his newest book Living with Complexity, but since Norman's work centered on frustrating objects, the extrapolation into systems was bound to happen. Kolko's new book Exposing the Magic of Design might seem superficially similar to Norman's to those of us in the industrial design field, but Kolko has profoundly different content.

Kolko's book is subtitled "A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis," and this reviewer joked that it sounded like an undergraduate film or semiotics course. Kolko himself states that "the ability to 'be playful' is critical to achieve deep and meaningful synthesis," but the tenor of the tome is far from the giant grin the author wears while using carrots as a "phone" on the cover of his previous work. Exposing the Magic of Design is blunt, direct, serious and self-assured. At less than 200 pages and full of diagrams, processes and methods, Kolko certainly didn't have time for any hand-holding. In this era of easy distraction, Exposing the Magic's interaction design requires complete attention. Perhaps that's the way the author meant it.

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Oregon Manifest 2011 :: Kick-Off Party

Case Study: Leveraged Freedom Chair, by Amos Winter and Jake Childs Enabling Freedom for the Disabled in Developing Countries

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Most able-bodied folks probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about how people with disabilities navigate the world, particularly in developing countries. However, Amos Winter did, and still does. Winter, a recent PhD graduate from the MIT department of Mechanical Engineering, went to Tanzania as part of his work in 2005. He wanted to understand how people who needed wheelchairs got around and how well current wheelchair technology met peoples' mobility needs. Winter's work was part of an internship with Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a group that designs wheelchairs in developing countries. He learned that people in wheelchairs often just didn't get where they needed to go.

In fact, according to the Wheelchair Foundation, it is estimated that the number of people who need wheelchairs will increase by 22 percent over the next 10 years, with the greatest need existing in developing countries. And USAID estimates that 20 million people in the developing world need a wheelchair.

For instance, wheelchair-accessible buildings and roads are rare in countries like Tanzania. Beyond that, individuals must overcome narrow doorways, steep hills, bumpy, muddy roads and long distances to destinations like school -- often upwards of two to three miles. All of these issues combined make it virtually impossible to get anywhere with a conventional wheelchair. Beyond that, they were too expensive for individuals who often can't work due to their disability, or make about $1/day if they do work.

Hand-powered tricycles were the other existing option in developing countries. But they're too large for indoor use and too heavy to maneuver over rough terrain.

In Winter's mind, the chair he wanted to create would offer individuals:
+ Independence - the ability to live with as little assistance as possible
+ Empowerment - the ability to get to where they want to go, when they want to go
+ Access - the mobility that allows them to access resources and employment when these things won't come to them
+ Affordability - a tool that's at a price that they're able to afford

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Case Study: Leveraged Freedom Chair, by Amos Winter, Jake Childs and Jung TakEnabling Freedom for the Disabled in Developing Countries

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0

3rd_Gen_LFC.jpg

Most able-bodied folks probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about how people with disabilities navigate the world, particularly in developing countries. However, Amos Winter did, and still does. Winter, a recent PhD graduate from the MIT department of Mechanical Engineering, went to Tanzania as part of his work in 2005. He wanted to understand how people who needed wheelchairs got around and how well current wheelchair technology met peoples' mobility needs. Winter's work was part of an internship with Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a group that designs wheelchairs in developing countries. He learned that people in wheelchairs often just didn't get where they needed to go.

In fact, according to the Wheelchair Foundation, it is estimated that the number of people who need wheelchairs will increase by 22 percent over the next 10 years, with the greatest need existing in developing countries. And USAID estimates that 20 million people in the developing world need a wheelchair.

For instance, wheelchair-accessible buildings and roads are rare in countries like Tanzania. Beyond that, individuals must overcome narrow doorways, steep hills, bumpy, muddy roads and long distances to destinations like school -- often upwards of two to three miles. All of these issues combined make it virtually impossible to get anywhere with a conventional wheelchair. Beyond that, they were too expensive for individuals who often can't work due to their disability, or make about $1/day if they do work.

Hand-powered tricycles were the other existing option in developing countries. But they're too large for indoor use and too heavy to maneuver over rough terrain.

In Winter's mind, the chair he wanted to create would offer individuals:
+ Independence - the ability to live with as little assistance as possible
+ Empowerment - the ability to get to where they want to go, when they want to go
+ Access - the mobility that allows them to access resources and employment when these things won't come to them
+ Affordability - a tool that's at a price that they're able to afford

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Ziba is Seeking a Senior Industrial Designer in Portland

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Senior Industrial Designer
Ziba

Portland, OR

Ziba is looking for a Senior Industrial Designer to join our Portland-based Industrial Design (ID) team. Senior IDs at Ziba rarely get bored. Because our clients come from many different industries, we take on an incredible diversity of projects: consumer electronics, home appliances, retail environments, medical devices, packaging and more. We work with experts in a broad range of creative fields, and guide junior talent, enabling them to produce amazing work.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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