Art Director/Graphic Designer
The New York Rangers/Madison Square Garden Company
New York, New York

The primary role of the Art Director is to help lead with the development and design of all advertising and design needs for the New York Rangers as it supports collateral for Marketing Partnerships, Corporate Hospitality / Suite sales, Merchandise and Food & Beverage Departments. As a member of the design team, the art director will be involved with the development and design of all needs as they relate to their accounts; including collateral design, logo development, print advertising, outdoor, display, packaging, web development and more.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

When I was at ID school in the early '90s the shop didn't have any freaking countersink bits, so we'd have to drill pilot holes with a 3/32" bit then ream it with a 1/4" to make a sort of ghetto countersink. (And this was before keyless chucks.) By necessity we all got pretty good at doing this, but I was never so happy as when I bought my own countersink bit.

Anyways, here's how they make the little things (and plug-cutters to boot). I know it's just a tiny piece of steel, but it's still one of the favored objects in my toolbox.

This past Monday, our contributor Carly Ayres attended Stem to Steam, "a briefing marking Rhode Island's commitment to fostering innovation through the addition of Art and Design to STEM education and research." Photos by Scott Indermaur

Registration

"Our country must integrate art and design into efforts to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and research to reach our full potential for innovation and economic growth."

That was what Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI) told the audience at a "STEM to STEAM" forum last Monday in Providence, Rhode Island. Partnering with Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) President John Maeda in this effort, Langevin has been working to make STEAM a national priority. The Rhode Island event was not the first of its kind; a congressional briefing had been held by RISD in cooperation with Langevin earlier this June in Washington, D.C., as part of an effort to draw national attention to the movement.

John Maeda, Congressman Jim Langevin

As defined on StemtoSteam.org:

STEAM represents the economic progress and breakthrough innovation that comes from adding art and design to STEM education and research: STEM + Art = STEAM. The value of art and design to innovation is clear: Artists and designers humanize technology, making it understandable and capable of bringing about societal change. The tools and method of a studio-based education offer new models for creative problem solving, flexible thinking and risk-taking that are needed in today's complex and dynamic world.

John Maeda welcoming everyone to the briefing

Collectively, Nathan Allan Glass Studios Inc. is an artist, and glass is their canvas. The Canada-based company produces glass in dozens of unique textures, and the company's focus on R&D aims to retain an innovative and competitive edge by coming up with surfaces that others cannot.

Their latest finish, Crackle (directly above), was formulated for the Rockwell-Group-designed Maboussin USA flagship store in NYC. In grossly oversimplified terms, Crackle is produced by melting glass shards to a substrate and laminating that to a mirror. (The actual production reality is a bit more complicated, but unsurprisingly no detailed instructions have been made public.)

Newly-established Marion Friedmann Gallery curated an interesting show in Brompton Design Quarters during the London Design Festival. Enlightened Waste showcased two designers working with recycled materials.

Thierry Jeannot, French-born but currently based in Mexico, has been working exclusively with the PET bottle as his raw-material for the last five years. He explores various techniques of using the bottle and to transform its materiality. Featured above is his beautiful chandelier, made solely from PET bottles, as well as his rings which consist of bottle screw threads framed in re-used silver.

Vienna-based Gisela Stiegler has been carving expanded polystyrene for the last six years. Her lamps and wall-consoles are carved by hand out of styrofoam blocks or the boxes that fish mongers use to cool the fish. The slightly pinkish tint in the light sculpture above is actually the fish blood that had soaked into the boxes.

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Graham Browne
Location: Clayton, MO, USA
Category: DIY / Hack / Mod
Award: Notable

Vintage iPod Dock

A 1958 tabletop radio restored and modified to function as an iPod Dock

There are too many boring iPod docks on the market! I wanted to build an ipod dock worthy of the beautiful design that apple has implemented in their products. The challenges included modifying the original controls in order to interface with the modern Klipsch ipod dock, and restoring a 50 year old radio to like new condition using new aluminum trim and grill material. The end result was freaking sweet, so yes I was vary exited.

Core77: What's the latest news or development with your project?

I was featured in the French GQ Magazine! However the old radios I use are very hard to come by—So far I have produced 3 vintage iPod docks.

What is 1 quick anecdote about your project?

While shopping with my girlfriend we discovered an old 50s radio in the basement of an antique store. The moment I saw the funky design I noticed it had a perfect spot to mount an iPod, and the vintage iPod dock was born!

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

It looks pretty bizarre, but this idea for wall-mounted soap was apparently once in widespread usage, at least in France. "This was patented in 1950 and used widely in schools, public buildings and by France's state-run railways," writes the retailer. "The manufacturers claim you can wash your hands 1,000 times with a 300 g tablet of this pure vegetable soap."

What I like about it:

- If mounted over the sink to drip-dry, it would eliminate the need to have to constantly drain a soap dish.
- Losing the soap dish also means the bar isn't constantly sitting in a puddle of its own filth and getting all mealy at the point of contact.
- Suburbanites with room won't care, but this would actually free up some sinktop space. (The sink in my NYC bathroom is about the size of the one in an airplane bathroom.)

What I don't like about it:

- They couldn't use a thumbscrew and it's held on with a hex nut? What, I'm supposed to get a socket wrench every time I've got to put a new bar on?
- I'd have to keep buying these special soap bars from the same manufacturer.

Actually, strike that last point, I'd probably try to build a jig that perfectly fits a bar of Irish Spring so I could bore the thing out with a Makita.

Silas Beebe (left) and Rob Tsunehiro; photo courtesy of Oregon Manifest

At risk of beating the topic to death, at least one of the 33 entries in the 2011 Oregon Manifest has a portfolio on Coroflot, and it just happens to be second place winner Silas Beebe, who collaborated with framebuilder Rob Tsunehiro on a refined city bike with Portland flavor.

The freelance Senior Industrial Designer explains his background and inspiration:

As a fifth generation Oregonian, I want to make this bike a tribute to the importance of local craft and practicality.

I want to use Oregon materials as much as possible: local leather; Douglas Fir, the Oregon state tree, from family timber land; components from local companies like Blaq Bags and Chris King; and, of course, the design and build talent of our team.

Café Classic Ideation: This design combines some of the best features of both classic American cruisers and European city bikes, but improves upon them with thoughtful and practical integration of cargo and passenger capacity.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, the bike simply has classic lines and details alongside upscale upholstery; the custom reflective paint has a practical purpose as well.

Designer Angela Jansen of Design Academy Eindhoven recently collaborated with engineer Ger Jansen on a pair of skeumorphic LED lamps that they're currently selling through as Light Light. Their website knowingly notes that "It is uncommon for engineers to find good domestic applications for their technology... and it is likewise rare for designers of consumer objects to embrace cutting-edge technology wholeheartedly." Which, of course, is "perhaps what makes the cross-pollination of ideas between Angela Jansen and Ger Jansen so remarkable."

The Light Light series creates an incredible visual conversation piece. It is like an optical illusion, yet one that is kind to the eyes and easy on the mind. Once you know how it works, it is still fascinating to behold. It is timeless, classical and, at the same time, contemporary.

Bombastic copy aside, the products speak for themselves. A handcrafted wooden base complements the semi-conical "lampshade" of the "Silhouette," while a glass base underscores the modern form of the cylindrical "Eclipse." Both of the lamps themselves are covered with matte black fabric, while the lighting element consists of LEDs and mirrors (the new 'smoke and mirrors,' as it were), and are activated via touch dimmer.

Some assembly required (illustrated below, not above):

Photography by Lia Sáile for Core77

Take a look behind-the-scenes at the The Impossible Project Factory located in Enschede, a small industrial city in the far east of The Netherlands. In 2008 Impossible brokered a last-minute deal with Polaroid to purchase all the machines and equipment used to make instant integral film just before they were scrapped, and set up shop in Building Noord (North) of the former-Polaroid plant.

For those not familiar with the back story, getting the new film to market was not without it's difficulties, it was nearly impossible as Polaroid closed the chemical plant that produced their secret colored dyes almost two years earlier in anticipation of shuttering their analog business. In fact they only started dismantling the factories once all the reserves had been used up. The real challenge for the Impossible team — aside from figuring out how to modernize production — was finding a partner that could produce the chemicals necessary to make the magic of instant film work.

In March 2010, the first Impossible film — PX100 and PX600 — made it's debut, much to the relief of analog photography enthusiasts who had been stockpiling expired film in case they could never shoot their vintage Polaroid cameras again. Today the film range offered has expanded considerably with various monochromatic shades and colored blends available but the Impossible team are still hard at work perfecting the PX integral film formula. There are plans to resurrect the popular 8x10 format using the last intact production machine which was shipped from the US in late 2009, and they have started designing their own camera which will no doubt take strong cues from the iconic SX-70.

To keep our factory tour authentic, the first three quarters were shot on Impossible film and if you want to learn more about how the film is made, check out this great video from the Science Channel we posted a few months ago.

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We began the A Better World by Design conference at RISD/Brown with a tour of John Jacobson's mixed-use development, 28 Wolcott Street. Jacobson argued that society needs to "address what we have [in order] to reduce energies," as opposed to continuing to build new architectural projects. Truly sustainable or net-zero buildings should focus on the large steps to reducing energy usage, such as insulation and building envelope, as opposed to the "sexy green" of green roofs and other mostly-aesthetic elements.

Jacobson compared the current assortment of buildings in Providence to "Hummers" and far away from even the minimums of building code. Instead, the future of architecture should seek to produce buildings that are "restorative and heal the environment" as opposed to merely limiting energy consumption.

Our next stop was the Steelyard, an adaptive reuse space for artisans and fabricators, and well as maker-fairs and other events. The development took over a neighborhood once littered with "condoms and needles," turning it into a haven for nearly extinct fabrication skills and knowledge.

Unfortunately, teleconferenced keynote speaker Wolfgang Feist's lecture on his Passive House twenty years in the making was uninspiring, but follow-up speaker Elizabeth Johansen of Design That Matters (DtM) helped to jump-start the conference back on track. Johansen illuminated the audience with four key points about designing for second- or third-world countries, using DtM's current Project Firefly (newborn jaundice prevention via photo-therapy) as the example in her talk "The Product Butterfly Effect" about using simple products to create systemic effects.

1. "Don't Design for Everyone" - Johansen suggested focusing on a very specific user group, as opposed to trying to satisfy the needs of all users. For example, Project Firefly targets otherwise healthy newborns who are at risk of jaundice.

2. "Think Big and Act Small" - Products at a purely commercial level, said Johansen, can actually have a large effect on innovation at the social level. For example, the washing machine was designed as a time saver, but ended up being key in the feminist movement in terms of allowing women to spend less time at home doing chores.

3. "Mind the Gap" - Designers need to be mindful of the entire timeline of product use and aim to eliminate waste of time or leverage such situations. For example, a new-born is often left either all-night in feeding with their mother or in photo-therapy all-night. Design That Matters created a desktop therapy device for use next to a mother.

4. "Affordable, Not Cheap" - While working with Vietnamese doctors, Johansen was presented with a Catch-22: doctors trust complicated-looking equipment, so they would want to use it in their hospitals, yet they think it is too complicated to use. Simple-looking equipment doesn't get used. Johansen mentioned an American doctor who said, "Even in the US when we tell parents their child has a potentially life threatening condition and all we're going to do is shine a light on it, there's disbelief." There is a fine line to walk between sophisticated technology and simple technology, each of which turns away users in their own unique ways.

The speakers on day two of A Better World by Design did a much better job of galvanizing the audience with ideas and experiences. First up was Panthea Lee of Reboot [Ed. note: Check back this afternoon for an exclusive interview!]. Lee spoke about the need to redefine our understanding of disasters around the world, as well as how we respond to them.

Panthea Lee emphasized four points:

1. We create our own disasters - Countries where systems are already crippled by poor human governance are prone to disasters, with natural phenomena only acting as the tipping point.

2. Disaster response mechanisms don't address the root causes of tragedy - Response to disasters tends to be temporary fixes rather than solutions to system problems.

3. Disasters are lucid moments that lead to opportunity - As terrible as disasters are, they force us to see situations in the world more clearly and to leverage this knowledge for greater change.

4. Design is uniquely suited to addressing structural challenges that underlie disasters - Design should not be limited to building the hundredth disaster shelter, but rather should focus on the bigger picture.

Lee described a project in post-flood Pakistan where Reboot worked to distribute pre-loaded debit cards to displaced families. These Watan Cards not only allow families to access assets for the short-term, but become long-term solutions by giving families access to community banking systems. This is similar to the washing machine innovation in Elizabeth Johansen's presentation yesterday. Lee closed with the idea that "man-made disasters have man-made solutions."

John Bielenberg of Project M and COMMON described his experiences working with students to "think wrong" and to use unexpected innovations to transform communities. For instance, a student with a knack for baking pies started the Pie Lab in impoverished and segregated Alabama, creating a neutral haven for food lovers.

Bielenberg also talked about his work with COMMON, which is a collaborative brandname or a collection of various entrepreneurs under one "branded" roof. Projects included Common Cycles, with a shout-out to our friend Marty Odlin of Alabamboo and the Bamboo Bicycle Project.

Image courtesy of Panthea Lee

Panthea Lee, co-founder of Reboot, spoke today about post-disaster work in Pakistan at the A Better World by Design conference at RISD/Brown. Reboot works with governments and social institutions to redesign their systems and services. Lee is a game-changer to watch in the newest generation of social designer-innovator-entrepreneurs.

Core77: How did you get involved in working with international governments?

Panthea Lee: All my life I had wanted to be a journalist, I grew up writing: done deal. I was all psyched to go to journalism school, had my bags packed, and then my parents go, 'We did not immigrate to Canada and struggle for twenty years as poor immigrants so that you could go on and be a starving journalist!' So I wound up in business school. After that, I did the business school job for a while in management and consulting, then went off to China to go be a journalist.

I was traveling a lot in the developing world. Being young and stupid, you're like, 'Why does stuff not work? Why don't people have things? Why don't people have food and healthcare systems?' So I started reading up on development and trying to understand the structural aspects of what was going on. I think it started out of youthful anger and then instead of just reporting about social problems, why not try to work on social problems?

Image courtesy of Panthea Lee

Prior to Reboot, you spent time working with UNICEF and other NGO's. What did you learn?

I think we've agreed that capitalism is not going away in the near term, so what is the role of big business and how do you do development sustainably? If they actually treated poor people as actual customers instead of people who just wanted aid, they would actually design things that people wanted. You realize that in the public sector and in NGO's there's no accountability.

So a company makes a lousy product. They put it out to market and people don't like it and the company has to make a better product otherwise they go out of business. With a lot of these NGO's, people assume they're doing a lot of good work and then they design a program poorly or design a bad service and they put it out there and beneficiaries have to use it because they don't have any other options. There's no accountability.

Image courtesy of Panthea Lee

So what skills do you bring to the table? You're not exactly your average designer...

I think I bring the understanding of the development practitioners and the policy makers. Design for social change is a very "sexy" topic and you see a lot of design firms now going to the public sector and to NGO's saying, 'We're designers, we're here to help you!' And they're like, 'What are you talking about? You don't speak our language, you don't know development theory, you don't know our approach.' It helps to know why things are the way they are today because so much of the time you see people jumping in and saying, 'We're going to design for change and things are going to be better.'

But what's the context around why we have these problems to begin with? What has already been tried? I think design firms—well-intended, very talented—don't always understand that and so I think governments look at them a little weirdly. With most of the people from Reboot, we come from those kinds of organizations and we know what we don't know. I think that is an advantage for us.

Image courtesy of Panthea Lee

Graphic Designer
Perseus Books Group
New York, New York

The Basic Books Group is seeking a motivated and creative individual with book design experience who possesses strong skills in design, layout, typography and time-management for the position of Designer. He or she will work with the art director, with responsibilities including but not limited to: Managing all aspects and stages of a book's jacket design and production;Mechanical and promotional materials layout; Assisting with and designing covers; and Administrative work.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Two days of non-stop design and innovation had worn us down, so we missed most of the morning panels. However, we did wake up in time to attend the annual A Better World By Design Expo, featuring both students and professionals exhibiting their organizations, products, and ideas.

1/2 Project's half-items caught our attention right away. The half-wine glass was especially fun and playful, as were the fork and spoon, and conveyed the organization's mission of helping consumers perceive donations in a different light.

This silicone take-out container called "I Am a To-Go Box" from McKenzie Powers (Art Institute of Boston) was a runner up in ABWBD/DCI's Consumer Product Challenge. The product rethinks the idea of a disposable container, turning it into a washable, reusable container instead. Although the concept is extremely similar to DCI's "I Am Not a Paper Cup," it still made a great follow-up product.

The winning product from the competition, the Trilife Ecotray from Angie Lee and Queenie Fan of RISD, was also on display. The tray is a single piece of plastic and allows users to hold it balanced on one arm and hand while placing food on it with the other.

These plates were made out of the fallen leaves of a tree from India. We never thought of leaves making their way into our kitchens as anything other than decorations!

Shelter Box, among other disaster shelters, was on display at the Expo, keeping with one of the conference's themes for the year. The company's representative stated that the Box contained everything a family could need post-disaster, but apparently had never considered the inclusion of a toilet in the collection of necessary goods. This followed right on the tail of yesterday's keynote panel, where Mobilize for Haiti's Dominique Toussaint preached, and rightfully so, that designers should never design a shelter they wouldn't want their own families to have to survive in.

There are times when I want an L-shaped worksurface, like when I'm working on something requiring a lot of different materials or tools, and times when I want one long table to accommodate a lengthy piece. I figured I couldn't have it both ways, so I built a long nine-foot surface for my main workbench. But the folks over at the design/build firm Because We Can figured out that you can have it both ways, and now I'm intensely envious.

This awesome, custom desk they built for a client features two pivot points, enabling the super-long worksurface to go from straight to "L" to "U."

It's that time of year again. Our annual designer salary survey is now open for business. This is the 11th installment, and we're happy to bring this resource online each year. By all accounts 2011 has been a good year for the creative/design industries, and hopefully the salary results will bear this out. After entering your data you'll be able to see the raw results, and filter according to location and job type. Please share this with friends, as the more data we get the better the results are. Enjoy!

Photography by Benjamin Lehn for Core77

Returning for it's third year, Valencia Disseny Week (VDW) anchored by the international trade show Feria Hábitat hosted numerous satellite shows, workshops and events throughout the city. In an effort to raise awareness of design in this region which is dominated by Spain's larger cities Barcelona and Madrid, VDW also serves as a platform to connect designers with industry and the business community.

Highlights this year included the exhibition Nude at Feria Hábitat showcasing work from a few dozen emerging (mostly) Spanish designers, a tour of the LZF Lighting factory, group show Omelette-ed, and an exhibition of work by graphic designer Esteso Augustine.

Checkout the rest of our selections from VDW here.

Czech design graduate Jan Plechac has put his "Icons" range on show at Tent London this week. By wire-framing a number of design classics including the De Stijl Red & Blue chair and Fat Boy bean bag Plechac attempts to take the homely qualities of indoor furniture to the outdoors—bringing into question the boundaries between interior and exterior furniture.

We were definitely intrigued by "Move-It" furniture, on show at Tent London. Made entirely out of heavy duty cardboard—the lightweight tables and chairs even incorporate cardboard rollers to make the furniture as mobile as possible. Whether the "Move-It" range will withstand more than five minutes of use is yet to be seen, but this certainly could be an idea that impacts on the cheap furniture market.