shoe box by aya masuda

This shoe box could not be more perfect. It is from a series of workshops and exhibitions called Without Thought organized by Naoto Fukasawa, the latest focused on the Box.
Box – Without Thought Vol. 10

More boxes from the workshop at designboom

Nice werk, ikons and pictograms from ikonwerk

Help Remedies has released their new products, which they briefly previewed to the PSFK NY conference this spring. Help continues on it’s goal to simplify everyday health needs, with clear, well designed, no nonsense packaging. It is refreshing to see medicine described thusly:

Each package of “help I have a headache” contains 16 oblong pills. Each oblong pill contains 500mgs acetaminophen. We use acetaminophen because it’s an excellent treatment for headaches and it’s delicate on stomachs. We use as large a dose of acetaminophen as we can, and the fewest possible fillers, coatings, and dyes.

We haven’t used “extra strength” to describe our headache pills even though they do have lots of acetaminophen. That’s because if everybody always used “extra strength” to describe headache pills then “extra strength,” wouldn’t really mean anything anymore. And we don’t want the things that we say to mean nothing.

Scott Amron’s Split Ring Key Blanks. The inherent simplicity of design like this leaves one to say nothing more than… yes please.

via Amron Experimental

Six things that illustrate the past fifty years in design. British Airways flight attendents, Corn Flakes boxes, telephones, the Queens hat, police cars and covers from George Orwell’s 1984.

from the Guardian

Olympic poster proposal for London 2012 by Alan Clarke

This is a collection of notes from the PSFK Conference NYC held on April 2 2009. Many of these notes come directly from my notebook and some were helped along by reading the twitter stream. Its really ugly looking but i’m not writing it down to remember it later- i’m writing it down to remember it now. I may add more to this as I sort through photos and what not. It’s long, so click through if you are interested.

WHEN IDEAS CREATE GOOD – Graham Hill, Treehugger

Summary: A bunch of stuff to look at and think about. Can I get a bibliography?

Back-to-back-to-back pecha kulcha style presentations separated loosely into people, stuff and concepts. This format works well but loses some of its charm when its 60 slides for 20 seconds each and the presenter spends much of his effort orienting himself and talking about his presentation format.

A house is where you put stuff while you go out and get more stuff

- George Carlin

“Awareness is easier than action”

“In case you haven’t heard, oceans are kind of fucked”

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Guide – iPhone app to allow people to check out the sustainability of the fish they are about to eat

Ponoko is a service that facilitates the fabrication of amateur designer’s designs. Design using available fabrication techniques, laser cutter, or solicit bids from fabricators to build nearly anything.

foldschool – designs for DIY cardboard furniture

BUILDING HEALTHY BRANDS WITH HEART, Richard Fine, Help Remedies & Jay Parkinson and Sean Khozin, Hello Health

Summary: Simplify my healthcare.

Panel discussion on the state healthcare from both product and services points of view. Both Help and HelloHealth have identified the shortcomings of a medical system that has placed the continued success of the medical business machine ahead of the care of patients. Medications are developed to satisfy marketing departments and product schedules and don’t have any connection to actually making you feel better.

Medicine cabinet is the saddest place in your house

- Richard Fine

Help strives to strip away all the marketing bullshit that surrounds over the counter medication that creates confusion in the remedy aisle a the drugstore. Simple packaging, no additives or special formulas. They are striving for the essentials and simplicity in delivery of medical care product.

Healthcare Industrial Complex

“I get paid to $10000 to treat asthma & $300 to prevent it. The system is broken.”

“Doctor gets 6%-7% of each dollar spent on healthcare. The rest goes into supporting the insurance billing system”

“We spend 1 hour with a doctor, 8,764 hours without a doctor”

Hello Health seeks to position itself outside of the standardized healthcare system that has been constructed as a billing system for insurance companies rather that a care system for patients. By removing the middle man from the health care equation they propose that health insurance be used for the catastrophic needs, not for everyday sniffles or routine care.

You don’t use car insurance for an oil change. Why use health insurance for routine care?

Hello Health is a platform that creates a social network, between patients and doctors, allowing one to find a doctor that a a good fit, rather than one that happens to be in their insurance network. Doctors sign up, create a profile and are available via email, IM, video chat. Your health records are all online and your care is portable.

This was a combination presentation and panel which, format wise, was the best as it allowed the audience to see work as the presenters wanted it to be seen and then discussed within the panel. Colin Nagy also did a great job of being a moderator, which in these situations is usually best done by staying out of the way and gently guiding the conversation.

GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: DIGITAL MULTICULTURE – Celestine Arnold

Summary: Multicultural inclusion is needed to make our virtual more real

Videos games reflect the ruling culture

Why are so many video games created from the white cultural perspective? White culture dominates gaming, but stats show whites do not rule gaming. Asian are killing it. The only category whites rule in is the none category.

Video games allow opportunity for race tourism, in particular in Second Life.

Studies show racism in Second Life echo studies in real world. If your avatar is black, you’ll have a hard time getting help from other users.

In most first person shooters your hand is white. You can’t change that.

Fantasy and role playing games don’t have the wide latitude in customizing your player/avatar. You can’t make your online persona look like you do in real life. If it’s about creating a fantasy or idealized self than that apparently does not include being a person of color.

GTA is popular because it has a connection to real life, the game is played out in the city streets. WOW has no connection to reality.

Celestine will not play XBOX Live because of the heavy use of sexist and racist chatter, and “every dude had to rub their [virtual] crotch on me once they found out I was a girl”. And she is really good at Halo.

THIS PLATFORM CALLED EVERYDAY LIFE – Kevin Slavin, Area/Code

Summary: Objects being treated as people, and people being regarded as objects. This is the future.

Eija Rita Berlinermauer – Married to the Berlin Wall – Object as person

Webkinz – object that has an online identity

Botanicalls is a system to allow for plats to talk to the network communicating their status

Your sneakers are talking “You are in an active communication relationship with your sneakers” – regarding nike+

Sharkrunners combines an online game with real life GPS tracked sharks. You move your online boats to track down real life sharks and study them. Events unfold in real time. You get an email or a text when you have reached a shark or the game requires your attention. I played when this first went live and loved it.

Kogi BBQ Taco truck that posts its location via twitter, allowing people to find their tacos.

“Here is your fucking mobile media plan – a sneaker, a plant, a shark, a truck”

By treating objects like people, by giving them the power of communication and a voice. Being able to talk to something is what makes them interesting. People or object.

Re: QR Codes – “Just pick one and go with it. Propriety formats are not good for the ecosystem.”

Site specific mobile applications are useful only in particular locales.

Text to 513-381-JERK to report jerks at the sports stadium and possibly have them thrown out. Have a realtime effect on your surroundings by talking to your surroundings.

“Mobile phones amplify your abilities in the built environment” You can have superhero powers, via handheld technology

Kevin’s talk was the one I was most excited about and was not at all disappointed. Well crafted, rich and engaging. Hoping to see him speak again soon. Inspired about the intersection of objects, mobile tech and location specific services

RECONNECT – Sarah Beatty, Green Depot | Simon Collins, Parsons | Ryan Jacoby, IDEO | Matthew Lusk Hecho, Inc. Moderated by David Pinter, PSFK.

Summary: Being sustainable means lots of different things. And it is hard. And good or bad.

Sustainability and green. Buzzword compliant. And then, Simon Colins says those words are verboten. Ok!

“Sustainability is a journey, not a destination” – Simon Collins

“Behavioral patterns are hard to change, the onus is on the designers to build sustainably”

“Sustainable design you can learn a lot from looking at people that are really ‘cheap’”. Ryan Jacoby

FOURSQUARE – Dennis Crowley, Foursquare

Summary: Foursquare makes going out more fun

Dennis did a short presentation on foursquare during lunch, in the room where everyone was eating and chatting.

The Foursquare application and service helps your nightlife. Broadcast your location and get updates on where your friends are. Nightlife can be more like a game, you earn badges, like merit badges for boy scouts, for completing certain tasks, like hitting 4 different spots in one night (bender), or checking in with several members of the opposite sex at one place (player please)

Presentations during lunch create too much competition between people talking and eating. Not good.

BRAND NEW RULES – Doug Jaeger, thehappycorp | Paul M Taylor, Diageo | Maria Vrachnos, Peep Insights | Paul Worthington, Wolff Olins

Summary: If you want to get peoples attention, take it. Measure it later, but why bother.

Seriously it was too difficult to hear what was being said. Not that it seemed too much was missed as people read prepared statements! with their pontifications about brands and analytics and metrics.

Panel saved when Doug Jaeger got the mic to answer a question about what to do, and he stood up on the chair, raised his voice to a low shout and climbed all over the people in the first row. Embrace discomfort, get out of your safe space, experiment, push. “Believe in your ideas and execute as soon as you have them, not after it’s been tested.”

Paul Worthington – “Feel like I just got hijacked by #psfk Note to self and everyone else – NEVER sponsor a lunch panel there”

MWM GRAPHICS – Matt W. Moore, MWM Graphics

Summary: The orange had really thick skin, but was delicious.

Visually interesting work and showed some inspiration, but honestly I only paid half attention as I was eating an orange.

NEW IDEA AGENCIES – Bart Haney, fuseproject, Carl Johnson, Anomaly, Ben Malbon, BBH Labs, Robbie Vitrano, Trumpet. Moderater by Danielle Sacks of Fast Company

Summary: Line of thinking…Doing Client work is a drag – Our Ideas are great – We should be making products – This is hard.

Agencies that are taking their creative cognitive surplus and going directly to market with their ideas for products. With some skin in the game they play less fast and loose, supposedly, and live or die by their work alone. Ok.

Own the brand rather than working for one.

Can’t be fired if you are your own client.

“the ad industry is broken because it values crap ideas the same as good ideas” – Carl Johnson (via)

NEW YORK NEW MEDIA – Edward Felsenthal, The Daily Beast & Christine Huang, PSFK

Summary: Publishing words online is some crazy wild west world. Get Barry Diller to finance your venture.

NYC publishing talk. The Daily Beast is new Tina Brown news blog. They publish 6 – 7 original pieces a day, the rest is sourced from the web.

Are newspapers/magazines/media dead? “some will survive, some won’t”. Yes they did discuss this. When I woke up it was discussion about the differences between print and online publishing.

OPEN TO CHANGE – John Geraci, Outside.in & DIYCity.org, Scott Heiferman, Meetup, Avner Ronen, boxee and Domenico Vitale, PI&C. Moderated by Florian Peter of CScout

Summary: None of us are as smart as all of us.

Crowsourcing and community involvement in the creation of new ideas.

Boxee wants to be the Firefox of the living room

Re: Hulu activley blocking access by boxee – “Life finds a way” (Jurassic park quote FTW)

Avner Ronan manages the customer service himself, spending multiple hours per day on twitter and on Get Satisfaction.

Scott Heiferman shows up late but amps up the stage by 100%. Overtakes the moderator and dominates.

DIO, Do It Ourselves not DIY. It’s the we, not the individual.

DIY City projects gaining traction. Validation is being given to amateur gathered data like Sickcity by government agencies like NYC Dept. of Health.

Florian, the moderator, talked talked far too much and tried to guide the conversation with a too heavy hand.

CITY AS CANVAS – Wooster Collective

Summary: Site specific street art makes the city alive

Marc and Sara Schiller, Wooster Collective, want to make the city more livable.

Street art that is site specific, made for one place, one moment in time. It’s made as a reaction to and as a piece of the city.

“Don’t over communicate, don’t be too obvious.”

Swoon was inspired by Gordon Matta Clark (my favorite artist)

Mostly I took the time to sit back and enjoy what they said about each of the over 50 pieces of work they showed.

Highly specialized tools that you can use to add some significant drama to your life.

Traces of an Imaginary Affair designed by Björn Franke is a kit containing a set of nine tools which can be used to create an imaginary affair. These tools leave marks on the body, such as bite marks, carpert burns, bondage marks, love bites, scratches and bruises. In addition, probes of perfume, lipstick and haïr can be applied to either the body or clothes. It was inspired by stories of people who used to fake évidence of victimisation or illnesses to receive attention from others.

via dezeen

Cloud Chair by Richard Hutton. Aluminium casting with polished nickle plating, produced in limited edition shown at the milan design week 09.

(via designboom)

Ministry of Type has a nice description of a fascination with guilloche patterns often found on banknotes and the process of making them.

Good design makes a product useful

Good design is aesthetic

Good design helps a product to be understood

Good design is unobtrusive

Good design is honest

Good design is durable

Good design is thorough to the last detail

Good design is concerned with the environment

Good design is as little design as possible

-Dieter Rams

Absolutely amazing set of unique prints by Daniel Eatock. It a nearly perfect marriage of a strict system, materiality (of the paper stock and the markers) and time. With the added bonus of a beautiful end result.

A complete set of 156 Prismacolor Markers (arranged following manufacturer’s numbered color chart) held within inverted glasses, one ream of 25” x 38” uncoated, 40 lb. paper, divided into two stacks.

The ink reached the 31st sheet in the stack of paper that comprises the top half of the diptych and the 29th sheet of the stack that comprises the bottom half of the diptych.Prior to discovering the extent of the edition, it was determined that the price of each diptych would equal the highest number of sheets stained by the ink.

Prismacolor Pen Print (diptych) by Daniel Eatock

Craig Oldham recently published 12 IN 12, an accompaniment to a talk where he gave a listing of 12 things he learned in his first 12 months as a graphic designer. In the talk he touched upon hte different cultures of designers, emotional design and logical design, and lists members of each.

via thinking for a living

via British Design Classics « Thinking for a Living™

HP Q Control

Conceived out of an initiative to consolidate the many different physical navigation elements across their wide offerings of devices. The Q part is the little back button which dangles off the bottom left which serves as a “get me out of here” safety net for users. It also seems that it creates a crutch for less rigorous interaction design on the screens and functions being controlled by the Q control. Not having ever used one, i can’t really say.

HP produced video talking about the Q Control

HP’s Q Control from maritoruiz on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality Prototypes

In the prototyping of consumer electronics they often mock up user interfaces in Flash and then build rough physical prototypes that control the interactions on screen. While janky, it can be effective but it still doesn’t look pretty. Booth briefly described a methodology they are using on a new project, where physical interactions such as pressing buttons is done on a block of foam covered in green screen paper and the video of the new devices and on screen activity keyed in. I think it would make for a compelling visual and easily help sell their ideas.

No images or video so here’s a clip from the Girl skateboards video Yeah Right where the skaters ride invisible skateboards

Instead of having to try to fit two people onto a chair made for one person – we have here a chair made for two half people. Studio Ball

(via designboom)

d-barcode in Japan design barcodes for the items you see on the supermarket shelf. These are the little flourishes of design that take the banal and make it fresh and that keeps me smiling everyday.

This is one of those projects that goes under the radar, relatively unknown to most. I had the fortune several years ago to see Wes Jones speak, and he presented several of his architectural projects, nearly all forgettable. The work was fine, maybe even great (I don’t remember) but paled in comparison to the Astronauts Memorial (completed 1989) for one simple reason, the concept behind the project, the daring to propose to the bureaucratic agency NASA what he did , and nearly pull it off 100%.

The Space Mirror is a huge plane of mirror polish black granite, meant to reflect the sky above. In the granite slabs are carved straight through the names of fallen astronauts, scattered across the plane of granite, grouped by the tragic events in which the lives were lost. Behind the plane of granite an array of silvered mirrors was meant to be placed to reflect the light of the sun through the cut out names effectively burning the names of lost astronauts into the retinas of the viewers. Yes. The idea was to burn afterimages of the names of deceased astronauts into visitors eyes. The sheer violence of this small bit seals the deal for me and this project. It is some thing I will never forget. The power, and the metaphor contained in that simple move makes this project .

This is in addition to the fact that the several hundred ton steel structure and granite slabs rotated and tilted to track the sun across the sky, to insure that users eyes were continuously exposed to the full strength of the suns rays. Sadly, the bureaucracy being what it was, as per Mr. Jones, the mirrors were replaced with white painted surfaces to reduce the intensity of the light. After an malfunction with the equipment controlling the rotation & tilt sun tracking, flood lights were installed to provide a sanitized continuous source of light through the crippled memorial.

via Michael Surtees’ very excellent DesignNotes

At nearfield a presentation on RFID as a Material in Design outlines the background, goals and findings of the research into NFC (nearfield communications) using RFID.