Dava Newman: Space Fashion

Dava Newman
Aerospace Engineer / Sailor

Second Skin

Posted by Secret Life Team | 08 January 2010

The first thing we noticed when Dava Newman come into our studios wearing her spacesuit—also known as the Bio-Suit—was that it was most definitely not your father’s spacesuit. (And as an aside, everyone on the SLoS team loves having a job that involves people visiting us in spacesuits!) Dava explained that she and her team are building the Bio-Suit with the goal of increasing astronauts’ flexibility and mobility—a key piece of the puzzle as NASA plans future space exploration. Dava also told us that there have already been some completely unanticipated benefits of her suit’s innovative design:

“Something that’s been fantastic about the Bio-Suit design—which is like a second skin contoured to the body—is that I’m not in a big 300-pound spacesuit where you don’t know whether I’m a man or a woman because it’s so big and clunky. The Bio-Suit is skin tight, so you can say, ‘Oh, hey—there’s a male astronaut, there’s a female astronaut.’ So, I’ve been really pleasantly surprised—a lot of young girls are completely turned on by the design of the Bio-Suit. And they come up to me when I give talks at schools, and they think it’s pretty neat that it might be a spacesuit for a female astronaut. And oh, by the way, they think they might want to be an astronaut.”

As someone who was one of only two female students back in her undergraduate aerospace engineering department (there were 38 men), Dava knows more than a little about the importance of role models—and the lack thereof. So she continues to wear her Bio-Suit when she talks with children: “I want kids to know that engineering and science can be for all boys and girls… I’d love them all to be aerospace engineers and love their jobs as much as I do.”

Creative Industrial Design : Literalist Product Packaging

naoto fukasawa

was born in yamanashi prefecture, japan, in1956.
he graduated from tama art university's product
design department in art and 3D design in 1980.
until 1988, fukasawa worked as a designer at
seiko-epson corp.
in 1989, he left japan for the united states.
in san francisco he joined a small office that had
employed 15 persons - ‘ID two’, the predecessor
to ‘IDEO’, which now has 450 staff in san francisco,
palo alto, boston, chicago, london and munich.
after eight years fukasawa returned home.
in 1996, he helped set up ‘IDEO’ in japan - a team
of eight designers working mainly for the japanese
market. he stayed with it until december 2002.
naoto fukasawa he went independent and in
january 2003 he established ‘naoto fukasawa design
in tokyo. fukasawa joined the advisory board of the
japanese company ‘MUJI’.
Read more...

DESIGNING *for humans: Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 1

Firstly, this is not about adjusting your chair so that you're not slumped over the screen when working on a Flash prototype (although office ergonomics is a very important subject). Rather, the topic of discussion is the increasing value of ergonomics knowledge to the interaction designer. Ergonomics is necessary for 3-dimensional, tangible product design where issues of physical fit and comfort are critical. But for interaction designers in the 2-dimensional world of the display screen, ergonomics has largely been...irrelevant. For example in most cases, interfaces are designed for existing, defined hardware that are out of the control of the interaction designer. But things are changing... Read more...

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 2

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 3

Welcome to the Human Factors Professional Interest Section of the Industrial Designers Society of America website. This is one of several IDSA professional interest section sites.

The aims of the Human Factors (HF) section are to promote interest, knowledge, and responsibility for the cognitive, ergonomic, and perceptual aspects of product design and use.

Campana Brothers

Fernando and Humberto Campana have shaped the look of contemporary design for more than two decades. Celebrated for their whimsical furniture and lighting, the Campana Brothers have received the 2008 Designer of the Year at Design Miami/.

Laser Die Cut

This package was done by LaserExcel for Starbucks

Lasercraft

Laser cutting offers you:
- Clean, detailed cutting in most non-metallic materials.
- An ability to cut anything you can draw!
- Low set-up charges with no minimum runs.
- Fast turnaround.
- Wide range of materials.

Typical materials and applications:
Plywood – from 0.8 to 12mm thick. Bookmarks, jigsaws, clocks and clock figures.
MDF – from 2 to 15mm thick. Toys, puzzles and craft items.
Cardboard – up to triple wall board. Bespoke packaging.
Fabrics – natural and man-made fibres.
Acrylic – up to 12mm thick (with polished edges).
Paper – up to any weight and finish.
Polypropylene – up to 2mm thick.

Two companies that sell the equipment are:
LaserSharp® Digital Converting technology advances the die cutting process by eliminating the need to produce tooling to die cut a part.

The Preco FlexPro® CNC laser cutting system provides the speed of galvanometer processing with all the versatility of an XY motion system.

Reboot your packaging!

Shelf Impact! is delighted to announce that in addition to publishing a twice-monthly electronic newsletter, we're putting on a series of one-day package design workshops in 2008.

No time or budget for a three-day package design conference extravaganza? No problem! Come to our hands-on, one-day session and come away with lots of ideas to re-energize your packaging.

Learn about retail trends, consumer preferences, and strategies to help you create packages that deliver bottom-line results! The workshop is held in several cities across the U.S. Find one near you!

MOMA: Design and the Elastic Mind

Over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration.
Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.

Loremo: The 'Low Resistance Mobile'

The idea is deceptively simple. Forget about fancy batteries, regenerative braking, and alternative fuels. Instead, make a car that's elegant in its minimalism and efficiency. The Loremo's German designers revisited the basics — engine efficiency, low weight, and minimal drag — to create a car that offers fuel-efficiency in the neighborhood of 130 to 150 miles per gallon. The Loremo is likely to dazzle drivers not with its acceleration, but with its ability to drive from New York to L.A. with only three stops at the pump. Read more...

Design-Engine - Japanese cell phone design

" The main makers of cell phones in the world are Nokia, Motorola and Samsung. However, the situation in Japan is quite different from other cultures or countries. Most cell phones used in Japan are made by domestic companies such as Sharp and NEC. Since the companies have been making their cell phones only for Japan, they have been uniquely developed in functions and designs beyond what is seen in the United States." Take a look...

Oscar Niemeyer - Images of the architect's works

ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images - Slide show

Published: 20071225
"The corbusian influence is evident in the early works of Oscar Niemeyer. However, the architect gradually acguired his own style: the lightness of the curved forms created spaces that transformed the architectural scheme into something that was hitherto unknown; harmony, grace and elegance are the adjectives that are most appropriate to describe the work of Oscar Niemeyer. The adaptations produced by the architect to connect the baroque vocabulary with modernist architecture made possible formal experiences in spectacular volumes, executed by famous mathematicians including the Brazilian Joaquim Cardoso and the Italian Pier Luigi Nervi." Read more...

SEOUL APPOINTED WORLD DESIGN CAPITAL 2010

The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) announced on October 20, on behalf of the International Design Alliance (IDA), Seoul as the winner of the World Design Capital (WDC) 2010 competition at the closing session of the Icsid Congress held at Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco.

Seoul received wide praise from the five-member expert jury, which consisted of internationally acclaimed designers Marc Newson and Patricia Urquiola; Sergio Chiamparino, Mayor of Torino (Italy), World Design Capital 2008; Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, President of Icsid; and Jacques Lange, President of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda).

The jury unanimously endorsed Seoul’s bid to become the World Design Capital 2010. “The jury was highly impressed by Seoul’s application,” confirmed Prof Dr. Peter Zec, Icsid President, WDC Founding Chair and WDC 2010 jury member. “Seoul’s remarkable achievements in design-led development – particularly in the past decade – exemplify the spirit of the WDC designation.”

Icsid went on to explain that Seoul’s application detailed the far-reaching impact of design on the social, cultural and economic development of the city, and with the recent profusion of high-tech Korean consumer products around the globe—from brands such as LG Electronics Inc., Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, Helio and Kia—Seoul has been defining its international image in terms of its design capabilities….

11.04.2007 by Ulrike Reinhard

Ettore Sottsass - Industrial Design

At the age of 90, Italian architect and furniture designer Ettore Sottsass is still shaking up the design world with his irreverent flair. Co-founding the design collective Memphis in 1981, Sottsass became known for brightly colored, outrageously playful designs that defined '80s style. Although his more recent furniture is a somber mélange of polished aluminum, warm wood, and clear plastic, the tone is just as impudent. The towering cabinets on view at Friedman Benda are stacks of mismatching pieces — in Cabinet nr. 72, cold metal shelves rest on a dresser of polished tropical wood teetering on clear acrylic legs. Cabinets nr. 76 and nr. 67 also walk the line between subdued elegance and cheek, but his glass works are unapologetically bright and colorful. (BR)

An exhibition of Ron Arad's aluminum chairs is also on view at Friedman Benda through October 27.

One of the most significant counter-forces to modernism in the history of design, Ettore Sottsass has made monumental artistic contributions to every decade since 1945. His remarkable career has produced a provocative body of work, including architecture, furniture, industrial design, glass, ceramics, painting, photography and a wealth of writings. With this work he has consistently intellectually and aesthetically challenged the conventional wisdom of forms and proportions for over 65 years. Having celebrated his 90th birthday in September, Sottsass continues to produce work through Sottsass Associati, the architecture and design practice he founded in Milan in 1985.

On the Squareness of Milk Containers

"My favorite section is one called “The Economics of Product Design.” Its sprinkling of short essays reminded me of a simple truism that I sometimes overlook when thinking about design, gazing upon some item in a store or using some kind of interface and wondering how it got to be the way it is, or indeed lamenting the way it got to be how it is (who signed off on that?). That simple fact I forget is that often, an object’s design is only marginally influenced by the hand of a designer. Its design has already been preordained by market (or other) constraints. It is not merely that, as Charles Eames famously said, “design depends largely on constraints,” but something more elemental. The constraint is the design." by Tom Vanderbilt

Read more...

The Prizewinners of the Plagiarius-Competition 2007

"The Museum Plagiarius, housed in a converted railway building, will permanently exhibit 300 original products together with seemingly identical rip-offs. These items range from fashion and household products to electrical and medical equipment. They come from the annual Plagiarius awards, presented by the museum's co-founder Professor Rido Busse at the world's largest consumer-goods trade fair Ambiente, which takes place each February in Frankfurt. For 30 years, an independent jury convened by the designer and university lecturer has awarded the Plagiarius to a handful of unscrupulous copies, each submitted by the exasperated original designers. “The idea is to shame the con men and help the general public realize how widespread the problem is -- it's not just limited to Louis Vuitton bags,” says Professor Busse. Click through to see this year's 12 award winners -- and their original inspirations." BY Rachel Tiplady. Read more...

The Jury met on January 20, 2007. Three prizes, six distinctions and three special prizes have been awarded; total entities: 58.

Design Helps H.P. Profit More on PCs

By DAMON DARLIN
Published: May 17, 2007
Hewlett-Packard’s effort to transform its personal computers into more stylish devices has started to pay off.
Read more.

"Crawford Del Prete, an analyst at the technology market consulting firm IDC, compared what is going on in the personal computer industry with what happened at Swatch watches. One needs only a single watch, but watchmakers discovered that consumers would buy different watches for different functions and even moods. “PCs are headed down the same path,” he said. “Notebook PCs become a reflection of people.”
...

Dell, which was largely responsible for making the PC a commodity, has begun paying more attention to styling. Alex Gruzen, a former Hewlett-Packard executive who heads Dell’s PC operations, said: “It has always been about value, not about who has it cheapest. Now, in the marketplace what is valued is great design.”

Defining commoditization,
Posted by: Anton Philidor Posted on: 07/19/04
This Commentary looks at a surprising number of definitions of when a product is commoditized. Why not stick with a standard definition? (Standards are good when they advance rather than restrict.)
A commoditized product is one for which substitution is easy and does not substantially lessen performance. Read more...

Bruce Mau: Institute without Boundaries

The Institute without Boundaries will carry out an interdisciplinary project that involves students, teachers, and industry and community experts. The ambition of the project is to generate a housing system that achieves a balance between extremes of urban sprawl and urban slums and enables people to build sustaining, universal, and healthy human dwellings and communities. We will start locally and seek collaboration with other schools and institutions around the world to work on this challenge.
Next program begins in September 2007.
Early deadline is April 10, 2007 and all applications must be received by May 31, 2007.

Bruce Mau is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries. To know more about Bruce Mau click here.

Bruce Mau: An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

New Project: Looking for ideas 3

"Mindball® is a two persons game controlled by the players brain waves. The player being most relaxed wins the game.
Mindball is based on a concept (Brainball) invented by The Interactive Institute www.tii.se which is a cross scientific research institute, working within the areas of IT, art and digital media."

"Brainball is a game that goes against the conventional competitive concept, and also reinvents the relationship between man and machine. Instead of activity and adrenalin, it is passivity and calmness that mark the truly successful Brainball player. Brainball is unique amongst machines since it is not controlled by the player's rational and strategic thoughts and decisions. On the contrary, the participants are dependent on the body's own intuitive reactions to the game machine." Smart Studios Projects

"Brainbar is a mechanical bar that mixes drinks adapted to the visitor's brainwaves. The bar reads the brain frequencies that represent levels of stress and calm. Depending on how the bar is tuned it will then mix a drink to enhance or suppress the guest's feelings."

Pod hotels: small is beautiful

In 1977, Kisho Kurokawa designed the Capsule Inn Osaka, considered the first pod hotel.

Now, Pod hotels are taking over the world: joining easyHotel, in London and Basel, are Yotel, inside London airports; Cube, backpacker bunkhouses in Austria; Qbic, in Antwerp and Amsterdam; and the new Pod Hotel in Manhattan.

Famous car designer, Chip Foose

"In a relatively short career, Chip Foose has created a legacy of designs and accomplishments that are well beyond his years. Chip was born and raised in Santa Barbara California and automobiles were definitely in his blood. Chip's first job was working for his father's company where Chip specialized in project design. By age twelve, Chip already had five years experience under his belt, and had also painted his first car; a Porsche 356.

Early on, a chance meeting from Alex Tremulus, the designer of the "Tucker", was actually Chip's motivation to attend Art Center, where he majored in automotive product design and graduated in 1990 with honors."

"Chip currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Progeria Research Foundation, California Chapter."

Read more...

Posted by Brian Ashe

de Stijl aesthetic and Neo-Plasticism

"De Stijl, New Media, and the Lessons of Geometry

In 1915 and 1916, theosophist M. H. J. Schoenmaekers published “The New Image of the World” and “Principles of Plastic Mathematics.” Suggesting that reality might best be expressed as a series of opposing forces—a formal polarity of horizontal and vertical axes and a juxtaposition of primary colors—the author posited a new image of the world, expressed with “a controllable precision, a conscious penetration of reality and exact beauty.” Read the article

Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture
by Jessica Helfland

Neo-Plasticism

de Stijl