Hey I know him!

So just s I'm about to go print out my blog, I notice an advertisement in the corner, and I recognize the picture of one of the guys....ironically by his tattoos. And it is in fact, none other than Joshua Davis, who I just did my paper on. I just though it was cool....

Joshua Davis Paper

linked it: ANM Joshua Davis paper

INHO Smart Objects powerpoint

Smart Objects

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IKEA much?

So this is something I definitely think is interesting and a fresh take, however I also would have expected to come out of an IKEA store. I think a lot of people are trying to pioneer many many many different ways to redesign furniture. After how many ways can you really make a chair until it becomes boring?? I say that's near impossible, so take a look at the SwiTcH and see if you find it boring....

All my interests

Eventhough I have been reviewing design blogs pretty consistently for the past year and a half, as well as been immersed in looking at new ideas, I'm still a little astounded everytime I see something that directly interests me not because it has to do with design, but from another aspect of my life. For example, although it was because of another art class, I have recently found an interest in knowing how to use power drills; and low and behold, on core77's site, here is an article about a new power drill! Its things like this that always remind me how much design really does effect every part of our lives.

Re-make it AGAIN!

It appears that my new favorite thing to blog about is an kind of recycled item. I.e. anything that saves the environment, is reused from something old, etc etc. Soooo since obviously core77 knew this, here's an entire article on re-manufactured art pieces. example 1:

Student Design

Design Sponge did coverage of the 2008 student design finalists for their scholarship program. One that stood out to me in particular was the ambient lighting (see below) for Luminoz done by Sara levy. So here's lighting that supposed to effect your mood, but as we go into smart objects, what about lighting thats effected by your mood???

Internet Overload

"The internet isn't full, but we are"
In this post by Seth Godin, he discusses how we've just about had enough with every kind of thing that was possible to put on the internet....ergo, in a sense the internet is full. He clarifies that everything only has a certain amount of space and the internet's space has run up. Or, even more clearly, we have decided the internet space is run up. People can keep creating more and more and more place to put stuff, but how much until we just stop looking because there is just oo much to go through?

Its a baby!

Desk chair + study cubby = Bouroullec Brothers' brand new task chair as featured on core77's page:

Gift Giving is the best

So core77 has come out with their ultimate gift list: "Top 77 for under $77." Check it out for those on your list, you're guaranteed to avoid the regular repeat gift, like this new way to drink your bottles beverages.

Baseball Babes podcast powerpoint

Baseball Babes

Not Only for Champagne

So we're looking for new building materials to go green....is this one of them?? Cork you say? That buoyant material we all duck from when New Year's comes around?? looks like sooo...

New Project!! So here's my photobooth pic, kind of effected by the blue coming off my computer screen, where I'm trying to look contemplative. Along with my future quotes (I'm choosing between the two).


"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present" - Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes

"The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time" - Abraham Lincoln

Design open 2008

This is completely impractical but I suppose thats what I've learned is where all god design starts:

Here's the rest of the design open.

Lyle Owerko

presenter in class the other day, very much enjoyed his portrait photography

Its all part of the game

I just booked my spring break trip to Puerto Rico with, well 14, yes 14, of my "closest" friends. Now it was definitely not supposed to make it to 14, but the coupling of no hotel fee and the cheap JetBlue prices, here we are at 14. Since we booked so early, its was only $300 ROUND TRIP, fees included. I'm sorry, but you can't been a spring break thats going to cost around $450 TOTAL.
So what does this have to do with design? Well in this post by Nussbaum, he discuss how JetBlue has taken advantage of the outsourcing and put it to "consumer advantageous" use. By aquiring a new jet designed to make short trips with 100 passengers they could offer fares for only $25 from New York to Boston. Delta and American Airline were forced to follow suit soon after ad who does that equal.....lower prices for all of us and cheap spring breaks.

Educate Me

This time I decided to review a Nussbaum post on How to Educate a Designer. As a student in design and someone who is graduating in the next year, it is opbviously a concern of mine to see what the thoughts are on educating desginers. As Nussbaum mentions, educating designers is a relatively new process and they're still working it out. It was interesting to read how their looking into educating desginers on how to think different and how different countries, such as Japan, educate their designers even differently than that.

AS You Like iT

Just a couple of the rough pictures I'm using for my Shakespeare project:

The gift card made personal

With the Holiday season just about upon us we're bound to see some very interesting new ideas in the gift department. But giftcards?? I mean granted they're the fall back for any gift giver, but leave it up to Target to be innovative in the gift card area. As core77 reports, Target has now made a gift card digital camera. Starting at $50, you can accompany your money with 50mb worth of creative pictures. At 1.2mp you're not going to get a ton of quality, but it makes a gift card a whole lot more personal. Or maybe you're sill going for the orginal impersonal message of a gift card and you can just opt out of the camera card all together.

Shakespeare Project

I have chosen "As You Like It" as my play to represent for the Shakespeare project. It is one of my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies. I will be trying to represent the love between Rosalind and Orlando and the changes and struggles it goes through in the play.

The Great Wall of Podcasting

So since our first project on podcasting, I decided to check of Bruce Nussbaum's articles on podcasting. One of the them is about how China doesn't have podcasting and then the ariticle immediately following is about how China does have podcasting???? So apparently the Chinese, regardless of how incredibly advanced they are in other fields of technology they still don't allow podcasting. Therefore when Nussbaum was visiting major sites in China that didn't offer podcasting, such as Sina.com, he assumed they all didn't. Then other bloggers brought it to his attention that smaller sites, such as podlook.com, do in fact offer podcating. It just goes to show that although you may think of podcasting as almost a simpler, more crass, form of technology, there are sites in China risking shut down to do it, and others who are just shying away from it because of those same consequences.

Target Pills

So I was sifting through the categories on Bruce Nussbaum's Business Week design blog, NussbaumOnDesign, trying to pick out a post, when one caught my eye. As a Target "Team Member" (a.k.a. employee) for 2 summers, I have always found the inner working of the the Target creative team intriguing; so I decided to investigate Nussbaum's category on target design. There was in fact only one post, titled Target is a great design innovator; in which Nussbaum discusses Target's ability to "really get design." He cites their commitment to reinventing and redesigning new products, specifically their improved medicine bottles. Although I have seen and handled their medicine bottles I never contemplated where they originated. Nussbaum informs his readers that the design came from a student at New York's School of Visual Arts, named Deborah Adler who was connected to Target through the AIGA. I have to agree with Nussbaum, who feels that Target's attention to students and new graphic designers is one thing that puts them ahead of the game. Corporation shouldn't discount students and young people just because of their lack of experience. Of course designers with age and experience are definitely valuable, but one might miss out on innovative ideas from new designers; after all, creativity isn't based on experience.

Presentations 10/28/08

Macro-micro = seeing different things close up and far back
irony = unexpected happening; opposites
coroflot.com

Speaker

Today we had Nusrat Durrani in class as a speaker, and I haev to say he's one of the more enjoyable speaker's we had. He was really relaxed and almost like, well shy?? No, not really shy, it was just that we were all sitting there amazed by his entire life journey to becoming what he is in mTV and he was acting like it was the most miniscule thing ever. I would like to say humble, but it goes even past that. Anywho, he was a really really great guy just to listen too. And here's the project he premiered for us, welcome to mTV Iggy....I def recommend a look:

Fix the Now

The core77 article I read today was talking about a new software that allows drivers to make their current driving more eco-efficient. At the Paris Auto Show the software, titled eco:Drive, was unveiled by car manufacturer Fiat. It is described as "an innovative, easy-to-use social software application that helps drivers improve how efficiently they drive." By analyzing consumers driving styles it helps them to reevaluate and change their driving to improve the CO2 emmissions (as well as to save money). Although the introduction of fuel efficient/eco-friendly/energy saving/etc. cars was great for continued progression, this is something that can be done today! We all know that not everyone can afford to just switch over to hybrid car or change to a vegetable oil engine, but this something everyone can do to make at least some difference. Its definitely a challenge to get people to change their lives in any situation, and going green is not always an easy change to make. With gradual steps and small changes that have big impact, like eco:Drive promotes, bettering the environment becomes more accessable, obtainable, and feasible to everyone.

Just Sketch

This week on core77, one of the most popular articles was We (heart) "I (heart) Sketch." This article is about a completely new way to, well, sketch. I (heart) Sketch is a new device from Seok-Hyung Bae that allow the user to draw right on the screen. It runs along the same lines as a tablet laptop, but one look at the video and you can already recognize some amazing difference. We've crossed the line from turning handwriting into text, and mouse-drawn lines into curves, and now we can do with any line we make. No longer is there sketching things out, scanning/transporting them in, I <3 sketch takes your sketched out lines and turns them into one beautiful curve right then and there. Thats not even the best of it, check out the video to see......

Debate '08

For this post I reviewed Seth Godin's post about debates. Seeing that the final debate will be coming to Hofstra very soon this article interested me. It has nothing to do really with graphic design, but more so on the whole issue of informing people. Seth premise for this post was that he believes there should be many more debates, and not just from presidential candidates but for candidates for other major positions. I agree with Seth in that debates are a great way to compare the ideas and policies of two, or more, people. As well as too see how they interact and can speak in a, moderately, improvisational setting. It gives people a better view of the candidates personalities and how they appear side by side. However, I have to disagree with Seth proposal on how the debates should be run. He says that there should be no moderator and that they should be just allowed to each speak for 15minutes and then ask each other questions. I think those rules take away from the actual purpose of a debate. Without organization you're not going to be able to keep anyone on track, have any of the real issues address, or get an equal exchange. I think it would be good to go more towards less preparation and structure but not that far.

Music

So I finally found a copy of my music file. I tried finding different things because this one was so obvious, but it ended up just being too perfect.

In addition I found the original lyrics and they even feature a girl baseball fan!

Here the link to the site: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1927 version)

Do it Again

Since we're taking components from other cultures and combining, and essentially reusing, them to make something new, I thought William Bostwick's article, [Re]make it New, was somewhat relevant. Bostwick discusses how designers have always recycled ideas, cultures, styles, eras to make them fresh for a new time; and especially with today's motto of "going green," recycling everything has become more appealing and more profitable for all involved.

As literal as liquid light gets  hihi

Apple's iPod was invented in 1979 This was one of the first articles featured on core77's site for the day and it immediately caught my attention. Since the iPod was something that directly affected my teen years until now I thought it was interesting that the original concept was made almost 10 years before I was even born. It also lends to the lesson that you can never be sure of when your ideas will come to fruition, so as a new designed you should always be invented and protecting your ideas

These are bottlecaps??

When I first arrived at the core77 site I immediately noticed the bright, colorful objects pictured at the left. I went on to read this article, posted by squee.gee, titled Design objects from recycled bottle caps to learn that this bag and stool were created by Athanassios Babalis for teh Green Design Festival 2008. The stool is made from 2150 recycled bottlecaps, and the bag is made from 370 bottlecaps.

Although I'm not sure this is the most practical method for recycling bottle caps, it certainly does make 2 very interesting pieces. Both the stool and bag are immediately eye-catching because of their color but also out of curiosity for what they are made from. In this sense these pieces serve as a pieces of art work, functional objects, and a means of education on recycling.

While searching through Bruce Nussbaum's Design blog I found another article that delves more into new[er] researching techniques. In this post, Ethnography is the new Core Competence, Nussbaum comments on how many companies who are already so focused on customer relationships should be using ethnographic research, but instead companies like Intel, who don't have inherent customer interaction are using it.

Reaching Your Target

Since we have been asked to choose a specific audience to target for this course, Seth Godin's recent post, Reaching the Right People, caught my attention. In this post he discussing an interesting new way of reaching one specific group of people by interacting with them through their already established interests. Now the only question left is whether you're assumption encroaches to much into their personal life or just working to serve them better??

Baseball Ladies

femmefan.com - more for football fans

girlsplaybaseball.com - not the most technologically advanced site, but if your a girl who wants to play baseball, this is the place to go

zazzle.com -  the place to go for all your baseball gear

"Women who Love to Watch Baseball" - an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer on female baseball fans

Stitch n' Pitch - an event sweeping many baseball games geared just towards women!

Phillies Ballgirls - an mlb blog specifically dedicated to female Phillies fans, but generally geared toward all female fans

Ladiesdotdotdot - a wordpress blog with post from about 10 different women baseball fans on all things baseball and female

BABES LOVE BASEBALL - by far my favorite site for most well put together and geared wholly towards women baseballfans

New York Women's Baseball Association - geared more towards all types of women who want to play baseball