designswarm thoughts

So I feel I’ve neglected this site long enough, I really should update people about why on earth I’m hardly in touch with the world. January is always a good month for announcements anyway right?

Firstly I am now CEO (or chief slave driver as I prefer to call it) of a small technology and design startup called Tinker.it. My partner in this being non other than my former IDII professor Massimo Banzi. So that’s taking, oh about 90% of my time now.

I’ve also been spending the last few months doing a bit of work for Blyk the free mobile network for young people funded by advertising. Often referred in my twitters as Finland2.0, it’s been really interesting as I’ve been running workshops with their target audience. Call it a user-based Applied Dreams if you will.

Then, well I’ve been working on a little project of mine with some great friends. More soon I hope. Let’s just say my dreams of getting something weby done are finally coming true.

And to top things off, Karola and I will hopefully be selling Topoware china to the world in a few months. I’ve been having fun dealing with real manufacturing constraints and old world communications with this one.

So there, it’s not that I don’t love you all, it’s just that I’m trying to die young :P

• Outsourced Wombs - New York Times Blog
  Unbelievably disturbing piece, as a woman and a human being, I can’t believe we’ve come to this.
  (tags: health feminism politics geography globalisation)
• güs | unique & modern accessories for men gus products include wallets, billfolds, passport cases and money clips - all designed with style.
  travel shwag. I don’t quite like the little yellow detail at the bottom though.
  (tags: product design travel)
• The Revolution Will Not Be Designed — In These Times
  Greatest article in a long time about design’s position as the fixer-upper of social issues. Sustainability is an example of a “messy problem” we simply cant tackle with design alone.
  (tags: social design critique)

• peterme.com :: Locating value in interaction design consultancies
  Really interesting article on how to define youself as a business and how to sell your value in the world of interaction design.
  (tags: business interaction design agency)

“used for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, probing for food, courtship and feeding their young”

You’d swear they were talking about limbs wouldn’t you?

Not quite. I love evolution.

• MoMA.org | Exhibitions | 2008 | Design and the Elastic Mind
  Moma exhibition featuring some work from current RCA students..need i say more?
  (tags: museum design education interaction)
• Museum 2.0
  Nice, added to rss feeds
  (tags: museum exhibition design web2.0)

“The more I read interviews with these rock star designers, the more I realize how out of touch with real design problems these people are. Approaching design solely as style and brand simply perpetuates the notion of Design as transparent and shallow, and if these people continue to serve as the mouthpieces for our industry, our industry will continue to simultaneously lose the business-centered respect and credibility it so urgently needs, and to ignore the social and cultural problems it so direly needs to solve.”

Via nice article in Core77.

I went to the Work-in-progress show at Central St Martins tonight to see the MA in Industrial Design and Textile Futures course. I’d been invited last December to attend a crit of half of those student’s works and was curious to see what they’d achieved. One of the many reasons I enjoy keeping in touch with students and people still in school, is that more often than not, they point to possible industry futures and this was definitely a surprising experience.

Firstly it seemed that more than ever industrial design drove into the same dead end as its colleagues in the fine arts, design noir and critical design and sometimes interaction design. A lot of ideas, a lot of statements and one-liners but not many projects that addressed modern issues.
One exception was the work of Sara Bellini (terrible picture of her project above) who is trying to cater to bed-ridden children in hospitals. Health is a subject that in my experience, design academics shy away from, partly because the unknown are numerous, it’s hard to relate to the needs of the target audience and also because it’s hard to be poetic in that environment. I think her work might change their minds. Do go check it out in the final exhibition in June.

Industrial design is losing it’s place as the more “technical” but still easthetic cousin of engineering to become the art-wannabe. The future of industrial design it seems, could be found on the 10th floor where the second year of Textiles Futures were exhibiting their own work.

There was really a broad range of applications, of a extremely high standard and with applications that went far beyond your usual motif explorations or weaving techniques: from wallpapers that would visualise your energy use, to furniture made from post-it-like layers of materials, shower curtains that visualise and conserve the water being used, fabrics that trap light, cartoon-like companions for everyday life, and interactive corridors in airports that reflect people’s cultural backgrounds, architectural structures that bring variable amounts of shade to public spaces.

Eager to explore areas they had never touched in their lives, and to learn about the technologies that would help them, I had met some of these women (no men to be found here) for the first time at an Arduino workshop I organised with Tinker.it. Not 1 but about 8 of them had showed up.

I was impressed (and you all know that rarely happens) and I look forward to seeing if this is “la nouvelle vague” of design.

• Innovation Workshop in March
  Damn, I’d love to attend, but this is really bloody expensive!
  (tags: Norway workshop innovation creativity school)
• The Best Design Schools in the World - BusinessWeek
  This picture was taken when IDII was next door, I’m pretty sure we would have made this list today.
  (tags: business school design)
• Solastalgia
  Very interesting the idea that we can’t deal with large problems like climate change and we suffer from them on a global psychological level.
  (tags: sustainability psychology)

• TED | Talks | David Keith: A surprising idea for “solving” climate change (video)
  It’s really great to see some original thinking and some provocative ideas around a subject so important. Fuels the debate and makes sure it doesn’t go away.
  (tags: sustainability video science)

• Demented Genius Award: Massimo Banzi, Tinker.it | Crave : The gadget blog
  Not sure how I feel having a business partner that’s qualified as Demented :P
  (tags: tinker.it press)
• Put Buyers First? What a Concept - New York Times
  If there was ever a pro-user experience report abou Amazon’s service, this is it.
  (tags: technology books web2.0 finance)

• 01 Positive™
  I wish this really existed or things were that simple.
  (tags: culture psychology product design)

• Has global warming complacency already set in?
  well said.
  (tags: sustainability politics)
• http://www.loic.tv/
  I don’t think I’m getting what’s going on here… bad editing, bad camera that completely distracts me from content… is this what’s supposed to take over the web?
  (tags: video web2.0)
• UK Reborn Baby Dolls
  This is possibly the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
  (tags: product design toys)
• My Misio
  Really cute package of soft-toy / virtual life and persona / web2.0, quite pricey though…
  (tags: product design wishlist web2.0)
• Independent IP
  Saw this at it’s early stages, glad these guys launched. It’s a really interesting product for music2.0 professionals.
  (tags: music web2.0 software)

• JuJups | Personalize A Photo Frame Gift This Christmas
  If this is the future of fabbing, well darn, that’s not giving users much space for creativity
  (tags: product design fabrication)
• Ettore Sottsass, designer, is dead at 90
  rip caro
  (tags: product design RIP)
• Cancer in Plain English
  It’s great to see professionals from all fields use blogging as a communication platform, makes things far more interactive than an HTML page that hasn’t been updated since 1998.
  (tags: health web2.0)
• OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet
  They are using this at my new office space.
  (tags: technology web)

• A gathering of geeks
  Nice co-working space from the nicest geeks in Montreal, go and sign up!
  (tags: web2.0 work Montreal)
• Innovation Predictions for 2008 - BusinessWeek
  This kinda relates to my thesis work of a few years ago… let’s start thinking about slowing the machine down, rather than keep the pace up with supposedly greener goods.
  (tags: sustainability product design)
• Innovation Predictions for 2008 - BusinessWeek
  Another case of business embracing design as a process. I wonder who will be teaching this and how successful it will be.
  (tags: design education business)
• Jóhann Jóhannsson : IBM 1401, A User’s Manual [via luckofseven.com]
  Really interesting and beautiful way to turn machine data into art and emotion.
  (tags: art computing performance)
• bjork_declareindependence_1500_dl.mov
  Wicked
  (tags: music art technology)
• Matt Webb’s Interconnected (it’s all confused and beautiful.)
  Oh my god this man makes me feel sub-optimal
  (tags: design thinking)

I shall try to have more free time to finish books, knitting, personal projects.
I shall attempt to get back into shape by taking a much lusted after flamenco class.
I shall attempt to make new friends in London, the kind that likes to have coffee and a rant once in a while (seems difficult here)
I shall attempt to travel more with Matt rather than waving goodbye or vice versa.
I shall try to not be the only working during the holidays next Christmas.

Happy New Year all!