The forthcoming Touchscreen Cafe Table we posted on has had some good follow-up, and unsurprisingly, Moneual aren't the only ones to have visualized such a thing. Fans of the seminal '90s Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop may remember Spike and Jet ordering dishes off of a touchscreen restaurant table that presented holographic images of the dishes, and Core77 readers have chimed in with more examples. SCAD grad and interaction designer Clint Rule (update your Coroflot page please!) worked up a touchscreen cafe table concept video a couple of years ago, and at least one restaurant in London has something similar currently in existence. Whereas I was thinking of the table's potential purely as a transactional device, both Rule and London's Inamo eatery have taken it further.
To start with, Rule's concept integrates social features:
Inamo, an Asian-fusion restaurant in London's Soho district, opts for projection rather than touchscreen. Their system was created by a London-based company called E-Table Interactive, and though it's projection, it still contains some type of hand-tracking mechanism that provides similar functionality to a touchscreen.
When we hear "Detroit" in the news, it's often followed by depressing text about abandoned buildings or stolen woodwork. [Ed. Note: It's not all bad—Middlecott (whose work we saw earlier today) is one of many Detroit-based studios looking to do Motor City proud...] But now the Product Design department at Chrysler is trying to provide some positive action with the Autorama High School Design Competition 2013.
In seeking a way to promote both charity and Detroit's heritage while engaging youngsters, Ralph Gilles (Senior Veep of Chrysler Product Design) and his team partnered up with co-sponsors CCS, the Autorama custom car show and United Way to sponsor a high-school-targeted design competition. Anyone attending a Detroit public high school is invited to draw up a Chrysler luxury vehicle for the year 2030. Winners will get passes to the Detroit Autorama (plus an iPad for first prize winners) and more importantly, free admission to summer auto design courses at CCS.
"This year our product design team has been looking at creative ways to further support United Way for Southeastern Michigan as part of our overall corporate initiatives to help improve lives for people and communities in need," said Ralph Gilles, Senior Vice President - Product Design, Chrysler Group LLC.
"With additional help from the College for Creative Studies and one of the best custom car shows in the world-our own Detroit Autorama--we'll hopefully inspire some new and aspiring automotive designers right here in our own backyard."
The deadline for entry is February 8th. While news of the competition was just announced yesterday, there is no official competition website; apparently the entries will be collected through the high schools themselves.
The search is over, and the ISDA has found their new skipper: Starting today, Daniel Martinage takes over as the new Executive Director.
Martinage is what's known as a CAE, or Certified Association Executive, and a man with a reputation for getting organizations focused and on-track. Martinage's expertise lies in executive coaching and strategic planning, and he has over 30 years' worth of experience in the field, as well as having founded Association Coach LLC, a consulting company specializing in professional societies.
A professionally trained executive coach and facilitator, Martinage was the founder and principal of Association Coach LLC, an executive coaching and consulting firm that specialized in maximizing personal and organizational performance. Through his company he worked with more than 90 trade groups and professional societies. His insights on the coaching profession have been featured in dozens of news media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Business Week, Money Magazine and Woman's World Magazine.
Martinage serves on the faculty for the Center for Nonprofit Advancement and as a reviewer and judge for "The Washington Post Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management." He holds a master's in science, technology and public policy and a bachelor's in political science and speech communication from The George Washington University. Since 1987 he has held the Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation.
"IDSA is excited to welcome Daniel to the design community," said George McCain, chairman of IDSA's board of directors. "His training and experience will be key as we continue to expand our influence and global reach. Additionally, Daniel's proven leadership and communication skills will be invaluable in getting the message of design's benefits to business, educators and the community."
Kevin Boulton is a Northampton, UK-based 3D Modeler and Animator who is a few years out from Uni, pursuing independent projects under the moniker Studio Scarlet. Frankly, he can call himself whatever he wants—the kid's got chops.
According to the description for an older motorcycle project (above): "While learning Maya on the 30 day trial I built this bike to see what I could do."
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It looks like he was duly inspired by last year's summer olympics: Boulton mentions the games in the description for the Custom Bow, and he's also dreamt up a slick TT/Tri bicycle concept.
As the founder of Timbuk2, Rob Honeycutt spent over a decade and a half in the messenger bag industry, before selling the company to move on to his next venture. The former bicycle messenger has since turned his attention to the 21st Century (/First World) problem of cable management for the earbud-tethered masses. Not content to incorporate low-tech clips into zipper pulls and buttons, he recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for his most ambitious solution to date. Known as the Elroy (the logo refers to the Jetsons character's helmet), it's essentially a customizable Bluetooth remote that attacks the problem at its source: the cord itself.
The clip-on device is roughly the size of a lighter, featuring a customizable the front panel—the ten options at launch range from faux snakeskin to a meme-y gray tabby—which belies its touch functionality: tap to answer a call, swipe for volume, etc. A complementary pair of earbuds has a short cord; magnets on the sides of the Elroy hold the 'buds in place when not in use.
While I must admit I didn't know that Timbuk2 was a pioneer of the personal customization trend (circa the mid-90's), I agree that portable music players and smartphones are an obvious market for personal expression via accessories. Similarly, I didn't realize that Honeycutt was a champion of American manufacturing:
At Timbuk2 [where I applied mass customization], I was able to take orders for mass customized product online and ship product, usually within 24 hours. I've run manufacturing in the US in an industry with products requiring high labor content. I've worked with both domestic manufacturing and off-shore manufacturing across a wide variety of products...
I personally spent well over 10,000 hours doing actual line production at Timbuk2. I understand on a personal and visceral level what production workers face on a daily basis. I know how to transform what has the potential to be a meaningless drudgery into a meaningful and engaging work experience.
Besides anagrams and pizza, I also have a keen interest in digital fabrication and maps. "Below the Boat" is a new company that combines the latter two: besides lakes, the site also offers laser-cut visualizations of bodies of water from archipelagos and bays to shorelines and sounds.
Starting with a bathymetric chart (the underwater equivalent of a topographic map), the contours are laser-cut into sheets of Baltic birch and glued together to create a powerful visual depth. Select layers are hand-colored blue so it's easy to discern land from water, major byways are etched into the land, the whole thing's framed in a custom, solid-wood frame and protected seamlessly with a sheet of durable, ultra-transparent Plexiglas.
The result is stunning. It lifts the surface of the water back like a veil, exposing the often-overlooked, under-explored, awe-inspiring world that lies below. To those familiar with the floor of the ocean or the bed of a lake, it's a beautiful reminder of the deep channels, sharp drop-offs, and mountainous landscapes that are hidden from normal view. To the uninitiated, it's wonderfully eye-opening; as though the world suddenly took on a fourth dimension.
Below the Boat is the brainchild of Robbie and Kara Johnson, a husband-wife duo from Bellingham, WA, who came across one of the charts while traveling in Michigan and set out to bring the digitally-fabricated artwork to the masses via webshop.
As you can see, the results are absolutely amazing—etched in memory, as it were—and I daresay that even the most hydrophobic landlubber can appreciate the beauty of bathymetry in burned in baltic birch by laserbeam.
From NPR via Mashable: "As many had expected he would, the president did sign the fiscal cliff agreement with an autopen. The bill was back in Washington, D.C., while Obama was in Hawaii on vacation. So, it was signed by an autopen machine that produces a copy of the president's signature." Beltway commentators have questioned the, er, Constitutionality of his vicarious inscription, but Obama's autograph-by-proxy apparently passes muster, obviating the need to send a physical document par avion. The issue first came up back in June 2011, when CBS published a side-by-side comparison of the two signatures (on an earlier bill) for armchair graphologists:
This time around, Mashable has posted a short promo video of the Autopen of Interest.
Legality aside, I was particularly interested to see that the "Signature" in the logo for Automated Signature Technology is in none other than Mistral, which triggered an uncanny allusion to a very different implementation of the same font. As Willem Van Lancker noted in his in amateur review of the film (from a design perspective), the typeface was recently featured in the logo of Nicholas Winding Refn's noirish 2011 thriller Drive.
LUNAR is looking for an experienced mid-level Interaction Designer with a passion for conceptual thinking and strong storytelling skills, who loves to motivate and inspire colleagues and clients through user-centered design techniques. He or she will work closely with the User Experience, as well as Engineering and Industrial Design teams, to craft conceptual models and workflows for a wide variety of physical and digital projects, and then carry the project through with delightful and beautiful deliverables.
Had to LOL when I saw this Mini Cinema for iPhone. We've seen non-powered sound amplifiers for iDevices before, that essentially use seashell properties to magnify the acoustics. But here someone's come up with a rectangular magnifying glass that makes your iPhone look (in theory, anyway) like an iPad.
The manufacturer claims the $68 device "is of exquisite craftwork" and enhances the experience of both watching movies and playing games, though it's not clear how you'd play a touchscreen game with the screen magnifier in place. You can rotate the device to watch movies in landscape view, which we'd imagine would be the preferred method, but of course you'd have to keep your head in a fixed position to enjoy the magnification.
The potential usability flaws aside, this thing did get me wondering: Do you reckon it's possible to work out the viewing angle issues, and create large-screen TVs with smaller sources magnified by a big-ass lens? Or would the manufacturing hassles preclude any cost savings?
Frumpy Chairs, "Poly" and "Mary-Kate" (left to right)
Toronto born and raised, Jamie Wolfond is currently a senior at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. We first profiled his Extraterrestrial Seating earlier this November and are excited to share his newest endeavor in seating design. A proponent of big messes, loud noises, and hard work, Wolfond epitomizes that in his latest project, which is no exception.
Frumpy Chairs are one-of-a-kind plastic seating, where the experimental process behind each piece results in a series of totally individual chairs, none alike. With Frumpy Chairs, Wolfond brings together the seemingly disparate worlds of 'hand-crafted' and 'plastic-molded' to create completely unique plastic chairs.
The entire Frumpy Chair Series
The chairs are made from plastic regrind, which are chunks of failed injection-molded parts that would otherwise go to waste. Sourcing the material from factories throughout the country, Wolfond was able to get over 350 pounds of regrind donated for the project.
Notes from the Field: Technology in Rural Uganda
Auto Design History: Mercedes' 300SL Gullwing
Tokyo Designers Week / DesignTide Tokyo 2012
Beijing Design Week 2012
Eero Saarinen: A Reputation for Innovation
Beam Project: Call for Proposals
Stripes: Design Between the Lines, Edited by Linda O'Keeffe
Hidden Forms by Franco Clivio, Hans Hansen and Pierre Mendell
Design Process Kills Creativity / Design Process Creates Creativity
"If I Knew Then What I Know Now..."
Industrial Design and Crime
If you are a leader, make sure you give props
Core77 Design Awards 
SHIFTBoston 2012 Glow Competition 
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Biomimicry 3.8: What Would You Ask Nature
Changing the Face of Motocross
20 Years of Kikkerland
Discovering Chinese Design
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Frumpy Chairs, "Poly" and "Mary-Kate" (left to right)
The entire Frumpy Chair Series
"Apeman"
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2012
BEIJING DESIGN WEEK 2012
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2012
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2012
"Why Shrink-wrap a Cucumber? The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging"
"Stripes: Design Between The Lines"
Hidden Forms by Franco Clivio, Hans Hansen and Pierre Mendell
Taschen's "Design of the 20th Century"
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Poetry in Motion: A Four-Part History of the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing
All Chips On the Table: The Bicycle Art & Design of Garrett Chow
The Future of 3D Printing: Mere Misnomer or Something More?
The Road to Recovery
Notes from the Field: Design Observations in Uganda
