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I’m off for the week to TED2009 for this years theme “The Great Unveiling”, but this round I’ll be in the satilite space in the new Palm Springs location. I won’t be blogging too much, but you can follow me on twitter, or if your there, let me know and we’ll meet up. Check out the full TED schedule here or my previous TED adventures.


Mihoko Ouchi and Sherwood Forlee of “Think of The” have created a very pop art like laptop speaker in the form of a quotation bubble. Very simple and rather amusing! Personally, I’d prefer a black rimmed, white speaker to match Ji Lees Bubble Project Stickers, but black works just as well

Available this soon in 2009 for $120.
(more pics after jump)

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I’m not sure what the deal with sharks is this week, but after finding the fun “There’s a Shark in my Soup Bowl” design, I’ve come across another whimsical use of a shark fin for a tea bag holder from designer Pablo Matteoda . Sharky holds your tea leaves in a floating metal fin container while slowly dispersing tea leaf colors into the water creating a shark attack like scene. Fun, but also somewhat terrifying.


Very cool! Maybe it’s the twisting screw bottom, though most likely the draft angles and measurements etched into the crystal glass. Very industrial, very “I want I want!”

“The Ruckl Crystal Glassworks in the Czech republic manufactures an extensive range of cut 24% leaded crystal in a wide variety, from the simple to the extremely complex, with gilt, hand painting and sandblasting.

Inspired by the sometime archaic-seeming world of the engineer, each piece in the the engineering collection is so named for the etched designs on all the pieces involving the dimensions and spec’s of each piece.

The engineering collection also includes three additional lines: involute gearing, basic quotation, and the splined shaft designs.”

via unicahome

Gary Hustwit, creator of the incredible documentary Helvetica, brings to us his journey in discovering the world of Industrial Designer in Objectified, premiering in March 2009.

Objectified is a feature-length independent documentary about industrial design. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the people who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. It’s about our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?”

Some appearing in the film are Paola Antonelli (MoMa), Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Naoto Fukasawa, IDEO, Jonathan Ive (apple), Marc Newson, Karim Rashid, Smart Design, and more…

This line up already tells a tale of what to expect from the film (more of a euro flavor about objects, furniture, materials, service, space, and the simple obsession with emotional design.), but I’m sure it’ll be just as good as Helvetica, and if so, bravo! I cant wait to watch it! Watch the trailer above or here.


FluidTunes from Majic Jungle Software on Vimeo.

Using cameras to navigate your interface has been around for some time, but just a refresher, here’s yet another one called FluidTunes! Only for MacOSX. Again cool, but overtime, I’m not sure if I’d use! Cool is not always usable in the long run, hence cool becomes uncool!

via lifehacker

Artist Sakurako Shimizu has a great set of jewelry, the Waveform Series, based on sound. She inputs noise or spoken sound, then translates that it into a wave format which is then laser cut into metal pieces turned into necklaces, rings, brooches, etc. A ring with a wave saying “I do”…pretty cool! If only there was a way to play it back directly like the top of a vinyl record!

Reminds me a bit of NewsKnitter (turning daily news into a sweater) and VoicePrints (turning your voice into a pattern for textiles)


(Clockwise from left: Aaron Daye/The Gainesville Sun; Monica Almeida/The New York Times; Monica Almeida/The New York Times; Zach Boyden-Holmes/The New York Times)

NYtimes has a great short interview article in how the now iconic “Obama O” logo and campaign was created in a matter of weeks from motion and graphic design firm MODE and Sol Sender ! I’ll copy the article after the jump as well.
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