thoughts

Discursive Design: Design is a Mess

Posted by _tango! on January 8, 2009
Posted in: art, design, experience, ideas, information, me, thoughts. Leave a Comment


As I return from this years holiday break I’m reminded of the everlasting question “What do you do in design?” Fields such as transportation, furniture, shoes, toys, and electronics are a bit easier to describe in a few sentences, but for those like myself that do a bit of everything both tangible, emotional, interaction, print, marketing, biz, branding, spacial, manufacturing, packaging, art, the future, the past, research, etc it’s an adventure to describe the simple question “What do you do.”

Core77 has an interesting article describing the everyday hurdle industrial designers have had defining the evolving Industrial Design discipline. Simply put, “Design is a mess”. This isn’t bad, it’s just that the term Industrial Design is still fairly new constantly defining itself, hence, we as designers today, are defining what industrial design means.

Check out the full Core77 article here, or after the jump. The Book project is by Stephanie M. Tharp and Dr. Bruce M. Tharp at DiscursiveDesign.com.

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Seth Godin: Instead of getting an MBA, consider spending six months in my office

Posted by _tango! on December 5, 2008
Posted in: brand, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, me, thoughts. Leave a Comment


Wow! This is an awesome, AWESOME, freaking AWESOME opportunity!

Guru Seth Godin has a plan, to get a few amazing people in his office to work together for 6 months. Forget paying to get an MBA, go get an MBA-like experience for FREE!

“Here’s the program I’m interested in creating:
One hour a day of class/dialogue
Four hours a day of working on my projects
Three hours a day of working on your personal project
Five hours a day of living, noticing, doing and connecting”

Read about it here then apply!!!!! (I’d do the same, but not sure who would come work with me for free and learn, well, everything I blog which is free 🙂 )

Fluid Tunes: hand motion navigation

Posted by _tango! on December 5, 2008
Posted in: design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, me, music, style, tech, thoughts. Leave a Comment


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

ImprovEverywhere: Welcome Back!

Posted by _tango! on November 27, 2008
Posted in: entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, inspiration, me, thoughts, wacky. 1 comment


Welcome Back from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo via swissmiss

ImprovEverywhere.com presents “Welcome Back” where a crew of total strangers enthusiastically welcome back total strangers at the airport terminal! I think everyone should be greeted this way!!!!

Reminds me a bit on Ben Zanders lessons on How Happy Birthday Should Always be sung; with passionate enthusiasm, waving hands while standing, vibrant smiles, and shining eyes with a community of awesome people!

Kokuyo Highlighter

Posted by _tango! on November 17, 2008
Posted in: brand, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, inspiration, style, tech, thoughts. 2 comments


Kokuyo adds a simple twist to a highlighter pen allowing you to highlight, circle, or outline any text!

Several years ago I slammed my highlighter into a corner and left 2 jagged edges leaving vampire like tips (I might have also just carved a triangle out with an exacto blade late into a creative night procrastinating). Anyhow, I used the pen until it dried up, but I never thought I’d see this accident turn into a product! Accidents(procrastinating) are sometimes the best inventions!

via spoontamago

Juan Enriquez 10 Commandments to Save the US Economy

Posted by _tango! on October 29, 2008
Posted in: experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, Poptech, thoughts. Leave a Comment


Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.

Juan Enriquez presents a vigorous 10 point commandment plan to save the US economy for our next president during Pop!Tech 2008. Watch the video here with more info on joining to help out including a pdf of his presentation!

Buy Juan’s books here.

Copied from the current wiki here:
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS FOR THE COUNTRY AND PRESIDENT ELECT DURING THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION’S FIRST 60 DAYS:

1. We have to save the dollar (AAA rating in jeopardy)

2. We have to fundamentally and brutally restructure debt

3. All entitlements are fair game.

4. Cut back military by 2% per year for ten years

5. Cap medical costs at 18% GNP (going to be a cat fight, but we need to have it)

6. We have to triage our support for companies (don’t attempt to save dying whales)

7. The program has to be fundamentally American, meaning it must once again limit the federal government.

8. Simplify and broadly apply Sarbanes Oxley – apply it to government, apply it to hedge funds

9. We will invest in growing start up companies (which create the most jobs – this is where the economy is growing)

10. We will treat education as a varsity sport (and continue to recruit foreign PhDs)

Freeline Skate

Posted by _tango! on September 22, 2008
Posted in: design, entertainment, experience, inspiration, style, tech, thoughts, wacky. 2 comments


A few months back I drove by a parking lot and saw 2 dudes skating around spinning around like mad men. The weird part was, I couldn’t see their skateboards. I thought weird and straightened my head avoiding the traffic I almost ran into.

I’ve finally realized what these bizarre inventions are. Their called Freeline Skates seemingly like mini skateboards for each foot, somewhat resembling sideway rollerblade besides the fact it’s not strapped to your foot. This is some pretty crazy weird stuff. That’s all I can say, but it seems to be making a blaze across the world! Check out the video above or their website for more info.

Freeline Skates

Thomas Kalak: Thailand – Same same, but different!

Posted by _tango! on September 21, 2008
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, style, tech, thoughts. Leave a Comment


Photographer Thomas Kalak sent me his new book “Thailand – Same same, but different!” containing a colorful variety of street improvisations containing creations in leveling objects in challenging environments, sourcing water in unique ways, making broken products useful, converting objects into other uses, and a variety of other everyday needs. The photos are simple, mind-provoking, and very humorous once you realize the entire story. You’ll look at an image, wonder what they were solving, realize the initial problem, then understand how they solved it. Each image is a puzzling fun story in itself.

We live in a culture where resources are abundant, but at times we also find ourselves sourcing our needs around what we already have. The art in improvising is one of the most elemental needs in creativity just as “perspective” is to creation. Just because something is made to do “this” does not mean it cant’ do “that”. Thomas has created a wonderful simple book giving us a lens in seeing such beautiful samples in Thailand!

A little bird tells me this is selling out fast! Get your orders at RupaPublishing.com or direct here!

A few pictures from the book after the jump provided by Thomas!
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Eeepy Bird Guys: Post-it Notes

Posted by _tango! on September 14, 2008
Posted in: art, brand, entertainment, fun, inspiration, materials, thoughts. 1 comment


EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

The Eepy Bird Guys, infamous for their Diet Coke Mentos fountain experiment(post), hinted during the Art Center conference their next experiment with Post-it notes here (above)!

This video reminds me in the shift in marketing. The Coke+Mentos video was made for fun and gave Coke and Mentos tons of great PR (even though I still dig the old fresh-maker commercials), and the post-it note was most likely a paid experiment. You no longer need to explain what a product does, you just need to make people curious and aware of that “something”. Anyhow, this can be a long discussed topic, so I wont dive into it, but I guess it’s just a note on how companies are pushing for the success in viral videos for their brands and products.

eepy website