ha, these are awesome. I’ll have to get some of these for my next wine party.

“These made my day. Corkers are a design collaboration between Oded Friedland and Reddish Studio forMonkey Business are push pins that you can prick into wine/champagne corks to turn them into little creatures! The options are ?Monkey?, ?Deer?, ?Buffalo?, ?Bear?, ?Bunny? ?&? ?Crow. The packaging turns it into a fun wine bottle hang tag/gift ~ perfect for the next bottle of wine… Take a peek at more details up close on the next page.”

via notcot 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For those unfamiliar with SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), you must read and dig into this crazy Act that can and will pretty much screw up any freedom and innovation like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Reddit, etc if it happens. Please sign up to petition against it HERE. Learn more about it from the video above from Chris Hayes.

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

via youtube

“Nervous System is a design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. We create using a novel process that employs computer simulation to generate designs and digital fabrication to realize products. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena, we write computer programs mimicking processes and patterns found in nature and use those programs to create unique and affordable art, jewelry, and housewares.”

thanks sijia!

Our fashion friend Diana Eng just launched a new set of laser cut shirts and tops using precision distress floral cell-inspired lace patterns which you can buy at her store here! There are various pattens and colors but I picked the ones I liked most to post here but check out the rest of the designs here. The Cuts are designed so that it only gets better over time. I need some laser cut dress shirts now!

AstroTurf Aeron Chair! Need I say anything else?
To some degee I wished this classic web2.0 chair sensation was covered up in grass, but astro turf has some very intriguing quality to it for an office chair.  I guess it also depends on which astro turf it is.

via freshhome.

“The collaboration between Japanese botanic artist Makoto Azuma and furniture designerHerman Miller led to the creation of an unusual version of the Aeron Chair. This AstroTurf covered chair delivers all the important features of the Aeron Chair, with the interesting feature of having a distinct green “skin”. This chair comes as a natural response to the works of Makoto Azuma and Herman Miller, accentuating the decorative inclinations of the first artist and the exceptional design techniques of the latter. The body of the chair – including all the small details – were covered in a green AstroTurf skin, leaving only the wheels and moving parts bare. Just as Herman’s site says: “It’s all about making great design available to consumers“. You can see the AstroTurf covered chair this summer at the Herman Miller store in Tokyo, in the Marunouchi shopping district.”

Mirrored images after jump.

via  spoon-tamago!

“kiko+ brand was launched this May by Osaka based Kukkia Design, an interior design firm that started dabbling in toy design. The brands theme is simple, “Forest and children, children at play, play and art.”kiko+ specializes in “wooden toys and plans for kids” that will draw out the creativity, design and character of the child through play.

The sandals are available starting at ¥2,625~¥2,835. This footwear line is only one of eight products currently offered by kiko+. To see more of their fun and creative products, visit the kiko+ website.”

Neat!  I should make a filter on my google search engine to do this to me daily…maybe link it to the weather. When its hot, its red, when its cold, its blue, when perfect,  everything is green!!

“By now, color-coordinated bookshelves are nothing new. But hey, why not organize your website content by color? Yep, that’s what Here’s Looking at Hue does. Neat idea.”

via swissmiss

haha, this is awesome. A bit of Branding mashup. Do you know the two brands?!

“In UK logo designer Graham Smith’s “Brand Reversions,” he plays with some of the most recognizable brands byremixing their logos with those of their major competitors. When viewing the schizophrenic logos that result, it’s hard not to be disoriented–a testament to the power of brand identities.”

via and mirrored from laughing squid

More after the jump.

(picture from laughingsquid)

I’ve been waiting to visit Jay Walkers incredible “Library of Imagination” for several years now and in about 12 hours I’ll be inside pondering, wondering, imagining, and wishing I could take everyone along. I’d write more about it, but the 2008 TED video above or the Wired article will explain it best until after I return, though I’ll have no photos as this is not allowed during my visit. I’ll have to thank TEDmed for arranging this visit, which is also a must go to conference I highly recommend.

I’m off to nyc for the GEL conference. Will have more posts soon, otherwise, let me know if there is anything else I should catch while in town this week.

“Puppets always have to try to be alive,” says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a hyena’s subtle paw, puppeteers Kohler and Basil Jones build to the story of their latest astonishment: the wonderfully life-like Joey, the War Horse, who trots (and gallops) convincingly onto the TED stage.

Super Size Me creator, Morgan Spurlock brings us, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (presented by Pom). I can’t wait to see this. Brilliant idea! In Theaters April 22nd.

I’m off to the TED2011 conference, which will be my 10th TED conference. I’ll be stopping by LA this weekend to meet up with some TEDsters, then in Palm Springs all of Sunday to meet with TEDx organizers, then Long Beach for a backstage peek, then back to Palm Springs the rest of the week. Let me know if your going, in LA, or follow me on twitter for updates. And yes, that is me on the back of a shared bike last year cruising around the resort during one of the session breaks with my friend Ash from Australia. Also follow the Facebook Fanpage for occasional quick updates.

Great article  from Fast Company about Innovative designs not being consumer-led. I’ve always believed in this. Consumers know what they love and hate now, but they never know what they want tomorrow. Users often don’t know what they actually want even though they might say otherwise.  Focus groups are sometimes useful, but in most cases they an excuse to do when creativity is lacking or something to ease the mind in management. To innovate is to lead, not to follow, or as the article concludes with ” It’s time for brands to step up and trust themselves again”

Anyhow, read the article mirrored below after the jump.

“Companies should lead their users, not the other way around.

The user is king. It’s a phrase that’s repeated over and over again as a mantra: Companies must become user-centric. But there’s a problem: It doesn’t work. Here’s the truth: Great brands lead users, not the other way around.

The Apple and IKEA way

Take Apple. One evening, well into the night, we asked some of our friends on the Apple design team about their view of user-centric design. Their answer? “It’s all bullshit and hot air created to sell consulting projects and to give insecure managers a false sense of security. At Apple, we don’t waste our time asking users, we build our brand through creating great products we believe people will love.”

Another hyper-growth brand, IKEA, has the same belief. One of us had the privilege of working closely with IKEA’s global brand and design leaders; at IKEA the unspoken philosophy is: “We show people the way.” IKEA designers don’t use user studies or user insights to create their products. When I asked them why, they said “We tried and it didn’t work.”

Of course, neither Apple nor IKEA will say this publicly since they are both extremely closed companies and would risk offending users (and the design community) by speaking out against user-centeredness.

And since no one will speak up, the false value of the user-as-leader has spread.

Be a Visionary

If users can’t tell a company what to do, what should companies do instead? The best brands are all guided by a clear vision for the world, a unique set of values, and a culture that makes them truly unique and that no user insights could ever change.

They define their own rules. The vision must come first. This could come from the client, designers, a team, an organization, or a design leader. It needs to be clear and applied consistently over the project.

Create an icon

The same goes for truly extraordinary products, the icons of the world. There are three types of iconic products and none of them are made through user-driven design.

Democratic Icons

These could also be termed “slow” icons. These products take a long time to become icons. They are usually of plain or simple design, created to fulfill a certain function, such as the paper clip, tea bags, potato peelers, and the mailbox, all of which are valued for their functionality, rather than their aesthetics. Over time, users become attached to them and eventually, these products gain so much meaning that they start to gain cultural currency and layers of connotations. These icons are generally easily available.

Design Icons

This is when a familiar product such as a chair or a car whose design is particularly shape-driven will get a makeover, with an innovative design that alters the look of this familiar object. The first reaction of the mass audience is often negative, claiming the object “looks weird.” But over time, the audience adapts to the change and comes to love the product for its personality; it attains cultural relevance and becomes iconic. Hans Wegner’s Y-chair and the Aeron chair are typical examples of design classics that were adopted late.

Instant Icons

Instant may be familiar products or offer a familiar function like the design icons, but something about their design that make them essentially new products. They open new markets and create new demand—just think of the Polaroid camera, the Sony Walkman, the Flip Camera, the Blackberry, and the Apple iPod.

Why it’s harmful to listen to the users

But can’t you create radical new products based on what the user wants? Why do the most innovative brands not care about what users want?

Users insights can’t predict future demand

The demand for something fundamentally new is completely unpredictable. Even the users themselves have no idea if they will like an entirely product before they start using it (and maybe, only after years of use). Demand for something new cannot be predicted.

The world is driven forward by improbable, high-impact events, both negative and positive: September 11th, the subprime crisis, or the explosive rise of social media. These events completely changed the world and were difficult to predict—perhaps a few individuals saw a glimpse of the future, but the majority of people were totally unprepared. It’s the same with new products and brands—you can’t foresee what will be successful.

This is a very scary thought for most business leaders, but the good news is that there are ways to deal with it. All creative industries are dependent on the constant launch of radically new products. And the music, movie, publishing, and fashion industries have tried to find stability in a sea of unpredictability by constantly putting out new products and seeing what sticks.

They have learned to hire the best and the most creative people in the world (whether it’s directors, music producers, or authors), worked hard to launch a broad portfolio of products and to speed up the time it takes their products to reach the market.

User-centered processes stifles creativity

Could you imagine Steven Spielberg starting out new film projects with intense user studies and insights? Not really. There is a reason why Spielberg and all other profoundly creative people don’t work in a user-centered way. The user-centered process is created as linear rational process for innovation and that’s why it’s so popular among managers.

But as studies of successful innovations and creativity shows, creating something new is a chaotic, unpredictable, frustrating, and very, very hard process. And most of all, it’s the result of extraordinary efforts and visions of a few extremely talented people. These creative people will feel limited and bored, not inspired, if they have to start out a creative process with a lot of user knowledge. Their inspiration comes from a multiple of sources and is highly individual.

Creating a formula will always be in vain and won’t result in something really new.

User focus makes companies miss out on disruptive innovations

Focusing on users will lead companies to make incremental innovations that typically tend to make the products more expensive and complicated and ironically, in the long run, less competitive.

Radical innovations typically gain traction in the margins of a market and the majority of customers (at least in the beginning) will dislike change. If a company bases their decisions on user studies, they will conclude that most radically new innovations are not rational to pursue. This often means that companies miss out on new growth markets that can end up eventually eliminating their business.

The same logic applies to branding. A company will always go for very small incremental changes in their branding efforts if they base their decision on user input. In the short run, minor changes pleases their users. In the long run, it means the big brand will be run over by bolder, often smaller, and more innovative brands that redefine an industry.

User-led design leads to sameness

Even if user insights were useful, it isn’t a competitive advantage. Even the most advanced users studies are now widely available. Most companies have conducted these studies and they have had the same insights about their users as you have. Therefore, product strategies based on studies will tend to be similar to their competitors. The result is a sea of sameness.

This isn’t a theoretical point—most industries are characterized by very similar products and brand positions, partially because companies have listened too much to their users. Branding is really about differentiation, about standing out. User centeredness leads to the opposite, similarity.

It’s time for brands to step up and trust themselves again.”

***

Written by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen.

Rasmus Bech Hansen is a senior partner at Kontrapunkt, a brand and design consultancy, and a sough-after conference speaker and TV commentator.

Jens Martin Skibsted is founding partner of KiBiSi and Biomega. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Global Agenda Council on Design member, and one of the 40 Under 40 chosen by I.D. Magazine. In 2009, he co-founded the product design group KiBiSi with Lars Holme Larsen and Bjarke Ingels.

The Noun Projects is a visual library of icons representing everyday things we stumble upon daily, but this library is free to the public for use under Creative Commons. Pretty sweet project, and they also have  Kickstarter page if ya want to help them out.
Heres a bit more about them:

Mission
“sharing, celebrating and enhancing the world’s visual language”

The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world’s visual language, so we may share them in a fun and meaningful way. Here is our pledge to you:

FREE
The symbols on this site are and always will remain free. We believe symbols can not be effectively shared with the world if they are not free.

SIMPLE
Everyone like simplicity. We want you to be able to come to our site and effortlessly find and obtain what you are looking for. Simple as that.

FUN
We think a language that can be understood by all cultures and people is a pretty amazing thing. We also think our symbols and the objects or ideas they represent are works of art worth celebrating. Check out our store.

HIGHEST QUALITY
We get excited about things like scale, proportion, and shape. We are committed to design and quality in everything we do.