Popular Mechanics has a great list of tech materials or concepts that are rather inspiring. Pictured above is bendable concrete:
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Bendable Concrete
The nickname for Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) is self-explanatory: bendable concrete. Specially coated microscopic polymer fibers slide past each other instead of snapping under stress, so ECC bends without breaking. The material has been used to create stretchable expansion joints for a Michigan bridge, and to allow the coupling beams in a 41-story tower in Yokohama to flex during Japan’s frequent earthquakes. SHORT-TERM IMPACT: LOWIt could take years for ECC to be commonly used in construction, unless a major earthquake puts it in the spotlight.
This MUST SEE video of a spinning expanding table by DBFletcher seems like something from a sci-fi movie! It reminds me of the incredibly fun Hoberman Spheres that we have all played with. Watch their videos on their site, youtube, or above!
Wow! What an amazing story, idea, and kick-butt revolutionary company. Terracycle delivers the most eco-friendly consumer product in big box retail shelves made entirely by garbage, yet with a higher quality than most competitors and at a lower price! So, how they they do it? They use garbage!!! Founder Tom Szaky(23 yrs old when he founded TerraCycle and a freshmen Princeton dropout), explains, they get paid to take garbage away and they get paid to sell their new products. Their main product is a liquid worm poop fertilizer which is created by feeding red worms organic waste in return for their castings which get mixed with water to create a rich organic fertilizer that’s proven to be better than MiricleGro or various other competitors which are chemically driven rather than organic.(or as they claim, “The proof is in the poop!”)
Now with a great product came the task of packaging it. When they first started up, they had no money to purchase fresh bottles, hence another innovation…they ran around town collecting used soda bottles, cleaned them, added labels, and used that! They saved tons of money this way and also did something new in the product world; every single bottle was different, be it an old Pepsi bottle, Coke, Water, Sprite, etc. Their spray tops are even extras that have been dumped by manufacturers of other spray-on products and even the boxes that the plant-food is shipped in are misprinted rejects from major companies. Yup, it’s garbage made into huge profits at its best!
TerraCycle is a definite company to watch out for in our sustainably driven world. I’ve seen many companies re-use recycled goods, but I’ve never seen one come out with a product that can be used again, cost less, and is better than competiing products. They also have a pretty cool name tag concept to get kids pumped about recycling. Watch that video here.
Do you go to art school, or sit through tons of crits(critiques)? Perhaps your in a space with tons of stools with missing or worn out foam pads. Well, if so, your butts probably craving one of these soft “crit buns” to sit on! “Crit Buns” were created by designers from my school RISD. I first spotted these colorful and graphically packaged buns during the RISD alumni sale and thought, duh…we all need one…then again, I just sat on my hands back when I was there even though the dirty pants from the charcoaled up floors were somewhat proud war marks for the RISD-oids.(mainly freshmen students since they have drawing studios which are famous for using bricks of charcoal a day which most kids end up sneezing out towards the end of the day…ooo, those were the days.) Go get a crit bun and make your buns smile!!!
Artist Pete Goldlust creates these delicate and inspiring carvings from colorful crayons!!! I’d bet his halloween pumpkin carvings are jaw-dropping! via boingboing
Does your environment persuade the way that you think, act, and create? Absolutely yes! Watch this video of mind control magician Derren Brown manipulate some advertising creatives in a little test. Believe the video or not, I’m a huge believer that everything affects who you are; what you eat, read, watch, listen to, and especially the people and environments that surround you. After watching the video, watch the other great videos, books, and observations then question how everything around you influences and creates who you are.
I’m constantly coming up with definitions for a designer, but I never thought I’d say a magician, but I’m adding this to the list since magicians are masters of human observations and directions. As a designer, we have to understand how people perceive products, graphics, materials, instructions, sounds, time, spaces, etc. We create stories to consumers, viewers, and observers. As designers we are psychologists of human behaviors, marketers, advertisers, creators of direction and communications, and a bit of everything else.
Dig deep into Derrens websites here and here and get inspired, educated, and entertained about the human mind and more about ourselves.
The geniuses over at Hulger have created the first ever handmade wooden Pip Phone fashioned from the grained African hardwood Ziricote(Blackwood). This one of a kind phone (available for £2000) comes along with a wooden box and a container of wax for treatment to gradually make the natural wood an amazing texture and color that we all crave. As Hulger states, the phone is “designed to wear in, not wear out.”(I love it!)
I’ve mentioned previously (nostalgic technology) how tech products are not lasting, and currently only look their best until you open the package, hence millions end up in landfills yearly. I questioned how electronics can become more nostalgic or wear in to become better, much like leather jackets, teddy bears, old jeans, baseball gloves, leather wallets, handmade furniture, etc. I personally want to see soft materials injected into electronics, much like the recent Asus leather notebooks, or expensive Vertu Cell phones!
This is a first step at a handheld electronic device that will hopefully break in like Birkenstock cork sandals. I love wood, and have a weak side for beautiful items such as this. I understand the need in electronics to be thin and light weight, but if there was a way to make them age better, then there would be no need to have 1000 new phones designs each year that overfill our landfills.
Wowzers! This is some crazy cool Non-newtonian Fluid(Cornstarch and Water)! Basically, it’s a liquid that hardens on impact and softens when idle! Run across a pool of it, or stand still and sink! A must watch video!
Reminds me of Liquid Armour(Shear Thickening Fluid), which stiffens upon impact as well. It also reminds me of Magneto-Rheological Fluid Technology, which doesn’t harden upon impact, but hardens when a magnetic field is present. They have a video on their site, and I’ve played around with this stuff which is pretty cool!
One last hardening type material is spyders soft futuristic and flexible d30 material clothing which instantly hardens like armour upon impact, protecting this years winter olympians. Check out their webiste for more! I want one!(d30, or spyder) This is such an awesome new material for kick-butt brain storms!
OOoo. how cool, get a bunch of them, throw them around your office!
“Jamungo’s Sqwerts feature designs by Frank Kozik, Tara McPherson, TADIO, and the Jamungo guys: Ferg and Van Beater. Only 350 of each design (250 for the pink Van Beater design, my fave) were made, so get ‘em while they’re hot. via drawn.ca”
A bunch of ya’ll that have met me have asked me about my card-holder. Well, here it is. I grabbed a few of those free paint chips ya find at paint stores (home depot), made a few bends here and there, and bahm, you have your very own colorful hand-made paint chip card holder. I made a DIY guide after the jump, though the template’s custom to my cards size (3.5″x1.9/16″). The the home depot chips I used can just barely fit a basic 3.5″x2.5″ card with some changes in the template. Lots of pics after the jump along with the DIY instructions.
You buy a pair of these comfy espadrilles inspired shoes, and TOMS matches every pair purchased with a donated pair to a child in need on your behalf in South America!
I love this idea! Not only are these stylish comfy slip-ons great, but they represent a great cause! Sure there are those brands that donate 5% of profits to some fund, but it’s a very different feeling when the very product you purchased is also the donated item! These shoes now represent a much more connected feeling and understanding of the cause. Founder, designer, and “Chief Shoe Giver” Blake Mycoskie has a great story and video you should watch!
Quick thoughts: Brands are becoming such a huge part of our future. They represent a lifestyle and status of life, but they are also icons in solving global issues. Sure there are the ones that do small stunts to satisfy the PR world, but most companies don’t care unless they can profit from it with money. Brands must now echo real global solutions, such as sustainability, poverty, disease, hunger, education, or even as simple as providing footwear to the needed. Losing some profits to gain a much stronger brand experience is not a need, but a must! Our informational society is in the know, and small things can really destroy a brands loyalty.
Here’s a great set of characters drawn on cardboard sheets! I love cardboard…it’s one of those essential elements that you always have, use, and end up building halloween mazes, castles, mock-ups, storage bins, costumes, or as with many artists, the ultimate canvas. Hit up THIS Flicker Set for all the images and closeups, otherwise, I’ve posted an index of all of them after the jump.
Do you go to art school, or sit through tons of crits(critiques)? Perhaps your in a space with tons of stools with missing or worn out foam pads. Well, if so, your butts probably craving one of these soft 
