Archive for the 'materials' Category

4th Amendment Wear

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

With all this crazy TSA news this past month an idea like 4th Amendment Wear was bound to happen.  Pretty cool, though I’m not sure if it would actually work. Wonder if duck tape would show up… Tape drawing time! Otherwise, send me a pair, and maybe i’ll find out if it works!

via joshspear


Ecological Business Card Stamp

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

I always loved the idea in the Seconds Hand Business cards, but to be more sustainable comes a real reuse by creating creating a stamp to put onto existing paper materials!  I just might have to do this now.

Fischer Portugal recently had the challenge of designing an ecological business card for an environmental consultant, Andrea Romani. Business cards are usually made of paper. But using paper, even recycled, is not good for the environment. To avoid this issue, the advertising agency decided not to print any cards at all. Instead they created a rubber stamp to turn re-usable material into business cards.

The Ecological Business Card was developed at Fischer Portugal, Lisbon, by creative director Diogo Mello, art director Marco Martins and copywriter Rafael Pitanguy.”

via theinspirationroom


Loop Jacket

Friday, November 5th, 2010

Tyvek, asymmetrical, simple, fun jacket. I want! Comes in Red, Purple, or Grey with patterned lining!
Loop Jacket $49.99

via  mioculture


Being Steve Jobs’ Boss

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

A great article on how Steve Jobs is a bit different as a CEO at Apple…. and some great pointers for those leaders out there =).

“An anecdotal story: A friend of mine was at meetings at Apple and Microsoft on the same day. And this was in the last year, so this was recently. He went into the Apple meeting (he’s a vendor for Apple), and as soon as the designers walked in the room, everyone stopped talking, because the designers are the most respected people in the organization. Everyone knows the designers speak for Steve because they have direct reporting to him. It is only at Apple where design reports directly to the CEO.

Later in the day he was at Microsoft. When he went into the Microsoft meeting, everybody was talking and then the meeting starts and no designers ever walk into the room. All the technical people are sitting there trying to add their ideas of what ought to be in the design. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

read the rest of the article here, or after the jump.

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VitroLife XVIVO: Organ Transplant Preserver

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010


While attending TEDmed2010 I had the amazing opportunity to touch and feel a living breathing lung! Watch the video above and wait for it to breath in! The machine (Vitrolife) keeping this lung alive has been used to save 30+ human lives in keeping organs alive while patients prepare allowing a much longer timespan from donation to transplantation. It’s quite amazing to touch and a life changing experience to realize how precious our bodies are. These lungs are incredibly soft, almost like a soft, warm, living gel… actually very much like a piece of fat.

This lung in particular is a pigs lung, but I’ll include a video of a human lung after the jump. Also I’ll share a picture of Martha Stewart taking a picture of this very lung I touched and the picture she tweeted out in her experience.

Human lung video after the jump, and matha stewart images:

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Anti-Fly Sphere

Monday, October 18th, 2010

hmm, interesting. I never knew that to be a reason people hung up bottles of water near food. Makes much more sense now!

“If you can’t stand the smell or deadly poisons that come with store-bought bug spray, then this surprisingly attractive Anti-Fly Sphere 2.0 may just the pest deterrent you’ve been looking for. Designed by Netherlands-based José de la O, the Anti-Fly was inspired by the taco kiosks in Mexico, which use hanging plastic bags full of water to ward off flies by confusing their sensitive eyes with amplified colors and movements through light refraction. A little fancier that a Ziploc full of water, José’s design is a totally revamped version that consists of a beautiful glass bulb and stopper. Gorgeous, green, non-toxic and kill-free — these are words we’d never expect to use to describe bug repellent!”

José de la O
via inhabitat


James Patten: lcd project

Sunday, October 17th, 2010


A good friend of mine James Patten (MIT Medialab alumn) was visiting this week and showed me a new project of his, or at least it was new to me.  He took a bunch of translucent lcd films, tiled them, and made one huge transparent screen which can make the grid  translucent, black, or even gray tones for some pretty sweet effects. Watch the video above and watch out for the final project via his website pattenstudio.com.

“A prototype transparent LCD screen for an upcoming installation. 16×16 = 256 tiles. Eventual installation will be roughly 6000 tiles and 150′ in length. Project details private at the moment.”

youtube video


Floating Foam Printer

Saturday, September 25th, 2010


Oh woa! how awesome. A printer that makes shapes, slices them, then they float up into the sky. A floating foam printer I guess (I’m thinking theres a bit of Helium inside the foam). Anyhow, what a great little invention. I want I want!


Ikea Cookbook

Friday, September 24th, 2010


Ikea just launched a pretty awesome 30 page cookbook with photographer Carl Kleiner composing some beautiful shots of the ingredients…. and if I read right, I hear these books are free in the kitchen department in limited quantities!!!!! ya!!! Amazing work!
via craftzine

Pictures by Carl Kleiner after the jump!

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Pebble Like Shakers

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Something about these simple ceramic pebble like stacked salt +pepper shakers caught my attention, along with a hidden dipping sauce tray underneath. Made me smile.
Get your set for for $32 at gessato.


Spray-On Clothing

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

I’ve always thought about spray on clothing, but I guess it’s only now that I’ve seen a pretty viable solution above, where ya spray it on, and it dries to fit to perfection. You can even recycle it for another spray on. Anyhow, how about some spray on socks… I get those sock holes all the time, but you just next to spray on a patch now!

“Particle engineer Paul Luckham and fashion designer Manel Torres from Imperial College London combined cotton fibres, polymers and a solvent to form a liquid that becomes a fabric when sprayed. The material can be built up in layers to create a garment of your desired thickness and can also be washed and worn again like conventional fabrics.

In addition to creating instant fashion, the technology could have a range of other uses – spray-on bandages, for instance. “It’s a sterilised material coming from an aerosol can, and you can add drugs to it to help a wound heal faster,” says Torres.”

via newscientist


B(h)uis / Hoogte Twee Architecten

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

“Through the centuries architects have used small construction works to experiment with spaces of limited form, scale and extent, but also to experiment with material and details.

As there’s a lack of well-equipped research laboratories, the research of material by architects focuses on potentials of existing (construction-) products in which mainly is sought for possibilities of improper use of materials. Our temporary residence is such an experiment. PVC tubes have inspired us to a design of a special object in which this material is no longer seen as a tube but as a hollow building stone.

The material is researched by its spatial characteristics and escapes its standard application. The transparency in the along-direction and the fixed wall in the cross-direction determine the spatiality.

By parallel stacking of the tubes as building stones a mass has been created which represents itself closed from four sides, but which is transparent, seen from the head sides. By hollowing out this mass a special residence will be created which will be provided by light seen from the head sides.”

via archdaily

more pics mirrored after the jump

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