My incredibly talented friend Peter Chan who attended RISD with me just finished his graduate studies in product/entertainment design at Art Center and is seeking work. For any readers with connections in the entertainment industry (web, games, movies, sets, storyboarding, etc) I’d very much appreciate ya’ll mention Peter to your friends or link to his site.
His work ethic is awesome, his skills are unmatched, and he’s always craving to learn. Peter has a great mentally in adaption, brainstorming, storytelling, philosophical discussions in design, marketing, art, and has a unique cultural perspective based on his knowledge and experience. He’s one seriously talented creative with a kick butt sketch hand and eye.
Check out his work on DrawPeterDraw.com, pre-order his book Alien Race featuring a ton of his work (I’ve seen images from this book and it’s “Jaw Dropping”), or contact him if you have a sweet job to offer him.
Peter’s provided Designverb with some exclusive drawings to post along with a few from his webpage after he jump! (prepare to be amazed!)
update: Peter’s commented below about his new blog here.
I’ve been really bad at posting this week and I apologize. I’ve been busy and found little to post. I almost posted about the very cool color guiding “MyCuppaTea” but then got distracted by the fact that Guster was playing live near me in September. After hurdling for tickets which I never bought since their concerts start before work ends, I scrambled online looking for the sold out but ever so cool red “Use Helvertica” shirt which lead me to Helvetica: the film. Somehow this took me to a Flickr collection of business cards which reminded me of my DIY Paint Chip card holders which someone did today though not with paint chips.
I’d also like to make a shout out to my friend Andy on his company Interwoven Threads (Look good, Do better) He offered up a few shirts to my readers, so if interested, send me a cool link, I’ll pick a few, and he’ll send you a kick-butt shirt and even let you suggest a charity in your area to donate one to.(You buy a shirt, they donate the same one to the needed)
I don’t post on shoes too often, but when a big cookie monster like Nike known for making mountains of carbon fuming rubber glue shoes launches a 100% sustainable shoe in their eco-consciousness Nike Considered footwear line, I start to smile.
I’d seen previous attempts in this line that didn’t fair to well stylishly nor environmentally, but the these new Long Ball Lace shoes are rather appealing with it’s minty lime highlights while being 100% biodegradable using a cork sole and sporting some baseball stitch like weaves. Now all they have to do is figure out how to drop the price a bunch and be a bit more like TOMS shoes with donations to the needed, even though they probably do this already.
Brush&Rinse is a ingenious fun idea by Scott Amron at Amron Experimental which adds a simple curve to a toothbrush that creates a redirection of water from the sink faucet for a fountain like spout to sip and rinse from.
“The jurors loved the way a common-looking toothbrush, gently tweaked, could shape tap water into a fluid parabola as perfect as the St. Louis Arch. They talked about the wonderfulness of harnessing the appeal of water play to transform a universally unloved chore, repeating comments about the power of design to create moments when ingenuity boosts utility to an emotional “A-ha!†Their solidarity was too strong to rouse any pithy debate, however. “Will it entice kids to brush their teeth?†(Tobias) Wong wondered. No matter, said Jeremijenko: “It rescripts a daily activity into something fantastical.†…(It) reminded the jurors of the deepest and most primitive powers of design: to create wonder where it’s least expected; to make something out of nearly nothing; to reduce people to two words. Wow. Cool.
This is pretty sweet! “HypoSurface is the World’s first display system where the screen surface physically moves! Information and form are linked to give a radical new media technology: an info-form device.”
Ooooo, TED Africa videos just started to get posted! If you missed out on the incredible TED Africa this past June in Tanzania, now you can enjoy a glimpse of this adventure online. If you prefer to read about it, I’d recommend reading 2 blog entries: Ethan Zukerman or LunchOVerIP by Bruno Giussani.
I’ll post the first 4 launched TED Africa videos after the jump.
Here’s a great hour long panel discussion moderated by Guy Kawasaki (garage.com) talking to successful start-ups about how they started, how they made millions, how they survived, what not to do, where they came from, fun times, etc.
I first spotted the CableYoYo at CES2005 and never really thought I’d need an extra piece of plastic to manage my small extra corded products such as my mouse, laptop, earphones, keyboard, etc, but I received one as a gift last year and latched it onto my favorite Mouse (red Logitech MX510).
Having to hop around with my laptop a bunch, the CableYoYo has saved me loads of time, frustration, and space. It seems rather un-needed at first, but shortening my mouse cable has freed me of tangling wires in the bag, a cluster of noodling wires next to my laptop, and a few saved seconds every time I pack. Why not just get a bluetooth mouse? Well, I find them a bit slow and jumpy nor do I care to change batteries every few months or bother with an extra USB dongle I can lose… and as far as a charger… I’m not packing another clunky charger with more wires since I already have many for all my other electronics. (I really wished power adapters could be universal like USB for everything)
Do you have 500+ e-mails sitting in your inbox? If so, shame on you! Get your digital communications gear in tune and get that email mess count down to ZERO every single day! Trust me, it’s worth it! How you might ask; two options: 1) take an hour listen to Merlin Mann (43 Folders) lecture about “Inbox Zero” while at Google (his slides here), or 2) give Mark Hurst book “Bit Literacy” a read. (Marks run CreativeGood in nyc and also runs the incredible inspirational GEL Conference yearly which I’ve attended many times)
I’ve been using a hybrid of these systems for many years now, and I’m not sure where I’d be without it. Many ask me how I manage so many different email accounts, clients, web accounts, etc… and the simple answer is… I keep my inbox down to zero! In the most simple cliff-notes version on how to achieve this system:
- Answer emails asap.
- Do not let emails be your address book/calendar/to do lists.
- Trash the ones you don’t need to read.
- Answer and move emails to folders (this is a step Merlin says not to do, but archive it all).
- Make it a habit to get to zero daily.
You know how right before you leave for a vacation or something, you sit down and hammer out tons of overdue emails, activities, projects, etc…. we’ll basically be that productive every day… with an inbox of zero, your less stressed, can find things much faster, and you feel much cleaner!!!
A few weeks back, I was in need of an external hard drive, and like most geeks I cruised the internet for reviews, asked opinions from friends, and ventured off to store shelves to see what was hot. After pacing around for more than needed, I finally bought the FreeAgent by Seagate because it seemed clean, was understandable, and it just felt better.
I’ve been incredibly happy with the product and ran into this great post describing someones great experience in the packaging design, which I’ll admit made me buy over the other options because the packaging was so human and sweet. I’d say “simple”, but I don’t like using that word because everyone thinks it means reduction when it actually just means intuition.
Woa! These cascading column like basalt formations rock!
“Columnar Basalts are rock formations resulting from the quick cooling of lava flow. Fractures form in a random cellular network (similar to soap bubbles, organic cells, etc.), though the average distribution of sides is six, giving the hexagonal structures an eerie man-made appearance.”
Did you know that toothpaste can damage your teeth? According to the following article, I can see why… Otherwise, I’m sticking to my tasty paste for now.
“CBS2Chicagois reporting about a growing concern among some dentists that excessive brushing with toothpaste is not good for one’s teeth. Dentists increasingly see patients destroying tooth enamel and soft tissues, and scientific evidence seems to implicate the toothpaste.”
It reminds me that in design or any other field, sometimes when you create solutions you also create new problems down the road . We feed ourselves problems through solutions if not pass it onto other fields … what a paradox.
Did you know that toothpaste can damage your teeth? According to the following article, I can see why… Otherwise, I’m sticking to my tasty paste for now.
