Archive for the 'thoughts' Category

Jointmaker Pro

Sunday, December 19th, 2010


If I only knew about the Jointmaker during design school…. I love Japanese saws, but never thought about using them in the inverse where the saw sat static, and the wood was the object that moved to get cut much like a table saw.  Pretty creative and simple. It’s a table saw with no flying dust, no need for electricity, no ear protection or eye gear needed, and a cut as thin and accurate as a Japanese saw vs the wide width of a table saw blade. Only problem I find is the price at around $1,200, but thats what you pay for innovation I guess.

bridgecitytools

via youtube


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


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.

(more…)


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:

(more…)


Printing Facebook

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Want a poster with all your facebook friends profiles! Hang it on a wall, maybe make a coffee table, have then sign it when they see their square, or play where’s that friend all night. $20, huge poster, pretty sweet deal! Make it at PrintingFacebook.com.  I want!

via printingfacebook.


Service Entertainment

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

First came dancing down the wedding aisle, and now comes dancing down the airline aisle giving instructions. Along with some rapping on the intercom on an airline, our service world is becoming a musical. Imagine an airline ride being as entertaining as a Broadway show.  I love it!

All those video after the jump!

(more…)


Waiting For Superman Film

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010


I just returned from a screening of the documentary film “Waiting for Superman” and had to post it to let everyone know to watch this film! It’ll leave you cringing, a bit bitter, and a craving for our education system to change! The documentary is directed and filmed by Academy Award Winner Davis Guggenheim (Inconvenient Truth). Even Obama recently watched it and reacted to it.

Watch the trailer above or here, then visit their website to help out. They have a few extra video interviews on their site as well. Please share!


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!

(more…)


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


Piggy

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Interesting project to start kids early in the thinking process in saving for charity! Very cool and needed.

The power of piggy:

We believe that this simple product, Piggy, can truly make the world a better and more compassionate place.

Piggy helps teach kids about charitable giving, with the hopes of inspiring new generations of caring, sharing, philanthropic citizens.

With 12,000 children born each day in the US, imagine the social impact if just a fraction of them learned powerful lessons
of gratefulness and kindness to others.”

See the full project at goodlittlepiggy

A few pics after the jump. (more…)


Designverb post 1001

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

I started Designverb on January 18th, 2006 as a quick experiment to jot down the many things I found to share with my friends and anyone else curious. Today, August 1st, 2010,  marks my 1000th post, and this one being the 1001′st.

I’ll admit the the opportunities, friendship, community, and insights I’ve received throughout the years has been amazing and it has surely kept me busy after a long day of work and on weekends.  There are times where I’m flooded with work and have very little time to post, but I started a Facebook Fan page where I post quick  fun links and have recently found some extra contributors to help find more great things to post about.

The Above picture is of sushi at O Ya here in Boston. I tend to eat sushi to celebrate  so maybe I’ll go there this week again.

Anyhow, I had no plans to really celebrate, but I thought I’d share some of the most popular posts since starting Designverb.
1. Tunnel House
2. Stuck At Heathrow Airport
3. Paint Chip Card Holder
4. Red Bull Headquarters
5. Mark Khaisman Brown Tape Art
6. Stefans Stormtroopers a Day
7. Heineken World Bottle: Beer to Bricks
8. Creepy Snow Globes
9. Color Changing Mini-Cooper
10. Burj Al Arab: Tennis Court in the Sky!
11. Non-Metric Countries
12. Shoes That Make Everyone the Same Height
13. How 315 Billion Dollars Looks
14. GadgetOff 2007 and 2009 Recaps.
15. TerraCycle Inc

And one of my fun little trips came from GM here.


Converse JoinRed Project

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

Back in March 2007, soon after starting Designverb, I was selected as 1 in 100 artist worldwide to create a design for the Converse JoinRed initiative to bring AIDS awareness and to raise money for the cause. Above is the one of the final designs I submitted which was stitched by hand and went through quite a design process even though I later submitted a re-worked design because of trademarks issues in my first design.  Though I am not a shoe designer, I approached this project as any of my other projects diving into research, discovery, meaning, definition, creation, and refinement.

If your interested, read after the jump to see the design process, thinking, and some other design concepts I thought up but did not continue with in this short 2 week project.

(more…)