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.
Ha. Your fingerprint trails show what you were last doing on your iPad or any touch phone to some degree. I can usually tell what someone is doing just by their finger movements standing in front of them, especially for Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and chatting.
This reminds me of the NounProject. Both look great:
“Icotrip.com is like a road movie in the world of icons. Every day, you will discover a new (ico)trip experience! Don’t wait for a conventional icon because you will be disappointed! Icotrip is the world of the offbeat humour! Be strong, I trust you dear visitor…”
Pete Oyler (RISD ’09) has a great project called Rip+Tatter which hammers down large corrugated honeycomb cardboard pieces to make for some great little chairs. I’m not sure how long they will last, but for $55 it’s pretty awesome. I wonder if there is an adult version?
“A Wearable Planter
Why should your plants stay at home? They help clean the air you breathe, are beautiful, and create a wonderful conversation starter. Carry a sprout, a succulent, or a flower you found on your morning walk.”
Pretty slick looking are these Inner City Bikes, which seem to essentially take 2 unicycles and stick them together for a fast looking 1:1 ratio bike. I’m not sure how they feel, but they do look pretty futuristic and the build quality looks nice. I’m questioning structure a bit but hey, it looks good. No pricing has been set. Watch the youtube video of this bike in action after the jump or here.
What appears at first to be a flock of smart starling birds doing their thing around an invisible box between the US and Canadian border near Vancouver is actually a billboard sculpture by Lead Pencil Studio built from thousands of metal rods swarming a shape as if a billboard to draw attention to the living landscape behind.
“Borrowing the effectiveness of billboards to redirect attention away from the landscape… this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond.”
Wow. It’s mind boggling think about cultures and groups of people that have been uncontacted in our world, living incredibly different lives, away from technology, the industrial revolution, print, the internet, science, air transportation, and everyday things we take for granted. Watch the video above, and read tons more about these uncontacted tribes at UncontactedTribes.org. I’ll mirror a few of the astonishing pictures after the jump.
” Video of an uncontacted tribe spotted in the Brazilian jungle has been released, bringing them to life in ways that photographs alone cannot.
The tribe, believed to be Panoa Indians, have been monitored from a distance by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, a government agency charged with handling the nation’s indigenous communities. Many of the world’s 100 or so uncontacted tribes live in the Amazon.
Until 1987, it was government policy to contact such people. But contact is fraught with problems, especially disease; people who have stayed isolated from the mainstream world have stayed isolated from its pathogens, and have little immunity to our diseases. Brazilian government policy is now to watch from afar, and — at least in principle — to protect uncontacted tribes from intrusion.
Unfortunately, uncontacted tribes usually live in resource-rich areas threatened by logging, mining and other development. There’s often pressure on governments to turn a blind eye. Videos like this, released by tribal advocacy group Survival International and produced by the BBC’s Human Planet program, are legal proof that uncontacted tribes still exist, and deserve protection.”
Wow, these are beautiful! love it! I wonder what I would do with 2000 pounds of salt.
“Motoi Yamamoto uses the ubiquitous white mineral to design unfathomably intricate — and deeply personal — floor sculptures. Motoi Yamamoto has to be the most patient man in the world. A Japanese artist, Yamamoto uses salt to create monumental floor paintings, each so absurdly detailed, it makes A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte look like child’s play. He calls them, fittingly, his Labyrinths. ”
I’m not sure what to think here, but this project by Jarashi Suki at IAMAS Ubiqutous Interaction Research Group, is one of those projects that make you go woa, wow, oh what if this and that! Watch the video above as these dominos are enabled to fall over at a set time and you can do a variety of, well, lets just say interesting things… I want a set!!! Check out his vimeo site of projects, and his website which I must say is one weird home page, but fun!
Google Art Project is StreetMaps inside several museums plus more. You can explore several museums across the world, while looking at a painting really close or from far away, you can watch Youtube videos about them as your curator, and you can create your own collections. It’s like having the worlds best museum all in 1 webpage! If you own or curate a museum, you can submit your library to the ArtProject as well.
