When you see these ads, it’ll make you want to buy a Nintendo Wii because they just scream out FUN! Yes, there is the ever so powerful Xbox and Playstation3, but when those 2 are battling for first place, the Wii stands out especially at a much lower cost($250ish) and a much more playful attitude. Sure the Xbox and PS3 are more powerful and graphic intense, but are they as much fun? Isn’t that the point of games? I’m sure their good, but not as exciting since the Wii is creating a community of people obsessed about not just the gaming aspect, but how they play it. There’s a wonderful pool of images on Flickr of Wii users! I’d like to see a comparison of pictures of people playing the PS3 or Xbox, which would probably seem like the stare of boredom that we get in webcams. Anyhow, just my prediction, but the Wii will kick butt! I want one even if I end up smashing my TV with the controller. I’m not saying the Xbox and PS3 are bad, I’m just saying that the Wii is really revolutionizing our aspect of gaming consoles.
Watch the fun ads above or after the jump(direct links: here, here, and here) I’ll throw in some images from that pool of Wii players as well after the jump.
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!!!
Musicovery.com allows you to create a play-list of songs based on the mood that your seeking by filtering music by genres and time, then selecting a mood within each category; dark, energique, positif, or calme. It’s somewhat like a streaming radio station that you have a bit off control over, but you can’t save, bookmark, or copy any names quickly. Otherwise, the visaul layout is compelling enough to play with for a bit and personally I grooved to the “Calm Funk” with a bit of “positif” stream that I am now listening to.
Artist Pete Goldlust creates these delicate and inspiring carvings from colorful crayons!!! I’d bet his halloween pumpkin carvings are jaw-dropping! via boingboing
At first glance, I was captured by this cool baby pong picture! I clicked ahead, watched the demo video by Stokke, and figured out, dang, these Xplory strollers are pretty sweet! Just because your a baby, doesn’t mean you have view life at that height, hence, this stroller props up the seat to give the baby a higher viewpoint. Besides the viewpoint, the video also points out how a higher seat puts less stress on a parents back since you don’t have to bend over as far. Otherwise, the higher seat idea reminds me of Dean Kamens invention the iBot, which gives people in wheelchairs the opportunity to be at eye level with humans again(also has tons of other amazingly innovative features, including the gyroscope that helped launch the Segway)
“Does each day of the week have its own colour? This question has long intrigued the designer Johanna BaluÅ¡Ãková, culminating in the Colour Of The Day project: an investigation into colour associations and their relationships to specific days of the week. A survey was conducted where the following question was posed to 75 creative field workers from 20 different countries: what colour do you associate with each day of the week? The result is a series of t-shirts, one for each day of the week, the colour of each having been selected by majority vote. The shirts could either be worn according to the calendar days, or more intuitively, according to the actual mood of the wearer.
How Cool!!! via typotheque (has more pictures and ordering info) Reminds me of Barry Scwartz book “The Paradox of Choice”. I use to own a few pairs of shoes and wore the same one all the time, but after getting a bunch from my shoe design friends, I actually have to think about which shoe to wear now, which is both great and a pain.
I love it when people come up with ideas that sometimes seem dumb but seriously inspire me. In this DIY example via Evilmadscientist, a mops added to a remote control car, and bahm, ya have cleaning with a zest of fun. I’m not saying this works great, but sometimes when you think like a kid again or act goofy, you get results that raise great questions and often great ideas. I almost want to clean more now with this remote mop! Why cant cleaning be fun?! Anyhow, this is an example of one of those goofy ideas that I love much like the babysuit mop found in the great Chindogu Society Books. Otherwise, for the more grown up types that hate mops, try the MopShoe.
Mark Pincus mentions, “Tony Robbins is an impressive man and a real leader and I’m someone who previously thought he was a cheesy infomercial peddling guy in hawaiin shirts.” Well, guess what, I totally agree. I’ve seen him in infomercials, movies, and other cheesy media gigs, but after meeting this dude, I’m like no wonder he’s known…he’s awesome! So I decided to post his lecture he gave at TED.
I met him backstage right before he went up, watching him memorize his long presentation word for word to each slide (impressive) and met him as I walked by his table. He saw me walk by, stood up, introduced himself to me, stuck his hand out and said, “Hi, I’m Tony” in which my response was “Hi, I’m small” (dudes like 7 feet or something) Anyhow, this guy rocks! Watch Tony’s video here(includes the awesome Al Gore moment), or the rest of the mind-boggling and inspiring TEDtalks here.
The wonderous TED Conference ,which I have mentioned several times, just announced their line up of speakers for TEDGlobal2007 packed with the usual list of known and unknowns that are all shakers and movers in global initiatives, though with a focus on Africa this year. The conference will take place in Arusha, Tanzania next summer and I’m drooling to go, but who knows. Check out the exciting list of speakers and more about the conference on their blog or on their site.
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.
This is kind of nifty… Are you shopping for a present but can’t quite come up with the words to search with? Well, Imagini.net allows you to search for items by creating a DNA of keywords based on a selection of images! Basically, it creates a DNA of a persons lifestyle based on simple questions with visuals answers. Once you go through the questions, it creates a grid of items that match your DNA.
I like the idea of shopping through images, or creating a palette of lifestyle images based on a person to buy stuff, but then again I’m an advocate for images over text whenever possible. This is kind of like what Amazon does for their suggestion robot since they know what your browse, what you buy, your age, location, etc.. Man, the world of data mining boggle me!
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 
The wonderous 
