Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

Asknature.org – Allowing nature to influence your next design

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

nature inspiring design

Imagine 3.8 billion years of design brilliance available for free, at the moment of creation, to any sustainability innovator in the world.

Imagine nature’s most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter “filter salt from water” and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels.

Now imagine you can meet the people who have studied these organisms, and together you can create the next great bio-inspired solution.

That’s the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. Think of it as your home habitat—whether you’re a biologist who wants to share what you know about an amazing organism, or a designer, architect, engineer, or chemist looking for planet-friendly solutions. AskNature is where biology and design cross-pollinate, so bio-inspired breakthroughs can be born.

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Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The core idea is that Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more.

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VIA: asknature.org

Hartmut Esslinger’s Amazing Apple Mac Prototypes

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Hartmut Esslinger prototypes

It’s well known that Steve Jobs collaborated with frog design, which was founded by Hartmut Esslinger, to create the “Snow-White” design language for Apple Macintosh computers in the early 1980s. “We worked closely with Steve Jobs and Apple’s developers to innovate computer usability and appearance, resulting in iconic products with no historic precedent,” writes Esslinger, in his new book A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business. (Stay tuned for more about this book in the days ahead.)

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VIA: fastcompany.com

The design genius of Charles + Ray Eames | Video on TED.com

Monday, July 6th, 2009

The legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames made films, houses, books and classic midcentury modern furniture. Eames Demetrios, their grandson, shows rarely seen films and archival footage in a lively, loving tribute to their creative process.

Eames Demetrios is the creator of Kymaerica and the Kcymaerxthaere, an alternate history of the world. He is the grandson of the legendary husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames. Full Bio

via TED.com

Ross Lovegrove | Video on TED.com

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Designer Ross Lovegrove expounds his philosophy of “fat-free” design and offers insight into several of his extraordinary products, including the Ty Nant water bottle and the Go chair.

Known as “Captain Organic,” Ross Lovegrove embraces nature as the inspiration for his “fat-free” design. Each object he creates — be it bottle, chair, staircase or car — is reduced to its… Full bio and more links

VIA: TED.com

Johnny Lee | Video on TED.com | Amazing!

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Not so much about ID but rather interaction design showing some amazing uses/hacks for the Wii rimote.

Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demos his cool Wii Remote hacks, which turn the $40 video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.

VIA: TED.com

Theo Jansen creates new creatures | Video on TED.com

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Artist Theo Jansen demonstrates the amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures he builds from plastic tubes and lemonade bottles. His creatures are designed to move — and even survive — on their own.

VIA: Ted.com

Dean Kamen on inventing and giving | Video on TED.com

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Inventor Dean Kamen lays out his argument for the Segway and offers a peek into his next big ideas (portable energy and water purification for developing countries).

VIA: TED.com

Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy | Video on TED.com

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed.

VIA: TED.com

Tim Brown: The powerful link between creativity and play

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

At the 2008 Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play – with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t).

Tim Brown is the CEO of the “innovation and design” firm Ideo — taking an approach to design that digs deeper than the surface. Full bio and more links

VIA: TED.com

Philippe Starck on TED – Why Design

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Designer Philippe Starck — with no pretty slides to show — spends 18 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question “Why design?” Listen carefully for one perfect mantra for all of us, genius or not.

VIA: TED