Monday, November 27, 2006
Design Bytes
designBytes
November 27.2006
Welcome to designBytes, the electronic newsletter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Here's the latest design news, sneak peeks of features on the IDSA Web site, links to interesting articles elsewhere and upcoming articles in Design Perspectives (DP), the IDSA newsletter.
Feeding the Cell Phone Addiction: Studies show that people notice their cell phone is missing within an hour of losing it, compared with a day or more for credit cards and wallets. And according to BusinessWeek, whole industries are now reconfiguring themselves to keep feeding people's cell phone addiction. In the past year, cellular service providers and phonemakers have begun moving to faster networks, and in 2007, a flood of innovative mobile gadgets and services that will stretch the definition of wireless as we know it will be released. To read more about the latest phase of the mobile revolution, visit http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_49/b4012071.htm?chan=tc&chan=technology_special+report+--+wireless+world_wireless+world.
And Speaking of Cell Phones: For Sohrab Vossoughi, IDSA, president of Ziba Design, good design is about more than good looks. It is about a good user experience that makes the consumer want to spend time with a product. And in a recent FORTUNE magazine profile, Vossoughi said that cell phone makers are more often focused on products rather than the user experience. By focusing on products only, the phone makers, he says, risk turning their devices into beautiful commodities. To read more about Vossoughi's solution for cell phone makers, visithttp://money.cnn.com/2006/11/21/technology/pluggedin_mehta_cellphonedesign.fortune/index.htm.
Michelle Berryman on Trends in Interaction Design: "Interaction Design: What's New and What's Next," is the latest installment of IDSA and BusinessWeek's podcast series. Michelle Berryman, IDSA, principal of Echo Visualization LLC and IDSA president-elect, shares her insights about what makes good interaction design and how it makes our lives simpler. She also discusses the trends shaping the field, and what's on the horizon in interaction design. To hear the dialogue, visit http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasting.htm and choose "Making Innovation Work." Coming this Thursday: Chris Rockwell, IDSA and Marty Gage, IDSA of Lextant, on trends in design research.
Apple's Design Quest: According to Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, the reality of designing for Apple is a daily battle with the laws of physics to make the products lighter, sleeker, smaller and so on. Equally challenging is ensuring that people feel comfortable using Apple's products, especially because they are the first generation of objects whose function bears no relation to their appearance. While the company has achieved a number of design coups over the years, no company can rest on its design laurels for long. To read more of the International Herald Tribune's profile of Ive, visithttp://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/26/features/design27.php?page=1.
A Year's Worth of Learning, No Further Than Your Desktop: Imagine having some of the design world's best thinkers and doers talking about the hottest issues in design, right on your desktop. This vision is again a reality with the 2007 Microsoft/IDSA Designer Spotlight Speaker Series! Each month, a presentation will be delivered directly to your computer through Microsoft LiveMeeting technology, and you can gather your entire design team, class or student chapter together to take full advantage of this powerfully valuable learning opportunity. With the Spotlight Package Option, IDSA members can get 12 seminars for only $995, and save nearly $200 over purchasing each seminar individually! (Individual seminars are $99 each.) For non-IDSA members, the Spotlight Package Option costs $2,000, or $199 per individual seminar. To hear from some of the best minds in design without leaving your office, register today athttp://www.idsa.org/webmodules/webforms/designer_spotlight_2007.htm.
Zagorski Goes Bust: Ed Zagorski, FIDSA is an inspiration, according to many of his former industrial design students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught from 1956-1988. But while many point to their teachers as powerful life influences, Zagorski's students are taking the tribute to a new level: on November 27, he will be presented with a bronze bust of himself, which will remain on display at the university. It's a fitting tribute to someone who cites a passion for teaching (along with Ovaltine) as the secret of his enthusiasm. For more information, visit http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2006/11/26/bust_from_former_students_honors_retired_professor?src=rss.
Xerox Seeks Form of Erasable Paper for Copiers: Of the 1,200 pages the average office worker prints per month, 44.5 percent are for daily use—assignments, drafts or email. In a typical office, 21 percent of black-and-white copier documents are returned to the recycling bin on the same day they are produced. These findings are part of a three-year-old technology development effort at Xerox, to design an add-on system for an office copier to produce "transient documents" that can be easily reused. A current prototype produces documents in what appears to be purple ink on a specially coated paper with a light yellow tint; the printed information on the document "disappears" within 16 hours, allowing for quick reuse of those documents. Can a decoder ring be far behind? To read more, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/technology/27xerox.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1164643636-kUX6bqr9NW2LP6bux0gOOw.
Pelly Brings "Vapor of Experience" to Design: In his distinguished career, Chuck Pelly, FIDSA has designed race cars, boats, snowmobiles, farm equipment, office furniture, packaging, cameras and cars for GM, Chrysler, American Motors, Mazda, Subaru and BMW. Pelly started Designworks USA in 1972, which grew from a staff of three working out of a Malibu Canyon garage to one of the world's leading design firms and a subsidiary of BMW. In an interview on Eastman's Innovation Lab web site, Pelly shares his insights on car design as well as his views on how US companies are managing design. Read more athttp://www.innovationlab.eastman.com/InnovationLab/Insights/Example/Chuck_Pelly.htm.
Become Part of the Innovation Equation: On December 7-8 at the Museum of the City of New York, IDSA, Symbol Technologies and BusinessWeek will demonstrate the impact of innovation meeting investment. Key executives at Motorola, Whirlpool, Microsoft, Symbol Technologies and Jump Associates will demonstrate the impact of sustaining innovation and the tangible success that comes from integrating innovative design with fundamental corporate business strategies and investment goals. Space is filling up! Register today athttp://new.idsa.org/webmodules/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=2664&z=31.
Santa a No-Show at Target: When Target hired modernist product designer Tord Boontje 18 months ago, he made a strategic decision with regard to the company's holiday decorations: no Santa Claus. You can come upon Dancer and Dasher, Prancer and Vixen, but there's not a Kris Kringle in sight. Instead of the traditional Santa-focused decorations, Boontje has forsaken the holiday season's holly and ivy for New Age, fairy-tale imagery. And that is just the start of the changes he's brought to Target. To read more, visithttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401369.html.
Three More Weeks Remain to Enter Next-Gen PC Design and Eye for Why Competitions: Don't miss your chance to win cash prizes and notoriety—enter the Dyson/IDSA "Eye for Why" or Microsoft/IDSA Next-Gen PC Design Competitions. December 18 is the entry deadline for both. For details, visit www.dyson.com/designaward or www.nextgendesigncomp.com.
In Stamford, Even the Traffic Signal Boxes are Fashionable: Maybe your sensibilities have never been offended by a graffiti-covered traffic signal box. But in Stamford, CT, what began four years ago as a tiny, grassroots experiment to beautify the boxes that control traffic signals around town has become an unexpectedly impressive public art collection, with head-turning installations cropping up constantly to transform drab streetscapes into outdoor galleries. About 50 of the city’s 190 boxes, once covered with graffiti, are now suitable for framing. But fine art sometimes pays the price—at least four of the decorated boxes have been done in by wayward cars. To read more, visithhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/nyregion/25signal.html.
November 27.2006
Welcome to designBytes, the electronic newsletter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Here's the latest design news, sneak peeks of features on the IDSA Web site, links to interesting articles elsewhere and upcoming articles in Design Perspectives (DP), the IDSA newsletter.
Feeding the Cell Phone Addiction: Studies show that people notice their cell phone is missing within an hour of losing it, compared with a day or more for credit cards and wallets. And according to BusinessWeek, whole industries are now reconfiguring themselves to keep feeding people's cell phone addiction. In the past year, cellular service providers and phonemakers have begun moving to faster networks, and in 2007, a flood of innovative mobile gadgets and services that will stretch the definition of wireless as we know it will be released. To read more about the latest phase of the mobile revolution, visit http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_49/b4012071.htm?chan=tc&chan=technology_special+report+--+wireless+world_wireless+world.
And Speaking of Cell Phones: For Sohrab Vossoughi, IDSA, president of Ziba Design, good design is about more than good looks. It is about a good user experience that makes the consumer want to spend time with a product. And in a recent FORTUNE magazine profile, Vossoughi said that cell phone makers are more often focused on products rather than the user experience. By focusing on products only, the phone makers, he says, risk turning their devices into beautiful commodities. To read more about Vossoughi's solution for cell phone makers, visithttp://money.cnn.com/2006/11/21/technology/pluggedin_mehta_cellphonedesign.fortune/index.htm.
Michelle Berryman on Trends in Interaction Design: "Interaction Design: What's New and What's Next," is the latest installment of IDSA and BusinessWeek's podcast series. Michelle Berryman, IDSA, principal of Echo Visualization LLC and IDSA president-elect, shares her insights about what makes good interaction design and how it makes our lives simpler. She also discusses the trends shaping the field, and what's on the horizon in interaction design. To hear the dialogue, visit http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasting.htm and choose "Making Innovation Work." Coming this Thursday: Chris Rockwell, IDSA and Marty Gage, IDSA of Lextant, on trends in design research.
Apple's Design Quest: According to Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, the reality of designing for Apple is a daily battle with the laws of physics to make the products lighter, sleeker, smaller and so on. Equally challenging is ensuring that people feel comfortable using Apple's products, especially because they are the first generation of objects whose function bears no relation to their appearance. While the company has achieved a number of design coups over the years, no company can rest on its design laurels for long. To read more of the International Herald Tribune's profile of Ive, visithttp://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/26/features/design27.php?page=1.
A Year's Worth of Learning, No Further Than Your Desktop: Imagine having some of the design world's best thinkers and doers talking about the hottest issues in design, right on your desktop. This vision is again a reality with the 2007 Microsoft/IDSA Designer Spotlight Speaker Series! Each month, a presentation will be delivered directly to your computer through Microsoft LiveMeeting technology, and you can gather your entire design team, class or student chapter together to take full advantage of this powerfully valuable learning opportunity. With the Spotlight Package Option, IDSA members can get 12 seminars for only $995, and save nearly $200 over purchasing each seminar individually! (Individual seminars are $99 each.) For non-IDSA members, the Spotlight Package Option costs $2,000, or $199 per individual seminar. To hear from some of the best minds in design without leaving your office, register today athttp://www.idsa.org/webmodules/webforms/designer_spotlight_2007.htm.
Zagorski Goes Bust: Ed Zagorski, FIDSA is an inspiration, according to many of his former industrial design students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught from 1956-1988. But while many point to their teachers as powerful life influences, Zagorski's students are taking the tribute to a new level: on November 27, he will be presented with a bronze bust of himself, which will remain on display at the university. It's a fitting tribute to someone who cites a passion for teaching (along with Ovaltine) as the secret of his enthusiasm. For more information, visit http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2006/11/26/bust_from_former_students_honors_retired_professor?src=rss.
Xerox Seeks Form of Erasable Paper for Copiers: Of the 1,200 pages the average office worker prints per month, 44.5 percent are for daily use—assignments, drafts or email. In a typical office, 21 percent of black-and-white copier documents are returned to the recycling bin on the same day they are produced. These findings are part of a three-year-old technology development effort at Xerox, to design an add-on system for an office copier to produce "transient documents" that can be easily reused. A current prototype produces documents in what appears to be purple ink on a specially coated paper with a light yellow tint; the printed information on the document "disappears" within 16 hours, allowing for quick reuse of those documents. Can a decoder ring be far behind? To read more, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/technology/27xerox.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1164643636-kUX6bqr9NW2LP6bux0gOOw.
Pelly Brings "Vapor of Experience" to Design: In his distinguished career, Chuck Pelly, FIDSA has designed race cars, boats, snowmobiles, farm equipment, office furniture, packaging, cameras and cars for GM, Chrysler, American Motors, Mazda, Subaru and BMW. Pelly started Designworks USA in 1972, which grew from a staff of three working out of a Malibu Canyon garage to one of the world's leading design firms and a subsidiary of BMW. In an interview on Eastman's Innovation Lab web site, Pelly shares his insights on car design as well as his views on how US companies are managing design. Read more athttp://www.innovationlab.eastman.com/InnovationLab/Insights/Example/Chuck_Pelly.htm.
Become Part of the Innovation Equation: On December 7-8 at the Museum of the City of New York, IDSA, Symbol Technologies and BusinessWeek will demonstrate the impact of innovation meeting investment. Key executives at Motorola, Whirlpool, Microsoft, Symbol Technologies and Jump Associates will demonstrate the impact of sustaining innovation and the tangible success that comes from integrating innovative design with fundamental corporate business strategies and investment goals. Space is filling up! Register today athttp://new.idsa.org/webmodules/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=2664&z=31.
Santa a No-Show at Target: When Target hired modernist product designer Tord Boontje 18 months ago, he made a strategic decision with regard to the company's holiday decorations: no Santa Claus. You can come upon Dancer and Dasher, Prancer and Vixen, but there's not a Kris Kringle in sight. Instead of the traditional Santa-focused decorations, Boontje has forsaken the holiday season's holly and ivy for New Age, fairy-tale imagery. And that is just the start of the changes he's brought to Target. To read more, visithttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401369.html.
Three More Weeks Remain to Enter Next-Gen PC Design and Eye for Why Competitions: Don't miss your chance to win cash prizes and notoriety—enter the Dyson/IDSA "Eye for Why" or Microsoft/IDSA Next-Gen PC Design Competitions. December 18 is the entry deadline for both. For details, visit www.dyson.com/designaward or www.nextgendesigncomp.com.
In Stamford, Even the Traffic Signal Boxes are Fashionable: Maybe your sensibilities have never been offended by a graffiti-covered traffic signal box. But in Stamford, CT, what began four years ago as a tiny, grassroots experiment to beautify the boxes that control traffic signals around town has become an unexpectedly impressive public art collection, with head-turning installations cropping up constantly to transform drab streetscapes into outdoor galleries. About 50 of the city’s 190 boxes, once covered with graffiti, are now suitable for framing. But fine art sometimes pays the price—at least four of the decorated boxes have been done in by wayward cars. To read more, visithhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/nyregion/25signal.html.
Labels: news
