An Architect’s Toolbox and Quality Management System. Bio Russell Curtis is the founder and director of London-based architectural practice RCKa, a finalist for 2011 Young Architect of the Year. His firm employs Evernote as its main content management and collaboration tool. I use Evernote, Everywhere WindowsiPadAndroid I use Evernote for managing content and collaborating with colleagues at my architectural firm I started using Evernote about four years ago, but in the last twelve months, it’s become a core tool at my firm.
As a young architecture practice, we were looking for a way to better manage and share information amongst our team and we also needed to find a quality management system for our business. Evernote as a central database Besides being a tool that everyone at the firm uses for various projects, Evernote is the universal database for our practice. Working together on the go Evernote is hugely helpful for storing all information related to a building project because we can carry all of this documentation with us everywhere. Animation Trends 2012: Discover the hottest new forms and styles - Feature.
There’s a buzz around animation at the moment – and not simply because the most recent UK budget contained a government promise that the animation industry would be granted the same tax breaks as film companies already enjoy. Accompanying this is a widespread sense that what is possible within animation is entering ever more exciting territory. If there is one overarching theme, it is that the artificial boundaries between the different genres – CG, motion graphics, handcrafted, stop motion – are being torn down. Creatives are increasingly working in whatever animation medium suits their project, rather than confining themselves to one. From such explorations, unique styles are being born.
“It’s not super-new, but there definitely seems to be a trend in mixed-media animation,” says California-based animator Gabe Askew. Brazilian animator Guilherme Marcondes, who is based in New York, agrees. Another thread is that creative tools are becoming even more powerful and accessible. Intro. Creativity In Motion. 3D Printing and the legal system; if you think Napster was tough - Global Toy News. 3D printing has arrived. How can you tell; because a consumer products company has filed a lawsuit against a user? What is going to happen next is a bit like what happened to the music and video industries except this one is going to involve the toy industry and anyone else who is in the consumer products business.
Jean-Christian Jung, a co-owner of Globe Trotoys (the make of “Deglingos) and soemone who follows 3D printing closely, sent me an article from Wired Magazine entitled “Clive Thompson on 3-D Printing’s Legal Morass.” Here is how Clive Thompson puts it: When I first heard about 3-D printers, I figured the trend wouldn’t go mainstream for decades, if ever. This has all the makings of an epic and surreal legal battle. Thompson goes on to say, however, that in this case, the law is more favorable to the copiers then were the laws regarding music and video. What is going to happen next? As I have been writing for several years now, 3D printing is a disruptive technology that could. Now You Can Become a Micro-Movie Producer and a Toy Manufacturer - Global Toy News. Common wisdom is that you create a new product and then you come up with a marketing plan. But maybe, in the 21st Century you do the reverse. That’s according to a very interesting article in Fast Company by Ben Paynter entitled: “Want to Make a Hit Toy like Air Swimmers?
Engineer The Video Before The Product.” The article focuses on Mark Forti, founder and CEO of the William Mark Corporation who drove sales of “Air Swimmers” in the US by creating a series of funny videos which he posted on YouTube. The result was 9 million views and a whole lot of sales. His efforts were so successful that he says it actually reversed the way he thinks about products. Forti has, over the years tried everything from DRTV to QVC to in-store videos to live demonstrations and what he has found is that what is most effective in moving a product is people seeing it in action. The video should be are “pretty low-fi.”
Make your mini-movie and then license to yourself. Would You Buy a Logo From This Man? Update: In January 2013, Bill Haig will host a HOW U workshop breaking down his credibility-based logo design process. Bill Haig, Ph.D, is not a graphic designer. But he’s been in the design field for over 50 years, initially as a “design rep,” and then as CEO of his own firm. His doctorate is in logo design and his specialty is applying “credibility principles in communication persuasion” to planning and creating solutions that work. The so-called credibility-based logo and package design theory are his own coinages. He is the co-author of The Power of Logos: How to Create Effective Company Logos (NY: Wiley, 1997). Haig looks at design as persuasive communication and believes that what makes design work is what company managers want to know. Bill Haig, Ph.D. Few non-designers understand the psychological underpinnings of design. Psychology or pseudo-psychology has long been part of the advertising equation.
Designed by Jerry Gould How does this work? Designed by Saul Bass Impressive. Yes. Vintage Orange Crush Soda Bottles Take a Ribbing. I grew up drinking Orange Crush and hearing my mom tell stories of how it used to come in brown bottles, supposedly to protect the flavor. But by the time I was a kid, those days were long gone, and Crush’s bottles were clear. I was also aware that Orange Crush was made in my hometown, Evanston, Illinois—or at least it had a plant in town.
One day when I was about 12 years old, I was riding my Schwinn Sting-Ray down Asbury Avenue, and I noticed that a house in the neighborhood was being demolished. I pulled over by the garage (which looked like it was about to fall over on its own) and looked through one of the windows. This piece concentrates specifically on the Orange Crush bottles. Like many early soft-drink beverages, Orange Crush was created by a chemist, Neil C. A 1917 carbon copy (ever wonder what "cc" stands for ?) A 1925 publicity photograph showing an Orange Crush delivery truck Evanston, Illinois, served as one of Crush International’s headquarters in the 1960s. TEDxMuscat. PechaKucha 20x20. Building Israel Through Posters. Dan Walsh’s incredibly rich Palestine Poster Project Archives includes much in the way of protest, but it also contains a trove of rare Zionist/Israeli posters from the 1920s through the ’50s, largely before partition.
The ones excerpted here are from the Mahmoud Darwish Memorial Gallery, which includes a collection of Zionist Worker agency posters calling for increased development of Palestine. The affairs of the workers of Eretz Israel should be in the hands of the workers of Eretz Israel, 1935. To experience the role of posters in the birth, growing pains, and ultimate conflict, this is perhaps the best online resource. Here’s what Walsh collects: 1) international artists and agencies; 2) Zionist and Israeli artists and agencies; 3) Palestinian nationalist artists and agencies; 4) Arab and Muslim artists and agencies. And here is what he says about his collection of over 6700 posters: To fortify our home - use Hebrew cement, 1937. Come and See the Palestine Exhibition - Vienna, 1925. An Arab World Competition. Hala A.Malak and Tarek Atrissi have announced the launch of KAFLAB Foundation, through which they will create a community and start discourse on the Arab world through design.
“Exploring sensitive and controversial topics,” they say, “will help social change and push a generation of designers to challenge the status quo and redefine identity, religion free! ” Their first project, Al-Kafiye (traditional male headdress and more), will deal with identity and design by examining “what we believe is the strongest symbol to come out of the contemporary Arab World.” they add. “We are planning to create an event, exhibition and book around the subject. They kick started the process with a competition. Are you fed up with stereotypes, religious assumptions and just plain haphazard design? COMPETITION: How do you translate and incorporate the Kafiye and what it represents in your own creative expression? ELIGIBILITY: Any creative, artist or designer is eligible to enter. - Full name and contact info. Transforming the education system by design. The intention of this article is to illustrate the importance of transforming the current secondary education system, to create impact to the future most promising industry, Design.
By Muhamad Razif Nasruddin. Being a part of the complete circle of the pre-existing framework of our national education system (primary to tertiary), one can experience not only academic learning, but also participate in co-curricular activities in enhancing their ability to become capable individuals. From Razak Report 1956 to Education Review Report 1979, re-contextualizing the purpose of education has been the sole conversational thread, rooted in nation building varied in cultural / language-centric to economic-driven purpose. However, the current model of economic-driven alone is flawed by the recent global economic meltdown that the world has experienced for the past 20 years.
To illustrate clearer, our economic demands is dependent highly to global trends. A new perspective. Creative briefs: Stop telling me the solution. By Mike Clark of www.shelfidentity.com Clients/Buyers seem to always have an answer. Maybe after being burned by bad creative, they learned to do this to protect them selves. Let’s say there’s a new, natural, organic hand soap that needs packaging. Maybe the buyer fills out a creative brief, or maybe they tell you what they need, verbally. But instead of telling you the problem that needs solving—they tell you the solution. Here’s what this looks like: Telling you the solution: “It needs to look natural, so I expect to see green trees, leaves, water droplets and earth tones.”
Telling you the problem: “It needs to look premium. When they tell you the solution, it halts your creative reins, and often times, they get something mediocre that looks every other natural hand soap package. On the other hand, when they tell you the problem, you can create something that will truly answer the need and make this product stand out. It’s as simple as that. What should you do about it? New book lets kids learn about colours using Pantone swatches. Pantone colours may ensure you get what you want from your printer, but they can also be used to teach pre-school kids their first words. Pantone Colours from Abrams Appleseed is a hardy picturebook featuring illustrations based around shades of a single colour, accompanied by a grid of swatches of the reference shades. The book has already proved a big hit with my one-year-old daughter Alice – she both loves flipping through it, and hasn't managed to damage it yet through slapping and throwing it.
Pantone Colours is currently just over a fiver at Amazon. Tattly Takes a Stand Against Ugly Temp Tattoos. There’s a new craze, and it’s one your mother would approve. Tattly is making temp tattoos cool again by partnering with über-talented designers like Julia Rothman, James Victore, Jessi Arrington and Blanca Gómez for design goodness you can adhere to your skin, at least for a little bit. Tina Roth Eisenberg (@Swissmiss), creator of design studio and blog Swissmiss, and her talented team are freeing this world of rancid clip art, one temporary tattoo design at a time. In the words of Eisenberg: “Life is too short to drink bad wine and wear ugly temporary tattoos. Right?” We couldn’t agree more and had to dive deeper into Tattly, a collaboration that both kids and adults can appreciate. HOW: I feel like this is one of those amazing projects with a very cool back-story, perhaps involving a horrid smiley face plastered on a child’s arm for a week after a birthday party.
I’d love to know how the idea for Tattly started? Tina: It was in fact my daughter that inspired me to start the project. Why Interior Designers Matter. Fuel Your Product Design. DC Entertainment Reveals New Identity. Warner Bros. entertainment company, DC Entertainment—home to iconic comic brands DC Comics, Vertigo and MAD—revealed a new brand identity. A new logo, designed by brand design firm Landor Associates, for both DC Entertainment and DC Comics were revealed. The new DC Entertainment identity uses a “peel” effect—the ‘D’ is strategically placed over the ‘C’, with the upper right-hand portion of the ‘D’ peeled back to unveil the hidden ‘C’—to “symbolize the duality of the iconic characters that are present within DC Entertainment’s portfolio”, according to a statement.
“The new identity is built for the digital age, and can easily be animated and customized to take full advantage of the interactivity offered across all media platforms,” Nicolas Aparicio, Executive Director at Landor’s Sand Francisco office, said in a statement. The identity is aimed to create a visual connection among the company, its three brands, its properties, and its stories and characters. [via Fast Co. Create] Soren Petersen: Saving the World One Art Poster at a Time. Art is a powerful emotional tool for creating awareness and fostering a commitment to change the world, even if each print makes just a small dent. Think Uncle Sam's "I Want You For The U.S. Army," Apple's "Think Different" and the "Wonderful Copenhagen" poster with a police officer helping a mother duck across the street with her small ducklings.
If you want to disseminate information quickly and engage people, thought-provoking art posters are an effective medium. The "Save The Alps" poster, designed by Per Arnoldi, the Danish designer, artist, and TV and radio host is one such encouraging story. At the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland, 1990, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, then president of the Bellerive Foundation, solicited Arnoldi to create a limited series art poster to elicit funding for saving the Alps. What Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan and Per did was both very clever and different.
The world is too convoluted for anyone to understand fully. TED, Known for Idea Talks, Releases Educational Videos - Wired Campus. The nonprofit group called TED, known for streaming 18-minute video lectures about big ideas, today opened a new YouTube channel designed for teachers and professors, with videos that are even shorter. The new channel, called TED-Ed, was announced a year ago, but its leaders are only now unveiling the project’s first videos. There are only 11 as of today, but the goal is to add new ones regularly. Within three months from now, a new video could appear each day, said Chris Anderson, TED’s curator, in a conference call with reporters late last week.
To produce the new videos, the group is connecting content experts with professional animators to create highly illustrated productions. The average length of these videos is about five minutes, and Mr. Anderson said he envisions a teacher playing one in class at the start of a lesson “to ignite excitement” about the topic. Among the first video topics are “How many universes are there? Return to Top. Design Thinking to Disrupt Lebanese NGOs. Microsoft, Nokia will spend $24 million on university program to boost app development.
Who Knew.