Hasta La Ideas

While the Labor Day holiday typically means the end of summer (at least for those of us in the States), the beginning of a new season marks a new set of opportunities. Besides the start of the school year, September sees a handful of industry showcases from fashion week to a series of European design events, which we’ll be covering over the course of the month.

With that in mind, there’s no time like now to get your name out there, and the Coroflot Genius Gallery is the great place to start. This week, we’ve got a nice variety of artists and designers from Interactive Designer Nick Zhukov to concept-y architect Miro Straka and everything in between. Check ’em out and submit your portfolio today for a chance to see your name in the mix.

Nick Zhukov (Kiev, Ukraine) – Nick specializes in straightforward iPad & iPhone app designs that make us wish we knew Russian

Tobin Dorn (Curitiba, Brazil) – Tobin’s got a strong grasp of the sports market, both in footwear design and bespoke graphics.

Catherine Wong (Hong Kong) – Catherine’s renderings of electronics and housewares are so shiny that you might want to turn down the brightness of your screen to look at them.

Otelia Carmen (Los Angeles, CA) – Otelia has a great eye and steady hand for simple but effective renderings.

Grafficants (Barcelona, Spain) – Grafficants create poppy, skate-inspired work for a range of like-minded clients.

Paul Summerson (Bellingham, Washington) – Paul’s minimalist ID work is excellent from concept to execution.

Miro Straka (Cifer, Slovakia) – Miro’s exteriors complement his exploration of hypothetical architectural spaces.

Sina Brückmann (Venice, California) – Sina’s graphic design work is presented as clearly as it is designed.

We’ve got just a couple more galleries—and just one more winner to announce—scheduled for the rest of the month, so it’s getting down to the wire for submissions… keep ’em coming for the opportunity to be featured on the Coroflot homepage and on Core77!

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In many ways the 80s don’t seem that long ago, especially with the recent resurgence in 80s-style fashion. Yet a new book of photographs from 80s London by Johnny Stiletto reveals that in fact the city has changed dramatically since then…

Titled Vintage 80s, Stiletto’s book is a collection of photography taken on the street and on public transport (Francis Bacon on the Piccadilly Line is shown above) during the decade. Much has changed, in particular the design within the city: the book shows a far less branded London than today, with fashion and graphics that certainly speak of a different time.

Evening Standard newspaper sellers

An iconic billboard ad from the 80s

Among the scenes captured are shots of famous people and places: Mick Jagger walking down the street with his manager, and a photo through the window of Granita on Upper Street, Islington, the restaurant where Gordon Brown and Tony Blair made their infamous leadership pact later in the 90s.

Granita, Islington

Mick Jagger and his manager, Prince Rupert von Lowenstein

Al Capone’s car outside Sotheby’s, Bond Street

Elsewhere Stiletto captures the casual violence and despair that can be seen on London’s streets. Below is a shot of a scuffle in Knightsbridge Underground station, and an image of a well-dressed woman passed out in a doorway.

Man apprehended at Knightsbridge Underground Station

Woman on the street

But there are snatched moments of tenderness too, as well as lots of comedic scenes.

Couple on the tube at night

Well-dressed couple on the street

Clamped Citroen DS in front of Cyril Shire’s Trendsetter Salon. All images are © Johnny Stiletto.

Vintage 80s: London Street Photography by Johnny Stiletto is published this week by Frances Lincoln publishers, priced £14.99. More of Stiletto’s work can be viewed online at aliasjohnnystiletto.com.

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR website, but if you are not also getting the printed magazine, we think you’re missing out. This month’s issue has a superb feature on the Sainsbury’s Own Label packaging of the 60s and 70s, a profile of new Japanese creative supergroup Party and our pick of this year’s top graduates. Read all about it here.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Gli ammerigani insistono con queste caramelle al sapore di bacon. Vorrei assaggiarne una per capire se vomitare all’istante o leccarmi i baffi. Agli amanti del genere consiglio il sapone, il filo interdentale, il lucidalabbra, cerotti e persino il deodorante per ambienti.
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This is the fourth post in a 6-part series from Ziba’s Industrial Design Director, Paul Backett, on rethinking design education. Read the Introduction to the series, Teach Less, Integrate More here.

Despite the rise of digital tools and rapid prototyping, it has never been more important for designers to make things with their hands. Comfort with three dimensions as a sketch and development tool enhances a designer’s sensitivity to form tremendously, and helps them understand how products are made in the real world. If you can build it, you’re halfway to knowing how it could be manufactured. Instead, schools often allow students to jump into 3D CAD before they have a solid understanding of form and construction.

Over the past decade I’ve reviewed hundreds of portfolios, more often than not full of glossy 3D renderings based on weak underlying designs. Rendering technology has gotten so good and so easy to use that students quickly become reliant on it. Iterative exploration and refinement using your hands is essential, and in fact makes CAD modeling more effective and efficient in the long run.

More than that, building models by hand is fundamental to Industrial Design—it’s what makes our profession a craft. Spending time with CAD makes you a better modeler, but spending time with a physical model makes you a better designer. It allows you to see your design in the real world, in a way that simply superimposing a rendering into an environment cannot replicate (and please, if you’re going to do that, make sure to get the perspective is right).

During my first week as a professional designer at Seymourpowell in London, UK, I was handed an orthographic drawing of a handle for a roll-on suitcase, and sent down to the model shop. My task was to build the handle by hand using foam. Thankfully, a large part of my time in design school was spent in the shop, being commanded by our tutors to refine and refine physical models to the point that it felt tedious. The very task I was asked to complete in my first week made me realize why they had been so insistent. I’m not sure many courses push their students this way anymore.

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Questa è la nuova Vans OTW Ludlow, in arrivo per la collezione Holiday 2011.