Bicycles are great things to ride, but awkward things to carry.
I live in a walk-up, and every so often run into my female neighbor hoisting her bicycle up to her shoulder to schlep it up the stairs. If I run into her at the bottom, I’ll offer to carry it up for her; if I run into her mid-staircase I won’t, because we both know it’s too awkward to transfer from one person to another in that position. That’s when we both stop and look at the camera, infomercial style, and simultaneously say “There has to be a better way!”
That better way is Walnut Studiolo’s Bicycle Frame Handle, a simple leather strap that lets you carry your ride safely, easily, and ergonomically.
Un pont en Allemagne a été peint et transformé en 1 mois en une énorme construction de Lego. Reprenant les couleurs et le design des briques de la marque mondialement reconnue, les membres de Megx ont eu fort à faire pour réussir à planifier une telle opération à la fois drôle et rafraîchissante.
The concept of universal design is both sensible and alluring: Design products that are easy for the differently-abled or elderly to use, and they become easier for everyone to use. Still, it’s a tricky dance to pull off, largely because of that universal un-doer of good things: people’s egos. “If a car screams that it was designed ‘for old people,’ Boomers will hate it and so will younger buyers,” says Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project marketing research firm. “Boomers want vehicle designs that reflect their youthful vitality and aspirations, even if they are dealing with age-related issues.”
Chevrolet believes they’ve hit the sweet spot with their Equinox crossover SUV by quietly tucking what they describe as universal design features into the interior. The sill placement makes the car easier to get in and out of; the height of the rear deck is easy to hoist groceries onto; the center console is easy to reach; the rear seat can be slid forward to make it easier for those in the front seats to reach whatever’s back there, whether it’s bags or babies.
Following my visit to Brighton’s Graphics and Illustration show in Hackney, I popped over to the Dray Walk Gallery on Brick Lane to see the Graphic Design graduate work from Kingston University this year. Here are my picks of the show.
First up is Leanne Bentley‘s typographic response to closed down buildings. “The hoarding acts as a forum for the local community to share their memories of the building at its former glory,” says Bentley.
A number of the projects were conceptual in nature. For example, Signe Emma created a series of images by scanning electron micrographs of dissolved salt in order to represent the way that the aircraft environment diminishes our ability to taste the condiment. The resulting images appear like the view from a plane.
Lucy Warden presented a text modelled in ice, in order to show how disfluent type is easier to recall. Shown below is an image of the type freshly frozen:
And here it is at the time I viewed the show:
George Voke is showing a set of type guides produced to “establish a united typographic voice”.
Christopher Benson‘s striking photograph shows a businessman hanging upside down, in a response to the current economic crisis.
Aaron Merrigan created this woven work in honour of Ceefax, which ceased to exist after 38 years when the digital switchover took place.
Fred North drew and created a set of temporary tattoos to show his commitment to various footie teams, which he also gave out at the show.
Jessica Nesbeth has created an analogue machine to demonstrate the different pitches of British accents. The film below shows it in action:
Richard MacVicar is displaying a typography gag in his work, which features an eye test that challenges designers to notice the difference between the two typefaces, Arial and Helvetica. Only those who are successful have the right to mock the less popular Arial.
Tamara Elmallah presents a series of Olympics posters that emphasises the overcrowding that awaits London during the Games. The posters are a progression by Elmallah of the poster project that CR editor Patrick Burgoyne and Kingston Graphics course leader Rebecca Wright set the students (see the other posters here).
Ran Park is showing the results of three typographic experiments. The source material was taken by Park from the quotes of three contrasting modern graphic designers, Jonathan Barnbrook, Angus Hyland and Anthony Burrill.
Charlie Borley uses bingo as her inspiration for a series of graphic works.
Josh King has come up with an unusual way to represent the Olympics: by showing models of various sports in bottles.
We finish with a great project from Felix Heyes & Ben West, who have created a book showing the first Google image result for every word in the dictionary.
The Kingston University Graphics show will be on at Dray Walk Gallery in London until Monday (July 9). More info on the work can be found online at takeshape2012.com.
Any design-minded photographer would agree that when it comes to camera bags, there’s often an unfortunate gap between form and function. On one end you have the ultra tech-centric box bags worthy of space travel and on the other, more stylish end, you don’t have many options at all. To address this discrepancy, LA-based photographer Evan Lane founded Langly bags, a Kickstarter-funded company making rucksack-style camera bags designed for the nomadic photojournalist. Inspired by WWII-era military gear, the two Alpha and Delta bags get the job done with subtle style.
Essentially two bags in one, the clever design—made with waterproof canvas and rich leather detailing—divides each carryall into two compartments with a single bisecting zipper. The lower portion acts like any regular camera bag, with rearrangeable padded sleeves for a camera body and two lenses, while the top-loading upper serves as a roomy satchel for everything else, with a filleting pocket for your laptop along the back.
With three days left in the Kickstarter campaign there’s still time to support the already-funded project. Pledge $25 and be rewarded with a 11×17 pigment print shot and printed by Lane, or go all out with $160 or more and receive a Langly bag with your contribution.
“Richard Saul Wurman, who invented the TED conference, in 1984, lives in Newport, Rhode Island, in a gated Gilded Age mansion made to look like an eighteenth-century country home. When I arrived one day, in midwinter, he showed me into his study, which was painted forest-green and packed with baubles: Teddy bears beneath glass bells, sneakers speckled with paint (a gift from the artist Dale Chihuly), a large bowl filled with multicolored baseballs and globe ornaments, three bent spoons, and an action figure in his own image, propped up and ready to fight. Not long after I’d sat down, he stood—’Come with me’—and led me to an adjoining cottage, where the walls were hung with potraits and magazine profiles of Wurman, elegantly laminated.
To spend time with Wurman, a keen, fast-talking seventy-seven-year-old who has trained as an architect, is to enter a world whose careful design, childlike restlessness, and narrative authority feels—for want of a better term—TED-like. He designed much of the furniture on in his house; the grounds are landscaped to his specifications. Wurman’s attention span operates on TED-like rhythms, with frequent scenery changes and breaks, and although an assistant screens his calls, I never saw him turn one down….If you ask him why, given all the things a wealthy and well-connected man could be doing, he has spent four decades organizing conferences, he will look at you as if you asked him why he’s wearing pants. ‘I’m not an athlete, I’m not an entertainer, and I’m not smart,’ he says. ‘I have no skills, I’m abrasive, I can’t type. What would you like me to do?’”
Airline food has suffered for years as the butt of the joke, commonly characterized as bland and passable at best. There’s a scientific explanation for why sky-high meals feel so lacking, however,and illuminates the special challenge airlines face in combatting the problem. From the time you take off, you’re settling into a low-humidity environment that dries out the nasal passage and significantly reduces the power of your taste buds.
Blame these tiny taste receptors and their dependence on your sense of smell, coupled with the depletion of saliva for the lack of wow factor in high-altitude food. “What most people consider taste is really more flavor, of which the vast majority is really from olfaction—or the sense of smell,” says Doctor Gene Liu, an Otolaryngologist at Cedars Sinai Medical Group. “Our taste buds are little chemical receptors in the mouth and throat and predominantly on the tongue that sense sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami when partially broken down foods within the saliva come into contact with the receptor cells. An electrical signal is then transmitted to the taste centers within the brain along specialized nerves.”
There are several factors that affect the conditions inside an airplane and render it so dry—recirculated air and dust particles primarily—and therefore, the congestion this causes, says Liu, “decreases our ability to appreciate the flavor of the food.”
Each flavor type has its own section on the surface of the tongue: Salt and sweet at the front, sour at the sides, and bitter at the back. Eating in a plane at high altitudes, coupled with the low humidity in the cabin significantly reduces the ability to taste the more subtle components of a meal. A dryer mouth can’t experience the flavors as well due to the reduction in the saliva needed to taste flavors. “When we bite into a steak, if we have a diminished sense of smell, we would still be able to taste the salt, but there would be less ‘steak-ness’ to the steak,” adds Liu.
Knowing how to master ingredient combinations helps combat the challenges of creating flavorful inflight meals. In their book, “The Flavor Bible” Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg describe how each taste affects the other—”…bitterness suppresses sweetness…Saltiness stimulates the appetite, while sweetness satiates it…” in a way that may enlighten the average flyer looking for a tastier meal in flight. Understanding how to combine these tastes for this unique eating environment contributes to creating a balanced, flavorful dish.
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Greetings Design Fans,
As you may or may not know by now, next week sees the Live Broadcast Announcements for the 2012 Core77 Design Awards. From July 8–16, the 17 jury announcements from 13 cities in 8 countries will take place over nine days… which adds up to a lot of excitement over the next two weeks. Thankfully, you can see the full schedule here, as well as at the newly-launched Core77DesignAwards.com site.
In other news, we’ve sent our intrepid correspondent Dave Seliger, degree in tow, on the Great American Road Trip in search of the best of American design. Follow along the journey as Dave shares learnings from his trip, notes from the road, roadtrip playlists and more!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
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