Hasta La Ideas

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Graphic Design: Now in Production Catalogue

Designer: Walker Art Center Design Studio

Location: Minneapolis, USA

Category: Visual Communication

Award: Professional Winner

When the Walker Art Center opened its Graphic Design: Now in Production exhibition they faced the task of accompanying it with a catalogue. This year’s winner for Visual Communication is a great example of an inner-company project that set the bar high for itself. Part operating manual, part academic reader, and part sourcebook, the catalogue freely mixes writing styles, from personal rants to the collective speak of Wikipedia, touching upon hundreds of topics.

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition “Graphic Design: Now in Production” and surveys the vibrant landscape of graphic designers who have seized the means of production and are rewriting the nature of contemporary design practice.

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

We sold out of the initial run of copies in the first four months and have since reprinted it. The exhibition it accompanies is currently on view in New York on Governor’s Island, and will soon travel to Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Houston, Winston-Salem and Providence. We will be trying to understand what it means for an “of the moment” exhibition to travel for such an extended amount of time. We might possibly update this catalogue in the future.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

We traveled to Niles, Michigan and visited the French Paper Company mill to witness our paper being made. We had them cut the paper in the opposite grain direction than usual, to make sure that the book was as floppy as possible. In the first run of the book, Abake’s I am Still Alive—a 16-page “parasite publication” that only exists within the pages of other publications—was the only signature run in the opposite grain.

What was an “a-ha” moment from this project?

When we were looking for a unique layout style that would allow us to incorporate the sheer amount of disparate information (long texts, pull quotes, factoids, wikipedia excerpts, bios, descriptions, captions), we realized that the answer was staring us in the face. The salon-style bits approach we landed on is something we have been experimenting with for a couple years now, first for an advertising campaign for a new permanent collection exhibition, and second for a poster for a design lecture series. Then the inevitable groan, remembering that each salon-style composition in the past had taken hours of painstaking design—how would we do this over hundreds of pages?

(more…)

A lot has been done in an effort to make hospitals less of a scary and bewildering place for young children. Remember Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog makeover of a radiology exam room in the Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL (below)? That was part of a program sponsored by Kiehls and the nonprofit organization RxArt to make children’s hospitals a little bit friendlier. Personally, I have a hunch that all this hospital room dress-up signifies a more serious flaw in the initial phases of hospital design, and we’d be better served by addressing children’s needs from the very start instead of adding colorful, cartoony band aids long after construction has already been completed.

There are other solutions too, of course. One of the best and simplest approaches comes from Hikaru Imamura, a recent Eindhoven grad who was featured on Fast Co. Design as a notable entry in their Innovation Awards program. Since sick children still have to spend hours, days, weeks etc. being ferried in and out of hospital rooms and from one contraption to the next, Imamura thought it was better to quell their fear by helping them understand what all the big scary machines do, especially since Koons can’t put his balloons dogs in every hospital in the world. Imamura’s solution is a charming and rather refined set of wooden toys that replicate CT scan rooms, X-ray machines and echocardiographs, all staffed by friendly bears.

“I thought it’s more important to make things that attract children’s interest as stuff to play with. As a result, I made toys that had simple devices such as light or sound, instead of representing the details of machines or having high-tech devices.”

(more…)

Sitting on a public bench in any number of New York City’s increasing green spaces is a revelation. For one, the diversity of these settings has become a hallmark for both residents and visitors to the City. Public benches come in the form of wooden chaise loungers on the abandoned railroad tracks of the Highline, Ignacio Ciocchini’s sleek laser-cut stainless steel CityBench popping up along Broadway, the iconic wooden slatted NYC Park benches in the solitude of Central Park or the more recent sprouting of cafe tables and folding chairs in the public plazas taking over the streets of New York.

Here’s your chance to be part of a great New York City tradition. The Battery Conservancy has announced a design competition for innovative, portable outdoor seating for The Battery. The 25-acre green space on the south tip of Manhattan overlooking New York Habor welcomes six million tourists annually. Juried by MoMA’s Paola Antonelli, the Campana Brothers, The New York Times‘ Allison Arieff, Founder of Design Within Reach and CEO of Public Bikes Rob Forbes, and Co-Founder and Director of Grupo de Diseño Urbano Mario Schjetnan, finalists work will be prototyped and showcased at the Design Miami/ fair. The winner will be awarded a US$10,000 prize and their design will be fabricated for use in the park. As Adrian Benepe, New York City Parks & Recreation Commissioner explains:

New York City is known for its innovative landscapes and we look forward to improving Battery Park with a great new design for outdoor seating. The Battery is New York City’s birthplace and as the original waterfront park, it has long served as a social hub and a place of arrival for newcomers. This creative competition will highlight ideas on how we can continue capturing the spirit of one of New York City’s most cherished landscapes and meeting places.

(more…)

An up-to-date monograph of the adventurous designer

Tracking Marc Newson‘s rise from student to superstar, Taschen’s new monograph simply titled “Marc Newson. Works” promises to be the most complete catalogue of the designer’s significant oeuvre. With text in English, French and German, the book chronologically traces his design language across categories from furniture to transportation. Newson, it turns out, is one hell of an experimenter. He touches on virtually every conceivable aspect of the built environment, with materials ranging from riveted aluminum and fiberglass to Carrara marble and thermo-polyurethane. Newson’s work bridges fine art and industrial production—just as fit for the Gagosian Gallery as it is for a Nike collaboration.

Totaling 609 full-color pages, it is clear from the outset that the book is a comprehensive collection. Newson’s first work—a series of impractical aluminum bracelets—is a far cry from his later efforts in futuristic transportation. His “Kelvin 40” (2004) is a recreational aircraft inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Solaris. Complete with stealth looks and a gaping void on the nose, it fits the bill of an alien machine. Another ambitious project is “Bodyjet” (2010), a jetpack complete with retractable landing gear and propulsion arms that emerge in massive tubes from the engine. While neither creation has entered production, Newson is almost uncannily adept at translating his sense of space from furniture to theoretical mechanics.

While much of Newson’s work was done as one-off experiments, his collaborations are likely to thank for his status as a household name. The “Zvezdochka Sneaker” (2004) is the product of his work with Nike. The shoe—inspired by the International Space Station—is meant as an ideal space shoe, with an injection-molded thermo-polyurethane shell around a bootie that works for both exercise and cabin lounging.

More recently, Newson worked with Pentax to create the K-01 digital camera that rocked the tech and design worlds. Reflecting on the K-01’s boxy design, Newson says, “When form becomes arbitrary, surfaces become nebulous and lose their logic. I think they become gratuitous.”

In the world of fine art, Newson is probably best remembered for the Gagosian Exhibitions (2007-2008). The massive collection exemplifies the common thread of space and void as well as the designer’s preoccupation with exposing the interior of forms. The “Voronoi Shelf” was part of this exhibition, created from a five metric-ton block of Carrara marble and cut with computer-generated Voronoi cells. The degree of complexity, the proportions and delicacy of the piece all serve to showcase Newson’s unique design aesthetic.

“Marc Newson. Works” is available September 2012 from Taschen and on Amazon.

Here are some photos of a scale model of the London 2012 Olympic Cauldron designed by Thomas Heatherwick, which has now been added to the ongoing exhibition of his work at the V&A museum, plus drawings from the designer.

Unveiled as the climax of the opening ceremony on Friday, the cauldron comprises 204 copper petals that were carried into the stadium by competing teams and assembled on radiating poles, before bring raised in concentric waves to meet as one flame. After the games the cauldron will be dismantled and each competing country will take home one of the petals. Read more about the design in our earlier story.

“Nothing has been harder than designing for the Olympics,” says Heatherwick, who sent us the drawings below. “It is the most public moment one can ever be involved in. I am humbled and excited, and above all very proud to have played a part in this significant moment for Great Britain.”

A prototype of one of the petals, made of copper, aluminium and steel, is also included in the Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary exhibition, which continues until 30 September.

The Cauldron was the star of the show on Friday night but has since been criticised for its position inside the stadium, hidden from most of the Olympic Park, and had to be extinguished on Sunday night so it could be moved aside for this week’s sport.

Watch Heatherwick talk more about the commission in our movie filmed at the opening of the exhibition here or below.

See all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics »
See all our stories about Thomas Heatherwick »

The post London 2012 Olympic Cauldron by
Thomas Heatherwick: model and drawings appeared first on Dezeen.