Récemment diplômée du Maryland Institute College of Art, l’illustratrice americano-taïwanaise Aster Hung travaille désormais pour Google. Lorsqu’elle est interrogée quant à son inspiration, la réponse est simple : la joie de vivre et l’amour de la nature. Un crédo qui se ressent à travers ses dernières oeuvres, qui dévoilent au grand jour l’existence d’espèces animales et végétales trop peu connues.
Le tatoueur londonien Mike Boyd s’inspire du cubisme pour dessiner des tatouages novateurs et magnifiques. De grands aplats de couleurs vives et des formes abstraites s’entremêlent dans l’univers graphique de cet artiste britannique. La simplicité et l’efficacité du trait renvoie à ce que le minimalisme a fait de mieux. Gros coup de coeur pour cette ré-interprétation à fleur de peau de l’héritage cubiste.
Mike Boyd est sur Instagram
Girma Berta est né à Addis Abeba en 1990. Jeune photographe africain considéré comme une étoile émergente, il nous surprend par sa maîtrise des couleurs et des contrastes. Dans cette série appelé Moving Shadows, il illustre des personnages se promenant solitaires. À travers cette série, il se penche sur la diversité de la population de sa ville.
Over the summer, I read a moderately terrifying article in the Economist on what would happen if America lost electricity for a long period of time. If, say, hackers managed to infiltrate the system, or North Korea detonated a nuke 40 miles above Nebraska and caused an electromagnetic pulse, or if a solar flare acted up.
I’ll get to the article’s chief worries in a moment. My only experience in an electricity-free realm is trifling and limited to the 2003 blackout of northeastern America. Here’s what I quickly learned at that time:
I thanked my lucky stars that I was working from home on the day of the blackout. Thousands of other New Yorkers were not so lucky, as they were riding in elevators and subway cars at 4:11pm. The Fire Department had a hell of a job to do, with roughly 800 skyscrapers, both office and apartment buildings, filled with people stuck in elevators. Transit conductors eventually led stranded commuters onto the tracks and to the nearest exit. Dirty people were literally climbing out of manhole covers like C.H.U.D. And with no train service, folks stranded far from home had no way to get there.
Obviously there was no cell phone service nor internet. The only way I knew what the hell was going on was because I’d started keeping a small transistor radio near me ever since 9/11, and I found the one working ratio station operating off of a backup generator.
The first thing my neighbors and I did was to start eating all of our ice cream, as it was a hot August day and all of it would melt within hours.
People using plastic were S.O.L. Those with cash could only buy stuff if the store’s cash register was mechanical.
When all the stoplights stopped working, downtown Manhattan turned into a snarled free-for-all, with intersections jammed with tangled cars pointed in all four directions.
The radio had urged us to start rationing water, as they didn’t know how long the blackout would last. With no electricity, there’s no way to pump water nor purify sewage.
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Power was back on the next day, leaving me with some cute little stories to tell. But there’s nothing cute about what is going on in Puerto Rico right now. Following Hurricane Maria’s devastating path of destruction, “Most of the U.S. territory currently has no electricity or running water, fewer than 250 of the island’s 1,600 cellphone towers are operational, and damaged ports, roads, and airports are slowing the arrival and transport of aid,” says The Atlantic.
Some 90% of the power distribution network is out of commission, and Reuters reports that “[It] is expected to be a months-long effort to rebuild the island’s power system, keeping much of its 3.4 million people in darkness for an extended period.”
<div contenteditable="false" id="6d385e_637" class="embed_wrapper clear_both" data-twitter-embed="
BEFORE AND AFTER: Satellite imagery shows the extent of power outages in Puerto Rico https://t.co/zgcsihP352 pic.twitter.com/4umUQcBGpl
— CNN (@CNN) September 26, 2017
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So what’s going to happen next? The Economist article points to the troubles that we find familiar in post-apocalyptic TV shows and movies, which is the breakdown of society, looting, pillaging, law enforcement abandoning their stations to protect their own families, et cetera. I desperately hope that these things will not come to pass in a U.S. territory where the larger U.S. government is still functioning. In order to tackle the six points above, massive aid will be required.
Also required will be lots of people working together. In order for that to happen we need to clearly understand the problem, and communication between the different parties must be clear. I find that can be complicated by media bodies or readers who only want to focus on one side of the story.
For example, this morning papers like the Guardian are reporting that our President sent out a tone-deaf series of Tweets on Puerto Rico’s crisis bringing up their debt status rather than any humanitarian words. That is true, and has left readers with the perception that he is not doing anything about the crisis; I myself find that easy to believe.
However, PBS News Hour has printed this contradictory evidence from a conversation with Puerto Rico’s Governor, Ricardo Rossello:
JOHN YANG: Governor, are you getting all the aid you need or getting it fast enough from the states?
GOV. RICARDO ROSSELLO: First of all, we are very grateful for the administration. They have responded quickly.
“The president has been very attentive to the situation, personally calling me several times. FEMA and the FEMA director have been here in Puerto Rico twice. As a matter of fact, they were here with us today, making sure that all the resources in FEMA were working in conjunction with the central government.
“We have been working together. We have been getting results. The magnitude of this catastrophe is enormous. This is going to take a lot of help, a lot of collaboration. So, my call is to congressmen and congresswomen to take action quickly and conclusively with an aid package for Puerto Rico.
“We are in the midst of potentially having a humanitarian crisis here in Puerto Rico which would translate to a humanitarian crisis in the United States. So, I call upon Congress to take action immediately. You know, Puerto Ricans are proud U.S. citizens.”
Governor Rossello also points out something many of us may not have realized:
GOV. RICARDO ROSSELLO: We have shown [we are proud U.S. citizens] when Irma went through our region. It impacted us, but that didn’t stop us from going to the aid of other almost 4,000 U.S. citizens that were stranded in some of the islands. We gave them food, shelter. We make them out of harm’s way and we have them go back to their homes.
If you are interested in offering assistance, there is a list of ways you can help here.
For the second year in row, the MFA in Products of Design program at SVA is launching their Open House Design Challenge—a quick-‘n-dirty design competition open to people interested in learning about the program and attending their Open House and info session in New York City on November 10th.
Comments Products of Design chair Allan Chochinov, “Lots of people are keen on learning about grad school and about the unique aspects of our program, but it can be expensive to come to New York City. And since there’s nothing like actually hanging out in the department, meeting current students in person, and really getting a sense of the place, we wanted to make it a little bit easier to attend. So this is a fun way to help out with the airfare. ”
The requirements for entering are pretty simple—pick a question, and answer it by creating one sketch, along with a two-paragraph description of the idea. And the topics are juicy:
Pick one of the following questions:
A. Sketch what you hoped the iPhone X would have been before you saw any of the leaks
B. If Tesla and T.J.Maxx launched a new initiative together, what would it be?
C. Sketch an app for animal shelters to increase pet adoption rates
D. Design an umbrella for use in crowded areas
E. Design a service that helps the formerly incarcerated rejoin society
The top 5 winning entrants receive expert portfolio reviews from faculty and experts, and the overall winner will receive travel reimbursement up to $750 to come to the department’s open house in New York City.
“This isn’t a skills competition by the way,” adds Chochinov. “What we’re looking for are ingenious ideas, novel approaches to problem-solving, and just plain imagination. Also, of course, we’re looking for brave and bold ideas…since we’re looking for brave and bold students to apply to join us in the fall!”
The deadline for submitting your idea is Friday, October 20th. Find all the details at the Products of Design site.
The Guide is available with a posting to Coroflot’s Design Job Board.For over 15 years Core77 and Coroflot – the design recruiting site – have polled working designers across the professional spectrum about their careers. The result is two-fold; first, an ever growing “real-time” design salary guide at Coroflot.com, where the data completes a creative hiring trifecta alongside a design job board and database of 200,000 designer portfolios. Second, a historical snapshot of today’s creative professions; a compilation of 1000’s of responses from earlier this year, analyzed and presented on their own and compared against data from 5 years ago. The first is freely available 24/7 at Coroflot.com/designsalaryguide, the second is launching today and, for a limited time, complimentary with any job posting at Coroflot. Wether you are a small firm wondering how competitive your offers are, or a large company seeking insight into what attracts a creative workforce, you will want this report for reference. Get started with a design job posting here to get your copy.
The Department of the History of Art and Design at Pratt Institute invites applications for a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Design History to begin August 2018. Priority will be given to historians of Industrial Design, however, all Design History specializations will be considered. The selected candidate will have expertise in teaching the history and theory of design to undergraduate and graduate students, an understanding of current and future trends in contemporary design, and will be able to address visual and material culture from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives.
Responding to a governor-to-governor call, New York’s Governor Cuomo traveled to Puerto Rico last week to offer assistance to Puerto Rico’s Governor Rossello. Cuomo brought with him ten engineers, planners, technical supervisors and translators from the New York Power Authority. He also brought, from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, three drones and two drone pilots.
The drones were intended to help the New York delegation execute their mission, which is to figure out how to restore power to the island. But they could also be used, and presumably will be in future, to assist with crucial search-and-rescue tasks.
Rescue workers in Puerto Rico have a daunting task ahead of them. While the island is shaped like a remarkably orderly rectangle, the topography is a tangle of mountainous rainforest.
With both electricity and communications grids down, and highways strewn with collapsed electricity poles and streetlights, folks stuck in the interior of the territory have no way to reach out for help and no easy means of transportation.
The first problem is conducting triage. A good solution would be to use drones, sending them over impassable terrain to scan for survivors. Drones outfitted with video and thermal cameras—as the DEC drones are—could locate pockets of people trapped in mountain villages, alerting authorities to their presence. Here’s an example of how DEC’s drones use thermal imaging to locate bat hibernation locations:
As Forbes reports, other drone experiments undertaken by environmental bodies show great promise by turning drone footage into useful data:
Early applications using large volunteer teams to identify wildlife in satellite imagery and train computer algorithms to conduct basic wildlife censuses have evolved into large-scale disaster triage efforts using drone imagery. Under one pilot application, live drone imagery would be streamed to a remote team of volunteers who would click on the video feed to identify damaged locations. Areas receiving large numbers of clicks would be highlighted on the screen for drone operators to investigate further, offering realtime feedback. During one test over 100 volunteers collectively provided 49,706 identifications that were 87% accurate.
Drones could also serve as force multipliers, if fixed-wing UAVs like the one being developed at MIT’s CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab) were used. Their slingshot-launched drone can fly autonomously, using stereo-vision, on-board CPUs and custom algorithms that can detect and avoid obstacles.
Another type of drone that could prove useful in disaster areas is the PARC, or Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications system designed by CyPhy Works for the U.S. Army.
The PARC is essentially stationary, and using one is like having sensors on top of a 400-foot tower—without needing to build the tower. Tethered to a fixed location, the PARC can fly for over 200 hours at a stretch, as power is fed to it through the tether. Communications data, meanwhile, is fed from the drone back down to the operator via the same tether. While the PARC’s lack of mobility doesn’t suit search-and-rescue operations, it would be useful in situations where sites need to be monitored for signs of imminent disaster, like a dam on the verge of collapsing or a facility at risk of explosion.
Here’s how the PARC operates:
Monitoring locations and searching for survivors is one way drones can help. But how can they be used to actually get supplies to those who need it? We’ll look at that next.
More often than not, construction workers are exposed to many hazards in specific situations, like tunnel excavation. The result of interviews with swiss construction workers, Unit Helmet has adopted a modular system that makes it easily assembled or disassembled. This enables workers to actively respond to volatile surroundings.
All of the helmet’s accessories can be easily replaced by means of the magnetic snap system, and the unit is able to be attached to many fastener systems that are ergonomically situated on top of the helmet. This allows the accessories to be assembled in combination with the other units, which ensures safety from multiple hazards that may occur simultaneously.
Watch a video of Unit Helmet in action here.
It’s hard to believe that years ago, it was common for living rooms to be arranged like this:
The furniture was arranged for entertaining, for conversation, for “company.” It was once common for friends to drop by, even unannounced, and for you to spread some refreshments around while you sat on couches, facing each other, to shoot the breeze.
Nowadays that sounds insane. Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco perfectly and hilariously illustrates the difference between someone dropping by 20 years ago versus now:
Today it’s rare to see a pair of sofas facing each other; modern living rooms often feature a couch facing the flatscreen. We don’t go over each other’s houses to socialize much these days, opting instead to conduct our social lives on social media. And as open-plan offices and shared workspaces become common, there is a need or desire for furniture that delivers the comfort of a sofa with the privacy of a separate office.
Thus we see designs like Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec’s Alcove seating, designed for Vitra:
The PRIVÉE line designed by Progetto CMR for Aresline:
The throne-like V1 Chair, designed by ODESD2.
Steelcase’s Brody WorkLounge:
Sitland’s Cell 128:
The designs above are primarily form-follows-function, but Studio Makkink & Bey’s EarChair co-opts the form of the wingback chair:
– Why do wingback chairs have wings?
– The design benefits of sunken conversation pits
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.
