By now you’ve surely seen the Spike-Jonze-directed video for Apple’s HomePod, where a beleaguered NYC office drone’s apartment is magically extruded into a colorful wonderland.
The lead is played by British performer FKA twigs.
You may have spotted something odd around the 1:10 mark:
That something odd is that you can clearly see, when the table begins to stretch, a seam.
In other words, the table is actually, physically being elongated, one part is sliding out of another. While I’d assumed the visual effects that transform the apartment were all CG, it turns out everything was done using practical effects!
Testing the purpose-built table.
An actual stretching sofa was created.
Scale models were created to work out the rotations and stretching of the walls…
…with all of the shots being carefully mapped out.
The walls are on wheels that ride inside a precisely calculated track.
Testing out the wall rotation.
An artist details the extrusions.
Even the bike was stretched, which I didn’t catch during the first viewing.
The apartment wall rotating.
The dolly track.
When FKA twigs begins to back up…
…and the wall responds by receding…
…two stagehands are on the other side, manipulating it.
Not the most glamorous part of the job, but the guys that have to spin the couch at the end need to be as un-seen as possible.
AdWeek shot a behind-the-scenes video showing you how Jones and his numerous collaborators made it all work:
Last weekend, DesignMarch 2018 celebrated its 10th anniversary. Over the span of three days, Iceland came together with its fellow Nordic countries to promote and celebrate Icelandic design.
On Thursday, the festival began with the international DesignTalks at the Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall to inform and inspire its visitors. During the evening, the festival opened at the Hafnarhus Reykjavic Art Museum with welcoming words from the city’s major who was proud to have this festival in Reykjavic and the Iceland Design Centre who organizes the yearly event. And, of course, some live music was involved.
Throughout the next few days, we visited exhibitions, open studios, galleries and live performances. With design being one of Iceland’s youngest disciplines, it is impressive to see the quick growth of the creative industry. Enjoy this photo gallery for a design update after 10 year’s of celebrating Icelandic design.
30,000 Feet
Iceland Air is one of the main sponsors of DesignMarch. During our flight we enjoy this video inviting us to the biggest design festival in the world.*
(* per capita)
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
Landscape
A look at the amazing landscape during one of our first bus rides from the airport.
Photo credit: Photo by Paula Raché
Illikambur
Hanna Whitehead and Hilda Gunnarsdottir present their latest collection together at Gallery Harbinger. Their project brings together a ceramic jewelry and a fashion collection for the label Milla Snorrason. The color scheme and mineral patterns of their work are inspired by Illikambur, a rocky area located in the east of Iceland.
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
Illikambur
Hanna Whitehead and Hilda Gunnarsdottir present their latest collection together at Gallery Harbinger. Their project brings together a ceramic jewelry and a fashion collection for the label Milla Snorrason. The color scheme and mineral patterns of their work are inspired by Illikambur, a rocky area located in the east of Iceland.
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
1+1+1 + SWEET SALONE
1+1+1 is an experimental project format by three Nordic studios: Hugdetta from Iceland, Petra Lilja from Sweden and Aalto+Aalto from Finland. This year, they worked with the SWEET SALONE label that supports the local crafts industry in Sierra Leone. The lamps with a ceramic and wooden base match well with the handwoven shades by local basket-weavers (see online magazine).
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
1+1+1 + SWEET SALONE
1+1+1 is an experimental project format by three Nordic studios: Hugdetta from Iceland, Petra Lilja from Sweden and Aalto+Aalto from Finland. This year, they worked with the SWEET SALONE label that supports the local crafts industry in Sierra Leone. The lamps with a ceramic and wooden base match well with the handwoven shades by local basket-weavers (see online magazine).
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
Harpa Reykjavik
The DesignTalks traditionally take place at the Harpa Reykjavik concert hall. During the lunch break visitors enjoy the amazing views from the multifaceted facade designed by studio Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Henning Larsen Architects.
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
DesignTalks
Getting ready with good coffee for the DesignTalks. We particularly enjoyed the research oriented talks by Daisy Ginsberg presenting her research on better futures asking: “What is better? Whose better? And who gets to decide?” – and Kaave Pour’s from Space10 in Copenhagen who demonstrates how playful a research approach can actually be.
Photo credit: Photo by Paula Raché
Power and Potential
This year’s DesignTalks has a clear motto: Power and Potential. With a series of talks, young designers demonstrate that designing means more than making stuff and can be used as powerful tool to improve the quality of life and work in our society.
Photo credit: Photo by Aart van Bezooijen
Bea Szenfeld
During the DesignTalks she reveals the hands-on work behind the paper-based fashion and large theatre installations. It was nice to see that Icelandic singer Björk has already worn her work 8 years ago (watch Björk’s outfit at the Polar Music Prize 2010).
It sounds like magic: You have a treasured audio recording of, say, a deceased love one. You transform that audio clip into a visual soundwave. A tattoo artist transfers the soundwave into permanent ink on your skin. Then, whenever you want to hear the clip, you “scan” your arm using a smartphone app and it translates the soundwave into the audio.
That’s not actually how it works, despite what some people seem to believe. Which is to say, the scanning app isn’t translating physical features into audio in the way that the needle in the groove of a record is.
Instead, what happens is you upload the audio yourself to the Skin Motion app‘s cloud. The app then connects that clip with the visual representation of the soundwave you’re getting tattooed onto you. When you scan it, the app then recognizes the soundwave visually, in the manner of a QR code, and spits out the connected audio.
For this you pay $39.99 for the first year of service, then $9.99 per year after that (plus whatever you paid for the tattoo).
Obviously it would be cheaper to simply get the tattoo and play the clip whenever you want, for free, on your phone’s music app. Yet the fact that Soundwave Tattoos are a going concern indicates that there are willing customers.
Why do you suppose this is? Do you think people actually believe the app is scanning the soundwave and turning those scribbles into audio, or do they just not care but enjoy the novelty of “scanning” one’s arm?
We are proud to be collaborating with Covestro for this year’s Core77 Design Awards, and with that, we’re also excited to announce a brand new chance to win an award. We present to you the Covestro Materials Prize!
Covestro is one of the leading producers of high-performance polymers in North America—manufacturing high-tech materials and developing innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. As a manufacturer of advanced materials, Covestro is constantly raising standards for quality, safety and sustainability and always encouraging designers to think about and incorporate materials in new and exciting ways.
We will present the honor of the Covestro Materials Prize to the project that takes the most thoughtful, sensitive and intelligent approach to using polycarbonate and/or polycarbonate blend materials. Projects in all categories will be eligible for the Covestro Materials Prize.
Chris Lefteri, Author & Principal at Chris Lefteri Design
Alberto Villarreal, ID Lead, Google
John Skabardonis, PhD, Marketing Communications Polycarbonates at Covestro North America
Have we mentioned that the prized will be juried by an amazing team of designers and materials experts? Judging this year’s Covestro Materials Prize are designers and material experts Chris Lefteri, Alberto Villarreal, and John Skabardonis.
Haven’t entered your work yet? The clock is ticking! You have until next Thursday, March 29th at 9 PM EST to submit your project to the Core77 Design Awards with a chance of being awarded our Covestro Materials Prize.
When sketching furniture or architecture it helps to be able to simulate woodgrain. In this video I’ll use a simple coffee table design to show you how I add woodgrain to a sketch. I use several tones of markers, pen, and white pencils to achieve this affect.
As always, if you have any questions or comments on the techniques shown, leave them in the comments below. What other techniques would you like to see?
Yo! C77 Sketch is a video series from Core77 forum moderator and prolific designer, Michael DiTullo. In these tutorials, DiTullo walks you through step by step rapid visualization and ideation techniques to improve your everyday skills. Tired of that guy in the studio who always gets his ideas picked because of his hot sketches? Learn how to beat him at his own game, because the only thing worse than a bad idea sketched well is a great idea sketched poorly.
Remember the earlier post where I received the tiny battery I ordered in a gargantuan box?
Reader Andrew Roberson pointed out that the cause was “on-demand packaging,” a practice which the company that provides Staples’ fulfillment machinery uses.
In any case, here’s another lesson about packaging–not for packages you receive, but for when you DIY your own package and ship it out. Whatever you do, don’t make or use a box that has equilateral sides. Why? Because this:
Once a month the Con Edison man comes to my building, buzzes every apartment, and enters each in turn to read the gas meters. It’s a pain in the neck because I have to leash my intruder-unfriendly dogs and hold them at bay while he enters.
In the San Francisco neighborhood of Bernal Heights, the houses have this feature that obviates the need for the gas man to enter the house, or even ring your buzzer:
If their name lacks recognition, it can be blamed on their youth (a spritely 11 years young in a landscape of centuries-old Swiss brands) or their limited production (just 300 watches per style), but Rebellion Timepieces is not a small brand. In fact……
The University of Queensland is expanding its architecture department and looking for a new head of school and dean of architecture in Brisbane. The school’s new engineering building, which was designed by architects Richard Kirk and Hassell, features facades that control the levels of daylight entering the building.
Toronto designer Adam Pickard has turned paper IKEA manuals into an augmented reality app that shows users life-size instructions on how to build their furniture.
Pickard’s AssembleAR app was designed using a combination of 3D modelling and post-production editing.
Adam Pickard’s augmented reality app allows users to see how the product needs to be assembled
After the IKEA Place app was released last year, which allowed users to preview products in a home setting, Pickard wanted to develop a similar programme that could make the sometimes painstaking process of putting together flat-pack furniture easier.
“It made me think about how this technology could be used for more complex tasks, the IKEA assembly manual seemed the right place to start,” Pickard said.
“Even though it’s well designed, people often struggle with the self-assembly – it can even be so bad that there are professionals who can be hired to do it for you,” he continued.
To use the app, users firstly scan the barcode on their furniture item. This then brings up an animated version of the manual associated with that piece, along with an AR version of the box on the floor.
Scanning the IKEA’s product’s barcode opens an animated version of the instruction manual
They are then instructed to swipe across the screen to open the box and then continue swiping to make their way through the different steps.
Although AssembleAR focuses on IKEA products, it isn’t an official app from the company – Pickard simply wanted to “experiment with the potential of this type of technology, rather than presenting a finished user experience.”
However, the designer was keen to retain a similar aesthetic to the existing manuals, while making them more interactive and easier to understand through animations.
The app shows an augmented reality version of the box and product
He began by looking at the different steps highlighted in the manuals, and how each linked together. He then modelled the furniture parts and tools in Cinema 4D software – with each designed to have a render-style look similar to the IKEA original.
Pickard then questioned how the user would interact with the app, and how information should be presented to them.
He created a small section at the bottom of the screen that would detail specific parts of each step, such as bolts or screws they would need. All of this was achieved through the use of Adobe’s Illustrator, Photoshop and Premier software.
Details including what screws are needed are show on the app
Pickard isn’t the first to re-hash IKEA’s assembly manuals.
London studio Special Projects created a flat-pack survival guide to avoid the “screaming arguments” that come with assembling the company’s furniture. The three Missing Pages manuals are designed in the style of Ikea’s assembly booklets and offer extra instructions to resolve the frustrations often associated with assembling flat-pack furniture.
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.
Testing the purpose-built table.
An actual stretching sofa was created.
Scale models were created to work out the rotations and stretching of the walls…
…with all of the shots being carefully mapped out.
The walls are on wheels that ride inside a precisely calculated track.
Testing out the wall rotation.
An artist details the extrusions.
Even the bike was stretched, which I didn’t catch during the first viewing.
The apartment wall rotating.
The dolly track.
When FKA twigs begins to back up…
…and the wall responds by receding…
…two stagehands are on the other side, manipulating it.
Not the most glamorous part of the job, but the guys that have to spin the couch at the end need to be as un-seen as possible.
