A necklace strung together from images of male nipples is among five projects from 2020 graduates selected by the organisers of the annual New Designers showcase to be exhibited in this VDF school show.

The students, who hail from different universities and courses across the country, have shared designs that exaggerate and subvert traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, predominantly through the medium of jewellery but also through embroidery and graphic design.

Their work was chosen from the more than 3,000 graduate projects that were set to be featured at the annual New Designers exhibition in London this year.

In lieu of a physical show, the event is taking place digitally this year, with standout projects from 20 students showcased at the Virtual Design Festival, where their work is divided into the four key themes of gender, nature, sustainability and bold, geometric prints.

But even across these disparate categories, organisers say that students’ work this year has been united by an increased concern for the environment, as well as for social and psychological wellbeing.

This can be seen in the five projects below, which are primarily concerned with issues of gender but also make a point of utilising recycled metals and ethically sourced gemstones in their production.

New Designers graduate show: Gender

Showcase: New Designers
Instagram: @newdesigners
Organiser: Upper Street Events

Event statement: 

“New Designers, the UK’s largest design graduate show, celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2020 with the launch of a series of digital initiatives throughout the summer. In lieu of a physical showcase, the event will aim to promote and celebrate the work of the graduate class of 2020. With these virtual initiatives, New Designers hopes to offer graduates alternative opportunities to gain better insights into the design industry and advance in their professional careers in such extraordinary circumstances.

“Since the start of June, New Designers has been running ND Selects, a social media campaign that hopes to offer visibility and recognition to students’ final projects. Each day, New Designers publishes a post about different students, highlighting their final piece, alongside their processes and influences.

“This year has seen a surge in final projects that respond directly to environmental and social issues. From game design to textile prints, the class of 2020 has offered creative design solutions for contemporary storage, diagnosing dyslexia and reconnecting children with nature. Making informed and considered material choices that are either recyclable or locally sourced has also been a key focus for many students.”

Modern Venus by Daniel Groza

“Modern Venus is a high-end jewellery collection that promotes inclusivity. It highlights the beauty of individuality found within our body shapes and pigments.

“A variety of precious metals are used to create jewellery that matches all skin tones. The Japanese Mokume-gane technique of blending different alloys celebrates imperfections. The hanger motif symbolises rejecting society’s image of the ‘ideal woman’ in favour of a realistic view of the female form, with stretch marks and limbs of diverse proportions.

“Tracing metals back to their natural source is a crucial feminist issue. Women who work at the beginning of the jewellery supply chain are often underpaid, as well as victims of abuse and discrimination. Reclaiming gold family heirlooms and using scraps of silver demonstrates a commitment towards ethical production methods.

“This collection speaks of important feminist matters and enables the wearer to use their body as a canvas – a visual representation of their beliefs.”

University: Edinburgh College of Art
Course: MFA Jewellery and Silversmithing

Symbols of Femininity by Celeste Chambers-Hill

“How is gender performed? Alongside ideas generated by theorist Judith Butler and writer Susan Sontag, this collection represents a personal, individual exploration of the ways in which gender is characterised in dress, style, costume, fabrics and colour combinations.

“The processes and practice of designing and making these jewellery pieces was motivated by particular ideas of what might constitute femininity, whether in popular culture, theatre, literature or film, where the feminine is symbolic of specific female energy or force. Playing with such notions of gender constructions, this collection includes objects exaggerated in scale and pattern, with pale, pastel colours that parody what is thought to be an inherently female palette.

“The overall appeal of drag performances and the ambiguity and humorous nature of such performance in particular, provide the context for this collection to challenge constructed and canonical narratives of gender identity. All precious metal used in this collection is 100 per cent recycled and the natural gemstones have been ethically sourced.”

University: Glasgow School of Art
Course: BA Silversmithing & Jewellery Design

Boys will be boys by Greg Sutherland

“My work is an exploration of male homosexuality and masculinity through the lens of a working-class background. I studied the fetishisation of the hyper-masculine within the gay community and how these masculine ideals can stimulate excitement, fear, rebellion and shame. More specifically, I concentrated on the impact of growing up as a gay man in the age of the internet, bringing into focus the impact of an oversaturation of explicit content and the birth of an image-obsessed body culture.

“Photography of the body provides substantial inspiration for my work, and I use it directly as a medium for creating jewellery. I view my pieces as possessing cyclical qualities, designing from the body and for the body. I also take inspiration from pop culture, traditional symbolism and the architecture of my hometown, which I use as a metaphor to express feelings of suppression, frustration and constriction.

“My approach to making is centred on traditional jewellery techniques and handmaking skills. I hope to blend humour, sex and fashion alongside my intimate feelings and experiences to create pieces of contemporary jewellery that are intriguing, captivating and offer a narrative.”

University: University of Dundee
Course: BDes Jewellery and Metal Design

Man Up by Sean Morgan

“Man Up is a booklet about toxic masculinity and how we can try to solve the problems it causes.”

University: Plymouth College of Art
Course: BA Graphic Design

Dollhouse by Francesa Lim

“I drew inspiration from my love of dolls, which I’ve collected since I was a child. My fascination with them is based on each doll’s personal character and style as embodied in its appearance and the craftsmanship behind it.

“The collection is called Dollhouse because the dolls are grouped together into themed ‘rooms’ that represent their unique character. The Romanticism room is based on 18th-century dolls, while Fantasy features fairytale creatures such as fairies and mermaids.

“The Puppet series are handcrafted dolls from different cultures and Plastic features kitsch-like representations of quirky, modern plastic toys. These different elements come together as a colourful collection of eclectic and experimental designs, representing each doll’s theme as an embroidered garment piece.”

University: Royal School of Needlework
Course: BA Hand Embroidery

Virtual Design Festival’s student and schools initiative offers a simple and affordable platform for student and graduate groups to present their work during the coronavirus pandemic. Click here for more details.

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As part of our 40th birthday celebrations, CR is revisiting the alumni from our Creative Futures scheme, which ran for nearly 30 years. Here, we chat with creative duo Ben Middleton and Stu Outhwaite-Noel, who were featured in 2005

The post Creative Futures Revisited: Creature’s Ben & Stu appeared first on Creative Review.

NASA has compiled over 87,000 high-resolution images of the sun taken over the past decade from its Solar Dynamics Observatory to create an incredibly detailed time-lapse movie.

The video was released to mark the 10th anniversary of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite, which has been photographing the sun from its orbit around the Earth since 2010.

To create the time lapse, NASA edited down the 425 million high-resolution images captured with its SDO by choosing one photo taken every hour from the satellite.

NASA’s video condenses the past decade into a 61-minute-long video, with each second representing approximately one day.

The SDO takes an image of the sun every 0.75 seconds and has so far amassed 20,000,000 gigabytes of data on the star at the centre of the solar system. It takes images in 10 different wavelengths of light.

The time lapse shows the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, the corona. It was compiled using images taken at an extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 17.1 nanometers.

Although the SDO has been focused directly at the sun for the past decade, the video has some dark frames caused by the Earth or the moon passing between the satellite and the sun.

The video also has a dark spot when there was a week-long issue with the camera in 2016. At some moments in the video the sun moves off centre, this is due to the SDO calibrating its instruments.

The SDO was launched on 11 February 2010 and is part of NASA’s Living With a Star program, which aims to understand the influence of the sun on the Earth.

NASA is currently planning a mission to the moon for 2024. The space organisation recently named Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as the three teams that will develop vehicles for the mission.

Project credits:

Lead producer: Scott Wiessinger (USRA)
Lead data visualiser: Tom Bridgman (GST)
Lead science writer: Mara Johnson-Groh (Wyle Information Systems)
Project support: Robert C. Garner (USRA)

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We are all aware of the three basic needs for human survival, while a fourth one is added to the list: medicines. Medical innovations are one of the few things that have the ability to change the world in a single innovation. WHO states that Cardio Vascular Diseases are the number one cause of death globally: more people die annually from CVDs than from any other cause. About 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.6 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year. The only way to handle these diseases is to improve our existing healthcare practices, focus more on monitoring which in turn will help us be more prepared for everything that comes our way. The designs showcased here today attempt to innovate and improve our existing practices – from the cast applied on a fracture to even motion sickness, these designs will improve our quality of life for the better!

Chicago-based startup Cast21, however, has designed a sleeve that fits over any hand. Cast21’s cast takes shape around your hand once it’s filled with a patented gel that hardens over time. Doctors select a sleeve-size based on whether the patient is a child or a fully-grown adult. The sleeve is slipped on, and filled with a patented mixture of resins that become a malleable gel after a while. The doctor can then adjust the gel to perfectly hug the limb, giving it the support it needs. Patients can even choose between gel-colors, opting for combinations and gradients, breaking the stigma that casts need to look horribly clinical. The resins harden through an exothermic reaction, providing soothing heat to the limb as the cast begins to take shape.

Citroën’s SEETROËN (clever name alert) is quite an ingenious device designed to help create a balance between nausea-inducing experiences, so your brain doesn’t get confused. The quirky-looking glasses (designed to be worn only while traveling) come with four rings on the front and side with a liquid suspended in them. When in a moving vehicle, the liquid moves around too, giving the brain a visual stimulus that helps it understand the way you’re moving. When the car moves from left to right, the liquid in the ring does too, informing your brain of the movement as you watch movies on a screen or read a book. The rings stay on the boundaries of your vision, allowing you to see normally, while the liquid rings on the periphery don’t obstruct your vision.

Literally the size of a quarter, Adam Miklosi’s Dab is an unobtrusive Holter ECG/EKG that rests comfortably on your chest, constantly reading your heart’s movements. Designed to be minimal, non-invasive, and simple, the Dab tries to bridge the gap between medical appliances and wearables. Its tiny yet classy design sits on your chest via a gel patch, while the electrodes capture your heart activity. The Dab’s dry-electrodes allow it to be used and reused, while constantly measure one’s heart activity (requiring periodic charging via their wireless charging hub), and keep logs of accurate readings, quietly sitting on your chest while you absolutely forget that they’re even there in the first place!

The Kardia is a tiny ECG (or EKG) reader that works in conjunction with your iPhone to give you heart-rate readings. Simple in its design, with just two textured sensor-pads for your fingers, the device takes readings and its partner-app guides you through the process, showing you your current heart rate. Place your fingers on the sensors & in just 30 seconds, you have a medical-grade EKG reading, to be monitored for irregularities, or shared with your doctor. Just like the thermometer became a household medical product, followed by the blood-sugar meter, the Kardia aims at becoming the next household medical device that helps people monitor their heart status and keep a check on their condition.

VanBerlo Agency’s LifeSaver can be mounted on walls at accessible and prominent locations. If someone is suffering from a cardiovascular attack, you simply grab it and press the button for calling 911 below it. So while you perform CPR, the ambulance is on its way! The first instruction provided is to remove the clothes from the chest of the victim. After that, you open the box and remove LifeSaver from it. Place the AED on the chest of the victim, and follow the instructions. OLEDs and touch sensors guide you through the entire process. LifeSaver even helps you with placing the electrodes correctly and guides you regarding the location and rhythm for the chest compressions. Via visual displays and an audio option, LifeSaver gives you critical feedback.

Using a trio of gyroscopic motors mounted within a sleek and futuristic wearable that dramatically wraps around the user’s hands, Tryro counteracts the shakes to stabilize the user’s hands and therefore induce a sense of confidence! Its designer, James Sanchez, recognized the various levels of tremors that an individual can have. To cater to this, a dial that’s located on the user’s wrist allows for adjustment of the gyroscopic motor’s speed! What makes Tryro so unique is the medical aesthetic that it has managed to avoid. Considered details and an attractive form lead to a more desirable product and one which doesn’t carry the stigma of medical devices!

Imagine a smart insulin port attached to your skin, delivering the right dose, and at the right time. At the same moment, getting all information regarding your sugar levels, meds timings, and health data, managed and analyzed with the accompanying app. Kite, designed by Mitul Lad & Cambridge Consultants, replaces the need to pump yourself with over 30 injections a week, thanks to the soft cannula insertion. It turns any device into a ‘smart’ device and automatically dispenses the accurate insulin dose. Designed to be affordable, a device like this can be very helpful in the lifestyle management of diabetics.

Ryan Krause’s VERO isn’t just some regular thermometer… it was built for helping companies monitor the health of their individual employees. The VERO reads temperature using non-contact infrared sensors, but it doesn’t just do that. It helps keep a tab of people scanned too, allowing offices or businesses to internally test their own employees. The VERO scans the patient’s temperature while also logging in their name, details, and their identity… like a biometric scanner that captures an employee’s attendance as well as their health!

I love how designer Manuel Hess put it… “a walker doesn’t have to look like a disease itself.” Harsh but SO true! His proposal for a walker, called PROSUS, ditches the stigma and is instead designed with dignity in mind. It takes inspiration from both sportbikes and modern furniture, applying the same sleek design language to the walker. Unlike “medical” looking walkers, this one totally looks Professor X worthy!

Taking inspiration from Airbus’ existing family of cutting-edge aircraft, the Airbus A-180 Drone project by Reza Salianeh looks a lot like something that might already exist in their modern fleet! To deliver a payload of emergency supplies, it utilizes three double engines – one at the rear for forward thrust and two integrated into the wings for upward and downward maneuvering. Able to take off and land vertically or horizontally, it can safely enter danger zones. Upon arrival, it releases a cargo capsule capable of transporting everything from medicine and antivenin to supplemental blood and even organs.

The award-winning Jelly medicine by Jeongho Oh, Dongho Choi, and Ryangtak Oh is individually packaged to minimize air contact and to prevent almost oxidation of nutrients from the moment it comes into contact with oxygen. It also provides customized medicines by individually tailoring the packaging. You can order medicines for specific diseases and age groups instead of having all tablets coming separately and wasting resources. The aim of this water-free jelly medicine is to ensure that people in developing countries do not needlessly suffer from diseases caused by contaminated water. Not only does this medicine design make swallowing easier, but it also addresses the larger problem of access to clean water in poorer countries. This innovative jelly medicine is created to be water-free so people don’t have to pick between curing themselves or adding on to existing health risks. The jelly is the same size as a sip of water so the patient won’t need to drink anything when taking the medicine. “Poor hygiene and poor water quality are causes of many diseases, including cholera and typhoid fever. When taking medicine in such conditions, there is a risk of acquiring additional illness if the medication is taken with unsanitary water. Jelly medicine eliminates this hygienic problem because it can be easily swallowed without water,” says the designer.

Behold the Full Metal Jacket… No really, this jacket from Vollebak is actually made from a germ-repelling metallic textile. Quite unlike those space-foil jackets that astronauts wear, the Full Metal Jacket actually uses a fabric with woven strands of copper, so it’s entirely breathable, flexible, and doesn’t make a crinkly sound when you move around. With as much as 11 kilometers of copper in each jacket, the apparel relies on copper’s innate ability to kill off any bacteria or viruses that it comes in contact with. The Full Metal Jacket comes with four large waterproof pockets on the outside and three chest pockets for your belongings. Designed to be your everyday jacket, it can be worn in any sort of weather outdoors, and remains as comfortable and soft to touch as any sort of synthetic outerwear would… in fact, you really can’t even see the copper strands unless under a microscope. However, unlike most outerwear, synthetic or not, it possesses the ability to completely obliterate any sort of microorganism that comes in contact with it, a feature that makes it a standout product in our uncertain future.

With reality and life catching up to our unchecked actions, it is time for us to clean up our act and while we repair the damage we inflected to the earth, we need these medical innovations to keep us healthy and safe.

There’s certainly an element of luxury that overlaps the perfume and watch industry. They both are objects of desire and symbols of high-society. They even often have the same points of inspiration, with the liberal use of faceted glass, chrome, and gemstones if you’re looking to really up the ante… but there’s obviously a distinction between a watch and a perfume bottle. Lee Huang’s conceptual watch created for Issey Miyake blurs that distinction.

The conceptual Issey Miyake watch cleverly uses glass as a material for the watch body, as opposed to stainless steel. Borrowing the fluted design texture from most top-of-the-line fragrance bottle designs, the watch’s thick glass body comes with a unique textured rim that reflects light just the way a fancy looking glass bottle does. The glass body (and the dial cover too) come with a high refractive index that creates enough parallax to give it the appeal of a perfume bottle, along with just a slight tinge of frosting that actually helps cut the internal reflections to retain the watch’s minimalist appeal. In keeping with the timepiece’s clean, almost zen-ike design, a plain white leather strap suspends the crystalesque time-telling beauty to your wrist. Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?!

Designer: Lee Huang