Hasta La Ideas

It doesn’t quite have the iMac’s Center Stage yet, but it’s getting there…

Is it just me or does it feel odd that desktop monitors don’t come with built-in webcams? I mean, how difficult is it to just put one in there?! Well, it seems like the folks at Lenovo were asking themselves the same thing before they designed their latest range of ‘ThinkVision VoIP Monitors’. Made for the modern workforce, these displays are perfectly optimized for the virtual workplace. They come in 3 variants, ranging from 23.6-inches in size to 27 inches, and an IPS display with a 75Hz refresh rate. Depending on the screen size you pick, you’re treated to either a 1080p panel or a 1440p panel, but the screen isn’t the ThinkVision VoIP Monitor’s most impressive feature, it’s what’s right above it…

Designer: Lenovo

The upper bezel is capped off with a camera module that turns the display into a teleconferencing unit that works directly with any laptop or desktop setup. The module features a 5MP camera with an infrared (IR) lens plus a separate RGB lens and privacy shutter, while the ThinkVision VoIP Monitor also houses built-in dual microphones with environmental noise cancellation and two integrated 5W speakers that offer a seamless teleconferencing experience. In fact, the ThinkVision VoIP Monitors are so focused in their effort to make video-calling and virtual collaboration effortless that the displays also come with a dedicated Microsoft Teams button, as well as volume controls and a mute feature for your microphone built right into the monitor’s design as a hardware detail.

Lenovo takes the ‘made for the modern workforce’ bit rather seriously, as each monitor also comes with a ‘traffic light’ that turns red when the user is on call, alerting people around that they’re busy, a ‘sitting’ reminder that alerts them when they’ve spent too much time in front of the screen, and a distance warning that tells them to back off when they are sitting too close to the monitor! ” These next-generation ThinkVision VoIP monitors also include human detection and light sensors for automatic screen adjustments and are among the first devices to achieve Eyesafe® Certification 2.0 with natural low blue light technology”, Lenovo mentions. Each monitor is finally capped off with a built-in hook for hanging headphones, and a notch in their base to vertically dock a smartphone.

The post Lenovo’s latest WFH-friendly ThinkVision VoIP monitors come with their own integrated webcams first appeared on Yanko Design.

Not everyone needs a portable computer like a laptop, but not everyone might want a hulking tower on or below their desk. The Apple Mac Mini has long proven that there is a very lucrative market for computers stuffed in small boxes that can still offer some of the performance of desktop towers while leaving plenty of room to move it around your desk or even the house. Mini PCs have become a bit more popular in recent years, but most of them are literal black boxes that seem to be designed to be hidden from sight. While that does help keep things tidy and clean, it can also be a lost opportunity to make a positive visual impact on your desk. The new Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini Gen 8, in contrast, is meant to be seen, and it will look stylish on any desk, whether it’s lying down or standing up.

Designer: Lenovo

Mini PCs like the Mac Mini almost have the same problem as laptops in how much power they’re able to cram in a small box. Their size problem might even be bigger because they don’t have the excuse of having to include a keyboard and a monitor to explain away the size. Fortunately, technology has come to a point where even a box that can sit on your hand can have enough power to match a high-end laptop but with more flexibility in the things you can connect to it.

The eighth-gen IdeaCentre Mini, for example, supports processors up to the next-gen Intel Core i7, which is plenty of power for such a small box. It has two memory slots, so you can have up to 16GB of RAM if you want. You can also cram in as much as 1TB of storage, but you can always connect an external hard drive easily to expand that space. The box has its built-in power supply unit (PSU), which means that its power cable won’t have a large black block hanging from it. All this power is kept cool with two vortex fans inside, allowing it to run at its maximum power without becoming a safety hazard.

What really sets the upcoming Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini Gen 8 apart from its kind, however, is its design. Eschewing even the stereotypical black color, this white box looks elegant and aesthetic, placing as much emphasis on appearance as on its performance. The top of the box has stylistic diagonal ridges that catch your eye, while round corners give the cold technology a slightly softer look. Although it’s primarily built to lie flat, it can also be made to stand on its side to save space without looking awkward or unappealing.

Lenovo makes no mention of the mini computer’s use of recycled materials, but, being a desktop computer at heart, it has the advantage of having a longer life thanks to modular parts. Opening up that beautiful chassis is also made easy so that you can upgrade or swap out components without too much effort. The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini Gen 8 will be available sometime in the second quarter of 2023, carrying a price tag of $649.99.

The post Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini Gen 8 is a mini PC that will look fabulous on your desk first appeared on Yanko Design.

Designed as an efficiency upgrade to your current WFH setup, Lenovo’s new Go Desk Station and Webcam give you the best of all worlds. Not only does the webcam boast a 4K resolution with the ability to use AI to track the user (along with a manual shutter to protect your privacy when not in use), it plugs into the Go Desk Station, an adaptable tabletop solution with a built-in adjustable LED light, a multiport hub, and a slide-out 15W wireless charging area for your smartphone. Together, the Go Desk Station and Webcam help collectively upgrade as well as declutter your workspace, removing unnecessary cables, tripods, and other accessories that may occupy crucial space on your ‘area of productivity’.

Designer: Lenovo

The Lenovo Go 4K Webcam comes as a standalone unit, with a monitor clamp that lets it attach to laptops and desktops alike. The webcam is built for video conferencing (certified for Microsoft Teams) and high-resolution streaming, with AI-assisted autofocus, auto-framing, auto ambient light adjustability, a maximum resolution of 4K at 30fps, and support for HDR. It sports a manual privacy shutter that lets you physically block the camera lens when you don’t want to be viewed and an LED light that tells you if the device (or the microphone) is still running.

The webcam, although a pretty capable piece of hardware, is made even more functional when it’s plugged out of its monitor clamp and docked into Lenovo’s Go Desk Station. The Desk Station sports an adjustable arm with LED lights that help illuminate your tabletop space, with the ability to control brightness as well as color temperature using a control surface on the base. You can either plug the webcam into the top of the Desk Station (for portrait use) or at the end of the light arm, giving you two different orientations to choose from.

At the base of the Desk Station lie a few other features that make it such a compelling productivity tool. For starters, it comes with a pop-out tray with a  built-in wireless charging coil, capable of 15W Qi-certified charging for your phones as well as TWS earbuds. The Lenovo Go Desk Station comes with a 135W power input, and sports a 65W passthrough USB-C port that you can directly connect your laptop to and eliminate the laptop charger entirely. There’s also an additional 20W USB-C port on the front for charging other devices, as well as 2 USB-A ports on the back, along with an HDMI port for connecting an external monitor to your setup, capable of 4K at 60fps.

The post Lenovo’s new 4K webcam and desk station combo make it the most comprehensive WFH video solution first appeared on Yanko Design.

What Charles and Ray Eames were to American mid-century furniture, Bernd and Hilla Becher were to German mid-century art photography. The duo, who met as art students in the 1950s, became fascinated with industrial architecture and documented these structures for decades.

“Since 1959, Bernd and Hilla Becher have been tracing the man-made testimonies to the industrial era in Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Great Britain and the United States and document both the production plants and the houses in these industrial areas in photographs,” writes Studio Mieke Meijer, a Dutch design studio founded by Mieke Meijer and Roy Letterlé.

“Industrial buildings are a remarkable building type. The architectural shape is completely functionality based. In the 20th century, most of these buildings were taken down because they had served their purpose and were no longer a tenable economic proposition. That’s why the photographs of Bernd & Hilla Becher remain the only visual record of these ‘anonymous’ structures.”

The studio was inspired by the Bechers’ photography to create their Industrial Archaeology series, starting with Gravel Plant 01:

Here’s Gravel Plant 02:

“The installations are inspired by the photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The black and white images of the photographers couple are best known for their ‘typologies’- grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.

“Studio Mieke Meijer restores these disused industrial shapes into functional installations which enable studying, collecting and storing. Each piece is hand made to her own interpretation with outstanding attention to industrial details and skilled craftsmanship. The titles of the installations refer to their original function.”

The intriguging Industrial Landscape 01 is a functioning staircase installed at the Christian Ouwens’ gallery in Rotterdam:

“The design of Industrial Landscape 01 was inspired by images of old quarry terrains where the landscape is dominated by the industrial installations build against the quarries’ slopes.”

You can see more of Studio Mieke Meijer’s work here, and you can find a vast visual archive of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work online.

Artistic, astrological, design-forward approaches to the new year

Time is a strange concept—especially these days—and planning our lives can feel difficult, daunting or downright futile. But calendars and planners can provide a practical way to make the most of your time, provide a little optimism and sometimes even help you feel like a proper person. Whether you’re looking for motivation, inspiration or organization, these calendars and planners (some of which are artistic, astrological, design-forward and more) will add a little charm to planning and preparing—whether it’s remembering a birthday, a dentist appointment or an important Zoom call or looking forward to a coffee date, dinner party or a vacation.

Every Day is a New Day Calendar

Full of the experimental Dutch modernist style that Karel Martens is known and loved for, the Every Day is a New Day 2023 calendar (£30) from art book publishers Walther König features a different, abstract design for each day of the year. Martens abstracted numbers remind users that “every day is a new day” and to approach each new day as such.

Photo Calendar

Filled with images by American photographer Todd Hido, this 2023 calendar ($22) from Deadbeat Press has been limited to an edition of 1000 copies. Featuring eerie shots of seemingly liminal spaces, the calendar is spiral-bound and includes moon phase information. Each one has been hand-signed by Hido himself. 

Merakilabbe Moon Calendar

With artwork by Merakilabbe (aka Vanja Vukelic—a fine artist, writer and mentor), this cloth calendar ($68) is equal parts decor and moon-tracker. Featuring all of 2023’s moon cycles, it’s made from deadstock cotton canvas that’s printed with water-based dyes and hemmed with a Merrow-style stitch. Each one is slightly different, but measures approximately 10 by 27 inches.

Brutalist Calendar

From independent publisher Blue Crow Media and printed on heavyweight paper by a family-owned printer, the Brutalist Calendar 2023 (£25) celebrates Brutalist architecture from around the world. Made in a limited edition, the calendar’s layout and lettering perfectly match the photographs of these concrete icons. Measuring 340 by 245mm when closed and 340 by 482mm when opened, this calendar includes 12 black and white photographs.

Calendar Flip Clock

Available in six colors (white, black, gray, yellow, orange or red) the Calendar Flip Clock QD-35 ($259) is manufactured in Hong Kong by one of the only remaining flip-clock manufacturers, TWEMCO, which was founded in 1968. The retro perpetual calendar not only displays the day, date and month, it’s also a precise clock with a German Quartz movement.

A1 Jumbo Year Planner

Bright, punchy and big, Risotto Studio’s A1 Jumbo Planner (£20) is printed on 100% recycled nautilus classic 135gsm paper. Days and dates are printed in fluorescent dye, and the calendar also features lunar phases as well as the Italian words for each month. Next year is the year of the rabbit, so there’s a bouncing bunny at the top, too.

Toiletpaper 2023 Calendar

Full of surreal, playful and off-kilter images, Toiletpaper’s 2023 calendar (€24) celebrates love in all its forms. The images—thought up by the design studio and magazine’s co-founders, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari—range from lipstick kisses on a toilet to declarations of love at the butcher, and a man covered in scratches who is embracing his pet cats. This calendar will provide plenty of color, character and humor throughout the year.

Calendar To-Do List Pad

Created by contemporary American artist Ryan McGinness and published by Gingko Press, this calendar and list pad ($40) is an ideal addition to any work desk. Featuring new drawings by McGinness for each day, the slim yet spacious calendar comprises a lightly gridded space for handy note-taking, be it to-do lists, meeting memos or spontaneous thoughts. The pad’s box also doubles as storage, where old lists can be kept and archived.

Soho Diary with Slide Closure in Mara

From the distinguished British heritage brand Smythson, the Soho Diary with Slide Closure in Mara ($380) makes for an elevated organizational option. Wrapped in crocodile-embossed calf leather, the daily planner encompasses dates ranging from 14 November 2022 to 21 January 2024. Organized in a week-to-view layout, it also incorporates a section for notes. Made in England, the diary measures 5.5 by 7.5 inches—large enough for lengthier to-do lists but still easy to stow.

Hero image courtesy of Risotto Studio, all others courtesy of respective brands