This system of illustrated characters and animations was developed to help people learn to read Chinese, and is one of the 76 projects nominated for Designs of the Year 2014 (+ slideshow).
Tree
Taiwan-born entrepreneur ShaoLan first began developing the Chineasy characters as a way to teach her own English-speaking children to read traditional Mandarin Chinese, by creating a visual connection to the words.
Having struggled to find a straightforward way to negotiate the huge number and complexity of Chinese characters, she teamed up with graphic artist Noma Bar to develop a system of shapes representing some of the most commonly occurring symbols, which can be combined to create more complex phrases.
Fire
“I created a methodology that breaks down thousands of Chinese characters into a few hundred base building blocks,” explained ShaoLan. “When these building blocks are combined, they form compounds that can in turn be combined to create phrases. Through this method learners can quickly build a large vocabulary of characters with very little effort.”
Mouth
As well as providing users with a memorable way to understand the characters, Chineasy aims to offer those living in the West an insight into Chinese culture in a visual format.
Water tap
“It is educational, social, cultural, and I hope, inspirational,” said ShaoLan. “I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and ancient culture with a modern interpretation through sleek modern design.”
Moon
The entrepreneur spent her evenings selecting and sketching suitable characters to form the building blocks of the Chineasy system, which she then modelled on her computer and refined to create contemporary graphic representations that could easily be understood by Westerners.
Roof
Having presented the initial idea at a conference organised by innovation forum TED that was published online in May 2013, the interest she received encouraged ShaoLan to begin working on a book and launch a Chineasy website and Facebook page.
King
A campaign launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter exceeded its goal of £75000, eventually achieving £197626 of backing that was used to publish the first Chineasy books.
Mountain
The books are now being published by Thames & Hudson and an ebook and app have also been developed to illustrate how to write and correct stroke order through simple animations and give tips on pronunciation.
Door
Chineasy was nominated in the Graphics category of the Design Museum’s shortlist for Designs of the Year and features in an exhibition at the museum until 25 August.
Here’s a project description from ShaoLan:
Chineasy
Chineasy’s aim is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. I want to give the west a real understanding of China and an appreciation of Chinese culture through their own eyes rather than layers of packaging and manipulation.
The method – compounds
It is evident that people are hungry to learn about China. People are keen to be able to communicate with the 1.3 billion people. Tet there is not much out there to enable them to do so. Whilst the entire Chinese population is learning English, the west is struggling to comprehend this complex economy and society with their own eyes and judgment. Knowing their language is the key towards true understanding.
Chineasy will become the first step for anyone in the world who wants to understand China, Chinese culture and its language. It is educational, social, cultural and inspirational. I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and broad culture through a modern interpretation using sleek and simple design.
The method – phrases
Chineasy’s goal is to allow people to learn to read Chinese easily by recognising characters through simple illustrations. The magical power of the Chineasy method is that by learning one small set of building blocks, students can build many new words, characters, and phrases.
A watch that uses ball bearings to create a face that can be read by the visually impaired is one of the front-runners for Designs of the Year 2014, but has also proven popular with a broader market (+ interview).
Built from solid titanium, the Bradley Timepiece was designed by the team at new watch company Eone. It creates a tactile experience with ball bearings that rotate around the face on two tracks instead of hands, creating a braille-like experience for reading hours and minutes.
The idea for the watch came out of research showing that partially sighted and blind people were buying designer timepieces that they couldn’t use and then using their phone to tell the time or relying on obtrusive talking watches.
“We thought about how we could make a fashionable watch that would also work for tactile users and hopefully appeal to a larger audience of everyday users,” lead designer David Zacher told Dezeen at last night’s Designs of the Year 2014 exhibition launch.
“If you respect the user group you are designing for and keep in mind that you are trying to design something that is superb, not just for that user group but for mainstream use, I think that the result is exemplary design,” he said.
Although the watch was originally designed with the visually impaired in mind, the majority of responses the designers have received don’t have anything to do with vision impairment, according to Amanda Sim, head of graphic design and marketing for Eone.
“People just think it’s a beautiful and eye catching watch,” she said.
Having fulfilled the orders from the watch’s original Kickstarter funding drive, it is now available to pre-order in the UK, US and Canada. But demand has been so high that it will also soon be available across Europe and in Asia as well.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview with David Sacher and Amanda Sim of Eone:
Marcus Fairs: So tell us what this product is and how the idea came about.
David Zacher: It’s a tactile watch that was designed with users who are blind in mind. We started out thinking about what kind of watch or time keeping device would work for blind users and we struck upon this idea of using ball bearings rotating around a track to indicate the minutes and the hours on the dial.
Marcus Fairs: I heard you saying before how blind people would buy fashionable watches and then listen to their SIRI reading out the time.
David Zacher: We did a tremendous amount of user research. We found users who had a talking watch which is quite loud and a little embarrassing to use in a public place like a classroom say. So that was one piece of intel that we gained and as we went further into it we found users who were wearing fashion watches, even though they couldn’t tell the time. They were using their iphones to tell the time. So we thought about how we can make a fashionable watch that would also work for tactile users and hopefully appeal to a larger audience of everyday users.
Amanda Sim: The watch is built from solid titanium, it comes in a range of different watch bands in stainless steel as well as canvas and leather. It’s built for durability, its easier to clean, easier to fix, but we’re marketing it as the gentleman’s watch. So it’s built for discretion and it’s all about the modern man who needs to be couth and gentlemanly but somehow always knows where he needs to be and what time it is.
David Zacher: So check whether he needs to leave without letting anyone know.
Amanda Sim: Exactly.
Marcus Fairs: So you developed this when you were at RISD. Is that right?
Amanda Sim: Yes in graduate school, at the Rhode Island School of Design. We were randomly approached by our founder in the MIT MEA program at the time and he’s very much interested in projects for social good. But Eone timepieces is a for profit company because we believe the proceeds of what we make from this watch can be fed into improving innovation and products for impaired users.
David Zacher: And we worked really hard to try and keep the price point of it as low as possible. To keep it as accessible as we possibly can. That’s where we see the social bit.
Marcus Fairs: Where is it out in terms of development? Is it a product that is available and ready for order?
David Zacher: We recently finished fulfilment on our Kickstarter orders so it’s in production and it’s currently available for preorder in the UK, US and Canada with delivery in June.
Amanda Sim: But in June it will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, the US, Canada and throughout Europe.
Marcus Fairs: And what has been the response so far from blind people and non blind people?
David Zacher: Oh it’s been wonderful, we’ve gotten great response from all over the world from our Kickstarter funders and the community that has come to support us has been amazing.
Amanda Sim: And a majority of the responses don’t have anything to do with vision impairment, people just think it’s a beautiful and eye catching watch.
Marcus Fairs: Do you think this is a kind of philosophy that could be expanded, designing things for people with some kind of impairment but aimed at a wider market?
David Zacher: Definitely, we never would have hit on this idea of using ball bearings to tell time if we hadn’t been solving for that problem, so I can see a broader application in products that follows that same approach, of inclusively designing something.
If you respect the user group you are designing for and you are keeping in mind that you are trying to design something that is superb not just for that user group but for mainstream use, I think that the result is exemplary design and the key word that always comes around in our design critiques is ‘inclusive design’. It’s all about the best, for the most, for the least. It’s the Eames model.
A tactile watch designed for blind people by a group of students has gone into production after strong demand from sighted consumers (+ interview).
The Bradley watch, which displays the time via a ball bearing that moves around the face, has also emerged as a frontrunner for the Design of the Year 2014 award, organised by the Design Museum in London.
“It’s a tactile watch that was designed with users who are blind in mind,” said David Zacher, lead designer at Eone timepieces.
“We started out thinking about what kind of watch would work for blind users and we struck upon this idea of using ball bearings rotating around a track to indicate the minutes and the hours on the dial,” Zacher told Dezeen at last night’s Designs of the Year 2014 exhibition launch:
The product was designed by Zacher and a group of fellow graduate students while studing at RISD but it will go on sale in June after a successful Kickstarter funding drive showed that non-visually impaired consumers wanted to buy the watch.
“A majority of the responses don’t have anything to do with vision impairment,” said Amanda Sim, a former RISD student who is now head of graphic design and marketing for Eone, which is manufacturing the timepiece. “People just think it’s a beautiful and eye-catching watch.”
The idea for the watch came from research showing that partially sighted and blind people were buying designer timepieces they couldn’t use and then using their phone to tell the time or relying on obtrusive talking watches.
The product is now being marketed as a “gentleman’s watch” that is “built for discretion” – since wearers can check the time without anyone noticing.
Zacher described the process of designing the watch as “the Eames model” and said his team would embark on more “inclusive design” projects in future.
“We never would have hit on this idea of using ball bearings to tell time if we hadn’t been solving [the problem of designing a watch for the visually impaired],” he said. “So I can see a broader application in products that follows that same approach, of inclusively designing something.”
The Bradley is named after Bradley Snyder, an ex-naval officer who lost his eyesight in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2011 and who went on to win gold and silver medals at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
A magnet inside the titanium watch moves a ball bearing around the track. Because the bearing is raised, wearers can feel its position with their fingers.
The watch is now available to pre-order in the UK, US and Canada. But demand has been so high that it will soon be available across Europe and in Asia as well. It will soon be available at Dezeen Watch Store.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview with David Zacher and Amanda Sim of Eone:
Marcus Fairs: Tell us what this product is and how the idea came about.
David Zacher: It’s a tactile watch that was designed with users who are blind in mind. We started out thinking about what kind of watch or time keeping device would work for blind users and we struck upon this idea of using ball bearings rotating around a track to indicate the minutes and the hours on the dial.
Marcus Fairs: I heard you saying before how blind people would buy fashionable watches and then listen to Siri reading out the time.
David Zacher: We did a tremendous amount of user research. We found users who had a talking watch which is quite loud and a little embarrassing to use in a public place like a classroom say. So that was one piece of intel that we gained and as we went further into it we found users who were wearing fashion watches, even though they couldn’t tell the time. They were using their iPhones to tell the time. So we thought about how we can make a fashionable watch that would also work for tactile users and hopefully appeal to a larger audience of everyday users.
Amanda Sim: The watch is built from solid titanium. It comes in a range of different watch bands in stainless steel as well as canvas and leather. It’s built for durability, it’s easier to clean, easier to fix, but we’re marketing it as the gentleman’s watch. So it’s built for discretion and it’s all about the modern man who needs to be couth and gentlemanly but somehow always knows where he needs to be and what time it is.
Marcus Fairs: So he can check whether he needs to leave without letting anyone know.
Amanda Sim: Exactly.
Marcus Fairs: So you developed this when you were at RISD. Is that right?
Amanda Sim: Yes in graduate school, at the Rhode Island School of Design. We were randomly approached by our founder on the MIT MBA program at the time and he’s very much interested in projects for social good. But Eone is a for-profit company because we believe the proceeds of what we make from this watch can be fed into improving innovation and products for impaired users.
David Zacher: And we worked really hard to try and keep the price-point of it as low as possible. To keep it as accessible as we possibly can. That’s where we see the social bit.
Marcus Fairs: Where is it at in terms of development? Is it a product that is available and ready for order?
David Zacher: We recently finished fulfilment on our Kickstarter orders so it’s in production and it’s currently available for preorder in the UK, US and Canada with delivery in June.
Amanda Sim: But in June it will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, the US, Canada and throughout Europe.
Marcus Fairs: And what has been the response so far from blind people and non-blind people?
David Zacher: Oh it’s been wonderful. We’ve gotten great response from all over the world from our Kickstarter funders and the community that has come to support us has been amazing.
Amanda Sim: And a majority of the responses don’t have anything to do with vision impairment. People just think it’s a beautiful and eye-catching watch.
Marcus Fairs: Do you think this is a kind of philosophy that could be expanded, designing things for people with some kind of impairment but aimed at a wider market?
David Zacher: Definitely, we never would have hit on this idea of using ball bearings to tell time if we hadn’t been solving for that problem, so I can see a broader application in products that follows that same approach, of inclusively designing something.
If you respect the user group you are designing for and you are keeping in mind that you are trying to design something that is superb not just for that user group but for mainstream use, I think that the result is exemplary design and the key word that always comes around in our design critiques is ‘inclusive design’. It’s all about the best, for the most, for the least. It’s the Eames model.
Here’s some more information from the Design Musuem:
25% off Designs of the Year 2014 at the Design Museum
Now in its seventh year, Designs of the Year gathers together a year of cutting-edge innovation and original talent; showcasing the very best in global Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphic, Product and Transport design.
Featuring Kate Moss’s favourite app, a floating school in a Nigerian lagoon, friendly lamp posts, a mobile phone you can build yourself and many others, Designs of the Year 2014 include international design stars such as Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield and Miuccia Prada, alongside crowd-funded start ups and student projects. This not to be missed exhibition is a clear reflection of everything that is current and exciting in the world. Someday the other museums will be showing this stuff.
The Design Museum will host the exhibition of shortlisted projects for its annual Designs of the Year awards, which honour exemplary projects completed in the past year.
A selection of the 76 projects nominated for the Design of the Year title will be displayed, including a mobile phone you can build yourself and a floating school in a Nigerian lagoon.
Dezeen readers can also receive 25 percent off the admission price when booking online and using the code DEZ25 under the Dezeen Special Offer.
Competition closes 9 April 2014. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.
Lego Calendar designed by Adrian Westaway, Clara Gaggero, Duncan Fitzsimons, Simon Emberton. Photograph by Adrian Westaway
Here’s some more information from the Design Museum:
Five pairs of tickets to see Designs of the Year 2014 at the Design Museum
Now in its seventh year, Designs of the Year gathers together a year of cutting-edge innovation and original talent; showcasing the very best in global Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphic, Product and Transport design.
Chineasy created by ShaoLan Hsueh with Illustrations by Noma Bar. Photograph by Brave New World
Featuring Kate Moss’s favourite app, a floating school in a Nigerian lagoon, friendly lamp posts, a mobile phone you can build yourself and many others, Designs of the Year 2014 include international design stars such as Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield and Miuccia Prada, alongside crowd-funded start ups and student projects.
ME.WE: Forward-Thinking Car designed by Massaud & Toyota ED2. Photograph Small Dots
This not to be missed exhibition is a clear reflection of everything that is current and exciting in the world. Someday the other museums will be showing this stuff.
The Gourmand: A Food and Culture Journal created by David Lane (Creative Director), Marina Tweed and David Lane (Founders/Editors-in-chief). Photograph courtesy of The Gourmand
As a Dezeen reader, you can also receive 25% off regular admission price when pre-booking here and using code DEZ25 under the Dezeen Special Offer.
Dita von Tease in A Magazine Curated By Stephan Jones illustrated by David Downton
Architects including Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield and John Pawson, and designers such as Tracey Neuls, BarberOsgerby and Konstantin Grcic have been named on the shortlist for 2014’s best design, which encompasses the categories of architecture, product, furniture, fashion, graphic, digital and transport.
All 76 projects will be shown in an exhibition at the Design Museum from 26 March to 25 August 2013, and winners from each category and one overall winner will be announced later in the year.
Here’s the full list of nominated projects from the Design Museum:
Architecture
Child Chemo House, Osaka – designed by Tezuka Architects, Takaharu & Yui Tezuka A place where children undergoing chemotherapy treatment can live with their families, Child Chemo House aims to facilitate an ordinary lifestyle in a beautiful, calm space.
Façade for Paul Smith, London – designed by 6a Architects The cast iron used for this facade references London street furniture and creates a sharp contrast to the neighbouring Georgian townhouses. A sinuous pattern of interlocking circles puts an abstract spin on a classic Regency shape, while curved windows nod to the glass in nearby arcades.
FRAC Centre, Les Turbulences, Orléans – designed by Jakob + MacFarlane Conceived by the architects as both a landscape and a topographic surface, this faceted pavilion of concrete and aluminium conveys a perpetual flow of digital information. Volume, light and image fuse together to create a dynamic form of architecture that communicates, reveals, provokes, stimulates and informs.
Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan – designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher Elaborate undulations, bifurcations, folds and inflections modify this plaza surface into an architectural landscape that performs a multitude of functions. The building blurs the conventional distinctions between architectural object and urban landscape, building envelope and urban plaza, interior and exterior.
La Tallera Siqueiros, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico – designed by Frida Escobedo Originally conceived as a muralist workshop, the home and studio of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros is transformed into a new museum and cultural centre. Siqueiros’s huge murals are repositioned to create an open courtyard, and a geometric concrete grid composed of triangles clads parts of the museum, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior space.
Makoko Floating School, Nigeria – designed by NLÉ, Makoko Community Building Team A prototype floating structure, built for the historic water community of Makoko, Nigeria. The school takes an innovative, cheap and sustainable approach to address the community’s specific social and physical needs.
Mont de Marsan Mediatheque – designed by archi5 Standing in an austere military quadrangle drill yard, the Media Library is an uplifting cultural symbol. Designed as a covered cultural square, its transparent planes generously open to the view of the public.
Museo Jumex, Mexico City – designed by David Chipperfield Making full use of a difficult triangular site this elegant new museum is clad in locally-mined travertine stone, and features a distinctive saw-tooth roof which floods the top floor gallery with natural light.
Newhall Be, Harlow, Essex – designed by Alison Brooks Architects This 84-unit scheme in Harlow, Essex integrates a mix of new and familiar house typologies, prefabricated timber construction and a highly efficient masterplan to maximise living space and flexibility for individual homes. The scheme challenges the presupposition by housebuilders that we want very traditional looking houses.
Praça das Artes Performing Arts Centre, São Paulo – designed by Brasil Arquitetura A new complex, in an area that has suffered from economic decline for decades, Praça das Artes incorporates historic buildings alongside new volumes built in exposed concrete and coloured with red pigments. Sheer walls guarantee flexibility of the internal spaces and unobstructed external spaces, while outside there are generous open spaces and new public passageways.
St Moritz Church, Augsburg, Germany, Interior renovation – designed by John Pawson Taking in aesthetic, functional and liturgical perspectives, the renovation saw the painstaking paring away of selected elements to achieve a clearer visual field, drawing the eye to the apse ‘the threshold to transcendence’ which is designed as a room of light.
The New Crematorium at the Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm – designed by Johan Celsing Built on an undulating terrain in a wild wood section of the Woodland Cemetery, the New Crematorium features exposed white concrete and white glazed bricks in a building which is at once robust and sensitive.
Wa Shan Guesthouse, Hangzhou, China – designed by Wang Shu Pritzker Prize-winner Wang Shu’s guesthouse and reception centre draws on the traditions of the China Academy of Art and the city of Hangzhou itself. The new building is one of 22 designed by the architect on the Academy’s Xiangshan Campus.
Aerosee – designed by Paul Egglestone, Dr Darren Ansell, Dan Etherington, Patterdale Mountain Rescue A crowd-sourced search and rescue drone designed to save lives in the Lake District mountains. AeroSee’s contribution to search and rescue operations comes directly from members of the public who can become ‘virtual search agents’ – joining live operations from their desktop computers, tablet devices and mobiles.
Citymapper – designed by Azmat Yusuf, Gilbert Wedam, Joe Hughes, Nicholas Skehin, Emil Vaughan Describing itself as the ultimate transport app, Citymapper aims to make the world’s most complicated cities easier to use with A to B journey planning that includes everything from cost to calorie burning.
Generations – designed by One Life Remains A mobile gaming app designed to be deployed over many centuries – unlike a conventional video game, it is impossible to finish a game of Generations in your lifetime. The player decides to whom the game will be passed on and if one day they want someone to be able to reach the top of the level. Generations questions the inevitability of death, the meaning of legacy and the nature of progress.
Hello Lamp Post – designed by Pan Studio Hello Lamp Post is a playful SMS platform, inviting people to strike up conversations with familiar street furniture using the text message function of their mobile phones. The project launched in Bristol during the summer of 2013. Thousands of residents and visitors shared their thoughts and stories with the streetlights, parking meters, bridges and boats of the city, sending over 25,000 text messages in just eight weeks.
Lego Calendar – designed by Adrian Westaway, Clara Gaggero, Duncan Fitzsimons, Simon Emberton The Lego calendar is a wall mounted time planner invented for a studio, with colour coded bricks representing time spent on projects. The calendar is made entirely of Lego, but when you take a photo of it with a smartphone all of the events and timings are synchronised to an online calendar.
Metro Trains – Dumb Ways to Die – designed by McCann Melbourne A song, a book, a smartphone game, interactive outdoor posters, radio advertising and tumblr GIFs – all designed to get young people to care about safety. Dumb Ways to Die uses black humour to make the point that there are many dumb ways to die, but perhaps the dumbest is doing silly things around trains – in the process it has become an internet phenomenon and Kate Moss’ favourite app.
Oculus Rift – designed by Oculus VR The Oculus Rift is a ground-breaking virtual reality headset for immersive gaming. It is being developed by Oculus VR, who launched a highly successful Kickstarter campaign to help fund its development.
Peek (Portable Eye Examination Kit) – designed by Dr Andrew Bastawrous, Stewart Jordan, Dr Mario Giardini, Dr Iain Livingstone A tool with the potential to revolutionise the prevention of blindness in low-income countries, Peek is a smartphone-based system for comprehensive eye examinations. It is easy to use, affordable and portable, meaning that it can bring eye care to even the remotest of settings.
Public Lab Foldable Mini-Spectrometer – designed by Public Lab contributors 2011-13 The Public Lab Foldable Mini-Spectrometer folds up in minutes to transform your smartphone into a visible and near-infrared spectrometer. Developed after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it is part of an ongoing effort by the Public Lab collaborative community to make analysis of pollutants such as crude oil cheaper and more accessible.
Sidekick Creatives – Crowdfunding Great Art & Design – designed by Oscar Lhermitte, Philipp Figueroa, Yoav Reches, Arne Zacher, Molly Anderson, Tommaso Lanza Sidekick Creatives is a collective set up to support individuals and companies to realise their crowdfunding campaigns. Sidekick Creatives collaborates with fellow designers, artists and makers by offering them the necessary tools and expertise required to successfully fund their projects. Their services range from conceptualisation to video production and campaign promotion.
Touch Board: Interactivity Everywhere – designed by Bare Conductive The Touch Board is a way to turn almost any surface or material into an interface – light switches painted on walls, interactive books or hidden sensors that can detect a person from up to 20cm away. Connect any conductive material to one of its 12 electrodes and you can trigger a sound or other event through touch or proximity. The Touch Board is a pre-programmed, open source platform designed all levels of expertise.
DAS Collection – designed by Reem and Hind Beljafla A Dubai-based fashion label founded by two Emirati sisters, DAS Collection was the first abaya (a garment covering the whole body except the face, feet, and hands) brand to be stocked at Harrods. The designers set out to update the abaya, making it a fashion statement whilst always respecting its heritage and traditions.
PRADA S/S14 – designed by Miuccia Prada Pop-art prints meet sporty details and structured shapes in this boldly coloured, powerful collection. Vogue said of the show “By next summer we’ll wonder what we ever wore before.”
Rick Owens S/S14 Show Presentation – designed by Rick Owens Rick Owens presented his collection with teams of female step-dance crews, all of whom the designer discovered on YouTube. They modelled Owens’s clothes in an entirely new way and their sensational performance brought a freshness and diversity to the Paris runway.
The Hinterland of Ronaldo Fraga – designed by Ronaldo Fraga The signature of the caatinga, the natural scuffing of the cattle that the market considers a defect, becomes a sign of sophistication in this collection from the Brazilian designer.
‘Totemic’ Collection by Sadie Williams – designed by Sadie Williams A collection of dresses in stiff 3D embossed textiles created by a multi-step, multi-layered process developed by the designer. Inspired by the graphic masculine print arrangement found in biker clothing, helmets and satin racing vests, the high-impact textiles are balanced with elegant A-line silhouettes.
Tracey Neuls BIKE GEEK – designed by Tracey Neuls BIKE GEEK is a hybrid of a dress shoe and a casual shoe with the performance of sportswear. It is designed to be simple, easy and suitable for all occasions. The sole is a hard wearing, one piece, rubber unit which gives shock absorption and endures many walking or biking miles, and a reflective half moon ‘cat eye’ tab makes the wearer safely visible at night.
Furniture
Bodleian Library Chair – designed by Barber & Osgerby The three-legged oak chair balances a strong sense of craft heritage with sculptural form and the needs of readers. A strong vertical timber, echoing the spines of books on shelves, forms one of the three legs that attaches to the sled base. Strong but remarkably light, it is only the third new chair developed specifically for the Bodleian since 1756.
Iro – Jo Nagasaka for Established and Sons Named after the Japanese word for colour, Iro is a family of vibrant yet elegant furniture which remains true to Nagasaka’s minimalistic style, whilst making bold use of brightly coloured resin. The smooth finishing highlights the natural grain of the wood enclosed within the resin.
Pro Chair Family – designed by Konstantin Grcic The Pro chair which Konstantin Grcic has developed for Flötotto features state-of-the-art ergonomics and pioneering design. The construction of the chair not only allows movement in all directions, but actively stimulates it thereby promoting healthier sitting.
Ripple, an ultra light timber table – designed by Benjamin Hubert Ripple is a 2.4 metre-long dining table constructed from corrugated Sitka spruce plywood. The rippled construction allows for a very high strength to weight ratio whilst still utilising a natural material. In reducing the amount of timber used the table’s carbon footprint is decreased and it can be easily assembled and manoeuvred.
‘Simple’ exhibition at ProjectB Gallery, Milan – designed by Philippe Malouin The works displayed for the ‘simple’ exhibition span two years of design and experimentation around the theme of simplicity. Timber slats, positioned in the right rhythm and proportions create benches, a table, a library. A Simple chair, exhibiting modest geometry and simple boxes, bookends and a lamp are composed of a readily available and humble material such as MDF.
A Magazine curated by Stephen Jones – designed by Stephen Jones Stephen Jones dedicated his issue of this cult fashion magazine to Anna Piaggi and the art of illustration. It featured a centrefold with Dita Von Teese by David Downton, the designs of Zaha Hadid, Raf Simons and Ron Arad, and fashion illustration from Gladys Perint Palmer, Howard Tangye, Barbara Hulanicki and Tony Viramontes.
ArtDirectorsClub: Art Directors Annual 91 – designed by Rami Niemi (Illustrator), Joao Unzer (Art Director), Juan Carlos Pagan and Brian Gartside (Graphic Designers) Illustrations for the Art Directors Annual 91 – the best-selling international review of the year’s most innovative works in visual communication.
Building Stories – designed by Chris Ware A ground-breaking graphic novel from American comic book artist and cartoonist Chris Ware, Building Stories follows the inhabitants of a three-flat Chicago apartment house. Taking the form of a boxed set, it consists of fourteen distinct printed works—cloth-bound books, newspapers, broadsheets and flip books.
Castledown Primary School Type Family – designed by Anthony Sheret, Edd Harrington, Rupert Dunk Originally commissioned in 2011 as a bespoke typeface for Castledown Primary School by headmaster Neil Small, the project soon evolved into collaboration with a vision to unify typography throughout UK primary schools. Creating a dyslexic friendly package that allows for use in every aspect of educational life – from letters the school would send to parents to a Cursive version that children would use to learn joined-up handwriting.
Chineasy – created by ShaoLan Hsueh with Illustrations by Noma Bar Chineasy is an illustrated Chinese language methodology created by entrepreneur and author ShaoLan Hsueh. Chineasy’s aim is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. The system is built on a building block methodology which allows students to learn a small number of commonly occurring characters, which can then be combined to create more complex compounds and couplets. These illustrated and animated characters aim to provide both a memorable interpretation of Chinese and also a glimpse into the culture behind the language.
Creation and realisation of the visual identity and the signage system of the FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur – designed by Jean-Marie Courant, Marie Proyart, Olivier Vadrot The creation of this identity and signage system is very much routed in the architecture of the building. It uses two typefaces and a white-to-grey palette with some uses of red. Different circles were designed to symbolise the different actions of the Frac.
Drone Shadows – designed by James Bridle / booktwo.org The Drone Shadows are a series of installations consisting of a 1:1 outline of a military unmanned aerial vehicle, or Drone. They have appeared in the UK, Turkey, the USA, Brazil and elsewhere.
Escuyer Undergarment Brand Identity – designed by Modern Practice Modern Practice created a visual solution based on the heraldic system for this men’s undergarment brand. This typographic reinterpretation of heraldry is not only strongly linked to the brand’s name (which derives from the old French word for ‘Esquire’), it also conveys the brand’s world.
Grand Central – designed by Thibault Brevet Grand-Central is an open internet platform that lets people express themselves freely through a tangible output device. Users can submit text via their smartphones which is then ‘written’ in marker pen by a mechanical printer – creating a physical embodiment of a digital message.
M to M of M/M (Paris) – designed by Graphic Thought Facility A large-format 528-page book surveying the work of French graphic design duo Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustiniak. The alphabet, a re-occuring theme in MM’s work, provided an appropriate way to organise the projects and interviews. Like the cutting and re-stacking of a pack of cards, the pages are re-arranged so that the letter M opens and closes the book.
Serpentine Galleries identity – created by Marina Willer in collaboration with Brian Boylan Willer’s team created a new identity for the Serpentine Galleries to express a spirit of openness. The logo acts as an aperture, opening for different content and different ideas in an ever-changing way, and also as a bridge – echoing the actual bridge over the Serpentine that links the two Galleries in Hyde Park. The team created the graphic language, imagery, colour palette and all other brand elements. Pentagram’s Daniel Weil worked with Willer to create the signage system for the Galleries both externally and internally.
The Gourmand – a food and cultural journal – created by David Lane (Creative Director), Marina Tweed & David Lane (Founders/Editors-in-chief) The Gourmand is a food, arts and culture journal, printed bi-annually. It prides itself on high production values – combining exquisite printing with a variety of materials, more akin to book publishing than traditional magazines. All of the content is specially commissioned with submissions from well respected writers, photographers and illustrators as well as up and coming talent.
Whitney Museum Identity – designed by Experimental Jetset and the Whitney Museum Called the ‘Responsive W’ by its designers this graphic identity specifically references the museum’s name, while also communicating openness and representing a non-linear approach to art. The apparently simple ‘W’ has a huge number of variations and potential applications.
Works That Work, a magazine of unexpected creativity – designed by Atelier Carvalho Bernau Works That Work is an international magazine, covering a mix of diverse subjects connected by the theme of unexpected creativity that improves our lives. It features original, in-depth essays and stories on subjects connected with design, presenting projects that challenge and change the way the reader perceives them.
Product
75 Watt – created by Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen (Artists), Alexander Whitley (Choreography) and Siya Chen (Film production) In 75 Watt, a product is designed especially to be made in China. The object’s only function is to choreograph a dance performed by the labourers manufacturing it. The project seeks to explore the nature of mass- manufacturing products on various scales; from the geo-political context of hyper-fragmented labour to the bio-political condition of the human body on the assembly line.
ABC Syringe: A behaviour changing syringe – designed by Dr David Swann The ABC Syringe is a frugal innovation to combat the prolific use of non-sterile syringes. The syringe remains colourless when stored inside a sterile pack. However exposure to air triggers a controlled colour change that transforms the syringe barrel from colourless to red within a few minutes. This visual transformation alerts and empowers both literate and illiterate patients to make better risk decisions, and provokes doctors into clinical compliance.
Alba Collection of Vases – designed by Massimiliano Adami A collection of vases in archetypal forms enriched with a soft colour change, giving the object an unusual lightness. The effect drives rotational moulding technology to reach a new aesthetic potential.
Bloom Helmet – designed by Tokyo Safety Strong enough to protect against falling debris the Bloom helmet can also be folded down, making it easily transportable. When in its closed position a cord attached to the back of the protective gear can be pulled-outward, expanding the adaptable panels into a concave form.
Chair 4 Life – designed by Bruce Renfrew, James Williamson, Shaun Phillips, David Fawkes, Ken Poberezny, Minghao Zhou, Michael Phillips ‘See the Child, Not the chair’ was the motivation behind this modular wheelchair system which grows with the child and allows later modifications through a standard catalogue of attachments and bespoke components. It centres on a standard chassis which is retained throughout a child’s journey, greatly reducing disruption to their lives caused by lengthy waiting times for new chair systems.
Clever Caps – designed by Claudio Patrick Vollers (Co-inventor & Designer) and Henry Suzuki (Co-inventor) Clever Caps are bottle caps which also work as building blocks. They can be collected and used on their own, but are also compatible with the world’s most popular building blocks. In this first commercial version, they were designed to fit PCO 1881 standard bottle necks, and include a tamper evident safety seal.
Fairphone – designed by Bas van Abel Fairphone is a social enterprise that uncovers complex systems with the aim of changing how things are made. The Fairphone is made as fairly as possible. Its transparent supply chain looks at every mineral, component, person and process to reveal the real impact of electronics production.
Formlabs Form 1 High-Resolution Desktop 3D Printer – designed by Formlabs Inc. The Form 1 is a high-resolution desktop 3D printer. It uses reversed stereolithography technology to create highly-detailed models, using a light-sensitive liquid resin and a focused laser beam. The Form 1 combines simple, intuitive design with ground-breaking technology, in a union that is at once striking and accessible.
GoPro Hero 3 Black – designed by GoPro The GoPro Hero 3 Black makes producing professional quality video easy and affordable, allowing amateur film makers to achieve unprecedented results.
Luffa Lab – designed by Mauricio Affonso Luffa Lab explores the inherent qualities of Luffa fibres as an alternative to synthetic materials for a wide range of applications and durable consumer products. ‘Luffa cylindrica’ is antimicrobial, biodegradable, lightweight and highly absorbent – features that make it a viable material for applications such as low cost splints or as acoustic insulator, it can also be used as absorber of toxic dye waste from denim processes.
Lunaire – designed by Ferréol Babin Lunaire is a wall lamp with a surprising light effect, reminiscent of the phenomenon produced by eclipses. A smaller front disc containing the light source is set inside a large concave aluminum diffuser. Two different effects are possible depending on how the small disc is positioned with respect to the diffuser: back lighting when the front disc is closed, or from inside the diffuser when the disc is pulled forward.
Nest Protect: Smoke + carbon monoxide alarm – designed by Nest Nest set out to transform people’s feelings about their smoke alarms from one of dislike to trust and even enjoyment. This alarm has several features: it integrates with mobile devices and sends a message if the batteries run low; it shows you its sensors and batteries are working with a green glow; its LED lights act as a night light; and false alarms can be stopped with a wave of the hand.
Pet Lamp – designed by Alvaro Catalan De Ocon Hand woven from strips of discarded plastic bottles, each lamp is a durable object which combines one of the planet’s most industrial products with one of the most down to earth artisanal techniques found in every culture.
Phonebloks – designed by Dave Hakkens Every year millions of mobile phones are thrown away because just one part is broken. This mobile phone consists of separate components that can be ‘clicked’ together. Every component has its own function – WiFi, battery, display – and when an upgrade or repair is needed only that part is affected. The phone can also be customised for specific functions.
Plume Mudguard – designed by Patrick Laing & Dan McMahon Plume is a recoiling bicycle mudguard which maintains a thin, sleek profile when protecting the rider’s back; when not needed it recoils into a tight circle under the saddle. Plume can be pulled out and recoiled while riding and is constructed from resilient materials.
Risk Centre – designed by Onkar Kular & Inigo Minns Over the course of three months, the Risk Centre transformed the Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm into a risk assessment facility and educational performance space. Part film set, part educational facility and part theme park, the centre recreated familiar scenes and places from the suburbs and the inner city that were then used to host a civic programme for local school groups and the general public.
Silk Pavilion – designed by Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab The Silk Pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on both product and architectural scales. The primary structure was created of 26 polygonal panels made of silk threads laid down by a CNC machine. 6,500 silkworms were then released on to the structure where they worked as biological ‘printers’ spinning as they moved across the panels.
String Lights – designed by Michael Anastassiades Inspired by perfectly parallel strings connecting pylons and the strings of lights used to mark outdoor spaces, these simple lights can be suspended in multiple configurations to create striking shapes.
The Alchemist’s Dressing Table – designed by Lauren Davies A collection of analog tools for the production of natural cosmetics at home, inspired by ancient rituals and the transformative powers of alchemy. The palette of copper and maple wood are chosen for their traditional and folkloric symbolism respectively. Cork is used for its insulating properties, borosilicate glass for its heat resistance and stainless steel for strength. All components are fabricated in collaboration with London-based craftsmen.
The Bradley Timepiece – designed by Hyungsoo Kim, Nick Gu, David Zacher, Amanda Sim, Maeve Jopson, Cynthia Poon The Bradley is a tactile timepiece that allows users to not only see what time it is, but to feel what time it is. Created in collaboration with product designers, engineers, and people with vision loss, The Bradley changes the way users interact with their timepieces. It is named after Bradley Snyder who lost his vision completely in Afghanistan in 2011 serving as a bomb defuser and went on to win two gold medals and one silver in Paralympics in London in 2012.
The Seaboard Grand – designed by Roland Lamb and Hong-Yeul Eom The Seaboard is a reinvention of the piano keyboard, re-imagining the keys as soft waves that enable continuous and discrete real-time, tactile control of sound through three-dimensional hand gestures. The design combines contemporary minimalism and traditional handcrafted quality.
A Journey Redefined – designed by A2B The A2B hybrid electric bike range is the result of the engineering innovation and loving attention to detail.
IFmove Bicycle – designed by Section Zero Pacific Inc’s 9-speed, 11.5kg IFmove unfolds in seconds and combines striking looks with rigid aluminium construction. It can also be rolled along on its 20” light weight wheels whilst folded.
ME.WE: Forward-Thinking Car – designed by Massaud & Toyota ED2 ME.WE’s philosophy combines flexible geometry, a customisable look and environmental responsibility. It features an aluminium tubular structure, expanded polypropylene panels, electric power wheels, and a bamboo interior.
Single Seat Alright – designed by e-Go e-Go aeroplanes has created this striking new single seat aircraft, which costs dramatically less to fly than traditional aircraft. It uses novel technologies to boost performance, and achieves a low cost of development and operation by exploiting the newly deregulated environment in the UK. Very lightweight but strong construction is achieved using ultra-thin carbon fibre and foam – the empty aircraft weights just 115kg.
Mail Online journalist Rosie Taylor scoffed at the plain and simple look of the Gov.uk website in an article published after the ceremony in London last night, complaining that “it has only two small pictures” and “features links to pages like ‘Housing and local services’”.
“And the award goes to boring.com!” ran the headline on the news site, which earlier this year won the Design Effectiveness Award’s Grand Prix for its huge growth in traffic and advertising revenue since its 2008 redesign.
Gov.uk was designed by Government Digital Service, a team within the cabinet office led by designer Ben Terrett, to combine the UK government’s thousands of online services in a single website that’s meant to be simple and intuitive to use and which uses just one font and dispenses with visual clutter such as images and coloured panels.
The redesign beat over 90 other shortlisted projects and was praised for its elegance and simplicity by Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum that organises the annual awards to recognise “the most innovative and imaginative designs” from the past year.
News: the UK government’s redesigned website has been named the Design of the Year in a ceremony at the Design Museum in London this evening (+ movie).
Gov.uk was designed by Government Digital Service, a team within the Cabinet Office led by designer Ben Terrett (see our movie above), to fold the government’s thousands of existing websites into just one.
Deyan Sudjic, director of the award-giving Design Museum, said the new website “makes life better for millions of people”.
“Gov.uk looks elegant, and subtly British thanks to a revised version of a classic typeface designed by Margaret Calvert back in the 1960s. It is the Paul Smith of websites,” said Sudjic.
“The rest of the world is deeply impressed, and because it has rationalised multiple official websites, it saves the taxpayer millions – what’s not to like?”
Prime minister David Cameron also said he was “delighted” about the win, adding: “For the first time, people can find out what’s happening inside government, all in one place, and in a clear and consistent format.”
The core idea behind Gov.uk is to make it as simple and intuitive as possible for the user, Terrett told Dezeen in a movie filmed at Design Indaba in Cape Town as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour.
“People only go onto government websites once or twice a year to find out a particular thing,” he said. “So people shouldn’t spend time relearning how to use it. The core of all our work is focusing on user need.”
Terrett’s team devised 10 principles of good design to guide their work and chose to make them public in the hope they would be useful to other designers, as he explained at the Global Design Forum in London last September. “We believe that if you share work it makes it better,” explained Terrett.
The principles are:
1. Start with needs 2. Do less 3. Design with data 4. Do the hard work to make it simple 5. Iterate. Then iterate again 6. Build for inclusion 7. Understand context 8. Build digital services, not websites 9. Be consistent, not uniform 10. Make things open: it makes things better
Terrett also won the graphics category of the 2010 awards with his print-on-demand publishing service Newspaper Club.
This aid kit is designed to nestle between Coca-Cola bottles to bring medicine to remote locations through the drinks company’s vast distribution channels.
The Kit Yamoyo is the idea of British aid worker Simon Berry, who realised while working in Zambia in the 1980s that Coca-Cola was available in even the most rural villages, yet simple medicines were not.
After Berry set up the ColaLife charity in 2011 to put the idea into action, design consultancy PI Global offered its services and came up with a robust container small enough to occupy the unused space between Coca-Cola bottles inside crates.
The AidPod, as it’s named, is currently available as an anti-diarrhoea kit containing oral rehydration sachets, zinc supplements and soap, but ColaLife believes it could be used to get tablets, condoms or other products to remote areas if the pilot project in Zambia is successful.
The AidPods are designed to benefit independent rural retailers by allowing them to make a profit on their resale. In the last six months, over 20,000 kits have been bought by retailers in Zambia to be sold at just under a dollar each.
A documentary about the life of influential fashion writer and editor Diana Vreeland, directed by her grandaughter-in-law Lisa Immordino Vreeland, topped the fashion category in this year’s Designs of the Year Awards (+ movie).
The film chronicles her rise from columnist at American fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar to editor-in-chief at Vogue and features interviews with fashion designers including Calvin Klein, Diane von Fürstenberg and Manolo Blahnik. Archive footage shows her reminiscing about key moments in her career and encapsulating highlights: “I wasn’t a fashion editor, I was the one and only fashion editor!” she exclaims in one clip.
Throughout her working life, Vreeland championed an alternative view of beauty by accentuating models’ flaws in editorial campaigns. She kick-started the careers of photographers, models and musicians deemed unconventional at the time such as David Bailey, Twiggy and Mick Jagger.
The cultural shift she instigated is documented through iconic photographs and page spreads from issues of Vogue during her eight years at its helm in the 1960s. Vreeland’s celebrity status and famous companions as well as the strained relationships she had with her family are also touched on in the movie.
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