Hasta La Ideas

This year, the Lucie Awards moves its annual celebration of great photography to the newly renovated Starr Theater at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Honorees at the October 19 gala will include legendary fashion photographer and art director Jean-Paul Goude, photojournalist Gilles Peress, and the multi-talented Mark Seliger, who will be recognized for his achievement in portraiture. A lifetime achievement award wil be presented to Turkish photographer Ara Guler, and the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund will be honored with the spotlight award for its significant impact on the landscape of photography. As if bestowing shimmering statuettes upon that bunch wasn’t exciting enough, the ceremony will also showcase the finalists for the International Photography Awards and announce the winners of the 2009 International Photographer of the Year, Discovery of the Year, and Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year awards. Check out the below video for a brief slide show of the nominees’ work…

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The plot thickens as the competition thins for the 2009 James Dyson Award, which challenges industrial design students (and recent graduates) from around the world to “design something that solves a problem.” A panel of Dyson design engineers has narrowed the field of 200 projects to 20 semi-finalists. Representing the United States is Nicholas Riddle‘s Prio Paper Cast, a woven paper splint for use in disaster response. The lightweight cast packs flat for easy shipping and storage, and can be installed in minutes with no prior experience. “The inspiration behind the Prio Paper Cast project comes from our current issue with packaging, both in over-use and over-abundance,” noted Riddle in his entry, which included this video. “Instead of looking at this issue in a derisive way, I identified the ubiquity of packaging materials around the globe which opens up the possibility that certain products could be created anywhere in the world, inexpensively and quickly.” Now it’s up to the international judging panel (Axel Enthoven, Frank Tyneski, Stephanie Watson, and Yoshiyuki Wada) and, ultimately, James Dyson himself to decide how Riddle’s cast stacks up against the other semi-finalists, which include an ergonomic wheelchair brake from Ireland, a folding electrical plug from the United Kingdom, and “Khumbu,” a backpack for carrying skis—from Switzerland, of course.

Previously on UnBeige:

The efficient, ergonomic machine that it is the James Dyson Foundation is applying suction of the highest quality to select the winner of this year’s James Dyson Award, which recognizes young designers’ problem-solving products. While the big announcement is still a few weeks (and a rapidly shrinking global shortlist) away, we wanted to highlight the winner of the People’s Choice Award for the United States (one of 21 global regions in the competition): the 6dot Braille Labeler, designed by MIT students Adelaide Calbry-Muzyka, Josh Karges, Karina Pikhart, Maria Prus, Trevor Shannon, and Rachel Tatem. It’s a P-Touch for the visually impaired, electronically embossing Braille into commercially-available adhesive labeling tape, using a standard Braille keyboard. Devised by a team of undergraduates in the fall of 2008, the Braille labeler is now in its second working prototype, informed by feedback from engineers, blind people, and those who work with the blind. “We have at least two companies seriously interested in manufacturing and distribution, a provisional patent filed, and we are in the process of raising funds to make full production a reality,” noted the students in their entry. Let’s see it in action…

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Looking for something to do on a slow summer-time Wednesday? Well here’s a good way to spend the next six or seven hours. Everyone’s favorite school-less vacuuming guru, James Dyson, has unveiled the second round of shortlisting for this year’s James Dyson Awards and it is anything but “short.” There are 184 design projects to sift through from all over the world, which is exactly what Dyson’s engineers will be doing for the next few months before they announce the final-final shortlist of 20 in next week. If you’re not eager to dig through that many, you can also take a look at the winner of the People’s Choice shortlist, the peepoGPS that helps the visually impaired, or the very large National Judges’ shortlist, which are also being quickly whittled down. There’s loads of interesting projects in there, fortunately all translated into English, which is very helpful considering what a wide net the Dyson Awards tends to cast. Go forth and enjoy.

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Nike walked—make that sprinted—away with Best in Show honors at the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition. Following in the footsteps of the iPhone (a 2008 IDEA Best in Show winner) is Nike Trash Talk, the first performance basketball shoe made from manufacturing waste. The upper is zig-zag-stitched bits of leather and synthetic leather waste from the factory floor, while the mid-sole uses scrap-ground foam from factory production, and the rubber outer sole incorporates material from footwear manufacturing waste. And the shoebox? Recycled cardboard, of course. Designed by the Nike team of Kasey Jarvis, Andreas Harlow, Fred Dojan, and Dan Johnson, the Trash Talk debuted last year on the feet of eco-minded Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash (hence the sunny colorways). “High concept, aesthetics, and performance—in combination with a smart and comprehensive eco-manufacturing methodology—make this shoe the holy grail of conscious consumption,” noted juror Valerie Casey, head of digital experiences and networked culture at IDEO. “Karmic debt still outstanding, but this is a huge down payment.”

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