Hasta La Ideas

Render Me This An Audi S5 rendered from a 3D model using Numenus software.

Design, engineering, and entertainment software giant Autodesk extended its summer buying spree with the purchase of technology related assets from Numenus, a Koblenz, Germany-based software provider of high-end visualization technology (realtime ray tracing) used to render and review 3D datasets. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition, announced today, is the third in a sequence that began in mid-July with the purchase of Pixlr, a free online service for creating, editing, and sharing images. Earlier this month, Autodesk snapped up San Francisco-based Instructables, an online community for people who want to discover, share ,and be inspired by DIY project ideas and how-to information. The Numenus purchase is expected to boost the efficiency of Autodesk’s digital prototyping tools, specifically the company’s “ability to address high fidelity visualization for technical surfacing and advanced design reviews as part of Autodesk’s commitment to automotive design workflows.”

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Of the torrent of articles and blog posts following Steve Jobs’ resignation announcement, I’ve found few worth reading, filled as they are with rampant speculation; but this Bloomberg article by Peter Burrows caught my eye. Although the somewhat sensationalist title “Jobs Departure Puts Product Pressure on Ive” is never really backed up with demonstrable facts, Burrows’ analysis of the situation does scratch my ID itch by pointing out that Apple’s uniquely high support for design is crucial to the company’s success.

Burrows sketches out the presumed work relationship had by Jobs and Ive, gets opinions from former Apple design head Robert Brunner, and points out that “While industrial design is seen as cost to be minimized at many companies, Ive has latitude to specify features that require his team and Apple’s hardware engineers to create new production techniques…Ive is known to travel to Asia for weeks, studying intricacies of metal-bending equipment.”

I won’t cite some of the more spectacular claims made in the article for fear of flame-fanning, but overall the article’s certainly worth a read.

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What do you do if you have a failing machine shop and a love of mountain bikes? Modern Machine Shop Online has recently posted one of the best articles on small business and manufacturing I’ve read all year, focusing on Canadian bike parts company Straitline Components, a tiny company with a relatively large output enabled by a shrewd selection of the latest CNC machinery.

The company was initially a small contract machine shop working out of a garage and comprised of Mike Paulson and his son Dennis; but after the dot-com bubble burst wiped out their largest client, they figured they’d have to come up with their own product to manufacture if they wanted to stay in business.

After striking out with a golf putter and a kitchen accessory, then seeing small success with a rope-cutting device, the Paulsons took a closer look at their hobby—mountain biking—to see if they could improve the components.

Turns out they could. The Paulsons’ experience with manufacturing, experience with bike riding in rugged conditions, and innate talent for design meant they knew how to improve brake levers, handlebar stems, pedals, and more. And their willingness to invest in CNC machines that a few people can run to produce thousands of parts turned out to be a winning strategy. “One of the Paulsons’ priorities is a belief in owning manufacturing,” writes Peter Zelinski, MMS Online’s Senior Editor. “Straitline insources whatever production it reasonably can. It does this for the sake of understanding that production more thoroughly and perhaps winning some efficiencies from it.”

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The rumor mill reached a fever pitch yesterday over who will succeed John Galliano as creative director of the fashion empire that is Dior, after the designer was cast out earlier this year when he was caught on camera screaming a drunken slew of anti-Semitic slurs. As of yesterday, all points seem to be focused on Marc Jacobs, with Women’s Wear Daily leading the charge by reporting that their sources have revealed that the designer is in “serious” talks with Dior and its parent company, LVMH. With his current contract at Louis Vuitton ending soon, should Jacobs be offered and take the job, this of course has led to more speculation on whether or not his longtime business partner Robert Duffy would make the move with him, and also who should take over at Vuitton once he’s made his exit (the current best bet rumor is Pheobe Philo). However, before you set any of this to memory, know that there are also a number of other candidates vying for the Dior job. Here’s a bit from New York:

Other potential candidates for the job, according to WWD, were Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz and Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquière, both of whom felt they couldn’t leave behind their jobs and equity stakes in their respective labels. LVMH also made advances toward Alexander McQueen‘s successor Sarah Burton, but she “is said to have rebuffed overtures.” Haicker Ackermann and Hedi Slimane were also approached, with no deals made. Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci is still a candidate.

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Last week we saw the uproar over the Huffington Post‘s decision to run an unpaid-yet-high-profile logo design contest and this week we’re expecting the branding outrage to continue, this time in a slightly different direction but with likely much more ferocity. Late last week, Kansas-based designer Bill Gardner posted on RockPaperInk about the logo-for-cheap-site Logo Garden and how they had stolen not just 200 logos that his company had designed and were offering them up for a mere $79, but had also fairly blatantly swiped ultra-familiar logos like the World Wildlife Fund‘s panda and the Time Warner brand. So direct and widespread are the thefts that the AIGA has issued an Action Alert, requesting that all designers create an account through Logo Garden and search the site for copies of their own work that may have been pilfered. Should you find you’ve been robbed, the AIGA requests that you contact the site and CC: them, as “several legal actions are already in process.” Certainly not a bad idea to contact your own attorney should you find yourself in Gardner’s, and presumably other designers like him, predicament. Here’s a bit from the AIGA about the case against Logo Garden’s owner, John Williams, and what to look for when searching for your own work:

Williams has made slight modifications to many of the images, presumably in an attempt to avoid claims that he infringed on the original designers’ copyright rights, although these modifications are not enough to avoid liability for infringement of the creator’s rights in the underlying works. It may actually increase Williams’s liability by demonstrating his willful copyright infringement.

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