Hasta La Ideas

These spinning ‘light paintings’ made with sparkling crystal beads by designer Philippe Malouin are currently on show in the Digital Crystal exhibition at London’s Design Museum (+ movie + slideshow).

“Blur is a series of ‘paintings’ realised through light and motion,” Malouin told Dezeen, explaining that they were made by attaching rows of colourful Swarovski crystal beads to a motor that spins at high speeds.

“The circles shimmer because LEDs shine light at them, while variations in the speed of rotation affect the colour intensity,” he added.

Like the other pieces in the exhibition, Blur explores the idea of memory in an increasingly digital world.

Malouin says the piece alludes to memory through the “transformation from its solid state to its accelerated state,” as it retains the memory of its simple underlying design while transforming it through movement. “It doesn’t always spin – it’s programmed to reveal its different states,” he adds.

Digital Crystal continues until 13 January 2013. We recently featured another installation from the exhibition – a mechanical projector by London design studio Troika.

Malouin is also taking part in Seven Designers for Seven Dials, an aerial installation in Covent Garden curated by Dezeen that will be on show throughout London Design Festival, which takes place between 14–23 September.

See all our stories about Philippe Malouin »
See all our stories about the Design Museum »
See all our stories about Swarovski »

Photographs are by David Levene.

Above: movie interview with Philippe Malouin filmed by the Design Museum

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Philippe Malouin appeared first on Dezeen.

In the first of three posts about the Digital Crystal exhibition at London’s Design Museum, we look at a mechanical projector built by London design studio Troika which uses Swarovski crystal lenses and LEDs to create portraits on the gallery wall (+ slideshow).

The projector uses 858 custom-cut crystal optical lenses, each positioned in front of an LED.

Rotating cams move each LED towards or away from its lens, diffracting the white light into variously sized spots.

The spots of light then combine to produce three blurry, low-resolution portraits on the gallery wall.

“The recent past has seen a complete shift in the reproduction and selection process of visual information, and today we no longer need to restrict which and how many images we take,” Troika’s Conny Freyer told Dezeen.

“We are on the brink of a new age, still informed by the analogue world yet provided with new digital tools,” she added. “Hardcoded Memory is a reflection on that change and on the digital world by approaching it from an analogue point of view.”

The three portraits were selected according to their postures, in a reference to the traditional posed portraiture that was prevalent throughout the last century but is seen less often today.

Digital Crystal: Memory in the Digital Age continues at the Design Museum in London until 13 January 2013.

Other projects we’ve featured by Troika include an outdoor LED installation that displays yesterday’s weather and chandeliers that project overlapping circles of light.

See all our stories about Troika »
See all our stories about the Design Museum »
See all our stories about Swarovski »

Here’s more information from Troika:

Troika (Conny Freyer, Sebastien Noel, Eva Rucki)

Hardcoded Memory (2012)

2.60 m (H) x 2.0 m (W) x 0.4 m (D)
858 custom cut Swarovski crystal optical lenses, custom software, 858 LEDs, brass, anodized aluminium, dyed fibreboard.

Memory is closely linked to forgetting. Before the digital era, forgetting was easy, for better or worse. Not only is it biologically in-built to forget, the analogue world around us cannot guarantee that recorded memories will last forever.

Photographs fade, film footage can be lost and media out-dated. In the past, remembering was the exception, forgetting the default. Only a few decades ago, analogue photography was a limited edition of images taken of precious moments or the everyday: our grandparents, parents, children or ourselves. By selection, these images became meaningful, carrying the story for, and of, an extended period of time, a life, a person.

Now in the age of endless digital image reproduction there is no longer a function for a selection process, and so we do not need to forget. We externalise our memories by handing them over to the digital realm enabled through digitisation, inexpensive storage, ease of retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software, blurring lines of ownership and making virtual forgetting close to impossible.

Hardcoded Memory is a reflection on the moment and on time itself, standing as a metaphor for the human search for meaning and continuity, while celebrating forgetting in the digital age.

Low-resolution portraits are projected onto the gallery wall, generated by a hardcoded mechanical structure which in the nature of its construction limits the selection of available images. Custom-cut Swarovski crystal optical lenses project light from LEDs, which, motored by rotating cams, move away from, and toward to each crystal lens, transforming, through diffraction, the white light into a constellation of circular projections, creating a rhythmical fading in, and fading out of low resolution imagery on the gallery wall.

All pictorial information is hardcoded into the rotating cams of the mechanism giving a pre-determined selection of what can be displayed by the projector. And while the low resolution image is lending the portraits a universal appeal, the body posture of the portrayed informs a definite era or decade.

Experiencing the dream-like imagery on the gallery wall, the visitor is immersed in a digital memory embedded into an analog physical object, reinforcing Troika’s agenda of exploring rational thought, observation and the changing nature of reality and human experience.

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by Troika appeared first on Dezeen.

In the next movie in our series of interviews we filmed for the Design Museum Collection App for iPad, Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic talks about iconic kitchenware products in their collection.

Sudjic focuses on Christopher Dresser’s soup ladle, Arne Jacobsen’s Cylinda Line and Dry Flatware designed by Achille Castiglioni.

See all the movies filmed for the Design Museum Collection App »
Download the Design Museum Collection App »

Here are some excerpts from the app:

Soup ladle (above)

After a visit to Japan, as an official representative of the British Government, the designer Christopher Dresser changed his ideas about design. From being principally concerned with ornament, he decided that form was enough to entertain and please the eye. He now believed ornament can distract from, rather than enhance, form. Dresser’s 1879 soup ladle owes much to the simplicity and elegance of Japanese design.

Dresser worked at a time when designers aimed to raise the aesthetic standard of objects that surrounded people in their everyday life. These standards were considered to be low, mainly because of industrial production at the time. While many designers tried to return to pre-industrial styles of manufacturing, Dresser accepted modern industrial methods and pioneered new industrial techniques such as electroplating. However, although he designed goods that could, in theory, be made by machines, Dresser only used such technologies to realise a variety of effects. Despite its machined appearance, this soup ladle could only ever have been made by hand.

Cylinder Line (above)

Designed in 1967, Arne Jacobsen’s Cylinda Line series of tableware for Danish company Stelton is the last word in minimalism. Originally sketched on a napkin in 1964, it nonetheless took three years before the technology was sufficiently advanced to produce Jacobsen’s design. Jacobsen insisted on seamless tubes with perfect, brushed surfaces and originally envisaged using standard steel pipes. This proved too costly, so instead stainless steel sheets were bent and welded, then brushed in an industrial process that left no traces of welding.

Jacobsen’s partnership with Stelton, run by his stepson Peter Holmblad, continued until 1971. In this time, he added new pieces to the collection, including items such as a cocktail shaker, a martini mixer, an ice bucket with tongs and a serving tray. Based on differing variations of cylindrical shapes, the basic idea was to create a line of tableware where there would always be a correlation between individual items to create harmonious table settings.

Dry Flatware (above)

Dry Flatware, designed in 1982 by one of the most important industrial designers of the twentieth century, Achille Castiglioni was the first cutlery range produced by Alessi. Its innovative shape, and resolute style, along with extreme manageability and an excellent finish has kept the range as one of their best-selling products.

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kitchenware appeared first on Dezeen.

The latest movie from a series of interviews we filmed for the Design Museum Collection App for iPad features Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic talking about some of the iconic lights in their collection. Download the app free from the app store here.

In the movie Sudjic talks about the Anglepoise desk lamp, low-energy light bulb the Plumen 001 and Jack, a combined light and seat.

Here are some excerpts from the app:

Herbert Terry & Sons Anglepoise (above)

The Anglepoise lamp was designed by George Carwardine in 1934, an engineer who specialised in vehicle suspension systems. His experiments with springs led him to a new type of pre-tensioned spring which could be moved in any direction but remain rigid when held in position. Carwardine used the spring to develop an articulated lamp for use in industrial applications. Carwardine licensed the production to Herbert Terry & Sons, a UK family company who specialised in springs. Charles Terry, Herbert’s eldest son, was determined to expand the business. He saw the opportunity to diversify by applying Terry’s expertise in springs to new products and developed a modified lamp that was marketed as a domestic model, the Anglepoise 1227. The influence of Carwardine’s design can be seen in every ‘task light’ that has followed. Even after modern technologies engendered radical new forms of lighting, today’s desk lamps still pay a debt to the Anglepoise.

Jack (above)

Fulfilling a dual function as a light and a seat, the Jack light was developed by the British furniture and product designer Tom Dixon who also put it into production in 1996 through his manufacturing company Eurolounge. Frustrated by the difficulty of finding UK manufacturers willing to put his work and that of other London-based designers into production, he set up his own manufacturing company Eurolounge in 1996.

Plumen 001 (above)

Designed by Samuel Wilkinson and Hulger in 2011, Plumen is poles apart from low- energy light bulbs as we know them. Rather than hiding the unappealing compact fluorescent light behind boring utility, Plumen 001 is designed as an object the owner would want to show off. The glass tubes take an irregular, yet harmonious, form, the two organic shapes mirror one another to create symmetry, and the silhouette changes from every perspective. The name derives from a bird’s decorative ‘plume’ feathers, designed to attract attention, and the word for a unit of light, ‘lumen’. The bulb uses 80 percent less energy and lasts eight times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs and works just like any low-energy bulb. Sold as a design object rather than a commodity, premium materials and processes are used, delivering the best possible quality of light.

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lights appeared first on Dezeen.

In the next movie in our series of interviews we filmed for the Design Museum Collection App for iPad, which is available to download free from the app store here, Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic talks about iconic word processing products in their collection.

He describes the designs of iconic products as the movie follows the move from analogue to digital, starting with the development of the typewriter into laptop computers in the 1980s through to the recent switch from books to e-readers.

You can also listen to Sudjic talking about classic design in previous movies featuring driving, music and chairs.

Download the Design Museum Collection App »

Here are some excerpts from the app:

Valentine (above)

With its plastic casing and strong handle, the 1969 Valentine typewriter was marketed, by Italian manufacturer’s Olivetti, as a lightweight portable typewriter. While it fulfilled its function competently, Sottsass’ playful design and choice of bright colour, inspired by pop-art, expressed the mood of the time and suggested that the typewriter still had a place in the modern world.

GRiD Compass 1101 (above)

Utilising a clam-shell design, British industrial designer, Bill Moggridge designed what most people consider to be the world’s first laptop. The computer ran its own operating system and included a 320 by 200 pixels screen that, while tiny by today’s standards, was considerable at the time. The high cost of the Compass limited the market and it was mainly used by the United States government.

ThinkPad 701 (above)

ThinkPads used innovative trackpoint buttons instead of a rollerball or mouse to control the cursor. While this added a useful new functionality to laptops, many criticised the use of colour suggesting red should be limited to operations relating to emergencies. The other key design feature of this 1995 design is the ‘butterfly’ keyboard that folds out and expands as the lid is opened. The casing and shape were modelled on a Bento box, the Japanese food container with multiple compartments.

Apple iMac (above)

Founded by two college dropouts in the late 1970s, Apple grew extremely fast in the early years of the computer age and then lost nearly its entire market share to Microsoft, but came back by reinventing the computer. While the all-in-one monitor and computer configuration is an Apple hallmark – dating back to the first Apple
Macintosh in 1984 – it was the launch of the iMac in 1998 that set the benchmark for future computer designs, selling over two million units in its first year.

According to Apple’s Senior Vice President, Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, ‘The objective was to design a computer for the consumer market that would be simple, easy to use, highly integrated, quiet and small.’ In this typically economical statement, Ive has summarised the winning formula – advanced computer technologies presented in an accessible format.

Ive and his team are more akin to craftspeople than stylists, working through an intense analysis of function and a commitment to using materials truthfully. With the iMac, the idea of translucency emerged from a desire to use plastics in a new, honest way and not as a self-conscious wish to invest the computer with saccharin sweetness. As Ive says, ‘we wanted it to be an unashamadely plastic product. Given our obsession with materials and production processes, we explored different polymers, moulding technologies, colour, texture and levels of opacity. Transluscent materials posed new challenges, we not only needed to design new ways of moulding individual parts but to develop new methods of assembly. We found ourselves caring about the appearance of internal components that had previously had little impact on the product’s appearance.’

The iMac not only transformed computer design but also home offices through its pioneering introduction of colour into the drab world of computing, predominated by greys and beige. When researching new processes, Ive and the Apple team regularly seek advice from outside world of computer design. For the iMac, they consulted a group of confectioners for their strawberry, blueberry, grape, tangerine and lime shades. As Ive noted, ‘Their experience in the science of translucent colour control helped us to understand processes to ensure consistency in high volume.

Pro Mouse (above)

Apple’s Senior Vice President, Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive describes the design process for this step-change in computer interaction design which came out in 2000: ‘we learnt from studies that the button on a mouse creates a target specifically defining how it is held and clicked. This limits the number of ways that users can hold a mouse and consequently limits comfortable use with a variety of hand sizes and methods of use.

By building multiple prototypes we developed the idea of making the entire surface the button. Allowing users to position their hands on the mouse naturally afforded different styles of use. Similarly, by rotating the dial around the optical sensor the user can adjust the force required to activate the click switch.

Analysing surface tension in liquid droplets helped us to develop a pure, essential form. A founding idea, however, can be undermined unless the ultimate implementation is based upon the same assumptions. By sharing the concerns and sensitivities of the original idea, we developed a construction to ultra-sonically weld the simple pure surface into the product assembly.’ Jonathan Ive.

One Laptop Per Child XO-1 (above)

One Laptop Per Child is a non-profit programme created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. The 2006 child-size laptop brings learning, information and communication to children where education is needed most: in developing countries. The result is an inexpensive and energy-efficient computer. The machine’s reduction in energy use, by 90 percent, is ideal for a device that could be charged by hand-cranked power in rural villages. The laptop features Wi-Fi antenna ‘rabbit ears,’ an energy-efficient LCD digital writing tablet and integrated video camera. Networking capabilities allow children to connect to each other, their school, their teacher and the internet. Every design aspect of the machine serves a dual purpose to achieve a sense of economy and efficiency.

Kindle 3

The Kindle was the first product to suggest that electronic book readers could offer a viable alternative to physical books. Key to the Kindle’s success was the black and white e-ink display that provided a far more realistic representation of print and minimised the screen reflections that plagued other devices. This 2010 version has wireless connectivity that allow users to download content at any time. In 2010, the retailer Amazon announced that in the United States their e-book sales had surpassed sales of paperback books for the first time.

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computers appeared first on Dezeen.