Hasta La Ideas

Designer Paula Adina Sumalan has won first prize in the “Futures” category for the Zero Boundaries Zink Product Design Competition, which asked entrants to design concepts using Zink’s “inkless printing” technology.

Sumalan’s “Mini Giant” concept…

…is a robotic printer that self-propels itself over a sheet of ZINK Paper of any size to create a print. Imagine, with the Mini Giant, a large format poster printer can now fit in the palm of your hand!

Click here to learn more, and here to see the rest of the winners.

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The east coast eco-literati were out in force last night at New York’s Environment Furniture showroom for the Opportunity Green party. The 3rd Annual Opportunity Green Conference takes place November 7-8, 2009 in Los Angeles. The mission is simple, empower individuals and organizations with actionable knowledge and inspire leaders of the new green economy. This year’s line up of speakers looks great and arguably it’s one of the best times of the year to visit LA – maybe try convincing your boss on the merits of the conference before mentioning that!

Opportunity Green
November 7-8, 2009
UCLA Covel Commons
Los Angeles, CA
www.opportunitygreen.com

More pics after the jump

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‘Same, Same but Different’ DMY design Awards, 2009, © Rosa Merk, courtesy DMY Berlin

The delusion of an unsustainable economic system, along with the time required to forge a new one – based on innovation – and the scarcity of resources, have changed the leading trends in design: public space, recycling, re-use and open source technologies dominated the creative sphere of design at the international DMY Design Festival in Berlin.

DMY started out in 2003 when 20 friends got together to show each other their works and exchange ideas; 7 years down the line, it has grown into an international design festival, contemporary design platform and representative of Berlin as the city of design (UNESCO), connected to an international network of creative cities.

Renowned as a ‘trend barometer’ in the design industry, the DMY design festival has succeeded in maintaining the creative flair and informal atmosphere of its original format while becoming a multifaceted event with global appeal.

Berlin provides an ideal setting for a design festival, and, by capitalizing on empty spaces and underused urban areas, it has succeeded in giving creativity an active role within the city in terms of culture and economy, as well as attributing special importance to the existing characteristics of urban spaces. 20% of Berlin’s population is under the age of 25 and one tenth of the working population is involved in the creative economy, which accounts for over 21% of its GDP, making the German capital one of Europe’s most creative hubs. Described by foreign residents as an ‘open city’ Berlin’s creative scene has been attracting designers and artists for years. The festival jury of the DMY Awards was in fact composed of foreign designers and curators who have chosen to live and work in Berlin (Jurgen Bey, Hurgen Meyer H., Ines Kaag).

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Of the events, I’m most excited about the Constructor’s Design Challenge. This is a competition that invites extreme ingenuity to bicycle building that aims to smash together a Venn diagram of combined performance, utility, and aesthetics. Registration is open until July 31st and we’re already seeing a phenomenal list of legendary frame-builders rising to the occasion including Vanilla, Independent Fabrication, Richard Sachs, Ira Ryan, and other favorite builders of mine. What’s more, the event is being judged by Rob Forbes (the founder of Design Within Reach,) Sky Yaeger (cycling industry visionary and creative mind at Swobo), Ron Sutphin (president of United Bicycle Institute), and Bryant Bainbridge (product creation at Specialized Bicycles.)

The grand prize of the Constructor’s Design Challenge is an incredible bespoke suit from Timothy Everest, the tailor for Rapha.

As you can see, this is going to be a monumental event!

Questioning fashion and sustainability is not just about the enormous amount of plastic bags at this year’s Bread & Butter. Actually, we asked several fashion brands about the importance of sustainability in fashion we got the answer – “Sorry, with sustainability you can’t make money in our segment.” – which motivated us to look for examples that embraced sustainability a little bit more.

Read on for our favorite findings!

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