Hasta La Ideas

The latest 1 Hour Design Challenge, The Future of Digital Reading was based on Portigal Consulting‘s Reading Ahead initiative—recent research around books, reading, behavior, and technology. There was great interest in this competition—it’s a hot topic these days of course, with introductions of new e-readers and a constant stream of “end-of-print” articles—and we had tremendous participation from design schools, individuals, and professional design firms.

The research provided for this design challenge was infused with stories about real people, so entries that referenced people and their habits were the most successful. Indeed, entries that embraced story-telling as a way to get their concepts across were much more compelling than those which simply presented a comprehensive list of features. (Yes, we get that the future is OLED displays!) It was daunting to see the number of submissions that were essentially a Kindle with feature statements that did away with the acknowledged limitations, so entries that ran the other way had a good chance of standing out. Still, there was great design thinking here, and a ton of design innovation here, and we were thrilled to see people (and teams) digging deep into the research and trying to refract it through the lens of artifact and experience.

This 1 Hour Design Challenge was a tough one to jury, but here (in suspenseful order…the Winner’s at the end) are the judges’ selections and comments. Congratulations to the Winner and Notables, and thanks to everyone who participated! Portigal Consulting and Core77 will each be donating $300, in the name of the prize winner, to 826 Valencia (a nonprofit that helps kids with expository and creative writing, and San Francisco’s only independent pirate supply store). 826 Valencia will put together a celebratory gift bag (i.e., pirate booty!) to honor the winner.

And now for the results:

Notable: The PaperBack
Design: Stephanie Aaron, Kristin Grafe & Eric St. Onge (SVA MFA in Interaction Design, Class of 2011)

The PaperBack provided several nice design solutions in one package. We were charmed with the notion of displaying the cover of the book on the back side of the device for others to see (of course, we’d expect a “hide cover” option in the preferences!), and the flip-the-book-over action to turn the page is something we liked from a couple of the entries. The user’s ability to customize the form factor to modify the book—from paperback to novel—was a great start, but we felt that it perhaps didn’t go far enough. Maybe combining this with the next Notable entry, “The Page,” would make for the killer concept.

Notable: The Page: Adaptive Delivery Device
Design: Manny Darden, Jae Yeop Kim & Scott Liao (Graduate Candidates, Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design)

It was irresistible to conflate “The PaperBack” device above with this concept, taking the form factor all the way to a newspaper-scale object. And self-supporting no less! The Page embraces some of the graphic conventions we’ve grown to love (in this case The New York Times) but then brings some live navigation and hand gestures into the mix. The photographs make for a compelling presentation, and again, made us dream about a device that folds all the way from a paperback out to a newspaper. Utopian? You bet.

(more…)

Participants of Continuum’s workshop

We are a collaborative species. No single perspective could possibly cover every aspect of an issue, but together through the collage of our collective experience we wage war on the challenges of our reality. This is collective intelligence, an emergent characteristic of life that we see in many other social species like honeybees, ants, and migratory birds. At every level of complexity an individual’s best efforts could never compare to the magnitude of the seemingly intelligent behavior of the swarm.

On October 8th, 2009, the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, hosted an international cast of social scientists, information systems engineers, venture capitalists, innovation consultants and designers for the first-ever Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference. The substance of the conference centered around measuring and visualizing the emergent patterns of communication within social networks, identifying and tracking trends as they ripple throughout a social system, then pulling out the social and anthropological meaning of what we observe, allowing us to better understand and perhaps even forecast human behavior. This creates a unique opportunity to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of collaboration, and to find the trendsetters, thought leaders, and gate keepers within any given network. “Bleeding edge” doesn’t quite do this stuff justice; this is the blade that precedes the bleeding edge.

(more…)

Art Director, Girls Consumer Products
Mattel, Inc.
El Segundo, CA

We’re currently seeking an art director to lead the design of licensed products for our girl focused brands. We need someone with a vision for what’s new and fresh and the ability to bring it to life on youth products. A professional, positive attitude, rock-solid work ethic, and enthusiasm are required. Knowledge of youth culture and lifestyle trends is also a must.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

(more…)

Full-time Faculty in Designed Objects
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

The Designed Objects program focuses on the critical and creative re-thinking of the tools, furnishings, networks, and products that constitute everyday life. Borrowing from industrial design and disciplines such as systems design, furniture design, experience design and interaction design, Designed Objects envisions and seeks to produce designers as social citizens and cultural agents who choose “the contextualized object” as their primary means of reflecting and affecting our world. While concerned with professional competency within the realm of product design, the program also maintains a more critical and expansive understanding of the production and consumption of objects and products.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

(more…)

Designer II – Wellness
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc
Boston, Massachusetts

As the Designer II – Wellness, you will be responsible for applying your strong design, color and material skills, innovative thinking, and technical experience in athletic footwear toward creating products, technologies and components for the Wellness team. In this role, you will participate in laying out an overarching color/materials roadmap for Wellness, Walking, and collections within both.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

(more…)