Hasta La Ideas

Urban blight has a grip on large sections of East Baltimore. Some see the high crime, drug use, and boarded-up buildings as signs that its neighborhoods will never recover. But graphic designers at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) remain optimistic. Each semester, students set out to spur lasting social change by teaming up with communities throughout Baltimore. Over the past several years two of MICA’s undergraduate graphic design classes have been dedicated to the mission of achieving social change through design and a new Master of Arts in Social Design starts this Fall.

The Design Coalition was created by Bernard Canniffe in 2001 and is now taught by Ryan Clifford. Students in this class focus on “learning the principles of social and community-based design.” The Center for Design Practice (CDP) is a more advanced multidisciplinary studio that was founded by Mike Weikert. Weikert’s students team up with local organizations and tackle social problems for a whole semester. Although I recently wrote about one of their projects on Core77–an energy-saving initiative–I have spent more time learning about their partnership with Johns Hopkins University to rejuvenate The CareS Mobile Safety Center, a vehicle that tours throughout Baltimore and teaches families about home safety.

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The Humanair

With its focus on the design of the comfortable workplace, it would seem logical for the ergonomic equipment maker Humanscale to turn its attention to the quality of indoor air. Indoor air is, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the top five environmental health risks in the United States. But designing the air is no easy task. To clean the air of even one room is an energy-inefficient undertaking, constantly compromised by the fact that no room is sealed, and people bring in dirty air every time they open a door.

After four years in design development, and much longer in gestation, a desktop air purifier was launched by Humanscale at the end of last year. The Humanair makes an intriguing case study. The product went through several iterations in pursuit of Humanscale’s hunch that a localized solution was considerably more efficient than cleaning the air of an entire room. Since people actually spend most of their indoor time in one spot (in bed, on the couch, or at a desk), clean air could be delivered to local “zones” around the user.

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The first thing I do after I go through my morning pile of email, is check out http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com . Those that know me would never call me a fashionista, I think “Geek Chic” was the closest I ever got to a compliment on my “look”, but the work of Scott Schumann aka The Sartorialist has always fascinates me. The way he captures a culture through a moment. Possibly it connects to the very intuitive way I do my research. Not the official stuff with rigor, but the real stuff that inspires emotive and non conventional solutions. We don’t tend to talk about it, because, well, its messy, non-linear, and it misses more than it hits, but the seeds of the most wonderful things tends to come from that kind of ether.

I think Intel captured that perfectly with their piece on Scott. It is worth celebrating this type of approach so we can start to build it in to our process, allow ourselves to wonder, to seek and discover, not as scientists, but as designers.

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Even though we’ve already said goodbyes to the aughts and welcomed in the tweens, we couldn’t let the decade slip by without highlighting some of our favorite things from the last year. 2010 brought even more people together through the launch of our Community Challenges and the opening of our brick-and-mortar Portland-based store, Hand-Eye Supply (which you can shop online!). We saw the 30,000th job posted on Coroflot, ran our 10th Annual Salary Survey, and closed out the year with our 5th Annual Gift Guide. With the help of our friends, we’ve compiled this year’s “Best Of 2010” list covering our favorite ideas, products, innovations and stories in one comprehensive post.

All of this could not have been done without our amazing group of contributors, partners, moderators, supporters, friends, family, and YOU! Here’s to closing out the decade with a bang!

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Q: Why do you have this bookshelf? A: Because that’s how I roll

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In the world of collector automobiles, vintage Japanese vehicles have not gotten much love. One of the things I loved about moving to the West Coast of the US was seeing so many older Japanese cars that either didn’t survive the harsh weather of the North East, or never made it there in the first place.

JDM Legends imports, restores, services and sells classic 1970’s Japanese metal. Take a peak at their vid for some great car p0rn.

Via autoblog

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