Hasta La Ideas

pIt’s kind of funny that back in the day, if you were an industrial design student and your model of your design lacked a certain amount of detailing, you would have been accused of doing a half-assed job; but now even commonplace objects have moved so far towards minimalism that the following sparsely-detailed model (or is it a rendering?) of a A HREF=”http://www.saikatbiswas.com/web/Projects/Holga_D.htm” theoretical Holga digital camera/A looks high-end:/p

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pThe concept is by designer A HREF=”http://www.saikatbiswas.com/web/About.htm” Saikat Biswas/A, who’s not a student, by the way, but a pro ID’er based out of Scandinavia. And Biswas’ “Holga D” is not just an under-thought plain box–to the contrary, he’s put lots of nice touches into it, like the reversible top that swaps the shutter button around for lefties:/p

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pWe’re also digging the swoopy little mini-flash:/p

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pBiswas has also put up some of his original sketches. /p

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pBe sure to check out the rest of the Holga D concept, and the thought that went into it, A HREF=”http://www.saikatbiswas.com/web/Projects/Holga_D.htm” here/A.br /
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Swoon’s art flotilla takes the big screen in a new fact-bending documentary

Using a real event to tell a fictional story, “Flood Tide” chronicles the open water adventure of four musicians who build a raft and set sail on the Hudson. The 50-minute film—directed by artist Todd Chandler—uses footage of street artist Swoon’s seven-boat-strong performance project “The Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea,” to realistically interpret their fantastic voyage. As the motley cast of characters—a troupe of gypsy-punk hippie types—gain friends and momentum, the film unfolds for a beautifully romantic take on art and escapism.

Set to the live sounds of the folk sextet Dark Dark Dark, Flood Tide screens for free at NYC’s Rooftop Film Festival on 7 July 2010 at Socrates Sculpture Park before hitting up festivals and venues around the U.S.

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pA gentleman named Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal was the first to realize that putting the eye in the middle of the needle could aid in rapid mechanistic stitching in 1775. Later, Elias Howe perfected the lockstitch sewing machine, but it was Isaac Merritt Singer who would ultimately become synonymous with the sewing machine, even though he never had that critical flash of insight. Instead, he was able to minimize costs and bring a product that represented a confluence of technological ideas to market at precisely the right time. While the invention of the sewing machine was a special case where many of the original inventors were able to pool their patents and share in the proceeds, the story of most inventions is much more one-sided. Black Dog Publishing’s a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Inventors-Inventions-Black-Dog-Publishing/dp/1906155674/?tag=core77-20″emInventors and Inventions/em/a, edited by Duncan McCorquodale, amply illustrates this occasionally tragic trend. Organized into broad categories ranging from Communication to Warfare, emInventors/em groups product photos, patent figures and inventor photos (well, after Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre’s invention of photography in 1839) with historical overviews for everything from Air Conditioning to the Yo-Yo./p

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pAfter an introduction by Richard Fisher that uses the evolution of the Lithium Ion battery as a proxy for the progress of invention in general, the book moves into lists of inventions by category. Strangely, Core77 could not determine by what criteria the lists were ordered. Since in general, the editors tried to ascribe a date to each inventions, chronological would have been a reasonable choice, but the pencil precedes the quill. Another likely method would have been in order of importance, but the Guttenberg Press (widely mentioned as a world-changing, world-shrinking invention) follows the ballpoint pen, which rules out descending order, and the light bulb precedes the pressure cooker, which pretty much rules out ascending order. Instead, it seems that the products were given categorical groupings, so that Viagra, contraception and In Vitro Fertilization are all clustered within a few pages. For the reader, however, this makes for an occasionally choppy journey jumping from the Air Conditioner (1906) to Soap (2800 BC by their estimation). Although the context of the book as a whole is occasionally confusing, the individual product descriptions provide accurate and occasionally surprising overviews for ideas that we take for granted (life before animal husbandry is nearly impossible to conceive), and products that boggle the mind as we conceive their true scope (the microwave oven uses radio waves to excite the activity of individual molecules in food … and we experience that excitement as heat!)./p

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a href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/book_reviews/book_review_inventors_and_innovations_edited_by_duncan_mccorquodale_16869.asp”(more…)/a
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pNo one would argue that the process of getting an idea or design patented is easy, but few would argue with the fact that it’s far easier to draw something than it is to make it./p

pWe just came across this interesting historical tidbit: Before there were patent drawings, there were patent Iobjects/I. /p

p”Up until 1880, if you had a brilliant idea, something that you thought would change the world, and you wanted to get patent protection for it, you had to submit a working scale model to the government,” said Stephen Nowlin, vice president of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Nowlin is A HREF=”http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15420348″ hosting an exhibit at Art Center’s Williamson Gallery/A called “A HREF=”http://smithkramer.com/web2/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=120%3Athe-curious-world-of-patent-modelscatid=22Itemid=119″ The Curious World of Patent Models/A,” a traveling show organized by the A HREF=”http://www.patentmodel.org/” Rothschild Patent Model Museum/A, which will reveal more than 50 artifacts submitted for patents way back in the day. /p

pimg alt=”0curiouspatent.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0curiouspatent.jpg” width=”468″ height=”949″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pThose are designs for improved versions of a paper-cutting machine, an electromagnetic motor, a fruit basket, a roller skate, a lifeboat, and what’s either part of C-3PO or an artificial leg. /p

pAll of them were designed in the 1800s. I cannot imagine what it was like to source parts back then, before the internet and McMaster-Carr. So if ever you get a brilliant design idea and decide to enter the paperwork hell that is patent protection, thank your lucky stars that you got to CAD your design up at your desk rather than bang it out in the barn./p

p”The Curious World of Patent Models” runs at the Williamson through August 15th, and will be traveling throughout America thereafter. A HREF=”http://smithkramer.com/web2/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=231%3Athe-curious-world-of-patent-modelscatid=22Itemid=119″ Click here/A for a detailed schedule. br /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/traveling_show_reveals_that_design_patents_in_the_1800s_were_a_real_pain_in_the_patoot_16867.asp”(more…)/a
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pYou’ve seen it in the window of Design Within Reach, or cutting through traffic down Broadway; but now you can take a very different look at the iconic, folding Strida bike./p

pMark Sanders, who designed the Strida while he was an Industrial Design Engineering student at London’s RCA 25 years ago, has now uploaded his A HREF=”http://issuu.com/mark77a/docs/masters__thesis_june_1985_-_strida” original graduate thesis/A presenting the original bike. (He’s even uploaded his A HREF=”http://issuu.com/mark77a/docs/business_plan_december_1985_-_strida” business plan/A!) /p

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pIn the presentation, Sanders lets on where some of his inspiration came from:/p

blockquoteWhen folded, the bike can be pushed along on its wheels, which come together to form a long thin package. This folded form was chosen after seeing folding baby-buggies in use, as these fold into long, thin package with wheels at one end, and are used in exactly the same way as the bike (put in car boots, taken into shops, etc.) The baby buggy is one of the most successful folding products./blockquote

pvia A HREF=”http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/the-fascinating-history-of-the-strida-bike.php” treehugger/A/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/designer_mark_sanders_uploads_his_original_strida_bike_student_thesis_16866.asp”(more…)/a
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