Hasta La Ideas

To those old-fashioned enough to view Cool Hunting on the web, you may have noticed updated images in the showcase above our logo. We hand-picked each of the images now in rotation, which are part of our ongoing collaboration with Society6.

Clicking on the images leads directly to our co-branded section of the Society6 website, where you can buy the featured work, in the form of prints, t-shirts, iPhone, iPod, and laptop skins.

Known for their easy accessibility and world-wide shipping, Society6 provides an outlet for up-and-coming artists to showcase their work. Using only the highest quality inks and papers available, each print helps fund the creation of future artwork.

By increasing artist exposure, this collaboration aims to uphold the original goals of Society6: to connect artists with unique opportunities, provide support with production and packaging, and to allow more time to create art. To view the works featured in the new partnership, check out the Cool Hunting Showcase or simply click on the artwork at the top of the page. To view other artists, purchase artwork, get involved, or just learn more about Society6, visit their website. Artwork for sale through Society6 is also available through their other retail partners, Threadless and Urban Outfitters.

Here are some photos of the Singapore Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 by Kay Ngee Tan Architects, taken by photographer Montse Zamorano. (more…)

Raising several questions about the state of design today and the importance of valid criticism, the new book “In Case of Design – Inject Critical Thinking” analyzes the changing role media plays in the universal design discussion. Swedish author (and designer herself) Frida Jeppson assembled a cast of some of the world’s most vocal critics and wordsmiths—including Stephen Heller, Anna Gerber, Donna Loveday and more—to lend context to the argument that today’s design industry should offer better works through more rigorous methods, while its media should better exercise the responsibility to critique those shortfalls.

“In Case of Design” challenges the design community with issues like “What part does criticism play in the role of a modern designer, or the education of an aspiring designer,” “How can the use of a common language better inform the public and designers themselves?” and “What responsibility does the media have in shaping design?” Jeppsson, frustrated with the level of breadth over depth when covering design in the media, explains that “the product-focused and uncritical ways in which it is being represented today really doesn’t do design any favors.”

An attempt to shift the focus from consumer-driven design used as “eye candy” for the surplus of media outlets existing today to intelligent design that will benefit the future and shape our surroundings, “In Case of Design” refreshingly surveys how designers and critics alike can work together to create meaningful products and systems.

“In Case of Design – Inject Critical Thinking” sells online for €15.

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pIt just didn’t make sense, no matter what angle the replay was viewed from: The U.S.’s Clint Dempsey turns one way, then the other, and kicks the ball directly into English goaltender Robert Green’s gloves. Green seems to stop the ball, then it somehow bounces off of him, spins, and continues the way it was headed had Green not been there–into the goal. If the next frame was an earlier shot of Dempsey in the parking lot of the stadium signing a contract with a big red guy with horns, I would not at all have been surprised./p

pMuch has been made of the funny behavior of Adidas’ new Jabulani ball, and while Green himself has not blamed the ball for his inexplicable error, others have. What’s different about this ball is that it’s made with only eight panels–down from 2006’s 14 panels–and it’s covered in tiny bumps and grooves that reportedly make it more stable in flight. Detractors claim that this, or some unseen design feature, makes it move erratically./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/a_closer_look_at_the_jabulani_part_1_16736.asp”(more…)/a
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