Hypergreen by Jacques Ferrier

Recently, Paris-based architect Jacques Ferrier unleashed his "Hypergreen" mixed-use skyscraper concept, which was submitted for a project competition in Paris. Hypergreen incorporates a curving lattice facade made of ultra-high-performance concrete that acts as the building's primary structural system. It has the look of steel, almost resembling some of Foster's designs such as Hearst Tower or 30 St Mary Axe. Measuring 246 meters in height, Hypergreen has the following green features: geothermal heat pumps, photovoltaic panels, integrated wind turbines, earth cooling tubes, vegetated sky lobbies, a roof garden, rainwater recovery system, and flexible and adaptable floor plates. The exoskeleton reduces the number of columns that make for odd floor plates.

Jacques Ferrier Architecture [Official Website]

Nottingham-Spirk

Chances are you’ve never heard of Nottingham-Spirk, the industrial-design firm whose creations include the Crest SpinBrush, the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner and the ever-popular Sherwin-Williams twist-and-pour paint can, reports Anne Fischer in Fortune (6/11/07). In fact, over the past 30 years, Nottingham-Spirk has “patented 464 products, with combined sales of more than $30 billion.” What’s their secret? Craig Saunders, who has been with the firm for 24 years, “says he’s gotten the most useful insights from focus groups by asking them what makes them mad.” That’s how Nottingham-Spirk came up with the SwifferVac, for instance. People said they “loved the Swiffer mop” but were frustrated by its inability to clean up anything other than dust.

World Premiere June10 Atlanta Film Festival

Future by Design shares the life and far-reaching vision of Jacque Fresco, considered by many to be a modern day Da Vinci. Peer to Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, Jacque is a self-taught futurist who describes himself most often as a "generalist" or multi-disciplinarian -- a student of many inter-related fields. He is a prolific inventor, having spent his entire life (he is now 90 years old) conceiving of and devising inventions on various scales which entail the use of innovative technology. As a futurist, Jacque is not only a conceptualist and a theoretician, but he is also an engineer and a designer.

Adobe - InDesign CS3

Explore trends in digital design and motion graphics. Browse work by leading artists and develop your skills with in-depth tutorials.

Green City Cars

Battery-powered CityCars could cut traffic and smog by getting more commuters to leave their autos at home

YouTube Founders: Video Ads Coming

At the D5 conference, YouTube founders (and now Google employees) Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were just interviewed by Walt Mossberg.

Design According to Ive

Here's an article [6/25/2003] from Wired magazine, covering British-born designer, Jonathan Ive who heads up Apple's industrial design team.

Serrenia's super marina

Foster and Partners design radical resort complex The ultra luxury new US$2 billion residential resort and hotel designed by Foster & Partners, built by Vantage Real Estate Development, a subsidiary of Shaheen Business and Investment Group, (SBIG). Inspired by the unique landscape in which it is situated, Serrenia is set over 650 acres, or three million square metres, with 736 residential units, including palaces and a range of villas and apartments. In addition, there is a 200-room 7-star luxury hotel, a world-class spa, a signature 18-hole golf course, restaurants, retail and several sporting facilities. Serrenia's Marina 'Hub' is one of the focal points of the development - with an extraordinary wave shaped floating roof and a vast airy, cool space below. A central pier, yacht marina and beach club extend from the hub. View larger image here

Embracing Risk to Learn, Grow and Innovate

View the pdf.

Embracing Risk to Learn, Grow and Innovate By Diego Rodriguez and Ryan Jacoby Spring 2007 "In the world of ‘design thinking,’ acknowledging risk is the first step toward taking action, and with action comes insight, evidence, and real options."

Design*Sponge

Design*Sponge is a daily website dedicated to home and product design run by Brooklyn-based writer, Grace Bonney. Launched in August of 2004, Design*Sponge features store and product reviews, sale and contest announcements, new designer profiles, trend forecasting and store/studio tours. In addition, Design*Sponge features a unique section dedicated to covering student design, national and international design shows. The site is updated constantly throughout the day (with an average of 6-10 posts a day), and attracts a core group of devoted readers. Design*Sponge currently has over 20,000 daily readers.

Logo Design Tutorials

One of the hardest parts of personal branding is the logo. A logo can decide what people think of you, as a professional logo can say volumes about a person, brand, or site. Bloggers far too often forget that a logo can help brand them. On E Logo Design, they have compiled a link list of 50 logo design tutorials that might help you create the logo you have always wanted.

Graphic Design Blog

Graphic design blog is to share views on design books, websites, graphic design programs, graphic design training, design employment freelancing ideas and all things graphic design.

Trends in Web Design

Blocks. Usually, it is an area of screen with a border, a header and a footer, to aggregate logically connected elements: links, text, a score card, an article preview. Blocks may come with optional shadow.

The truth about Google's so-called "simplicity"

The truth about Google? It isn't simple.

Volvo Monitoring & Concept Center: Tandem Vehicle

Volvo's Monitoring & Concept Center (VMCC) in California have produced what they believe is a feasible future transport product based upon an inline occupant configuration. The designers at VMCC envisage a sleek two-seat commuter vehicle which uses very little energy and rarely gets caught in traffic.

David Kelley: The future of design is human-centered

Low-key and thoughtful, IDEO founder David Kelley seems the antithesis of the "design star" -- and indeed, he says that product design, within the past two decades, has become much less about the design and more about the user who'll be experiencing it. See the video here.

The Fenske Upload

Ernie Schenck says a lot of people are spending a lot of time these days trying to get all clairvoyant on us. Trying to predict whether advertising will zig or zag. Ernie says print is over.

15 Worst iPhone Concepts: Shameful Designs Exposed

The guys over at Productdose have an hilarious and cringeworthy gallery of iPhone concepts made by Apple's public. While these Fanboy mockups are almost embarrassing to look at, the real gold is in the writer's comments. One of the designs is described as "the world's most powerful tip calculator"

Go take a look, if you dare.

James Dyson: Business whirlwind

James Dyson, the man who pioneered the "bagless" vacuum cleaner, says he stumbled across the idea while renovating his country house in the Cotswolds.

Noticing how vacuum cleaner bags clogged with dust, he set to work to try to resolve the problem.

Other links about James Dyson:

1. James Dyson on living a life of failure.
2. Dyson is cleaning up in his industry.
3. Dyson's website.
   

Skyscraper Creates All Its Own Energy

Here's a skyscraper, to be built in Dubai, called the Burj al-Taqa ('Energy Tower'), and it will produce 100% of its own power. The tower will have a huge (197 foot diameter) wind turbine on its roof, and arrays of solar cells that will total 161,459 square feet in size.

Web 2.0 'neglecting good design'

Nielsen: Making a site easy to use should be the first priority

Hype about Web 2.0 is making web firms neglect the basics of good design, web usability guru Jakob Nielsen has said.

He warned that the rush to make webpages more dynamic often meant users were badly served.

Q&A: Bill Moggridge - What Makes for Good Design

Bill Moggridge has been an industrial designer for 40 years. In 1979, he designed what many call the first laptop computer: the GRiD Compass, which was used by businesspeople as well as by NASA and the U.S. military. The Compass established the language of laptop design: hinged closure, flat display, low-profile keyboard, and metal housing. In 1991, Moggridge cofounded Ideo, a design consultancy based in Palo Alto, CA. He is the founder of a movement known as "interaction design," which aims to do for the virtual world what industrial design does for the physical. In the recently published book Designing Interactions, he interviews 42 influential designers.

Technology Review: You say that at the beginning of any design, two things matter most: people and prototypes. Why?

Help Me Redesign the Web

The Web was conceived as a way for researchers and scientists to share documents, not as a medium for visual expression.

The aesthetics of Web pages, such as they were, derived from computer screens and typewritten documents. Early Web users no more felt the graphical limitations of the hypertext markup language (HTML) than they had resented having only one golf-ball font on their old IBM Selectrics. They were so delighted with the Net that the look was irrelevant.

The Secret of Apple Design

Apple, Inc. has made an art of not talking about its products. Fans, journalists, and rumormongers who love it or love to hate it have long had to practice a sort of Kremlinology to gather the merest hints as to what is coming next out of Cupertino.

A Design for Discovery

Several years ago Marc Gobé, Chairman and CEO of Desgrippes Gobé New York, was selected to work a new global identity project for Coca-Cola. The main objective and challenge was to inspire a new generation of consumers to connect with the brand. Given that Coca-Cola is a global presence, Marc Gobé involved designers from our European and Asian offices, and developed some 200 design ideas.

Alice Rawsthorn on design for the unwealthiest 90 percent

The numbers seem nutty. There are 6.5 billion people on this planet, 90 percent of whom can't afford basic products and services. Half of them, nearly three billion people, don't have regular access to food, shelter or clean water. Yet whenever we think, or talk, about design, it's invariably about something that's intended to be sold to one of the privileged minority - the richest 10 percent.

Advertising is Broken

Brandon Schauer interviews Clement Mok - "I see the opportunity to marry Experience Modeling with the smarts of the Information Architect to structure a powerful model in the user's world, whether that be through cell phones or tagging systems. The opportunity is to create a model that ties together the deep ethnographic understanding of the user, the system engineering understanding, and the brand/marketing understanding. Tying these three things together is quite powerful."

The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me In Design School by Michael McDonough

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around.

Read the other nine here.

Intelligent Designs

When information needs to be communicated, Edward Tufte demands both truth and beauty.

Why the overwhelming numbers of design flops?

The odd thing is that no one sets out to design something that's mediocre. So why does design go wrong so often?

Photographs

What makes a design a flop?
» View

Interview with iMac designer Jonathan Ive

Listen to an interview with Apple's great designer, Jonathan Ive.

Design House Stockholm

The Swedish company works with local and international designers to offer affordable products with a Scandinavian aesthetic.

Thomas Heatherwick

Heatherwick Studio exists to make unique design projects happen. Established by Thomas Heatherwick in 1994, it is recognized for its work in:

• architecture
• sculpture
• urban infrastructure
• product design
• exhibition design
• strategic thinking

SANAA : kazuyo sejima + ryue nishizawa

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have been working
collaboratively under the name ‘sanaa’ since 1995.
Sejima studied architecture at the japan women's university
before collaborating with architect Toyo Ito.

Other site for information on Kazuyo and Rue

Gagosian Gallery

Browse around the Gagosian Gallery.

Patricia Urquiola

“She’s like a volcano,” someone said during the Milan furniture fair in April. “A hurricane,” according to another. Read about, Patricia Urquiola.

More information about Patricia.

Are Designer Collaborations Dead?

With ever more retailers tapping fashion's biggest names, the once-hip strategy is becoming cliché and savvy designers are focusing on other markets.

Bottom Line Design Awards

Beauty is more than skin-deep. The winners of our annual design competition are also versatile, elegant, eco-friendly, and--most important--successful. (more)

Intelligent Design

"Our founding goal is to make good design less elitist and more accessible," says Charles Trotter, founder and executive producer of CA Boom, a trade show that exposes the public to envelope-pushing independent designers.

Freespace

The video says it all.

2006 Masters of Design

Is design a craft, a tool, or an obsession? These days, it's a bit of all three.

No Accounting For Design?

It's the design world's dirty little secret. Despite the growing consensus that "good design is good business," most companies lack objective financial metrics to help them calculate whether increased investment in design will, in fact, generate increased profits. Does it matter? Chuck Jones, Whirlpool's design chief, certainly thinks so.

Paula Scher

For over three decades Paula Scher has been at the forefront of graphic design. Iconic, smart and unabashedly populist, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

Paula has developed identity and branding systems, promotional materials, environmental graphics, packaging and more.

Additional information regarding Paula Scher:
1-Interviewed by Ellen Lupton, August 10, 1995.
2-Hillman Curtis Quicktime movie clip.

Innovative Design Inspired by Accessibility

The Web provides unprecedented access to information for people with disabilities. People who are blind no longer wait for 25 pounds of braille to be printed and delivered or for a volunteer to read. People who have...

Smart Design

Almost three decades ago Smart Design began practicing a multi-disciplinary approach to design, establishing ways to emotionally connect people with products and experiences. Today their strength is a unique ability to encode a brand’s personality and values into every aspect of their work. The result is a design solution that builds bonds between companies and their customers.

Designing the Future

In a new interview series, NEWSWEEK talks to a leading ecological architect whose goal is nothing less than eliminating waste and pollution.

The Changing Face of Design

frog design's Senior VP of Creative, Mark Rolston, talks about the changes afoot in today's creative world.

Welcome to the Australian Design Awards

The Australian Design Awards, a division of Standards Australia, is recognised by the Commonwealth Government and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design [ICSID] as the peak promotional body for the Australian design industry, and for its important role in fostering a broad based culture of design and innovation in Australia.

Best Innovation and Design Books for 2006

BusinessWeek magazine looks past obvious titles to compile a list of books that will inform the thinking about innovation beyond this year.

Design Site of the Week

Worrell, Inc. is our design site of the week. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota; they specialize in Product Definition, Product Strategy, Product Platform Planning, Design Language, Future Scenario Development, Concept Visualization, and Technology Commercialization.

Design Directory

Design Directory is a great site that delivers design news, competitions, forums and links.

Core77

Anne Black

The Concept & Design

Worrell

Bilgi Karan

ThisNext

ThisNext is a Los Angeles-based, venture-funded Web 2.0 company committed to improving the overall quality of the Internet shopping experience by offering a platform for personal product recommendations and discovery. ThisNext is being built by a team of seasoned Internet entrepreneurs, editors, and bloggers. To see what else we are up to and interested in (besides ThisNext, of course), visit our blog.

Design's Night of Glamour

On Oct. 18, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum presented the 2006 National Design Awards. But behind the sparkle is a work in progress.

Real buildings have curves

Frank Gehry's madcap designs attract their share of fans and foes.

See more of Gehry's designs here.
Frank Gehry, The Architect's Studio.

Reddot Design

With over 4,000 entries from 40 countries, the red dot design award ranks among the largest design competitions worldwide. The coveted trophy is the red dot, the international seal of quality for outstanding design.

But the red dot is more than just the seal of quality from a competition: it stands for acceptance among the very best in design and business.

Presentation Zen

Check out this great blog by former Apple employee, Garr Reynolds, who discusses issues related to professional presentation design.

Case Study: TV Guide Website Strategy and Design

When TV Guide was founded, its primary function was to inform consumers what was on television, when, and on what channel. But to compete in today's online media market, tvguide.com needed to become a forum for both information and connection. The company came to frog for a complete website overhaul, eager to bring their publication more effectively out of the grocery store and onto our computer screens.

Strategy by Design

In order to do a better job of developing, communicating, and pursuing a strategy, the head of Ideo says, you need to learn to think like a designer. Here's his five-point plan for how to make the leap.

Design Engine

Trade journal for the education of product design professionals.

Design Addict

Design Addict is your resource for modern, post-modern and contemporary design of the 20th-21st centuries where you'll find information on designers and producers, on furniture, lighting, dinnerware and accessories.

DWR

Design Within Reach provides easy access to well-designed furnishings traditionally found only in designer showrooms. They are a one-stop resource for some of the most exciting furniture designers internationally.

Top Innovation & Design Programs

Desperate to innovate, companies are
turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers

• Plus: Designed in China
• Plus: List of D-Schools

Design As Storytelling

We all love stories. Stories breathe meaning into the stuff of life. But what about visuals? Can they tell a story? I sure as shine-ola hope so! It's how so many of us make our living. Read this article from Terry Marks in How magazine.