Category: design | 設計 | 예술과 디자인 | デザイン

Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.

But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:

It is innovative
It makes a product useful
It is aesthetic
It makes a product understandable
It is unobtrusive
It is honest
It is long-lasting
It is thorough down to the last detail
It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
It is as little design as possible

Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.

The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.

On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.

Through a storm with Big Bird

Just when you think that Sesame Street can’t get any more awesome, you find out that they’re putting out content like this on how the characters of Sesame Street get through a storm

Jaguar Land Rover’s ‘Googly Eyes’ isn’t just a gimmick but a classic bit of human computer interaction thinking. The cars gaze passes important information to pedestrians in its ‘line-of-sight’

Hypebeast founder Kevin Ma plays blinder; offering to pick up the tab for every ticket to Hypefest.

Culture and learning shouldn’t have a price attached to it.

I will personally cover the cost of tickets to make Hypefest a free experience for all.

Over a decade ago, I began a website documenting the things we love. Next month we will be holding our very first festival @hypefest which will bring our culture to life. To celebrate this moment, I will be personally covering the cost of tickets to provide free tickets for everyone. All are welcome to come share this moment with use. Tickets available tomorrow 12PM tomorrow on hypefest.com

CHiPs ‘roller disco’ – the most Seventies bit of television ever. I’ve heard this being used as the intro track on some of Luxxury‘s mixes. It helps you get through a storm of a day with feelgood disco

Sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

Hollywood studios had to get through a storm. Television had led to declining cinema audiences. Cinemas hadn’t moved to the kind of multiplex higher comfort experience that we know now, so were closing in large amounts. Some fleapits in major cities were kept open screening badly dubbed martial arts films and pornography. It was around this time that Deep Throat, The Opening of Misty Beethoven and Behind The Green Door developed mainstream popularity.

At the time you had film stars making guest appearances on television; this gave them an invaluable boost to incomes that had dried up. The movie studio system hadn’t glommed on to blockbusters yet and was in the thrall of directors of the American New Wave. There wasn’t a lot of roles at the time for stars of the 1960s like Breakfast at Tiffany’s George Peppard. Others like Lee Van Cleef and Richard Harrison went to work in the Italian and Asian film industries.

They probably didn’t know that change was just around the corner the launch of the over budget and under-appreciated Heaven’s Gate put an end to the American New Wave.

Steven Spielberg and others brought in the rise of the blockbuster and the studio system was saved. But George Peppard never made another cinematic film; instead he lives on in the minds of many people as Hannibal Smith from the A-Team.

Finally a 1970 concert film of Miles Davis performing the title track from Bitches Brew

September 21, 2018
Dawns Mine Crystal – Yunchul Kim

Dawns Mine Crystal is an exhibition on at the Korean Cultural Centre between now and November 3, 2018. I was invited to a preview of it. The title Dawns Mine Crystals a reference to the material world and its intersection with symbols and metaphors.

Dawns mine crystal reminds me of science fiction from the mid-20th century, vacuum tube based electronics and the Russian film Solaris. The chromed ray gun type appearance reminded me of everything from vintage Flash Gordon, art deco object d’art, Americana and 1950s science fiction like The Day The Earth Stood Still. I also thought about my Dad who used to visit electronics junk shops when I was a small kid that would be full of everything from valve driven circuits to wartime radar components.

The form and function of devices had a beauty to them like vintage fighter planes or the silver cathedral like structures of the chemical and petrochemical industries. I thought about Solaris when I stared into the swirling liquid surfaces of some of the installations, like storm clouds rippling across an alien planet.

It is well worth going to see, Mr Kim merges the world of art and science together in a way that is mesmerising and entertaining. It is unsurprising, given the works link to Arts at CERN, that the art pieces have a very scientific bent to them. The works will be part of a bigger exhibition that will tour venues in France during 2019 and 2020.

Be sure to catch it at the Korean Cultural Centre before it finishes. The Korean Cultural Centre does a really good job of curating exhibitions by Korean artists and promotes the works of Korean film makers with regular screenings at the centre.

Mr Kim is a Seoul-based artist, composer and founder of Studio Locus Solus in Seoul. He’s exhibited in German, Spain, China and the United States. More related content here.

September 19, 2018
Dr Eugenia Cheng & things that made last week
Dr Eugenia Cheng

Dr Eugenia Cheng talks about the key themes in her book The Art of Logic: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn’t

Outtakes from Dr Eugenia Cheng talk:
- Pure mathematics is a framework for agreeing on things
- Pure maths is a framework for how to think
- Make progress rather than repeat things to make a better logical argument
- Logic validity doesn’t equal morally valid in analogies
- Interconnectedness is often erroneously simplified by blaming a single item as a cause
- Its easier to change actions, than it is to change feelings. Feelings just are
- Great feedback loops tied into obesity is fascinating
- Relationships between things – media affects thinking by shoehorning natural geometry into one or two dimensions
- Intelligence: reasonable – can be reasoned with, powerfully logical – not just using logic but using techniques to move an organisation further and being helpful: emotion
More ideas related content here.

Merino wool producers assume that cyber punk is a synthetic dystopia, instead of thinking abut how wool is a technical fabric by its very nature. The ad was done for the Woolmark Company by TBWA Sydney. Do humans dream of technical merino wool?

Live footage of Talking Heads performing Once in a Lifetime in 1980. The performance encapsulates everyone that I expect Talking Heads to be.

Zegna’s radical reinvention | How To Spend It – great profile of Gildo and the fashion brand that he manages. The process of reinvention doesn’t seem to create a tension with the heritage – which is a great attributed to a luxury brand. There isn’t that much difference between Zegna and Stone Island in terms of innovation.

Jori Hulkkonen – Attack Magazine – he has a great back catalogue, so looking forward to his Simple Music for Complicated People album. Hulkkonen’s work goes from extremely emotive soulful house to minimal techno and everywhere in between.
September 14, 2018
The Conveni & things from last week

The Conveni

Its hard to understand The Conveni without understanding Japanese retail. In Japan, 24/7 convenience stores play a similar role to what supermarkets have in the west. They do groceries, allow utility and mobile payments and provide other services like faxing or photocopying. They offer free wi-fi and air conditioning in hot weather. There are an essential part of of Japanese life and there is a ‘combini-culture’ around them. Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Fragment Design has taken a good deal of influence from combini culture for ‘The Conveni’ retail concept. It includes processed food, bandanas in sandwich packs, towels packaged like onigiri rice balls and sweat shirts in snack packets.

If you can’t get to Tokyo, you can still look at their e-store.

Michael Gove famously said that with regards to Brexit people were tired of experts. Obviously discussions between men in a pub is the antithesis of expert discussions. So here is a podcast with a couple of knowledgeable people in a pub

https://youtu.be/Sx4AF-3Rd44

https://youtu.be/sju9laLqeCo

Lippincott were working on a Toys R Us rebrand that the company couldn’t implement. I don’t know if design could have saved Toys R Us, but the work is really nice.

Aphex Twin launched a new EP; there were posters around the world and a fantastic video by Weirdcore. Warning the video will affect people with epilepsy

Egyptian Lover picks his favourite Roland TR-808 songs – amazing listening. Some of this brought me back to my early teenage years.

August 10, 2018
The Internet of Stupid Things
The internet of stupid things is a more charitable phrase for what many consumers call the Internet of Shit. Yes lots of products can be internet enabled, but should they be? There is a mix of challenges that result in products which fall into the following two categories:
- Products that are internet enabled but shouldn’t be – the Happy Fork or the Griffin Smart Toaster being classic examples. I found the Griffin Smart Toaster particularly disappointing as the company’s products such as the PowerMate are generally really good. It doesn’t take the greatest imagination to see how a smart toaster could even be hacked; causing a fire – hence the internet of stupid things. Why do household appliances really need to be attached to technology. Teasmades woke you up and made a mug of tea for you to have first thing. This was a product that reached peak popularity in the 1960s and 1970s – well before cloud services.
- Products that would be benefit from tech, but shouldn’t rely on the the cloud. I’d argue that Nest would fit in this category where cloud outages could have serious impacts on the consumer. American Nest customers have had some hard winter nights when their Nest control system went down due to cloud outages. There was no off-cloud or manual control mode that the Nest devices could take advantage of.
It is interesting to see that Li & Fung (who are famous for global supply chain management provided to western brands and retailers) are involved in this video. It is also interesting that they are taking such a proactive view on experience design education.

The qualitative design research Li & Fung did on skiing wearables for a client – made me wonder what value do Li & Fung’s clients bring to the table. More on design here.
August 8, 2018