New Water Bottle

A company called Vapur has come out with a collapsible, reusable water bottle. When filled, the bottle holds 16oz, but flattens and rolls up to a fifth of its original size when empty. This is a great product because it has the potential to encourage more people to stop buying plastic water bottles everyday, thereby reducing the carbon footprint we all make. The site also mentions how much money and pollution they save on product transportation. They claim that it takes 9x the number of trucks to transport the same amount of rigid water bottles. This of course saves on cost of transportation, but more importantly on the amount of greenhouse emissions made by the trucks. Overall, the product is very affordable, probably costing the customer about $13 after shipping and tax.

Vitra Haus

An architect firm, Herzog & de Meuron has designed a revolutionary campus showroom called VitraHaus, which is a 5 story building made up of 5 hangar-like structures that have been stacked haphazardly on top of each other. Each modernistic house is interconnected at the points of intersection. The structure is located on the Vitra Campus in Germany. This is a fantastic design, although I think the application could be put to better use. Instead of making it a museum, this type of building would be perfect to turn into a multi-room nightclub. Each room would have a different themed interior design, and music. If I ever get into this area of real estate, I will definatly use a similar design

Bacon Cheese Turtle

Contrary to the horrified reaction posted by hipstomp, I greatly admire what is known as the bacon cheese turtle. This tasty heart-attack-waiting-to-happen is a clever design made of different meats which morph into a turtle. Hotdogs make up the extremities, chopmeat forms the body, and a weave of bacon forms the shell and holds everything together. Health concerns aside, this is a fantastic product. This restaurant now offers a novelty - something that will attract customers to the restaurant, just to try the intriguing dish. Its fun to eat. People only visit places where something unique is offered (unless when visiting relatives at Thanksgiving). Bravo to the creativity of this restaurant and the marketing angle it brings.

Tree (bird)House

Currently being shown at Amsterdam's Galerie West, is the "Nest", done by Dutch artist Wannes Goetschalckx. The "Nest" is a tree made from birdhouses. I like the switch he made with this piece. Instead of a birdhouse being a small element of a tree, it has taken over and has become the entire composition. As said by hipstomp at core77.com, the piece does represent "urban overcrowding."

Rafsoda

Today is the second to last day of the Pop-Up Design Store, Rafsoda (meaning "raft" in Isreali) located in Tel Aviv. Aside from housing a slew of recycled and "upcycled" products such as KOZO Lamps made from plumbing pipes, the store front itself is a design statement. Since Rafsoda is selling all recycled goods, why shouldn't the store be recycled too? The interor walls and shelves of the temporary store (only up for 20 days) are made from old recycled doors, shutters, and window frames. I think it is a very cool concept to make your storefront from reclaimed materials, when you are selling products made from the like. I feel like this could be a possible interior design aspect for a Hazard Line storefront, when I start opening them in the future. It is innovative and would make the storefront itself a novelty and something worth visiting.

Future Bike

Mechanical engineering students at Yale have designed a new bike with a "hub-less" wheel. Traditional bicycle wheels are made with thin metal spokes that branch from the inner edges of the wheel and converge at the hub, which is where the bike frame anchors to the wheel. But this new design is quite intriguing. The inner lining of the hub-less wheel is covered with tiny teeth, like a gear. When you pedal, the chain rotates a small gear-like mechanism, whose teeth lock into the teeth of the wheel and turns it. There aren't many practical reasons for producing a bike like this aside from the fact that it's innovative. I doubt the design is as durable or as light weight as a traditional bike. It was done as a semester-long project, but the idea may be adapted to a marketable design in the future.

Accept Credit Cards Anywhere You Go

A company called Square is launching the beta version of their new product which allows you to accept credit card payments through you iphone! All you need to do is create an account with Square, and plug in the small swiping adapter which plugs into the audion jack on you smart phone. I own a small business, and I could really use this product. I set up Hazard Line tables at numerous rock concerts, and events. A big issue is that if someone wants to buy something in person, they're resticted to cash. If they don't have enough or need it for a later cause, I don't make the sale. I always give them a card and tell them they can order online, but for some reason, the person who was so gung-ho about buying my products in person, doesn't follow through online. Having the Square service and adapter would definately increase my revenue and by extension, Hazard Line exosure.

SuperSkin Helmet

Industrial Design Consultancy, a design firm located in the UK, has come out with a revolutionary motorcyle helemt to help reduce rotational injury in the event of a crash. The SuperSkin, as it's called, mimics the human head in that it has a tough synthetic, stretchable skin that covers the surface of the hard polymer helmet. Stephen Knowles, the managing director says that in the event of a crash, the skin will slide over the hard surface and stretch; reducing "these dangerous rotational forces being transmitted to the head and brain." The prototype will be put on the market this summer by the company Laser Helmets. IDC is a multifaceted firm, designing products in fields such as Medical, Industrial, Consumer, and Transport.

Travel Pillow

A design company called Designs in Progress, located in San Francisco came out with a new kind of travel pillow called the Embrace Sleep Collar Travel Pillow. The key design element of this product is that it wraps around the entire neck, preventing those jarring head bobs as you fall asleep sitting up. As much as I hate those bobs, I don't think I'd feel comfortable with this pillow pressing on my Adam's Apple and windpipe as I'm trying to relax (even if it is made from memory foam).

Solar Ivy

Pepsi Refresh is a program that gives out 1.3 million dollars in grants to fund the best cutting edge plans and projects working towards a greener, more energy efficient world. Right now, the Design company SMIT—Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology- is trying to win a $50k grant to fund its Solar Ivy project. Sam Cochran originally came up with the idea in 2005 and wants to market this great product. Solar Ivy is a net of small solar panels meant to be draped over the exterior of buildings, providing them with solar energy. This idea has the potential to change the world. All they have to do is make the leaves just a little bit more aestetically pleasing, I'm sure they will acheive their initial goals relatively quickly: getting at least 10 orders. There are many other designers vying for the grant money here.

Interiors

Zmik, A Swiss designing firm came out with two new interior designs. One, called Nafi, features a hair salon with two distinct/clashing interior spaces. The waiting room is warmly lit with wallpaper of Vogue magazine covers. Just a few feet over from the receptionist desk, you'll find yourself in a florescent salon. Stark white with nothing but mirrors and chairs. The clashing effect is startling.

Anna, the second interior design project, Zmik came out with is really cool. All of the white walls in this interior space have schematic-like lines drawn on them. It's like you are looking through the walls themselves at the various frames and dimensions of the other rooms in the building.

Bar Fights

There are over 87,000 bar fights a year in British pubs which rack up 2.5 million pounds (3.9 million dollars) in damages each year. Obviously, one of the most costly aspects from any fight are the wounds sustained by the participants. Broken bottles and glass mugs are pretty dangerous weapons. Therefore, the British Design Council hired a design studio called DesignBridge (started in 1986) to create safer drinking glasses for pubs. Both prototypes: the Twin Wall and the Glass Plus, are engineered with a layer of resin. In this way, if the glass were to break, it would not shatter into a million pieces. It would break in the same way a windshield would. This is a very smart design feature. I just wonder if bar owners will want to pony up the extra dough to replace their entire glassware set with these "windshield' glasses. Perhaps it would be cheaper to keep a bouncer on the payroll. That way, if a fight does break out, it can be stopped before any injuries or property damages can be sustained.

Class Notes 2/4/10

• 100s of 1000s of fonts exist
• only about 20 are useful for professional projects
• sans serif means the letters do not have the little hooks
• Times New Roman is 2000 year old font
• sans serif work best for headlines - headers and subheaders
• serif is better for body text
• franklin font comes from ben franklin

Gear Ring

All I can say is I want one. Kinekt Design's new piece of jewelry has tiny gears on the surface that spin when the top and bottom edges of the ring are rotated. This is definitely the coolest piece of man-jewelry I've seen in a long time. I think that this is a great product, not only for it's sleek and innovative design, but for it's calming effect it could have on the nerves. When someone is upset or nervous, one of the best things to do is distract yourself with a mundane repetitive action that occupied the frontal lobe of the brain. Spinning the gear ring and watching the gears turn would do just the trick. It's simple, yet entertaining.

Scotch Tape

I absolutely love the scotch tape sculptures being entered into Scotch's "Off the Roll Tape Sculpture Contest." The great thing about these sculptures is that they are beautiful works of art, made from on of the most non-glamorous of materials - scotch tape. My favorite has to be the octopus. It's so beautifully proportioned. You can also tell that it took hours and hours of work forming each tentacle and suction cup. The designers even worked some kind of red cellophane into the tapey "skin" of the creature. A++ for the creativity!