Straw vote

March 11, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Filed under Arts and Crafts

“Good artists have a way with transforming the materials of everyday life into something memorable. For example: Drinking straws, which a number of artists and designers have used to create some pretty amazing objects.” — A.M.

Romancing the tower

March 11, 2010 at 11:11 am
Filed under Arts and Crafts

“The mobile phone tower is an excellent example of one of the necessary evils of modern life. While most people demand better coverage for their phones, town zoning boards and local residents aggressively fight the telecommunications companies to prevent the construction of massive eyesores that are visible from miles around. Both sides would like to somehow make these towers ‘invisible‘, and the current solution favored by many is to dress the towers up to look like trees, so they blend in better with the surrounding environment. Or at least that’s the intention.

German photographer Robert Voit has spent the past several years scouring the globe, making pictures of these cell tower trees.” — A.M.

Designing change with Emily Pilloton

March 11, 2010 at 10:11 am
Filed under Conferences, Pro bono, Social Issues

Emily Pilloton

At just 28, Emily Pilloton is changing design and changing the world.

The architect, industrial designer, and writer walked away from commercial design to start Project H, a nonprofit focused on product design to empower the socially overlooked. Project H has created water transportation devices for a community in South Africa, math learning playgrounds for schools in Uganda, the Dominican Republic, and North Carolina, and social programs in Austin and Los Angeles. Project H design teams are currently working in eight cities, as well as administering long-term educational programs in North Carolina’s poorest county.

She’ll join other change makers—including Stefan Sagmeister, Phil Freelon, Jason Bruges, and Richard The—at the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo in Washington, D.C.  There, she’ll be a part of the conversation about Designing Change/Changing Design.

Pilloton is also the author of Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People. Her promotional tour for the book is a 75-day, 6,300-mile lecture series and mobile exhibit staged in the vintage 27-ft. Airstream she calls home.

The Design Revolution Road Show is visiting 35 schools during a 75-day mobile book and lecture tour.

Pilloton took a few minutes to chat with SEGD yesterday.

Q: You’ve been written up everywhere and even appeared on The Colbert Report. What do you think all the fuss is about?

A: I’m glad there’s a lot of attention being paid to design that empowers people. I hope it inspires designers to realize they can actually do what they do and also help solve some of the world’s problems. But the hype also bothers me. It indicates there’s a lot of talking but not a lot of actual work going on. We hope to transform all the hype into real work.

Q. So why aren’t more designers social activists?

A: A lot of designers go into design because it’s a great way to solve problems. Then they graduate and all of a sudden they have all these student loans, and they go to work in corporate environments, and suddenly it’s all about making money. The original ideas get lost. So many designers are looking for ways to use their design skills to make a difference. We hope Project H inspires them to realize they can actually do it.

Q: How do your projects get funded?

A: Our design teams are volunteers who are doing their own full-time jobs and also working 20 to 25 hours per week on our projects.

We’re funded almost entirely by individual donations that average about $50. We’ve had two small grants, but for the most part it’s crowdsourcing. We figure if we have 35,000 Twitter followers, we’re going to ask them for $5 each and that’s our budget for the whole year.

Q: What would you like to change about design?

A: Don’t just sit around and talk about this stuff. Do it. You can only go to so many conferences and debate this before you just buckle down. It’s okay if you have no idea how to do it and it’s okay if you have a failure or two along the way.

Also, design activism should start in your own back yard. We need to nurture the bottom of our own pyramid, not fly worlds away and presume we know how to solve their problems. We can all see huge needs in our own communities, in places where we’re invested. That’s where the best work happens.

–P.M.K.

Children at a school in the Dominican Republic play on Project H's math-focused learning landscape. "We wanted to create an experience, not a product," says Pilloton. Any school can use Project H's system for creating a learning landscape. It only takes 25 bus tires and someone to teach children the games.

Moving on up…

March 10, 2010 at 10:56 am
Filed under Branding, Dynamic Environments, Signage, Wayfinding

© Albert Vecerka/Esto

Time moves fast in the newsrooms and offices of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and the media conglomerate’s new headquarters in midtown Manhattan needed to keep up the pace. Two years after it purchased Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, News Corp. moved out of its World Financial Center headquarters and into new midtown Manhattan offices at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.  Studios Architecture designed the 300,000-sq.-ft. space on five floors to consolidate News Corp.’s online, print, and wire services groups and integrate the latest technology.

Design360 Inc. developed a comprehensive wayfinding and signage system featuring digital media walls, signage, and branded graphics for the public spaces. The challenge, says Design360 Creative Director Jill Ayers, was to “maintain a consistent brand feeling across several types of components, from signage and static displays to digital media.”

To help create a dynamic communications-driven environment, the main corridor on each floor functions as a central gathering point, with links to cafes, socializing areas, and circulation. To unite the floors and serve as a dynamic, content-driven backdrop to the main staircase, two multi-story walls of 20mm LED panels feature ongoing direct feeds from the company’s website, stock ticker in Times Square, imagery from The Wall Street Journal magazine, weather, and current headlines.

© Albert Vecerka/Esto

Other digital elements in the space include graphic templates for digital time clocks and layouts for the editorial group’s Newswires Wall.

Jeffrey Kilmer

The system typeface, Helvetica Neue, was inspired by the Dow Jones logo. Materials and fabrication processes juxtapose references to traditional printing processes with nods to technology.  All workstation, room, and base building signage uses Richlite, a sustainable paper product, and ADA zinc panels emulate inked-magnesium printing plates. Dye-sublimated archival photography from the newsroom’s early days serve as glass screens in the central coffee bar areas. Directional signage and illuminated identification at the main reception areas were produced from custom blued steel with push-through acrylic letters. And as a break from the buzz of the newsroom, the project team collaborated on quiet hallways that showcase Pulitzers and other distinguished awards given to The Wall Street Journal and artwork from each of Barron’s weekly covers.  –P.M.K.

© Albert Vecerka/Esto

Renegade stamps

March 9, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Filed under Color, Graphic Design, Humor

“Two artists have been playing pretty games with the UK Royal Mail’s automated sorting offices. 

It seems the machines simply read the colour of stamps to check whether the correct postage has been used, so maybe it doesn’t matter what shape they are.

Kim Rugg creates tentacled monsters, fireworks and beach scenes using only postage stamp fragments, while ShakesMyTeeth sends vintage postcard collages worldwide.” (Thanks to Neatorama for the blurb!) — A.M.

Learning from “Learning From Las Vegas”

March 9, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Filed under Designers, Placemaking, Signage, Urban Planning

“From October 29, 2009 to Feb 5, 2010, Yale School of Architecture Gallery held What We Learned, an exhibition that features the teaching, research, and design work of Venturi and Scott Brown. The exhibition was made up of two independently organized shows.” — A.M.

Heller on map reading

March 9, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Filed under Books, Maps

As Steven Heller says, “There’s nothing like sitting by the fire with a good book, except maybe sitting by the fire with a good map — or better yet, a good book about maps. I’ve noticed an upsurge in cartographic interest these days, especially for maps’ value as conceptual artwork.” — A.M.

Slate on the Exit Wars

March 9, 2010 at 9:55 am
Filed under Signage, Wayfinding

U.S. exit sign...

In the United States, exits are marked with bold red letters spelling out the word E-X-I-T. But in much of the rest of the world, exit signs are dramatically different. Most countries have adopted a version of the ISO’s Yukio Ota-designed “running man” exit sign, which its proponents claim is more effective because a) it’s a pictorgram that doesn’t require reading and b) it’s green (for go, Go, GO!).

Read more in “The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man,” by Slate Deputy Editor Julia Turner. –P.M.K.

...vs. the rest of the world

Auckland interactive

March 9, 2010 at 8:54 am
Filed under Architecture, Dynamic Environments, Interactive, Lighting

Auckland’s Ferry Building was transformed into a dynamic light canvas with “Night Lights,” a 5-day installation that invited viewers to add their hands, bodies, and mobile phones to the show. Creative agencies YesYesNo, The Church, Inside Out Productions, and Electric Canvas partnered to put on the show, sponsored by Telecom New Zealand in conjunction with its rebranding. The team projected a sequence of six scenes every hour onto the building’s five-story facade, then invited viewers to interact with the show by projecting their body movements onto the scenes. –P.M.K.

night lights from thesystemis on Vimeo.

Towering work in a brown paper wrapper

March 8, 2010 at 10:54 am
Filed under Design education, Exhibit Design, Green Related, Materials, Placemaking, Public Art

A ten-meter tower made entirely of recyclable cardboard, brought to the Carton Plein! exhibit in a small delivery truck, and erected in nine hours with no scaffolding.  Oh, and it’s student work. — A.M.