Posts tagged Design
The Design Decoded blog on the Smithsonian’s site (written by Sarah C. Rich) has a very interesting piece about about airplane design — interesting because the focus is more on the interior, and also because according to the piece, a single design firm, Teague, has overseen the interiors of Boeing planes since the 1940s.
An early project was the interior of a plane called The Stratocruiser, which sounds pretty awesome just on the basis of that name. But the plans include a nice illustration of a glorious future that never came true:
Of course, those early designers didn’t foresee air travel’s trajectory running away from freedom of movement. The best part of the Stratocruiser’s program was the in-flight lounge, a 14-person hang-out space housed in the belly of the plane, which was accessed via a space-saving spiral staircase.
According to Teague’s current Vice President, Ken Dowd, passengers were encouraged to get up from their seats and wander downstairs. ”The early press called it ‘ambling space,’” Dowd explains, adding that the designers still try to achieve some version of this amenity. “Today we call it ‘destination space,’ but we have the same kinds of thoughts now as they did then: Giving passengers a chance to get up for a moment.”
This Dowd guy also gives one awesome quote: “An airline cabin is the most expensive real estate in the world.”
The full post: The 86-Year-Old Firm that Designs Your In-Flight Experience | Design Decoded
Design Decoded also recently posted about the design around airplane food service, here.
The National Maritime Museum has over 1000 flags including two large collections of house flags, used toidentify shipping lines, or owners of vessels. Here are a few I selected from the collection.
(via HI LOW: HOUSE FLAGS)
Do you find doormats depressing? … This 100% natural coir doormat will cheer you up straight away.
Facet Doormat — ACCESSORIES — Better Living Through Design
Actually if you find doormats depressing, you should get professional help. But still.
Christen Carter - Things I Learned from Researching the History of Buttons (by igniteordcamp)
Surprisingly interesting. Well done.
Perfectly on point, like nearly everything that bares the Rag & Bone label, the 3/4 Placket Shirt sports an artistic Miami Vice vibe, with Havana-inspired graphics for an ideally laid-back attitude. Plus, the slim, relaxed fit is toned down just enough to actually be a promising part of your summer wardrobe.
Actually, what seems more interesting to me here is the inclusion of a fairly eyesore-ish high-rise hotel. And a helicopter?
Is it just me, or aren’t those unusual elements for a “Hawaiian shirt”?
Aaron Draplin, designer and co-founder of notebook company Field Notes has shared his extensive collection of vintage notebooks, which formed the inspiration for the style of the brand. You can see them all here.
There is also a short documentary to go with it, called From Seed to Brand.
Minimalist debris. Either a well executed finish or no time to explore, this one has navigation written all over it. France magazine by Todd
From The Debris Project:
The Debris Project
These are the failed design explorations pushed off
to the side of our layouts and sitting on the pasteboard
Transparent Gadgets and Creative Designs. A roundup.
Julian Burford, a Netherlands-based graphic designer, has turned eight different modern day food products and turned them into square iPhone app icons. Despite having to meet Apple’s icon guidelines, Burford has managed to keep the foods looking 3D and has kept a nice uniform style throughout.
The Los Angeles Times recently triggered the obsessive compulsions of many a design collector - me included. With the subhead “Truly Wearable Art” they present 50 Garment Labels: A Multicolor Wardrobe of Maker’s Marks. See the the little beauties here. This is actually part of a series called “50,” an eye-candy store of such delights as 50 Leading Men, 50 Main Titles (opening sequences from TV shows), 50 Vogue Records, 50 Patent Drawings, 50 Snow Domes, 50 Titans of Design, and many more. Oh, and my favorite, 50 Rough Sketches, the concept paintings by a 1930s commercial artist, Noel Petters.
If, like me, you’ve missed this series, take a look and enjoy.
(via Vintage Garment Labels: Candy for the Eye — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers)
“We are becoming numb to infographics. Not long ago, I saw infographics in my newsfeed as an informational ‘treat’ because I knew the author had used the medium only because it most effectively displayed the information,” said Jasmine Bina of JB Communications in New York and Los Angeles. “But now that people have realized the traffic-generating powers of these things, every dumb report with an ounce of usable info is puffed into these massive images.”
Gail Granger, who runs a communications firm in Winnipeg, was more blunt in her assessment of the infographic craze. “We used to have an attention span of about 30-seconds - the length of a commercial. Now it’s down to about five,” she said. “We are becoming a society of hyperactive, yammering idiots.”
I was going to read this, but I don’t have time. If someone could please make an infographic summarizing the argument, I’ll give it a glance. Thanks.
(via Why Your Infographic Is Evil (And Three Ways To Fix It))
The spinning rainbow circle informing a Mac user that his or her device is working on a problem, mild or severe, is sometimes informally referred to as the “pinwheel of death.” It’s a bit of a stealth icon: A symbol that’s become almost as recognizable and meaningful as a logo, even though it wasn’t really designed to take on that role. It’s not quite at the Fail Whale level of emblem-of-not-working. But I’m sure that Apple would just as soon not see the thing become so familiar that it can serve as the basis of a comedy bit at TED…
Continued here: Rob Walker: Stealth Iconography: Pinwheel of Death: Observers Room: Design Observer
We did a Design Fiction workshop as a kind of follow on to the Convenience newspaper. Our idea was to take the observation that the trajectory of all great innovations is to asymptotically trend towards the counter of your corner convenience store, grocer, 7-11, gas station, etc. Discerning the details as to why this occurs isn’t our primary concern. It’s an observation that tells some stories about convenience as a cultural aspiration of some sort, broadly; it’s a way of talking about industrialization, capital, the trajectory of “disruptive innovations”; it’s a way of talking about the things we take for granted that we wouldn’t were convenience to go away in some sort of puff of apocalyptic dust; it identifies the net present value of things as 99¢ and buy 1 get 1 free.
But that was the newspaper version that took the things today and made them plain. (You can get a PDF of it here.) It also serves as the conceptual set-up for what we did next which was for Nick Foster and I to tramp to Tempe Arizona to the Emerge event at ASU in order to run a workshop that would take the Corner Convenience as our site to do a bit of Design Fiction gonzo filmmaking. We imagined the Corner Convenience in some Near Future.
More: Corner Convenience // The Near Future // Design Fiction | Near Future Laboratory
Look, I can’t link to everything Box Vox does. Just follow the blog already, it’s great. Pic above from this typically top-notch post: Packaging Typography | Box Vox
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