Blackface

Diesel’s new watch design kicked up a bit of a kerfluffle, what with it’s completely smooth black stainless steel face.
diesel_dz9044_watch 

Detractors decried the watch as style winning over functionality, a sentiment on whose side I usually come down. Even those who like the way it looks talked about how it was not very useful.

dz9044_watch_side1But the DZ9044 does have four watch faces, actually, two small squares on each side of the main slab. They can be set to separate times, showing up to four time zones. 

What the physical design does allow, however, is glances at your watch without the signature wrist twitch that lets others around you know you’re checking. At a boring meeting, for example, or just during a conversation on the street.

It also most likely does not cause the annoying reflection that can shine in others’ eyes when you’re wearing the watch in the sun.

For $400, I’d be buying my man something different, though.

Scotch

scotch tapeThese days, I drink scotch more often than I use Scotch Tape. 

Only at Christmas, I think. 

Even so, I want one of these.

A winner in a student design contest at Ontario College of Art & Design, in partnership with 3M Canada, this will go into production next year.

Hopefully also available stateside. [Via]

Why We Design

Just a poignant note on how designing is a privilege, and important at the same time, by John McWade, publisher of Before & After Magazine.  He writes of a reader writing in from Haiti, a farmer-cum-desktop publisher, who says:

“I am coming to believe that pleasing design needs no apology, even, if not especially, in scientific publications. Our societies are now at the stage that a great number of us can not only appreciate the pleasures offered by good design, but almost demand that artistic expression be placed on the same level as informational expression. I’m not sure why, but it has much to do with why we are human.”

And John notes:

Such contrasts these are! Here is a reader, a farmer, who has worked 15 years in a nation where half the children are undernourished and 1 in 10 will die, 7 of 10 adults are illiterate, half the urban population has no access to safe water . . .

. . . pause here for a moment . . .

. . . writing to a magazine subtitled “How to design cool stuff”. . .

. . . inspired by what we do.

What accounts for this? How does design even exist in such an environment, much less inspire?

You might look again at what you do. You sit with a full tummy in your warm office at a blank screen with an ad to make, and you’re thinking, “Jeez, I have to come up with something original and clever and it better be soon.” That’s not how to think. As a designer you have a privilege, one that others do not. It is the privilege of making visible that which others can only imagine, feel or think. When you do this, you open a window through which your audience can see, know and understand.

Full post here.

Roots

root_promoAn interesting new liquor is about to hit the market.

In fact it was at the Headhouse Farmers’ Market that I ran into the promotional table for it.

It is Root, an 80-proof liqueur based on Root Tea. From the promotional card:

Root Tea goes back to the 1700’s, when settlers picked it up from Native Americans. Over generations, Root Tea grew in potency, particularly in Pennsylvania, where the ingredients grow in abundance. During the Temperance Movement at the close of the 19th century, a Philadelphia pharmacist removed the alcohol and rechristened it (ironically) Root Beer for hard-drinking coal miners and steelworkers.

RootI didn’t realize previously that Root Beer had its roots in Philadelphia, so to speak. Charles Hires, that pharmacist,  first sold commercial root beer to the public in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

Brought to you by Art in the Age, an offshoot of Gyro ad agency, with great designs featuring gorgeous illustrations by Reverend Michael Alan.

Should be available in PA State stores this summer. Interested to try it!

Liberty Express

In the city of Philadelphia, there should be an above ground trolley for tourists. Call it the “Liberty Express” .

It runs from Penns Landing to the Art Museum, down Market Street and then down Ben Franklin Parkway, with a total of 5 stops.

Penns Landing > Independence Hall > 8th St/Convention Center > City Hall > Art Museum

Powered via the tracks.  Not a whole lot of work to install tracks on the surface of that route, especially the Parkway.

Smart cities generate revenue and buzz using their trolley lines as tourist attractions. Otherwise these days a trolley is really not an efficient mode of public transportation.

Oh, and it should be mostly funded by the Casino. The 8th St – Convention Center stop will be inside the casino, or at least in a port-o-cul type entrance tunnel.

It could also go to Camden. Yes, it’s NJ, but it’s also extra tourist revenue.

Who could make it happen?

Audio Cubes

percussa1Beautiful little building blocks that are actually “modular live performance instruments”. What?

Like little four-sided theramins, these electronic blocks from Percussa in Brussels can be used to create and control music.
percussa2

They are networked and scalable, and can sense not only the position of your hand around them, but their proximaty and position relative to other cubes nearby.

 You can link up to 100 of them (at $300 each, mind you), to create potentially fantastic music.

They’ve been demoed and used in performance already by several musical artists.

Can’t wait to get my hands on — or near — a few of these . [Via]

Cough-y

Today, May 5, is the official national launch of McDonald’s new Starbucks competitor — the McCafé. The company is pouring their marketing and advertising hearts and dollars into the effort. Word from the company is that it’s the largest campaign it has launched since it began selling breakfast in the 1970’s.

They have at least five completely different websites dedicated to the cafe-styled line of espresso based drinks, which is marketing 101 these days. The design of the sites is nice, but the content? A bit questionable:
McDonald's Art

mccafecoffee.com — Basic site, showing off what appear to be the cafe’s three offerings: latte, cappuccino and “mocha.”

mccafeicedcoffee.com — Interactive! “Skate” around an ice rink by controling a coffee bean with legs using the arrow keys on your keyboard.

wakeuptowhatsnew.com — More interactive! Make your own digital cappuccino art by pouring digital steamed milk into espresso.

mccafesnowflakes.com — even more interactive! make your own… um… digital coffee-ring snowflake??

mcdonalds.com/mccafe — With the ever so classy slogan “Give it up for the accent mark!” and a video-intensive game-show-movie-esque content

Who is the target audience for these websites, again?

As for the actual cafes, the interiors are full of wood and artwork, soft lighting, benches and spots for lounging. There have actually been McCafe’s in other countries around the world since the 1990’s, but it took the recession to convince Micky D’s that they could lure can’t-afford-it-every-day-anymore-ex-Starbucks drinkers through their stigma-ed arches.

Supposedly there are several in the Philadelphia area already. Can’t speak from experience, though. There doesn’t appear to be one yet in the Rittenhouse Square location, hidden between high-end fashion retailers on Walnut Street, though that restaurant (can you call it that? fast food joint?) does have some unique, non-chain-looking art hanging.

Ground Control

Audio Kontrol 1Native Instruments is an impressive company design-wise, as might be expected from this Berlin-based company. From their packaging to their manuals to their products, good design is kept at the fore.

Take their new Audio Kontrol 1, which is “not a sound card.”

It looks beautiful, and looks easy to access and use. From experience with other NI products, I know the “feel” of the knobs and buttons is wonderful, too. The interface is interactive, with subtle lights that react to your touch. 

The Audio Kontrol 1 is a flexible controller, and all of the parts are user-assignable to different functions in different audio programs. Should be a powerful tool for making music, and all for under $300.

And it looks like they even went through the effort to take a great product photo, with a real reflection (very rare these days!).

The Wrong Job

The Wrong Job 1Great series of ads for jobsintown.de.

Not sure it would work here in the US; people would mostly ignore them as they rushed around their busy days.

Or maybe not. They are incredibly eyecatching. Large photos. Minimal copy. Creates curiousity. Gets the message across.

Good design meets good concept.

By Scholz & Friends, Berlin.

Check out a few more in the series here.

The Wrong Job 2

Clock Blocked

oraillegaleDennis Guidone designed this beautiful clock which will be on display for Milan Design Week and eventually produced by NAVA.

As others have pointed out, this clock has but two functions: (1) it tells time; and (2) it makes resetting the time for daylight savings a snap: you simply tip it over to the other side of its “base.”

Because you know how annoyed you are having to re-figure out how to set all the digital clocks on your microwave and stove. You’ve done it once, already, but that was almost a year ago!
oraunica
Maybe the clock would tip over on its own, and I’d show up an hour early or late. Because of this, I’d carry around a photo of the clock as my ready-made excuse. Not so bad.

This watch by the same designer comes with the same built in alibi: “I thought I was on time, I really did…  “