Carolina's summer job--

Hey Studio peeeps:

I'm working for a furniture dealing company (until next week) and I've been re-designing their website for the past few weeks. Can I get some critiques? I made it with wix--

Thank you! below is the link:

http://www.wix.com/dea2030/zoom_1

Some inspirations

-gilad  

OLED

http://vimeo.com/6378943

Cerise

Things Organized Neatly

Just a fun website if you need a distraction...so soothing to look at for people like us!

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

 

This is a page from Ikea's cookbook, where they had photographer Carl Kleiner photograph the ingredients for all the recipes in the book.

THE NEW PLASTIC

http://www.pegadesign.com/en/portfolio-pp.html

woah, check it out!

-gilad

artsy living walls!

Portrait + Plants?

Check it out

Hermès × Tokujin Yoshioka

awesome window displays!

-joo

CHECK IT OUT!

http://www.good.is/post/apple-s-genius-idea-donating-your-old-ipad-to-teach-for-america-classrooms/


-gilad

what is your MEANING as a designer?

check out this info-graphic type thing

its kinda cartoonish and strange in terms of visuals but the content is really great.

http://awesome.good.is/misc/1002/what-does-meaningful-mean/index.html

Public Works (a little something for everyone...)

So I stumbled across this website, and thought it was really relevant for quite a few of your projects. It's a community center of sorts in San Francisco that basically functions as an artists' workshop and gallery by day, and as a music venue by night.

• This page shows their space, so you can start to get a sense of how it's multi-functional, flexible space that adapts for various programmatic needs.
• This page has images from events held there...it looks like they're mostly concerts, but there was at least one fashion show hosted by a boutique. I think I had read somewhere that they had a pop-up shop there, too, so there is the potential for retail in a venue like this.

Anyways, I just thought this example had so much in it...

Joo: Check out the website! Their use of the cube reminded me of your programming document. I also thought it was interesting to look at how they handled the notion of transforming space for various artists, events, etc.

Ellie: This is an interesting example of a music venue that supports/promotes local music artists and creates a community around its music.

Gilad: This an example of a community center that supports artists by providing them a work space and gallery. I don't think they're technically a non-profit, but they do say they support another non-profit.

Sara: The pictures of their space when it's empty reminded me sort of of the warehouse-type setting that you were envisioning aiaiai going in to.

-- Kristin.

we should get a water fountain on our floor.

3-D Food Printing

Someone brought this up at one time during studio. Edible space shuttles - hurray for Cornell!

A nation devoted to fonts!?

www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

if your going to make infographics, read this

this is a critique on infographics. they are haters. but this is good.
by exposing some of the flaws of infographics and some of their shortcomings, we as designers can now incorporate these into our own design to make infographics that are GOOD.

http://www.good.is/post/the-infographic-that-spoofs-infographics/

Light info-graphics

http://vimeo.com/20412632

eat house

one way to lure customers is to tempt them with food

eat-me-house

example of transforming/temporary architecture

so you've probably alreasdy seen this, but in case you haven't

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

don't get too depressed

-Carolina

One more

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/www_glennz_com-Tee-Designs/149088

This is really cool

http://www.dailydawdle.com/2011/02/awesome-fake-pool-you-can-walk-into-pic.html

ALSO USE THIS

http://www.zotero.org/


Its a browser plug-in, I use it for firefox but it might work for others. It basically tracks your internet research. As you find a site you like, you add it to a folder of citations that zotero automatically creates for you. Its basically glorified bookmarking, but it saves all the information you would need for a citation including when you accessed the site.

Procrastinate Productively

http://www.stumbleupon.com/home/

In case you're not familiar with it already. It basically works as random website generator. I was thinking that if you're looking for cool ideas about your topic, you can focus the stumbleupon search to come up with only the category of sites that you're looking for, whether its fashion, indie rock/pop, or exotic pets.

-Sara

interesting perspectives

transformation

and this website is really great-watch the videos + various projects at the left bar:

materials technologies
-a

retail stores

eye candy + campaign

(lots of projects...check out both pages)

-alfred

Architect Barbie

http://toyxplosion.com/tag/barbie-i-can-be-architect/

I am sharing this mostly for your enjoyment, because it really amused me...

...but the more I thought about it, it actually is a really interesting example of branding. It says that they collaborated with the AIA to make sure the doll was an authentic portrayal of the architecture profession. They've certainly gotten some of the stereotypes down, but it really isn't an accurate representation. It's almost like the Barbie brand and the brand of the architecture profession have collided, and each have had to make concessions. A doll that truly portrayed the architecture profession would not have meshed with Barbie's brand, so the result is a Barbie-branded doll infused with some allusions to the architecture profession.

-- Kristin.

Chanel Mobile Art Container

This is an interesting project by Zaha Hadid and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, for anyone interested in the whole fashion/art/architecture flavor of retail. It reminded me of the Prada transformer.

http://www.chanel-mobileart.com/?lang=en_eu




This article gives a little more info. about it, and has a more straightforward slideshow of pictures (since the actual website for the mobile art container is kind of far out): http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/chanel200806?currentPage=1

-- Kristin.

Awesome product packaging

Hi all, thought you guys would enjoy this! (in light of sara's awesome headphone packaging)

www.youthedesigner.com/2010/11/01/30-bizarre-and-creative-packaging-design-examples/

-Morielle

create the impossible.

how do you spin?

NEWS AND RESEARCH

check this out, it's an infographic of Obama's new budget.

its cool because it shows you all the info at a glace, u can just look at it very quickly and get a general idea of how stuff is spent but if u look more closely there is a lot of information layered into the graphic.

so check it out, it's a cool infographic and its good to know how your own country is spending it money.

also pay attention to the colors- notice what obama has chose to cut funding to.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/index.html?hp

If you're having trouble choosing colors...

...or just want a laugh, Ken Nordine was well known for "word jazz". I'm pretty sure he has a whole album with different colors. Also I like the use of text in this video :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIrCizE_678

shopping prototypes / retail concepts

http://www.vimeo.com/10350126

I am going to highly recommend that you guys watch this video when you have the chance to think about your client... I hope it might speak to some of you as you are thinking about your ideas about a retail space and brand identity...Just watch to the 8:55 mark...rest of it he talks of examples you cannot even see.

(you don't even really have to watch the video... just listen to the audio. hopefully his voice is not too boring for you all)

REALLY WORTH IT! JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM WORK AND WATCH THIS!

AND IT RELATES TO RETAIL!!

IF YOU JUST WATCHED THAT VIDEO BELOW, "THE FUTURE OF REVENUE" PLEASE READ THIS WHOLE THING- IT'S IMPORTANT YOU KNOW THE TRUTH!

The video starts by talking about the greatness of scientific managment, invented by Frederick windslow Taylor, but it fails to mention that taylor also brought about the demise of skilled labor by breaking down every possible production process into simple tasks. His invention was the assembly line, and although we see it as a novel concept it was the most innovative idea anyone had come up with EVER in relation to production. It was “the science of production”.
Unfortunately this science had some horrible after effects. Think about what we just saw today in the video Alfred showed us… the guy outlined three essential characteristics that make “better” workers; Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. How do you think someone feels who stands on an assembly line all day screwing a screw into a bolt for 8 hours a day… every day… for years. Not much autonomy. And not much pride in the mastery of such a simple task and defiantly no sense of purpose.
Taylorism was a catalyst for the growth business AND the beginning of the fall of autonomy, mastery and purpose. (we're JUST NOW realizing this and trying to get back to it)

But we must recognize what the assembly line did for us.. just as the video shows, it allowed for Ford Motors to produce cars for everyone… those same cars that are destroying our environment with pollution and destroying our economy through our dependence on oil (not to mention starting wars over oil prices- yes that’s the real reason for the war in Iraq- if you don’t believe me go watch “Fahrenheit 9-11”).

Oh and it wasn’t just ford motors… like the video says this allowed Henry Ford to “reap the financial rewards of his market”. Yes, that’s exactly what this did, it gave one man WAY too much money. This soon became quite appealing to other businessmen and before long we created an elite class of super-rich businessmen and a resulting HUGE class of poor working class families.
Great, I’m so glad taylor invented the assembly line.

So lets move on… yes the japan example was good, and it’s true, japan was very smart and they did some great work with Toyota, the video is correct there.

Next the video talks about wal-mart, I don’t think I have to say anything, we all know Wal-Mart is evil and would eat your children for breakfast if it could.

But more to the point… because all that was just about the history of revenue, the video is really all about the future of revenue…

So this concept of RPM… yea, that’s the future of FAILURE as a society.
No I’m not stupid, I understand that RPM actually works, but what is it working FOR?
It’s working to drive up revenue in our economy, its working to build larger corporations who control more of the world. It’s working to help greedy corporations come up with smart ideas to trick consumers into buying more shit they don’t need.

OK I'M NOT A TOTAL DEBBIE-DOWNER
I agree 100% with the message that “ideas matter”. Ideas are the most important thing in the world. But it’s also important to constantly be critical of what people are telling you and weed out the truth. Don’t be fooled, revenue is evil, we need ideas to help us evolve to an economy that is no longer based on revenue but rather based on ideas.

This is exactly what we were learning from the video Alfred showed us today- it’s not all about money. You pay people more and performance goes down! We need ways to promote Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose both in the workplace and among the people of the world (i.e. the consumers). I’m not saying I know how to do this, but I am saying that pushing for more revenue is not the way. And that’s what captain planet has to say! haha

p.s. sorry for shooting down your video Ellie, but its actually really good that you posted it because it can help us think of new ideas. And I really do love it’s central message that ideas are what drive the world. I hope I didn’t insult you or anything I just wanted to point out all the history behind the claims it was making.

-gilad

Unrelated, just cool.

http://www.noteslate.com/#

-Sara

Really Awesome Short Animation about the Future of Revenue

just watch.

ellie

212box

http://www.212box.com/

This is an architecture/product/graphic/etc. design firm's website, but it could be interesting to look at as you are thinking about how to diagram your e-retailers three-dimensionally. Even though it's not a store, it's interesting to see how they've graphically depicted your movement through their site using the notion of a box. They've basically diagrammed their portfolio of work in 3D.  I thought it was a really interesting take for a design firm's website, and their approach might be helpful to look at as you are toying with form for your models.

--Kristin.

IF YOU'RE AT ALL INTERESTED IN ART THEN THIS IS FOR YOU...

WATCH THIS VIDEO AND THEN CHECK OUT KICKSTARTER.COM

http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2010/summit/WP/2010/10/10/kickstarter/

Summit_2010 - Kickstarter from creativetime on Vimeo.

then check out kickstarter.com

non-profit + retail = monster supplies store

Hoxton Street Monster Supplies – Purveyor of Quality Goods for Monsters of Every Kind.

An intriguing case study about a children's writing center (NON-PROFIT) which is housed behind this "monster shop" front.  Not only does the retail store act as a source of inspiration and thought (and humor) for the children, but serves to create funds for the writing center. 
http://www.ministryofstories.org/#about-the-mos 


This whole notion is based off the 826-National (i think this may be a UK spin-off of that concept) -- a non profit organization dedicated to creating one-on-one children's writing workshops.   Interestingly enough, the retail component is a large factor in this organization... each of their "workshops" has an "atypical" retail space associated with it.  http://826national.org/chapters/

Also, I believe the door to the workshop is hidden behind one of the display shelves for snot or brains...


-Alfred

collaborative folder readings... online??

So this is a message more for alfred and kristin...

I was wondering if there was any way we could start posting the readings and slides from the collaborative folder online, either on this blog or on some other site, that way we could read them from home too. or does this already exist? as of now can you only access the collaborative folder through a computer in MVR?

-gilad

HOW COULD THIS BE RETAIL??

i want to make a retail environment that is going to in someway, and hopefully more than one way, improve the community that it exists in. How could this be possible?

I'm NOT talking about "improving the community" by putting in a local fresh food grocery like green-star that's going to "improve" the community because it's helping residents eat healthier food on a lower budget and helping a local business succeed. Yes, i admit that that would be helping the community in some way but that is a very consumer-centered way of helping. It wouldn't be really directly helping the people, it would only be indirectly helping them through their food consumption.

I'm talking about something a little more radical. I want to make a retail environment that somehow going to play a role in localized behavior modification. How can a retail space change the people of the town? and more importantly how could it do this and STILL make money?

I've been toying around a lot with the idea of a non-profit (501-c3) organization that decides to open a retail space to promote and further it's cause. If it got 501-c3 status if would be tax-exempt so the operating costs could be lower. And if it was also some sort of community involvement center we could attract people to the space. And what if somehow there were things that people came to the space to make and then donated them to sell to others.

the first idea that comes to my mind is some sort of community art gallery, where you come to do art, all the supplies are provided for you, but you can't take what you make, instead everything you make is a donation to the center. And then once a week there is an "opening" and a director/curator of the space gets to choose which pieces are hung up, and they are all for sale. even the ones that dont get hung up are all in a big file/folder that you can look through and they would all be for sale a lower cost. The idea would be that all the art is sold at a cost that is lower than normal, so that more people could buy it and as a result young emerging artist could get their work sold and become more recognized.  and maybe if (as i imagine this would happen) the selling of the art couldnt generate enough money to cover operating costs, then local coffee/bakery/delis could own a small part of the space, pay a percentage of the operating costs/rent and that way while you were coming to spend time in this space you coudl also get some coffee or food.

But i feel like that's not enough. there needs to be something else, because i'm thinking about a retail space that's going to REALLY help the community on a larger scale. What else could a place like this have, how else could it improve the community?

i found this..http://www.spatialagency.net/database/mess.hall
This is about as close as i have found yet to something that already exists like what i'm thinking of.
i like the idea of also using the space as exhibition space for a variety of things. anyone in the community can "rent" it out for a certain amount of time to show anything they want, at the discretion of the "owners"

another place i really like is http://www.anothercupdevelopment.org/projects
they are a non-profit centered around the idea of involving the community and fostering education.
but how could you make a place like this also retail?

I think it would be really tough because part of the whole basis of a place like that is that it's NOT-FOR-PROFIT. So it defeats the purpose if you're then selling things there? But what really is "retail"? we said it could be selling a service... so both of those places are selling a service, a service and a place... so does retail HAVE to be for profit?

WHAT ABOUT A RETAIL SPACE THAT DOESNT MAKE ANY MONEY?
IS IT STILL RETAIL IF IT DOESNT CHARGE MONEY FOR THE THINGS IT "SELLS"???

TWO QUESTIONS-
1- what do you think of this idea? what else could a space like this do to truly help the community and spur on positive socio-cultural change? how else could it generate more money as a retail space? Do you think it would even work at all?
2- have you heard of or seen any places at all like this? please let me know if you have.

-gilad

THE FUTURE OF ROADS!!!

definitely worth watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep4L18zOEYI&feature=player_embedded

SO YOU STILL THINK THE INTERNET IS FREE?

This is cool little site, both for the information it conveys and the diagrams it uses to convey them.

http://yuxiyou.net/open/

I think it's interesting to note how clean-cut and modern the entire site looks (kinda almost looks like someone from Apple designed it) and yet most of it is white space and the graphics are all very simple, any one of us could make them in illustrator in less than an hour. I think this just goes to show how a website's overall composition doesn't need to be super detailed in order for it to be visually appealing and functional.

Also think about what the goal of this website was and how that relates to its design. I would venture to guess that the designer's goal was to convey this information to as many people as possible. He/she did this very well by
1- making the navigation of the sire extremely simple (you jsut scroll down or you click a down button that scrolls down for you), thereare no links or other things crowding up the site, it's clear that there is only one thing the website is going to tell you about no distractions.
2- using graphics that were extremely simple and EXTREMELY readable. you dont have to have a college degree to understand what each graphic is telling you. this is very well executed translation from information to graphic.

Branding + Bar Codes

I know you all are handing in your typologies assignment today, so this is purely for your enjoyment. I came across a cool project that might be of interest to the branding and bar codes groups (and everyone else, too!).

A graphic design firm took a look at cigarette packaging and explored how un-branding them and instead introducing barcodes could make them look less appealing.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663163/can-removing-cigarette-branding-discourage-smokers

The article goes into detail about the thinking behind it, so you can read it if your interested. They talk about this in the article, but the part I find fascinating is that after this very intentional exercise to make cigarettes less appealing, the packages still actually look really cool.

Sidenote: Build, the graphic design firm behind this, has some pretty interesting work. They're from the UK. I had heard of them before because they designed the awesome logo for the documentary "Objectified." (!)


-- Kristin.

INFORMATION GRAPHICS

So I came across this information graphics blog. Just some ideas to ponder on. =)

http://www.oberholtzer-creative.com/visualculture/

-Cerise

DESIGN FOR THE GREATER GOOD

So i'm really interested in what i tried to get that guy to talk about at the end of our discussion- how can we as designers design things to improve the world? But more realistically, how can we do that while taking into account that fact that we live IN the world, in a capitalist economy where we can only be successful if what we do can also generate money for either ourselves or our clients. Any thoughts? Ideas? He seemed to sort of avoid the question when i asked him. What do you think? how could you design a retail environment to both make a profit (or at least make enough to operate) and also do "good". I've been thinking about some sort of community center that improves the town. like what if you brought together a bunch of local companies in one building to create some sort of "ithaca business union". I got the idea from the research on Warehouses and Wholesale Clubs... they started in Europe with the idea of bringing multiple local retailers together so customers could easily come and buy everything in one place. Maybe we could do this in collegetown so that cornell students could support the local economy more directly. maybe this could even go in green cafe? think about how many times you want to buy some good fresh local food or some small gifts or anything else you can buy downtown or in the commons but you simply dont have the time or the car to get down there. So instead you buy stuff at wilson farms. maybe this could work? comments, ideas??


Maybe the problem is that we are looking at the whole process from teh wrong perspective. We see ourselves as designers who are creative and insightful and can come up with these great ideas to design for everyone else to use. I've been taking some classes in CRP and it's really interesting to learn how the institution of planning evolved and i think that it can relate to this whoel idea of designing for the greater good. Planning is currently viewed by many academics and professionals (the good ones anyways) as almost more akin to managing. They would call planners "facilitative leaders"- they work with various different groups to find out what the important issues are and then they apply their expertise to help aid the process. The basic idea is that it's neither a top-down approach of "we are the planners and we are going to plan for you" now a bottom-up approach of "let the people decide everything because thats who we're planning for" but rather a delicate balance of the two. Planners must understand what the people want and what they think and how they feel because they are the ones that the planning is being done for, BUT at the same time planners must recognize that they have a lot of knowledge and expertise that the people dont, and they should use this knowledge and the skills they have to aid the entire process of planning. On the broader scale, it's not just the people who are being planned for that are of the planners' concern, they must also worry about the government who controls operations, the architects who design what is made, the business owners and various otehr stakeholders who have a say in what goes on, and many other groups who are in some way or another involved in the whole process. The planner must mediate between all of these groups and figure out a way to make everything come together.

So why can't we as designers use this same framework to design for the greater good? why can't we incorporate the social sciences into design? It would make sense... we are in fact, at the end of the day, designing for people. so wouldn't it make sense to have a deeper understanding of people? I think we need to broaden the scope of design to include more fields.
This relates to the fast growing notion of information networks and systems of collaboration. There is a multitude of information in the world that we as humans know. We have evolved to become specialists in literally millions of different fields. There is so much knowledge collectively among us and yet it is not shared enough. The future of knowledge is not more information but rather connecting all the information we already have. And it seems to me like design is the key to doing this.

-Gilad

INTERESTING TIMELINE LAYOUTS

HOW IT WORKS....

Ok so this is pretty straightforwards...

If you want to post something on this blog you must first sign in using our studio gmail account.
studiotalks@gmail.com  
password: studiotalks123

Every post will be from the user "studiotalks" so if you want to post annonymously, go right ahead and post. If you want people to know it was you, just add your name at the bottom of your post.
-gilad

A LITTLE DIFFERENT FOR COMMENTING 

You do not have to sign in to comment on posts. 


When you go to comment on a post you can choose from a dropdown menu, you can comment as either as "studio talks" - meaning it is essentially an anonymous post because there's no way to tell who wrote it since it shows up simply as "studio talks"
OR, you can choose "name/url" from the dropdown menu and type whatever name you want into the name box (you dont need to put anything in the url box)

THIRD OPTION- you can also sign into your own gmail account and post that way.
(if you look at the comments on the first post you'll see the third on is "Alfred" thats because Alfred was signed into his own gmail account and then commented on a post)


REVIEW:
you must sign in to studiotalks@gmail.com (password studiotalks123) in order to post
you do not have to sign in in order to comment
when commenting use the dropdown menu to control your  privacy.


dont forget to feed the fish by clicking on them at the top of the blog!!

Lets see if this works!

check out this studio, one of the most famous in the world and they do absolutly amazing work

http://rpbw.r.ui-pro.com/

thats the man, Renzo himself