Category Archives: Design

Sand Glass traffic light uses LEDs to intuitively prompt stop, ready & go states

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The fact that this concept took this long to come up with is a bit sad.  And the other fact that it hasn’t been installed in busy roads is even worse.  Try to wrap your head around the Sand Glass traffic light designed by Thanva Tivawong.  Its design is inspired by the hour glass, the physical object and the famous Windows “wait” mouse icon.  Implementing the hour glass concept into the traffic light is genius, really.  Brightly lit LED pixels change color (red, yellow, green) to designate wait, ready, and go, respectively–we’re used to that already.  When it acts like an hour glass, drivers can get a more precise sense of almost exactly when the traffic light will change states.  The designer also included a countdown timer; the yellow state will read “3, 2, 1” when its about to change color to green and prompt the driver to “go” or change to red and prompt “stop”.  This is a concept that needs to become a reality!  We like having a sense of progress status, don’t we?  Look in the gallery below for more conceptual visuals.

[Via YankoDesign; Engadget]

Fluid Dress

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The Fluid Dress was designed by Minneapolis artist Charlie Bucket.  This highly inventive and unconventional piece of garment was constructed with 600 feet of knitted tubing.  In order to keep the juices flowing, the wearer must strap on a rather hefty backpack contraption; the backpack houses a pump that pushes the neon-enhanced fluid into the dress’ tubing.  Bucket acknowledges that the Fluid Dress is a “ridiculous clothing experiment”, but it nevertheless makes for intriguing wearable art.  Head over to his Flickr page to see some construction images.

[Via CasualProfanity; BoingBoing]

Social Network Sneakers

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Check out these “social network sneakers” designed by Gerry Mckay for Adidas.  These are purely conceptual sneaker designs for now.  If people start demanding these be produced for consumption, Adidas can give the go ahead to make it happen.  Though various blogs are hatin’ on the very idea of a sneaker based on a social networking website, I happen to find the designs extremely attractive.

Mckay’s idea is to merge the classic Adidas Superstar sneaker (which celebrated 35 years in 2006) with Twitter and Facebook branding.  The Twitter Superstar features the recognizable light blue color scheme and Twitter ‘bird’ logo as a “visual element.”  The Facebook Superstar is inspired by Facebook’s dark blue on white color scheme and it features the Facebook type logo at the heel of the shoe and on the tongue beneath the Adidas logo.  On the inside wall of the shoe two Facebook slogans read: Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you” & “Making the world open and connected”.

Take a closer look at the Superstar sneaker designs in the gallery below.  Sure, socially-inclined sneakers sound lame but these designs are simple, smart, and definitely appealing.

[Via Behance, here & here; BuzzFeed; Gizmodo]

Glass globe doorknob: neat idea, voyeuristically destructive

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In collaboration with UNION, a manufacturer of door handles and levers, architect Hideyuki Nakayama designed this glass globe doorknob.  Nakayama’s Room in a Glass Globe lets you “catch a glimpse of what appears to be another world, waiting for you to enter and join, but in fact is a reflection of the room on the other side of the door.”  I love the whole idea of peering into another dream-like world, but in reality this poetic doorknob is unfortunately introduces a major violation of privacy.

[Via MocoLoco; Gizmodo]

Fluorescent chandelier makes a cylindrical beauty

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Take a gander at this beautifully designed chandelier at Usher Hall, an art house located in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The chandelier was designed and developed by Speirs + Major, and their aim was “to design an integrated
approach to light, carefully concealing equipment and retaining the architectural integrity of the building.”  They succeeded in that goal with flying colors.  The contemporary chandelier is comprised of fluorescent tubes encased in 45 feet of acrylic cylinders and its core structure makes cable routing and maintenance a simple task.  A single shaft of light that forms the central axis of a spiral staircase; flip through the images in the gallery below and be amazed by its architectural ingenious.

[Via DesignBoom; Gizmodo]

Fireplace/HDTV combo is a winner

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Much like Helex’s I-Vision, firespace designer Safretti has beautifully integrated a fireplace with a flat-screen LCD HDTV.  The eco-friendly “Double Vision” setup includes an ethanol fireplace and can be installed with a 37-inch or 47-inch TV.  The mirrored design would fit right into any contemporary, modern home.  Creator Jan des Bouvrie says, “This specific design is a beautiful symbiosis between two products, each of which strengthens the other with force.”  Look in the gallery below for additional shots.

[Via Trendir; Safretti]

A ball of water in the palm of your hand

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UK-based photographer Edward Horsford specializes in high speed photography and one day decided to work with water balloons.  His motivation?  He is interested in “capturing a moment rarely seen and almost never captured.”  He admits that “[his] camera is really the least important part of the shots.”  So he uses a custom, Arduino-based flash trigger to produce specific lighting arrangements required to capture the water balloon at the precise point of explosion.  The timing of the flash is key; the aforementioned trigger picks up the sound of the balloon popping and flashes at what it thinks to be the most opportune moment.  Horsford must be a patient man.  And what might be considered the most impressive feat here?  He manages to do it all without any assistance; from setting up the trigger, to holding and popping the balloon, to taking the picture.  Impressive stuff, huh?  Look in the gallery below to find a few more of these high speed water balloon shots, and head over to Horsford’s Flickr page to view the entire collection.

[Via Gizmodo; NPR; DYIPhotography; Flickr]

Tiny walk sign dude comes to life in this light stencil animation

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If you liked iPad light painting you will love this light stencil animation.  “Subcarpati”, produced by Ionut Negrila and Mihai Calota, features an animated version of the walk sign man.  But you want to know how it was made.  The producers share that it took 5,313 pictures of 57 stencils, 3 different light sources, many calculations, measurements, and camera settings adjustments to make it happen.  They hope their video inspires the creatives of our world to push limits and produce some captivating work.  Look after the break to watch a brief behind-the-scenes look at the sheer amount of work that was required to make a stop motion video of this magnitude.

[Via Vimeo; Gizmodo] Continue reading Tiny walk sign dude comes to life in this light stencil animation →

OK Go’s latest music video stars 2,430 pieces of toast

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By now you should know that when it comes to making music videos, rock band OK Go never holds back.  From datamashing to Rube Goldberg-ing to training 12 dogs and a goat, OK Go knows how to wildly impress its fans by representing their music with imaginative and awe-inspiring visuals.  For their next experiment video, the band used–drum roll, please–toast.  But it’s not that simple!  Using a Samsung NX100 micro four-thirds camera they took pictures of 2,430 pieces of toast (or 215 loaves of bread) and effectively used the process of laser-etching and stop motion to tell a story.  They took 15 still shots for every second of video.  The animation stages must’ve been painstakingly difficult to produce, and yet there’s something quite beautiful about all of it and this helps direct your mind to the final aesthetic instead of towards the blood and sweat put into it.  As always, a nod of gratitude is due here.  These guys can do it all.

[Via OK Go website, Twitter, YouTube]

Halloween costume of the year goes to ‘I am 8-Bit’

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One Dan Liuzzi from Cleveland, Ohio “thought it would be funny to create a huge version of [his] own head and wear it” for Halloween this year.  So he decided to make an 8-bit version of his head and show it off on Halloween night.  This awesome piece of headgear likely provoked senses of awe instead of screams, however.  It’s made from insulation foam, joint compound, a cardboard box, glue, some gesso spray, and acrylic paint; that snazzy tie was purchased at ThinkGeek.  It took around 2-3 weeks to complete and Liuzzi calls it “pretty amatuer stuff.”  Can’t wait to see what he thinks up next!  Perhaps one day he may fully realize the 8-Bitinator 2000.  Look in the gallery below for more angles.

[Via DanLiuzzi; Likecool]

Oh, oh it’s magic: Watch the iPhone OS run on a 58-inch multitouch table

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A group of tinkerers have devised a way to hook up an iPhone 4 to a large multitouch surface to display and interact with the device’s interface like you’ve never seen before.  Making “Table Connect for iPhone” work is super simple.  All you need is a jailbroken iPhone 4 running a dedicated app, a 30-pin dock connector cable, and of course that gorgeous 58-inch multitouch table.  The iPhone plugs right into the 30-pin connector located at the base of the table and “immediately after it is attached, the magic starts to happen,” says the creators.  Watch said magic unfold in the video above, and look in the gallery below for some mockup stills.  For an alpha firmware the transition appears to be buttery smooth.

[Via TableConnectforiPhone; Engadget]