We walked up the MTR underground station stairs, both of us carrying our 20kg bags and cursing our jet lagged brains for not keeping up with our legs. A wall of humid heat hit us and before we knew it we were out in the open, standing on Kweilin Street, Hong Kong. Of course we […]
Hong Kong and beyond…
So I’m sitting here in a tidy room, bag packed, passport ready. I leave for Hong Kong in 5 hours and will be in the East for almost 4 months. I’ll be working at Mattel for 3 months with onward journeys to Thailand and Japan. I won’t kid you around, I’m pretty dam excited. This […]
Experience makes the product
A new article posted on Core77 has challenged the creation of artifacts in design, instead arguing that designing an experience is of top importance, with everything simply aiding the interaction process that someone has with that experience. Peter Merholz talks about the success of Kodak, Apple and TiVo as prime examples of a company […]
Design: What we can learn from Africa
Africa fades in and out of the limelight pretty regularly. Reporters report on the awful deaths and killings in the Middle East but reports on the thousands dying from AIDs, war and famine every week are fading and distant. Africa is a thorn in the western worlds side, a technicality that is only of importance […]
Meet Mr Woo: ‘This farmer grows robots’
Channel Five in the UK is currently having a special on China, showing a range of documentaries and films about the nation and its history. One such program is Paul Merton In China. For those who aren’t familiar with Mr Merton, you can catch him on Have I Got News For You in the UK […]
The ‘no brand’ brand
Branding is ‘the’ buzzword of the 21st Century. It is the consumer’s bible by which we live by to distinguish what is ‘right’ about certain products and services and what is ‘wrong’. Branding is there to create a connection with our inner selves, and just as we as humans are infinitely varied and different, so […]
Giving ‘design’ the middle finger
Recently I walked into a very well known and established design shop while in Amsterdam called Frozen Fountain. Built in the old part of town, it stands right on the edge of a canal, busy with a variety of boats chugging by like cars on a busy urban street. The converted house extends high into […]
Designing the Super Normal
In the first few weeks of April I had the opportunity to go to the Milan Design Week and run around the city manically trying to find and look at everything there was to see. Whether it was fate or pure luck I don’t know but I managed to wonder into La Triennale di Milano […]
Design is Art’s lost child
Recently I had to get my car MOT’ed and pay it’s road tax which meant having to check it in at a mechanics and basically wait to hear what they can find at fault with it. (Yeh, I know I’m cynical). While I waited I spent a quiet morning in a small park just sitting […]
design blogs become the judges
Design blogs and their readers have chosen for their favourite designs at the Design Blogfest 2007. The winner (above) is Indoor Vegetable Furniture by Judy Hoysak and is a great bit of simple thinking with something really innocent and unpretentious about it. I also really liked the runner up, the Corona-Matic by Chris Dimino. Reminds […]