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Everyone has Ideas, How You Execute them is What Matters
2008-02-24 17:01:00
Image by: Jane Fellow designer blogger KK has uncovered a great representation on the value of ideas in relation to a success of a business. Derek Sivers, in his post for O’Reilly, conceptualises an idea vs. execution formula, which I have reproduced here. Sivers writes: It?s so funny when I hear people being ...
More About: Ideas , Business , Creativity , Matters

Modu?s Modular Mobile Phones
2008-02-21 13:00:00
Image collage from Modu Recently we covered Bug Lab's modular mobile phone, where it was essentially a CPU "brain" that you can attach modules that you would purchased as you require it. Modu's modular mobile phones takes this same concept but looks at it from another point of view. They start with a fully functional "brain" unit, and you then buy sleeves or what Modu calls "Jackets" which you slide the modular phone brain into it.
More About: Mobile , Mobile Phones , Phones , Industrial Design

Nokia?s Mobile Phone Strategy
2008-02-20 13:00:00
Alec Saunders has written a great article on Nokia 's mobile phone product strategy. While the article just touches on Industrial Design, he gives good examples on how product strategies, combined with a good understanding of the consumer, is used to drive innovative designs for Nokia.
More About: Mobile , Phone , Mobile Phone , Strategy

Celebrate Ubiquitous and Unsung Designs with this Iconic Sugar Shaker
2008-02-19 13:00:00
Image by: KAREN TAPIA-ANDERSEN / Los Angeles Times With, over 35 Million sold with just as many copies I'm sure, this Sugar Shaker is, according to Bill Stern an Art Historian, "the very essence of modernism, a perfect meld of function and form."
More About: Celebrate , Industrial Design , Designs

The Power of a Recommendation Gets Things Your Way
2008-02-18 15:54:00
We designers have got it tough. We seem to get blamed for almost everything these days. From seemingly lack of sustainable efforts to poor packaging or just lousy product experiences, we seem to cop it all. However the reality is we cannot and should not feel as we are entirely to blame.
More About: Power , Things , Recommendation

Get your own Human Powered Fred Flintstone Car Right Here!
2008-02-14 12:00:00
Image collage from Ecoble Check out this amazing and inspirational feat of engineering called The Human Car. A human powered car that is I am sure inspired by the famous Flintstone mobiles.
More About: Fred

Why can?t Everyone be like Apple and Other Nonsense
2008-02-11 16:46:00
I recently stumbled on a post by David Pogue, a technology columnist for The New York Times, who wrote a scathing post on how manufacturers today are not "Designing What?s Right for Consumers". While I agree with some of his points, I can't help coming away feeling that this post just gives the wrong impression. It is pretty obvious that Pogue spends a lot of time playing with products (check out the list of Apple How-to books!), but the news flash is (no pun intended), playing with products is a lot different from making them.
More About: Nonsense

Gong Xi Fa Chai!
2008-02-10 02:20:00
Image by sheilaz413 Here is wishing you a happy and prosperous Year of the Rat! On the side note, I like to let all of you know that my sabbatical in Sydney is more or less over and that I have moved back to Singapore. The last month was a crazy haze of late nights packing ...
More About: Gong , Chai

Awesome new Motion Controller may just kill the Nintendo Wii
2008-02-06 16:32:00
Motus Games, a subsidiary of Motus Corporation, has developed the Darwin Controller of which they tout is the future of Motion Based Entertainment, and the natural evolution of the Wii Controller. Using their R&D experience in developing motion sensing gear used in Golf and Medial applications, the Darwin Controller is apparently a lot more refined in the sensing of your motion thus giving you true 6 degrees of freedom.
More About: Nintendo , Nintendo Wii , Awesome , Industrial Design

How we give birth to a Gadget?
2008-02-04 03:04:00
Image: Courtesy of Seagate Wired Magazine has done a case study on the Industrial Design creation of the Free Agent portable hard drive between Seagate and Frog Design. While I had high hopes in getting a closer look at Frog Design's Industrial Design process, the article does not quite hit the mark.
More About: Gadget , Birth , Give

Microsoft wants Yahoo for $44.6 BILLION!
2008-02-01 13:07:00
Breaking news! Just 5 mins ago from The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft announced that they have made a bid to buy Yahoo for USD$ 44.6 Billion , $0.4 Billion less than their 50 Billion bid in early 2007. Microsoft Corp. Friday offered to buy Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion, a move designed to pick ...
More About: Yahoo!

Share your Favourite Creation Moment on Lego?s 50th Birthday!
2008-01-30 10:33:00
A Happy Birthday Lego meme! Image From: Gizmodo Being extra busy early this week, I totally missed taking a "moment" on January 28 to wish Lego a Happy 50th Birthday! Check out the very cool time-line above created by Gizmodo, and their collection of "Best Lego Sets in History"!
More About: Share , Moment , Creation

Do these Award Winning Designs Infringe Patents?
2008-01-28 16:52:00
An interesting discussion between KK, the designer of the Chronotebook, and Scott a designer cum patent agent, has highlighted a potentially huge problem with concept design awards such as Muji Award s 02 and Red-Dot Concept.
More About: Patents , Winning , Designs

Finally a PC that Every Designer has Dreamed About!
2008-01-26 00:41:00
Check out this very clever Napkin PC designed by Avery Hollerman that is perfect for collaborating designers. Using e-ink and RF technology it allows designers to draw in colour and skip the very tedious stage of transferring the sketch into a digital format. Just perfect. Hang on I said that already! ...
More About: Designer , Finally , Industrial Design

Good Design Award 2007!
2008-01-23 17:01:00
What a nice way to end 2007 and roll into 2008 with a flying start! My team and I have won a Good Design Award 2007 from the The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for our Dragon Electrostatic Speaker Product Range. This product was also recently featured in Wired ...

How I Simplified My Life and Became a More Efficient Designer
2008-01-21 11:34:00
What a Mess! About 5 or 6 months ago, I decided that I needed to simplify my life. Due to a lot of diverse interests and that little bit of an overachiever in me, I have a bad habit of taking on and doing more than I can actually handle. Furthermore, the fact that I tend to lose interests in things very quickly or jump around on different projects does not help me one bit at all. Coupled with the stresses of my job, I was just flat out overloaded! Mentally I was stretched and constantly tired. This was because I often had anywhere from 15 to 20 projects to attend too at any one time. My fitness went down hill as it became a vicious cycle of my mental tiredness preventing me from getting out of the house for exercise. As a result I got nothing much done and learnt a painful lesson that I, like many other humans, do not multi-task very well.
More About: Life , My Life , Designer , Simplified , Efficient

Jonathan Ive, Design Genius or Something Else?
2008-01-19 06:18:00
Image Source: Gizmodo There is an uncanny resemblance between the great work of Dieter Rams to the work of Jonathan Ive head of Industrial Design at Apple.
More About: Industrial Design , Genius

MacBook Air : Disgustingly Thin
2008-01-16 08:01:00
Disgustingly thin images from apple.com I hate to say it, but I think its time for me to cross over. Not because of its disgustingly thin form factor, but the way it is optimized for wireless network and the increased usability in its touch pad that is very similar to the gesture features found on ...
More About: Macbook , Macbook Air

Friend Wheel : A Visual Representation of How my Friends are Connected on F
2008-01-15 12:45:00
I’m always a sucker for cool graphical representations of data such as the Website Graph Generator. Thus one of my favourite reads is “Information Aesthetics“, a website focusing on such data visualizations. Therefore I recently had a pleasant surprise when I discovered the Friend Wheel application on Facebook. How it works is ...
More About: Friends , Visual , Connected

8 Important Consumer Trends to Look Out for in 2008
2008-01-13 01:53:00
Early this year I wrote about the Top 5 consumer trends to watch for 2007 and how it relates to Industrial Design. Following tradition, here we go again for 2008 , and this time it is a little earlier and hopefully will help all of us be a better prepared in our never ending push ...
More About: Trends , Consumer

Bill Gates says Good Bye
2008-01-10 04:43:00
This year’s 2008 CES Keynote speech is Bill Gates ’ twelfth and his last as a Microsoft Employee (he is still the Chairman though). He says: “This will be my last keynote. As of July, I will no longer be a full-time Microsoft employee. Since I was 17 I’ve had a full-time ...
More About: Good

Design Sojourn will be Under Maintenance (Completed!)
2008-01-09 11:47:00
Edit: Done! Design Sojourn's Wordpress backbone has been upgraded to the latest version 2.3.2. There were some plug-ins that needed updating, but overall it was quick and easy. Wordpress scores top marks in its ease of use. Well done people and thanks.
More About: Maintenance

The Biggest Hinderance to Innovation in an Organization is?
2008-01-04 17:01:00
The CEO! Bruce Nussbaum, the person that I see playing an important role in bridging the gap between design/innovation and business, offers up his “Top Ten Innovation Mistakes”. While a good read in general, I find his first point is by far the most important and salient. 1) CEO sloth. There?s no ...
More About: Organization , Organ

Networking Design Sojourn with Social Networks
2008-01-02 17:01:00
I rarely like signing up with social networks as many like Hi-5 or perhaps MySpace, do not reflect well on the Design Sojourn brand. However, a few months ago, I could not help signing up on one after reading about the newly re-designed Facebook, and their web strategy that just screams “Innovation”! ...
More About: Social , Networking , Social Networks , Networks

Happy 2008!
2008-01-01 06:58:00
Image Source: Pinoy Sydneysider Happy New Year EVERYONE! In the spirit of the New Year I like to reflect back at some of Design Sojourn’s more significant events, and then take some time to explore our road forward with this blog’s New Year’s resolutions. Significant events at Design Sojourn in 2007 It’s been a fairly decent ...
More About: 2008

25 Bad Habits of Industrial Designers
2007-12-25 17:01:00
Image: Thumbs Down by CraigPJ About time I got to this one and I though it makes a great post to face the year end with!
More About: Habits , Industrial , Designers , Bad Habits , Habit

Merry Christmas to all Readers!
2007-12-17 14:50:00
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Image: Baubles *Merry Christmas * by Chris Jones Christmas is something very special for my family, and I’m sure for yours as well. It will thus come as no surprise that I have been pretty busy gearing up for it by wrapping up programs for the year, ...
More About: Readers , Merry Christmas

Mechanical Critters, an Interview with Chico Bicalho
2007-12-11 05:45:00
About 6 months ago I discovered the work of Brazilian designer Chico Bicalho in, of all places, the Artist village of Leura in the Blue Mountains of Australia. I was in a rush, but the mechanical critter's uniqueness probed my consciousness, and drove me to seek out the designer of this wonderful product.
More About: Interview , Critters , Mechanical

Workout that Portfolio baby!
2007-12-05 01:18:00
I have always felt and encouraged designers to update their trusty (probably rusty) portfolios at least every 6 months. While many designers feel that they should only update their portfolios when they are looking for new work or job hunting, I find there are another few reasons why it should be done more frequently.
More About: Baby , Portfolio , Workout

Is the Amazon Kindle Product 2.0?
2007-12-03 02:30:00
Image Source: Newsweek via engadget The latest buzz on the Internet comes in the form of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. I had first initially dismissed it as another e-book reader, but with time it has come to interestingly reminds me of the good old "Internet Appliance" product that was all the rage in the late 1990's. Launched about 2 weeks ago, it was, according to Engadget, sold out in 5.5 hours!
More About: Product , Amazon Kindle