Perpenduum » Pragmatism

Recycled Houses

David Goligorsky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:23:33 +0000

The New York Times ran a slideshow of homes built by Dan Phillips. Mr. Phillips creates houses from salvaged materials ranging from branches to corks to wine bottles to picture frames. These are apparently low-income homes somewhere in Huntsville, TX but they look phenomenal. (Thanks for the tip, Molly.)

Honda Motocompo

David Goligorsky — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:56:53 +0000

Honda’s Motocompo was a 49cc two-stroke scooter that was designed to fit into the trunk of the Honda City back in 1981-83. It folds up into a little rectangle and it really lovely. The ad campaign at the time featured London ska band, Madness, and the marketing photos are priceless.

Peel P50: Smallest production car in history

David Goligorsky — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:54:37 +0000

Peel Engineering Company produced 50 of these microcars during the early 1960’s on the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom. They are the smallest cars ever to go into production. It’s got three wheels, one door, a 49cc engine with a three speed manual transmission. A Peel P50 could do 38 mph at max speed and weighed in at 130 lbs with a claimed fuel consumption of 100 miles to the gallon. Kind of amazing. Check out this article about the car in the Daily Mail. There have some great photos.

The Art of the Brilliant Product Extension

David Goligorsky — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:39:17 +0000

Vanilla Bicycles, a custom hand-built bicycle framebuilder, is known for doing everything right. They have raised the bar with Vanilla-branded pit boots for the cyclocross aficionado. Well played.

Spring 2009 Liu Lectures in Design at Stanford University

David Goligorsky — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:19:13 +0000

poster design by Andreas Brændhaugen
click on the poster to view a larger size

I’m really excited to present the lineup for this Spring’s David H. Liu Memorial Lecture Series in Design. All talks will begin at 8pm in building 320, room 105. Every lecture is free and open to the public!

Andy Spade will be speaking on Wednesday, April 15th. Spade had over a decade of experience with top advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, and TBWA/Chiat/Day managing accounts with companies such as Coca Cola, Evian, Reebok, Lexus, and Coach. He’s the branding and marketing man behind Kate Spade and Jack Spade (the companies that he and his wife created.) He has also been tapped to design the experiences of a number of companies including Delta’s Song Airlines and J. Crew retail experiment The Liquor Store. Spade’s latest project is Partners & Spade. It includes a highly conceptual retail experience in downtown Manhattan. Beyond all these business ventures, Spade is heavily involved in the art world. He is a patron to emerging artists, co-owner of a gallery, and curator of several exhibitions. Spade’s projects merge emotional branding, experience design, brilliant collaboration, and always a touch of surrealism.

Dr. Jonathan Cagan will be speaking on Monday, May 4th. Dr. Cagan is a co-director of the Masters in Product Development program at Carnegie Mellon and also the co-director for the school’s Center for Product Strategy and Innovation. He has the title of Barrett Ladd Professor in Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and holds appointments in the School of Design and Computer Science. He has expertise in product development and innovation methods for early stage product development. Both his design methods and computer-based design research have been applied in a variety of industries. Dr. Cagan is the author of two books: Creating Breakthrough Products (co-authored with Craig Vogel), and The Design of Things to Come (co-authored with Peter Boatwright and Craig Vogel). He has consulted with a variety of small and large companies in diverse areas on product development, brand strategy, and strategic planning. He is co-founder and chief technologist of DesignAdvance Systems, Inc., a company focused on developing CAD software for the early synthesis processes. Cagan teaches New Product Development at Carnegie Mellon and runs executive training sessions in small and large companies.

Alex Wipperfürth will be speaking on Thursday, May 21st. Wipperfürth is a partner at Dial House in San Francisco. He is the author of Brand Hijack, and the upcoming The Co-Creation Myth and The Fringe Manifesto. Dial House is part think-tank and part creative hot shop. The client list is diverse: from fringe (Napster, Doc Martens, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jones Soda, Red Stripe, Altoids) to cutting edge (Current TV, New Yorker Magazine) to blue chip (Diageo, IBM, P&G/Clorox, Toyota, Coca-Cola). Projects range from innovative strategy, innovative research, meaningful creative expressions with DIY production to brand innovation. In earlier work, Wipperfürth had interviewed actual cult members and people in “consumer cults” (like Apple or Harley-Davidson fanatics) and made fascinating insights about their similarities.

Mine Rescuer

David Goligorsky — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:43:15 +0000

dear mayor, put these all over town please

David Goligorsky — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:41:38 +0000

A fantastic bicycle rack with integrated pump in Copenhagen. (via Lugged Steel)

Sightings

David Goligorsky — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:05:56 +0000

It’s been a while since I did the last “Sightings.” I like the idea of it and I hope to do more posts like this. What do you think?

Parking placeholder in Palo Alto, CA

Tips from a pro

David Goligorsky — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:25:56 +0000

Wow. This little guy is remarkably articulate on the topic of ladies.

Take home message: “Pretty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil.”

How to Talk to Girls by Alec Greven (thanks, Peter!)

Internet Killed the Video Star

David Goligorsky — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:13:53 +0000

MTV posts every music video online!

This news comes as a surprise because I had thought that MTV had nothing to do with music since the mid-90’s. Maybe someone at headquarters found the key to that hitherto “secret closet” and discovered that they used to do music videos and thought it would be real “throw-back” to post them on the internet.

Sarcasm aside, good job. It’s amazing to have this archive available.

Robotic Lawn-Mowing Sheep

David Goligorsky — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:00:26 +0000

Check out this lumbering Styrofoam robotic remote-control lawnmower sheep from Carnegie Mellon:

If you need more Carnegie Mellon robots, check out my recent post on the Keepon.

Yeesh.

David Goligorsky — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:00:55 +0000

Swissmiss strikes again with more gold. Anti-theft lunch bag.

Leica D-LUX 4

David Goligorsky — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:24:10 +0000

Core77 mentioned the impending arrival of the new Leica D-LUX 4 as reported at Digital Photography Review. I use it’s predecessor, the Leica D-LUX 3, and I love the crisp optics, the macro option, the range of focal length in the optical zoom, the 16:9/3:2/4:3 aspect ratio options, the option to go fully or partially manual with aperture, shutter speed, and focus, and the Leica compact digitals are the most elegant-looking cameras in their class and price point (in my opinion). I have a few gripes about the usability design, including the lens cap, the arrangement of functions on the function wheel, the separate setting for macro auto-focus and normal auto-focus. My primary complaint, however, was the single lens strap attachment. It’s seemingly minor, but it is such a glaring issue in my opinion just because its faults are so apparent and the fix is so laughably simple. [Editor’s note: at this point, I had written a very long diatribe about this problem, but I realized that nobody wants to read my peeved product design venting, so I deleted it. Maybe someone does want to hear it. If so, leave a comment.] When photographers carry their cameras, they use their neck, not their wrist. See excellent t-shirt below for example.

With the D-LUX 4, Leica has improved the optics to allow wider angle photojournalist-style shots and provides for wider apertures to improve low-light photographs. In-camera color and contrast are fine tuned to simulate the image characteristics of Leica’s film cameras. Technical improvements aside, let’s take a look at the interface. The function wheel is now arranged without the playback mode, which was definitely a problem on the D-LUX 3. If you wanted to go from automatic (“A”) to an automatic mode with certain user-selected settings (Program Autoexposure: “P”), the camera would have to pass over the playback mode and the internal computer would get momentarily confused. The added hot-shoe on the D-LUX 4 is clutch. Most importantly, Leica added that second strap loop! Finally, Leica D-LUX users can carry their classy compact digital like they’ve always carried their cameras! I would genuinely consider swapping up to the D-LUX 4 for that feature alone. Fortunately, that option isn’t open to me yet because the D-Lux 4 still isn’t available.

Leica D-LUX 3

Leica D-LUX 4

Why hasn’t this been done already?

David Goligorsky — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:00:14 +0000

“U-Cap”, designed by Jeong Hoon Cha, has an eccentric shape to make it easier to manipulate screw-on caps. Has this been done before? (via Yanko Design.)

Marshalite Alternative Traffic Light

David Goligorsky — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:00:56 +0000

Charles Marshall designed this alternative traffic light in 1936 and it was put to use in Australia from the 1940’s through the 1970’s. The benefit of knowing the signal phase timing is apparent, but so is the abuse of such a device. Besides the ambiguity of timing for red, yellow, and green that is solved by the traditional Boolean lights that we are familiar with, there’s also the inability to adjust the signal phase timing if road work or new traffic patterns require changes. (via Information Aesthetics)

Parasitic Parking Spot

David Goligorsky — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:00:17 +0000

A tent in the shape of a car with canvas car cover. This is a great idea, although it would be fairly unsettling to be privy to the whims of passing traffic and “love-tap” parking jobs while you’re in a pod you can’t see out of. Also, I can imagine the looks you would get while setting up shop. Still, a nice way to claim you own slice of public space. This would be a fun tent to use at an actual campsite. (from an older post at the wonderful swissmiss.)

Crowded or amazing?

David Goligorsky — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:05:30 +0000

The following is an outlet available from Leviton. I can’t believe this is the first time that three inlets have been offered for a standard-sized electrical receptacle. (via NotCot)

Ping Pong Room

David Goligorsky — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:38:35 +0000

photo by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times: The Old House and the Sea

Must-Have Desk Accessory

David Goligorsky — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:00:21 +0000

Bunny Letter Opener:

Citroen 2cv Brochure, 1967

David Goligorsky — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:33:14 +0000

The 1967 Citroen 2cv brochure for the Netherlands is fantastic. It defines utility and envisions heavy labor in a very attractive manner. It gives the impression that ownership of this vehicle will make dirty work clean and enable the owner to achieve complete and permanent euphoria. The car looks perfect and I admire the presentation of the same mustachioed gentleman embodying all archetype laborers. My favorite is the bank robber.