Josef Hoflehner's book Jet Airliner is a wonderful collection of images of jets touching down over the beaches proximal to Princess Juliana International Airport in St. Maarten, Dutch West Indies. Many of these striking shots show beachgoing women slose to landing and departing airplaines in stark square compositions in full detail.
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Danish artist Carl Krul has enacted a series of works on board simply titled "Plate" followed by the edition number of the series. Of these works, all were done in single sittings and videotaped from above. Viewable on Krull's website, these videos detail the artists trial and error process from beginning to end, and depict the drawings in a fast-forward format. These videos allow a glimpse into the process of creating some very provocative figural illustration.
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Bold revolutionary design is something that publishing could use more of in these times of instability in printed media. Perhaps the clever and thoughtful layout and subtley sublime styling of Jonas Wandeler's magazine, taking format from LastFM's notion of suggesting other artists based on what you know you already like.
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Here are some images from UK designer There Is. What strikes me as most interesting about these layouts are their unique approach to communication. The message is described by a dialogue between what is stated with written text, and what the imagery relays to us by means of its inherent material. Just lovely.
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Dieter Rams has influenced material culture and the world around us more than many of us realize. Here are some examples pooled from the Dieter Rams Flickr Photo Stream showing some of his mid-century objects, which exhibit a remarkable timelessness. Consider the influence of these products on Apple's design, and you are sure to find more than a coincidental similarity, I suspect.
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Imagine if that scratch in your auto paint automatically repainted itself. This may be just a few steps away. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, together with colleagues from Duisburg-Essen University, have created a process manifesting in an electroplated material impregnated with small capsules of the surface finishing. If elements on the surface are scratched, these microscopic reservoirs release more of the finish allowing the surface of the material to regenerate.
Items can currently be created in a small range of electroplated metalic finishes ranging from copper, nickel and zinc coatings. The next set of research and experimentation lies in embedding two-part mixtures like epoxies and resins. "The challenge lies in not damaging the capsules when producing the electroplated layer...", says Dr. Martin Metzner, Head of Department at IPA.
It may be a year or two before we can see the full consequences of this breakthrough technology but the idea of the alternate uses inevitably excite and demand the creation of new applications.
Discovered at boingboing.
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Bay Area designer Stanlee Gatti of Elixer Designs has presented us with an interesting example of one way to create compelling objects to communicate ideas. When created with consideration, these objects can convey much more meaning and describe a more complete thought process and message. Gatti presents an invitation to an event that is simultaneously repulsive yet demands the viewer's attention. The object is labeled and packaged as a vial containing a sample of the designer's brain.
Discovered at worldfamousdesignjunkies.
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Patrick Frey has created a lovely calender that has cought my eye. His Gregor Calender for details products + ideas is a new way to look at an old designed object. By allowing the consumer to destroy this calender day by day, Frey plays with our notion of should and shouldn't, encouraging people to pull the run in this knit to eliminate days from the calender. Isn't this a lovely analogy for time, that time by nature is ephemeral and fleeting, like a scarf slowly unraveling?
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"Everything is biger in Texas." It's a familiar phrase that we have known and adapted into vernacular language. Here is an astounding example of taking "big" to the extreme, as the town of Presidio in Texas has built the largest NaS battery in the US. Presidio had long been troubled with power outages due to a single cable connection with the national grid and hereby have safegaurded themselves against power failure with this megalithic structure.
The reasoning behind the mega-battery? The completion of this safegaurd cost $25 million to install whereas a second cable connection to the power grid would have run somewhere around $50 million. Also, Presidio Texas will always know that theirs is the biggest.
Discovered at gizmodo.
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