Design
The Cloud
Friday, November 10, 2006
The Cloud by Monica Forster is a portable room that can be used as a relaxing workplace retreat, a unique meeting place, for meditation, or as an ideal escape for creative brainstorming. A space of its own that can be used within any space, Cloud instantly defines an area and a mood apart.
Easily transported from place to place, when the Cloud is unpacked, a silent fan continuously keeps the chamber inflated as long as required. The room inflates in three minutes and stays inflated until its folded away into its connected carrying bag. Cloud is entered and exited via a self–closing slit door alowing ample ventilation. The Cloud is made of rip-stop nylon and includes the carrying bag with integral fan unit.
This combines so many elements that I’m drawn to into one functional environment - beyond object. It’s meditative, ethereal, and draws from camping technology (rip-stop nylon, portable). These concepts work well together. Camping in my tent has always been highly meditative and creative for me. At one point many years ago, we even had our tent set up in our living room as a getaway and sleep spot.
See it at UrbanPeel.
Filed under Design • Art/Pop Culture • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
080906
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
“Most people spend their lives living in dreary, beige conformity, mortally afraid of using colors. The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination and make their surroundings more exciting.”
-Verner Panton
Filed under Design • Quoted • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Clever car
Friday, April 28, 2006
Researchers in England have been working on a prototype for a “clever” (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) car. The car has three wheels and tilts for easy manueverability.
The prototype is purely a research project and is unlikely to come to market in its present form.
But the researchers hope that car companies may build on its ideas, and that the design may even pave the way for a new class of city vehicles somewhere between motorbikes and cars.
“You can imagine that they could re-jig the [London] congestion charge to just allow motorcycles and Clever vehicles, but not cars,” said Mr Drew.
“The idea is to showcase the vehicle and start the process of laying down the groundwork for this third way.”
Full story “Green mini-car to beat congestion” by Jonathan Fildes, BBC News science and technology reporter
Pouf
Saturday, April 01, 2006
I first saw a pink pouf in the window of Friend SF. When I got closer, I loved the idea even more: a waterproof, all weather, durable but lightweight stool/bench/table made with foam. Solid but light. Precious but durable. Thanks to m+d for the amazing gift that’s now in my living room - a perfect orange pouf.
Designed by Arne Quinze of Quinze & Milan—the same award-winning company that provided Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Public Library with its much-talked-about furniture—the Primary Pouf invites use as either a stool or a side table. Enabling the pouf’s dual function is a large cube of all-weather, patented foam, which provides enough cushioning for comfortable seating but is firm enough to hold drinks and plates. QM FOAM™ is designed to resist fading or degrading. A polypropylene base supports more than 300 pounds. Base and foam are attached. Contract quality. Made in Belgium.
More info at Design Within Reach.
Besuku ajax flickr gallery
Sunday, August 28, 2005
It’s late Saturday night (okay, it’s Sunday morning… I’m in denial) and I’ve been experimenting with various image galleries.
Tonight’s new find is the Besuku ajax flickr gallery, a very elegant image gallery by Ben Sekulowicz. The gallery is powered by flickr and the flickrArray (which Ben released in July). Configuration of the gallery couldn’t be made more simple - open a config page, add your flickr username and upload the pages to a FTP directory.
I like both the layout and the functionality of Ben’s gallery. Now, both my visitors and I can view my photos by specific or shared tags without the flickr interface. Since photos are pulled directly from flickr live, I’ll be interested to see whether the speed varies with traffic. Look forward to seeing what develops from this.
See it in action: the Beseku ajax image gallery pulling in some my flickr photos.
[Technorati tags: flickr, besuku, open source, ajax]
Filed under Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(6) Comments
Jalenack's Ajax Periodic Table of Elements
Saturday, August 27, 2005
I’ve been wanting a new way to have a grid of thumbnails that pop-up larger images. While I like the functionality of my blog photo gallery in city bits, it’s not as seamless to click to each photo and to the next page or all the way back to the thumbnail page. Once you’ve experienced inline loading or toggles, it’s hard to go back to clicking and waiting as a designer and a viewer.
When I saw Jalenack’s (Andrew Sutherland) Ajax Periodic Table of Elements (screenshot popup) last night I was inspired! With the periodic table, details and relevant links simply pop-up over the chart and vanish when you’re don’t need them anymore, which allows you to stay in context. One of the things I like about asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest is that I’m no longer experiencing short term memory loss each time a web page refreshes.
Andrew’s been kind enough to send me the code (licensed under CC GPL 2.0) and Max and I are going to try and make a gallery with it that imports blog entries of photos from a MySQL database using this same idea.
[Technorati tags: ajax, jalenack, artcodes]
Filed under Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Movable Type 3.2 released and better than ever
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Movable Type 3.2 was released this morning by the team at Six Apart. The new release has a wealth of features designed to make blogging even easier and smarter.
Max and I are running Movable Type on BeingEDU and plan to upgrade as soon as we have a few minutes of free time. I’m looking forward to trying out the context-aware search interface, flltering spam into a junk folder, and having a centralized overview for all my blogs.
Make sure you also take a look at the new smart CSS design templates and libraries of new styles. I’m pleased to say I had a tiny hand in creating three of the color variations used for the new Vicksburg theme, although the true credit for the design and CSS magic goes to Vicksburg’s creator, Walt. View the new templates and others at the Style Library Remixer.
For the last month, I’ve had the rare opportunity to sit in the MT area at Six Apart next to some of the people that have built Movable Type, including Jay, Anil, Ezra, Brad. Aside from the fanfare over the actual product, it’s the dedication and teamwork of the people behind the product that have really impressed me.
(News story at my company site from Aug 5, 2005: Ideacodes to Create Wireframes and Visual Designs for Six Apart).
Filed under Blogging • Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Design something original
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Princeton Technology has created a hard drive that’s “inspired by” the Mac Mini, so much so that it really looks just like it other than the logo etched on the top and side.. not the kind of font that Steve Jobs would approve. Frankly, I like the silver-white-milky aesthetic of the Mini’s design and Apple’s glossy white image, but then I confess to loving most things sleek, silver, and minimal.
Filed under Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Designing thinking
Friday, August 12, 2005
As a design-focused firm, I’m encouraged by the recent emphasis on business adopting more strategic design thinking and process techniques. I’m familiar with the same sources and I like how the author, LukeW, frames the differences in a “business” versus “design” approach in his post A Difference of Design. (Also see my post at BeingEDU about strategic design and Bill Breen’s The Business of Design in Fast Company.)
Mash-up the web
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
While the term mash-up has its roots in hip hop culture, the web mash-up seems a natural evolution of our need to customize and our love of hacks. (See an earlier post on creating “clever solutions to an interesting problem.") In Sampling the Web’s Best Mash-Ups, Business Week provides “a guided tour of the some of the most innovative sites that combine data and features of other sites to make something new.”
Filed under Design • Maps • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(1) Comments
Don't just make it pretty, make it strategic
Friday, June 10, 2005
Since I started designing websites for universities and colleges in 1996, I’ve had numerous conversations about design, both with those on the inside (administrators, marketing communications directors, admissions counselors, information technology teams, webmasters and developers, designers, vice presidents, CIOs, alumni, faculty) as well as those on the outside (students, parents, the community, business leaders, consultants, people on the street).
Filed under Design • BeingEDU • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Organize Your Brain, Then Share It
Friday, May 13, 2005
As big fans of Basecamp, we were excited to try out 37signals‘ personal information manager, Backpack. A lot of applications have claimed to be online organizers, but Backpack is the first web app that really comes close to being a true web-based brain.
Filed under Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
The Beauty of Web Standards
Thursday, April 21, 2005
We’ve been advocating web standards for some time now, but for those of you first hearing about the benefits of building and designing sites around web standards, the W3C has a great introduction to understanding the concepts and the relationships between web standards, accessibility, and CSS in its article, “How to achieve Web standards and quality on your Web site."
Filed under Design • BeingEDU • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Offline Design
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
As an online designer, I’m always looking offline for inspiration and ideas. (Once you’ve been a sculptor, you can never truly escape the physical world.) Part of the beauty of city life is the constant stream of emotional and environmental influence - every city block a testament to the power of design’s influence over our daily lives. In my quest to seek out design that is both functional and beautiful, I often look to industrial and product design, as well as interior design and architecture. You might enjoy these two sites if you’re looking to tap into the spirit of modern, contemporary design in the physical world.
Ajax the web
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
In his essay, Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications, Jesse James Garrett articulates a new use of several existing technologies - XHTML, CSS, DOM, XML, and Javascript, which, when used together as an “Ajax engine” could change the nature of web applications. By moving to asynchronous patterns of delivery, the whole paradigm of a page refreshing and content loading only when the user requests it can shift to something much more akin to a fast desktop application. The challenge for designers and engineers alike will be to apply this thinking to delivering better control, content, or experiences to the visitor.
Filed under Design • Web/Tech • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
Blobjects & Beyond
Thursday, February 10, 2005
The blobject has so much appeal. Learn more at the exhibition page at the San Jose Museum of Art...
Beginning Saturday, March 5th the San Jose Museum of Art’s first floor galleries will brim with curvaceous, boldly designed products and prototypes as the museum opens its first-ever exhibition devoted to industrial design. The exhibition, Blobjects & Beyond: The New Fluidity in Design is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary look at the objects that fill our lives, chosen from a rich range of product, furniture, graphic, media and architectural work from across the globe.
Filed under Design • Art/Pop Culture • Permalink • Tell a friend
(0) Comments
netdiver
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Carole Guevin’s netdiver has been reworked and loaded with new sites.
It's an electrolumniscent world after all
Sunday, January 25, 2004
I’m a nut for anything illuminated (eg. my sculptures circa 1999) so this is definitely something I can relate to…
“Illuminated Handbags. Ladies, suppose that your handbag featured a “cool, gentle light” inside, so you could see where everything was—wouldn’t that be great? Of course it would, and the good news, reports Thaddeus Herrick in The Wall Street Journal, is that a recent innovation involving an old technology called “electroluminescence” is about to make it a reality. Electroluminescence, or EL, “uses electricity to light up specially treated plastic,” but does so in a way that “generates so little heat that it remains cool to the touch.” EL actually “has been around for decades, but for years researchers puzzled over applications because of its low light intensity and the fact that originally it only worked on flat, rigid spaces.” [via VirtualR]
Interview with the Zeldman
Friday, October 17, 2003
“In this society, we are bombarded by other people’s creativity from the moment we wake up. Radio, billboards, the way this year’s cars are designed, the way the street grid works in your city: it’s all grist for the mill. How can your brain not be continually churning and coming up with ideas? How can you ever feel creatively stuck?”
Zeldman talks about upcoming browsers among other things… read the interview .
XHTML 1.0
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Welcome to version 3! It’s been a long time coming but when it came down to it, it only took me the night to cut this site over with a new non-design and XHTML 1.0 transitional stylesheets. Z was busy doing the same with his so I figured the time was right. More thoughts on the thrill of marathon web development later when I’ve had some sleep. Drop me a line and let me know what you think of the new site.
Browse
391 entries by category
:
Art/Pop Culture -
BeingEDU -
Blogging -
Design -
eDiary -
eProjects -
Flash -
Gel world -
Maps -
Moblog -
Photos/stills -
Quoted -
Robots -
Screenshots -
Sculpture/installation -
Videos -
Web/Tech -
Websites -
World
collections...
8 Most recent posts
- Robot Sculptures
- "Breakthrough" - A Photo Exhibit
- Looking down at my boots, scarf, green coat and the road at night
- Think Small
- PicoLED
- Spam
- superflat platform art
- dreamlands
4 Most Recent Posts from EmilyChang.com
391 Entries in artcodes.com
real world
» Where is Emily?
» Map of my travels
» gVisit visitor map for artcodes
(shows last 20 visitors)
vlog
Artcodes 1996-2006
- Complete Archives
- Category Archives
- July 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- November 2006
- October 2006
- August 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
- March 2002
- November 2001
- October 2001
- August 2001
- November 2000
- September 2000
- July 2000
- April 1999
- March 1999
- February 1999
- January 1999
- October 1997
- August 1996
Join my occasional mailing list
Syndicate
My other sites
Find me elsewhere
- Photos at Flickr
- Profile at technorati
- ArtBase at rhizome
- Misbehaving.net
- Digital animation #537 and #542 at günther selichar
- Videos (orange meets blue, hybrid) at spongi
Stats
Total Entries: 391
Page rendered in 6.1482 seconds