Design: April 2008 Archives
This fascinates me. Johnny Lee exposed his discovery on YouTube and the I.T world went crazy for it. He was then invited by the brilliant TED to deliver a talk, which thankfully breaks it down into slightly more basic terms for people like me (although it’s still quite nerdy). I admire Johnny for both his curious and creative mind, and also his attitude to knowledge sharing. He could have hidden away with his idea, or sold it to Nintendo or Apple. Instead, he made it available on his website for free.
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In 1999, a leading designer with an international reputation was invited to a give a lecture near Detroit on behalf of AIGA, the professional association of design in America. He was also asked to design the poster for the event. How could he visualise for people the pain and suffering he put into every single design project, the kind of effort he believes to be part and parcel of the creative process? Simple: he got his assistant to carve the lecture details into his skin with a knife.
Such is the life of Stefan Sagmeister...
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“I pressed the button, and suddenly we were floating. It was an incredible feeling to realise that I now had the means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation." - Andreas Pavel
How far we have come. If your iPod is of the Nano persuasion, kudos to you. If you’re packing 6G’s, you rock. iTouch? Awesome. iPhone? Spectacular. Anything electronic that has pinching, flicking and caressing as standard operating procedures deserves all accolades.
What holds all that together though is an enduring idea. One that was laughed off by the likes of Grundig, Phillips and Yamaha. One that plays an integral part in many of our lives - rest, work, play, exercise - you name it. Quite simply, the idea that it is nice to add a soundtrack to real life.
Andreas Pavel created the original portable personal stereo player. He fought court battles for 25 years with Sony who called their dubiously similar version the ‘Walkman’. He was at one point indebted to the tune of $3m in legal expenses. Eventually Pavel was awarded $10m plus royalties on a variety of future Walkman sales. The imagination of a man who wanted to hear his music on the go, no matter how many weird looks he got, is to be honoured. The determination to never let his creation be swallowed up by the power of Sony is inspiring. Pavel’s Stereobelt of 1972, while devoid of MP3, JPEG, WiFi, YouTube and the rest of the gang, represents the official birth of an era defining icon. Surprisingly enough, we couldn't find a digital photo of one...
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Some people are really bad at table football. So bad, in fact, that they can barely muster enough power in their goalkeeper’s clearance to reach the opponent’s back line, let alone breach it. I know one such man. I came face to face with him not along ago and it was embarrassing to say the least. Mostly, though, people can play a bit. They partake once in a while and occasionally do something half decent on the pitch - a pass, say, or even a pass followed by a goal. There are also those who can play with their left hand only and still beat you hands down. They are few and far between, a rare breed indeed.
More rare, though, are those who love the game so dearly that they set out to design and build the most glorious ode to table football you could possibly imagine. That, dear friend, is what you see here.
Read more about it here.
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