African Designers Discussion:

 

This morning I enjoyed the discussion on African Design by Africans. There will be many more to follow as these talented thinkers and doers.

The Case Study House Documentary

 https://youtu.be/ky05ypJ74XI?si=jBX1OKNFa6Bnbbhg

BMW Cars have a MASSIVE Design Problem... What Now?

https://youtu.be/4LZR1uxIUlA?si=iEyKInHS3QPzQP2x

https://youtu.be/0qxKXg6wbLc?si=Q6EXa25T_P0AMDP9

Air Jordan Sneakers Celebrate 40years

 Air Jordan

Flying Taxis Take off in Africa

 

Article: The Twilight of the Smartphone

Article: The Twilight of the Smartphone

Industrial Design: Improving Personal Mobility Walkers

 A stylist and functional improvement to a device that can aid the quality of life of an aging or injuried population.

Zeal Inc.

‘Our mission from the beginning has been to remove the stigma of using walkers,’ says Georgia Williams, CEO of Zeal Lifestyle. ‘We know choosing a mobility aid can be a huge decision, so we wanted to design a walker that customers feel proud to use. It is more than just a mobility aid – it’s a choice of style, identity and independence’.

Williams, a retail designer, and Zeal co-founder Joshua King, an industrial designer, started the company after wanting to purchase a walker for their loved ones and realising how limited and uninspiring the options were. ‘What we found on the market didn’t match their style, and as designers, we knew we could do better,’ writes the duo.

Designer: Maximilian Missoni Moves from Polestar to BMW

BMWs Design Team

The designer of one of the most attractive sedans on the road today has been recruited to lead design at BMW.

Missoni was born in Austria to a family of architects – in his own words, “I have practically grown up with design. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time drawing. It started with boats.” Early on in life, Maximillian was poring over a boat magazine when he noticed a Ferrari concept car in an advertisement for design house Pininfarina. According to Missoni, that’s when he got hooked. He changed tracks to car design, and the rest is history.

Book:Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

Using Abloh’s surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates—how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion industry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. The story of how that moment came to be, and how someone like Abloh—who had no formal training in pattern-making or tailoring—could come to symbolize and embody the industry’s way forward, is the story at the heart of this book.Amazon

Footwear Designer: Jeff Staples

 

Bahuas Douumentary: 100 Years Later

This is documentary that presents the history of the Bauhaus within the context of the birth of modernism and is concise and informative.

The King of Tech: Who is Peter Thiel?

At the dawning of a new and by all accounts a significant technological revolution led by a handful of digital oligarchs one stands out as a central catalyzing force, Peter Thiel. 

Who is this titan of the 21st century whose power and influence is shaping a new era. In which a new paradigm of private wealth, technical dominance and political authority is poised to lead America into 2025.

AI: The Revolution is Here…Are We Ready?

 The former Google CEO is optimistic that America will best China in the race to control the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI: Designer Sees Aiding Industrail Designers Go from Dwarings to 3D Products

Designer Jordan Taylor talks about what being a founder of an AI company supporting the development of physical products.

Maya Lin: Architecture and Art

Maya Lin most recognizable work the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC cartopolit her to early success as a designer of memorials. Now, she describes herself as an artist as well, with many installations to her name. 

AI: Information is not Truth - A Discussion about the History of Networks

 A sobering conversation on the furute with AI.

Exhibition: CHARACTERS: Type in Action at the Museum of Design (Atlanta)

The power of typography is demonstrated in an exhibition using the stories of historical figures to communicate and impower.The Museum of Design Atlanta located at 1315 Peachtree St. NE Atlanta, GA 30309.

Link: Museum of Design 

An American Architect- A Conversation with Frank Llyold Wright

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright discuss the being off his career, the definition of Organic and Skyscrapers.

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The Magazine like the Album Continues to Morph - What are They Now?

          

The magazine much like the album, held a special place in culture especially for communication through imagery, often note by graphic designers as their inspiration for entering the profession.

As society has moved into the digital era these useful symbols of communication and commerce have suffered but surprisingly have not disappeared completely.

NYTimes: What is a Magazine Now?

The Eames House: A Tour of a Modernist Icon

 

Book: Here/Where the Black Designers Are - Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller

This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: Where did they originate? Where have they been? Why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons?

Fashion Design: 25 Influential Postwar Men’s Wear Collections

 The history of fashion is considered in this NYTimes article:

25 Most Influential Men’s Wear Collections

Vide

The Origin of: Form Follows Function

The evolution of the classic line: Form Follows Function, its definition has changed over time embodying the evolving ethos of the profession  

Book: Barcode by Jordan Frith (Author)

Barcodes bridged the gap between physical objects and digital databases and paved the way for the contemporary Internet of Things, the idea to connect all devices to the web. They were highly controversial at points, protested by consumer groups and labor unions, and used as a symbol of dystopian capitalism and surveillance in science fiction and art installations. This book tells the story of the barcode's complicated history and examines how an object so crucial to so many parts of our lives became more ignored and more ordinary as it spread throughout the world.

ISBN	9781501399916

Fashion Designer: Takkahiro Miyashita

 Rarely do I cover fashion design topics but the video below is informative on many levels to share here.

The YouTube channel The Casual is an excellent source of fashion insights.

Digital Technology: A Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg - AI Era

 A leader in the digital era, Mark Zuckerberg, talks at length about how he see the future of AI.

The Legacy of Virgil Abloh

Virgil Abloh defined design of the new century. Born in 1980 and died in 2019 his life and designs embodied the language of the digital generation and the democratization of design.

He built his own table when there was not one that included him…

Book: The World History of Design - Victor Magolin

The latest entry to my design library is the two volume series entitled the World History of Design. This thoughtful look at design historic origins will without doubt supplement my course on the same subject.

Chair_One

This die cast aluminum chair was designed as stackable outdoor seat by Konstantinos Grcic in 2003.

Born in 1965 in Munich, Konstantin Grcic developed his particular aesthetic and became a well-known industrial designer

 

Norman Teague: Designer and Educator in Chicago

The design community in Chicago is vibrant and active in bringing cultural ideas into reality. Norman Teague is building on the histories of Chicago and Africa past to inspire and remind us of the world’s connections.

7 Questions Using Design to Effect Change

World Expo 2025 - Osaka Japan

The first World Fair was in 1851 when Great Britain invited the world to witness the innovations of the Industrial Revolution. This marked a shift in how humanity would function moving from agricultural to industrial driven economies.

And so it expected that Asia and Japan specifically technological and economic influence will demonstrate where humanity has the potential to go… 

Designing Future Society for Our Lives. 

Official Site for World Expo 2025

USA Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka

Swiss Design - It’s Origin and History

 How Swiss designs embraced the principles of modernism at the time the world was reshaped by World War II.

A scientific approach, Clarity, Structure, Function and a philosophy of Less was More defined an era.

The Evolution of the Washing Machine - Japan

Domestic appliances have made life so much more convenient by removing so of the drudgery from routine task, none more then laundry. The history of the washing machine, in Japan, proves this point.

Architecture: The Musuem of the Future

This is a striking structure and raises a few questions: Who designed it? What is it? And Where is it?

Creator of a Personal Computer Prototype: C. Gordon Bell

 

C. Gordon Bell, a technology visionary whose computer designs for Digital Equipment Corporation fueled the emergence of the minicomputer industry in the 1960s, died on Friday at his home in Coronado, Calif. He was 89.

NYTimes: C. Gordon Bell Obiturary

The Origin of the Leatherman

 

It’s Time to Replace the Mop and Bucket Method of Floor Cleaning

Dyson comes to the rescue, with the introduction of its wet floor cleaner.  Just as I was thinking that why must I use a bucket and mop to clean hard surface floors which I feel is far to much effort and mess for the small areas I need to maintain specifically the kitchen and bathroom floors.

 

Article: New Dyson WashG1

Ease of Use is Good Design

As product become more complex the designer must work to achieve simplicity in the user experience, failure to do so often results in users dissatisfaction and a barrier to the products success.

Product Design and Business Development in age of the Internet

The ease to which a product can be brought to market is significantly easier than ever...

What happens when the digital content creator partners with a product incubator to develop and market directly through the internet to millions of followers.

We will be able to track how one of the most successful YouTube reviewer of tech products, Marques Brownlee, joins Ridge.

How Design Can Be Used as Proganda

The power of design to shape perceptions and behavior, let us be mindful of the ability to create beautiful outcomes.

 

Product Designer: Yinka Ilori

A British-Nigerian multi-disciplinary artist and designer whose bold visual language draws on his British-Nigerian heritage.

Article: Yinka Ilori Wants to Bring Joy to Work

Yinka Ilori Website

Contemporary Artist Jean Michael Basquit Explained

 

James Dyson: The Story of dyson

 

Fashion Design in Africa - Growing and Diverse

 The growing influence of the creative in fashion design on the continent of Africa is reflective of new generation using social media tools to develop their voice and brand beyond their borders

Architecture:Jeanne Gang on why flow matters

Arguably the most accomplished female architect of the 21st century, Jeanne Gang and her Chicago based firm Studio Gang are getting noticed by the work they are creating.

Logo Design: NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) insignia has three main official designs, although the one with stylized red curved text (the "worm") was retired from official use from May 22, 1992, until April 3, 2020, when it was reinstated as a secondary logo

In 1974, as part of the Federal Graphics Improvement Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, NASA hired Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn to design a more modern logo.

NYTimes Article: How NASA Learned to Love it Logo

The Transistor the foundation of the Third Industrial Revolution

 The first transistor created at Bell Labs in 1956, securing a Nobel Prize for their research.

The first generation of computers depended upon the invention of vacuum tubes; for the second generation it was transistors; for the third, it was the integrated circuit; and the fourth generation of computers came about after the invention of the microprocessor

the introduction of semiconductors sparked a revolution in electronics on par with that of steel and steam engines in the Industrial Revolution.

https://youtu.be/Ofv39GBGW3g?si=ft8AUVbxn6HAqiRU

The First African Tech Company to be Sold on Wall St.

 The opportunity of providing design solutions across the continent of Africa is enormous, but how to execute will be the question many will be seeking to answer over the next decade.

The introduction of the first shoe from JEMS a Black-owned shoe factory based in the United States.

Interview with Dr. D’Wayne Edwards 

How D'Wayne Edwards Became A Sneaker Legend 

Pensole Lewis College

Architect: (Diebedo) Francis Kéré

The 2022 Pritzker Prize Award winner for the work created to improve life in his home village of XXX in Burkina Faso in Western Africa.