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