Fashion: Rappers Need Designer's Too!

The rappers turned moguls: Jay-Z, Dr.Dre, Kayne West and Pharell continue to expand their reach into mass market consumer products.

All have targeted the youth market where these young consumers drop hundreds of dollars on a pair of limited edition kicks or stylist ear gear.

So, for that aspiring designer coming out of school this spring without a gig lined up, consider lending them your skills.

RocAWear's New Sneaker

RocAWear's Mobile Store

Beats by Dre.

Video Profile of a "Sneaker Freak"

Social Media's Power to Change Behavior

We have begun to hear more and more stories of how various media tools (digital products) are being used to support the desire of people to connect with others.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Concept Presentations: A Way to Share your Vision

The west coast based consultancy, cooper, focuses on developing and designing products for a digital world. And so, the need to effectively communicate the solution idea by way of a structured presentation/ story is that much more important.

Examples of Concept Presentations

Ways to Improve Typography in your Designs

Here is a link to an article which provides eight considerations that can enhance the type in your designs.

AisleOne Site

Design Education: An Integrated Curriculum at Philadelphia University

Yesterday I attended a seminar of innovation held at Philadelphia University that proved interesting in that the school has embraced an approach to teaching Design within a broader context including Commerce (Business)and Technology(Engineering). The schools strategic plan frames it as follows:


Traditional design produces products that are safer, easier to use, aesthetically pleasing, highly cost effective, and environmentally friendly. Corporations have begun to realize that there is exceptional power in the design process, or design thinking, not just the product.

Design, as a discipline, contributes its process, which identifies the needs, opportunities, and as a discipline, contributes its process, which identifies the needs, opportunities, and applications of capabilities; design also serves as the integrator synthesizing the complementary design, engineering, and commerce discipline methodologies

Engineering applies the principles of mathematics and the laws of natural science to analyze, design, develop, and devise improvements that benefit humanity. The engineering major provides for flexibility to address the unknown technical challenges that will confront society.

Commerce is the act of leading a team toward accomplishing a goal beyond the scope of individual effort with the intent of creating and capturing value. Business must be opportunity seeking, holistic in its approach to problem solving and driven to create and capture value for a broad set of stakeholders.

Innovation is spawned at the intersection of business, engineering, and design. In the integration of these disciplines will develop an education for leaders and decision makers. In the College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce, innovation will be at the heart of the academic experience, leading to success and leadership in the professions.


The keynote speaker was founder of ECCO Design, Eric Chan.

Philadelphia University

ECCO Design

New Product Catogory: Portable Hotspot

Well, it sounds like this little thing-ama-bob will make being connected to the internet infinitely easier than it has been.

The portability of this mini router means that for its $100 cost you can make use of it at home or on the go without being tethered to an outlet(plus monthly service fee). It will be offered by Verizon in mid-May, and uses its 3G cellular technology to access the internet.

NYTimes Article

USToday Article

The Future: Large Format eReaders?

Whispers are increasing that Apple has plans for a tablet size computer. But, presently there are a few ebook type devices most notably the Kindle by Amazon, that are already on the market.

These devices may just alter the way we compose written material. Newspaper organization should work hard to explore the potential of moving away from the costly method of printing and distributing its product. By developing a business model that would leverage this technology could just save the news organization from collapsing.

One can remember the recent lesson of the music industry's failure to explore the opportunity to respond to customers during the early days of the Napster phenomenon. Music company rejected the opportunity to innovate, and chose to sue its customers rather than provide a means for consumers to purchase music online. And so, leaving a wonderful opportunity for an outside player, Apple Inc., to provide the tools to satisfy the public demand for sharing and purchasing music online. Likewise, Associate Press(AP)last week vowed to pull back its content from online news gathering sites like Google News etc.

My recommendation would be for the AP to develop an approach to the future that explores seriously a move to distribute their content by way of these new crop of eReaders from which they could expanded their customer base and generate new streams of revenue.

Today just before a Senate hearing on newspapers:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said steps must be taken so the news media can stay diverse and independent.

"As a means of conveying news in a timely way, paper and ink have become obsolete, eclipsed by the power, efficiency and technological elegance of the Internet," Kerry said in prepared remarks. "But just looking at the erosion of newspapers is not the full picture; it's just one casualty of a completely shifting and churning information landscape."

NYTimes Article

Amazon Introduces a Large Screen Kindle

Article on: Kindle DX - Large Format

Three Problems with the New Kindle