Candle Cannon

Minneapolis' agency Colle + McVoy employees seem to be having too much fun at client Ebert & Gerbert's expense. Smokers and ex-smokers will take particular pleasure in the idea of the worlds biggest smoke ring maker. Essentially an air vortex canon blows a smoke ring 180 feet to extinguish birthday candles on Midwest subway sandwich maker Ebert & Gerbert's 20th anniversary cake. Even more fun than reaching desired outcomes was the process of prototyping, designing, building, and painting the canon. One can say, in this case, viral media on YouTube has become the mother of invention for ad agencies. Although viral media might be the newest trend, one thing has not changed in 40 years, as evidence the AMC retro TV series Mad Men, ad agency employees have always been crazy and quite possibly mad.

Hacking the Wii

Johnny Lee says it best when he talks about design that can reach millions in an incredible short period of time from conception to use. Internet and in particular YouTube have played a big role in speeding his Wii Hack to a half million users around the world in a few months. Two inventions Lee describes in this TED talk is a really inexpensive interactive white board and a $5 infrared head mount that allows a computer to know your head position. The results have amazing potentiality. For gamers and the vivid experience of 3D virutal worlds. Lees' hack is radical not only for the invention but also the extremely low cost using readily available off-the-shelf consumer technology. That's a design idea a common person can enjoy.

Film by Design

The films are Errol Morris include Gates of Heaven; Vernon, Florida; A Brief History of Time; The Thin Blue Line; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control; Mr. Death; The Flog of War and Standard Operating Procedure scheduled for release this month from Sony Pictures Classic.

I have a film blog and although there are so many elements of effective design co-mingled into the space we call cinema, there are a select few filmmakers who so purposefully use design as an internal logic to their thoughts and expression as Errol Morris who's web site also reflects his visual mastery. That is why I have singled him out for fluxus design blog. You might know Morris from his Apple TV ads but you really ought to go and sequentially rent each of his documentaries to fully appreciate his use of design. And then be sure to see Standard Operating Procedure opening nationally in cinemas this month. Morris is a man possessed of his own brilliance.

Styl'ist (stil'ist), n. and the Mustang

Over the years, it has been astonishing how little the barebones of automobile design has changed despite annual manipulations of the body and model lines that have come and gone. In this video from Ford Motor Company there are two amazing concept cars described. The first is the Ford Aurora "designed for the whole family to enjoy" that never made it into mass production and the second, the Ford Mustang which did.

The Aurora has a few quite astonishing features: a clam shell rear entry to the children's seating area; swivel passenger front armed bucket seat; a three adult passenger limo-style couch; termo-elecric oven and refrigerator; three AM/FM radios; advanced position indicator map (an early conception of GPS); a steering wheel that wasn't round (shocking!) and a whole different headlight scheme comprised of 12 lamps stretched across the front of the vehicle.

Looking at today's automobiles, very little has changed: The front seats are still mounted facing forward, the middle seats straight benches, steering wheels are still round (and roughly the same diameter), the instrument gage and user interface are approximately the same except for cosmetic variations and with the exception of modified roadsters and mobile van/homes there are few extras like multiple radios or TVs refrigerators or ovens proposed in the Aurora. While concept cars appear radical in the proposal stage, eventually they all seem to conform to a narrow design specification.

The first real cool automobile my family owned was the Ford Mustang in 1967. This was the first car my father went out and bought new off the dealer lot. All other family cars prior to the Mustang had been hand-me-downs or used klunkers just to get us by. In the 1960s, the Mustang set the standard for stylin' ride.

Concept Cars

Concept cars over the ages and today give us a glimpse of the fantastical ideas we have about our times. Whether it be sputnik or rocket age technology, our fears and fantasies were quickly transformed into our automobiles and then just as easily discarded on the road to pragmatic realizations.

Futurist Design

Jacque Fresco designed conceptual models based on futurist notions of where we might be progressing toward with Global Climate Change threatening our shorelines. Fresco designed cities and housing in the ocean and talked about the "Future by Design" an utopia to elevate the human condition. Perhaps this all seems far-fetched and it is, however, there is a fine line to be draw between delusional and visionary.

There are many design movements inspired by science fiction and fantastical visions of the future from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to Ray Bradbury's speculative fiction to Futurama, Populux and Googie architecture. They too might be just as crazy but provided a generation of computer designers at MIT Media Lab grist for their inventions mill.

Recently, some of these ideas might have re-emerged in Dubai and with oil-rich Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has set out to break architectural records for highest, largest and first residental, office, hotel, stadium and spaceport buildings of the world.

This film trailer was shot by William Gazecki:

Design for the Other 90 Percent

We often think of design that makes mundane things luxurious and the plush extravagances expensive. But what about design for the other 90%? Recently, I attended a lecture at the University of Minnesota by the African Wildlife Foundation about the shocking fact that the worlds population of lions in Africa has radically dropped to anywhere between one quarter and one eight its population of 20 years ago. And while lions are not yet extinct they are well on their way to becoming endangered.

What I found surprising is that part of the problem can be solved with a technology fix. Lions are often killed in conflict with people because herders in East Africa do not have to proper technology to construct bomas that protect their cattle, that can be manufactured inexpensively, as well as remain mobile to support their nomadic life. This is a problem screaming for a design fix.

The Walker Art Center will be hosting an exhibition beginning May 24th called Design for the Other 90% showing design concepts and objects such as this personal water purification straw that uses human energy to extract clean water from open rivers and streams. Diarrhoea and other waterborne disease is a major killer of children around the world. LifeStraw, as it is known, was designed by Vestergaard Fransen a Danish company dedicated to design that will change the world.

LifeStraw photo courtsey of Vestergaard Frandsen

Design: The Everyday Revolution

Designers are often though to be people who make objects, paper, buildings, furniture or things beautiful or pretty. But there is much more to design than this simple way of seeing. Designers are tinkerers or thinkerers who take revolutionary ideas and apply them to everyday life. Paola Antonelli who is a curator for design at MoMA talks about her mission to shift our understanding of design from pretty to the revolution of the everyday life.

fluxus

fluxus will look at many aspects of changing design in the internet age