Private jets are basically a middle finger to the environment, but we suppose that if they’re going to be made, they should be well-designed. And to that end, Embraer, the Brazilian small-plane maker, has tapped BMW DesignworksUSA to design the interiors of its Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 luxury executive jets. (Is there any other kind?)

The collaboration represents six years of work, and the designs don’t much resemble a BMW–rather, they’re a bit more like a Bentley seen through the gimlet eye of an efficiency-minded German. For example, principles derived from BMW’s expertise in designing car controls were integrated into the cockpit layout and instrumentation; and BMW DesignworksUSA has applied in-motion know-how in designing under-seat baggage storage and tiny details such as cup holders and in-seat controls. (from fcompany) Gorgeous wonder what the budget was!……

An interesting article that I just finished reading, UK design industry insights published by The Design Council. The numbers are very interesting to say the least. Here are some of the key findings.

Numbers of designers have grown nearly a third since 2005, are 60% male, 93% white and most likely to be 38 years old. 232,000 designers employed in the UK. Astonishingly, this is up 29% on 2005, the date of the last survey. The number of freelancers is up nearly a third and now represents 65,900 individuals. 82,500 designers work in consultanices and 83,600 work in-house.
There are now 10,800 UK design consultancies (a decrease of 13% compared to 2005).

The financial figures reveal just how small most design businesses are in the UK. An astonishing 49% of all UK design businesses are described by the Design Council as having ‘a fee income/budget of less than £50k’ per year. A further 24% earn between £50k and £100k – so that’s 73% earning under £100k a year. Only 3% earn £1 million or more.

And design studios are small in terms of numbers too. Almost 90% have 10 or fewer designers. 70% employ between one and four designers. Businesses are also quite young – 37% have been going three years or less. 60% six years or less.

Demographically, designers are 60% male, 93% white and, on average, 38 years old. The survey compares these figures to architects, software professionals and ‘artists & literary professionals’. In gender terms, design doesn’t come off badly – 84% of architects and 86% of software professionals are male. Ethnically it is worse though – 11% or architects are from an ethnic minority, 16% or software professionals and 9% of ‘artists & literary professionals’. However, according to the last UK census (2001) the country is 92% white, so design is only slightly off the average.

In terms of where the work is coming from, just under half of UK design businesses do some work within the public sector, which, on the surface, rather goes against the oft-heard accusation that designers have overwhelmingly become tools of consumerism. However, this figure only tells us that they do some work in that sector, it doesn’t tell us what proportion of their overall work it represents. Only 7% do work for clients outside the UK but 69% claim they are facing increased competition from overseas.

Would love to see the stats on the U.S./Australian design scene. The number that stood out for me was the 55,310 under grad students, that is alot of students who will inturn will all be looking for a job simultaneously when they finish the course. I’d hate to be a kid straight out of school trying to find a job. I question the educational institutes that are providing the course and how selective they really are, do they give them a harsh reality check? about their talents or are they just accepting the enrollment to boost the programs numbers? hmmmm.

F***k the Segway and the GM EN-V, who needs them when I can get one of these.

The brand story is great, nice rational, nice insights but the actual result of the identity seems a little weak. I highly respect Marque the studio who created the work but it just looks like it’s gone through too many client-hands, a identity that has a great concept to a look that is some what disappointing.

In competitive sport, measurement, timing and results are everything. Of course there are the personalities, the emotion, the thrill, the elation and the disappointment. But when it comes to those medals it’s a matter of who jumps the highest, throws the longest, runs the fastest, scores the most goals, wins the most points, lifts the heaviest weight, swims the strongest. During every event and at the end of every event, there is always time, data and measurement. This was the inspiration for the creative expression of the  Glasgow 2014 brand: a data visualisation of numerical elements integral to competitive sport and Glasgow 2014.

Been a huge fan of Joe Duffy for a long long time, have admired his studio’s work and thinking. A caption from an article that I just read last week which really hit a note.”What is design? It begins with ideas–ideas based in purpose. It requires a plan or a process. It yields innovation, invention or creation. It is successful if it elicits response–attention, desire, interaction or purchase. Design is as much a process as it is an end product. The process should be simple”.

Imagine, Design, Activate. Sums up design perfectly to me.

The Apple Unicorn is here and it’s about bloody time. Not complaining at all this thing is a beauty, In particular love the dock/keyboard accessory.

One of the nicest identity “creative platforms”, I’ve seen for a while for Honest Dons and the Chop Shop (love the bloody name to) done by Ptarmak. Reminds me of home where on any street corner you will find your trust worthy butcher giving you the best cuts of pork/steak etc etc. I should quit my job and start a butcher franchise here in the states and charge a premium, defintely chose the wrong career path.

Ha… nice video showing what the future might look like if we went AR happy. The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

Interesting take on the rethinking of how coins can be designed. Tokyo based designer mac funamizu infographic perspective. Interesting idea not quite sure it works when you can clearly do the same thing and what is currently being done in several countries using relative sizing. Love the execution.

A creative environment equals happier employees leads to better work which results in more time being spent at work. Parliment a design studio in Portland Oregon has a nice setup, love the bear rug, wish I could convince the wife to have one in our house, the kids would love it. Reminds me of a place where I used to work, JDK where we had a skate park in the basement and our own silkscreen print shop.

Can’t wait to see this to hit the streets. I’m a huge fan of the brand, how it has evolved for what it was and what it stands for today. Love the signature mini look. The MINI Countryman carries on the design of the brand in superior style and quality, combining larger body dimensions, greater ground clearance and four doors with unmistakable design features so characteristic of MINI. Short overhangs, a high window line, powerful stance on the wheels, and windows extending around the entire car create those unique proportions so typical of a MINI. At the same time, the MINI Countryman re-interprets the characteristic icons of a MINI such as the roofline, the hexagonal radiator grille element, the large headlights integrated in the engine lid with integrated side direction indicators, the prominent wheel arches and the upright rear light clusters in new style and class.

Proceeding from that design language so typical of MINI, the MINI Countryman authentically visualizes the particular features of this very special car. Positioned almost upright, the front end bears out strong presence and serves to optimize pedestrian safety. The extra space within the car, in turn, is emphasized by extra-large windows and the individual shape of the roof. The particularly wide frame around the lower part of the body and the powerfully flared wheel arches highlight the robust character of the car and its all-wheel drive. With that typical MINI style now being conveyed to a new segment in absolute clarity and precision, the MINI Countryman stands out from the start as a brand-new, highly innovative model but is nevertheless clearly identifiable from the very beginning as a genuine MINI. Love the attention to details the barnd brings across all their models giving it the constant visual language that is undoubtedly MINI.

An interesting concept: Eko light is a simple yet, highly practical concept for traffic lights that not only helps preserve the environment by reducing pollution but promotes safer driving as well. Eko can be easily installed onto existing traffic light systems without much effort while significantly improving overall traffic dynamics.

One benefit being touted by the designer Damjan Stankovic:  “Less stress Since you know exactly how long you have to wait you can sit back and clear your head for a while. No need to keep your foot on the gas. Relax. Less pollution. Drivers can turn their engines off and cut carbon emissions while waiting for the green light. Less fuel consumption Turning off your vehicle while waiting on the traffic light can lower fuel consumption in the long run. Safer driving – With the Eko light both drivers and pedestrians can be fully aware of how much time they have left before the light changes and that way reduce the chance for potential traffic accidents”I personally see these lights as a count down to jump the lights and anticipate the green light, and race the mum in her mini-van next to you.

Generative identity software for COP15 the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen in 2009. The software adds dynamic, real-time movement to the logo and takes the rigid grid of the logo and animates it with a series of parameters like flocking and flow fields. The animation software is customizable to render out a large variety of styles and moods in formats useable for broadcast HD-TV and vector-graphics for printed media.

Created using “Processing” an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool.

Amazing identity but…..The question is, will this absence of designer intuition and personal taste remove the heart and soul from design???

Everyone should know who this guy is but for those who don’t shame on you. My man Dieter Rams…  Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important principles for what he considered was good design.

1. Good Design Is Innovative: The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

2. Good design makes a product useful: A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

3. Good design is aesthetic: The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4. Good design makes a product understandable: It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5. Good design is unobtrusive: Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

6. Good design is honest: It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

7. Good design is long-lasting: It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

8. Good design is thorough, down to the last detail: Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

9. Good design is environmentally-friendly: Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

10. Good design is as little design as possible: Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

I think no matter what “type” of design you are doing whether it’s a new brand to the form and shape of a product to the interaction/interface model, design is the process in which the problem can be solved successfully. One of my mentors had this to say in regards to design “The truly brilliant ‘designers’ are not specialists. They blur boundaries very, very effectively and can speak to the idea of design in a 360-degree realm successfully. This isn’t to say that specialization is dead, but even as a specialist, if you can’t decipher the other design dialects, you’ll never achieve truly transcendent ideas.” that’s my philosophy in everything I do.

(Less and More, Dieter Rams’ retrospective at the London Design Museum 18 November 2009 to 7 March 2009)

Start video from Marker 00:50. Just been looking at the Land Rover – Range Rover 2010 model , I just love the in-dash display that they have going on. They have replaced the more traditional tactile gauges (which are great don’t get me wrong) with a new 12 inch TFT-LCD virtual instrument panel uses the same technology found in high-quality computer laptops and can be both personalized and adapted to suit various driving conditions or driver preferences. Shit yeah now it feels like I’m in 2010 rather than stuck in the 90′s. During night-time driving, for instance, the TFT-LCD virtual instrument panel’s ‘torchlight’ setting highlights only the essential information on the speedometer and odometer. Additionally, when driving off-road, key dynamic information is displayed in the center of the TFT screen, complementing the main Touch-screen display and providing valuable ‘at a glance’ vehicle status. Love it…Wish I had one to muck around in.

I also love how they have used the in-dash (twin view) display to work seamlessly with the main/center display system. Each information being displayed is relevant to the other screen and vice-versa. The centerpiece of the facia is the high resolution Touch-screen, with an intuitive interface and array of controls which lets you command almost every aspect of the vehicle from a single point. This has been enhanced even further with clearer, more intuitive graphics and is accommodated in a raised centre control panel with an improved, stronger, more contemporary design.

“The new display technology used by the 2010 Range Rover is a major advance. It gives us tremendous flexibility in presenting information, so that the driver gets precisely the data they require, in all driving conditions,” explains Nick Rogers, Chief Engineer, New Vehicle Architecture.

Perfectly stated. Being a Land Rover enthusiast and a Designer would have loved to work on the user experience of the dash this would have been a sweet project to work on. Great Job Land Rover.

An interesting idea on laying out “the newspaper” vertically rather than what it is today. Seems like a “duh” moment. It would be intersting who will adopt this format. I’ve seen this done for so many years by small indie magazines, it’s nice to see those trends moving into “main-stream” publications – about time. Newspapers are shutting down left, right and center these days and seems like this is one small step that can make a difference maybe? Evolve or die!

Bus-Tops is a London based project which was shortlisted and now won the Artists Taking The Lead fund, a collaboration between the Arts Council and LOCOG. The project intends to install a number of LED displays on the roof’s of Bus Shelters across London. It is going to be the largest physical computing project ever devised. Part of the submission included a custom designed web application where visitors can design what is going to be projected on the bus stops. In addition bus.tops will work with established artists to create a “curated” collection of works distributed across the bus.tops canvas. You can find out more about the project on bus-tops.com (post from creative applications)

This would not be a considered a “real blog” if I did not write something about apple’s new line of products in particular the new imac. Mr Ive you have done it again, love the 16:9 ratio of the new imacs bloody brilliant pom.