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Shaona Sen | MYND BLOC "Building Blocks for Creative Minds" | A digital zine of findings and musings (The other one: withshaona.tumblr.com)
Bringing footwear to another functional level→
Really neat, simply clever. Le Chal’s directive GPS and footwear vibrations combo:
“An ingenious solution that ticks all the boxes – scalable, effective and cost-effective. The genius is in the simplicity of the idea – to get ‘Haptic’ feedback (relating to the sense of touch) from a user’s shoes. The user spells out their destination on a GPS-based phone that used a specially-designed app (any Android-based phone is fine); a combination of three ubiquitous technologies – Bluetooth, Google Maps and GPS do the rest. Once the GPS establishes the user’s location, Google Maps comes into play and finds directions for the destination. Bluetooth is used to establish ‘communication’ between the phone and shoes, and the user is on his way – vibrators.”
(via Mahindra Rise’s blog)
Stanford's free online courses!→
16 of them! What an amazing opportunity. Go on, register. = )
There’s a difference: Design-led ‘design’ company v. Left-brain led design company
Learning, seeing and feeling the power of right-brained driven business, through the success of and growth of.
(Illustration via learn.mindjet.com)
Came across a photo of the War-Khasi tribe’s (Cherrapunji, India) living roots bridges (made ofFicus Elastica trees), built long ago. Mind blown. Brilliant. Raw functionality of nature.
“Some of these root bridges can carry fifty or more people at a time and can be over 100 feet long. These bridges take 10 to 15 years to become fully functional, and they keep growing in strength by the day. Some of these bridges are well over 500 years old.”
(via Lolirann blog)
Eric Rothenhaus’ Jansport beauties
-Beautiful- tribute to heritage of the Jansport brand!
“When Eric Rothenhaus landed a gig as director of design at JanSport five years ago, he wanted to make an impression. He would do it by re-creating, down to the seat-belt straps, the very first JanSport backpack (and the first-ever backpack with a zipper) introduced in 1969. Problem: There were no sketches, patterns or even any actual bags available on which to model his re-creation—only a few black and white photographs. But that was all he needed to breathe new life into one of the most iconic geekcessories of all time.
Rothenhaus studied the photographed relics with a magnifying glass to determine the correct proportions. He hunted for large metal zippers identical to those used back then. He found the right type of weathered nylon. He used (now considered extremely inefficient) 30-year-old pattern construction methods. He even recreated the original red and white label.”
(via Gizmodo)
Still droo-ling.
B&W = $150
Watercolor = $175
Shipping fee to the States: $20
Elsewhere: $30
On Etsy: http://goo.gl/nKTQ3
“A Woman Multiplies the Impact of an Investment”
USAID.gov just released this burst-of-energy infographic, on the impact of investing in women (larger IMG of info). Very much deserving of all this typeface’s density!: “A woman multiplies the impact of an investment”.
Take a look below. Compare the info in blue, on the left to the info on the right, in red. I’m appreciative of the comparison that clearly shows the presence of women in politics, health, education, etc. then takes the extra step to show the positive results of the percentage that overcomes the odds. The depth in content breakdown brings about hope, in data that usually would trigger less optimistic reaction (“just another number”).
One thought that did come to mind is how the 50th anniversary aspect of USAID’s marketing could have been pushed for this data collection. I personally like seeing a timeline when data is being shared. A start and an end date of info to put data gathered into context. For example, “Between the 50 years of 1961-2011…”, to capitalize on how bigger and smaller picture happenings interrelate during the span of change. Maybe this is so? If so, the consideration could be much more evident.
I see the content in this infographic reaching the demographics that make up the data through a larger scale campaign, for an inner spark of motivation.
NYU students’ initiative:
Donate leftover money on your MetroCard by simply swiping at a MetroChange kiosk. And recycle your plastic while at it. Huge potential! Technicalities such as the money on the card belonging to the MTA still have to be sorted out. Sort it out, sort it out quick! Excited to see this project come to life. Be sure to check out prototyping posts through the hyperlink above.
Upcoming purchase!
Dialogue with Seth Godin, Alex Bogusky, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Duckworth, amongst others. Yes. Please.
Generating energy from footsteps! Brilliant.→
CNN writes on Pave Gen:
“Paving slabs that convert energy from people’s footsteps into electricity are set to help power Europe’s largest urban mall, at the 2012 London Olympics site.
In their first commercial application, 20 tiles will be scattered along the central crossing between London’s Olympic stadium and the recently opened Westfield Stratford City mall- which expects an estimated 30 million customers in its first year. ”That should be enough feet to power about half its (the mall’s) outdoor lighting needs,” said Laurence Kemball-Cook, a 25-year-old engineering graduate who developed the prototype during his final year of university in 2009.
… “We recently came back from a big outdoor festival where we got over 250,000 footsteps — that was enough to charge 10,000 mobile phones,” said Kemball-Cook.”
(via Nat Geo Traveler)
Citizen Schools Fall semester at the Dever McCormack middle school apprencticeship has started! I have the lovely pleasure of co-teaching a STE(A)M-based 6th grade class, with two Babson business school students, about design and entrepreneurship.
Throughout the semester we will be working on mini-projects that challenge the students’ perception on creativity and building. Our final project that we will be presenting to guardians and people in various industries is based on re-designing their school for the better. Above (image with yellow pieces of paper) is an initial response from a student from our 1st class when getting a feeling of students’ though parameters on the final project. As you can see, no limits. The rawness of youth’s imagination is so inspirational.
Our 2nd class, we gave the class Moleskine sketchbooks, donated by Reebok, for the students to document their imagination in and out of class.
A big difference between our school (compared to other Citizen Schools in Boston) is the requirement of extended learning time, vs. the optional taking of a CS apprenticeship. There are some students in class who are very responsive and some who are there because they have to be. The goal is to work as a team and build everyone’s enthusiasm, through the unified vision of transforming the school space to make a more fun learning environment. We’ll be building on the students 21st century skills through this challenge.
The 3rd photo is the result of: 6th graders + class on structure + trophy brief + 6in height req. + tennis balls + flexi-straws + 15 minutes (After students initially brainstorming for ~5 minutes in their new notebooks). How awesome? = )
More to come soon.
If you’d like to find out more on Citizen Schools: www.citizenschools.org
The melancholy and love in friends’ and media’s reactions makes this all the more influential and real. We see Steve Jobs’ presence even in this sharing of reactions and memories. His impact on the communication between people and technology’s role in doing so. Let’s be grateful for how many visionaries Steve Jobs, the visionary himself, gave birth to from simply sharing passion and knowledge. Reflecting on all the Steve Jobs’ in my life. All the passionate, creative and forward thinking go-getters I’m blessed to be around. This energy is so contagious. We never know who we are an inspiration to, or even why, when or how sometimes.
Above is the first Think Different commercial “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” that never aired, narrated by Steve Jobs (1997).
(Logo spin by 19 year old Jonathan Mak Long from Hong Kong)
Some memorable quotes:
“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”
(1982, quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987)
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … STAY HUNGRY. STAY FOOLISH”
Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Stanford commencement speech, June 2005
“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”
Interview with 60 Minutes, 2003
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”
“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Wired, February 1996
Shortly after getting the news I thought 4S = For Steve? I’d like to believe…
Rest in Peace Steve Jobs.
BASHKO TRYBEK’S CUSTOMIZABLE ANTI-STRESS CHAIR
Composed of a metal wireframe and a set of CMYK-colored stress balls that can be arranged to your physical comfort and visual liking. Loveee.
(via designboom.com)
Walls Notebook: Sketchbook Graf
Check out Walls Notebook. A compilation of 160 pages of photographs to tag all over. Simple and clever. Love, love, love.
This makes me want to compile the numerous photos of urban landscapes I’ve taken into book format and sketch all over them! Categorized by different cities I’ve visited, or by space (staircases, alleys, rooftops, etc.). Yesss.
(via weburbanist.com)
