plastic fantastic!

Paper Tiger Products

Paper Tiger Products by Australian designer Anthony Dann are idiosyncratic structures, furniture and lighting inspired by folded forms and seamless construction.

Paper Tiger Products are flat-packs which transport efficiently and snap together quickly and easily. Taking advantage of the deceptive strength of triangular folding, the designs are engineered to withstand all the rigors of heavy use.

www.papertigerproducts.com

Fold school

While I don’t really expect everyone wants a house full of cardboard furniture, there is a certain appeal to creating furniture out of something that is otherwise thrown away or recycled. Foldschool is a website that offers up a collection of patterns for folded cardboard furniture. The templates are all free, all you need is printer to be able to print out the template. It seems that the furniture is specifically designed around kids, and each template has the age that it would be appropriate for.

http://www.foldschool.com/_about/about_start/about_start.html

Better Place

Better Place is an initiative aimed at bringing about an increase in the global use of electrical cars.
From a sustainability viewpoint I believe this to be a positive step as it opens up the potential for more of our transport to be powered by renewable energy sources and also decreases society's dependence on Petrol.
There is a flaw to this scheme though, which lies in the batteries they intend to use.
Lithium ion batteries have been selected as the most appropriate battery for this purpose as a result of their high energy density and cycle life. The key material present in these batteries, however - Lithium - is far from sustainable. Just as peak oil looms ahead so does peak Lithium - Mitsubishi estimate that the demand for Lithium will overtake availability within 10 years unless more sources are found. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7707847.stm )
But simple availability is not the only thing that will limit the accessibility of Lithium. 50% of the world's known Lithium store resides in Bolivia, a country whose tight political control over the resource is greatly limiting its ability to be processed and made globally available.
While electric vehicles are indeed necessary to overcome the oil crisis, becoming just as dependent on Lithium would be very unwise. Exploring other battery technologies where more widely available materials are utilised, such as the Zinc Air battery may make this a more sustainably viable initiative.

Thanks ZA

How to innovate!

This step-by-step method helps you invent new products or services using templates. Templates channel your creative thinking so you can innovate in a completely new way. It is not brainstorming. It is a structured process to focus your creative output.

The way it works is by creating a hypothetical solution first, and then imagining a problem that it solves. This is exactly opposite of the traditional way people invent. Usually, we start with a problem, then we try to invent solutions to it. That is not always effective because many times we do not know all the problems consumers have when using a product or service. When reverse the direction (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM), we uncover many new useful problems worth solving, and we have an innovative solution to apply to it. It's cool! And it works!

Follow these steps:

1. Select a product or service to innovate.

2. Create a list of its components.

3. Apply a TEMPLATE to each component. This creates a VIRTUAL PRODUCT. It is virtual because it does not exist. It should not seem to make any sense to you at first. That is okay...that is how the method works.

4. Take the VIRTUAL PRODUCT and think of all the ways it could be useful. What problems does it solve? What benefits does it offer? Who would use it?

5. Repeat the process using a different component.

6. Repeat the entire process using a different TEMPLATE.

Here are the TEMPLATES:

SUBTRACTION: removing an essential component and keeping only what is left
MULTIPLICATION: making a copy of a component but changing it in some way
DIVISION: dividing a component out of the product and putting it back somewhere else, OR taking the component and physically dividing it
TASK UNIFICATION: assigning an additional task to an existing component - giving it a new job in addition to its existing job
find more examples at:

http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/

Thanks AB

Roll the dice!

Thanks AR

$20m to go to rebranding Australia

TAXPAYERS will outlay $20 million over four years on a new brand to promote Australia, seeking a new logo and tagline to boost our image and trade in the world.
In a bid to rival the success of brands like ''100% Pure New Zealand'' and ''Malaysia Truly Asia'', the Rudd Government will run a public tender for advertising agencies to come up with a new Australian image.
It wants the new brand to replace the different logos used in tourism and trade - all of which feature kangaroos - with one consistent image.
Trade Minister Simon Crean will outline the plans in Melbourne today, arguing Australia needs to promote itself more actively with a more ''cohesive'' brand.
In a speech to the Trade 2020 conference, Mr Crean will argue that Australia should make more of its competitive advantage beyond the beauty of the landscape.
''Building Brand Australia has an unashamedly commercial focus which will help promote Australia as a great place to live, a great country in which to do business, and a great place to invest.''
Austrade will oversee the tender and the advertising over the next three years. About $3 million will be spent on developing the brand and tagline, with the balance to be spent over the following three years on advertising abroad.

Victorian Engineering Industry Week

Engineers Australia, Victoria Division is hosting Engineering Industry Week during September 21-25. This campaign will celebrate and promote the work of Victorian engineers through a variety of events and activities. FREE site visits & tours, inspiring seminars & lectures, demonstrations & competitions, networking functions & more...

engineer.omidesign.com/index_events.php?n_id=106

Thanks BR

Design matrix

Unveiling the beauty of statistics

Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

A modern “museum” that helps making the world understandable, using the Internet.



find out more: - www.gapminder.org/
Thanks AR

Engineering insanity!

All doubts were unfounded. The 35.2 meter distance jump was the first practical Softslide test with real humans under real conditions. I think words would fail even the last remaining skeptics at this point.

read more:-www.mach-es-machbar.de/english/das-projekt-megawoosh.php5

Thanks HT

What's on at the NGV

There is an exhibition called "Draw the Line: the Architecture of LAB". LAB is an architecture studio who won the 1997 competition to design what is now the Federation Square precinct. The exhibition shows a lot of conceptual sketching and mockup models made during the design process, and it makes you appreciate the design of the buildings much more when you see it. There are also a number of drawings and models of other projects the studio has worked on around the world, and most impressively there are a number of ~1:100 scale polystyrene models of the buildings at the back of the gallery. The exhibition is held on Level 3, in Galleries 15 and 16 - and best of all, it's free! The exhibit will be open until September 13.

Thanks BR

Green Box : Pizza box

Thanks JP

Brands

It was suggested that a brand is a persons gut feeling about a product, service or organization..

Understanding this, my interpretation of a successful brand is something that similarly feels right to you and that you feel suits your personality and characteristics, and you feel comfortable in trusting in and consuming depending on the product or service..

It may be styling that suits your current or desired style, or a reputation of quality and high performance that you feel suits your standards and needs at your level or the level you strive for..

Thanks JB

Out of the fire

ON THE night of Black Saturday, Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin were in constant contact with each other, anxiously monitoring the progress of the deadly infernos consuming Victoria's townships.

"A lot of big decisions had to be made then and there," says Macklin, the federal Minister for Families and Housing, who has described those critical hours in an interview with The Age.

"We knew that thousands of people had lost absolutely everything. We could see it was going to be a daunting task for families and individuals to pick up all the pieces of their lives. Kevin (Rudd), John (Brumby) and I were constantly talking to each other, working out how best to structure the relief fund and co-ordinate resources."

On Sunday, when the Prime Minister, the Premier and Macklin spoke with shocked and bewildered survivors at Kangaroo Ground and Whittlesea, the emergency strategy roughed out by phone the night before had been galvanised into a plan of action. Disaster relief was immediate, comprehensive and on a scale not seen since Christmas Day 1974 after Cyclone Tracy obliterated Darwin.

read more:- www.theage.com.au/national/out-of-the-fire-20090330-9h6k.html

Bottled Water Costs the Earth

The average bottle of water is much more than what it seems. It incurs a number of hidden and not so hidden costs. First, the direct cost to your wallet: Crude oil is mined from deep underground, transported half way round the world, refined into petrol for our cars, transported again under stringent safety precautions, taxed at over 50%, sold at a profit and is still, at $1.45 a litre, cheaper than Australia's top-selling litre of bottled water (FuelWatch, 2008). A litre of Mount Franklin will cost you a whopping $3.67 a litre [1]; more than double the cost of fuel.

read more:- theflipside.com.au/bottledwater

It's in the post!

The global convergence of computing and communications technology is driving us toward a new digital age. Due to this 'information revolution' in the next 30 to 40 years, every analog and physical process will become,in some manner, digitized, mobilized or virtualized... arc globalized. What does this mean to the postal industry?

read more:- http://nextgenerationventures.com/Download/PostTechReprint.pdf

Shai Agassi - Better Place

Where do people find jobs?

Finding a job can take months of time and effort. But you can speed the process by using many methods to find job openings. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that people who use many job search methods find jobs faster than people who use only one or two.

The Brand Gap

www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap

The Opte Project

This Opte project was started by Barrett Lyon as a response to a conversation with his colleagues. Over a lunch they were discussing William Cheswick and Hal Burch's Internet Mapping Project. Barrett was inspired by their beautiful maps but they did not seem to be very useful nor do they release their code freely. Their mapping also was not much of a public affair, and there reports that the images took months to make. (According to Bill Cheswick, the Internet Mapping Project runs now with 20 minute daily scans and has a much improved image creation system.) His comment during the lunch was that, "I can write a program that can map the entire net in a single day." The comment was met with some hostility. Thus, this project was born.

Blogging

As part of semester two, Professional Attributes, you are expected to set up a web log (blog) that will be used as a part of a social media, discussion board and folio. This is intended to help encourage ‘thinking’ and the exploration of ideas related to this subject and specifically to the project “insideout09”.

Through the online environment you will also learn about peer review, the process of subjecting your work, research and ideas to the scrutiny of others. It is via this dynamic and engaging network that the parameters of the classroom can be vibrant and innovative.

As your blog will form part of your final semester folio and will be assessed, it is important that you develop this on a weekly basis. Responding to the challenges set in class will help contribute to a greater body of knowledge.

Each week the set project will appear on the class blog, feel free to make appropriate comments that may help further the class room discussion. All work will be presented as discussion groups using the room IT facilities, you are expected to be ready to participate at the begining of each class.

Getting started
Visit www.blogger.com and follow the step by step tour. Select one of the ‘minima’ templates. Make sure you use your full name, or an appropriate alias to name your blog. Finally email your blog link to insideoutPDE09@gmail.com making sure to include your student name and number by the begining of next class.

Once you have set up your blog, you will be using this for folio development along with the esquisses which will be uploaded, make sure to get stated as soon as possible.

PDE class of 09

Andrew Bui
darkdayzbui.blogspot.com/

Brendan Rosevear
attentiontodesign.blogspot.com/

Jacki Downing
jackidowningpde09.blogspot.com/

Daniel Prusac
danielprusac.blogspot.com

Swithin Oliver
swithin11.blogspot.com/

Rachit Vora
rachitvora.blogspot.com/

james boubouka
jbpde09.blogspot.com

Jason Pickering
jasonpickeringdesignengineer.blogspot.com/

Alexandra Gray
alexgraydesign.blogspot.com/

Sarah Richardson
sarahrichardsonpde09.blogspot.com/

Zeina Assouad
zeinaassouad.blogspot.com/

Frankie Ngan
frankiengan.blogspot.com

Michelle Rosevear
michellerosevear.blogspot.com

Chris Hart
chart86.blogspot.com

Luke Dewar
lpdewar.blogspot.com

abbey reynolds
abbeyreynolds.blogspot.com/

Neil Strohbeck
neilstrohbeck.blogspot.com/

Craig Artemiou
craigsdesign.blogspot.com/

Matthew Keen
keenmatt.blogspot.com/

Alexander Knorr
http://alexanderknorr.blogspot.com/