Du Magazine

Our course is going to be represented in the next issue of Du magazine, a Swiss magazine with beautiful art direction.

(The images above are from their website)

Animation

Adidas has a great animation at the beginning or their website.  This is a really good presentation technique.  It's the first time I've seen it done so well and realise how effective it can be.

Environmentally Friendly Products

Tidying up I came across this list of websites I'd written down to follow-up.  Here are some of the best:-

Ecoist - a company set up in 2004 selling environmentally friendly products.

Escama - a company based in US but with handbags made from ring pulls made in Brazil.

Patagonia - organic clothes

Red Flag Design - bags made from recycled sail cloth based in Canada

Ano Ano - bags made from recycled products.

Saving the best until last though,

Sonic Fabric - fabric woven from 50% audio cassettes and 50% cotton.  This is a very innovative fabric and she has made interesting fabrics and products too.  You should be able to get samples at Designtex.

Pattern & Names to come back to

Brain needs a rest - here are some things I need to come back to...no more scraps of paper.

Things to think about further:-

17 plane symmetry groups

islamic patterns

sacred geometry

vedic architecture...

East as well as west

pattern flows

Names to think about further:-

Amma Eloueini

Onkar Singh

Astrid Lindenmayer

Burle Marx & Juan Grimm

BBC2 has been showing 80 gardens around the world, two of these gardeners from South America were really interesting.  

Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) was a Brazilian artist and landscape architect who created the largest abstract painting in the world in Rio de Janeiro.  It is a mosaic covering the surface of Copacabana promenade for 2.5 miles. Above are two photos showing the details. 

According to the New York Times he stated in 1971, "I fear that by the time people become enlightened, there won't be anymore forests in this country." (New York Times, Obituaries, 6 June 1994)

Juan Grimm was also featured in this programme and he is a wonderful Chilean gardener working with nature to create very beautiful landscapes and gardens. 

Recycling

Today's theme is recycling with ideas from  "Recycle The Essential Guide" (Introduction by Lucy Siegle, published by Black Dog Publishing).  It shows very simply what we can all do and how we can do our bit to reduce our impact on the planet.

How To Recycle

The book lists lots of websites all over the world on how to find out and how to join in.  The case studies in the book are as diverse as Cuba to (Tower Hamlets) Hackney, London.  Some of the items made from recycled products in Cuba are surprisingly beautiful...

Websites in the UK from the book:-

Waste Watch - they provide information sheets about materials and how to recycle at home.

Low Impact Living Initiative - a charity aiming to help reduce their impact on the environment.

Recycle Now - where to find your local recycling facilities and how to recycle.

http://www.recyclenow.com

Let's Sort it Sheffield - a highly regarded site.

Shopping

Hmm, this book is really food for thought.  Now we've looked at recycling, perhaps we should consider our shopping habits.  What should we buy and where should we shop?   

Again, "Recycle The Essential Guide" has explained it all, really there are no excuses:-

http://www.ecostreet.co.uk - a web directory for sustainable living.

http://www.ecozone.co.uk - webshop selling detergents-free eco balls and wind-up mobile phone charger.

http://www.insightecostore.com - webshop selling furniture

http://www.recycledproducts.org.uk - does what it says on the (recycled) tin.

Living and Dying, Wellcome Trust Gallery, British Museum

Photograph of section of knitwear by Susie Freeman showing tablets consumed during an average life span.

The Living and Dying Gallery at the British Museum is always interesting to look at as it combines elements to shock, beautiful cultural symbols and rituals, clever presentation with quite shocking facts.

The most shocking exhibit is the innovative knitwear display by Susie Freeman demonstrating the 14,000 tablets of medication we in the west consume in an average lifetime.  It is in a huge display case and along the sides of the two pieces, one depicting a man's life and the other a woman's typical usage are the items used in daily life.

Abstract Photograph

Another light photograph, but this time in a composition...again I'm not going to reveal what it is.

Professor Tom Barker, Smart Slab Ltd - Interactive Architecture

Professor Tom Barker (RCA) talked about interactive architecture and his company Smart Slab Ltd that he set up in 2000.  An impressive and tenacious person he has created a very innovative and interesting product.

Smart Slab was devised during a night out with a drawing on a napkin.  Nine years later they are now working on the Axis building in Manchester due for completion in October 2009.  The skyscraper's facade will be covered in tv screens from the ground up and will be showing a selection from the BBC archive.  

Smart Slab is a very versatile product that can be used internally or externally and it's also very durable.  It is part of the 2.0 revolution with the public creating their own content.  For instance, they have designed a Community Cube in Tokyo, Japan.  It's a 4.8 metre cube which for most of the day shows advertising, but for two hours a day it will show Youtube style films.

Smart Slab is simply a way to cover an area internally or externally with interactive architecture that responds to people.  Advertisers are very keen to use it as technology has now developed so that it can tell whether people are looking at it or not using eye tracking with infra red.

The inspirations for this product came from the Tom Cruise film Minority Reports.

Fabrican Ltd - Dr Manel Torres

Dr Manel Torres gave an inspiring and enthusiastic talk about his spray on fabric-in-a-can product that is now manufactured and sold under Fabrican Ltd.  This is a very innovative and intriguing product that has varied applications from fashion, consumer household and cleaning, automative, petcare to medical uses and it has even been used in films to create costumes. 

Formerly a fashion designer the inspiration for his spray on fabric came from silly string at a party!  Now Dr Torres uses fashion to demonstrate the product in the most interesting and engaging way.  

Not only is it an innovative product, but the application of creativity and science to create something extraordinary is very inspiring.  Science really needn't be boring...

Dr Torres was also an encouraging and enthusiastic speaker describing his journey, his failures, dead-ends and successes and final triumph stating that, "When you really have an interest then things happen".

Yellow stripe

These railings are pretty cool and they've been used in a Nike advert before now too.

Viewpoint and composition

Spring Viewpoint

Another look at viewpoints, this time simultaneously bending down and looking up to create a different viewpoint...