03 April 2009

Accessible design in prosthetics

In her inspiring 2009 TEDTalk, Aimee Mullins redefines what the body can be. Her prosthetic legs are a combination of form, function and aesthetic. She encourages designers to change the idea of "disability" and the definition of beauty by bringing their talents to both the science and the art of designing prosthetics.

In the comments on this TEDTalk, several TED.com members asked for more information about accessible prosthetics -- new designs that will make artificial limbs available to everyone who needs them.

Since Mullins’ talk, we’ve kept our eyes peeled for innovative designs in prosthetics. We found an inspiring example from industrial designer Tillmann Beuscher. He built a temporary artificial leg made of cheap materials to “support world-wide victims of land mines and explosive remainings of war”. His design was a winner of the 2009 iF concept award. Check out pictures of the design and the limb at work here. -- Bonnie Burke

09 March 2009

Paola Antonelli's new column for SEED

Paola Antonelli is the design curator at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and a two-time TEDTalks star, with her TED2007 talk "Treating design as art" and her EG'07 talk "Design and the elastic mind," a preview to the 2008 MOMA show of the same name. Today, SEED magazine premieres her next venture, a monthly column. In the first one, called "Core Principles," she lays out the challenge for designers right now:

Design today has to deal with a timely set of priorities and responsibilities: a concern for the environment, an evolved sense of responsibility toward other human beings, new technical advancements in manufacturing and distribution, new ideas about what constitutes privacy and ownership of things and spaces, the immateriality of new forms of design, the interactivity that many objects allow, and the resurgence of local cultures in response to the global market, to name just a few. Yet all design goes back to the same economy of goals and means, an economy that is also an ecology, and which could become the basis for a strong theory. Design is looking for a unified theory — or maybe just for a theory tout court — for, in spite of its permanence and inevitability, it is still a rather unexplored region of human creativity.

Read the whole column >>

Find TEDTalks by Paola Antonelli >>

09 March 2009

The 3 ways good design makes us happy: Don Norman on TED.com

In this talk from TED2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed. (Recorded in February 2003 in Monterey, California. Duration: 12:41.)

Watch Don Norman's talk from TED2003 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 390+ TEDTalks -- including many more talks on happiness.

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29 October 2008

A sign of satisfaction from Stefan Sagmeister

While the world economy twists itself into a tangle, one of our favorite designers and TED speakers, Stefan Sagmeister, is spending more human time in beautiful Indonesia. He just sent me this delightful story ...

As my village neither possesses proper street names nor numbers, I was sitting at 6:00am today on the couch in the open living room trying to think of a sign for my house so that visitors would find it easier. I go out to the small alley to take a picture of the entrance in order to be able to draw a little sketch. The next-door neighbor who runs a tattoo shop from his house asks what I am doing. I explain I want to make a sign and that the manager suggested mounting it to the electric pole on my property.

As the pole is partially obstructed by shrubs, my neighbor offers up his own land for the sign, indicating he’d like a little something for it.

“How make sign? Metal? Wood? Stone?” “I’m not sure yet.”
“Have friend, makes beautiful stone carver?” “Sure!”
“When visit?” “I don’t know…” “Now, time?” “Now ... it's 6:00am!”
“No problem.”

We take my scooter, drive 10 minutes to the stonemason's house in the stonemason's village, wake him up, his wife brews extra-sweet Bali Coffee and we drive to his workshop, where I sketch out the sign and amaze both of them with the ability to draw in perspective.

An “S” in a circle, constructed out of tightly interwoven stone leaves, carved painstakingly as a deep relief into a single 3'x3' foot slab of white stone from Yogyakarta, all commissioned before 7:00 am for the price of a New York parking ticket.

100 greetings from wonderful Indonesia.

15 October 2008

Design and the elastic mind: Paola Antonelli on TED.com

At the EG conference, MOMA design curator Paola Antonelli talks about her groundbreaking show, "Design and the Elastic Mind" -- full of products, concepts and designs that reflect the elastic, multi-tasking, quickly shifting way we think now. Though the physical show has closed, the online home of the exhibit is quite lively and packed with amazement. (Recorded December 2007 in Los Angeles, California. Duration: 17:40.)

Watch Paola Antonelli's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 300+ TEDTalks -- including many, many more talks on design.

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09 October 2008

Vote for the 2008 People's Design Award

Now through October 21, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is asking you to vote for what you think is the best design of 2008. Choose from designs that have already been submitted, or nominate your own on Cooper-Hewitt's website or via a Facebook app. The winner of the People's Design Award will be announced live at the National Design Awards Gala on October 23 in New York City.

It's all part of National Design Week in the United States -- a celebration of the way design enhances everyday life. Look for more reports from National Design Week events around the country on the TED Blog, and send in your own. -- Sierra Feldner-Shaw

Strida 5.0 folding bicycle by STRiDA

25 August 2008

Prototype: Scope, a camera for kids

Inspired by James Nachtwey's TED Prize wish, designer Bas Groenendaal shares this prototype camera with TED. The Scope camera has a fresh look and a singular purpose, he says:

to be used as a therapeutic instrument for underprivileged children, e.g. children living in (former) warzones. Children can take photographs and self-portraits in order to rediscover their environment and identity, and share their point of view with others.

With its open-steering-wheel design (you click the shutter by squeezing the sides), Scope invites a new perspective on picture-taking, removing the distance between the photographer and her subject. As Groenendaal writes,

I wanted to emphasize the importance of looking and framing. In my design there is no screen ... It places the photographer in the spotlight: while looking through the camera, the world looks at you. You cannot hide behind the camera.

Groenendaal took the Scope prototype to an asylum-seekers center in the Netherlands, where the kids quickly figured it out: "A funny observation was that the children used Scope to frame their own heads: hold the camera really close to their face and -- while talking -- look at everybody around them. The children seemed very conscious of themselves, their position, what they were seeing." It's an illustration of the power of photography to frame a very personal story. When Groenendaal watched James Nachtwey's TED Prize wish, he felt a deep resonance:

I was triggered in particular by the question posed as part of the wish: "What are creative ways to make the biggest impact in a way that others could use in future?" I believe that photography from within, made by the people/children themselves, can make a powerful impact on not only the outside world, but also on the people themselves.

Visit Bas Groenendaal's website >>

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18 June 2008

Celebrating the Eames stamps

Photo: Eames Demetrios via flickr

We're excited about the US Postal Service's brand-new Charles and Ray Eames stamps, issued for the first time yesterday. You can order a sheet of 16 stamps, each with a different Eames design, and each with a face value of 42 cents, online from the USPS. Not sure if you can buy the equally groovy First Day of Issue rubber stamp pictured above, but it's nice to know it exists.

Thanks to the Eames Office's Eames Demetrios, who tipped us to these stamps and took the photo above. Watch for Demetrios' own TEDTalk, arriving later in 2008 -- his work consists in equal parts of honoring the legacy of his grandparents and creating new art. While browsing Demetrios' blogs for more news of his work, we came across a fascinating video that's part of his online DASFilmFest.com: this seriously beautiful time-lapse film of the 1993 wildfire in Malibu and Topanga Canyon.

17 January 2008

Porco awarded, Antonelli promoted

TED speaker Paola Antonelli (watch her TED 2007 talk) has been promoted to senior curator of the New York Museum of Modern Art's department of architecture and design. The promotion was announced by MoMA's director Glenn Lowry. Paola is currently preparing "Design and the Elastic Mind", an exhibition on science, design and innovation that will open at MoMA on February 24.

Carolyn Porco, leader of the imaging team for the Cassini space mission to Saturn and the opening speaker at TED 2007 (watch her talk), will be the recipient of this year's Isaac Asimov Science Award, given by American Humanist Association. Porco will receive the award in June in Washington.

To both, congratulations!

01 January 2008

Ettore Sottsass, 1917-2007

Designer Ettore Sottsass died yesterday, at 90. The leader of a group of Italian designers who called themselves Memphis, he helped spark the postmodern design revolution, which mixed pure modernism with color and pattern, historic references and unabashed pastiche. Now-classic Memphis pieces such as his Carlton room divider rocked the design world in the early 1980s, and continue to inspire designers today (a burned Carlton divider appeared in the 2004 show "Where There's Smoke" at Moss).

But before Memphis, with its focus on objects for the home, Sottsass was known as a designer of technology. His little red typewriter for Olivetti is an icon in its own right, and he designed Olivetti's elegant mainframe computer, the Elea 9003 (pictured here), back in 1959.

Many recent exhibits have celebrated Sottsass' career, among them an 88th-birthday retrospective at LACMA, a 90th-birthday show last summer at London's Design Museum, and a show open now in his hometown of Turin.

18 October 2007

Our cell phones, ourselves: Jan Chipchase on TED.com

Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase investigates the ways we interact with technology -- a quest that has led him from the villages of Uganda to the insides of our pockets. Along the way, he's made some unexpected discoveries: about the ways illiterate people use their mobile phones, the new roles the mobile can play in global commerce, and the deep emotional bonds we share with our phones. And he's got a surefire trick to keep you from misplacing your keys. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:15.)

Watch Jan Chipchase's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

20 September 2007

Simply John Maeda, on TED.com

The MIT Media Lab's John Maeda lives at the intersection of technology and art -- a place that can get very complicated. Here, he talks about paring down to basics, and how he creates clean, elegant art, websites and web tools. In his book Laws of Simplicity, he offers 10 rules and 3 keys for simple living and working -- but in this talk, he boils it down to one simply delightful way to be. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:10.)

Watch John Maeda's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

24 August 2007

Bill McDonough, Reel to Reel

The information spread a few months ago: director Steven Spielberg is planning a movie (a theatrical documentary) about pioneering green architect William (Bill) McDonough, BMcDonough his work, and his "Cradle to Cradle" vision of absolute sustainability -- which Bill detailed in a 2002 book (written with Michael Braungart) and explained at TED2005 (watch his speech) and is now trying to apply everywhere, from the Googleplex to new Chinese cities.

But while Spielberg is thinking, actor Leo Di Caprio sped past, presumably in his Prius: inspired (like Spielberg) by Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", Di Caprio has produced "The 11th Hour", an eco-doc about humans creating the conditions for their own demise by destroying nature. The movie debuted at the last Cannes Film Festival; premiered in New York and Los Angeles a few days ago (read the NY Times review); and it's released across the US and Canada today (Europe and the rest of the world will have to wait). Among the academics, designers, entrepreneurs and other experts that appear in the film, narrated by Di Caprio, is Bill McDonough.

17 August 2007

Low-tech, high-impact design at Amy Smith's IDDS

Not all inventions need to be grandiose, complex things, Amy Smith said at TED2006: sometimes they can be simple and smart ideas that just help a lot of people (watch her speech - read summary). That's the philosophy behind her first International Development Design Summit (IDDS), which just took place at MIT, where she teaches and heads the D-Lab (understand the "D" as placeholder for both Design and Development).

The IDDS is not a conference. It's a monthlong collaborative learning program, as Jonathan Greenblatt describes in a nice wrap-up he wrote for WorldChanging:

People from locales as disparate as Brazil, Ghana, Haiti, Pakistan, and Tibet converged on MIT for the program: a month of intensive collaboration and learning. Participants self-organized into teams and were paired with mentors from top-notch design firms such as Continuum and IDEO. IDDS's rich classroom experience involved case studies and lectures taught by MIT faculty, as well as development experts (...) IDDS put forth incredibly basic design criteria. Teams were required to create innovations to serve a clear development need, to use locally available materials and to do so at a low cost.

The end products offer fresh takes on old problems, including an off-grid refrigeration unit tailored for rural areas, a low-cost greenhouse from recycled materials, and microbial power sources (a list of all the IDDS projects is available here).

Greenblatt offers more details on a specific product designed to enable efficient and hygienic water transport:

Typically, women and children in rural settings often can journey up to six miles daily to retrieve water for their families. They frequently return to their homes carrying between 20 to 40 pounds on their backs or heads in unsound, unwieldy and often unclean vessels such as petroleum cans or ceramic pots. It's a ritualized behavior that sustains the cycle of disease, reduces human productivity and creates tremendous physical strain. An IDDS team created a striking device, SODIS Safiri, to deal with these challenges. (...) Water is carried in ergonomic, low-cost plastic pouches that can be worn like apparel. Imagine a "backpack" that can be manufactured for five dollars and efficiently bear up to four liters, or a poncho that can carry twice that amount at a cost of only seven dollars. Along with improving transport efficiency, the SODIS Safiri device capitalizes on the otherwise non-productive return journey: the transparent design facilitates solar disinfection (SODIS) of the water so that the water can be consumed upon arrival at the village. While some contaminants cannot be handled solely by ultraviolet rays, this zero-cost approach could be sufficient in many non-industrial locations where basic microbial contamination creates diseases.

Brilliant. Simple. Relevant. I can imagine Amy Smith smiling in the back of the room while the students presented this idea.

03 August 2007

100 Websites You Should Know and Use

The Web is constantly turning out new and extraordinary services many of us are unfamiliar with. During TED University at this spring's TED2007 in Monterey, Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH, offered an ultra-fast-moving ride through sites in many different areas, from art, design and illustration, to daily news, blogs and curiosity. Now, by popular demand, here's his list of 100 websites you should know and use >>

28 June 2007

Pogue tests the Apple iPhone

NYTimes tech columnist and TED06 speaker David Pogue has been testing the Apple iPhone, which will hit stores tomorrow Friday in the US, and he shows it all on video, feature by feature, dressed with classic Pogue fun. Or you can read his article. Summary: "much of the hype and some of the criticisms are justified. The iPhone is revolutionary; it’s flawed ... it does things no phone has ever done before; it lacks features found even on the most basic phones."

By the way, David has a book coming out in a few weeks about the iPhone - "iPhone: The Missing Manual".

17 May 2007

IDEO founder David Kelley on TEDTalks

Low-key and thoughtful, IDEO founder David Kelley seems the antithesis of the "design star" -- and indeed, he says that product design, within the past two decades, has become much less about the design and more about the user who'll be experiencing it. In this classic 2002 talk, he shares some video of products coming out of IDEO, including Prada's famous high-tech dressing rooms, "Dilbert's ultimate cubicle," and a gotta-have-it gadget called Spyfish. He finishes by discussing a project he's passionate about: ApproTEC — now called KickStart — offering designs that give Kenyans the means to end poverty.(Recorded February 2002 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:12) Read David Kelley's profile on TED.com

Watch this talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

15 March 2007

Celebrating "Spectacle"

Architect David Rockwell joined forces with Chee Perlman and Kevin Kelly (TEDizens, all) in San Francisco last night, to celebrate Spectacle, the gorgeous book he created with Bruce Mau, exploring the phenomenon of public performance. Photos by Robert Leslie.

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Entries from TED Blog tagged with 'Design'

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