[above: The Design Pod mobile office concept by Andrew Maynard]

What if you could simply reuse packaging as part of a product rather than sending away for disposal or recycling? Some industrial designers have taken up the challenge with varied results. Like creative flat-pack designs, the constraints of the projects become opportunities for self-expression and to (literally) think outside the box.

Tom Ballhatchet is a jack-of-all trades, working on inventions, interior designs and ecologically friendly products. His work is perhaps best understood through a single object that combines all of these interests: his television box that turns into a stand after a quick transformation following the unpacking of its contents.

Olivia Cheung is a conceptual artist and product designer who specializes in three dimensional design with an emphasis on popular culture. One of her projects involves light bulb packaging that also takes on the function of a lamp shade. In principle this is simple, in practice it combines entertainment, reuse and feasibility.

Knoend is a commercial company that has put into practice Cheung’s design concept, creating semi-transparent and still-elegant packaging that conveniently folds out into a surprisingly appealing minimalist light cover for the purchased fixture.

Zero Thick has another solution the the package-as-product problem. It perhaps isn’t as elegant, but it also doesn’t aim to be. In a very modernist way the packaging is expressive of its multiple purposes and shows both its final use (as a candle holder) and its prior purpose (as a candle package) quite clearly and creatively. For more compact furniture check out this collection of transformable and convertible urban furniture.

TAKEN FROM weburbanist.com

A major component to Peugeot’s ongoing International design competition is the full-scale conceptual rendering the company works up and displays at the year’s biggest European auto show. This year’s winner, if you’ll recall, was a design by Mihai Panitescu, a student from Romania. His Flux roadster concept blends sportiness, versatility and a flair for the ultramodern. It’s like an Ed Roth design, as remixed by architect Renzo Piano for prop use in a Will Smith / Jean Reno buddy action movie. And, of course, it’s fitted with a now de rigeur XBox 360. We’ll see it in Frankfurt, much as we did the Moovie concept back in 2005.

TAKEN FROM jalopnik.com/cars

Most blogs are dumb, even the successful ones. The ones about blogging. This isn’t because the writers of those blogs are dumb, they are very intelligent. It’s the readers, the ones who want to scan not to read, not to study, not to ingest. The ones who want another quick fix trick, before they have a chance to implement even the quick fix trick they just learned.

It’s why things like Blog Rush have initial success, everyone is looking for that next quick fix. Like a bunch of cyber junkies. Only our drug of choice is knowledge. It’s no ones fault. We are plagued by the seemingly easy success of others and can’t understand why we can’t be as successful. When the reality is, there are no easy online successes, everyone seems to pay some kind of price for it.

But you read most blogs, particularly blogs about blogging. And they offer small lumps of candy floss like posts. Sweet, atrractive but with zero nutrition. I’m not expecting to read huge, analytical posts all the time that need a Masters to get through. But some posts are just not worth the bytes they take up.

The reason this gets me annoyed is usually the writer has a lot more to give and it’s like they couldn’t be arsed or they read somewhere that it’s better to get a post out there and ping than wait till knowledge accumulates in the mental reservoir, allowing a good flow of water to power the generator.

Even if it’s a stream of consciousness, I can deal with that. Hell, that’s how most of my words make it from my brain onto the net. I just type. Editing? Mergh.

I wanna bit of meat on the bones when it comes to reading a blog. I’m passed the quick tip fix phase, maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m outa style. Too be honest, I would love it if everyone blogged like this guy It’s like, bullet point, screw that.

But, we’re in publishing right. You thought you were a blogger or an seo? Wrong, you’re a publisher, you take information from one place, do stuff with it and put it in another place. Peoples’ brains are the target for the information. The problem with people is that they like to read the Sun, or National Enquirer, they like to eat fatty, high sugar low protein foods. They like TV, they like useless packaging, they like…… shall I say it. Shall I say George Bush? It will play well with the Brits and US democrats, but what about my US Republican readers?

It’s not that people are stupid, they chose to be stupid. We chose to be stupid, I chose to be stupid. So when a blogger wants to make some money and be a bit of a success online he writes for the stupid crowd, the morons, the lazy, multi level marketing bullshit crowd. Who like bite sized, easy to swallow pre-digested pieces of information that they don’t really have to think about and can soon forget as there will be another zero nutritional morsel coming by seconds later.

And guess what? Marketing to the quick fix crowd is going to make you richer than marketing to any other group.

But then, there is that very, narrow path. The one where you can keep a little of your depth, whilst still being able to reach the mass market of the the idiots. That way is called the Story. You tell a story.

…and now I’m too tired to continue this line of thought. Marketing is persuasion, is about creating a dream like state which tells a story which seduces a person to act. But I need to sleep and if you are interested I will share my thoughts in a later post.

I hear my readership dripping to 3.5 people. the 0.5 is because one of them is asleep.

TAKEN FROM www.cornwallseo.com

If you’re too old for frat parties, then it’s really time to get rid of that Klimt poster you have “decorating” your living room wall. Dorm room decor is not acceptable outside a dorm room, even if it was inspired by great art.

Really, no matter how much you love your family, framed photos of them will only get you so far. Here are a few interesting, cheap, and easy ideas to spruce up your space without regressing to freshman year:

• Wall decals are perhaps little over-hyped, but they’re still a cool way of adding interest to a wall. Although cheaper than original wall art, these will still set you back a few bucks. If the pre-made ones are too rich for your blood, try this craftster’s trick of using spray starch to adhere fabric cut-outs to the wall.
• The cover of this month’s Blueprint magazine features a nifty wall art project (pictured here) made from thrift store picture frames. Basically, you get a bunch of empty frames of different shapes and sizes, paint them all the same color, and hang them. I think white frames against a colored wall would really pop; especially if the wall had white molding. Another interesting take on the project might be to use frames of all the same shape and paint all but one of them the same color.
• Silhouettes are popping up everywhere on the craft scene these days. The good news is they’re really easy to make. Get some interesting wrapping paper, add a silhouette downloaded from Stencilry, stick it in a frame, and you’re good to go.
• Ikea’s usually good for a bargain, but their fabric wall hangings are way overpriced. Make your own by buying some interesting fabric and using a staple gun to attach it to an old picture frames. A heavier weight fabric will probably work best - check out reprotdepot.com or cheapthreads.com for some wall-worthy prints. As for frames, might I suggest Ikea’s Ram? (Ikea’s got a pretty good selection of fabrics too).

TAKEN FROM www.diylife.com 

A new visualization Bruce Herr and I recently completed is being featured in this week’s New Scientist Magazine (the article is free online, minus the viz).  They did a good job jazzing up the language used to describe the viz–’power struggle’, ‘bubbling mass’, ‘blitzed articles’–but they also dumbed down the technical accomplishments.  I guess not everyone gets as excited about algorithms as I do. 

Before I talk anymore about the viz, though, let me mention its appearing at the NetSci 2007 Conference this week, and hopefully a varient will appear at Wikimania later this summer as well.  The viz is a huge 5 feet by 5 feet when printed, and I only include a low res, smaller version here.  At some point high quality art prints of it will appear at SciMaps for sale to fund further visualization research.

Now for the good stuff.  Much like my visualization of the netflix prize competition data, we began this piece by representing the data as a network.  In this case the nodes in the network are wikipedia articles and the edges are the links between articles.  We then (with some help from our friends at Sandia) used an algorithm to lay out all 650,000 nodes (wikipedia articles) that had at least one link in such a way that similar articles are near one another.  These are the yellow dots, which when viewed at low res give a yellow tint to the whole picture.

The sizes of the nodes (circles, dots, whatever you want to call them), are based on a model of revision activity.  So large circles indicate that an article might be controversial, or the subject of lots of vandalism, or just a topic whose content frequently changes.  We labeled only the largest nodes, to keep it readable.  There is an interactive version of this in the works based on the google maps platform which will change the labels and pictures used as the user ‘zooms’ in or out.  Stay tuned for that.

The image used for each tile was selected automatically, simply by using the first image in the most linked to article among all the articles in that tile.  We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the images that appeared.   

Our hope for this visualization approach, which we continue to improve on, is that it could be updated in real time to give a macro sense of what is happening in Wikipedia.  I personally hope that some variation of it will end up in high schools as a teaching tool and for generating discussions.

TAKEN FROM abeautifulwww.com 

TAKEN FROM skambu.ne

London’s Heathrow Airport is set to install the world’s first Personal Rapid Transport system. The PRT is a fleet of 18 driverless pods for business passengers flying out of Terminal Five, with installation scheduled to be complete in less than two years. Traveling at up to 25mph, the pods will ferry passengers rapidly between their cars and terminal check-in. The airport claims there will never be more than an 18 second wait, no delays due to congestion and no need to consort with the rest of the riff-raff from steerage. It’s likely this new PRT system will be the first of many, as local governments seek to replace car use within city centers.

Heathrow Terminal 5 PRT

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

---

The chief benefits of PRT are obviously the reduction of waiting times and overcrowding — it eliminates the need for a fixed timetable — door-to-door service, privacy and security. Predictably, its environmental credentials are also being touted, PRT creates zero local emissions and overall uses 50% less energy than an equivalent bus system.

The system’s main drawback is that it necessitates installation of guide ways separate from existing roads or pedestrian walkways. Because of this, its inventors, Advanced Transport Systems Ltd, envision it complementing, rather than replacing, existing form of mass transit such as the London Underground.

TAKEN FROM jalopnik.com/cars

If you are tired of industrial looking black and silver for your external hard drives - golden idea for you – external hard drive in a wavy gold exterior that looks way cool

The Golden Disk includes LaCie one touch backup software and works with windows 2000, XP and Mac OS X. The connection to your PC is via USB 2.0. Inside the lovely gold case is a 500GB hard drive with a 7200rpm rotational speed and the ability to write at up to 480MB/sec. The drive measures in at 1.57” x 4.4” x 7.4” and weighs 31.7 ounces.

TAKEN FROM computers-review.com

What do look for when it comes to urban photography? Urban photography doesn’t have to mean perfectly framed parks and stoic skyscrapers. Some of the best urban photos feature bizarre abandonments or even subversive and illegal subjects. Here are ten sites that span the spectrum and that anyone who loves urban photographs should know and bookmark!

Non-Photography - No Rules Street Photography: What is nonphotography? Well, in a way it is anti-photography, no-rules street photography. It eschews strict definition, and is stylistically as impressive as it is diverse. Nitsa’s favorite nonphotographs show all kinds of possibilities outside of normal compositional approaches.

Sleepy City - Abandonments Photography: There are a number of forums, blogs and other websites dedicated to cataloging urban explorations in tunnels, deserted buildings and other off-limits urban no-man’s-lands. However, Sleepy City dot Net has a particularly great collection of tagged images from urban adventures.

Opacity - Artful Abandonments: Like Sleepy City, Opacity focuses mostly on urban ruins and abandonments, though the approach taken is quite different. Whereas Sleepy City focuses more on the adventure and shooting pictures when and where one can, Opacity emphasizes the art and beauty of these spaces.

Wooster Collective - Street Art Photography: Few sites are as frequently updated with amazing graffiti from around the world as WoosterCollective. Artists and observers submit images of street art of all kinds, with an emphasis on graffiti (illegal and illegal) which are then posted with a short blurb or backstory

Strictly No Photography - Forbidden Photos: This is a great user-submitted content site where anyone can upload images, or more specifically: pictures taken in places people aren’t allowed to take pictures in. One of their best sets can be found at the bottom of the page - images of signs that, ironically enough, forbid photography.

Urban Dirty - Free Stock Textures: Urban Dirty collections and makes available stock images of urban textures of all kinds. They offer them at various sizes and categorized under a number of tags. These are interesting intrinsically, but they’re also a great resource for avid Photoshoppers.

Dmoz Urban Photographers: The DMOZ directory lists a few dozen interesting sites of specifically urban photographers, from portfolios to blogs. Some of these are regionally based, others are stylistically themed, but all of them are accompanied by helpful and short taglines describing their contents.

Flickr Urban Photography: Flickr has a number of urban photography groups with a range of interests, from the urban decay and abandoned collections, to urban negatives (focusing on overlooked urban objects) and urban fragments (no people, just architectural objects).

Epic Edits Site List - 87 More Photo Sites: Epic edits has also compiled a lengthy list of photoblogs and other photography websites, from amateur to professional in content. This list also contains a great many feeds of regularly updated sites, for people who want to add photography to their regular RSS reads.

WebUrbanist - Urban Arts and Culture: Of course, for anyone new to the site, WebUrbanist is a great resource for discovering lesser known street artists and urban photographers. If you want to be a featured artist or know someone who should be, please feel free to contact us. Enjoy this article? Subscribe to the feed!

TAKEN FROM weburbanist.com

This bicycle makes me question the laws of gravity and balance in general. It also make we think that the guy riding this probably fell in a dismal crash right after this picture was taken. Still, it’s a pretty amazing feat of engineering to even get this bike up and running in the first place.

TAKEN FROM blog.makezine.com