Inspiration: Part Three

Time for round 3. This time we're looking at Boris Tellegen a.k.a. Delta.



Hailing from Amsterdam, he originally studied industrial design but after graduating decided to take his career in a new direction. His work is made up of strong 3-D elements and very architecture-esque geometry. Overall I just love his overall style and color choices. Cool stuff.

Transmetropolitan Cat

This isn't really design related, but I just saw this article and had to post about it. Apparently this cat was born with two faces in Australia. Anyone familiar with Transmetropolitan will instantly see the resemblance.


Two-Faced Kitten Born in Australia [Fox News]

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

So I'm working on this shirt design for Threadless. The title?

Washington B.C.

Here's how it looks so far.


Once this is finished I expect all of you to go out and vote for it like no tomorrow.

Inspiration: Part Two

Of course I've been inspired by more than just Dieter Rams, so I'll fill in a couple more designers in the next couple days. Today we'll take a look at Syd Mead.
Just about everyone who's familiar with 80's science fiction movies is familiar with the work of Syd Mead. As "visual futurist" he took it upon himself to create wildly stylized designs with lots of chrome and sharp edges. Despite the fact that no future will ever look like the one Syd envisioned, all of his designs have a remarkable amount of detail that makes them seem almost feasible. He keeps the compositions lively with excellent use of color and shapes.

None of his designs are intended to become a real product, so it makes sense that very little thought goes into how they would work. This approach is very contrary to that of Dieter Rams, who makes sure that every part has a purpose and all extraneous bits are removed. Just because it's completely pointless doesn't mean I don't want my own light-up umbrella though.

USB

Here are the results of my latest DesCom assignment.


If Nintendo decided to make some USB drives, this is totally what they would look like.

Inspiration: Part One

Everyone has inspiration. It's an important part of developing your own signature style. Ask any designer who inspires them and they'll probably be able to produce a list on the spot. One of the most influential designers for me is Dieter Rams.

He originally studied architecture, but is most famous for the work he did as chief of design at Braun from 1961-1995. His designs are all clean and functional, with clear details that visually describe its operation. He has described his design philosophy with the phrase "Weniger, aber besser", which translates as "less, but better".

Dieter Rams 10 Principles of Good Design:
1. Good design is innovative.

2. Good design makes a product useful.

3. Good design is aesthetic.

4. Good design helps us to understand a product.

5. Good design is unobtrusive.

6. Good design is honest.

7. Good design is durable.

8. Good design is consequent to the last detail.

9. Good design is concerned with the environment.

10. Good design is as little design as possible.

Back to purity, back to simplicity.

The Future

As technology progresses more and more rapidly, several key developments will determine how we move into the future. These are a few of the technologies that I think will drive innovation and expand our horizons in the next 20-50 years.

1. Nanotech.

The creation of tiny machines has advanced exponentially in the past 10 years. In the near future, I can see this picking up even more speed. These tiny robots will be able to enhance our immune system, find and repair damage in both machines and people, and even recombine materials at the atomic level to instantly create an object from a stored image of it's molecular structure. Once it reaches this point, stores as we know them will become completely obsolete and everything will become instantly available to anyone. This will probably represent the single greatest shift in the way our society functions of all time.

2. Artificial IntelligenceDespite our recent achievements in the realm of A.I., we're still a long way from the kind of thing we've seen in movies. What is currently known as A.I. is typically just an illusion of intelligence as a program reacts to inputs and determines a response based on pre-programmed code that prioritizes goals from an existing list. These A.I.s are usually designed to exist within a specific environment and the illusion is destroyed as soon as they are removed from it. Once we break through and create a program that can learn the same way a human does, a whole range of developments will emerge as a result; ranging from more intelligent software that learns and grows over time to androids that can perform dangerous or unwanted tasks instead of people.

3. Connectivity

The internet is only the beginning. As it develops, the world will become increasingly connected. Knowledge will become more accessible and shared freely. As our understanding of the human mind develops, it may even become possible to add memories and knowledge to our minds directly from another source, resulting in a widespread and instantaneous burst in global productivity and innovation. When everyone knows everything, anything is possible and probable.






The downside is that any one of these developments, or one of a hundred more,
could potentially throw our society into chaos and result in a massive collapse of government and economy. This looming danger is why all of these technologies will undoubtedly take much longer to arrive than otherwise, as multiple failsafes and other protective measures are put into place. Only time will tell what the outcome is going to be.