Sand, Lenovo's IdeaPad, and Chinese Olympic!

Sunflower seeds 'energy drink'

Visited a Chinese student's dorm room on campus, who has lived with an American for 4 months.
Some interesting behavior patterns differences can be easily spotted in this no matter than 100 sqt space.

First thing popped into my eyes is this sunflower seeds 'energy drink'. It is a rare phenomena you may only spot here in the US. Before I explain the reason, let's tell you how American are taught to consume sunflower seeds. I quote the following instructioon from wikihow .

Steps:
1. Purchase a bag of sunflower seeds (David is very well known and the choice of baseball teams the country over).
2. Place two(2) sunflower seeds in your mouth.
3. With your tongue, move one over to your cheek (the side not being used to actively eat the seeds).
4. With your tongue, place the other seed vertically or horizontally between your teeth, depending on your preference. Either way, the outside edge of the sell should be making contact with you teeth. Use your molars (chewing teeth), because there is an indention in the middle to hold the seed.
5. Apply firm and steady pressure on the seed until it cracks.
6. Release the seed from your teeth.
7. With your tongue and teeth, separate the inner seed from the shell. The texture is the key to this step. The inner, edible seed, will be smooth, while the shell will be rough.
Spit out all of the shell pieces. (After practice, the shell will usually break open like a clam, therefor making this step less messy)
8. Eat the seed.
9. Slowly raise the amount of seeds you can hold in your spare cheek to reduce the number of reloads per serving.

Even Tips are offerred.
1. To avoid annoying your coworkers, try to crack the seeds with your mouth closed to minimize the irritating "cracking" sound.
2. If you are a really serious seeder, try growing sunflowers and harvesting your own seeds. You can then decide how much salt you want.
3. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it the first time. Professional Sunflower Seed eaters have had years of practice and make it look easy. Keep at it, practice makes perfect.
4.If you want to shoot some seeds inside spit them into a cup.

Above instruction is totally different from how we, Chinese, eat sunflower seeds. If you watch the Youtube video, the boy on the left is how we 'naturally' eat sunflower seeds (I don't recall being taught so, guess it is inherently in the gene?)

Teaching students design evaluation

The Gondola Cardboard Chair

bike and coffee

Post-it note: 'Please bring you own paper!'

with the paper tray open and post-it note aid, telling user "you need to bring your own paper!"

Stamp ribbon

Visited a Postal Office, instead of waiting in the long line, I chose to give a shot to the Automated Postal Center. This machine can weigh your package/mail and tell you appropriate postage needed. I was short on 21 cents, that was how the machine really shows its ability: all it can give you is 1 cent value stamp.

Here we go, I bordered the envelop with 'stamps ribbon'.

Can you imagine what if a consumer just needs a 41cents stamp?

Hmmm, maybe it is time for us to have an envelop of 1-cent stamp pattern as background.

Which seat does not recline?

Saw this sign while sitting on the Southwest air plane, middle exit area, The seat in front of mine should not recline in case of blocking the emergency exit. But the sign can only be seen by the people behind the seat. So which seat does not recline?

'down'?

Pull 'down'? or Press 'down' or Pull 'forward' and 'down'?

double lock

Students' works on Youtube

How To Drive Like An Old Guy

Elderly drivers make up a growing share of Japan’s auto market—and its accident statistics, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. Now, to help them drive more safely (and comfortably), engineers at Nissan are donning “old” suits that simulate the effects of aging. “It’s not always practical to recruit older motorists for product research,” says design engineer Etsuhiro Watanabe. –Ian Rowley

quote: here

Time Wrap

  

a chair affair

quote/unquote bookends

The quote/unquote bookends is designed by eric janssen. You think as if the bookends might have known everything said in those books and even been talking with them...'quote', 'and quote'... ...
The bookend is made out of concrete as the core and with synthetic rubber exterior.
You can purchase here

Pop-up typography

A Pop-up typographic book designed by Marion Bataille, which is due to be published in October of 2008.

Before and After?

Advertisement for Dr. John Mullally, D.D.S.

Agency: Cramer-Krasselt
Copywriter: Andrew Gall
Creative Director: Ken Erke / John Carstens
Art Director: Vince Soliven

McDonald's sub-service?

Came across the bike rental facility near Millenium Park in Chicago.
My first question was: am I in Europe?
My second question: Is this McDonald's sub-service?
Very well-faciliated service system, surprisingly spotted in developed and fast-pacing modern city, like Chicago. Hopefully, it is not just designed to cater to tourists' needs but for general public's well-being.
Maybe, just maybe, here in the US, we can slow down to enjoy the life and promote its quality.
So, United States of America, one of the weathiest countries , could score into the top 10 of World's Happiest Countires. To take a tour of the world's happiest countries, click here.

wallpaper=calendar

A wallpaer that possesses the functions of a calendar, designed by Christaan Postma.
By merging qualities from an everyday item like a wallpaper with functions from a calendar that we use daily, something ordinary like a wall becomes alive and personal.

'Shoe'

This picture, borrowed from School Paris Gallery, is thousands times of more powerful than words, when you still have a pair of wearable shoes.

commodity

Passing by a grocery store at the border of USA and Mexico, Nogales Arizona. The scenes remind me of those small business stalls along the streets in China years back, where relatively low quality goods are overstocked and sold at cheaper prices.

It was quite a nostalgic hit to me when seeing the similarities of how variety of the goods are displayed, such as, plastic toy guns are hung to display the various models, packages of different icecream flavors are pasted together for easy selection, a socking branded with "USA" may help the sales, etc.

During the most recent trip back to China, I didn't spot the similar scene in Shanghai (as far as the places I visited).

co-existence

A co-existence of survial necessity (water), life document tool (notebook and pen), way finding aid(keys), fun campanion and communication device (iphone), catcher and maker of dreams and realities (cameras).

Landscape of Eating Journey

Topoware china is a collaboration between Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino from Canada and Karola Torkos from Germany, which was recently featured in the New York Times.
The tableware collection questions the landscape of dining. Taking inspiration from the recent popularity of geography as a media of communication (with Google maps) and more specifically with topographic maps, which define heights of a landscape two dimensionally, Topoware in turn, “outlines” the dining experience.

The layers of the place mats take inspiration from the landscaping in geography as the media of design communication. Each layer defining what comes first and the organic lines outline where cutlery and tableware should be placed.

Even interestingly, the altitudes of the lines as patterns on the bowls, salad plates and dinner plates indicate the amount of food proportionally healthy to the degrees of hunger.

Salad bowl: full / hungry / very hungry
Large plate: modest / moderate / greedy
Small plate: child / mother / father

As a touch-up accessory, by using subtle lines and various color intensities, this hand-sewn tablecloth draws out a sense of territory, space expansion and proximity for each eater who shares the same table.

Another interesting and thoughtful design that is to promote positive social interaction. Do we still have family dinner time in a home setting nowadays?

Designer's Notebook

50 Years of Helvetica

Lost in Circular Usability

A picture taken at a random street corner, on my walk back to the hotel in Stockholm, Sweden.
You will see a lot of these iconic circular signs in bright yellow, red and blue in Stockholm. But what do they mean? Especially, while being put together?

Simplicity in Geometric Usability

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Probably no one will use geometrical shapes as functional and rational as Germen. A combination of a simple triangle form with a certain degree of tilt down and another joining triangle form tilt up functions perfectly for supporting wheelchair come in and out of elevator!
The picture was taken in Mercedence-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Natural Cooler

A snapshot taken while me wandering along the main water channel in Venice. Isn't it amazing? A natural cooler system. I still couldn't figure how the water was recycled, since the tap didn't have a water tube. Any idea or hint will be certainly helpful.

Eat your Experience:de witte tafel

Europadag at the Witte Tafel is an experience design project by JULIEN CARRETERO DESIGN STUDIO around European food that took place in the "Brabantse Cultuurprijs" winning restaurant de Witte Tafel in Eindhoven for the Europe Day 2006.

The project dealt with a ceremony in which the space was designed as a tribute to European architecture and the menu as a tribute to European cuisine. Indeed, the whole ritual was performed by waiters wearing 'Miss Europadag' sashes.

Isn't this a retreat? I tend to love European simplicity more than Japanese, after all, I can enjoy some humor and warmth in it.