How does the internet see you/your brand with personas

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person - to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrates the computer's uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

Personas was created by Aaron Zinman, with help from Alex Dragulescu, Yannick Assogba and Judith Donath.

Tomas Redigh

If advertising is a firework, social media is a bonfire.

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

Flow Chair for mdfitalia | materialicious

Flow Chair for mdfitalia | materialicious

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Simon Hasan by Vauxhall Collective Commission

As part of this year’s Vauxhall Collective commissions, Simon Hasan combines ancient craft techniques with industrial design language to create a unique range of design pieces.

Commissioned by Vauxhall Motors to design a series of products under the theme ‘The Great British Road Trip’ Hasan – one of the UK’s most promising designers – took to the open road to delve into the lost crafts of the British Isles. While exploring the tension between industrial led design and rural craft, Hasan’s work sets out to revive a series of ancient craft techniques by making them part of a commercially and semi-mass-produced collection.

Comprising three distinct designs this latest collection is a perfect complement to Hasan’s RCA graduation work based on the Medieval process of Cuir Bouilli,

Including Stoneware Vases, echoing the distinctive beer flagons once widely used across the UK, Oak stools, using an ancient woodland craft known as cleaving, and an Oak and Steel cabinet, again created using the cleaving technique, Hasan’s fascination with obscure and ancient craft techniques is once again the driving force behind this truly remarkable collection.

Simon Hasan is a member of the Vauxhall Collective 2008/2009. His commission pieces are for sale through the Vauxhall Collective website.

From top: Vases Inspired by Stoneware by Simon Hasan - Vauxhall Collective Commission 2009

Blonde Stained Stool by Simon Hasan - Vauxhall Collective Commission 2009

Ebony Stained Stool by Simon Hasan - Vauxhall Collective Commission 2009

Welded Carbon Steel Cabinet by Simon Hasan - Vauxhall Collective Commission 2009

farmer and style at Design Huis (6 august - 27 september)

The current financial crisis and our concerns about ecology have contributed to rethinking our existence in the challenging and stressful city, while advances in information technology have participated in setting humans free from a fixed location within the urban environment. Man can now live wherever he wants and however he wants at any given moment.

We therefore can live like nomads and gather like shepherds: news, knowledge, music, images, objects and food. The slow food movement has shifted the focus from the exotic and exclusive to a need for the local and the seasonal. Forgotten vegetables and regional recipes are rediscovered and reinvented. Now this movement is spreading to other domains within our lives and “slowing down” becomes a general and accepted idea.

Everything seems to indicate that rural realities are influencing urban life. The greening of the city and the urbanization of the country will ultimately lead to the blurring of borders between these two domains. Designers, artists and architects are reflecting upon this exchange of ideas. The life of man and animal will be strongly integrated and the production of food will take place within the city borders. In a search for autarchy, a more mature and autonomous positioning is requested concerning the chain of food production. New ideas will be born to seed, hybrid and harvest within the city.

Materials will be given by the land and animals and will be treated with respect; they will carry the honest identity of the fibre and the flock and transform the designer into a conceptual farmer. Several internationally renowned designers already choose to live on farms today.

Form is derived from the romantic pastoral past and seeks the essence of the farm in new materials and images. The land and earth is studied, mapped and researched and is used to formulate simple and generic tabletop products made from a colourcard of clay from the polder. The wheelbarrow and the rocking chair are reinvented. The tile stove and pick fork are back. In a first trial to understand and map this movement, through fifteen installations, Eindhoven’s Designhuis will explore a new lifestyle where humans are seen as an integral part of the ecologic cycle, integrated in the process. Placing themselves on equal ground with agriculture and animal. Humans with respect for life.

About the exhibition

the exhibition farmer and style, from the 6th of august till the 27th of september, sketches how globalization, a growing world population and the search for sustainable lifestyles leads to concepts like vertical farming. as farming slowly makes it’s entry into the city, however in a modernized way, farmers specialize themselves in urban life. design plays a crucial role in this new interpretation. li edelkoort (former chairwoman of design academy eindhoven) will curate this exhibition. she has already invited a number of important designers, architects, artists and brands to collaborate with us. some of the participants are for example piet heijn eek, wiel arets, Mike Meire, Esther Kokmeijer, Claudy Jongstra, Jurgen Bey and Rianne Makkink, Koen van Mechelen, Frank Tjepkema, Christien Meindertsma, MVRDV, Nadine Sterk, Lonny van Rijswijck, Maarten Kolk, Studio Job, Scholten en Baijngs, Floris Schoonderbeek, Dick van Hoff, Joep van Lieshout, Joons Kim, Ton Matton, Kranen/Gille, Frederik Molenschot, Jessica Hansson, Revital Cohen, Agata Jaworska, Rosanne van de Weerdt, Sander Bokkinga, David Olschewski.

During the exhibition the audience can enjoy organic/regional products at the café and every Friday there will be a market with organic products on the square. The banks of the river will change into an organic vegetable garden for the surroundings. During the exhibition different activities, like rural movie nights, documentaries and presentations in which the farm represents innovation and education, will be developed. There will also be two lectures from an architect and a designer who are passionate about the subject.

Main image: Atelier NL, Maarten Kolk
Image: Christien Meindertsma
Image: Ton Matton
Image: Koen van Mechelen

Porcelains at the RCA

Georgios Maridakis’ final work at the summer show was his Sèvres Vase Clock. “The project started as an initiative between the French Sèvres porcelain factory and the RCA”, explains Maridakis. “My goal was to celebrate the inherent qualities within Sèvres vases, instead of generating yet another porcelain piece. The aim of this project was to create an object that could give life to the unique characteristics possessed by pre-existing artifacts.”

“My interest in ceramics began during my studies in Arnhem, where I designed several pieces with this material. In my view porcelain is a material that requires skill, patience, and some degree of humour. The Sèvres Vase Clock is a new type of timepiece that tells the hour by tapping on the surface of a vase to produce sound. An adjustable hammer mechanism allows a variety of vases to be used, thereby permitting a range of chimes to be generated. This piece was inspired by porcelain’s three main qualities: transparency, whiteness, and its pure ring. The clock reminds the user of the passage of time not only through its chime, but also through the gradual fractures and eventual shatter that it inflicts (on the porcelain).”

Jozephine Duker’s work also looks at the concept of sound, through her Ceramic Sound Landscape. This ‘musical instrument’, a project for Yamaha, is made from ceramic bowls of differing thicknesses and sizes on flexible silicone rubber feet, which can be struck by everyday objects, such as a pen.

Duker explains, “The Ceramic Sound Landscape invites people to play music: a moment of pleasure is created when walking from one place to another in an office building or school, for example. The varied thicknesses and sizes of the bowls create the different tones, which are structured in a grid from low to high. This allows people to explore the surface and to learn to play it.”

Willem van Landeghem studied ceramics at the RCA and it was a work placement at Royal Crown Derby that led van Landeghem to use bone china for most of his graduation projects.

His ceramic washbasins deal with the concept of how we should think of water as a luxurious commodity, yet we don’t give it a second thought as it drains away out of our washbasins. The use of special plugs splashes droplets of water back into the basin, instead of letting it all go straight down the plughole unnoticed. Van Landeghem says, “The aesthetics of splashing water and the drops like pearls makes the user feel the preciousness of water.”

Van Landeghem has also worked on the instability of bone china, creating bowls and lights that have structural textures within them. The lights have delicate ribbed effects and these are strongly highlighted by the translucent qualities of the material when backlit.

Main image and image 1: Georgios Maridakis
Image 2: Jozephine Duker
Image 3: Willem van Landeghem

via design.nl

The Prosthetics Project: Re-designing the prosthetic arm

This past fall, Allan Chochinov, a partner at the design blog Core 77, ran a course at SVA which challenged students to rethink the prosthetic arm. Today, The Prosthetics Project launched as an online exhibition, showing the work of all 21 students that took the class. As Chochinova writes:

The students took different approaches to the problem: some attacked it directly with mechanical improvements to existing prosthetics. Others offered devices and garments that introduced alternative modalities or provided new functionality. Some students took a more abstract approach, creating formal, often sculptural, gestures as a way to help us think about the notion of 'prosthetic,' while others took an extremely conceptual approach to investigating the paradigms and cultures around prosthetics and amputees.

The intent wasn't to create solutions that might pop right into the current market--but rather, to challenge students who otherwise might never have encountered such a difficult and unique design problem. The hope, according to Chochinov, was that the young greehorns would have ideas that would never occur to an engineering pro.

The projects are organized along four basic approaches: Decorative, Playful, Utilitarian, and Awareness. Here's a sampling of each category:

In the Decorative category, Tonya Douraghy & Carli Pierce designed the "Feather Cuff and Wing Arm"--which aims to tackle the stigma associated with a prosthetic, by turning it into a fanciful accessory.

In the Playful category, Ekta Daryanani designed a sleeve for a prosthetic arm which kids can draw on--thus making it into a canvas for self-expression, not unlike a cast which all your friends sign.

The Utilitarian category emphasized function over form. Giho Lee began his investigation by experimenting with a "trainer"--a device that gives a two-armed person a sense of what it's like to have a prosthetic hand. Then he began devising a clever, willfully "dumb" and low-tech method for wire attachments to adapt the trainer to different tasks. It's not a design solution per se, but nonetheless, documents the process of how you'd start developing improvements on the "hook" (thanks to Allan for the clarification).

The most abstract category was Awareness, which investigated the cultural mores that amputees live with. Meital Gueta created three pieces that aim to reflect the body image of amputees.

You can see all of the projects--and more images--at the Prosthetics Project Web site. Kudos to Allan for leading such a well thought-out class, and to the students, for coming up with such a wealth of interesting ideas!

[Via Core 77, fastcompany]

Post Digital Marketing 2009

Post Digital Marketing 2009

View more documents from Helge Tennø.

The Singular Suit project by Esquire

The Singular Suit project, which launches at Somerset House in London on 31 July, brings together the creative talents of some of the best designers, tailors and artists in the world.

British Esquire asked 18 leading fashion designers and tailors to collaborate with a major artist of their choice to create a bespoke, one-off suit that represents their skills and artistic vision. Their efforts have culminated in an extraordinary array of pieces, from the wearable to the outlandish. Designs include an Aquascutum and Antony Gormley creation made entirely from metal plates and lead-filled trousers (pictured) and a “naked” organza suit by Spencer Tunick and Richard James. Louis Vuitton designer Paul Helbers has teamed up with Christian Schoeler to fashion a heavy suit made entirely from a painted canvas, while Henry Holland has worked with Marc Jacobs’ tattooist, Scott Campbell, to create a leather mustard-colored suit with tattoo-style markings of supermodels’ names on the sleeve. Norton & Sons and Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller have drawn inspiration from Winston Churchill by re-creating the prime minister’s “Siren Suit” — a trademark suit that Churchill designed for himself during the war, while a suit by Donatella Versace and light artist/designer James Clar has lightsabers bursting from the seams. The suits took three to six months to produce, and were shipped to London from all over the world. Some were held on suspicion by customs for weeks on end, while others had to be dismantled for the journey and then put back together again. They are on exhibition at the Terrace Rooms, Seamen’s Hall, Somerset House until August 31. The suits have also been photographed to appear in a unique portfolio in the special hardback September edition of Esquire UK, on sale August 6.

via We are the Market

Paperhouse by Heatherwick Studio

Designer Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio has completed a series of brass newspaper kiosks in London.

Photographs are by Cristobal Palma.

via Dezeen

Ceci n'est pas un burger joint

Daniel Boulud does Burgers

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL MILNE

DBGB
299 Bowery
Tel: 212-460-5777
Designer: Thomas Schlesser/Design Bureaux

9h new-generation capsule hotel, Tokyo

Opening next december in kyoto is 9h [nine hours], a next-generation capsule hotel created by designer masaaki hiromura and interior designer takaaki nakamura. the result is a capsule hotel concept that fuses modern design, comfort and new technology. this technology, dubbed sleeping environment system, has been developed in collaboration with panasonic denko and aims to increase the guest’s well-being. Check out the exhibition dedicated to the 9h capsule hotel, opening at tokyo’s axis gallery on wed - aug 19. location: 5-17-1 roppongi, 4th floor.

House in Saijo by Suppose Design Office

Architects: Suppose Design Office
Location: Saijo,Higashihiroshima,Hiroshima,Japan
Program: Personal house
Site area: 246 sqm
Building area: 50.41m
Total floor area: 115.51 sqm
Photographs: Toshiyuki Yano from Nacasa&Partners Inc.




via archdaily

MADCrush @ MAD

MADCrush
4 More Thursdays Only - Continues Thursday, August 6
6:00 - 10:30 pm

@ the Museum of Arts and Design
Crush pairs wines to dishes from NYCs top Chefs

For the next four consecutive Thursday evenings we'll continue to showcase our award-winning selections, as well as some of our favorite 'off the beaten path' favorites by the taste, glass, and bottle in recyclable govino glasses.

We've made our picks specifically to accompany menus of small plates from a roster of New York’s best chefs, including Mark Ladner of Del Posto, Scott Conant of Scarpetta, George Mendes of Aldea, and Cesare Casella of Salumeria Rossiwho will trade off cooking each Thursday.

The fun began on Thursday, July 30th when they took over the entire 7th floor of the Museum of Arts and Design’s newly redesigned building at 2 Columbus Circle with Executive Chef Mark Ladner (Del Posto).

Award-winning Architect/Designer Stephanie Goto (Morimoto, Buddakan, Monkey Bar, Corton, etc) and her friend Takeshi Miyakawa collaborated on the design of this very special space. The bars and tables are crafted from repurposed wine boxes, the seating landscape is made from corrugated cardboard wine dividers and a textured wall made of wine box inserts doubles as a changeable menu peg board. The design embraces the temporary spirit of the event as all of the components literally “pop up.”

PLAY BY COMME DES GARÇONS AT HEADQUARTER, MEXICO CITY

Headquarter owned by Ricardo Campa, is a boutique in Mexico city storing the like of Billionaire Boys club, Kid Robot, Original Fake, yesterday they presented a brand a new section: the box Comme Des Garçons.

Address: colima 244, colinia roma, mexico city.

Check the website of Headquarter.

Images Courtesy of Toni François