We’re super excited to welcome Jane to our team of design interns. She’s tooling away on some preliminary sketches… can’t wait to see what she cooks up!
Name: Jane Song
Hometown: Ellicott City, Maryland
School: Pratt Institute
Your Quirks: I have a dinosaur pet Tamagotchi!
Aaron and Aron are our new design interns. The whole same name thang gets a little confusing, so we’ve affectionately renamed them “Utah” (for Aaron’s homestate) and “Han” (he likes being called by his last name ’cause he’s cool like that). Say hello!
Aaron Saxton (a.k.a. Utah)
Hometown: Alpine, Utah
School: Brigham Young University
What makes him quirky: Hmmmmm….what makes me quirky? I have a trademark silly face, appropriately named, “badger face”.
Aron Han (a.k.a. Han)
Hometown: Republic of Korea
School: Parsons School of Design
What makes him quirky: I grew up raising cows and chickens, and I went to a farming high school. Now I work in high-tech industrial design — very different!
In my last post I highlighted a few awesome trade shows that can help motivate and inspire your design ideas. This past weekend, I hit up one of those shows: the BKLYN Design show.
Here are a few pics of my favorites from the show. (Check out that ant farm!)
If you are looking for a movie to watch this weekend, I recommend Gary Hustwit’s Objectified. This is the same director who also brought you the font-focused documentary, Helvetica (2007). Objectified, released last year, is a walk through the world of product design/manufacturing, punctuated with interviews by design practitioners like Chris Bangle, Mark Newson, and Karim Rashid (to name a few). Along with the famous faces in the design world, this movie also shares the thoughtful commentary of design critics like New York Times columnist and author, Rob Walker.
Objectified provides a quick/entertaining overview into the system(s) of creating products and our complex relationship to them. This movie can serve as a good starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about design and get aquainted with some of its notables and topics. For more information about the film, check out this review posted last March on Core77.
This time of year, there are some big design shows, and to continue in my series on Design Inspiration, I thought I’d highlight some.
ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) – NYC, May 15-18
ICFF is the US’s biggest design show of the year. Each year furniture companies and design companies big and small pack into the Javitz Center here in NYC to display their latest and greatest. The best part about this is that it brings the entire design industry to one city for the week, so there are tons of spin off galleries and parties all around town where you can talk with different designers.
BKLYN Designs – Brooklyn, NY, May 7-9
BKLYN highlights the best of NYC’s most artistic borough. This show is much smaller than ICFF, and acts as a prelude to the bigger show for NYC. My favorite part about BKLYN is that most of the exhibitors are entrepreneurial designers who are very willing to talk with all show patrons about their work and their careers.
Salone del Mobile (aka Milan Design Week) – Milan, Italy… last week
Ok, so we all wish we could have spent the week in Milan, and I hope I can make it to this show someday. The Milan show fills the entire city with furniture and designs from all around the globe, and like ICFF it boasts spin off galleries and parties. If you missed out like I did, check out Core77′s coverage of the show here: http://www.core77.com/blog/milan10/default.asp.
We’re still chugging along here at Quirky HQ, thanks to a magical combination of Illy Issimo and leftover ‘wichcraft cookies from our open house.
We just finished up an hour-long conversation on industrial design — pretty grueling. We decided to take it old school and use physical sketches/print-outs and Post-Its to cast our votes. In the end, the CHAMPAGNE design won.
We’re pumped. This design is functional, elegant, and unlike anything on the market, and we’re all set to class this baby up.
Here’s an idea of what the rest of the night will look like:
11:30pm-12:30am — NAMING
12:30am-7am — TAGLINE + LOGO
7am-9am — FINAL DESIGN RENDERING
9am — PRODUCT LAUNCH!
Since the move form Avenue A, our new space has demanded an upgrade in our modeling capabilities. So with the Quick & Quirky about to get started, timing couldn’t have been better today for Ben, Designer Brian and I to head over to Home Depot to stock up the shop. Now in the the craziness of our 24 hour design-off, we’ll be able to create better sketch models of our designs before we bring them into the 3D CAD phase for engineering and final modeling. Check the pics below of some of our new stuff, including our beautiful new bandsaw!
Beamer is close to going into mass production, but we are struggling with an internal design decision on the product’s surface finish. We figured this dilemma could be best solved by putting it out to you guys.
The choices are High Polish, or Soft Touch. The difference is quite large, and both carry their advantages. High polish is a bit more fitting of the Apple aesthetic, whereas the soft touch provides a nice grip and is a bit more functionally sound.
No influence is up for grabs here, as it has all been previously distributed, but we hope you’ll help us make the right decision here.
What makes a great ID submission? It all starts with a great idea. Every week we get to choose one idea to turn into a product, but that doesn’t mean the ideation part stops there. The great thing about industrial design is spinning one idea into 20 offshoots. Sure some might be crazy, but the crazy ones lead to the ideas for great ones. I love submitting some crazier ideas (Ball O’ Tools anyone?) to see where they lead the conversations in the Project Comments.
The other part of a great ID submission is the visual. Of course the visual is not 100% necessary, but as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In the business of ID, that saying can’t be more true. And you don’t have to be a modern day Da Vinci to submit a drawing, just make sure you clearly communicate your idea. That really is the essence of a great ID submission: clearly communicating a great idea.
The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived… Quirky’s Cloak is now available for pre-sale in our online store, just in time for Apple’s iPad pre-sale launch on March 12. Cloak is BY FAR the sleekest, sexiest iPad case on the market. Plus, it’s mad functional. The whole package… I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it.
Protect your iPad with Quirky’s Cloak! Cloak is a sleek, sturdy case for the Apple iPad with a modern design resembling an office folder.
The Cloak is constructed from non-slip rubber, with durable plastic on the hinge mechanisms. The iPad slides into the case through a top opening and is held in place by a sturdy friction grip. It can be positioned to sit on a flat surface in both portrait and landscape positions. Here’s how:
Portrait: fold the Cloak’s front cover behind the iPad. Use the plastic support brace located on the product’s inside cover to prop up the iPad screen vertically.
Landscape: open Cloak’s front cover and use it to prop up the iPad’s screen from behind. Depending on your viewing preference, the cover can click into different angles by pressing a button on the hinge.
The Apple iPad will start pre-selling on March 12, and it is scheduled to arrive in stores on April 3. Don’t delay – purchase Cloak today!