The European Commission invites private persons as well as organisations to take part in an online survey. The survey bases on the document Design as a driver of user-centred innovation in which the Commission provides an analysis of the rationale for making design an integral part of European innovation policy.

The EU wants to find out wheter more should be done on the field of design. So designers, take your time – fill out the survey and let the EU make your wishes come true.

Photo Credit: TPCOM (Flickr)

Geruchsexpertin Sissel Tolaas

Vom 24. bis 25. Juni 2009 findet in Berlin eine Veranstaltung statt, die sich mit den 5 Sinnen beschäftigt: das 5 GUM Vision Lab. Jeder Sinn wird von einem Experten repräsentiert. LOOK von der Modedesignerin Eley Kishimoto, HEAR vom Produzenten und DJ Ewan Pearson, SMELL von der Geruchstforscherin Sissel Tolaas, TASTE von der Molekularköchin Telse Bus, TOUCH wird repräsentiert von den Objektdesignerinnen von FRONT. Kurator ist Holm Friebe. Jeder Experte hält einen Vortrag und leitet einen Workshop.

Teilnehmen können allerdings nur diejenigen, die sich bis zum 31. Mai mit außergewöhnlichen Projekten rund um die 5 Sinne bewerben und unter den besten 10 Projekten landen. Dem Gewinner winken zusätzlich 10,000 Euro. Initiiert wird der Wettbewerb von Wrigley, die im Juni ein neues Kaugummi launchen, eben das “5 GUM”. Ein aufwendig geplantes und inhaltlich viel versprechendes Projekt – ein Besuch der Website lohnt sich. Alleine um Ideen und Impressionen rund um die fünf Sinne zu gewinnen.

cause/affect is a biennial graphic design competition which celebrates the work of designers and organizations who “set out to positively impact our society.” Entries may be sent in before June 19, 2009. The details of the competition are simple: all work entered must promote or support social good. All AIGA San Francisco, the organizer, asks is that it doesn’t contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization. And to qualify, work must have been produced between November 1, 2007 and June 19, 2009.

The winning works will be showcased at the cause/affect awards ceremony in July and displayed at the AIGA SF gallery through the summer. Winning entrants will also be featured on the cause/affect site and a portion of any proceeds from the competition will be donated to a local non-profit organization. Visit the website for entry forms and more information.

The organizers expect to receive high response. “We were staggered by the global interest the competition stimulated [in 2007, ed.]” said Brian Singer, AIGA SF President, “…we received entries from as far afield as Norway, the Netherlands and Singapore. And this year, with excitement about the competition mounting, and the blogosphere clicking into high gear, we’re expecting to see do-gooders flooding our offices with another batch of awe-inspiring work.”

Good50×70 is a project that collects poster designs and provides it to charitable institutions like Amnesty International, Greenpeace or the WWF. The makers call it “Creativity for free” – the creative community should be a “force for good”. Yet they stemmed already fifteen workshops, twenty exhibitions and over 4,000 posters – a respectable success. (Image credits: Simonluca Definis).

The next exhibition of the posters will be held at La Triennale Gallery in Milan. The exhibition will open on the 19th of June, and will end on the 12th of July. The exhibition will be preceded by a set of workshops led by three of Good 50×70’s jury members: Alain Le Quernec, Woody Pirtle and Yossi Lemel. The workshops will all take place at different schools in Milan on the 15th, 16th and 17th of June.

However I think that one poster is missing – it is a graffiti we found in Sydney. Seb saved it on a picture.

Image credit: Terry Hart

Here is a competition that could be fun to participate. The task:

What kind of character or distinction defines the modern-day hero in these times? What powers would he/she possess? Summon your illustrative force and go where no design has gone before. This competition asks you to come up with and illustrate a new kind of hero – your own benevolent fictional character for this day and age.

Social Designer will pick the best hero design to win a prize money of $2000. The winning design will be made into a t-shirt and sold on Social Designer.com with 20% of the profits going to 826 National, a non-profit organization.

Did you ever think about what positive effect daylight has when it is streaming into a room? Of course we know that light makes us feel good and bright. But what about the patterns on the wall it creates?

“Daylight in a room indoor gives information or signs of something outside the physical room. These signs give us a subconcious feeling that our perceived space is larger than the physical room. The contrast betwwen and indoor decreases.”

That is what Daniel Rybakken knows about the relation between light and room – and with this in mind he created “Surface Daylight”, a light panel with light in the surface and therefore simulating streaming daylight into a room. With his project he won the Design Report Award 2009 at the SaloneSatellite in Milan.

I think this award found the right winner. The project is amazing as it uses the latest technology in light (and shows what can be achieved with it) in an ubiquitous and aesthetically appealing way.

The style of Experimenta Design 2009. Designed by Ian Anderson.

It’s about time…

How are we thinking about time these days? As a subjective experience or a socially defined concept? As luxury commodity or basic market currency? In a sense, everything in our lives is about time; it is the one resource that no individual or activity can do without. We value time, we save it, we manage it, we fight it. Ultimately, time is never enough, so we are forced to prioritize. Assess, compare, choose, relegate. As contemporary life accelerates non-stop, communication is real-time, decisions are split-second and problem solving relies on quick fixes rather than sustainable solutions. In a world on the brink of environmental and financial collapse, there is a pressing need to take action – but do we think before we act? It’s about time to concentrate on mature reflection and persistent change.

ExperimentaDesign proposes to translate the double meaning of its 2009 theme into a programme: to think about the way we use time in design. EXD looks at the various ways in which time plays a role in creative disciplines, and how they in turn can address shifting notions of time and urgency. How can creative practitioners reconcile the ever-increasing speed of life with the need for reflection? Can designers develop a new notion of ‘time-based design’?
How do we deal with the social dimensions of time? Social processes are fast becoming a main ingredient in product development, from open-source R&D to community-based production and project implementation. Keywords here are intimately connected to notions of time and urgency: improvisation, networking, sharing and parallel development. It’s all about time.

Experimenta Design, 09 September – 08 November 2009, Lisbon, Portugal.

Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems (SPM/MoD), submitted by an interdisciplinary team of students at MIT has been selected as the winner of the prestigious 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. The team will receive a $100,000 prize at a conferring ceremony on June 6th, 2009 at 2pm at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago followed by a reception and celebration featuring a presentation by design innovator Bruce Mau.

Given the nature of the crises we are facing, from climate change to economic collapse, what is important is to demonstrate that the approach to design and problem solving at the core of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge – while always thinking big – has the potential to bring about changes in the near-term. The winning project is a perfect example of the kind of radical, transformative change that is possible when we reconceive the old ways of doing things and take a systems-based approach to design,” said The Buckminster Fuller Challenge jurors in a statement about their decision. “SPM/MoD isn’t just about the design of these lightweight, highly efficient, electric vehicles, it is about inserting that technological innovation into the social and cultural environment and designing an intuitive system within which they function.

To learn more about the winning strategy, visit: http://challenge.bfi.org/winner_2009

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge from Buckminster Fuller Institute on Vimeo.