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Ludicrous Design Lessons

Will — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:47:19 +0000

If there’s one sartorial statement that I’ve always enjoyed it’s the knotted sweater around the waist. It speaks volumes about the wearer, but unfortunately most sweaters are too bulky for people to wear them around their waists comfortably. This is where Pretty Pink Toes Boutique comes in, they’ve invented the ‘BootyWrap’. This is a “bulkless” garment which ties round the waist with pockets for essential (and non-essential items). Though unfortunately it’s only available in Europe at the moment don’t despair, there’s plenty of time for you to get your hands on several before Christmas. Just imagine the looks on your relatives faces.

Of course we couldn’t talk about ludicrous design and bum bags (horrendously known as fanny packs in America) without talking about Steven M Johnson. Johnson designed what could be termed a forerunner to the bum bag with the Pouch Pants and specialises in designing and imagining what could be and what could never be. A desk that you sleep in and taxi with a tunnel in it for cyclists to travel through are both standard Johnson inventions.

There are two aspects to Johnson’s designs that are worth drawing attention to; they always fulfil more than one function and they are always idea based. These are both lessons that you can apply to your own work, whether you’re a designer or not. It is worth asking yourself what functions you’re work fills, and whether it can fulfil more than one. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the ideation stage is the most important part of any work. It is here that problems are easiest to deal with, where you can give full flight to your imagination without tying it down with too many pre-conceptions that have arisen from starting a project without working through this phase first. As Johnson admits there is the perception that “My boss will get angry if I spend all day doodling” but it is up to you to find the balance between thought and action.

If you need something designed, ludicrous or not, then why not submit a brief on to our Creative Services Exchange.

Mother Nature Shows Designers How it’s Done

Will — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:00:30 +0000

Nature, not the best mother figure a person could have. In one hand she gives you a lovely flower, and slaps you with a bee sting on the other. Still she’s got some a great design portfolio, like blue whales, triceratops and well, most of the world. It sets a high standard for us to live up to, but as T. S. Eliot said ‘Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal’ or biomimicry if you’re a scientist.

Some of the best inventions, like Velcro, have come from looking at how mother nature deals with her problems. In this case Georges de Mestral looked at the way burrs worked with seed dispersal, and if you like Velcro you should check out Gecko Tape.

But if you think that’s the coolest thing that Mother Nature has in her portfolio then you’re in for a surprise. Check out these three awesome inventions based on naturally occurring design features.

Termite Mounds and Zimbabwean Architecture

Some species of Termites practise Fungiculture, where they cultivate a “garden” of fungi which provides their main diet. This means that the temperature inside their mound must be maintained at steady 31 degree’s, something the termites manage despite the highs of 40 and lows of around 2 degrees that occur on their environment. They do this by utilising a complex system of vents, closing up old ones and digging new ones constantly to keep the temperature at its optimum level, and this has obvious benefits when translated in to human architecture. The Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, designed by Mike Pearce andArup Associates, uses the same principles employed in termite mounds to cool the building. Resulting in a saving of $3.5 million by not having to install air conditioning, plus the building stays at a fairly constant temperature of 25 degrees.

Platelets and Self-Healing Planes

Have you ever dropped some highly prized high priced gizmo and watched it smash on the floor. Perhaps you saw the self healing phone screen April fool’s from Autoglass. Well based on the bodies ability to heal itself scientists have been working on applying the concept to planes. Dr Ian Bond has developed a composite material that bleeds resin when damaged which then hardens effectively creating a scab that covers the damage. Of course we’re talking small amounts of damage not gaping holes but this technology could drastically increase flight safety. Bond envisions moving forward with this technology to create buildings that have a circulatory system enabling them to heal low level damage that occurs during their lifetime. Of course this just sounds like make a monster physics applied to buildings so who knows what the future holds.

Butterfly Wing and IMOD Screens

The clever folks over at Mirasol Displays have taken the way that light reflects from the scales (yes, scales) on a butterfly’s wings to create revolutionary new screens. These use the reflective power of natural light to assist them, so not only do they save battery but they can also be used in direct sunlight. Imagine how much work (or procrastination) you could do if you could not only read your screen whilst sunbathing but if it was also powered by the glaring eye of Sol. I bet it would be a lot, though we’ll have to wait and see as it’ll be a couple of years until this hits the market.

Mother Nature hasn’t yet joined our Exchange but we do have some pretty fabulous designers and agencies so if you’d like to have something naturally brilliant designed, why not submit a brief?

Crowdsourcing Design | Designs of the week #23

Paul — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:24:07 +0000

Every week we are spoilt for choice at our crowdsourced design agency to pick the designs of the week. Our design crowd is brimming with class and quality, just check these out….

Bodgan Sviridov // Altradio web

Chris Hoods // Bar 122

Zbigniew Goik // Chiliking

Typeface documentary // Tomato Kosir

Create Tomorrow (Open House) // Gregg Dubois

Crowdsourcing Design | Raw Talent

Paul — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:51:24 +0000

Crowdsourced design agency blur Designs welcomes Belgrade based Jana Jelovac to the spotlight this week. Jana is a phenomenally talented designer who has a raw style that is both unique and in high demand. She’s passionate about music and her favourite designers are actually painters: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Joan Miró. As you’ll see below, her exceptional skills cover Digital Art, Mix-media, Illustration and Photo-manipulation. Enjoy the interview…

Your designs are nothing short of potent, where does this raw, urban style come from?
I cannot say it exactly. I think that my style is a mixture of everything; my city, culture, resistant spirit that I have, and the desire to change things and push them forward. I don’t like art just because of art. The most important thing for me is the message that is carried to the world.

If you could design for any album cover, what would it be?
I am sure it would be U.n.k.l.e.’s first album “Psyence Fiction” or Tricky’s album “Nearly God”. These two are my favourite music artists, something like a soul-mates because I can find a big piece of me in the art they are producing.

Favorite brand?
Well, I don’t have any favourite brand. I respond only if something cacthes my eye, no matter what it is or who made it.

Perfect night out?
My perception of going out at night changed entirely from the bottom to the top. In my earlier years I was looking for nothing but thrills, but now, I rather stay at home and just enjoy and relax with my husband. As we get older our priorities are changing very fast, but in the good way. Everything is more peaceful when you do it like this.

Why do you love Basquiat so much?
Because he reminds me of me in so many ways. I grew up and realized life is so much different to the dreams you had as a child, he just didn’t get the chance to arrive into his maturity and figure out for himself that we have to accept all the cruelness of the world, or we will go mad trying to find that perfect world that we all want for ourselves.

Stones, Beatles or The Who?
If I must choose…then the Stones. Beatles were too neat and The Who were a little bit too hippie for my taste.

Top Design Tips | How To Create Your Online Portfolio

Paul — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:36:12 +0000

Becoming a Graphic Designer has its own joys as well as challenges and hardships. Being able to brainstorm an idea and then watch it cultivate into a full grown design is rewarding. The love for Design resides in the passion of creating solutions and getting your ideas across; and as Milton Glaser puts it, “To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.”

Creating your first portfolio online can bring with it a lot of questions and anxieties. To put together and showcase your best work, you need to present it effectively to win the hearts of clients and make your mark. Remember that your artwork reflects your personality and you have to make sure that it sends out a great impression to others. Add a personal touch to your designs through which others could recognize you easily. Design is in the details, so you have to make sure that your portfolio sets with the highest standards of Graphic design.

1. Introduce yourself

While presenting your artwork online, it is important that you introduce yourself and your background. It is preferable that you include a recent resume of yourself. It is important for others to know what fields do you specialize in, your interests, past projects, affiliations, awards and achievements.

2. Answer all the Buying Questions

The main purpose of your online portfolio is not merely to showcase you work, but to get hired as well. Therefore, allow your portfolio to answer as many questions such as contact information, your location, costs, commissions and areas of specialization, so that clients could get in touch with you easily.

3. Do Not be Afraid to Showcase your Work

Many designers are afraid to showcase their work to the world worrying about copyright infringement or the harsh critiques. Well, trust me, that’s for your own good. First of all, people recognize you through your style of artwork, and in the current state of social media and networking, copied work never goes unnoticed. Secondly, positive criticism and feedback helps a lot. It is important to know what others think of your work and in the end, it definitely helps you achieve better. As a professional, it is important to have a great portfolio showcase on your personal domain as well as on various online networking platforms. There are a number of free online platforms and tools which offer you the ability to upload your work and create a design portfolio online for free. Here is my pick of some of the favorites:

Online Platforms & Tools for Setting Up a Portfolio

Behance Network

Behance Network is perhaps by far one of the best and my favorite portfolio management sites I have ever come across. The site offers you a great number of features and the portfolio designs are strikingly appealing, clean and professional. You can setup your dynamic portfolio using their easy-to-use tools, create circles (network with like-minded people), ask for feedback and share content. However, you need to request an invitation to join the Behance Network.

Carbonmade: Your Online Portfolio

Carbonmade allows you to create and manage your online portfolio with a number of online tools. Currently, it boasts to have a database of over 240,000 portfolios. They have two packages, the first is free called Meh. With this package, you are allowed to post 5 projects with 35 images. The other premium package is called Whoo!, This package allows you to get 50 projects with up to 500 hi-res images and 10 high quality videos for $12/month.

Coroflot – Design Jobs & Portfolios

Coroflot is another great site for hosting your portfolio online. It not only showcases individual portfolios but also maintains a database of job openings. It provides you statistics on profile views, and lets you organize your content in folders through an easy drag-and-drop interface. Currently, it is hosting a database of over 190,000 creative portfolios ranging in various genres.

DeviantART

If you are in the world of design, and you don’t know deviantART, then I pity you. DeviantART is perhaps the largest art community of the world which allows you to display, share and sell your artwork online. Moreover, it is a great place to receive feedback from other designers. It allows you to create your own portfolio with unlimited uploads.

SHOWN’D

SHOWN’D is a great solution to help create your portfolio online as well as get in touch with a number of employers. It provides you with a number of tools including importing images from Flickr. Another great feature is that it allows you to embed your portfolio in an external website. Comes with a number of customizable layouts.

World Architecture

WA is an independent global forum and extensive database targeting to become the “Home Page” of architects from ALL countries of the world. Contributions from all our members will have equitable chances to be represented, promoted, reviewed and criticized at this cosmopolitan arena. WA portal focuses on architecture only.

Indexhibit

Indexhibit is a web application used to build and maintain an archetypal, invisible website format that combines text, image, movie and sound. Indexhibit has a clean interface and comes with a number of customizable layouts. However, a bit of a let down is that it requires more web/php knowledge, but considering that it is a free application, it does have a promise.

Cargo

Cargo managed to get a great amount of exposure lately. It is a CMS tool for creating your portfolio online. They host your portfolio but you can join by invitation only.

4. Include Testimonials

References and positive testimonials from past projects and clients should also be included. If you don’t have any, get them! They make a winning impression.

5. Know your hood

It is important to always keep an eye out for the latest trends and a review of what others are doing. Look for inspiration by visiting other portfolios and design websites. This would help you keep updated in the design community.

via and thanks to CreativeRepository

Crowdsourcing Design | Designs of the week #22

Paul — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:33:54 +0000

Every week we are spoilt for choice at our crowdsourced design agency to pick the designs of the week. Our design crowd is brimming with class and quality, just check these out….

Leornardo Prause

Peter David Stanley

Parker

Vjeko Sumic

Leornardo Prause

blur Designs as a new home for designers

Tom — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:49:18 +0000

There are planned changes at Ning which mean all their free online social networks are closing as they move to a premium paid service. While this may disrupt many online groups of artists, photographers & designers who operate primarily through ning services, we would like to make it clear that the blur Designs network will remain open, and free to join.

We have been growing our designer’s network over the past 18 months, and now have a strong crowd approaching 1,500 creatives worldwide. The blur Designs network is an integral part of our social outreach and works as a great place to keep in touch with our designers. It is a great credit to our crowd that we have had the opportunity to share design reviews, interesting content, arrange meetup events & post design briefs.

We would like to extend a warm welcome to any designers whose network is closing as a result of the new Ning premium upgrade. We hope to provide a great new home for many more designers who are keen to get involved in the future.

Designer Spotlight: Stefano Maglovsky

Tom — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:19:35 +0000

Stefano Maglovsky is a designer, art director and illustrator whose projects include artwork for his own band EnjoyLive

Tell us about your EnjoyLive designs.
The band started in Belo Horizonte, in August 2000 just as I arrived from Sao Paulo, in the School of Design – UEMG. That, willingly or not, was the junction of 2 designers in music. Because of that and because of the type of music we wanted to do, we were always very careful with visual concepts and the aesthetic of the band. An amalgam of Enjoy’s symbol (kpetão) that I had developed in 2004 for the launch of our first website, attached to our faces, became an illustration of synthetic Enjoy and we were – Synthmatic. After that the band went through more changes and concepts charts always followed it. I think the most important thing about my design to Enjoy is exactly what I said about the briefing and concept. I’m already on top of everything and it’s so is much easier to create and dare. I can do pretty much whatever you want in this sense because, after spending some time on a project, participating in all steps, it is virtually impossible not to absorb the content and then let them reflected in the results.

If you had to describe your style of design in 3 words?
Eclectic, Meticulous, Overbold (I had dificulty to find those 3 words. It was a good exercise.)

If you had to pick one which would it be Music or Design?
Both have a lot of particularities and similarities. The need to be creative, careful, researcher, organized, informed, talented, skillful and proactive. And in both it’s very difficult to prove that something you do makes a difference and that you can and should make money with it. I think I’ll not have one without other. But if I had to choose, I’d be a musician. I’d like to know how I would live just composing and playing music around. But of course, the poor designer who would make my covers and arts, I’d get to him with a complicated briefing and the result would have to surprised and please me, if not … In this case I think the musician would give rise to desgin and vice versa.

Do you find it more creative to design for print or web?
The project itself and the desire to develop it is that may limit or help creation. In the case of printed works, we are stuck to the types of printing, paper and formats. But I think it is perfectly possible to develop creative pieces, different and good in print. Not counting the things you can do with technology today. On the web we have almost the same limits of format, screen, speed transmission, but it’s something intangible. There are things you can do on the web, giving a greater sense of freedom and creativity. But oddly enough I love the print and be able to feel and catch the final results of projects with the hands. Seeing a logo you created printed on a t-shirt label, in front of the store, car, cardboard, packaging, in the bag, on the website, this is quite rewarding.

Will Brazil win the world cup this summer?
Well, here in Brazil it will be winter, as well as in South Africa. lol. I think the cups are related to things other than just winning the football itself. I do not like the style of Dunga’s commanding the team. Brazil does not look like the way we’re used to, beautiful and quick touch of the ball and engaging, as my team, Santos, has been playing lately. We have top players but the coach chose to surrender to an European-style of defending and strong marking, which is definitely not our style. But still, I think Brazil is rather a strong contestant to win the world cup again, because of the individual talent of players. I also think that other countries may have merit. For me, until now, England, Spain, Italy and Brazil are the strongest candidates. But it is a World Cup and, like everything in football, we may have surprises.

Want to use a designer like Stefano for your next project? submit a brief with us here

The all New blur Designs Blog

Tom — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:55:10 +0000

Welcome to the all new blur Designs blog, where you’ll learn more about blur Designs and everything that we do.

Be sure to also check out the new blur Designs website, we think it rocks, let us know what you think.

We’ll be writing some blog posts whilst we digest our turkey over the holidays.

Check back in the new year.