This crops up more than any other ideas such as hoverboards or self-driving cars; perhaps it’s part of our collective subconscious. This is all despite the fact that videophones have been around since 1964 and have never really taken off. It may be because of the high costs associated with them but it’s more likely to do with their boring nature. We all know how the futures meant to go, it’s supposed to be a broken dystopia with lots of cool toys. Well never fear, the best minds in the world (maybe) are working on creating some seriously cool stuff. Here are three of the best:

Embrio

The Embrio from BRP utilises a gryoscope to keep itself balanced when in motion. Not only does it look incredibly cool but it’s green as well, using a hydrogen cell to power itself with water as the only waste product. It’s been toted as a competitor to the Segway but aimed at a younger demographic. However, I think it’s it’ll appeal to the police more, especially after their failure to adopt rollorskates. Plus with that big wheel it’ll be quite useful for negotiating the desolate wasteland of future.

Malthus

One of the things we’re going to need to be in the future is self sufficient. After a hard days roaming the deserted cities looking for survivors it might be nice to come home to disturbing plant. But you can’t eat your plant (not after you’ve named him and nursed him from a seedling), so where do you turn? To aquaponics of course, the cultivation of fish and vegetables within the same unit. Malthus was built and and designed by the clever folks over at Conceptual Devices and can provide one meal a day. That might not seem like a lot now but after the end of civilisation it’ll be a feast. As long as the fish don’t die from radiation poisoning of course.

Digital Pot

Do you talk to your plants in the hope that they’ll grow better? Wouldn’t it be easier if they could just tell you what they need? If Junyi Heo’s idea comes to the market then they’ll be able to communicate with you by a slightly disturbing LCD display.

Are you developing an innovative product?  Submit a brief for your marketing & support campaigns.

Written by: Will van Wyngaarden,  Brief and Crowd Executive, blur Group

We wrote yesterday about the winners and losers of this year’s Super Bowl ads, well this little news nugget has come to our attention today.

Whilst one of Doritos’ ads made our ‘miss-list’ for being, well, a little nasty, it transpires that one of the other Doritos’ ads (one of the company’s better ones from this year’s Super Bowl) was made by a fan for $500.

J.R. Burningham, a freelance editor and part-time web designer, entered the Frito-Lay Crash the Super Bowl ad campaign, which was an open-call to the crowd (fans…) to make their own commercial.

Everyone involved in the ad worked for free, including the actors and the dog trainer (a friend’s brother), whilst the main costs involved were renting a decent camera, lenses and provisions for the crew.

So this beggars the question: does this spell the end of the big-budget ad agency? Unlikely at the moment, but it does raise a big question regarding the sourcing and creation elements of the advertising process.

Whilst Doritos spent $3m airing the 30-second ad, and a significantly smaller sum of $2,500 to Burningham as the winning entry, this shows that creativity isn’t something that’s inherently expensive.

In the real world, the cost of making this advert would have been a bit more than $500, given that nobody likes to work for free, but it wouldn’t have cost that much more. The advert was cheap mainly because many of the additional costs normally associated with advertising were eliminated. Cut out the middle-men and go straight to the source of the creators.

If nothing else, this Doritos ad helps to show that clever ideas can generate a lot of international coverage – and sales, no doubt – with minimal upfront investment. That’s not to say a McDonalds-sized marketing budget wouldn’t help; it just means that creativity isn’t – by its nature – Earth-shatteringly expensive. So if you’ve yet to see it, here’s what a $500 advert looks like:

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.

Leornardo Prause

Peter David Stanley

Parker

Vjeko Sumic

Leornardo Prause

What are your passions in life?
Solving problems is on top for sure! I think it drives my life, I’m obsessed with paths and going from “I don’t know how to start it” to “I did it” is definitely rewarding. Of course 3d is very challenging and people are always inventing different and better ways to do the job, especially in the VFX areas which I love.

My most recent passion is poker, Texas Hold’em! After you realize that isn’t just about gambling, it can really open your mind for life. You make lots of friends that would be almost impossible to know in your common social circles and so many insights can be learned like making the right decision focusing on “the big picture”. If you do things right, eventually you get rewarded… I guess.

Download the iPad Wallpaper here and the iPhone 4 Wallpaper here

What are your core skills, competencies?
I think the competence that helps me the most is learning fast. By looking at things more objectively I can learn more in a shorter time. Sometimes you need to go back to basic stuff to take a second look, but it seems a fair trade for me. Also I have a need to surprise people, I definitely sleep less because of it, but it’s very fun.

What are your greatest achievements?
Learning 3D first of all was a great accomplishment, I could see that I was overcoming the barrier of learning very early on. Also to start my own company at the age of 20. To be able to take care of entire projects on my own, alongside my mate Daniel Bohrer. We can finally do the stuff we like and to be completely honest with clients, taking the best approach for each job and, I need to tell you this: To be able to decline a job is a blessing! That way you can focus on quality itself and take care of the work with more pleasure instead of just accepting projects you don’t like or can’t do well just for the money.

What are the best things about Porto Alegre, Brazil?
It’s chaos! Sometimes it is fun to watch so many bizarre people mess around, sometimes it isn’t… But I really can’t tell you much because I just leave my room to get some food or watch movies…

What is the scenery like there?
Well… I remember a scene from Pixar’s movie “A Bug’s Life” when the main character saw the city for the first time. I think if you come to Porto Alegre you’ll feel something like that!

You have an impressive 3D and motion portfolio, what are you working on at the moment?
Thank you very much! The motion part of my portfolio came from a local company in which I had the great opportunity to start my career, working with really creative people. These days I’m doing more stills images and 3D videos interacting with live action or not. My study at the moment is completely aimed towards effects (particle, fluids, render) and composition. I hope to share with you a VFX reel very soon with at least 90 percent of personal work. I’m very excited about it.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Honestly I don’t know for sure, but I’m not afraid of that. I say this because I like to be open for every opportunity, maybe I will stay as a freelancer, maybe I’ll be working for some company in another country, maybe in a whole other profession. My real goal is to work in the movie industry and in Brazil I sadly can’t see any niche that I can fit in working with VFX besides advertising… So I probably will move around.

How are the carnival celebrations?
For me it’s just another holiday and when I don’t need to work I catch some barbecue with friends or family. No samba for me! Rather a good rock ‘n roll

Caipirinha, Cubata or Mojito?
Caipirinha definitely sharps my mind! haha

Football or Volleyball!?
I’m really bad in sports, especially when I need to move around and it involves balls… But the soccer world cup was very fun to watch.

AXN 3d CINE from Jaime Alvarez on Vimeo.

What comes first Illustration or Graphic Design?

For me they are a happy and equal marriage of creative differences. They
both perform roles within the creative field, offering different skill sets
and producing different results. I find both challenging and I don’t
consider myself to have a particularly distinct style in either.

For me illustration is as close to artistic expression as you can find
within the commercial artist sphere, its an inherently revealing and
personal process, producing images from scratch and imbuing them with your
own sense of identity and authorship.
Graphic design on the other hand, is naturally a creative process, but
equally its also about working within and responding to an external set of
stimuli (brief, client, constraints etc). Graphic design can be flamboyant,
sober, clean and simple or simply chaotic, but more often than not its
tempered by the brief.

This is just how I see the them, and I enjoy them equally for both their
restrictions and their freedoms. Its great to sit down with pencil and paper
and pour things out and equally as fulfilling to work meticulously on a
piece of design.

What are your visual inspirations?

I think like most people they are varied, I go through fads and have long
term love affairs, and meticulously hoard away images from blogs, and other
ambient sources(ctrl click save as…). Right now today though I really like
the work of  Cody Hudson (I think he balances design and illustration
beautifully), Yusaku Hanakuma a comic artist of the very funny Tokyo Zombie
and master of the ‘Heta-uma’ style of illustration (translates as ‘bad, but
good’), Mary Blair who was a principle artist at Disney, Tomi Ungerer a
French illustrator whose work spans decades, Antoine Girard another French
illustrator. Design wise; Karlssonwilker a couple of Europeans working in
NY, Yokoland, Julien Vallee papercraft madness, some of the classics -
Robert Brownjohn, Paul Rand, Alan Fletcher, Bruno Munari.

I am a big fan of ‘Freitag’, I think their logo is very simple and a
counterpoint to the random element of their products, and also in terms of
brand experience I think they’re great. If you were unaware of them, Freitag
manufacture handmade bags made from truck tarpaulins, tyre inner tubes and
seat belts 100% recycled, each bag is individual in colour and design. Not
only do they have a great product which they are forever bringing out new
versions of and new lines, but they also have unobtrusive and usually funny
advertising , they also have great photography and tight clean design in
their publications. I think think they offer a rounded experience, great
product, advertising and tone.

Favourite band, I don’t usually do favourites, but at the moment it has to
be Saul Williams a hip hop spoken word artist. Others would include Battles,
The Amps, Sigur Ros, QTSA, The smiths, Be Your Own Pet.

The perfect night out?

Although I live in London, I am a country boy at heart. Perfect night out;
drinking and eating on a beach into the wee hours.

The belgian design studio lab[au] transformed dexia tower in brussels into a light-based weather
forecasting installation. the project uses the large tower as a public canvas to visualize the next day’s
weather forecast. the installation uses real time data to project the temperature, cloudiness,
precipitation and wind using colors and different geometrical patterns. each of the building’s
6,000 windows have been outfitted with around 12 LED lights each. the lights reflect off the closed
blinds at night, illuminating the whole window. the temperature is displayed based on the monthly
average with a different colour for each increase or decrease. Post via [designboom]

http://lab-au.com

Crowdsourcing design here. Designers join here.

Chris Wharton // Esqueleton

Marsha Hunt

Moshik Nadav //  TypoLyrics – The sound of Fonts

Chris Humpris  //  24chick

Juliann Brown  //  JB2ldPeoplePainting

]]> http://blur-designs.com/blog/21_designs_of_the_week/feed/ 0 http://blur-designs.com/blog/crowdsourcing-design-awesome-showreel-of-the-week/ http://blur-designs.com/blog/crowdsourcing-design-awesome-showreel-of-the-week/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:29:30 +0000 Paul http://blur-designs.com/blog/?p=2100 Lucas Kazakevicius is another really cool member of our crowdsourced design agency and we could not resist showing you his 2009 yet still totally awesome showreel…what awesomeness is coming in 2010 Lucas!?