Secret Stash

So, I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of hiding things. It was my obsession as a kid, and I found that the best place to hide things was right in the open. yiting cheng has the same approach, and has made some fantastic examples of hiding devices.

Secret Stash from yiting cheng on Vimeo.

Transformer Apartment

Gary Chang, an architect living in a 330 square foot apartment in Hong Kong, can transform his home into 24 different configurable rooms!

DROP GPS

Yanko Design creates yet another beautiful piece that astounds me! Check out this GPS device for blind users, where by turning the wheel left and right, a series of raised dots form street patterns, zooming in and out. Quite intuitive actually.

Levi van Veluw

Behold, the beauuuuuutiful work of Levi van Veluw.  He applies landscapes and textures to the human face, and in some cases animates them through light and pure magic!

Winscape

In the same vein as Johnny Lee's Wiimote exercises, the Winscape is a window solution for your home! And it uses two HDTVs, some custom software and a Wiimote! So, when the viewer moves right and left, forward and back the image will pan and zoom to give the effect of approaching a window). Pretty neat stuff!

Land Peel Furniture

AHHH!!!!  I love, love, love this!  Check out this amazing set of furniture that's created by folding up pieces of the sitting surface!  Brilliant, Shin Yamashita! More photos!

Animated GIF Paranoia!

I love this! It's an amazing platform for animated GIFs, commissioned by Elisava School of Design, under the creative direction of Soon in Tokyo. It's an entire wall of animations, all around the theme of non-stop design workers! You can even upload your own. Check it out!

Skittles

The new Skittles site is pretty fun! It's an infinitely scrolling rainbow chocked full of funny graphics and videos! It took me a while to realize that it keeps compounding on the existing page, and to my knowledge, you'll never find the end of the rainbow. Bwah haw haw! Check it out!

Sonar

Check out this beautiful bridge between animation and sound by Renaud Hallée! What I especially love is the visual system that's been set up to notify the viewer as to when the next tone will be played. Simple but elegant!


Sonar from Renaud Hallée on Vimeo.

Enigmatica

Kit Webster is amazing at understanding sensory experiences, utilizing space and optical illusions to craft an immersive and observatory environment. Enigmatica is a line of experimentation where he positions illuminated displays that allow the space to "freely shift from order to disconnection." I luuuuuuurrrrrvvv it!

ENIGMATICA from Kit Webster on Vimeo.

Curious Displays

Here's an amazing concept Julia Tsao has developed for her thesis at the Art Center College of Design. It utilizes half-inch pixel mini-robots that are aware of each other's position, yet independent in their reaction. Watch as the display shifts around the room, transforming our idea of relevant video!

Curious Displays from Julia Tsao on Vimeo.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Laboratories

Neurosonics Audiomedical Laboratories, was a film originally released in August, directed by Chris Cairns in collaboration with a group of DJs. The film was fantastic, because it utilized post production to composite human heads atop instruments (turntables, drums) mimicking the sounds produced by them.

What's fantastic is that they decided to reproduce this effect-but live! Teaming up with Beardyman and holographic projectionists Musion, they were able to sync video with each sound. I love this piece because it treats video as separate objects, specific for the context. Although cross platform content is great, there is still a lot of design and craft decisions that have to be considered when changing the vehicle in which you are presenting the material. I've heard people say crazy things like, "Oh, let's just take a commercial and reuse it for our in store video displays!" I understand that we're at point where we often have to cut as many corners as possible these days to satisfy a budget. But, there also comes a moment when designing an experience where video content loses its effect/messaging when trying to repurpose.

Here's the original!

Little World

Nokia and the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (Kevin Cannon and Tobias Loft) have teamed up to create an awesome set of research and concepts for how we will interact with our mobile devices in the next 2–4 years. Within their 2 weeks of studies they came up with a concept, among others, titled "Little World." On Kevin Cannon's portfolio he states, "We found out that the featurism around modern phones was actually getting in the way of it's core function: connecting people." That's just what the interface does–brings people to the forefront. Little World went on to become a finalist at the IxD10 student competition this month. Brilliant! Congratulations, guys! Check it out the video!

PUMA Phone

So, I'm in love with the new Puma phone created by Puma and Sagem! The entire package is quite fantastic! First of all, it's solar powered (obviously meant for outdoor types). What I love the most though, is the interface! Most of the interface is on a solid field of red, utilizing really amazing white icons. To change the brightness, you simply drag a cloud of over the sun! The system even has it's own icon language that you can download on the site! It's got a front facing camera for video and photo sharing capabilities. Check out the awesome videos!

Horizons

Suuuuuuuuper trippy. Neil Dawson's piece called Horizons now sits atop the crest of a hill in New Zealand's "The Farm," a large private art park owned by Alan Gibbs. Standing 50 feet high, Horizons really messes with your perspective. I can't quite figure out its structure yet, although I know it's welded and probably flat. I LOVE IT!!!

Augmented Reality Cake

So, this is bringing augmented reality to the NEXT LEVEL! AR is fantastic, and it doesn't necessarily have to be interactive, as along as you're enhancing your physical experience. This is absolutely hilarious / amazing because it applies projections to a wedding cake, and I think that the music only makes it more enthralling! Watch this cake go cr-cr-craaaazy.