Whether we inherently know it or not, inspiration surrounds us everywhere, at all times. Regardless of whether it’s physical, mental or spiritual, inspiration resonates through all five of our senses.
For designers alike, their creative juices were flowing by way of San Francisco’s DesignWeek, a yearly event intended to raise the awareness and importance of how design can affect all aspects of like—for both creatives and non-creatives.
The event, which spanned from June 14th to the 20th, held several galleries, workshops, exhibits and keynote speakers. The idea is to gather the top designers from throughout the Bay Area in one place and offer them a chance to share their work, catch up on old times, and most importantly, inspire one another.
To some, the World Cup is an excuse to head to a bar at 7 in the morning. Or maybe it’s just an inconvenience that rolls around every four years. For others, the World Cup is everything. Players train their whole lives hoping to make their country’s team and compete on the world stage. Fans pour their heart and soul behind their countrymen hoping their players score more goals than the other team. So it comes as no surprise that recent heartbreaking (or lucky, depending on who you support) mistakes have only added more fuel to the debate and criticisms over Adidas’s official World Cup ball, Jabulani.
Each World Cup, a new ball is revealed with technological improvements. For Adidas’s first official ball in 1970, the iconic black panels were introduced because a solid white ball was too difficult to follow on a black and white television. In recent World Cups, the traditional hexagon and pentagon pattern has made way for newer panel designs that create a more spherical shape. This year’s ball, Jabulani, claims to be even closer to a perfect sphere with its improved technology.
As a fan (and an engineer), I wondered what technology could cause goalies and players alike to defiantly complain about the lack of predictability in the Jabulani. A quick internet search led me to this video, where I learned that the ball is not stitched together in a traditional sense, but the panels are actually thermally bonded together. Traditional stitching creates a many-sided polygon along the circumference of the ball, preventing it from being a perfect sphere. Reducing the space between the stitches allows the ball to move closer to a spherical shape, but eventually the material properties of the panels define a lower limit. For the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Adidas changed the shape of the panels to reduce the number of seams as a means of limiting the impact of the stitching. Replacing physical stitches with thermal bonding techniques allows for a continuous seam, allowing the ball to move even closer to a perfect sphere.
When the Jabulani ball is struck and rotates through the air, it reacts differently than the previous World Cup balls, which had with slightly more imperfections. The air moves over the surface of the ball in new patterns, causing the ball to take the heat for mistakes like the goal conceded by English goalie, Robert Green, when he misjudged a passive shot against the USA. Closer to a perfect sphere, the Jabulani ball may be moving like a knuckle ball in baseball if struck in a particular way, which could be the source of the unpredictable movement generating the complaints. Designing refinement and control into Jabulani, Adidas incorporated a textured surface on the panels to help control the air movement over the surface, like dimples on the surface of a golf ball.
The new technology may cause the ball to respond a little differently, but the ball is just like the goal frame and the grass: it is the same for both teams, imperfections and all.
Whether you are playing with a ball, stone or layers of plastic bags wrapped into a spherical shape, nothing can erase the child-like excitement of knowing you are part of the game and the pride that comes with representing your country. I hope the focus of the World Cup moves from blaming the ball to appreciating the magical moments of the beautiful game we know as soccer.
“Jabulani” mean “to celebrate,” and in honor of the ball, let’s celebrate the great games we’ve seen and the exciting ones to come!
Unless you’ve been burrowing underground and living in a hole for the last several months, we all know what’s been going on regarding BP (British Petroleum), the oil rig explosion and the thousands of gallons of crude oil that have spilled and continue to spill into the Gulf of Mexico every single day.
BP is trying to clean up the horrible mess it created, but it seems that every plan they hatch either backfires miserably or adds more fuel to the fire (no pun intended).
Although outside sources have lent a helping hand (Kevin Costner of Waterworld lore apparently has an oil-water separation device that he’s spent $20 million investing and 15 years developing), their ideas are either absurd, or just flat out don’t work.
What if you were to get creative thinkers and innovators involved with helping to curate a solution? After all, although the oil is spilling into one concentrated area—southeast portion of Louisiana’s coast—we call Earth our home, and this is an issue that affects every single human being on this planet, and not just BP, Louisiana and ocean life.
It seems to make sense, doesn’t it? Designers are constantly conjuring up ways to make life better, whether it be through creating contemporary soda bottles or ergonomic toilet seats, a designer’s prime objective is to take something, regardless of whether it’s tangible or not, and make it better.
Time is of the essence and the ocean has suffered enough as is. With so much at stake, it couldn’t hurt taking a couple ideas from people who make a living from “thinking outside the box.”
And, if the designers are unable to create a concoction to clean up the disaster, then they can at least help re-brand BP and give it some new logos to work with…
Through the Eyes of an Expert is a Speck Design quarterly event where we invite leading Silicon Valley experts to share their insights and craft. In our latest adventure, Speck visited Cindie & Phil White on Jelich Ranch Historic Orchard in Portola Valley for a program we called Fast Cars & Firm Tomatoes.
A working orchard for over a century, Jelich Ranch celebrates its 10th year with the White family. Since transitioning into ownership in 2000, the Whites have restored the ranch to its early glory; with some modern enrichment of course. Steadily adding new trees since 2000, the Jelichs have turned nearly 50 acres of orchard into a 100% certified organic operation, producing apples, cherries, pears, plums, apricots, persimmons, quinces and a variety of garden produce.
Organic farming mitigates the environmental costs of agriculture by supporting natural environmental cycles; making available more nutrient-rich, environmentally sustainable produce to the market. This form of agriculture “relies on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, organically approved pesticide application and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests, excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock antibiotics, food additives and genetically modified organisms” (Wikipedia). For all its benefits, however, less than 1% of global farmland is cultivated organically. This is likely due to its cost-prohibitive factor. The Whites sell their produce for 1/5th the cost of production. Rendering their organic operations more of a good faith service than a profitable enterprise. Cindy explained how supporting organic in concert with supporting local is a powerful way to eat well while championing the environment.
In addition to supplying organic produce to local markets, and preserving a gem in Silicon Valley heritage, Jelich Ranch is also home to Phil White’s exciting collection of sports car classics. Among his many motorized jewels was a first edition, ruby red jaguar.
For me, Jelich Ranch embodies two major strategies for preserving the environment: preservation/reuse and mindfulness/innovativeness. Organic farming harnesses innovative thinking and mindful practices about how we harness the environment for agriculture; and preserving such automobile jewels keeps these structures out of landfills and preserves a magnificent era in history. So maybe I can’t be green through purchasing power (like buying a hybrid); or ingenuity (like making my own electric vehicle like my ultra-talented colleague); but I do my part gettin’ around on my vintage Univega and shopping at my neighborhood farmer’s market.
This season’s Through the Eyes of an Expert was quite the evening, filled with old-time heritage, classic delights and forward-thinking sensibility.
Diverse in culture and multidisciplinary in approach, you will find our Through the Eyes of an Expert programming takes on a similarly quirky, eclectic flavor and we delight in mining our neighborhood to engage the expertise of people in industries and areas outside our own. We find inspiration everywhere and hope you will join us in discovery! See you next time!
Simply put, a business can acquire a deduction of up to 250% of their total income if the finances were sustained because of industrial and product design products.
The move was made by creative leaders in Singapore to not only strengthen its economy, but to also enforce the notion of digging deeper in regards to business strategy and design innovation (an idea the U.S. should definitely give a shot during times like these).
“Thinking outside the box” is an overused phrase that isn’t used enough in the business world, and now, a company can benefit—both financially and innovatively—just for even trying to do something that’s out of their norm.
Not only will the incentive foster a typically neglected creative thought process in mundane corporations, but it will also spawn a whole new slew of inspirational ideas and visions that have either been pushed to the side or have yet to be brought to the map.
Businesses that compete against one another will not only be pushing one another harder, but services and products will reach an all-new high (at least in Singapore).
There’s no talk of this proposal reaching the U.S. or anywhere else, but here’s hoping to Singapore setting an example and breaking the mold.
I attended the Maker Faire last weekend at the San Mateo fairgrounds. If you’ve never been, Maker Faire, as described by the organizers, is a newfangled fair that brings together science, art, craft and engineering plus music in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum.
The coolest thing this year was watching these crazy guys from Austin called ArcAttack giving “performances” with their 7 foot tall Tesla coils (not the car) that are pretty exciting. In a “truly electrifying performance,” an MC in a chain mail Faraday suit walks through ½ Million Volt sparks, bolting from two custom engineered hand-built Tesla Coils. The electrical arcs, illuminated by high-power LEDs, act as both light and instrument, bursting with bright color and synthesized sound to the tune of Star Wars.
Through the Eyes of an Expert is a Speck Design quarterly event where we invite leading Silicon Valley experts to share their insights and craft. Diverse in culture and multidisciplinary in approach, you will find our programming takes on a similarly quirky, eclectic flavor. We delight in mining our neighborhood to engage the expertise of people in industries and areas outside our own. We find inspiration everywhere and hope you will join us in discovery!
For Spring 2010, Speck was pleased to invite David Fox, co-founder and president of Arta Tequila, to speak to our group on the art of tequila distilling.
Arta Tequila was formed in 2008, in partnership with an 11th generation, family-owned, organic, blue agaves ranch. Leading in artisan tequila with a patent pending bottle design and a green supply chain/bottle fabrication, Arta’s story is one Speck was pleased to share. David and innovative mixologist Victoria D’amato-Moran spoke with our Speck team members together with our friends and colleagues in engineering and design at Gallery 2611 in Redwood City. In addition to learning the heritage and traditional methods for distilling Tequila, we also enjoyed a tasting of the Arta product line. This included a snifter of aged Tequila straight from the barrel– by far the crowd favorite. What a blast!
Whether you’re working on an important project, trying to achieve a big feat, or simply just spending a night out on the town with your friends, it’s a credo that many have lived by for thousands of years, no matter which language you speak.
In the design world, regardless of which industry you work for, the motto has been used to captivate audiences, inspire change and even raise the bar for what a human being can accomplish through a structure that just looks interesting.
Unfortunately, in the realm of architectural design, this same sentence is also the reasoning behind many of the ugliest buildings that have ever been built on Earth…or being drawn up on the corner of napkins as I finish up this sentence.
Oftentimes, a building can become more than just a place for people to congregate, but rather, it can be revered as a work of art, serving either a political or cultural significance within a city, state or country. The Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal, for example, serve as symbols for their respective cities and help to define its perception around the globe. However, for every Golden Gate Bridge, there’s a Rock and Rock Hall of Fame—buildings that are forgettable, and many times, regrettable.
This comes on the heels of London recently revealing images and miniature models of the ArcelorMittal Orbit, which is a looping tower that will sit adjacent to Olympic Park during the 2012 Olympic Games.
It’s already being referenced by the media as the rival to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and according to London’s mayor, its purpose is to encapsulate the revitalization that the city is going through, while reinforcing the notion that London is both an ethnic and artistic melting pot.
Many critics have bashed the structure, though, noting that it’s not very pretty, nor does it make very much sense. In essence, it’s a bunch of convoluted, twisting red cables that seem to be roaming free. Some observers have already poked fun at it, mentioning that it looks like a funky trombone and that it even closely resembles a shisha pipe.
The problem with creating a structure that’s meant to serve an artistic purpose is that oftentimes, designers let the notion of being too innovative and too ground-breaking get way over their heads, and in the end, they lose sight of their goal and create something that’s essentially lost its meaning throughout the process.
In its defense, maybe London is feeling the pressure from the most recent Olympic Games in Beijing, which was remembered for its eccentric and amazing opening ceremony, as well as the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest; the latter two of which served as iconic symbols for the entire Olympic Games that were also applauded for their architectural ingenuity. Or, it could be possible that London just wants to one-up its predecessor and give everyone a good show, rather than being the anti-climactic band following up the awesome opening act.
Whatever symbolic message London is trying to deliver to the world, it needs to remember that this is the first of many Olympic stadiums and Olympic-related structures on its way to being built, so getting back to basics and defining its purpose is what’s going to separate a wonder from a disaster.
