Universal Design Challenge 2011

Recently myself and Alan were invited to take part in the Universal Design Challenge in Tullamore. The Universal Design Challenge is a two day competition for design teams to create a new Universal Design. It is operated by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design at the National Disability in collaboration with the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art.

This year the theme was Everyday Consumer Products.

Teams of 6 competed over 24hrs to come up with new product concepts based in universal design. Teams were a mix of final year BSc, MSc and up to one year graduates from Product and Industrial Design courses across Ireland.

Myself and Alan were both selected to be team leaders which was a good start to the competition as now we could really fight it out. This was interesting as we are used to being on the same team when it comes to design so this was almost like a civil war.

Alan's team came up with a concept for a modular bag system that can be tailored to suit your exact needs for any given day. My team ended up looking at the use of keys on a daily basis and designed a pod for your keys that allows them to be easily located and used instead of fumbling around with small keys.

Check out more of our designs and some more photos from the event below... photos courtesy of Jack from Mint

EDC - Every Day Carry

A number of months ago I stumbled across a blog that featured photographs and lists of the things that people carry with them each day. Everyday Carry is simple in principle, viewers send in photographs showing what items they carry on their person on a daily basis and the photos are posted for everyone to see and discuss.

Everyday Carry or EDC, to quote the description given on their site,

Everyday Carry, or EDC, generally refers to small items or gadgets worn, carried, or made available in pockets, holsters, or bags on a daily basis to manage common tasks or for use in unexpected situations or emergencies. In a broader sense, it is a lifestyle, discipline, or philosophy of preparedness.

EDC is seemingly becoming a trend amongst some people and it is being taken very seriously with enthusiasts upgrading their carry to be prepared for any circumstance. Looking through the entries on the site I began to develop an interest in the concept and despite the affinity towards carrying guns (it is an american site) it was very interesting from a designers point of view to see what people were carrying with them on a day-to-day basis.

I thought I'd do one of my own. An industrial design student's carry. I decided to go beyond the normal format of showing your personal carry and delve deeper into what I have in my bag as a designer. This moves onto another trend of "What's in your bag" or WIMB where people show the contents of their bag and often the bag and the owner. This allows a very interesting insight into what people all over the world use every day. WIMB is a growing trend also and is very relevant on flickr with groups dedicated to it here and here along with a very specific group for users showing what they keep in their camera bags which is especially interesting to me as a photographer and a photography equipment nerd.

I did the photo above around the time when I originally discovered the Everyday Carry blog and I blogged about it at the time albeit on my own blog (which is suffering now since I am updating the Curve blog!) I am including some of the write up from my last blog after the jump. . .

The Future is Going to be Amazing!

A few years back I nearly fell off my chair. I was watching a nanotechnology video about a new waterproofing technology. The results were breathtaking, I had never seen anything like it before, but unfortunately the technology was only for military applications and I never heard anymore about it. Now years later, when nanotechnology hype has died down, a new video has emerged that implies a consumer version of that very same technology. The technology is described as superhydrophobic, and like all good technologies, it comes in a spray can.

Social Media is not a fad

If you ever thought sites like facebook, twitter, itunes were a fad, you maybe be wrong. Of course the sites themselves might change but soical media is far from being a fad. In fact it may be the most important thing since the Gutenberg press. Watch the above video by Erik Qualman if you have any doubts.

Kick-Ass Renders by Raul Gonzalez Podesta

Admit it. If the title of this post didn't include 'render', you would have no idea that the above image is the work of Raul Gonzalez Podesta and his skills with a computer. His renders are enough to make you envious and down right inadequate. They match and surpass their photo counterparts. Raul has taken product imagining to a whole new level, nearly over refining them to an over the top level.

Dublin Web Summit

For the last few days the Curve Creative team have been at Dublin Web Summit. We were responsible for a lot of the design for the conference and were also covering the event over the two days. Below are a selection of photographs to give a taster of the what we shot. There are many many more to come which will show up here and on the Dublin Web Summit Facebook. Make sure to check back soon.

Design Week Ireland 2011

One of Ireland's most notable events and one that's very relevant to us is the Irish Design week. The line up of events is due to kick off next week. Starting on the 31st of October the events run from the North of ireland to the very South and continue to the 6th. From Belfast to Cork, and everywhere in between, the island will be playing host to range of activities that cater to all ages. Even we are getting involved!

iPod is ten

The iPod. A device that has changed the world, created cultures, defined a generation, influenced a new society is now ten years old. Originally slated, no body thought the iPod would catch on. How wrong they were. I don't need to go on to say anymore about the success of the iPod. Everyone knows.

But now, ten years on people are moving on from the iPod with it's predecessor the iPhone. It's kind of sad really. The original iPod, which became the iPod classic, is exactly that, a classic. A design icon. I was just old enough to experience and remember the beginning of the iPod revolution. I can't imagine being a kid today and not having been around for the first iPod. Kids today are coming in at iPod 6th gen or more and have no idea where the iPhone came from.

Scott Amron is a kick-ass designer

Scott Amron's is one of those designers that makes you want to slap yourself in the face. Some of his concepts are so plain obvious you really have to ask yourself why no one has ever thought about them before. I have stumbled over his ideas on various sites before but it wasn't until recently that I found out these never-been-done-before-ideas were coming from the same guy. 

His concepts range from coat hook light switches to carabiner keys. I urge you to have a snoop around his site and see what else you can find. Keep reading to see some of my favourites. 

IDI Best of Graduate Design 2011 / IDI Awards

There is still time to catch the IDI Best of Graduate Design Exhibition. It is open till November 5th in the NCAD Gallery. Make sure to check it out to see a selection of works from across all of the design colleges in Ireland with some of the exhibitors up for awards in this years IDI awards this Thursday in the Sugar Club.

You can check out the IDI Awards here

Planned Obsolescence - The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Planned obsolescence is one of those evil things companies do to make you keep buying their products. Now someone has made a movie about it!

First of all for people who may not be familiar with with this concept, planned obsolescence is when companies intentionally give their products a shortened lifespan so you will come back and buy the newest version. The main example given in Cosima Danoritzer's 'The Light Bulb Conspiracy' is the light bulb, where planned obsolescene is a main factor in the manufactures business plan. By drastically shortening the lifespan of the light bulb they can guarantee the consumer will keep coming back to buy a new one.

Lytro - The Impossible Camera

We are intrigued by the new Lytro Camera. Lytro suggests a radical change to the way we will take pictures from now on. No longer will we need to assure our pictures are in focus before we snap the shutter. Lytro allows you to adjust the focus afterwards. The idea of never having blurry photos again is tempting but at the same time will this take away an essential element from photography. Will this change the art in a way that it truly won't matter what you capture at the time, you can just fix it later? Despite the sleek design we are dubious about this new direction for digital photography. We love photography at Curve and although this is an incredible advancement in photography tech we don't really hope that it catches on too much. This kind of technology will probably be great in your mobile phone for snapping pictures of friends or on a night out when you don't want to spend time focusing and making sure the picture worked, but for pros we're not sure if this will be desirable in cameras. The idea of having a level of control that means you can refocus your shots afterwards does seem like it would be super useful, kind of like the level of control brought about by the introduction of shooting in RAW, however...

Dublin Web Summit Oct 27-28th

Dublin Web Summit is one of the biggest tech events in Europe. Founded by Paddy Cosgrave the Dublin Web Summit has grown at a fast rate over the last year and the upcoming event is to be the biggest yet. Featuring over 100 speakers and 1500 guests with speakers from Skype, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Google and many, many more it is shaping up to be an action packed event. We have been doing some work with the DWS team leading up to this event and we are looking forward to seeing it all coming together. For more information check out www.dublinwebsummit.com

Jonas Pfeil's Ball-Camera

At Curve we love photography and we've always loved the idea of being able to create our own panoramas using something similar to the google street view cameras. This ball-cam student project does exactly this. Designed by Jonas Pfeil the design requires the user to throw the cameras in the air. The ball-cam then snaps pictures on an array of mobile phone cameras at the highest point in its path. These can then be stitched to create a 360 x 360 degree panorama just like street view. The ingenious idea of putting this is a ball also gets around the problem of needing the camera to be high enough to get a good view. We'd love to try one of these out. It would be great to throw around at a big event. Imagine throwing this around the crowd in a football stadium! Hopefully Jonas can gather some interest in this and bring it to market.

You can see more information on his site here and see a video of it in action after the jump. 

Steve Jobs

As a designer I can't remember when I didn't know who Steve Jobs was, for a lot of other people they may not of know who he was but they may well have been using products he was responsible for. After the last few weeks of media saturated with images and articles about Steve Jobs I think the world is much more aware of who he was and what he did. Anyone who uses an Apple product now will have heard the story of the genius behind it.

I have read a lot about Steve over the last couple of weeks. A lot about how he has changed the world, how he was a visionary, an Einstein of our time and other stories of how he was an incredibly hard person to work with. We've heard the good and bad sides to him but that doesn't change the fact that he has had a profound and lasting affect on life as we know it.

NIKON 1

Last week Nikon launched a new camera. The Nikon v1 in their Nikon 1 range. The first of their mirrorless range of cameras.






























When the camera was announced at a Nikon press release last week I initially didn't pay it much heed as I was hoping for a refresh of their Pro DSLR range and I considered this a let down as I wasn't interested in their new consumer cameras or "gimmicky" new mirrorless technology.

A week later whilst reading a review of the Nikon V1 and J1 on DPREVIEW here I realise what I had missed before. Forget about the technology and the specs and mirrorless system. Look at the camera. Nikon has created the most beautiful cameras I have seen in a long long time. For years, the market has been flooded year upon year with countless compact and mini cameras. ALL THE SAME. Every camera maybe a different shade, but all released in a rainbows worth of colours. Who wants that? I used to make a point of knowing everything there was to know about all the new cameras that came out. All the new cybershots, the newest IXUS on the block or the latest Olympus tough camera, even owned a few of them. Don't get me wrong though, modern compact cameras are amazing. I was blown away with one of the latest sony's when playing with one recently in a sony centre. The spec list was unbelievable. It made me think, why didn't my Nikon Dslr have some of those features, but then thought that they were really gimmicks appealing to consumers who really don't know anything about cameras anyway and would be sold by their new shiny having WIFI or BLUETOOTH or GPS..... anyway, I'm just ranting at this point.

Where was I? Oh, the Nikon V1.

Your Desk

here's a really interesting piece about desks.... what do you think of your desk? as designers we love our desk(s) here. There is a lot of talk at the moment about desks, the notion of standing desks and the thought that people no longer need their own desk as everyone has a laptop and can move around to work. I think for some disciplines a desk is an essential space regardless of the increasing mobility of the world. As a designer a desk is really a creative hub. No matter what activity the desk is accommodating, whether computer work or sketching, the desk really is the centre of a workflow. What do you feel about your desk? Perhaps it is just a piece of furniture or maybe it is integral to how you work.

Dublin Pub Summit

Last night we attended the Dublin Pub Summit. It was an event held over two consecutive evenings and was a warm up event for the Dublin Web Summit in October. It was a good chance for networking and a few good laughs. Looking forward to the main event.

We were covering the event for Dublin Web Summit and you can see a few shots from the night below. Check out DWS on Facebook soon for more photos and if you are interested in registering for Dublin Web Summit you can do so on their website here

Curve at Kings of Concrete, Dublin, July 2011

Kings of Concrete is an urban sports event held in Dublin every year in the city centre over the course of a weekend. It brings together athletes and performers from a variety of disciplines, everything from BMX, skateboarding, freerunning, hip-hop dancing, graffiti artists, and many others....

We went along to shoot the event and had a great day capturing all the skill on display.

Below are a few shots from the weekend...

C.A.T - City Aquatic Transport

The C.A.T, City Aquatic Transportation concept by designer Cal Craven of Curve Creative was featured on Yanko Design and has since also been featured on various other blogs as you can see here. More can be read about the design by checking out the projects page on our own site Curve Creative

Mountkestrel on ENGADGET

The Duopod was featured on Engadget this morning, bringing with it a flurry of interest. This is great exposure and we hope it will help in getting the Duopod from concept to reality. If you are interested you can now register that interest on www.mountkestrel.com

You can see the post on Engadget here 

NCAD Industrial Design Degree Show

The NCAD Industrial Design degree show recently ended and with it brought 18 new industrial designers into the professional realm. The standard of the projects was very high with excellent feedback from the public and those who came to see the exhibition. Below are a sample of images from the show, to see more check out our flickr stream here and to see more details of all of the projects featured in the show check out www.ideleven.com