Designing Paradigms

05-05-2011

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I feel like we’ve reached a point in design where the link between aesthetic and purpose has been severed. Like everyone else, I admire the swirls, pen marks, pencil marks, wolf heads on women’s bodies, absurd illustrations, robots, the pinks and the teals, it’s all aesthetically beautiful. However, I find myself going back to the roots of my studies and questioning the purpose of this pile of trends.

Is the new direction in aesthetic a practical one or is distracting us from the problem?

I don’t know but it’s definitely an issue in my mind.

In the mass mountains of modern creativity, I have found a group who wants to utilize design and designers to mobilize the modern paradigm. The Green Patriot Poster project is organized by THE CANARY PROJECT.

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“During World War II the United States was able to mobilize industry and motivate its citizens in breathtaking speed. Factories were overhauled and consumption habits transformed. Strong, graphically compelling posters played a crucial role in the success of this campaign.

These posters presented the actions of individual citizens as vital for the nation and portrayed those who took part as attractive, dynamic American heroes.

Today a similar mobilization is required to address the crisis of global climate change and achieve energy independence. That’s why The Canary Project and its partners have launched Green Patriot Posters.

Green Patriot Posters is a communications campaign centered on posters that encourage all U.S. citizens to build a sustainable economy. These posters can be general (“We Can Do It!”) or can promote a specific sustainability action.”

So, if you’re dying to use design to influence behavior change for the greater good, then here’s the chance. You can upload posters onto the site.
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LINKS
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Green Patriot Posters
Canary Project
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Poster 1
Consequences by Joe Scorsone & Alice Drueding

Poster 2
Efforts Up! by GP43

Poster 3
Golab waminrg by matfal

Poster 4
Mugs Are Great by dsiegel

Poster 5
Let’s Ride by jasonhardy

Mattox’s 0-DAYS

By: Yannell Rodriguez

07-10-2010

art, graphic design, innovation, packaging, Tunes

As technological advances come into the present, the way of distributing old technologies becomes a challenge. In this case, the challenge is music exposure and this applies from the very small to the major industry.
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We’ve all seen the innovative approaches to music distribution with major artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails but the local scene also has to adapt. With limited resources, where and how does a local band expose themselves? Here, Mattox has taken inspiration from all outlets. The standard approach to passing out CDs at a show no longer produces positive results so Mattox took it a step further. With the use of the internet, they were able to give their music away and although that might seem frightening to bands who are used to making money off of $5 CDs, Mattox knew that the more people were exposed to their music the bigger the audience would become. However, a major piece of the music experience was missing – the artwork that pulled the concept and the tunes together. Instead of making the typical sleeve for a cover, Mattox gave their fans much more than easy manufactured art – Mattox spent countless hours creating individual, one-of-a-kind pieces of art just for you. This approach is much more personal and sincere than any other CD or digital download.
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Each beautiful crafted package comes with a set of three screenprints, CD or digital download code and lyrics. However, this is just the exterior of the music. Once downloading the album or playing the CD, then you enter a completely new world where everything becomes clear, music and artwork combined to produce a very personal concept familiar to the border area.
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If you’d like to hear 0-Days, go their website MATTOX.
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If you’d like to order the beautiful packaged 0-Days for only $7, go to the SHOP.
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Diode Lamp

By: Yannell Rodriguez

30-07-2010

innovation, lighting, product design

This lamp is conceptually awesome. It looks wonderful too.

ABOUT THE LAMP
“The idea is an info-graphic panel show ing the amount of day light and dark ness at a given lat i tude any where in the world. The light beams out of drilled holes on the panes. In each hole there is a diode light which colour and lumi nos ity is controlled by the user who can select between built in pre sets. The built in set tings as well as cus tom ones are con trolled by a small con trol board on the side of the panel or by using a remote con trol or even with a phone.
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You can choose between set tings like show ing only one day, where it also serves as a cal en dar, all the year at once, sol stice, equinox or a clock and few other visual set tings like run ning fast through every day of the year. Dial in a name of a city or lat i tude to get the cor rect visual rep re sen ta tion of day light at any given place.
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The material use is brushed steel, acrylic or wood. Dimen sion for inte rior use is 800 x 800 mm.”
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MORE INFO

Augmented Reality: Magazines on Shirts

By: Yannell Rodriguez

03-02-2010

fashion, graphic design, innovation, Interactive

T-post, a wearable magazine.

T-post have now allowed subscribers of T-post to wear their T-shirt in front of a web cam and play Rock, Paper, Scissors against the computer. The arm actually extends from the shirt.

The way it works: Every six weeks, subscribers will receive a new issue/tshirt in the mail. The news story is printed on the inside back of the shirt. A graphic artist’s design is printed in the front.

This recent issue is designed by Marc Strömberg. The stories revolve around exotic dance research to marijuana horticulture. f

Very exciting.

GeoGraffiti creates Voice Mark

By: Yannell Rodriguez

14-01-2010

innovation, Interactive, web

With the up and coming trend of Geo location apps, GeoGraffiti launches their newly updated iPhone app, Voice Mark.

What it does:
- Allows you to record voice marks on location via Callback or Microphone- so, if your network is slow you can just use the callback option.
- Browse through Voice Marks by topic and location
- You can share your Voice Marks now! That way your friends can hear your Voice Mark on the latest restaurant you just went to. Send them to Facebook and Twitter!
- Hear hilarious Voice Marks – like me snoring like a bear,
- Create your profile to connect with friends and meet new friends.

Why it’s COOOOOOL:
- unlike other geolocation apps, GeoGraffiti actually does something other than just “checking in”
- you can hear the actual emotion of a person’s review. Other review sites are great but you really don’t get a sense of how good it was… or how horrible it was… with GeoGraffiti you can sense exactly how amazing the soufflé was at some restaurant.
- Because the app is on the iPhone and Android (Blackberry will come soon) – Voice Marking something is super easy. Let’s say I go to a show where Elbow is playing… well, all I have to do is open the app and record one of their songs and yell out… “this is fu**ing amazing!!!* and now my friends get to hear the amazing sound of an Elbow show. Hip, hip- this gets sent to twitter and facebook and they can hear it instantly.
- OOOH, I could do the same thing for professors… haha, that way other students can know who gives the most homework or whatnot…
- A business can promote events.. or I can promote a party – hmmm… I think I’ll do that,
- Anyhoot, the possibilities are endless

LED Tattoos

By: Yannell Rodriguez

05-12-2009

innovation, miscellaneous

I’ve been showing people around me this incredible new way of tattoos and every time I show the clip, it simply wow’s them.

LED tattoos, it’s amazing, I want this.
WIRED: The Illustrated Man
h+ Mag Tattoo You

EP Culture Beat on Twitter and Marfa, TX

By: Yannell Rodriguez

13-10-2009

innovation, web

EP Culture Beat just got a Twitter account. You can now get updates to your account.

New Post is amazing, Pt. II coming soon. They left to Marfa, TX this weekend to have one hell of a adventure! They met Ben Kweller and partied with Dan Deacon! woo! How Rock n’ Roll is that!?

Marfa Means Magic, part 1
EP Culture Beat Twitter
Marfa Sunset photo by Israel Gallegos

EP Culture Beat

By: Yannell Rodriguez

28-07-2009

innovation, web

EP Culture Beat is a project for all types of news created by underground writers like yourselves. The project was created by M., a word enthusiast waiting to get the news out to all willing pairs of eyes.

I’ve known this guy for a while now— he’s a very talented writer who has a clear goal in mind. He’s covered many entertainment stories from local shows on the Prospector to the SXSW festival on Newspaper Tree. If you’re a writer, a photographer, a documenter of any kind pitch your story, get heard, be a part of the collective.

EP Culture Beat
EP Culture Beat MySpace
M.

Online Art Shows

By: Yannell Rodriguez

16-06-2009

art, innovation, Interactive, web

This is an idea that I came across last week. At first, my initial thoughts were – ewwwww— that’s gross! Why would I want to see an art piece in 72ppi, small resolution, and sitting on my computer. Then, as I was thinking about it… I thought, that’s GENIUS! It really is – just let the thought settle in your mind a bit…

Ok, think about it now – you’re an artist, right? you want people to see your work, right? Well, sometimes it’s hard to get people to see your work. There are many obstacles that one has to go through. If shows land on Thursdays then you have to worry about the people who have work. If shows are on Fridays or Saturdays then you have to worry about all the people who all ready have plans. Then there’s the people who would much rather spend their evening with friends at a bar or club rather than an art show. Then there’s people who work. There’s also the question of getting a space. Sometimes we run low on cash- sometimes it’s hard to pay that fee to rent out the space. Sometimes it’s too hard to get your work selected for a major or more professional art gallery. There’s just so many obstacles to get your work seen by the populace. It’s even harder for a beginner – someone who just started showcasing their work. Entry levels artists and designers don’t have much money to be spending on 500+ flyers… or websites… or whatever… so what does one do?

You let the world take a glimpse of your mind on the greatest and most seen venue around… the World Wide Web. Anyone can see it. It takes only a few second for someone to take a glimpse of the artist’s work. If I like it then I’ll go and take the time to find out more information. It’s great! If a group of friends, artists, designers get together to host a mini-show online then this would showcase the work to millions of people world wide.

This is one online show done by Diesel This one is great because the flash is amazing!

Humans Only

By: Yannell Rodriguez

03-06-2009

film, innovation

non human bench

So, I’m in Los Angeles right now and throughout the city are these funky looking benches at bus stops. They look like advisories of some sort. What caught my eye was the huge tagline that says Bus Bench for Humans Only. Haha – sounds odd right— I love the ads!!!!! If you go to the website provided you learn that it’s an ad for a movie called District 9 by Peter Jackson. Release Date: August 14.

Official Website

Here’s the first poster .

Here’s the BLOG by a Non-Human equal rights advocate.

Website for Multi-National United

Educational Website for the MNU

Excerpt from Yahoo Movies

“Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them.
Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare — they will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens’ awesome weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.

The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe, contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable — he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9. ”

— THEORII BLOG