Pictures of Martin Pl

These are some of the shots that I took at Martin Place last Saturday. It was enjoyable exploring the place with my group members, drawing and taking pictures of Martin Place and its surroundings. I think it is a good way to learn to appreciate the beauty and understand deeply what makes Martin Place so significant.

 
Trying to be a professional photographer you know...

A visit to the COFA Library

I went to the COFA library yesterday at around 3.00pm for a visit. I managed to borrow a gigantic, yellow book. It's the Phaidon Design Classics. 333 of 999 objects. Volume one.
The book looks good to me and I can't wait to read it. The book contains a wide variety of both new and old products. Each product has a brief definition and history of it. I hope I have the time to go through it though as our assignments are piling up. 

My green segment for colour wheel

It was enjoyable seeing all of my friends joining up the segments together to form a giant colour wheel. However, lack of communication skills and teamwork can be seen on our work. This is because some segments are a bit similar to each other, some have white spaces, one missing segment and so on. Again, this is something that we can learn from it so that we can do it much better next time. It was a really fun activity anyway! 

Design Poster Mash Up - The Present and Future of the World Trade Center in 3D

This poster was set in the very late 1960s and early 70s. It shows a group of family members watching a 3D TV with their 3D glasses on in a typical 1960s/1970s living room. They are actually watching the destruction of the famous World Trade Center that were destroyed in 11th of September, 2001. As you can see in the poster, there is a window overlooking the undamaged World Trade Center and the both towers are still in a perfect condition! As you can imagine during that time, It was a shocking moment for these family members because they would never thought that the twin tower would actually attacked by terrorists... and the twin tower was built and completed around in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From the poster, different emotions can be seen on the viewers' faces (shocked, surprised, worried, etc) and it might indicate that they are watching the future happenings of the World trade Center on 3D TV.
All in all, it was not a good presentation and it was a bad decision to draw on the poster by hand. I could have used Photoshop but I don't have the software and I haven't tried the software before, which I should have. It was a big mistake but it was a grateful gift and a valuable lesson.  

LeafBed

I have been following the devastated news about Japan quite closely. It is overwhelming because people are suffering from the consequences of the earthquake, tsunami in Sendai and as well as nuclear threat in Fukushima at the same time. I am hoping that this crisis will end as soon as possible.

Somehow I do believe that industrial designers really can help these people.

I thought LeafBed could be one of the innovative products than can provide at least a relief to the people.

LeafBed is a versatile product that is made up of cardboard and can be folded into 4 different modules with 4 different uses.

a.) Stool and table

b.) Bed

c.) Storage compartment

It is inexpensive, can be made locally, easy to transport, biodegradable, resistant to weight (300kg) and humidity. That is the true power of a cardboard.

It's so simple and effective.  

If anyone has the real opportunity to come with a new idea or a solution to help the disaster victims, what kind of product would it be? If I receive 10 comments with 10 different solutions from 10 different bloggers, I will promise to make a donation about 25 US dollars to the Japanese Red Cross Society. It might not be much, but I really want to do something about it to help Japan. So by submitting one idea, US$2.50 will be donated.

Thanks a lot for your contribution.

Getting to know Alissia Melka-Teichroew, Meng-Hsiu Ho and Joey Roth

Hi everyone!

I have just read this article from the Yanko Design website a few hours ago. It is good to get to know these young designers and some of their thoughts on design. There are definitely one of the designers that we can look up to.

Here is the link:
http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/12/14/getting-personal-with-the-designers-part-i/

Thanks for reading and will be back for more updates!