BO BORBYE PEDERSEN

Yes, thats a space rocket designed by Kristian von Bengtson, who I studied with at School and who later co-founded design bureau Goodmorning Technology before following his ambitions to become space designer. It’s created together with Peter Madsen, who previously build a couple of submarines, one of which I actually tried a few years ago. Above rocket is being tested this weekend and the goal is to send a man into space next year!. Read more at Copenhagensuborbitals

Curated youtube HD videos, in a nice looking layout. Well executed idea.

The picture shows Siren Elise Wilhelmsens project Developing Time - Time Developing which won this years ‘Time to design’ competition, put on my The Danish Art Workshops, Normann Copenhagen, Linkup and TA. The winning project by the Norwegian designer is a clock that knits 48 meshes per day, and produces one two meter long scarf per year. Will be interesting to see how she will develop this further during her 3 month residency at the workshops. Jesper once again represented Linkup in the jury and I gave a hand designing the invite[pdf link].

So it seems like summer is about to be over. It’s been a nice Danish summer and I’ve been able to enjoy a lot of it with my family and friends at the coast at various spots.

Was slightly disappointed by this otherwise well constructed book by Mark Wigan, which I read last year, but just stumbled upon again this week . Thinking visually is a huge part of what I do, and an essential skill for me in my professional work. But this book is more for illustrator students than design professionals. Maybe I should have read the introduction before digging into this one…

Borrowed the photo from David Palen.

jonathanmoore:

New Burton.com

I’m absolutely in love with the simplicity, incredible typography, and tons of small details that add so much to the experience… 

Me too

Jack Cheng explains how to max out your love-growth-cash triangle. Interesting and inspiring reading (for me at the moment at least).

This is pretty Awesome: sound:frame Festival Lightrails by Strukt. I wish I had seen this earlier, so I could use it as part of the start up inspiration for the Navigation Design class I thought before the summer holidays.

Also via Jonathan Moore who posted about it here.

Read the entire article and context - One social media tip: first build a good customer experience by Mark Hurst

via Jonathan Moore <- Great Interactive Art Director with an interesting tumblr page worth checking

Illustrations of my favorite designs by Naoto Fukasawa

by iconwerk. Both favorites of mine! Via

Arh.. need to take my bike out and give it some love. (via baubauhaus)

Icarus’ revenge? On this nice summer morning Andre Borschberg landed the Solar Impulse 100% solarpowered plane in Switzerland after the first 24h flight. Being able to fly the plane all through the night was the first step to fulfill the dream of flying around the world powered by the sun, a vision Andre shares with Bertrand Piccard (first man to fly around the world in an air ballon). It’s lucky we have mad adventures and skilled scientists like the crew behind this project.

Check out these old beer cans that Design Assistant at Apple Lance Wilson and his mate Dan has had the chance to photograph. There’s a whole set of 163 cans, most of them have some really super tight graphic artwork. Cheers.  (by lance15100)

Life saving public service/education, eye candy and advertisement all at once. Clever :-)

Here’s a few impressions from the Laser Works competition last week, where I was in the Jury for Linkup. View other shots at Flickr.

Build a sculpture, a piece of art, a model, machine or a piece of furniture which tests the potential for the use of new prototype technology. Each team had 5m2 of plywood, free use of our lasercutters and 24 hours over the course of two weeks. Arranged by Republikken and KEPS, Copenhagen. 

I thought this was a cell phone when I first saw it: the Citroën Karin. I am currently working a bit with the automobile business, as I am helping Falck (danish roadside assistance) use a design approach to develop new services, as part of the bigger Etrans project.

A neatly documented and well communicated service design project from students at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle, currently on display at MAD (Museum of Arts and Design, NYC). Wish I had a bit more time to ride my bike now that spring is here - or that I was going to New York…

I am in the train on my 2 hour commute back from Designskolen Kolding where I am tutoring on a 3 week project on “Navigation Design”:

The subject of the project is to work with design that guides users, whether it’s relevant directions in a physical context (such as traditional wayfinding) or how to navigate through a course of events or complex information (more inline with information design /architecture). We have coined the subject Navigation Design.

A very interesting field as more traditional ‘top down’ wayfinding is being challenged by personal digital services in a ‘bottom up’ way. See this article for instance.

The students have defined projects related to the overall semester theme Health, and are working on diverse issues such as getting people to exercises more in the woods, how to guide through the piles of new information when you’re pregnant with your child, the future role of the prescription or navigating your way through giving blood as a donor.

The Green Products Innovation Institute extends the success of the Cradle to Cradle™ framework to protect millions of people from toxic chemicals and unleash a wave of business innovation. We are helping the State of California create the world’s first sustainable economy and fostering a new generation of sustainable products worldwide.

Interesting! Worth keeping an eye on.

This has been the view from my desk the last couple of years. A bit sad to let it go. But if anyone is looking for office / desk space, I can highly recommend the spot. Good peoples all around. 

Ha hah. Party Photos with new the new ‘Instant Designer Glasses’ photopaddle accessory - Core77. Designed by Steven Haulenbeek and just premiered at Core77’s Kick Off party during New York Design Week. More snaps 

While the world was sliding into recession LG increased their design budget to US $ 100 milion and now Samsung is investing $20.6 billion in green technologies

This friday we finished the 4 week course on user-centered design research I have been teaching at Designskolen Kolding. One of the main aims was to breakdown the mental walls between the drawing table (read: computer) and surrounding world, and supply the students with methods and tools to do so. I was relieved to experience the students enthusiastic expressing that it was very motivating to be in contact with people. As one said: “There’s a crazy amount of information just ready to be fetched”.

The 18 groups had come up with some rather original concepts for promoting peoples health, f.ex. ‘What’s cooking?’ social dinning concept (prevention of the mental health of asylum seeking youth), ‘Rensex.dk’ (clean sex) information and communication service (preventing the spread of sexual transmitted diseases), Tinitus (self explanatory) and ‘Besaerk’ (a communication/campaign concept for guys with muscular dystrophy). Among others: Have a look at all the logs from the students work and process. 

Pictures reblogged from design-research and shot by me while critiquing.

My friends at Pleks updates the classic DSB railway clock. And does a pretty nice job. I should have a watch design on the way as well…! Stay tuned.

Might have phrased it a little different, but it pretty much sums it up.
Reblogged from countrygirlblogs

What can you make with 5 m2 plywood, a laser cuter  and 24 hours?
Up for the challenge? Then join the competition at KEPS/Republikken on June 11. Preregister/qualify may 17. I will be representing Link UP in the jury along with DAC, Index: & CITA. Excited to see what will come out of it.

Always great to see a fellow designer improving a situation he/she has met with a little common sense and some design skills. Check out Tyler_Thompson’s take on a boarding card!

Via Core77

I really like the ‘Civic Work’ Yves Behar and Fuseproject is doing. Been a fan of NYC bike Helmet ever since I saw it first time at Connecting 07 in SF and of course there’s the famous ‘100 dollar laptop’. Last edition is this design of free eyeglasses to mexican school children.

The competition Link UP is doing together with the Danish Art Worshops, Normann Copenhagen and OeO is now open. Deadline for your chance to win a sponsored (Dkk 50.000) stay at the workshop and a solo Exhibition at Normann is June 16.

This friday we publicly announced the closing of Move, the design consultancy I have run the last 4 years together with Jesper. A bit sad since we have had a great time, and gained a bunch of experience, working with a lot of great people. But also quite exciting as it’s now time to think about a new setting where I can continue working with design as a valuable tool and mindset. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Currently teaching 80 students from Designskolen Kolding in user-centred design-research: Slides showing impressions from day one. In the 4 week course the students work with the theme ‘Future Health System’, in the two fields ‘Prevention’ and ‘Selfcare/help’.

Another time and age, but can’t help but miss design like this. Via webexpedition18.com

Yesterday Link UP hosted a seminar and workshop on designers working as social entrepreneurs featuring the inspiring Cameron Sinclair from Architecture for Humanity & Eve Blosson from Lulan Artisans. Picture from the workshop at Republikken (taken by me - more at link up flickr). All credit due to Jesper who made it all happen.

Having spend some time considering new concept for digital services and products in the more social homes sphere, it’s great to see somebody actually putting something out there that pushes boundaries for what we have come to accept in this field.

A simple, intuitive, well designed and social internet/network computer for the home. Say hello to the litl.

Just got back from my first visit to Vienna, where I experienced parts of Vienna Design Week. Quite a different approach and agenda than the one in Copenhagen, but always interesting with some input. The city is definitely worth a visit and especially the Museum Quarter is interesting. More pictures here.

The case-video which wraps up some of the insights from the service design work we were involved in for the Danish pension company PFA. The video is in Danish - I am to be found somewhere in the middle of the 5 miunte video. Read my previous (and more in depth) thoughts about the project. The project and video was part the Desinova project under program for Userdriven Innovation. Check out more info on Desinova and watch a few more videos. This is a slightly edited version to keep it short enough for Tumblr.

The first Copenhagen Design Week is about over, and it’s time for a breather after an intense 10 days with lots of talks, chats, openings and exhibitions, including Link UP Showcase 2009, which I made happen with the rest of the Link UP team. Thanks due to everyone involved. More pictures from Copenhagen Design Week here.

About a month ago I was interviewed for a case video on the service design work we did for The Danish Pension company PFA as part of the DESINOVA project. The interview made me think of what we as designers brought to the project and what experience we gained from working with such a large organization. While we wait for the project to unfold at PFA and the Desinova project to wrap up, you can read some of my afterthoughts on project.

It was quickly very evident that a consultant from outside, with a pragmatic approach, fresh ideas and hands on tools were very needed in the project team. Overall the three main areas where I believe we added the most value were:

• Visualizing and prototyping experiences
• Keeping the focus user centered
• Maintaining a holistic approach

The overall goal of the project was to improve the pension customers experience. When you work with designing a better experience one of the best investments you can do is to make your ideas tangible as fast as possible and prototype the experience in order to be able to test and get valuable  feedback on your concept before you move ahead with an often lengthy and expensive development and implementation phase. Visualizing and prototyping your ideas continuously as you go along is a fundamental approach for most designers, but never the less it turned out to be an extremely valuable element in the service design process at PFA, not only in determining if the ideas would be well received by the customers but also internally in the project team and the organization as a whole.

This leads on to the next main point, keeping the developing phase user centered. This should come as no surprise when working with the customer experience, but we still found this to be one of the main areas we contributed to in the process and project. This was new to the PFA organisation (to think outside in instead of inside out, as they say) but a natural thing for us, as a user centered approach is well rooted in most professional design processes and unavoidable when working with service design. Often our role in the team was to keep this focus in brainstorms and discussions, but we also contributed in facilitating user workshops, gain insight, involving users in co-creation sessions and the actual prototype scenarios, collecting user feedback to improve the concepts.

The last point I would like to bring up is the holistic approach we try to bring to every project we work on, and in service perspective this might be even more important. Both on a practical level of being able to grasp and work with the customer experience cross platforms and media (web, print, person) as well as looking at the service experience in a bigger context. The user rarely meets the service provider (in this case PFA) without input  from other sources and other factor as well. This often play a major role in the overall service experience. A holistic approach, spanning the various media and considering the total service journey is key, when trying to create a better customer experience.

On the other hand we learned the importance of delivering clear and precise input and solutions, that would still be convincing going through 2-3 or levels before reaching the decision makers – or the people who will be working with it in the end (the developers and service providers).

Have a look at the case video here (1. draft)

The first issue of the new magazine ‘CSR – Inspiration and knowledge for the management of the sustainable company’ was just released this January. And MOVE was featured in it with a 2 page write up of our work with creating a sustainable laptop and service system for Zepto Computers.

It is uplifting to see a Danish magazine dedicated to inspire leaders in the commercial world to a better sustainable effort, and we’re happy to share our experience with ‘A Bright Green Laptop‘ for Zepto.

Jørgen Rosted from FORA, a research and analysis division under the Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority, states in the article that “It is these integrated collaborations, which can ensure Denmark a unique position as a pioneer in green technology and innovation”.

CSR is scheduled to be released 11 times a year, but they also have a web presence at www.csr.dk where you are able to read the article right here [in Danish].

Hong Kong is a super fascinating place and I was lucky enough to have spend the last 2 weeks there with my family. Life, culture, architecture, people, interior, transportation, so much to study and get inspired from. A few more shots here.