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Posts Tagged ‘Design’

Design News: Chinese Launch Aircraft Carrier

Monday, August 15th, 2011

Oh the Irony, China announces the launch of it’s first aircraft carrier, just as the UK winds up without any. Have they got ours? No apparently it’s an ex-Russian navy carrier, refitted by the Chinese, presumably powered by crushed soft toys, all controlled from the bridge fitted with a range of knock off iPads. Still I wouldn’t like to be caught straying into the wrong waters by them!

The newly refurbished carrier docked in Dalian Port. More to the point - LOOK at the size of that crane behind it! They don't mess about the Chinese... You should see the size of the lorry that brought the carrier to the dock!!

There’s an interesting, if slightly worrying quote from a Reuters article about the launch:

“An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers,” Pan Chunli, a 29-year-old IT technician in Beijing told Reuters. “China has grown dramatically. The whole world should take a fresh look at China, viewing it as a rising power that it has the ability to defend its rights and territory.”

Followed by an astonishingly patronising one from the Andrew Erickson of the U.S. Naval War College and Gabriel Collins, a security analyst:

“A newly-wed couple wants a ‘starter home’, a new great power wants a ‘starter carrier’,” wrote in a note about the carrier launch”…. “China’s ‘starter carrier’ is of very limited military utility, and will primarily serve to confer prestige on a rising great power, to help the military master basic procedures, and to project a bit of power”. (www.andrewerickson.com)

Oh well, it’s good to know that just like the megayacht arms race for billionnaires, the world’s governments are driven by the same basic desire to outdo each other with the size of their… err weapons. Still at least if China starts developing a whole battlegroup of eye-wateringly expensive carriers, they might have to start putting up their taxes closer to something like the level that people and businesses are burdened with here in the UK. That might help with the trade deficit, though it’s shame the Chinese don’t want be lured into a competition about who can have the most expensive social care and human rights programs.

Read more on the carrier launch and sea trials here.

People In Glass Houses

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

One of the most popular materials in current product design, particularly consumer technology is glass. Corning is a world leader in speciality glass and this is their take on our near future.

With more and more technology becoming reliant on our personal interaction, touch activation and sensitivity, glass seems the obvious medium, and we are slowly seeing a wider use of the material in every part of our lives from kitchen worktops and hobs, to phones and computers.

This video takes it to an extreme, but it is more than believable, although one thing’s for sure. Sales of Windowlene will go through the roof as and when this does happen!

Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

Monday, September 27th, 2010

At realise were working on a bit of a proposition for Old Spice and have been loving Old Spices new facelift, giving P&G a high five for successfully achieving one of the hardest tricks in marketing; to reposition a familiar brand. In the studio we loved researching this brand and watching these hilarious adverts: Enjoy!

Edit from Andrew: Note the Norton Commando in the pool = Double cred to P&G. Maybe I’m going to start using my Dad’s aftershave! ( I can still remember the 1970′s Old Spice surfing adverts from the bike’s era – Yikes)…

Moth Wings – PART 1: Delicate Design

Monday, September 20th, 2010

New hi-performance carbon fibre wing design – first for British Designers. Is this F1?  No! Just jolly sailors out for a bally wizard prang…

 

Not a lot of people know that I used to whizz around on the back of a Moth for fun. What? It’s probably not what you are imagining. The “International Moth” is a high speed singlehanded racing dinghy. The Moth is a ‘development class’, whereby the class rules are kept very simple to actively encourage technical experimentation. This has resulted in The Moth being the fastest, most bonkers and difficult to sail of all ‘singlehanders’.

International Moth a composite techno blast!

International Moth - a composite techno blast

Moths have been continuously developing for 75 years, but probably the first really significant innovation in the 1970′s was adding wings to the side of the boat. Whilst this co-incidentally made them look more like real fluttery moths,  the actual purpose was to get the sailor’s bodyweight further outboard and therefore be able to balance this against more power in the sail.

Moths got wings before Red Bull existed

Moths got wings way before Red Bull

This instantly made the Moth faster, but more importantly (more…)

Apple Tablet Almost Here Or Almost There?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
apple-tablet-oled_w500

You may have caught some of the buzz about the Apple’s impending new product development announcement. Since Steve Jobs gleefully demo’d the first iPhone, the tech world has got slightly flustered every time Apple books a venue for more than 20 people.

This evening (UK time) Apple will announce what is slated to be a new Tablet computer. At this stage it’s 99% sure to be a new Apple Tablet, like this one mocked up on the T3 Site.

I’m really interested to see what they come out with, for three reasons:

1. Since buying a Toshiba Tecra tablet PC to experiment with sketching design concepts, I’ve been intrigued and frustrated by tablet computers. In typical Microsoft style, the tablet PC had some brilliant bits like the handwriting recognition, but overall it was really just some pen interface stuff tacked onto the top of windows, making it inappropriate as a touch sensitive user interface and disappointing as a user experience. So I’m very interested to see what the masters of user interface innovation have come up with. Remember it was Apple who originally invented the Mouse and the drag and drop Desktop metaphor we use so much today. They’ve certainly been busy over the last few years submitting a lot of  patents for touch sensitive interfaces. With incredible timing the USPTO have actually today granted a patent for a proximity-sensing touchscreen.

Diagram from Apple's latest Patent for proximity sensing touchscreen.

Diagram from Apple's latest Patent for proximity sensing touchscreen.

2. I’m also hoping to see Apple remain loyal to it’s creative customers and for this to be a fantastic electronic sketchbook. I actually really liked sketching on the tablet PC. Everyone has different opinions about this, but I always found it much easier to sketch directly on the screen of the tablet PC, rather than use a graphics tablet, where my hand’s moving on the desk while I look at the results on the screen a couple of feet away. I’m not holding out much hope on the graphic drawing ability though, as Apple will inevitably have made compromises to reduce cost. I imagine they will have prioritised functionality like mobile internet connection to download ebooks, which has more mass market appeal and will leverage iTunes to sell books. This little old product designer will be disappointed though if it’s no good as an arty farty tool.

3. Finally I can’t wait  to see what kind of lovely thing they’ve come up with this time. Apple are such a good example of a company that really ‘get’ what good product design is for and I love them for their bravery. It will be fascinating to find out what their strategy has been in selecting the balance of functionality and features. I suspect it will be a lot like the iPhone and have some crucial missing component (like the G3 was missing from the fist iPhone), and this one will only be  a “nearly there” product leading to the fully awesome version 2 next year.

So let’s see what happens in the next few hours! We’ll report back what we find.

Confusers to Tipis in ten feet.

Monday, June 1st, 2009

What a stunning weekend we just had. When the weather is right, England has to be (one of) the most beautiful places on Earth. Well, some of England.

After another typical week of Microsoft ‘confuser’ wrestling, the real work of getting something useful done spilled over into Saturday afternoon, when I was begrudgingly dragged away to some camp site in the middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t excited by the idea of being in a hot car crawling along behind yet another ugly white caravan, to park in a field squeezed between some more ugly white caravans listening to the occupants arguing with their kids.

(more…)

Mobile Phone Security – Design Council Product Design Competition

Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Image courtesy of the Design Council copyright 2009

Image courtesy of the Design Council copyright 2009

The Design Council is part of the Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime – aimed at developing technology solutions to stop the baddies from beating us up and nicking our stuff. As part of this they are running a competition to find a way to make mobile phones “non-nickable”. This is great idea, and the best thing is they are throwing some proper money behind it with a total of £400,000 worth of funding for the four winning teams. The requirements are also very clear that each team must consist of technology experts and designers, with a proper design plan for how they are going to develop and implement the idea. (more…)

Army Firepower Demonstration 2009

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Image courtesy of Chris Sheppard copyright 2009

Army Firepower 2009!

Last month, an email landed in my inbox inviting Realise Design to go along to the Army Firepower Demonstration. The demo was billed as an opportunity to see the entire range of weapon systems used by the British Army firing live at targets within a couple of kilometres of the viewing area.

Of course, we accepted the invitation and went as guests of CESO(A) – the health and safety team. We had worked with them last year to produce an exciting new logo to front their worldwide safety campaigns.

(more…)

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