 © neozoon.org  © neozoon.org  © neozoon.org "There! A human! For heaven's sake! Catch the beast! — Planet of the Apes, 1968. An line that appropriately sums up Neozoon's philosophy. Neozoon is a street art collective based in Paris and Berlin. They seek to heighten our awareness of the way we treat animals, and the relationship we have with animals and birds. Initially the art was flat on the wall, but a recent collection consists of 3-dimensional animals as well.There is something intriguing and chilling about the imagery created. The Bah Bah Blacksheep slaughterhouse area in Dresden has a line of sheep, each one numbered along the wall. It's an artistic expression that also makes you stop in your tracks and think about what we do to animals. It reflects on our heartlessness towards them as well. Though just silhouettes, each sheep is life-like, lively and original, right from their numbers to their yellow ear tags. A street in Paris has shown fur-coat recycling, a streak of life like creatures racing and leaping around the corner. It makes a strong statement, without destroying the character of the area. Lynxes, from the Urban Art Festival Madrid 2010 is also freakishly real. On the tamer side there is Cats (Urban Art Festival Madrid 2010), which is playful, domestic and harmless. There are lambs gazing at you in Berlin. Manteltier in Berlin is one of their 3-dimensional exhibits, and combines and fun and macabre in a surreal way. A kangaroo in Paris might just make you stop while walking by. There is also a bunch of pedigree dogs in Berlin, that you can see on their site, along with magnificent bulls, standing bears, pigs, wolves, foxes and more. A pretty unusual take on street art. All these are created from actual discarded fur coats, which adds to the realism and is truly confrontational for us humans. The location of some of the displays, such as the sheep on one of the oldest slaughterhouses of Paris adds to the meaning. A piece of street art that makes us think about the way we treat animals. The realism of actual fur shaped into life like forms makes the horror of killing animals real.Do visit their site, for more on the furry friends, and check out their videos. You can read more about them here too. How do they make it? Check out the video here.By Armeen Kapadia
 Esquire 1962  Esquire 1960 Some people take their hobbies very seriously, as you can see on the National Magazine Cover Archive. Their home page sums it up, "The Nation Magazine Cover Archive (NMCA) is a non-commercial 'hobbysite' devoted to helping keep inspirational magazine design alive. These are strange days for editorial designers with homogenisation and closure of many well known (and loved) titles and independent publishers emerging to fill the gaps. Just don't forget to vote with your feet! Support quality magazines. Don't let them die." — The ManagementNow it may look like just a collection of covers, but there is a wealth of visual culture here, even if it is mostly from the USA. Click on any cover to see the range and depth of that particular magazine. Covers range from photographic and illustrative, to stark minimalism and those with amazing conceptual value. There is the wickedly funny Esquire magazine, and that all-time classic, Time. There are some new unknowns such as Etapes, an international design magazine from France, which has some pretty interesting covers. Check out the 1960 issue of Esquire (image above) which has an article titled 'India's Future After Nehru". I wonder what they predicted back then, and how much of it has transpired. Another great one from Esquire is the one shown above, with the contents typed out on the cover. For illustration-lovers there is 'Little White Lies', a cinema buff's magazine, which only has a range of illustrative covers. Some magazines pull out all stops when it comes to being experimental. Neo2 and Tokion, both of which manage to pull off the unique and daredevil covers of each issue, with finesse. Layout and typographic treatment are radically different everytime, which must take considerable vision and hard-work. And the best, a range of covers from one of the most creative magazines ever, Mad. The covers are just a mild flavour of the rib-cracking, rollin-on-the-floor humour and satire inside. Great humour is rare, and it's an expression of real creativity. Mad had it all, with one-liners, amazing cartoons, caricatures, and satirical commentary. The variety of the mastheads could be a study in itself. I could go on and on about it, but its best you visit the site. A great resource site for magazine lovers. Happy browsing.By Armeen Kapadia  Mad  Mad 1976
 © Cox Architects One of the world's largest pedestrian footbridges opened very recently in Brisbane, Australia. The Kurilpa Bridge is the world's first solar powered bridge. Its solar panels power its own LED lighting, and also pump surplus power into the main grid.
The bridge connects South Brisbane with the city center, and spans the Brisbane River. It has 84 solar panels. The bridge is aesthetically unique, as it is inspired from sailboats. The design has been described as 'beautiful, bold' and even 'fantastic' and 'unreal'. It is unlike most bridges we have seen. It has a sculpted structure, with a series of masts, cables and flying struts, similar to those on boats. It looks like a series of poles pointing spontaneously to the sky. At night the structure is dramatically lit. The LED lights allow for different lighting settings, changing according to the environment and for various events or festivals.
The 84 solar panels are mounted on the bridge and can generate a daily output of 100KiloWatthour. This is enough to light the bridge in most lighting conditions. When the bridge is completely lit the solar panels can supply upto 75% of the needed power. The bridge is connected to the city electric grid, so that it can draw power, and put supply excess power back into the grid as and when possible.
Such beauty and functionality however, did not come cheap. The Kurilpa Bridge cost 63 million Australian dollars. It is also regarded as the first bridge to use tensegrity, or tensional integrity design principles. These are structures that stand on a synergy between balanced tension and compression components. It creates exceptionally rigid structures, that can stand with minimum supports. Tensigrity was proposed and experimented with by Buckminster Fuller. The first significant structure to use tensigrity was the Seoul Olympic Gymnastics Arena for the 1988 Summer Olympics. Tensigrity structures respond to gravity but are not dependent on it for their structural peformance. The construction of this bridge started in 2007, and it was designed by the Australian firm, Cox Architects.
During construction the bridge was dogged with controversy regarding safe construction and cost issues. But after opening it has been drawing attention across the world for its unique design and solar friendliness.
Do have a look at the video below to see the bridge on its opening day.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Eco-friendly bags made of juice cartons Someone is finally putting those millions of juice cartons, which we all happily chuck in the bin, to good use. These juice cartons are being recycled to make an attractive, lively set of bags. Juice cartons are quite non-biodegradable, and end up in landfills, or littering the streets, or are burnt creating more pollution.
The Eco-friendly Juice Bags are not only eco-friendly, but they are also helping poor communities, as they are made by a woman’s cooperative in the Philippines, where the women are the main bread-winners in their families. This cooperative is formed of more than 500 women of Pasig City, Philippines, and was started in 1999. The cooperative provides a livelihood to 200 families, creating income to pay for education and healthcare. Their main objective is to recycle cartons, plastics and the rest into bags and accessories. Working with local community leaders, the cooperative convinced people to separate their waste, and sell recyclable matter to the cooperative. The local council provided pushcarts and weighing scales and established an Ecology Center. This ultimately led to Pasig City being awarded first place as the cleanest and greenest township.
Of all the recyclable materials, the colourful juice cartons attracted the women’s attention. After collection, they are sanitized, and made into bags. The bags have a wide range of shapes and sizes. There is the ‘shopper’ a large divided bag that can accommodate A4 size files. There is the ‘woven handbag’ made from interwoven lengths of juice carton. There are insulated bottle bags with zip-up lids.
The Recycled Juice Bags look great, function great, and utilize waste. Design at its best, even without the designer.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Cover: Wet Apples, White Blood  Cover: One of the books from Space Opera Series  Cover: UK version of Sea of Poppies What makes one pick up a book and even think of reading it? Apart from the format, the cover of the book plays an important role in attracting attention. If one were to buy a shirt, one can try it before buying. When we are buying a book, the cover has to speak to the eyes.
David Drummond's body of work is what I think of, when I am talking of book covers. The cover of the Naomi Guttman's 'Wet Apples, White Blood' book should explain why I am fond of his work. I have set of five criteria to judge any work done by a graphic designer — instant likability, message, relevance, character and potential. This is one book cover that gets a yes for all five. The cover is matt laminated with a spot UV varnish on the descending drop of milk. Fascinating.
If one had to apply the set of five criteria, I think of designer Sanda Zahirovic's Space Opera Series, which is art directed by Luci Stericker. Sanda designed these series of book covers in reaction to the Student D&AD brief, for which she won a pencil. She knew that she could create a relationship between the high tech content of the books and the low tech materials used for them. The end result is both simple and striking.
I am quite kicked about UK version of the Sea of Poppies. You should check out Faceout Books, which is a decent collection of contemporary book designs. The best part of the collection is that designers are speaking about their work and that may give design students insights on book design.
A lot of you have been asking where do we find links to write about. This post was triggered off from a search in google that directed me to How Magazine site. Then in that list, I got all excited seeing this link that records the top ten sites that all designers should visit. In there, I met David and Sanda. And many faces I uncovered.
Have a great week, all of you.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
Playtime is of the most important, and memorable pastimes of childhood. Play is the first and most crucial education a child indulges in. Play develops physical and mental health, motor, social, cognitive, and language skills, while enhancing creativity and confidence. The MIT Toy Lab was founded in 2004, and is dedicated to the exploration of creative design.
This course is an introduction to the product design process with a focus on designing for play and entertainment. The students work in small teams of 5 to 6 members to design and prototype new toys. The course is structured so that there is a local sponsor, an elementary school, and experienced mentors. Students go through the entire process right from determining customer needs, to final prototyping and presentation to the community. The interesting aspect of the course is each year there is a theme, which students have to work under, such as toys that promote dental hygiene, to toys that can be inexpensively manufactured in Brazil, and toys that inspire and teach science and engineering.
Some interesting toys are Stack-It, Harry Potter's magical toothbrush which appears to be floating. Then there is Lux, a toy animal that eats colors from the world and mixes them in its stomach teaching additive color mixing (the light theory). Cell Slap is a card game that teaches which organelles are present in different kinds of cells, definitely a more fun way to learn Biology than from a text book.
The first few weeks of the course are dedicated to idea generation and brainstorming, during which the team comes up with hundreds of ideas, out of which they finalise on four. The team then produces sketch models of those four concepts, which test the feasibility and value of the concept.
Toy design is a blend of product design, engineering, pedagogy, aesthetics, and more. It is an area of huge potential, and importance, as toys can be much more than just 'playthings', as some of the toys on the MIT site show. The word 'toy' generally brings to mind Barbies and train sets and little sports cars. But toys can be powerful tools that enhance the educational experience, making much more holistic, engaging, and inculcate values in children too.
In his autobiography, Frank Lloyd Wright credits his visual-spatial ability to the Froebel blocks he played with as a child. These were a range of educational material advocating the importance of free-play in childhood. Wright says, ""For several years I sat at the little Kindergarten table-top . . . and played . . . with the cube, the sphere and the triangle—these smooth wooden maple blocks . . . All are in my fingers to this day . . . ."
The toys of today make the people of tomorrow.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Richard Smith's dollar redesign project The design of currency notes have always fascinated me. Richard Smith, a creative strategy consultant has taken upon himself to redesign the US dollar. He believes that designers have a prominent role to play when it comes to rebranding the economy.
The intentions of Richard may seem ambitious at first, but when you look at the work that he has done with the Dollar Redesign Project, it seems it can be reality. If you are interested in seeing scans of currencies, you can snoop around this exhaustive database.
The American Dollar has not truly been redesigned since the 1930s. Switzerland is known for redesigning their bank notes on a regular basis. Not every bank note deviates from the convention. There seems to be a herd mentality when it comes to designing currency. There is one project that I remember that must be featured in this post, the Netherland banknotes that were designed by Ootje Oxenaar. This is the most beautiful money in the world.
In an interview with the Creative Review, Ootje confesses that he hid his fingerprint in a 1000 guilder note and to make it worse for the authorities he hid names of his grand-daughter, his girlfriend at that time and a secret friend in a 250 guilder note. His act of mystery created quite an uproar which he is proud of. In fact, he jokes saying that those names act as symbols make the banknotes more secure.
Banknotes and postal stamps are a brilliant opportunity for a country or an economy to brand itself. To actually miss that opportunity by adhering to convention is quite disappointing. Designing banknotes is an art that only a few have mastered. I am yet to see Indian banknotes move away from colonial sensibilities.
By Sanjay Basavaraju  Ootje Oxenaar's design of Netherlands' banknotes
Today we are covering something that many may feel does not relate directly to design, but design can learn lessons from the small and peaceful country of Costa Rica, a country in Central America, and the first in the world to abolish its standing army.
One person’s intention can change the way thousands of others live. In 1948, after just five weeks of civil war, the leader, Jose Figueres, announced, “'The Regular Army of Costa Rica today gives the key to its military base to the schools ... The Government hereby declares the National Army officially abolished.” As a result, the nation’s resources were transferred into more worthy causes; namely, the improvement of healthcare and education. The country’s military bases became schools. Figueres also banned the Communist Party, gave women the right to vote, granted black immigrants full citizenship, and established a presidential term limit. Figueres nationalized the banks in order to promote economic diversity and eliminate coffee grower's control over the banking system. For decades, the elite coffee growers had dominated Costa Rican society and economy. Figueres also created The Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
Today Costa Rica has the highest standard of living in Central and South America. There is ‘cradle to the grave’ healthcare for all Costa Ricans, with special services for women, children and seniors. Costa Rica has the second highest literacy rate of 96%, in Latin and South America, and an average life expectancy of more than 75 years. Costa Rica has no enemies or terrorism, and the last elections saw a voter turnout of 90%, a lot more than what most countries can boast of.
Costa Rica’s neighbours are struggling with civil war, military repression and poverty. Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez, who was President of Costa Rica from 1986-1990, and 2006 to present, advocates education and vehemently believes too many countries sacrifice education to fund armies. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work to establish peace and democracy in the region.
Costa Rica translates as ‘rich coast’, and the nation lives up to its name. It is near the top in the Human Developmental Index, the Environmental Performance Index, the Happy Planet Index, and is also the greenest country in the world. Former President Rodrigo Carazo Odio comments that, "Costa Ricans have cultivated a civilized spirit, a spirit opposed to militarization and violence. Armed with this spirit, the people are capable of seeking peaceful solutions to conflicts and respecting the rights of others." He states that this respect has survived and flourished because "education has fostered such an attitude and because in the absence of [military] weapons with which to impose an idea, the only weapon left is reason."
Why are we covering the country of Costa Rica today, on a site called ‘design is in’? Well, because in some ways the ‘design’ of countries, institutes, states and systems, are of prime importance. Innovation in leadership is the need of the hour. Creativity, change, and innovation is most needed in governance. Design is creating holistic solutions, not short term arrangements that create a new problem in place of the old one. Design is also about having the vision to take a bold step, even if it means doing something no one has done before, trading immediate economic gain, and power domination for more meaningful benefits, for countless future generations.
Hats off to you Costa Rica, hope there are more courageous enough to go your way.
By Armeen Kapadia
Two designers Rodrigo Chepero and Lucas Desimone from Buenos Aires, Argentina are reusing advertising banners to make bags. They now collect advertising banners for free with a commitment to donate an amount of money to a local NGO.
Baumm, founded by them, creates hip bags from the vinyl that is used in billboards. Materials such as vinyl are not recyclable and toxic if burned. Once any ad campaign is over the vinyl is rolled up, stored away and never used again. Baumm saw an opportunity here and could see the potential in the idea. The possibility to attain styles and combine colors is numerous. Hence, the whole aspect of exclusiveness. Every bag is handmade. No two bags look the same, only the design specs remain constant. The materials are processed if needed. The whole idea of turning advertising banners into functional, fashionable art is inspiring.
One collection is made out of discarded parachutes. Baumm has turned them into backpacks, laptop covers and wallets. Before we even begin to recycle, we need to reduce and reuse. As of now, the bags are sold through their website. The bags are available in different sizes and functions for both men and women. The fashion industry in Argentina is becoming eco-friendly. Such ideas are going to be appreciated in the time of recession. The bags are sold for $30 each.
Baumm is now working with Adidas to create a new collection of accessories using the vinyl used by Adidas ads. Also see Vy&Elle and Freitag.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 Charkha in context Gandhi believed that Charkha as a tool can make people self-sufficient. He may not have thought that, one day, the very same tool can actually generate power. Yes, e-charkha is a unique device to spin yarn and also generate electricity.
Using this device for one hour can provide upto 4 hours of light output through a highly efficient LED lamp. A radio can also be played with the stored electricity. The e-charkha is a brainchild of 48-year-old R S Hiremath of Bangalore. It does not resemble traditional charkhas, but it is a hand-operated spinning wheel. it was formally launched by President Pratibha Patil in 2007, the innovation has won several awards including a national award for best innovation in the Khadi field.
In a rural context, where power cuts are common, this device is appropriate. The charkha generates 6-9 watts of power. The charkha stores power using a maintenance free lead acid battery. The charkha is priced at Rs. 5,000 per piece for a minimum order of 500. India's Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC) plans to induct two lakh pieces of e-charkha at Khadi weaving centers across the country. "Its popularity is increasing with time. It is not only more productive but also helps the user light his home," said a KVIC official in a Mid-Day article.
Gandhi once said, "In my dream, in my sleep, while eating, I think of the spinning wheel. The spinning wheel is my sword. To me it is the symbol of India's liberty. I would make the wheel the centre around which all other activities will revolve." Some technologists believe that e-charkha isn't anything like Gandhi's Charkha and they argue that innovation has replaced tradition. That might be the case, but
e-charkha finds its place in today's context. The charkha was developed in cooperation with a Bangalore based firm — Flexitron, which is now involved in its commercial production as well.
The e-charkha is one of those very few designs born out of the Indian design ecosystem. Watch this clip from IBN Live.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
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