design

Product Design – Electrolux Design Lab 2012: Finalists

Oct 18

Design Lab is Swedish appliances major Electroluxs’ annual student product design competition. In this tenth year of the contest, there were 1200 entries, from which these ten finalists were shortlisted to battle it out in Milano, Italy on 25.10.12. As I was going through the entries, the final thirty and now down to ten, it was quite clear that the shortlisting was done considering the Electrolux business idea of a ‘smart’ kitchen / home, with an ‘amazing range of capabilities’. I also paused to think whether there has been a collective dumbing down in this rather frenzied race for ‘smartness’. Student contests do have an exploitative edge, as major corporations seek out business-next ideas for the price of a cola can. The text accompanying each of the entries here is untouched and presented in their sugar coated, sales pitch manner. I found some of the project ideas redundant and almost laughable, and for large populations of the world, most of them are alien objects, sans meaningful form and credible function.

Early years schools: Sculpting of space and imagination.

Sep 02

I still remember my nursery/kindergarten classroom with a great deal of lucidity. The texture of paint on the chair and tables, the colours and the general layout of the land, as it were. In contrast, I don’t quite remember my teachers or my friends from that period – not to say that they failed me as teachers or friends, it is just what it is. I figure it has much do with being impressionable at that age and that sculpting of space has much to do with the sculpting of imagination. Having done my rounds of pre/nursery school visits in urban India this century, I am struck by how ‘Disneyfied’ everything is. I choose to call them the ‘Mickey Mouse Schools’ – the walls, tables, fixtures plastered with Goofys, Mickeys and Donalds, not to forget the Simbas and the Alladins. Predictable, dull, uninspiring, dead spaces. However all is not lost, as some remarkable architectural and interior minds have silently worked to put out school projects of remarkable inventiveness elsewhere Take a look.

Jennifer Maestre: Sculpting with Pencils!

Jul 04

Jennifer, a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design got inspired by sea urchins. What followed was an obsessive love affair with pencils as a medium, not for illustration but for sculpting! Take a look at her sharp sculpting skills.

Clive Cooper: Watermelon Sculptor!

Jun 29

An artist has to find expression, whatever be the medium. Art enthusiast, and now rather well known sculptor Clive Cooper makes his living as a full-time government clerk out of Vancouver, Canada, where he pursues sculpting as a hobby and as a means to supplement his income by providing his sculptures for weddings and parties. Halloween as one would expect, is always a busy time for him. Working with a remarkably difficult and ephemeral medium, he makes short work of it. Take a look.