I think I have successfully talked my partner out of getting an Apple Watch. I generally do not interfere with his purchase decisions, but the description of the Apple Watch’s features, or those of any…
3D printing is predicted to transform the business landscape of design-led innovation. But how well protected are Australian designs from unauthorised use? IP Australia – which administers Australia’s…
Environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, global pandemic … does it feel like the world is ending? If you think Armageddon is near and are trying to get ready, you are not alone. National Geographic…
In our personal and working lives, there are some lines that should not be crossed and others that must be. As a designer, crossing the line that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian…
This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the first bra patent. Amazingly for the time – 1914 – it was made by a woman in her twenties, Mary (Polly) Phelps Jacob (nee Crosby). Polly made her bra initially…
Last week, I arrived in India for five weeks of fieldwork on the role of the designer in changing values about natural indigo in contemporary India. This had given me the opportunity to interview interesting…
This year’s Australian Institute of Architects’ (AIA) 2014 National Architecture Awards – to be awarded on November 6 – include a category called “Enduring Architecture”. Where a fast-paced “build and…
As part of the International Gender Design Network’s second Gender Design Conference, the GREAT Small: Gender Design Exhibition opened at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on October 10. Curated by…
This is the second in my series of articles on print-on-demand and the growth of independent publishing in Australia. It explains the value of print-on-demand services for writers who want to self-publish…
You probably don’t think much about the derivation of that lovely shelving in your living room, or that sleek, stylish lamp. But many of them will be copies of designs from the 20s, 60s, 80s. And despite…
Authors don’t write books, they write manuscripts. Publishing is the process of getting an author’s manuscript into the hands of a reader, by materialising it – giving it form, as a book. This may be printed…
Dear Music Industrial Complex, Do you mind if I call you Mic? I normally don’t write about pop music, but I am upset. I know that sex sells, but may I make a special request of no more music videos consisting…
Every product is a blabbermouth; it has a tendency to answer every question – and then some - Del Coates. Coates, an American industrial designer and design academic, is right. The processes and outputs…
From hippie houses and kids’ play frames to military radar stations and mountaineering tents, the geodesic dome has fascinated people as a way of building. Why? Simply because it is so extraordinarily…
Since Marcel Breuer’s Wassily Chair of 1925 the formula for comfortable seating has been known: create a right-angle, open it up a tad, and tip it backward, so that the seat places the bottom lower than…
Having recently attended my university’s graduation ceremony, I noted again what seems to have become a global trend — design is becoming a field where the majority of practitioners are women. I have made…
In everyday life we are surrounded by a dizzying array of technological gizmos. The ones we love and use the most are often the ones that have been designed with humans firmly in mind. Those that aren’t…