Characters are designed to respond to specific concerns relative to time and context. But as we move deeper into the 21st century, what are those concerns, and how do they differ from those in the 20th century?
Growth as cancel cells.
National Cancer Institute, modified by Elizabeth Tunstall"
The Cool Japan program models how a new approach to the design industry might work in the degrowth economy. To paraphrase designer and engineer Buckminster Fuller, the best way to predict the future is to design it.
Menstrual art with raspberry syrup.
Elizabeth Tunstall
The only approach that you don’t find used in menstrual power protests is the use of menstrual blood as a love charm. Perhaps that’s because it taps into the deepest fears of people, especially of heterosexual men, of being entrapped by the power of women’s fertility.
There’s a difference between technologies that seek to augment versus those that seek to replicate or replace human processes.
Kārlis Dambrāns
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…
Possum skin cloaks are about mapping the individuals who wear them.
William Barak, 1898/ Wikimedia Commons
Violence, exploitation, marginalisation: how do we engage in the struggle against the many faces of oppression in contemporary Australia?
Classic Australian car design is on display at the National Gallery of Victoria. GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY, Detroit (manufacturer)
United States est. 1908. GM HOLDEN LTD, Adelaide (coachbuilder) est. 1931. Pontiac all-enclosed coupe (Silver Streak)
1938 body designed Hartley Chaplin and Tom Wylie. Collection of Violet Cecil, Melbourne.
NGV
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…
Is Doomsday Preppers simply a freakish version of Grand Designs?
National Geographic Channel
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…
The Briggs Family Tea Service tells the story of George Briggs and Woretermoeteyenner, during the early years of Tasmania.
Trent Jansen
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…
McIntyre House, a 60-year-old building, is a prototype of a well adapted response to the Australian climate.
AIA
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…
If you have an empty home, you’d better fill it soon.
Sergey Peterman/Shutterstock
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…
George Rose’s light is one of the products on display at this year’s Fringe Furniture exhibition.
Anna Lorenzetto
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…
The geodesic dome speaks to us of science fiction futures and transformative living.
Montreal Biosphere, Wikimedia Commons
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…