Blade Runner - Yeah, it's an old movie, but...

As as an aspiring Industrial Designer, one of my many inspirations was the movie "Blade Runner" by Ridley Scott and starring a young Harrison Ford. I moved it up on my queue on Netflix recently because I felt I needed to revisit why it was such a significant movie to designers and futurists alike.
Apart from the social commentary of the early 1980’s predicting our dismal future (pre-destined??) the artwork and design to create the vision of this environment was exceptional. Syd Mead’s illustrations of this world helped this movie become the "quintessential industrial design movie" for many of us. By the way, what the heck happened to Sean Young!?

References:
www.sydmead.com
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ILoveSketch..

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

Can this be the next evolution in 3d software? Developed by lads at the University of Toronto. As described by them: “A 3D curve sketching system that captures some of the affordances of pen and paper for professional designers, allowing them to iterate directly on concept 3D curve models. The system coherently integrates existing techniques of sketch-based interaction with a number of novel and enhanced features. Novel contributions of the system include automatic view rotation to improve curve sketchability, an axis widget for sketch surface selection, and implicitly inferred changes between sketching techniques. We also improve on a number of existing ideas such as a virtual sketchbook, simplified 2D and 3D view navigation, multi-stroke NURBS curve creation, and a cohesive gesture vocabulary.”Click the above video to see the most user intuitive way of skeching in 3d.
http://www.ilovesketch.com/

www.dgp.toronto.edu/~shbae

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Architectural Elegance.

It is interesting to see when famous architects try to translate their signature aesthetics to product design. Case in point is this Wyborowa vodka and its gift case designed by well known architect Frank Gehry. Mr. Gehry is well known for his ground breaking designs of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Spain and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angles. With twisting forms and angles, the bottle and gift case mimics Gehry’s style. Looking at both pieces, I am more drawn to the gift case than the bottle. Maybe it is due to twisting forms of the wood and its handmade quality, also it just looks different then what I normally see in packaging design. I would like to see both pieces in person but I haven’t had any luck finding it. I have checked out a couple of big liquor stores by me but no luck.

Image courtesy of Wyborowa vodka

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