Tag Archives: design

The nCycle – an ‘e-bike’ prototype designed and created by Skyrill and Marin Myftiu with integrated brakes and lights, a folding design, a retractable pocket built into the top bar and a lock mechanism where a steel tube extends from inside the handlebars to close around a pole or railing.

Full design schematic here.

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The Superman logo from 1938 to 2013 by Maurice Mitchell. The small print below the title reads:

Jerry Siegel and I came up with the ‘S’ insignia — we discussed it in detail. We said, ‘Let’s put something on the front of the costume.’ From the beginning we wanted to somehow use the first letter of the character’s name. We thought ‘S’ was perfect. After we came up with it, we kiddingly said, ‘Well, it’s the first letter of Siegel and Shuster.’ Initially I made it like a shield, a fancy little triangle with curves at the top. I had a heraldic crest in the back of my mind. Progressively, as the strip evolved, the emblem became larger and larger.” – Joe Shuster [co-creator of Superman with Jerry Siegel]

The Batman logo from 1940 to 2012 by Scottish artist Cathryn Lavery.

22words/biotv


Some of the more eye-catching concepts generated by an industrial design competition in the US organised by Hankook Tyres, which invited students to re-imagine the role of tyres in automotive design.

The winning entry by University of Cincinnati student Ben Zavala was the three-part Tiltread tyre, which adapts to roll into corners at an angle.

awesomer/wimp

The impeccable work of Guus Melai, including (above) one for 1953’s version of The Gathering.

Found on internet auction sites where an original Guus can fetch up to €500.

Guus was a member of the ‘Dutch School’, artists and designers from the Netherlands, who came to live in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s because, cough, housing was cheaper.

From Alwaysreadthesmallprint Blog:

The ‘Dutch School’ as it came to be known included Guus Melai, Jan de Fouw, Bert van Embden, Willem van Velzen, Gerrit van Gelderen, Piet Sluis and [Irish text book cover maestro] Cor Klaasen, amongst others. Over the following decades they transformed Irish graphic design.”

Guus was so good his work was disliked by the Arts Council

Aer Lingus, 1956.

From the Arts Council archive:

It was decided that a letter should be sent by the Director to the General Manager of Aer Lingus informing him confidentially that the Council did not approve of the recently published Aer Lingus poster of Dublin by Dutch graphic artist Guus Melai as it did not consider it to be of artistic merit.  The General Manager of Aer Lingus thanked the Arts Council for its views but said ‘In commercial publicity there must be many compromises with sheer artistic merit’.

Yay.

Thanks Sibling of Daedalus


This short film directed by Callum Cooper tells the story of Mine Kafon – a wind-driven, low cost landmine destroyer developed by Afghan designer Massoud Hassani.

The device, consisting of rubber pads on the end of a radiating array of bamboo rods, costs $40 to manufacture and can sustain up to four landmine blasts. As opposed to current ‘hi-tech’ mine-sweeping which can cost up to $1000 per explosion.

dailywhat

Nestrest Hanging Pods by Parisian designers Daniel Pouzet and Fred Frety for DEDON.

From top (probably): Bliss, Cat People, How The Hell Did He Get In There, Get Them Ostriches Outta Me Garden and Meanwhile In Sallygap.

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