The Prepared Mind Discussion about designing human interaction.

• I’ve grown addicted to the swissmiss blog, run by “Swiss designer gone NYC” Tina Roth Eisenberg. Her blog is a little different than this one in that she’s not nearly as verbose — OK, long-winded! LOL! — but every day she adds lots of great links to great design products and resources.
• I typically start my day by reading a handful of blogs and increasingly the blog of Industrial Brand Creative is one of them. They always have an interesting take on things and find angles you may not have considered previously.
• CPH127 is one of the more heady design blogs out there. Founded by a group of Danish designers, CPH127 (apparently CPH is the code for the Copenhagen airport) takes a much needed intellectual approach toward looking at design.
• I also find myself growing more and more addicted to the Rohdesign Weblog, written by designer Mike Roh. He also finds lots of interesting design resources to write about and has a wonderful “voice” to his blog.

.chris{}

I just registered for a channel on Odeo, so those of you who are on Odeo, feel free to leave me a message with some listener feedback. For those of you who are not familiar with Odeo, it is a web-based service that allows users to record voice messages via their own computer as well as via telephone. Once you have recorded a message, you can then send it to other channels on the Odeo system or email it to anyone you wish.

I’m starting a new segment on future podcasts where I’ll be including listener feedback/comments and you never know, your voice just might be included!

.chris{}

Wow! The HOW magazine email newsletter went out yesterday afternoon and the hit stats are through the roof! Thanks again to the folks at HOW and welcome to any new visitors to the blog. Take off your shoes and get comfortable! There’s cold beer in the fridge.

.chris{}

Well hot off the presses, the shoes I ordered from the Nike iD system have finally arrived! Here are the photos, as promised!!!!

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I’m convinced this podcast was haunted, or at least jinxed! Technical difficulties made for a surprise guest during this podcast.

 Standard Podcast [51:45m]: Download

• 0:00:00 The haunted podcast prevented our original guest, Peter Flaschner, from being able to be recorded
• 0:01:00 The surprise guest for this podcast
• 0:03:00 Please fill out the listener survey so that we can learn more about you, our audience
• 0:04:10 Design customization: engaging design clients/buyers and allowing more customization
• 0:12:50 How do we use dynamic technology to create a greater connection from the client to the designs we sell them?
• 0:24:06 Design, innovation and why the iPod is still on top. Newsweek article
• 0:37:23 The need to incorporate more innovation into our design practices and thinking

.chris{}

I’m excited! Like millions of people around the globe, I noticed after the holidays ended that there was considerably more of me to love than there was in the days and weeks prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas 2005. Determined to keep my impending battle of the bulge from exploding into an out of control insurgency, I started hitting the gym — hard – even before New Years came around. By the time all of the New Years resolution weight losers descended onto my gym, I felt comfortable enough to give them the same air of superiority, “move over new kid” scowls the other regulars had given me only a week prior!

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!
I quickly learned that the workout gear I used to wear to the gym is in serious need of replacement. Starting with the shoes. Have any of you been into your local sporting goods store lately? There was an entire wall filled with cross trainer shoes alone and yet another wall full of running shoes! It was overload for me. I’ve had the same pair of Reeboks for almost a year and they could probably hold on for another 3-4 months, which is a disgusting reminder of how infrequently I’ve been in the gym of late. (more…)

I didn’t have the opportunity to make it to the AIGA Design Conference 2005 but thanks to their new podcasting feature, I was able to listen to some of the speaches that were given during the event. One of the most riveting addresses given was one by Nicholas Negropante, the legendary chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab. During his address, he spoke about the fact that his lab was developing, and close to producing, a $100 notebook that would be only available to schools via large government initiatives and programs. The $100 notebook was conceived as a way of doing away with the digital divide with respect to technology. The idea is that now price would not be a factor in whether or not low-income families could have access to computers in their homes. (more…)

We’re very happy to have been named by HOWdesign.com, the web site of HOW Magazine, as one of the Top 10 Web Sites for the month of January.

We’re absolutely thrilled and hope to continue to bring the readers and listeners of The Prepared Mind more and more compelling content about design in 2006.

.chris{}

We tend to see Asia as a source for high tech electronic products at affordable prices, low cost manufacturing of clothes and shoes and, of course, curios and exotic handicrafts. And if it impinges the design industry, as the news media claims, it’s only the areas of product design and design engineering. As Chris mentions in his previous post,

Graphic designers have typically not been the type to embrace the future or deal with future problems before they confront us. Graphic designers have always preferred to burry our collective heads in the sand and ignore change until it smacks us in the behind with a 2 X 4.

That, I believe, was written in response to an article of mine that he claimed to find “scary”. Chris, I’ve just had a few conversations here in Singapore that have made me sit up and think about the graphic design industry, branding and identity design, publishing and new media, interaction design and animation - in short, visual communication and content creation. (more…)