Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) used his presentation at the recent Minds + Machines event to urge the industrial Internet’s architects to apply three key lessons from the Internet’s evolution. These three characteristics gave the Internet its ability to be open, to scale and to adapt

nice tool for testing the layout of responsive web pages

"It starts with him fielding questions about relatively mundane things like paint textures, the benefits of carbon fiber and how you manage to cram luggage space into a supercar, but stick it out and you're treated to the questions Stephenson asks himself during the design process: Why is a sailfish faster in the water than a cheetah is on land? How is it that the peregrine falcon is not the fastest bird in standard flight, but becomes the fastest when going into a dive? Why are multimillion-dollar military aircraft designed without windshield wipers?"

Sunita Yeomans is the Design Manager at Argos. Here, she talks about how Argos use customer research and user-centred design in their business, and how it has changed the way the business works.

"Labs: Designing the Future examines the Lab’s roots in complexity, networked collaboration and design thinking. It shows how Labs focus on problem-solving in a highly experimental fashion within a neutral space. The paper offers a review of several Lab models in action around the world, highlighting the Lab’s role in addressing the complex challenges we collectively face in the 21st century." via Dan @cityofsound

As a technological practice of innovation, Open Source has not quite been about cities, but about the technology. Yet it resonates with what cities have and are at ground-level, where its users are. The park is made not only with the hardware of trees and ponds, but also with the software of people's practices.

"The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58 p.m. today, January 28, 2008. This timeline shows these 50 years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the LEGOLAND themed sets to TECHNIC and MINDSTORMS NXT, as well as all kinds of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system in the world."

Apps for Good is an award-winning course where young people learn to create imaginative mobile apps that change their world. Apps for Good is the brainchild of non-profit organisation CDI Europe supported by Dell YouthConnect and the Nominet Trust.

"Transform your big ideas into tangible tools for marketing, communication and notetaking." lovely

"The magical barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone to launch an offline-to-online experience are often criticized for their black and white checkerbox appearance. Those who doubt that QR codes will go mainstream are quick to point out that the look of QR codes will deter marketers and advertisers from using them."

"The twists and turns of the little black squares, as with a barcode, has a unique imprint, recognizable to scanners or readers but there is a 30% correction allowance, so a third of the code can be discarded and replaced with images, type or anything you can imagine. " designing your QR codes

"The control which designers know in the print medium, and often desire in the web medium, is simply a function of the limitation of the printed page. We should embrace the fact that the web doesn’t have the same constraints, and design for this flexibility. But first, we must 'accept the ebb and flow of things.' " via fivesimplesteps

"to reflect on some of the design and strategy choices I made with Monocle.com and share them here" Dans post mentioned by Mark Boulton at the designing grids on the web workshop.

"The document is aimed at producers and designers who need to know how to design BBC Online web pages, detailing the design grid and page layout guidelines to be used across the site." referenced at Mark Boulton designing grid for web workshop

"A two-day conference at the Eden Project exploring the emerging trends driving business change and revealing new opportunities for design practice." looks interesting

"Our process begins with a clinical examination of the Client brief, where we challenge assumptions and work to co-develop a dynamic pro ject framework. How does the brief fit into the overall business strategy? " interesting presentation today from Stoic

"The Archigram of today works for Electronic Arts, has no idea who Walter Gropius is, and offers more insights about the future of urban design, space, and the built environment to more people, in more age groups, in more countries, than any practicing architectural critic will ever do, writing about Toyo Ito. Videogames are the new architectural broadsides. "

"What is Hello Health? Hello Health is the marketplace where our growing community of patients and health professionals meet up and transact, through online and in person communication. It’s our mission to better the health and lifestyles of both, and to eliminate all barriers to high quality health care." I like the focus on patient and physician in this service model - it doesn't "feel" like there is other bloat involved in the process

"Nature's elegant solutions to building challenges include the Scots pine's adaptive growth, the thorny devil's passive water collection, and a leaf's on-site energy production. AskNature can help you solve your design challenges." via the Biomimicry Institute - I was at one of the early design workshops of this excellent project - great to see how it turned out.

"OpenBuildings is a new community-driven website that lists architecture from across the globe; be it historic, contemporary or conceptual, enabling a more open way to share architectural knowledge. OpenBuildings was founded by architects and architecture fanatics who became increasingly frustrated by the lack of online resources for learning about architecture and buildings. Until now this has been a protracted and fragmented experience, with no single website offering a serious informational resource. OpenBuildings solves this problem: an openly editable encyclopedia of buildings from around the world. "

interesting visualisation of world fact book

"The rise of the professional futurist is important. Although humans are capable of thinking through the implications of our actions, we are still notoriously bad at acting in our own long-term best interests, let alone the long-term best interests of society at large." IFTF on futures work

"As climate change touches every aspect of our lives, how will it change us? How will we adapt? Living Climate Change is a devoted space for the most defining design challenge of our time. It's also a place to support fresh thinking and share provocative ideas about the future." crowd sourcing responses to climate change, timeframe to 2030

"With the loss of a loved one comes the reminder that a traditional headstone is void of any detail about the person that it may represent for a millennium to come. There is no genealogical information, no hint at this person’s accomplishments, profession or thoughts about the times they lived in. A standard headstone offers no information about a life lived to future great grandchildren, historians or site visitors. This stark condition is a reflection of tradition that concludes remembrance to nothing more than name and date, or with additional cost, an epitaph and engraved scallops. " wow, headstone 2.0

"The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it." via Kim Quazi at ArAs

"Jump Associates is a hybrid strategy firm. We help companies create new businesses and reinvent existing ones. Our people work with business leaders to tackle big, ambiguous growth challenges — the kinds of things you don’t know how to face, but can’t afford not to." interesting mix of services

"We tried several tools and methods for user interface designing of iPhone applications. We now use a combination of these tools and our choice depends on what best suits the product as well as the customer. The key point is communicating the design clearly to both the customer and developers." handy links

Design, Animation, Film - london based agency, great to work with

"What will the world be like in 85 years' time? How will we fly then? There are no absolute answers, but the visions are fascinating. This Internet site is divided into five sections, in which experts from different fields envision the future of air travel. Hopefully they also inspire You to discuss the future of flying!" Finnair vision of the future of flying - via their annual report on a plane to helsinki

"There are many different types of tools available to developers, from low-tech stencil kits to high-tech collaborative software. So I’ve rounded up a few of the more popular ones people are using specifically for iPhone development. It’s far from being the definitive list, but it’s definitely a good place to start." useful pointers to iPhone proto tools

"As a web designer, I've been using OmniGraffle for years. It's awesome for laying out interfaces — which means I need Photoshop way less often." useful resources

Stencils are a big part of why Graffle is great, so I created Graffletopia to make it easier to find and share cool stencils.

"StickyWorld is our new web 2 project review and exhibition platform for creative business and education. We are currently completing the StickyWorld collaborative research and development project, part funded by the TSB, and exhibting the project work at the Collaboration Cafe all of March in the Building Centre in central London. To sign up for a free account for your organisation, visit www.stickyworld.com." via Michael at TSB sandpit

"Magazines have articles you can curl up with and lose yourself in, and luscious photography that draws the eye. And they’re so easy and enjoyable to read. Can we marry what’s best about magazines with the always connected, portable tablet e-readers sure to arrive in 2010? This video prototype shows the take of the Mag+ project." great piece of work by the guys at Berg

"A recent article by Don Norman brings up some valuable and provocative questions about the value of design research. I read it as an extension of his previous shift in thinking about the value of usability analysis, where he concluded that it was vital for good to design, but it didn't lead to great design. In this new article he argues that design research has not led to breakthrough innovations or products, but is better suited for improving existing products and technologies." an interesting take on innovation and design research

Good collection of videos from IxD earlier this year (just after ETech).

At fontcapture.com you can create a font from your very own handwriting. There's no software to download and install, all you need is a printer and a scanner. Simply fill in the font template, scan and upload it to our website, and download your completed font.

In the near future, I believe that you'll be able to get an advanced degree in Business Design. Some programs like the d.school (a formative experience for me) and Rotman are playing with this idea, but I don't think these programs really nail it yet.

"Yet design they do. And in a way that puts the gentleman back into professional. Engineers don't need to distinguish themselves with funny glasses or chic writing implements or quirky cars. They don't write - or have others ghostwrite - toadying books about themselves. Ove Arup was arguably the 20th century's greatest three-dimensional thinker but his biography features the old man's head, wispy and bespectacled, from behind. The architect gazes at the camera's reflecting lens, the engineer gazes at the world." Funny take on the old design vs engineer discussion - via Gonzillaaa

via Jennifer Magnolfi at ETech "What if our buildings could respond to change as easily as we do? What if buildings never became obsolete, but instead could keep up with our own speed of adaptation and change? What if they were Always Building? Could technology reinvent our environments? If our habitats were programmable, what would we ask of them?"

via Julian Bleeker - "or Hollywood technical advisors cinematic depictions of future technologies are actually "diegetic prototypes" that demonstrate to large public audiences a technology's need, benevolence, and viability. I show how diegetic prototypes have a major rhetorical advantage over true prototypes: in the diegesis these technologies exist as "real" objects that function properly and which people actually use."

"I (Bruce Nussbaum) am curating the university’s core lecture series this term, starting January 26, and I shaped it to deal with Life in Beta—the social and economic forces generating continuous, cascading change, melting our business models and careers. The goal is to show how design tools, methodologies and approaches can move us forward in this uncertain environment. The course is all about innovation and transformation." course syllabus and speaker list

i like the style of this video and approach to explaining what a designer is to future design students.

Concerning Energy is the theme for the 2008 course in Design Research. This design research practicum will use a variety of human-centered research methods to explore the awareness, attitudes, information sources and choices regarding the personal and domestic energy use among diverse groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. Knowing what people think and how their attitudes have been informed at the grassroots level will inform speculative design interventions that meet segments of the public "where they are" in our efforts to inform and influence behavior.

To accomplish this, we have conducted surveys, assembled focus groups of leading design thinkers and educators and conducted extensive interviews. The outcome will serve at least three purposes: for educators, it will help to refine the demands of the educational curriculum in preparing future professionals; for designers and corporations, it will help to understand the range of skill sets and organizational models for which they should be preparing today as they recruit new designers; and for developers creating the tools for future designers, it will help to focus product development efforts that improve the way designers work.

"We’re trying to avoid rhetoric. This is an experiment; everything about this is a prototype. We don’t know how to execute an “open” design project, but we’re going to give it a try anyway. The goals we had in mind for gathering feedback: Minimize barrier to contribution – no registration or other hurdles. Rapid setup and configuration – We want to hear from people, but spend every other moment designing."

palm - human centred design philosophy - always connected to the cloud device, the multi-tasking focus, but most of all the focus on people not applications that synergy provides - fantastic, real human centred design. via - Engadget

"What Apple did was learn from history, and adopt, adapt, and assimilate past success to current context. That is simply good, intelligent design in action. It is also a very good lesson: an obsession with the new and original, without a deep literacy and appreciation for the past, leads to a path of missed opportunities." Bill Buxton on Business Week

Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy. Tim Brown (Ideo) in Harvard Business Review

Desperate to innovate, companies are turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers

Until now, companies have used design as a beauty station for identities and communications, or as the last stop in a product launch. Never has it been used for its potential to create rule-bending innovation across the board. Meanwhile, the public is developing a healthy appetite for all things design.

Unlike a brainstorming meeting, where the exclusive goal is to come up with new ideas, a critique meeting is focused on evaluating a set of existing ideas, and possibly identify future directions or changes. Instead of hoping that hallway and email discussions will lead the team in a good direction, it’s generally worth investing time to set up critique meetings to drive the design forward.

Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on September 28 - I just got off the phone with Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the U of Toronto, who told me that corporations are flocking to his institution to learn integrative thinking (design thinking). I’ve heard the same thing from innovation consultancies who are setting up their own “universities” to teach design thinking to corporate managers.

“This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. I presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno. The series was based on my 1994 book, HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They’re Built.

if you are into visualisation you will like this collection from MoMA. Best viewed with biggest monitor you can muster...

great example of documenting and presenting what you have done. A fair amount of data capture must have been going on through out the year.... maybe some inspiration for our internal end of year investment report.....

362-page Intranet Design Annual with 212 screenshots of the 10 winners for 2008 is available for download.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame™ honors the women and men responsible for the great technological advances that make human, social and economic progress possible.

Unveiled at the 2004 Geneva Auto Show, the YCC is the first concept car to be designed from start to finish by a team composed exclusively of women.

Part comic strip and part science experiment, Howtoons shows children how to find imaginative new uses for common household items like soda bottles, duct tape, mop buckets, and more‽to teach kids the Tools of Mass Construction!

Random Etc. is a weblog by Tom Carden

The First Piece of Advice for Design Students

Combining elements of computer science, anthropology, visual art and storytelling, Jonathan Harris designs systems to explore and explain the human world.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling".

When Tobias Frere-Jones was asked to develop an institutional typeface for New York’s Whitney Museum, he had to contend with two different sets of demands: those of editorial typography, and those of public signage.

From out of the six typefaces originally created for the Guggenheim Museum comes Verlag, a family of 30 sans serifs that brings a welcome eloquence to the can-do sensibility of pre-war Modernism.

Familiarity lies at the heart of legibility. Interstate is based on the signage alphabets of our Federal Highway Administration, letterforms absorbed at a glance everywhere we drive.

Good critique about the design for the other 90% exhibition at the Smithsonian - Why Design Won’t Save the World

great colour picker from adobe labs

Yahoo's in house (but out of house) data visualisation team - came via Tom Carden and Info Aesthetics

MS surface product beinglaunched in bespoke industrial apps in late 2007

Design know-how for a new era
A two-day conference exploring what designers need to know for the future

nice collection of screenshots on flickr - came via cityofsound.com