Maybe A Warning Label Would Help

"Drinking bottled water relieves people of their concern about ecological threats to the river they live by or to the basins of groundwater they live over. It's the same kind of thinking that leads some to the complacent conclusion that if things on earth get bad enough, well, we'll just blast off to a space station somewhere else."

-Sandra Steingraber

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Our world is one of convenience. Perhaps the epitome of convenience is the concept of individually-wrapped packages of.. well, just about anything. Whether it's eating a packet of Top Ramen (and within it, a packet of seasoning) or taking a sip from a bottle of Crystal Geyser spring water, all of us are guilty of supporting individually-wrapped items in blatant disregard of the consequences.

Everyone knows that with every bottle of water tossed in the recycling bin, four more are tossed in the trash. And that it takes about 17 million barrels of oil to support annual consumer demand for water bottles. And almost 3 million tons of plastic.

And even if you didn't, you know now. But will that change anything? Most likely not.

While design attempts to solve problems and make them better -- more effective, more efficient, more intuitive -- there can often be nasty side effectives that are downright dangerous. The worst part is, many of these consequences can't be foreseen until they happen. By then, it's too late because the millions of people whom these ideas affect are already used to the concept and can't turn back.

It's true that many of these individual items are there for other practical benefits, such as individual butter or jam packets to prevent the spread of germs between restaurant customers. However, others are just plain unnecessary. For example, fruits that are sold wrapped up into plastic containers or trays could do just fine in a grocery bag with a little extra effort to not place them at the bottom. Other simple "backwards" changes that would save around 1.5 million tons of packaging waste every year include using personal coffee mugs and bringing cloth shopping bags for trips to buy only a few items from the grocery store.

For some reason, those bag boys/girls feel the need to use a new bag every 2-3 items. Doesn't anyone care about the environment anymore?

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Sources: http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-nine-biggest-sins-of-packaged-food/, http://www.suite101.com/content/bottled-water-and-the-environment-a120739

Transformers: Now In Color

"It is not form that dictates the color, but the color that dictates the form."

- Hans Hofmann

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Until February 10th, 2011, the Johanssen gallery in Berlin, Germany will have on display "RGB," an experiment with color by Carnovsky. Carnovsky is a Milan-based collective created by Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla.

"RGB" takes the powers of color to a very literal level. By scraping illustrations down to the three primary additive colors of light, red, green and blue, a wall of seemingly jumbled lines and shapes can give off the illusion of transformation.

The original wall seems to be a random array of animals plastered one on top of another, forming a sort of visual discord that is almost painful to look at.  However, under differently filtered lights, this mess of color morphs into various arrangements of animals that are rather eerie in all of their monochrome glory.

The reason why this illusion works is due to the blending of colors and how, when the right wavelengths of color come together, they can seem to disappear into one another. Color is a very relative concept. Because light is additive into white, rather than forming big blobs of murky darkness, the distinctive outlines of each animal is instead more pronounced against a "white" background.

They say that it is color that determines form, not the other way around. This is a prime example of that, as all of the figures are simply made from different shades of one hue: either red, blue, or green. Despite the lack of black outlines, they can still be clearly seen and distinguished from one another.

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Source: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/12317/carnovsky-rgb-exhibition-at-johanssen-gallery.html

Utopia? Maybe One Day

"You nevertheless go on, walking towards Utopia, which may not exist, on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side."

- Marguerite Young

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Utopia. Other than being a random city in the middle of Texas, utopia is a word that encompasses the unreachable -- a perfect world. It can be argued that design is continually trying to help society attain this status of perfection. Even if it proves an impossible quest, some designs, such as Google's recently unleashed smartcars, are trying their best to improve society little by little. Their purpose? To help reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities that, unfortunately, occur by the minute, as well as reduce harmful carbon emissions and free up peoples' time.



Using the most advanced robotics technology, Google's smart cars have been able to navigate over 140,000 miles on the road without human aid, and most importantly, without accident. With a toolbox of lasers, video cameras, radars, and a plethora of other sensors, the cars are able to connect to Google's vast database of terrain (the same data used in Google Earth or Google Maps when you look up travel directions) and navigate roads, all while heeding traffic signals, stop signs, speed limits, and more. Because a well-designed sensor is objective and can make accurate decisions much more quickly than a human who may mistakenly jam on the gas pedal rather than the brakes, the potential of this technology to reduce accidents is quite high. Also on the list of highly preventable accidents would be the carelessness of drivers who may miss pedestrians, talk on the phone, try to text and don't pay attention to the road, or are even drunk.

By having sensor systems within the cars that can measure the carbon footprint of each trip, these smartcars are capable of taking the most "eco-friendly" route from point A to point B. With the millions of cars that travel the roads each day, this could significantly reduce the impact of exhaust's contributions to larger world-wide issues, such as global warming.

We may not have the means of creating a true utopia yet, and we may never acquire them.. but you can bet we'll try our hardest. As designers of the future, that's our goal.


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More information can be found at the official Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at.html.