Made from cypress wood, the humidifier works to evaporate water into the air through capillary action rather than using a fan, as your common electric version would. Clever, no?

If you can navigate the online store to purchase this (it’s in Japanese only), send one my way

The Japanese company states on their website that their conceptual goal is to “give people a small ‘!’ moment.” With this simple, rectangular chair they have accomplished just that. The chair is constructed of wood and clear acrylic painted to mimic wood grain. The paint on the legs trails off about halfway down to give the illusion that the chair is floating above the ground.

I want to have these around my dining room table.

The first I want to talk about is a highway map after the London underground map. I’m not kidding, it’s the United States highway system plotted in the manner of H.C. Beck’s original London Underground diagram. And it’s pretty awesome.

The next is a crazy awesome video from NuFormer Digital Media. Basically what’s happening here is NuFormer is projecting animations on buildings with such clarity that it’s almost 100% believable. My favourite is the roof collapse at 00:35.

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

In the words of my good friend Rossi Dixon, “this makes fonts sexy again.” Fontplore is, quite possibly, the best use of the Microsoft Surface table technology I have seen thusfar. As an interactive font exploration device it is miles and miles ahead and above any organisational tool yet devised for typeface management. I want one. No really, I want one right now. Unfortunately it’s not ready yet… and even when it is I’m sure the cost will place it farther out of my grasp than a trip to the moon.

From the website: “As the development and distribution of interactive tables is still in its early days, we see the Fontplore Table as some kind of customer attraction for the bigger design agencies, where clients and designers get together and share the experience of selecting a suitable typeface for the project.” The video of the prototype in action is quite exciting. In fact Rossi and I both watched it over and over while frantically typing out messages of awe and excitement to each other over AIM… but we’re geeky that way. You may or may not have the same reaction, assuming you’re equally geeky about design and technology and have a friend also equally geeky. The music is also rather awesome.

Fontplore Showreel from Mphasize on Vimeo.

The project is a creative lifestyle magazine that with each issue will visit a new theme and then explore topics within that theme. We plan on inviting artists, photographers, designers, and writers to participate with each issue theme and truly live up to the name variantMethod. Our brand inspirations are publications like GOOD and WIRED magazine, but we’ll be bringing a bit more attitude to the page.

We’ll be using Hewlett-Packard’s MagCloud service as our printing solution, EXCITING!

Look for it in 2010. Or keep the website on your radar for any project updates.

In July Stefan Sagmeister gave his third TED conference talk at TED GLOBAL. This time he spoke about the power of time off. Essentially taking time every couple of years to stop working and start enjoying. Enough of my drivel, watch the talk:

I really love that carved chair. DO WANT!

And no, I’m not stalking him… What would make you think that? Following a man across the internet isn’t stalking! ha! It’s… just… SHUT UP! D:

The obvious concern here is what to do when the next major hurricane bombards the gulf. Well, there’s an interesting solution to that… Fill the centre of the rig with water. Indeed “spaces are organized around a core of water, which allows light to penetrate to the center of the rig. The core of water acts as ballast to stabilize the rig during ocean storms, and reduce the effect of seasickness.” Eureka! I have absolutely no clue how that would work, but they also propose the centre core of water could be used for underwater Cirque Du Soleil shows, and I’m all about some Cirque!

Read the entire article, including the PDF, over at Superuse.org.

Well, this past semester, two media designers from AKQA sat in on the digital media department reviews and gave me some pretty encouraging feedback on my work. As a result AKQA (click the link, their stuff is amazing) has invited my thesis partner and I to tour their DC office next month!

If you’re not sure who the folks of AKQA are and/or why you should care about them, turn on the nearest XboX360 and stare at the interface. They did that. And if you remember the Coca-Cola “Happiness Factory” advert… they did that too, among a plethora of other very amazing stuff.

P.S. The weather in DC is amazing today. Just FYI.

“REALVIZ’s products are used for panoramic photography, image-based modelling, match moving and optical motion capture. The technology extracts 3D information from pictures and videos, and is complementary to Autodesk’s modelling, visual effects and animation products. REALVIZ technology has many complementary applications across the industries Autodesk serves, including architecture, film, broadcast and game development.”

Read more about it here.