opening on friday july 9th at the yerba buena center for the arts in san francisco, TechnoCRAFT explores the changing boundaries between designer and consumer. curated by yves behar, it investigates the current trend of open design around the six subthemes of crowdsourcing, platforms, blueprints, hacks, incompletes, and modules.

included in the show is my shaded lamp, part of the un-readymades series, my own exploration in the area of design democracy and personalization in 2007.

some additional info can be found at dexigner.

another take on crowd-sourcing by a new company called stylefactory. focusing on modern furniture and accessories, it uses community feedback to narrow down a pre-selection of designs to then source them from high quality manufacturers.

full disclosure: one of my own designs is currently included in their pre-selection. anybody care to vote for it? ;-)

phase design gave the same design brief to 5 different designers/design groups: design a candleholder based on a solid american walnut block (12” x 9” x 1.75”) with turned brass inserts. same starting point, but very different results.

Bearing – Claesson Koivisto Rune	Luna – Khodi Feiz
Block – Arik Levy	Bias – Mike & Maaike
Ziba – Phase Design/Reza Feiz

via design milk

“as far as i was concerned, it never was a feud; detroit simply had no use for my ideas as long as the public wanted large cars with all their accessories, which detroit could sell, inducing higher price tags.

and businessmen rarely express appreciation for ideas that may lower their income. in point of fact, they wouldn’t have; while detroit was building gaz guzzlers, the germans and japanese, with their more modest cars, ran away with the world market.”

- raymond loewy, industrial design, 1979

can’t spend the $5000+ on the real thing? download lindsey adelman’s instructions to build your own diy chandelier.

an interview with dieter rams in the financial times.

run by monica khemsurov and jill singer, former editors of i.d. magazine, sight unseen is a new website aiming to provide an intimate and behind-the-scenes look at design, art, fashion, food, photography and other creative disciplines.

switzerland based design studio jörg boner productdesign with products for classiCon, louis poulsen, niels holger moormann, and more.