Hungry Anyone?

Cupcake designs that will make your mouth water.

interactive design

kaleidoscope

Scribbler

Use Scribbler to draw something and watch what happens.

Zig Zag

WARNING: Endless hours of entertainment may occur... Try it!

To See Sound Sculptures...

...CLiCK THiS :]

Graphite Genius

Prepare to be amazed by Dalton Ghetti's pencil sculptures!

FASHiON DESiGN

http://widgetsandstone.com/page/projects/i-heard-a-voice

http://www.hipgirlie.com/2008/02/26/fashion-designer-sketches/

http://www.designedesp4u.com/

geoGreeting!

The surface of the earth holds a message for you...

The juxtaposition of word and image is very strong in this online program that lets you type in any message you want into a text box, and the program then translates it into aerial photographs of buildings taken from around the world that resemble each letter in the alphabet.  It uses the actual images shot from above ground and takes the place of a particular typeface, such as Georgia or Times New Roman.  This convention forces people to look at photographs of building structures in new ways and expands the realm of possibility in the design world.

Stiletto Situation

http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=3749

Stilettos are a timeless fashion necessity for almost all women.  Women believe that high-heeled shoes make them look beautiful and well-dressed, and every female I know owns more than one pair of heels.  Yet no matter how beautiful a woman might feel while wearing her favorite pair of stiletto heels, these shoes are actually quite damaging to a woman's foot.  Though not as extreme as the practice of Chinese foot binding, as shown to the right, stilettos present their own set of foot problems.

http://www.flickriver.com/groups/shoeaholics/pool/interesting/

For example, this stiletto with a seven-inch heel might have a certain amount of sex appeal and glamour associated with it, but my feet hurt by just looking at the steep curve of the sole of the shoe.  I can't imagine walking very far in these shoes because it's essentially the same as walking on the tips of one's toes.  Furthermore, the heel is so thin that it probably doesn't offer much structural support.  This would put a woman's ankles at risk as well.

http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/2007/09/06/the-early-days-of-x-rays/

While this shoe's original design intent was not to create something that would be dangerous and hazardous to women who actually wear the stiletto, the risk of injury from these shoes outweighs their aesthetic beauty.  An unfortunate consequence of this design, the danger of breaking or spraining one's ankle or causing permanent damage to the foot is difficult to ignore.  This x-ray shows the contorted position of a woman's foot when crammed into a stiletto.

After repeated use of stiletto heels, it seems inevitable that damage would occur in a woman's foot.  Our feet are not meant to be elevated inches off the ground, but rather evolutionarily designed to allow us to walk bipedally to get from one place to another.

Fashion design in our modern society is rooted in pop culture to make a woman feel beautiful, even if it is not practical.  Our culture as a whole places emphasis on women looking well-dressed and elegant at all times, because that is the female stereotype.  It is essentially a woman's social responsibility to uphold this gender stereotype through pieces of designed clothing and accessories such as stiletto heels.

[SIGG]nificantly Less Plastic Waste

SIGG aluminum water bottles have greatly increased in popularity since the recent research about hazardous chemicals in plastic was exposed to the public.  People were worried about BPA being released into the water we drink.  Aside from drinking safer water, another benefit of using aluminum water bottles is their function in reducing plastic waste.  As a result, the SIGG water bottle constitutes a utopian design because it aims to improve the environment in our modern society on a relatively large scale.

These water bottles can be refilled multiple times throughout the day, thus eliminating the need for any other plastic or aluminum drinking container.  People can carry the same water bottle with them throughout their day, which not only saves them money, but also makes it convenient for everyone to stay hydrated and conserves our planet's resources.  Aluminum water bottles are a first step in trying to reduce the amount of plastic waste generated by humans.

Plastic pollution has become an increasingly pressing issue.  According to Susan Casey in her article titled, "Plastic Ocean," the total area of plastic waste gyres in our oceans covers "40 percent of the sea.  'That corresponds to a quarter of the Earth's surface,' Moore says. 'So twenty-five percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes."  There are even tiny balls of decomposed plastic bottles called nurdles that are too small to collect from the water.  While it may be impossible, at least for now, to eliminate the damage that has already been done, things that have been designed, such as SIGG water bottles, will help reduce the amount of damage that occurs in the future.

STOP! Design Ahead!

Everyone with a driver's license [as well as those who don't have one] should be able to recognize a traffic light.  It has become a universal symbol for "Stop, Go, and Slow Down" in our modern society.  But this machine's design would not be possible without the use of color.  The changes in colored light from green to yellow to red within the traffic light transforms its design to convey different messages each time the shift in color occurs.

An object that would normally look like a piece of industrial machinery becomes an animated visual display of light and color.  Though it employs basic colors of the RGB color model, each color takes on a life of its own.  Red and green are two of the colors that comprise the RGB color model, as well as the color blue.  When red and green light are added simultaneously, the result is yellow light.  Traffic lights depend upon these basic colored lights to dictate when cars should stop, slow down, or continue driving.

The convention of using traffic lights to control busy intersections on the road has become widely accepted in today's world.  Each time a specific colored light turns on, it corresponds to the action that drivers are supposed to take.  The transformation of color from green to yellow to red is what makes the traffic light an effective design.  We have even created road signs that display graphic representations of nearby traffic lights.

While exact color descriptions can be subjective, according to Albers, there is still a science behind color theory.  Therefore, we can understand the differences between colors as they relate to one another.  Red, yellow, and green are unmistakably different hues, just as their attached meanings greatly differ.  Red is symbolic of danger, yellow is representative of warning or cautioning, and green is associated with safety, or "all clear."  These color meanings are incorporated into our society as accepted fact, so that if one disobeys the traffic light they are violating the law.  Because we comprehend each of these colors in great contrast to one another, each light effectively catches our attention and triggers the appropriate response while operating a vehicle.

Comfy Crocs

When I hear "Crocs," I instantly imagine ugly clogs in bright rainbow colors.  However, since the first shoe model came out, the company has made a lot of effort to design better-looking shoes that are still versatile, but more appropriate for wearing to work and other events.

The original Crocs were never intended to take the place of regular shoes, but clearly people felt a strong desire for comfortable shoes to wear.  In our modern society, shoe design doesn't always take ergonomics into consideration.  This is especially true for women's high-heeled shoes.  They are usually designed for narrow feet, with a long skinny stiletto heel at the back.  Women tend to sacrifice comfort to squeeze their feet into heels to look "beautiful" and dressed up, even though they can induce pain and discomfort as a result of walking around all day in them.

I think it was smart for the Crocs company to take this problem into consideration when they designed more shoe styles.  The company accomplished two things at once - they listened to the need for more comfortable shoes as well as coming up with more attractive shoe designs.

The result of their effort led to women's flats, flip-flops, etc., and now they have even developed fashionable high-heeled shoes with orthopedic insoles.  This heel falls under the category of YOU by Crocs on their website.  By looking at this shoe as an isolated image, I'd never be able to tell that it was a Crocs brand shoe.  It is much more elegant than what I'd normally associate with Crocs.  Yet even though it abandoned the appearance of the original clog, it retains the comfortable quality of the classic Crocs shoe.  This shoe is an successful design that incorporates the principles of ergonomics to come up with something that people would actually want to wear in their everyday lives.