Author Archives: dsgn200
Death and Belief – Film Project
Everything you hear on this video is real. Suhayla Al-sheikh (me) and Yasmin Hashim combined the themes of Death and Belief and made this 1 minute documentary film.
Recreating the bic pen
Shared by Hanin Al Malih
when lászló bíró saw a ball rolling through a puddle
on the street and leaving a trail of water behind it, he
conceived an idea that would go on to change everyday
life forever. based on what he had seen, the hungarian
journalist along with his brother georg, began to work on
the first commercially successful ballpoint pen.
—
a brief history
bíró had become frustrated by the time spent filling-up
fountain pens and waiting for the ink to dry. he had seaen
that the ink used to print newspapers dried much quicker
and so decided to create a pen using the same type of ink.
in 1938 the bíró brothers patented a design which featured
a tiny ball in its tip, which turned freely in a socket. as the
ball moved along the paper it rotated, picking up ink from
the cartridge and leaving it on the paper.
whilst ballpoint pens had existed in the past – none had
proved very popular due to constant problems with clogging,
leakage and ink distribution – the bíró’s, was the first pen
that significantly overcame these problems.
after relocating to argentina in 1940 the bírós licensed
their design to a number of makers in the US and britain but
it was almost ten years later when the design was mastered
and introduced to the rest of the world. marcel bich a french pen
manufacturer who had bought the ballpoint pen patent from
lászló bíró – ironed out the remaining design problems
(mainly ink distribution) and began huge, low cost
mass prodctions of the ‘bic crystal’.
it’s not surprising to hear that in 2005 bic sold its one hundred
billionth pen, when you consider just how many of their pens
you might have owned, borrowed or even stolen.
—
designboom competition entries
at the same time as being a icon of democracy – almost anyone
can afford to buy one – the ballpoint pen is also one of the first
products of the throw-away culture in which we now live.
in some instances the ballpoint pen has been used
for much more than the initial scribbling-down of an idea.
the ‘bic pen’ has seen numerous incarnations in
recent years – in more than one of designboom’s competitions,
participants have decided to transform the iconic writer.
one of the ex-equo winners of the macef award 2008
– dining in 2015, was ‘din-ink’ by andrea cingoli,
paolo emilio bellisario, cristian cellini and francesca fontana
from italy. the design sees pen-lids integrated with cutlery
allowing the user to transform their writing tools into a knife,
fork and spoon. finally there is a good excuse for when
you’re caught gnawing on the end of your pen!
another designboom competition entry which used the
‘bic pen’ was giffin termeers ‘dasiy vase’. developed for
the macef award 2004 – H2O_on the table, the american
design duo blow-mold the pens by hand. as the plastic
becomes flexible its stretches allowing the vase to
sit naturally. since its initial competition success the
‘daisy vase’ has been shown at designboom marts,
and can also be purchased online from the designboom shop.
bic pens have found their way into the work of
several other designers and would-be inventors.
from maneuverable lighting and chandeliers to
candy and weaponry – more ‘bic pen’ projects are
featured (right) here…
Miniature food by Shay Aaron
Shared by Hanin Al Malih
Shay Aaron is a brilliant artist from Israel who makes the most astonishing miniature food jewelry. These foodstuffs look so beautiful that we would desire to eat them.
Actually, there’s a whole market out there for miniature food. Not actual stuff you can eat, but beautifully hand made designs of steaks, burgers, pies, vegetables, eggs and pretty much anything you can think of.
My edited design project
I decided to enhance my design that allowed my superhero to recall his memories by adding some other features to it. So instead of just stirring the handle in the side of his head and then he can see and recall his old memories, now he will be able to be in the situation itself with all its details.
There will be a sensor, recorder and a chip in his mind that is responsible for capturing and saving the moments he chooses. Once he clicks on the button on the side of his head it starts to record the moments, the place, the smells and everything.The sensor will be responsible for converting all the data that is recorded to be able to save it on the chip. Whenever he wants to recall this moment he just stirs the handle (that has all the memories recorded on it) till it stops at the moment he wants, he has a special kind of glasses that he wears (similar to those used at 3d and 4d cinemas) and he instantly feels like he is back at this moment again, he will hear all the sounds and smell all the scents, see all the details as they were when the moment was recorded, in other words he will be there again.
I got this idea firstly from the time machine and its stirring handle, it the first thing that inspired me, i wanted to do something similar but embedded in the body of my superhero. Then the kids’ toy that had cards with small pictures and when we wore it we could see these pictures in a bigger view. The simulator game that we play in the amusement parks that makes you feel like you are part of the activity shown inspired me to give the super power more life and make it more powerful. Finally I was inspired by the idea of the 4d cinema that allows you to smell and feel whatever is shown in the scenes, this inspired me to add the smells and feeling power to me hero. I think in the future if they decided to develop something like this we can use a technology similar to the 4d technology to apply it. http://entertainment.time.com/2012/07/10/smell-your-movie-are-4d-films-coming-to-theater-near-you/ . I got the idea of recording the memories from an invention made by UC Berkeley scientists that allowed them to reconstruct brains’ visions into digital video and will soon allow them to record and reconstruct dreams on a computer screen, so if we were able to record dreams that means there is definitely a way to record actual things we see. http://gizmodo.com/5843117/scientists-reconstruct-video-clips-from-brain-activity
I don’t have my design so I wasn’t able to edit and add the enhancements, so I’ll just post sketches of the changes till I have the design and apply them. I will use the recording chip similar to those used in the hard disks of the computer as the chip inside his head. And the sensor will be made of plaster and wires attached to the head and to the chip.Definitely, all of these technologies will be put in the inner side of the head.
Design project – Description
I started of by choosing the eye as the body part I wanted to work on, however the ideas and super human power I wanted to show were hard to translate into a 3D object. Thus I changed and explored my theme of cleanliness more and moved towards the hand. The first ideas were incorporating cleaning materials as layers/types skin, I then thought about disinfectant and had the idea that relates similarly to Spiderman, in the veins on the wrist have a superhero/person that could produce disinfectant/cleaning fluid that sprays out. I then started to think about how I could show this in a 3D model/design and ended up moving toward arm design that is similar to the super human/hero/robot/cyborg Ironman.
I simply typed in ‘Iron man arm’ into Google to get inspiration and lucky I found this really cool video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3yMYu12zd0
I chose the colour theme of blue and yellow as to me they most reflect my idea and theme of cleanliness.
While working on it I wanted to create a complete large hand made out of sponge but couldn’t find one to buy big enough, I then I tried sticking two together (as shown a picture) but it didn’t work.
My final project needs a little imagination to apply it to the super power idea. If you imagine a person that can scan an area with a screen on his/her wrist to show how dirty and what bacteria is detected on the surface area, (i.e door handle) and has a small (unlike model) spray handy on their wrist that they can spray directly onto the area to clean and then clean with their sponge hand.
dsgn200 