Design Competition: Design Your Own Alphabet!

25 July - 31 August 2011

This contest is open to design students and professionals based in New Zealand.

Design your own alphabet (all 26 letters, numbers are optional) and provide a sample of the alphabet letters spelling "Goethe-Institut" using your alphabet letters. You may submit digital or hand-drawn designs.

What do you need to turn in? Images of all 26 letters. Please combine them into one A2 poster and also submit a zip file of all 26 letters as one A4 JPEG. In addition, you must use your letters to spell "Goethe-Institut" using your alphabet and send one A4 JPEG file.

What to include in your email: Your full name, phone number and email address as well as your postal address (this will only be used to contact you in the event that you are a finalist and for no other purpose). In addition to your contact information, you need to include the 26 alphabet letters and "Goethe-Institut" spelled in your letters. You can send this as two single A4 -JPEG. Please attach files, do not embed them into the email body.

The competition opens for submissions on 25 July 2011. All entries must be submitted in print and digitally by 31 August 2011. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Send your email to arts@wellington.goethe.org with the subject line "Alphabet Contest".

Prizes:

* 1st prize: a scholarship for a 4 or 8 week long German language course in Germany in 2012 (international travel and accommodation expenses will be covered)
* 2nd prize: an I-Pad
* 3rd prize: German language course at the Goethe-Institut in Wellington in 2012

Pixel pro-cap touchscreen

This is a perceptive pixel pro-cap touchscreenn 82-inch multitouch LCD screen. It is known so far
as the world's largests LCD display.
It is this company's 'storyboard' application, that help and allows them with alot of multi-media
access such as building of quick-access, multimedia presentations.
live video feeds, maps, interactive applications, images, motion graphics, and other content can be assembled
and interacted with locally.
It is similar to how touch screen smartphones work, but just in a wider and computerized mode.
It is so touch-sensitive that it can detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touches as light as a finger tip.

I saw this kind of techonology in the movie; Mission impossible (i think), in one of the series. I am so amazed that
our techinology is already capable of making what was shown in movie in reality.
I believe in future, this will be developed further, that everything in our life will be easy access by just a finger-touch.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/16142/perceptive-pixel-pro-cap-touchscreen-at-siggraph.html

Daniel Woo

football-augmented-reality

i played this app on my friends iphone and it was very interactive in the way it involved surrounding objects.

http://poland.digitalslife.com/football-augmented-reality-application-for-iphone-4/





 Mohamed Danoun

bit stuck for ideas?

This french website posts interesting design, art and advertising from all around the world, its a great place to find some inspiration when you are a bit stuck for ideas!

 

http://www.fubiz.net/

 

Abraham Hollingsworth

I WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT

'A collection of artwork that inspires & depresses me. I know its good when i'm left thinking DAMN I WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT.' - The Jealous Curator

This is a website that I visit regularly to get inspiration for a range of creative ideas. Although it is predominantly fine arts based, I do find it useful to get ideas for compositions and colour schemes. I have found and used many artists and images from this website as precedent images.

http://www.thejealouscurator.com

Ella Bates-Hermans

alarm clock

This is an alarm clock that was designed by Oliver Sha that sets out to activate your brain the second you wake up. The alarm clock goes off at the time you set it to but to turn it off you must solve 1 to 3 brain teasers. Another sneaky feature added is the clock has a hard to open battery compartment so you can't just rip the batteries out if you can't solve the problem. I thought this was an interesting interactive idea but not something I could see myself enjoying!

Sabrina Turner

Sifteo blocks

In a world that is always creating technological substitutes for older games this is a leap forward. These computerized cubes sense each other and can be placed together to run different applications and games. It makes me wonder if we will slowly transfer all games that we used to play as kids onto screen operated systems.

"By adding computing power to blocks, the founders hope they can create a new kind of game interface"

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37819/


Julie Drake

'illustrated news portal'

I came across this cool design website: http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/ .

It calls itself the 'illustrated news portal'. It has loads of links to interesting sites and features lots of funky illustrations. The news which goes along with each picture is related to it. The site has hundreds of cool pictures which you can use for inspiration and to browse over. This is one site you should definitely check out, especially the categories down the right hand side, they are filled with heaps of interseting pieces.

Owen Roberts

Antilimit “Anything worth seeing”

Antilimit is a well designed website/photo album full of beautiful, gritty, intimate and observational pictures by Eric M Gustafson, who puts his photography into four themes: Human, Urban, Nature and Night. The photography appears to be from his travels, from the city to the beach to the outback, all over the world. Lots of intriguing moments are captured with great composition, and are very inspiring for design.

ANTILIMIT. “Anything worth seeing”. http://antilimit.com/

Tammy Kuo

fantastic stop motion

Bianca Chang - Recent Works, June 2011 from Bianca Chang on Vimeo.

An amazing piece of stop motion made from 100s of sliced pieces of paper.

Adam Ben-Dror

Unleash Your Fingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyMfpJh3h4A

This is a cool clip I found one day that made me think about how, with the development of touch screen phones, we are starting to use our fingers in new ways in order to operate our daily objects. Also I found that a lot of the finger commands are almost artistic and quite fluid, so the actions start to form a dance as using our fingers in this way becomes second nature. I really like this development in technology, it brings beauty into our lives.


Alex McDougal

Matrix

This is a very cool design that I stumbled across a few months ago, not only is it design really well as a website, being aesthetically pleasing  but it offers such simplicity that people who have no understanding of musical theory can construct small sequences, yet is laid out in a manner that people who DO understand the theory can create chords and notes in a logical progression.
www.sembeo.com/media/Matrix.swf

Stuart Baynes

But Does is Float

This is a really cool website that I always look at to get inspiration for my projects. Its full of some really cool contemporary art. I thought it would be interesting for everyone to have a look at, so go check it out!

http://butdoesitfloat.com/

Amelia Hoult

designboom.com

Here is a link to a website I stumbled upon.

http://www.designboom.com/eng/

An interesting modern design website with links, images, competitions and more.

Louis Edwards

Inflatable bag monsters

Check out this cool clip I stumbled across which I believe will help inspire you to generate new and creative ideas.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/214xrr/www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DPH6xCT2aTSo
Jarred Christison

2 firstyear students can participate in Eike Koenig's design Workshop

sponsored by Victoria University and the Goethe institute - 2 firstyear design students can participate in a design workshop by Eike Koenig for free.

Dates:
lecture: 19 August 6pm
workshop: 20 + 21 August, both days from 9.30am until 4.30pm.

To participate, please email Angela (first-in basis): angela.blachnitzky@vuw.ac.nz

Credit Card Lightbulb

Here's a really cool product I found when I was surfing the net. It is a credit card sized lightbulb which can fight in your wallet. I think it is a really great idea because it makes searching through your wallet in the dark that much easier when you have a little lightbulb in there. By flipping the lightbulb up you turn it on but when it is flush with the frame it is off and can fit nicely in your wallet. It's something which is a really cool idea but If I had one I
don't think I would really use it that often. Here's a link for some more info on it:
 
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/cbd4/

Thomas Martin 

The 2nd year life.. an Interview with Romy

Romy Bromley is a 2nd year Bachelor of Design Innovation student at Vic. At the moment he is studying towards majoring in Media design, with a minor in film. I thought I could just get his opinion on what he does and what papers he's doing, so you can see what lies ahead next year. 

 

Next year involves you taking 2 CORE Culture and Context design courses and 3 media design courses (out of a total of 7) and 1 elective for your minor..

He says that the course this year is quite a step up from the broader first year design course, with a noticeable increase in difficulty, and the ability to specialize your papers.

The two core culture and context papers (design as inquiry and experimental design) that all BDI students take are set up to enhance student knowledge of what design is and take an abstract, philosophical view on the subject. The briefs are usually pretty confusing, but tutorials are a big help in understanding the concepts and what is expected of you. 

Romy then went on to describe his speciality papers within the media design school which are 3D Animation and Modelling, Physical Computing, and Digital Video Creation.

He goes on by saying that 3D animation and modelling is a good course to take to learn the basics of visual effects and learn to animate using an industry standard program: Autodesk Maya. The learning curve is large, but once achieved is a good skill to have if you want to enter the visual effects industry (e.g weta digital). You can find his blog here http://3dromybromley.tumblr.com/

Physical computing is an interesting subject on how designers can move digital interaction away from the standard keyboard and mouse. It involves using pressure, flex, light, sound and others to create a new level of interactivity with computers.

And last but not least, he describes his Digital Video Creation course is basically a film directing course, with projects aimed at getting students up to standard with shooting, editing and post producing short films. This course teaches use of Adobe Premier and Adobe AfterEffects and is especially handy if paired with 3D animation and modelling if, like me, you want to move into the film/animation industry.

So to sum up I thought I'd grab a very interesting vimeo channel, Kelsey Thomson is also a 2nd year media student at Vic, and her channel features most her final 2nd year work. "Enchantress" is for Digital Video Creation, "Magnifico Marionette" was her project she made for 3D Modelling, which took up the duration of the course to do. "3d Modelling is mint" Kelsey said, but obviously requires so much more work..

Make sure you check it out:  http://vimeo.com/27317587

Marbert Mendoza.

Darkroastedblend

I thought this website would be of interest to the other students, I regularly visit this for inspiration, and it’s good because it has a whole range of things to browse.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/

Kristina Muller

Video game with only audio

This is an awesome audio interaction I found recently on the web.  It basically is a video game with only the audio and no visual.  The aim of the game is to shoot the aliens, that you can see based only on the audio queues given to you by the game.  Apparently makes you feel very vulnerable.  If you want to know more check out this post by the creator. 

http://www.indiepubgames.com/game/Deep_Sea

Lars  Hopman 

Inspiration for industrial designers

 

 

I came across this blog http://www.yankodesign.com/ and thought it would appeal to people interested in studying industrial design. 

It provides articles, photos and diagrams of product designs from around the world. It is really inspirational and gives an insight into the variety of products we could potentially end up designing in the near future. I think some of the designs listed on the site are relevant to the project we are doing at the moment because they focus on designing products that are based around sensual and emotional qualities. One design that is really intuitive is the Squish, Splash, and Waft Lighting design. Also another really futuristic design idea looks at developing the current notebook so that it adapts a more book like shape and feel therefore creating a more realistic experience The Real Notebook. Hope you have fun browsing this site and find it inspirational! :)

Laura Hoggan

150+ Free Photoshop Actions

Here are 150+ free photoshop actions for photo retouching I would like to share with. You play the action for the photo and in a few seconds,the recorded action applies the effects to the photo. those actions not only can save time from color grating but also it is good way to learn this software.

http://designbeep.com/2011/01/01/150-free-and-time-saving-photoshop-actions-for-photo-retouchingtutorial-included/

Jason Wang

Toward 2040: Smart Green Wellington

Kia ora
Dave from Studio has suggested I contact you regarding the following invitation from the Mayor:
Mayor's Presentation: Toward 2040: Smart Green Wellington
Mayor Celia Wade-Brown would like to invite Victoria University students to a presentation on Friday 12 August from 12 noon –1pm.   After a short presentation and discussion there will be lunch available.
The Mayor is keen to hear your ideas about how Wellington could develop over the next 30 years.
For more information visit wellington2040.co.nz
RSVP to sandra.crews@wcc.govt.nz or text: 021 247 9723 by 5pm, Wednesday 10 August for venue details.
Kind regards
Sandra