Finally got to visit CES this year. Total sensory overload. TV's EVERYWHERE! Intel & Microsoft were my favorite mega-booths.

Theme of this year seemed to be the big push for 3D TV's. I'm curious how the masses will respond for 2 reasons: a) expensive b) requiring users to wear 3D glasses. Plus, how will media be presented- on it's own 3D TV channel? Audiences can't view the same content w/o the glasses. Should be interesting to see.




All the blue ambiance was befitting for technology- cool and cutting edge. As a way for a company to differentiate itself, I wonder how having an overall red or purple glow would have been perceived. The booth would have definitely stood apart. Although red = red light district connotations? Might be creepy, too. Scratch that thought.



Pictures don't do this justice. Those cubes were constantly moving throughout the screen like a steady wave, undulating up and down. Each cube represented news that was being streamed live to this screen. Touch one of the cubes and the picture and highlight of that news would pop up.








Beautiful attention to detail by 5AXIS


Amazing sculptural form. Refreshing to see non-brick aesthetics.

A breath of fresh air (minus the fishy smell) when I stumble across good design in an unlikely spot. I appreciate simplicity for utilitarian purposes: clear, concise, and still nice to look at.

For all the blank stares I get when I talk about 3D printing with family/friends...


At work, I had the opportunity to use a 3D printer as part of our design process. This was another example of Cisco flexing its corporate muscle as they had the budget to print multiple iterations of a model to check the design in physical form. The result can confirm what we thought made sense or make us realize that what we initially presumed as ergonomic to be awkward to hold.

In a nutshell:
It's an expensive process but invaluable (in terms of refining for the final design) to see your design as a true to scale physical form.

During the refinement process, making slight changes to proportions and lines make all the difference. Printing out new iterations after each phase of refinement can save some headache later in the back end of finalizing the product for manufacturing.

Time to geek out:


So after sending off the 3D data to the printer, a software calculates how to physically construct the file. I've learned that standing a product up yields a better appearance.

Here's a screenshot after I've configured the model to stand up. It is not solid in the middle, imagine a lot of tiny cross beams inside. The red color is the actual model and that light purple represents the support material that will hold up the actual model (see pic 03 below).


_01 The printer! It's not a small guy at 6'+ tall. Just like an inkjet printer, a nozzle goes back and forth printing it out inch by inch but in 3D(Printing these models below took 10+ hours due to the size)

_02 Grey = the actual model material / Brown = support material

_03 The result when finished printing: so that brown support material is what...um... supports the physical model while its solidifying

_04 The models from pic03 gets dipped in this chemical bath to dissolve away the support material with the help of heat and sonic waves (it buzzzzzs).

It's fun cleaning this out wheeling this downstairs as no one else in the other departments have any clue what this is doing in an office environment. I just say it's for cooking hot dogs. Exactly.

I hope everyone enjoyed their New Years! Although I avoided the malls, this has definitely been one of the busiest xmas/new years ever. The triple headed spear of work, a package design gig (more on this soon), and moving out of Long Beach all boiled down to not much time off. I'm finally getting some time to just relax and I'll start it off by making a post.

This year has been alot of analyzing and reflecting. My conclusion is what my Dad has always said, "Keep life simple". Some big things coming down the pipeline- time to break in 2010 properly.


Notice that green glow on the left side? Sort of looks like a face... kind of creepy.


"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you should begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

At work, I use a Logitech LX5 laser mouse and keyboard. They are functional and ergonomic- all I could really ask for. If it had been up to me, I would gone with a corded keyboard + mouse.


Why use corded when it looks so much cooler to have a wire-free desktop?
Because I hate replacing batteries: it's inefficient, expensive, and not in line with that one popular movement going on.



The mouse uses 2x AA batteries. One day, there was a pop-up that "my batteries are critical" and to replace them. As an experiment, I waited it out to see how long it would take for total battery death. It took 4 WEEKS. WTF, Logitech?


Why not alert the user at 5% of batter life?


It took ~3 months of constant Mon-Fri usage to get to this point. I wonder how many batteries are prematurely replaced when there's still life in them (this is a great solution to that problem). So at about 25% battery life, Logitech's driver kicks in to alert the user it's time!


Are batteries more likely to leak when they are completely drained?


I just did a quick Google search and the answer is... yes! Apparently, using the battery gradually wears out the metal in it- eventually causing the internal chemical reaction to leak out (i.e. leakage in flashlights). Even though if an user disposed of batteries at 25% life to prevent leakage, it only delays the process. I don't know what happens to batteries when they are "properly disposed of" but I bet that most people just throw away their batteries in the trashcan.


Conclusion: Avoid disposable batteries. Utilize alternative and more efficient methods of obtaining power for devices. I have never talked about batteries to this degree...

Inspired and motivated by WANKEN. Beautiful design: I appreciate his level of presentation and the way he documented his process. Using only the photography he shot was another aspect of dedication that makes his project really stand apart.

I'm still conceptualizing on how to transition this blog into a design blog- please bear with me as I figure this out! I have not moved on to the physical format of my portfolio but this is the latest iteration of my 2nd version of my teaser portfolio that I'll be emailing out in search of an industrial design staff position.


The Objective:


1_To entice employers with a glimpse of my teaser portfolio
2_Get contacted from a design firm that they want to setup an interview
3_Show the entire portfolio at this point and verbally walk them through it


Background:


There are so many ways to do a portfolio. I only have 5-10 seconds to kick down the door and grab their attention without being able to talk to them (imagine having to browse through 200+ of these in order to fill a position-- I once heard 75% are absolute crap, 20% are decent, and 5% are drop dead showstoppers). Some stiff obstacles but I love the challenge.

My strategy was to concisely showcase my process of how I reach a solution. There are 3 projects in here and each one is meant to show a different skill. At the moment, even though it took tons of editing to boil it down to what it is now, it still needs to be even more concise. I'm still figuring out how to do that. There's also a last page that I'm currently designing that will visually communicate more of me as a person that an employer can't get from looking at a portfolio and resume. WHEW!