Design Boom is a great site for the best in design news of all types and disciplines, Luckily I am subscribed to their RSS feed. This allows me to receive each of their articles into my Google reader inbox each day. Here I am going to round-up some of my favourite articles from which they have released in the past few weeks.

Lego Big Mac

Ever Wanted your chips made of bricks?

Istvan Kulinyi: Mobil Pixel Lamp

This is one sexy lamp, made by Hungarian designer Kulinyi.

Lava: Tower Skin

International architectural firm LAVA has developed a simple, cost effective, easily constructed skin that promises to transforms aged 1960′s buildings in Sydney, into sustainable, iconic buildings.

Augmented Reality T-shirt

The future in augmented reality is amazing to think of!

Solar Powered Lawn Mower

Creative design thinking at its best!

Monopoly Revolution

The classic board game undertakes a new look.

Notion: Air Helmet

A new form of head protection for snow sports.

Airmouse

The concept aims to prevent repetitive stress injuries by dissolving the standard desktop mouse into a floating device worn on the user’s hand.

Julien Renault: Hand Forged Aluminium Stools

Hand craftsmanship at it’s very best.

House Made with 15 Shipping Containers

How can you not be a little interested in this concept?

2010 Vancouver Olympics Medals

Everyone is buzzing over the Olympics, check out the medals the athletes are vying to win.

Olympic Medal Design

The design process by Omer Arbel.

Karim Rashid for XO

You’ve seen him on Objectified now check out his furniture and stools collection.

Toronto Interior Design Show: Prototype

Love some great prototype designs.

Article written by Jared Thompson

Owner and writer of Design Juices, currently studying Product design at the University of Central Lancashire in his final year. He has interest in minimal, clean and simplistic design styles.

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!

A Gold Medal Win: the Vancouver 2010 Campaign via Fuel Your Creativity

2010 Vancouver Olympics Medals via Design Boom

Meet The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Mascots via Bitrebels

Cannon Design: Richmond Olympic Oval via Design Boom

Vancouver 2010 Advertising by Vanoc via Design You Trust

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Victory Ceremony Podiums via Core77

This collection is an array of photos where the camera is the subject and focus of the photographers thinking, each photo links back to the original photograph on the web.

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Article written by Jared Thompson

Head writer of Design Something Blog, currently studying Product design at the University of Central Lancashire in his final year. He has interest in minimal, clean and simplistic design styles.

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!

Now over the past few months I have left this blog in the hands of the most enthusiastic blogger I have come across, Jared. I now feel obliged to post something every now and then when I find the time, but I can never think of anything that will compare to his imaginative and fantastic posts. Either way, I’m going to have an attempt.

Being a designer (product, graphic, and website) I have collected a few bookmarks throughout the time. I will therefore list the ones that I personally use, they might not be ideal for yourself, but some may catch your eye. I hope you enjoy them:

Wallbase
Looking for a new, high quality desktop wallpaper? Certainly a place to think about along with DevArt. The website layout is simple and clean, and the browsing is efficient and fast.

IconFinder
I’m constantly wanting new icons for various websites, I admit I usually scan other blogposts to find some, however I recently came across this site and found it to be rather helpful. Not just website icons, but also icons for you to personalise your computer.

Icon Resources
For more icons, ideally for websites, this post has helped me along the way.

Essential Mac Apps
There are thousands of posts about ‘must have Mac Apps’ and being a computer enthusiast I have always wanted to hop on the bandwagon and add what I think are the best apps for the Mac. However, for the time being I shall recommend this post that simply lists a selection of ideal applications.

Paper Textures
A huge collection of high quality paper textures that have made themselves useful within my graphical works. Quite a few of them, the more choice the better.

Pattern Cooler
This site offers a huge resource of patterns for you website backgrounds, some quite ugly… but also some at the other end of the scale that are very innovative and attractive.

Submit Buttons
A nice post on customising your Submit form button and getting the most of the aesthetic appeal of the element within your website.

13 Essential CSS Tools
Need to create a basic stylesheet and fast? This post has a collection of quite a range of useful tools for you to create your site layout, and understand what exactly does what.

Desktop Customisation
A collection of some of the most attractive customised desktops I have seen, actually a pos that I forgot all about. I remember that I attempted the State of Flux however I believe some of the links of the resources were broken. If anyone has any over great desktop customisation tips, please let me know.

Download Sites
A post of over 100 websites that offer a method to download certain things. Certainly something for the download junkie out there, and that doesn’t break the law.

Ubuntu Boost
Get the best performance from your Linux operating system by visiting this post and discovering what tweaks you can do to your system to speed it up.

Windows 7 Boost
Not really boosts but simple little tweaks that make the new operating system more personal. I have to say that I have grown to love Windows 7, I did follow the crowd on disliking Vista, however I do feel that 7 is a step forward in Microsoft’s market.

jQuery Resources
Love jQuery? I know I do, such a brilliant tool to enhance your user’s experience on your website. Find a few neat little scripts in this post that can help your site.

Ninite
Got a new computer, or installed a new operating system recently and need all your apps back on? Well Ninite offers a selection of freeware apps that are very popular (I use alot of them) and allows you to download and install all the apps that you want, all in one.

Firefox Hacks
If you haven’t gone to the Chrome side, or the simple side of Safari, and I hope to God that you do not use IE, then these little hacks for your firefox are to enable the app to give you the most efficiency in production. It is a dated post I admit, and most likely there are more valuable posts out there, but this one has helped me.

Audio Mashup
This last link isn’t really anything useful, but I feel is rather inspirational. If your internet does not lag, and your browser can handle many videos at once, then head on over to this link. It is a collection of videos of people playing a tune on a different instrument. They are all in time with each other and no matter what order you play a video in, they all play together. Quite interesting really.

I know this post is just linking to other people’s posts but I find these things useful and would just like to share them with you. I hope they have helped you in some way, and if they haven’t, sorry for wasting your time.

I have many more tools that I use and I know I have left thousands out, so feel free to post up what you find useful. I only got onto page 3 of my Stumble favourites when creating this post. I will try to post more soon.

Thanks.

Dan.

Find Us On Facebook

The Facebook Page for Design Something has been running now for a few months now and has now grown to over a 150 members! I want to thank everyone who has become a fan of the page, I encourage you to pass on the page to all of your friends so we can soon hit 200 members! The facebook is the place to go for all the updates regarding Design Something, and is an open forum for any thoughts and feelings you have regarding the blog. Here at Design Something we would love to hear your thoughts!

I hope you’ll consider checking out the page if you haven’t already, and joining the numbers of people who have already joined!

Shameless Self Promotion!

As long as I’m on the self promotion bandwagon, here are some other ways you can stay connected…

My Twitter

RSS Feed

Flickr Group

Other News

Keep your eyes peeled over at Design Juices for the official launch!

Photographs provide us with a snapshot of that moment in time, It can be something to remind us of times gone by and of activities and holidays we loved and had great times. Photography is also used an expression of feelings and concept photography can bring out great quality works on a wide range of topics.

These photographs are particular favorites of mine due to them showcasing macro and other forms of portrait photography from which the main subject is the human eye. Such a complex and intricate part of the human anatomy is something I love, the eye is often described as the opening to the soul.

(Each picture links to its original location found online.)

Leave the Comments in the form below.

Article written by Jared Thompson

Head writer of Design Something Blog, currently studying Product design at the University of Central Lancashire in his final year. He has interest in minimal, clean and simplistic design styles.

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!

Pete Harrison is someone who’s work I have grown to love over the past few months and have often found myself bookmarking it for inspiration. Pete brands himself under the name of Aeiko, and links to the website can be found below. He works on freelance basis for several high profile clients and has worked with agencies in and around London. He works with graphic design as well as typography and web design, residing in South Devon Pete is currently developing his coming clothing label.

Find Pete Harrison on the Aeiko.net

Find Pete Harrison on the Behance Network

Find Pete Harrison on DeviantART

Taken From The Project ‘Sexy Mashup’

Taken From The Project ‘Sugar’

Taken From The Project ‘Come Alive Requiem’

Taken From The Project ‘Typoera’

Taken From The Project ‘Electric Silence’

Taken From The Project ‘April’

Leave the Comments in the form below.

Article written by Jared Thompson

Head writer of Design Something Blog, currently studying Product design at the University of Central Lancashire in his final year. He has interest in minimal, clean and simplistic design styles.

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!

The extreme sports user can be categorized in many different ways, three of the main groups of extreme sports users involve: Water Extreme sports persons, Motorbike Extreme sports persons and Outdoor Pursuit sports persons. I wanted to look at the kind of vehicle an extreme sports user would use why they are suited, and for what else they could be adapted for and have design potential for an extreme sports user on the road.

Mini Beachcomber (Concept)

Looking at future vehicles that maybe coming into the market over the next few years, the Mini Beachcomber is a vehicle that has been specifically designed and aimed towards a market of users who are going to use their vehicle when taking their surfboard, wet-suit, down to the beach. The vehicle has been designed with the surfer and water sports user in mind, with a rugged ability for the vehicle to go off road when driving down to the beach, the seat themselves almost look like they are wet-suits themselves. The boot of the car offers large amounts of space for wet-suits, bikes, safety equipment and maybe even a hamper of food, so I see no reason why this couldn’t be used for day trips.

This concept could be explored further to incorporate a similar styled motor home/toy hauler trailer, by adding this trailer you would have the ability for the extreme sports user to be on the road for as long as they wished. The mini beachcomber could be used to pull the trailer between sites and locations whilst at the same time could unhitch the trailer and go
exploring when you arrive at your location.

Nissan Qashqai

Described as ‘A stylish crossover vehicle dynamic driving characteristics of a sporty hatchback with the robust, solid virtues of a compact SUV.’

The Qashqai has been around since 2007, and has now got a revamp in 2010. The Qashqai known for its economic features, with lower exhaust emission levels and improved fuel economy over other cars in its class. This car I would categorise to be aimed towards the outdoors pursuits user, someone who enjoys the outdoor lifestyle of camping and such activities as rock climbing. I would also suggest that motor sports adventurers that partake in motocross and bmx racing would also be attracted to this type of vehicle. The boot space can be extended with flattened back seats, which would allow more equipment to be stored. With the same token I feel this car would welcome the design of a stylised trailer which could be towed by the vehicle as a living space so users could camp overnight/weekend when at an extreme sports location.

Skoda Yeti

Could this be the answer in bringing together the high-riding nature of SUV and the practicality of a hatchback for an extreme sports user?

Much like the Nissan Qashqai it is a four wheel drive which aims to be a hybrid of SUV and hatchback, the Yeti offers the user large amounts of space throughout the whole car either for passenger comfort or more space to stuff in your extreme sports equipment? More space offers more room that if the car was to be used by a surfer/bmx biker, it would mean that the trailer doesn’t need to be as large and concentrate on being a living and sleeping space for when on the road.
The slightly elevated middle part of the bumper flows alongside the lines of the
elevation down both sides of the front of the car and these lines in styling flow right down the sides of the car. The car holds enough round and smoothed off areas for it not to be considered heavily boxed like and restricted, it has its own feel of smooth lines and flowing shape to be attractive (although not as much as the Qashqai.)
The four by four nature of the design would allow the car to adequately pull a small trailer (living space,) for an outdoor pursuits user. The styling and lines could be echoed in the trailers design carrying through from car to trailer, the trailer could be made a great stylistic extension of the car itself.

Ford Kuga

“its intelligent all-wheel drive (AWD) system allows you to escape off-road… The bold, contemporary exterior is matched by an interior that’s sophisticated, spacious..”

This crossover vehicle aims to be a vehicle which can cater for the off-road user with the pictures showing the functions of carrying your surfboard, bicycle, as well as dealing with any type of road condition. Whether you choose to have your outdoor pursuits in the snow, the beach or off road in mountains and rocky roads.
The vehicle has very distinct styling and is something I am immediately drawn towards, with great space for loading equipment and takes advantage of the split rear tailgate technology. It looks rugged and at the same time maintains the styling of a sports vehicle which appeals to the younger audience which takes part in outdoor pursuits. I believe that trailers could be part of the Kuga’s design and take advantage of the styling and unique detail the Kuga has transporting it onto a trailers design making it distinctive in their own right as well as not looking out of place when the trailer is towed by the Kuga on the road. The Kuga would be a perfect vehicle for which someone could explore the mountains or surrounding area of a trip away leaving the trailer behind as a base camp to come back to relax to at the end of a long days extreme sports.

And for something which combines car and trailer design..

Mini Cooper: S Clubman

This design caught my eye for its flowing style, looking at the trailer you immediately see the copied stylistic lines and curvature. As well as the colour scheme in outside paintwork as well as the subtle use of the green/yellow used in the mini cooper’s front bumper is then used on the interior of the Clubman and in the inlays of the windows.

Although the height of the Clubman is obviously several feet higher the lines flow from the start of the mini through to the back of the Clubman, the curvature and subtlety of the back end of the mini cooper is also used at the back of the Clubman. The Mini Cooper often a fan to many water sports users (such as surfers) has the ability to carry the board on its roof rack, their is no reason why surfboards (and kite boards, etc) couldn’t be stored away safely inside the Clubman. The retro styling of the Mini Cooper (first released in the 70s) comes through in the Clubman with the interior it has, as well as the pair of Swan chairs.

Did you disagree with any of my selections?

Drop us a comment below.

Article written by Jared Thompson

Head writer of Design Something Blog, currently studying Product design at the University of Central Lancashire in his final year. He has interest in minimal, clean and simplistic design styles.

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!