February 2008
21 posts
Inspiration from coffee
We are sitting here at The Coffee Studio in Andersonville. We came here for inspiration from Miguel and Lee Cano, two ID alumni, who recently opened The Coffee Studio. The two opened the shop after establishing a nearby design firm.
Because we were inspired by The Coffee Studio’s fresh atmosphere, we have decided to explore coffee shops around Chicago while editing the future issues of the New...
Beyond RecruitID
As part of the registration process for recruitID this year, students had to agree to the following disclaimer: “I recognize that recruitID is an opportunity to meet companies. RecruitID does not guarantee my employment. Furthermore, I accept responsibilities to meet all deadlines and I accept all consequences and implications of not meeting these deadlines.”
David Ofori-Amoah, recruitID...
Virtual worlds: Prototyping Canvases and new...
Overheard at the Foster El stop in Evanston between two [seemingly] college-aged students, one donning a black hoodie and the other slightly larger built wearing a red coat.
black hoodie: I didn’t even finish my homework for this class, I was addicted to second life last night talking to Erica and I fell asleep. red coat: Are you serious? I can’t believe you use second life. Seems...
recruitID…Breathing Down Your Neck!
Spring recruitID will be here soon, whether you like it or not. But I thought for those who haven’t been to one before, I’d post the video that we made of the fall event. Matthew Gardner, Travis Durbin, and I ran around shoving cameras in anyone’s face who didn’t run away. Over the winter break I finally had time to put the video together. The point was to not only...
Book recommendations from IxDA ‘08
Two weeks ago I attended the Interaction ’08 Conference in Savannah, GA. This was the world’s first conference for interaction designers, and it was amazing. While I was there I interviewed 5 brilliant speakers: Alan Cooper, Jared Spool, Bill DeRouchey, Marc Rettig and Michele Tepper. These interviews will soon be published on the New Idiom, but for now, here’s a snippet.
Tal: Any must read...
Green is Good: The 2008 Chicago Auto Show
Imagine for a moment, that Gordon Gekko, the capitalist sociopath from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), was instead a modern day auto executive. His most famous quote from the movie might have gone a little more like this:
“Green, for lack of a better word, is good. Green is right. Green works. Green clarifies and cuts through and captures the essence of evolutionary spirit. Green in all of its...
Bruce Almighty
“If it’s not going to change the world, let’s move on.” — Bruce Mau, Dean’s Lecture, Northwestern University | 02.19.08
The message resonating inside the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center at Northwestern University was simple and intensely optimistic: unlike any generation before us, ours is about daring to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective.
...
2 tags
New IDer: Joe Gray
Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence.
I’ve grown so used to the narrow personal profile options on Facebook –- you know, the pull-down menus with narrow choices for things like relationship status, politics, and religion –- that open-ended questions like these remind me that life is certainly more complicated than one-word answers.Since I’m given the freedom of a whole sentence...
2 tags
Past IDer: Joanne Mendel
Please quickly introduce yourself in a sentence or two. Where are you from? Where are you now? When did you graduate from ID and which program?
I grew up as a “Navy brat” across much of the geographic US and can’t really lay much claim to any international roots but sported a Rivera tan when I was only two. I’ve been working in San Francisco for the past 15 years with a two year stint at the...
Observed
Grain Edit
A vintage graphic design blog
Typeface website Choose your font
Ask Hoefler & Frere-Jones Explore the minds of people who create typefaces all day
Do you love Akzidenz Grotesk? Animated short about the font akzidenz grotesk
Open source innovation site Ben Kaufman, has created a open source innovation site. He will be presenting at TED on Feb. 26th
Interesting design blog...
Let’s be Honest
We know you don’t read the editorial, but we write it anyways because we have nothing else better to do. If you’ve gotten this far, please fill out this survey.
Right now, it seems like students are in the quiet before the storm. With few pending deadlines, it’s easy to push work aside and take part in fun activities like foundie love week, Chinese New Year, contests, and a...
Preparing for recruitID 2008
Looking for a job is one of the most exhausting things we have to do every Spring, especially squeezed between Insight Matrices and Cultural Probes.
Our rockstar RecruitID team (Amy Batchu, David Ofori-Amoah and Amy Seng) has been working their butts off to pull together a smooth and compelling event this season. In just over two weeks (on Feb 27-29), RecruitID will be here. Between now and...
The Future of Robotics
I’ve been fascinated by the robotics industry, and a workshop taught by Professor Sato has brought me a lot closer to understanding the this industry. The class focuses on understanding and developing a systemic approach to deploying social robotics in North America, targeted at specific industries such as health care, mobility and home support. The class has given me the opportunity to...
Sustainability at ID
Before moving to Chicago, I had heard that it was one of the greenest cities in the country. I was excited to be a part of a city making great strides in the green movement, such as having the most green roof space. This created some confusion for me when I discovered that my apartment building did not recycle. However, I was even more surprised to discover that here at ID we don’t recycle.The...
ID Reuse Design Challenge
In case you haven’t noticed the signs posted all around the school, the ID Reuse Design Challenge is in progress. Shivani Mohan and Stephanie Krieger are holding the contest as a way to highlight ways ID students can act more sustainably in spite of the challenges faced at ID to recycle.
As the posters read, “This contest is about products in their ‘second life’. Products that are...
Chinese New Year
By Yu-hsin Chiu
Last week I hosted an event with a group of Taiwanese and Chinese student volunteers. We wanted to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We got the idea to have the event from a charette last semester that focused on diversity at ID. At the charette, we talked about using celebrations to share our cultures with others.
At the celebration, we started with a slide show to introduce...
Foundie Love
With Valentine’s Day approaching, the Foundation class is spreading the love. A very close-knit group, we like to hang out and reminisce about classes, professors and design in general. We just enjoyed our second potluck lunch of the school year last week. We all gathered around the large wooden shop tables on the third floor and share good food and jokes. It is a very nice way to spend a...
Around Town: Pizzeria Via Stato
Pizzeria Via Stato
620 N. State Street between Grand and Ohio
Reasonably priced, reasonably close to ID, and reasonably “Yes Please!”
When I first left the NY-NJ borders for Washington, D.C. many years ago, I realized pizza hadn’t just been an easy family dinner or quick lunch growing up. Pizza was a way of life. A way of life that I would forgo beyond the safe confines I had taken for...
New IDer: Susan Stirling
By Nheeda Enriquez
Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence. Where are you from? Major, age, etc.
I’m Susan Stirling and I’m a full-time MDM student. I am originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin but I haven’t lived there since I was 18 years old. I was a fine arts major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then moved to New York City after I graduated to start...
Observed
Designing What’s Right for Consumers New York Times tech columnist David Pogue wonders why companies don’t use more common sense to design better products. A great case for user-centered design
Design Can Change Designers working together to create sustainable practices
Grand Central Another company bought by Google. One phone number that brings all your phones together. Potential...
Down Time
The break’s over and we’re back to long hours and inhaling foamcore shavings and spray fixative. And although it was short (5 weeks? That’s it? Come on now…), I did get a chance to catch up on all the shows I didn’t have time to watch during the semester. Now I know what you’re expecting, you think I’m gonna catch you up on Heroes or talk about how...