Book Spotlight: Design Revolution

What soccer balls have to do with blind children and water transportation in Africa.

In 2008, in the midst of the “going green” craze, San-Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton came to the restless realization that design can be so much more than pure aesthetics, and certainly more than a mere fad — it could, with a completely nonpageantry sentiment, really change the world.

So she launched, with $1,000 from her desk at Architecture for Humanity, Project H Design — a radical nonprofit supporting initiatives for “Humanity, Habitats, Health and Happiness.”

With hundreds of international volunteer designers and 9 global chapters, Project H crusades for industrial design as a potent solution for social issues. From education in Uganda to homelessness in L.A., the project’s global-to-local model offers a tangible, truly transformational implementation of design as a change agent.

This fall, Project H is releasing Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People — a fascinating anthology of 100 contemporary design products and systems that change lives in brilliantly elegant ways.

From a high-tech waterless washing machine, to low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, to Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, to a DIY soccer ball, the book reads like a manual, thinks like a manifesto, and feels like a powerful jolt of fire-in-your-belly inspiration.

Pilloton was recently awarded a $15,000 Adobe Foundation grant to support work on the book. Here, she talks — passionately and candidly — about the Project H mission and the very real, practical ways in which design matters.

Get yourself a copy of Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People — we couldn’t recommend it more.

via TrackerNews

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Found, Photographed, Imagined: Habitat Machines

Digital deconstruction, or what our past, our future, and a waffle iron have in common.

Books like Evidence really catapulted found-object art into the mainstream a few years ago. But they have nothing on artist David Trautrimas, whose Habitat Machines series transforms everyday objects into eerie, fantastical, neo-industrial buildings.

Trautrimas collects old gadgets, from waffle irons to electric razors to oil cans, photographs them, then de- and re-constructs them digitally into retro-futuristic landscapes that bridge what is and what could be in a surreal, haunting way.

Pencil sharpeners become restaurants, coffee cups become bird feeders, post boxes become townhouses.

Habitat Machines is currently exhibited at Toronto’s LE Gallery, with limited-edition prints available for purchase.

via Inhabitat

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Valentino: The Last Emperor

Quirk, glamor, and what six pugs have to do with the epic battle of art versus commerce.

The world of fashion — you either love it or hate it. But regardless of where you may fall on the spectrum, it’s hard not to love Valentino: The Last Emperor — an incredibly engaging and entertaining documentary-but-oh-so-much-more about the legendary designer. Because it’s not a story about fashion, it’s a story about passion and love and the charming, stubborn, heartfelt quirk of genius.

Earlier this year, the film swept the independent film festival circuit with phenomenal critical acclaim. From director Matt Tyrnauer, it offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at Valentino’s half-century reign as a true emperor of fashion, focusing on the years between his 70th birthday and his dramatic final couture show. It bespeaks the epic struggle of art against commerce, as the label is forced into a corporate takeover and Valentino has to reconcile his passion for style with the urgency of figures.

But putting all the glamor (he dressed Jackie Kennedy), eccentricity (his six pugs ride in private jets) and grandeur (the Alpine mountain house is astounding) aside, perhaps what makes the film most fascinating is the candid and touching human story between Valentino and his one-time life partner and now business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti.

In this excellent interview, Tyrnauer talks about the incredible world that unfolded before him as he peeled apart Valentino in 270 hours of footage shot over 2 years.

Valentino: The Last Emperor is out today on DVD.

via VSL

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