Giving Design

Why design will save the world and a potent remedy for your quarterlife crisis.

Design is at its best when it truly gives something back to the world. Which is why we love industrial design icon Yves Behar. And while his credits include a long list of brilliant products, today we’re focusing on one: the XO laptop of One Laptop Per Child fame — a (near) $100 laptop for children’s education in the developing world.

And while business strategy has certainly been one of the propelling forces behind the project’s success, OLPC would be nothing without the computer’s brilliant design, which makes all of the device’s technological and cultural feats possible.

(For more on the project, watch founder Nicholas Negroponte’s incredibly inspirational TED talk.)

About the size of a small textbook, the rugged learning tool has built-in WiFi that enables the XO to communicate with nearby peers. The unique screen, which rotates 360 degrees, is readable even under direct sunlight — for children who go to school outdoors. It’s extremely energy-efficient and resists high temperatures and high humidity.

The brilliant design extends to even the minutest of details, like the logo — the “X” and “O” on the back of the screen each come in 20 color options, making for 400 possible combinations so that each kid in a large classroom gets a distinctive XO laptop — both a way for kids to connect with their laptop better and a clever tactic for avoiding mix-ups.

Yves Behar reveals the inspiration, the technology, and the meticulous thought behind the design process:

Some say the notion that design will save the world is a stretch. But the XO laptop is a testament to the fact that design will certainly play a strong part. Because we believe that the real epidemic drowning the third world is ignorance and the lack of access to information — deadly yet preventable diseases like malaria and AIDS can be halted through simple education about their mechanisms; poverty and armed conflict over resources can both be ameliorated by educating citizens about simple business models that enable them to lead self-sufficient, self-reliant lives.

And it has to start with children’s education, laying the foundations for a more economically sustainable society of tomorrow.

So why are we bringing this up now, when OLPC has been around for quite a while?

Let’s face it, the holidays are pretty much upon us — a time for giving, a time for getting. And we’re all about efficiency here, so we like the idea of a two-birds-one-stone approach to the whole giving/getting thing. Especially if it means “giving” in the true, altruistic, make-yourself-feel-like-a-better-person kind of way. Case in point: OLPC’s Give 1 Get 1 program.

Initially a two-week experiment in raising donations, G1G1 launched in November 2007 under the premise that anyone donating $399 to OLPC would not only get a laptop sent on their behalf to a child in the developing world, but would also get one of their very own. G1G1 was so wildly successful that it got extended beyond the two weeks into the entire holiday season and well into the spring of this year.

This year, G1G1 is back for seconds. So if you’re a fan of world-changing design and are feeling altruisic this holiday season, or you’re looking for a perfect gift for your kid relative, or you’re simply undergoing a severe quarterlife crisis and need to feel like you’re giving back to the world, consider G1G1.

World AIDS Day 2008: Join the Fight

What 20 years, 112 million bloggers and a simple pledge have in common.

We’re doing something a little different today. Because today is the 20th anniversary of World Aids Day, a powerful opportunity to reflect on the deadly pandemic that started eating away at the world over 27 years ago — and the one time when it’s particularly not okay to roll our eyes at the overexposed and underaddressed problem.

No need to drum on about the stats, because we all know how frightening they are, but just consider that by the time you finish reading this, 71 new people will be infected with AIDS, adding to the 33 million worldwide living with the disease.

So what can you do? Generally, “awareness” is a comfortable, failure-free way of pretending to be involved in a cause without really being responsible for its tangible success. (Seriously, has “awareness” cured, say, breast cancer?) But AIDS is extraordinary because in this particular case, awareness is action — in a disease where the only cure is prevention, the more people get tested and know how to “be careful,” the less people get infected.

So learn a thing or two about how not to get infected. And, seriously, get tested — the first step to chipping away at the colossal problem is refusing to think of it as an abstraction, and that begins with personal initiative — if you live in the States, find a testing center near you or just text your zip code to “KNOWIT” (566948) and they’ll text back with a nearby center. And if you live elsewhere in the world, enlist Google and a few friends in finding out about local testing options or check out UNAIDS, the United Nations program against HIV/AIDS.

You can also take the World AIDS Campaign leadership pledge and even follow AIDS.gov on Twitter.

If you’re a designer, allot some pro-bono time to doing a compelling piece that raises awareness, moves people and inspires action — talk about using your power for good. 

And if you’re one of the world’s 112 million bloggers, grab the World Aids Day badge and participate in BloggersUnite, an ambitious initiative to leverage the traction of the blogosphere in reaching more people with the simple yet powerful awareness message.

So go ahead, do your part. Because the more the word spreads, the less the disease does. Think about it.

Mac in the Produce Aisle

Why Steve Jobs is bigger in Japan than the Hollywood A-list combined.

It’s no secret we’re huge (HUGE) Mac fans. But if there’s one place were fanboy culture is at its most extreme, it has to be Japan.

Case in point: One Japanese Mac fan decided to take both his love of Apple and the term “branding” to literal levels by “tattooing” a crop of Fiji apples with the Apple and iPod logos.

How?

Pretty much the same way sun tattoos work — you slap a sticker before the skin pigments and the shape gets imprinted on it. Because apples get their pigment from sunlight as they ripen, the Apple enthusiast just stickered them a month before the harvest…

… and just waited for nature to run its due course.

Well, it seems like Steve Jobs has out-big-in-Japanned any Hollywood celebrity. Jack Bauer can endorse all the low-cal drinks he wants, but we don’t see his image and likeness on any produce, now do we?

via Gizmodo

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Child Art for Grown-Ups

What Superman, Tim Burton and 1,000 South Korean Children have in common.

There’s a reason why creative types often envy the imagination of a child, with its boundless freedom and its anything-is-possible vision. Some artists take that envy and turn it into creative fuel, using the whimsical world of children’s imagination as inspiration. Here are our top picks for child-centric art.

THE MONSTER ENGINE

Oh, those days when a piece of a paper and a pen or…imagine that…a crayon was all we needed to create fascinating stories and magical characters that could rival some of Hollywood’s most blockbustery output.

In The Monster Engine, NJ-based artist Dave DeVries takes those whimsical doodles and drawlings, and recreates them “realistically” with a grown-up artist’s eye.

The best part is that he only adds graphical sophistication and 3D realism to the images, without altering the child-artist’s creative vision.

This being said, some of the renditions interpret elements of the child’s drawings in peculiar ways, adding a new creative layer to the artwork. Like the fish flying out of this witch’s hand, a far stretch from the original doodle, which makes the image all the more interesting.

The Monster Engine is also available as a 48-page coffeetable book, covering the backstory of the 7-year project and featuring interviews with the children who inspired Dave’s artwork.

via shape+color

WONDERLAND

Korean artist Yeondoo Jung explores a different translation of children’s art. In his photoseries Wonderland, which you may recall from our Re:Perception issue, he takes those simple shapes and colors, and transforms them into high-impact, surrealist fashion photography.

The project is based on a the drawings of 5-to-7-year-old South Korean children, reconceived with live models, dramatic costumes and flamboyant colors.

Besides the stunning art direction, we’re somehow drawn to that eerie grownup-child wold the images create, a place where wonder and magic are only limited by how we choose to perceive our subjective reality.

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED

The creative link between the world of children and high fashion emerges once again in the December issue of Vogue UK’s with the Tales of the Unexpected editorial: a tribute to Roald Dahl’s, one of the most celebrated children’s book authors of the 20th century.

Starring the infamous Tim Burton and a slew of celebrity actors and musicians, the editorial recreates scenes and characters from some of Dahl’s most famous stories.

Shot by legendary fashion photographer Tim Walker, the spread brilliantly captures the very escapism that only high fashion can offer — an aspirational costume that outfits us for our grand dramatic performance in a staged world more beautiful and imaginative than our mundane reality.

via wickedhalo