A year of design

To come up with the toy concepts, Ikea invited kids all over the world to submit illustrations of whimsical creatures. From the pool of 52,000 drawings that came in, Ikea then picked 10 to turn into plush toys that are dead ringers for the kids’ drawings. The toys retail from $1 to $8, and a portion of the sales will be donated to kids’ charities through the Ikea Foundation. Last year, Ikea raised more than $11 million for charity through its inaugural soft toys campaign. … [Read more...] about Ikea Lets Kids Design Its New Toys, And They’re Delightful

Blockchain could be the technology to change all this. Popularized over the past decade as the structural framework behind bitcoin, blockchain is a digital record of transactions that are cryptographically secured–effectively, a digital ledger that works a bit like a Google Doc. If another person adds to it, you can see the changes, and you know who made them and when. Many industries are moving to make blockchain part of their business, and it’s easy to see how such a technology could be used to understand the global supply chain, since it streamlines the complex network of transactions into a verifiable record that every member of the supply chain has access to. … [Read more...] about Why Blockchain Needs Design

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen children’s sketches become real objects. Most famously, Ikea runs a yearly call for drawings from kids 12 and under, in which the company turns the artwork into limited-edition plush toys. Both projects demonstrate that sometimes, it is possible to make a child’s dreams quite literally come true. … [Read more...] about Hero dad turns his son’s sketch into a real dresser

Now, our favorite 77-year-old psychopath has released a 448-page monograph of his work: Proud Too Be Weirrd, a manic, ink-splattered journey through his studio. The world presented here boasts characters as cracked and demented as a mushroom-tripping Alice in Wonderland, “plague demons,” a greyhound dog in an orange silk dress, and the giant reptiles in pearls made famous in his drawings for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. … [Read more...] about Ralph Steadman, Gonzo Artist Behind “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas,” Is A Total Weirrdo

So if you are a prestigious design firm hired to create a new office for McKinsey, what should you design it to look like? It couldn’t be your typical open concept with a few phone booths for taking calls. It would need to enable a culture of secrecy. It would need to look just like what the Japanese design firm Nendo created for McKinsey’s new IoT center in Tokyo: a series of rooms you are welcome to look at, but incapable of seeing into. … [Read more...] about McKinsey’s new Tokyo office is a perfect architectural metaphor