The 2010 California Design Biennial
Currently on view at the Pasadena Museum of California Art is the 2010 California Design Biennial: Action/Reaction, an exhibition that highlights some the most significant and innovative designs created in California.
This year's exhibition is divided into categories of fashion, transportation, industrial and graphic design and--for the first time--architecture. Curated by experts in each of the fields, the works in the show focus on how California's established and emerging designers are responding to current economic, political, and environmental challenges.
Alissa Walker, a design expert and journalist who writes for Good, Fast Company and Core77 (and Dwell!), curated the Biennial's Industrial Design category. Below, she shares her insights into current design issues, what she thinks the future holds for design, and let's us in on some of her favorite works in the exhibition.
The Los Angeles team of Project H partnered with the Downtown Women's Center, a shelter in central Los Angeles, to develop four retail products that could be made using basic sewing skills, and whose function would have retail marketability, as well as tell stories about the women who made them. The design team and women from Downtown Women's Center worked side by side for three months on the development and prototyping of four products, each with a double-function. This hoodie doubles as a tote bag.
This bag designed by Project H transforms into a hammock.The sale and proceeds of all the Abject Object products, which will be sold through local and online retailers, go back directly to the individual who made the item, and the Downtown Women's Shelter.
826 storefronts are exciting, whimsical, magical, and sometimes downright weird places where you can purchase anything from a new positronic brain for your favorite robot to a giant can of mammoth chunks for your next 450 B.C.-themed dinner party. Each product has been thoughtfully created by designers across the country, with all proceeds going directly to the tutoring centers founded by Dave Eggers that they front.
OK GO has long been known for its carefully choreographed, innovative videos. In an age of high-tech effects and animation, the brilliance of this Rube Goldberg-like machine is all the more magical. For nearly four minutes---captured in a single, unbroken camera shot--the machine rolls metal balls down tracks, swings sledgehammers, pours water, unfurls flags and drops a flock of umbrellas from the second story, all perfectly synchronized with the song.
Like a thumb-drive for fitness and powered by sophisticated 3-D motion sensor technology, the FitBit Tracker--designed by New Deal Design--counts steps taken, calories burned and quality of sleep, conveying this data in the blue glow of an OLED display. FitBit is miniature wireless tracker that clips easily to clothing, complementing any outfit. With its own web account, this wellness device paints a vivid digital picture of overall activity as well as automatically uploading data of its wearer’s movements for easy tracking of progress over time.
Thanks to an ultra concentrated formula, Method designed a teeny package that requires less energy to produce and creates less waste. The bottle uses over 36% less plastic compared to traditional 2x detergents and 50% of that comes from recycled plastics.
Responding to the cold industrialism of modern furniture, designer Tanya Aguiniga hand-felts the traditional folding chair using a time-honored craft method that brings a handmade warmth to a mass-produced object.
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