surprise the designer

Awhile ago, I noticed an entire line of very attractive... drugs at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art ( ICA ) gift shop. Metropolis magazine's website pointed them out again, just now, and I have to say that they are great. Help Remedies is the complete package, literally. They took a problem [small health problems and the confusion of the OTC drug aisle] and came up with a holistic solution. There is the materiality of the packaging, the print on the packaging, and what is inside- pills minus a bunch of the yucky additives that make most pills, well, yucky. Perhaps as impressive is the fact that the whole thing is a flat $4; good design at a good price. All that, plus an excellent website with a vividly amusing Help! I'm Bored section... This may be what everyone on my list gets for Christmas next year.

Our third project in design communications is due today... I decided to design a tent. The premise is that it is a one-person tent that can be zipped together with another tent to make a multi-person tent. It was fun using Illustrator to render out the concept; I really haven't worked on many soft goods or electronics, and my Illustrator rendering skills are relatively green. I wish I would have given myself a little more time on this one...there are more details that could really be worked out. The part of this project that you do not see here is the research; I completed very comprehensive research on tents before deciding on which concept to choose. All in all, this project provided good practice for a number of different skills.

I just finished Sleeping Naked is Green by Vanessa Farquharson . It's the book companion to her blog, Green as a Thistle . Vanessa made one green change to her life every day for a year, and blogged about it. Her writing style in this book is casual and friendly; it often feels like you are reading a note from a friend. The changes range from really small (using only vegan floss) to pretty huge (turning off the fridge and selling the car.) It's an easy read and a good book for school because you can put it down for a couple days and then pick it back up. It also makes you really consider the choices you make in your everyday life and think about how they could be better- both for you and the earth. For instance, I only very recently got ticked off that we have styrofoam take-out containers at work. Nothing like packaging food in petroleum... For more information on the book and the author, check out treehugger . com's review here . In other news, I just saw a comm...

Its a post-noon snow day here, and that leaves me thankful for two things: my space heater and the fact that my only classes before noon take place on Fridays. I wish I could claim the space heater pictured above (the SPT SH-1507 ), but I can't. It actually caught my eye while I was watching the superbowl at my friends house. I'm impressed with the use of bold colors and bold lines. It's a piece of art, something that demands attention, and I like that. It begs the question, though... for something as seemingly mundane as a space heater, should it blend into the background or stand out?

I just started a new blog at http://abetterbathroom.blogspot.com as a place to document the process behind my senior thesis project. This will keep things a little more organized, leave more room here for writing about general design topics, and hopefully make compiling a final process book a little bit easier. There's not much there quite yet, but be sure to check it out in the upcoming weeks (and months!) to watch as research progresses and design takes place. It should be an exciting adventure.

hey, hi, happy Valentines day In honor of this fine day, it would be great if you would take my survey here . It's all about port-o-potties and very... um... romantic. Really, though, the results will be very helpful to me. Thanks for your time!

For our career development class we had to draw up a storyboard of where we will be in the next 3, 5, and 10 years. It's an interesting practice, and I had a lot of fun drawing it out. (click on the image above to see it bigger and be able to read it!)

One of the coolest things I have done is school is attend a lecture with Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, the founders of method home products. At the time, method was still really just getting started. Eric and Adam talked about starting small; realizing that no one was making natural cleaning supplies and mixing batches of soap in their bathtub. Since then, I think method has come out with great products (I'm partial to the beautiful O-ring air fresheners and holiday candles) and just-ok products (method kid stuff leaves me wanting.) The other day, though, the O-mop made me stop in my tracks while grocery shopping. It's not the product, really, as much as the packaging. It stands out because its brown and so obviously recyclable. The matte finish stands out next to shiny plastic clamshells, and comes off looking very, very sophisticated. To read more about the package, go to thedieline here .

Which idea do you like better: bikes or port-o-potties?

I recently went to The Fresh Market, a small specialty grocery store, to pick up a few quick items. They have an excellent selection of relatively unique single-serve beverages that I love to peruse. One set of bottles caught my eye this time around...they were from a brand called Project 7 . It's a pretty interesting company that produces bottled water, breath mints, and gum. More than 50% of the profits from sales go to seven different causes: heal the sick/ save the earth/ house the homeless/ feed the hungry/ help those in need/ build the future/ hope for peace.) The design of the packaging is really compelling- it definitely stands out on the shelf- and tells the story almost immediately. My question, though, is would this be enough to convince you to buy their product? We have been talking about the value of story telling in industrial design, and this is a very strong example of that. It wasn't enough for me, though... I went with a (more expensive) bottle of lemon...

Today our first 'real' drawing project of the quarter is due... My project focused in on details. I would love to get some feedback on the two photoshop renderings...I am specifically trying to work on my photoshop skills this quarter.