designbivouac

Witty Knitting

Vík Prjónsdóttir is a collective of Icelandic designers that one day decided to start collaborating with an old knitting factory in the countryside of Iceland. View more here. http://www.vikprjonsdottir.com/

New York Times Budget Puzzle

Sometimes I find myself noting something as interesting but it takes a while to really appreciate it to its fullest. That was the case with the New York Times Budget Puzzle which came out last November.

While in an information visualization brainstorm today, this came back to me as a great example of how to empower users to relate to a very abstract concept...our federal budget deficit. Its minimalistic approach and small details like representing 1 billion dollars with small blue squares that tally up in real time depending upon decisions users make is a nice touch. 

BMW Breaks New Barriers with Entry Level M Model

BMW has long been breaking performance barriers with each successive model in their M range and the new 1 Series M is no exception. In this nicely choreographed video they take things to a new level which would no doubt make Tanner proud.

 

 

An Empathy Exercise for Those That Really Build Things

For those that could swear that their car had to have been built late on a Friday afternoon or clearly bought a pure lemon, try building an 8070 in a weekend. The latest super car from Lego Group's Technic division includes a free floating differential, a visible 8 cylinder engine with working pistons tied in to the transmission, double wishbone suspension components and various power goodies.

Putting one of these together sans a bunch of spare parts lying around once the job is done is a nice accomplishment. It's also a great empathy exercise to help us realize, even if on a much smaller scale, some of what a day is like for those putting together the things that move us every day. A special thanks goes out to you, the builders of the world.