Design A Day 1: "You Can Quote Me On That" Chair

This idea came about when i was speaking to a friend on the phone, and I could visualize him making those quotation mark hand gestures with his fingers while he was talking. I thought it would be funny if we could make those invisible things visible somehow and bring what we use to convey on paper into life, to convey them for us when we are actually talking. It also got me thinking about the importance of the subjects we speak about. Maybe this chair is reserved for an occasion when we have something very important to say? Maybe it could also be a slightly uncomfortable chair-so that you aren't tempted to overstay your welcome making grandiose proclamations.....

Design A Day

So, I've been pretty bad about keeping up with this blog. I have no excuse for it either...and as a result Im sure no one who even knows about this blog bothers to check it at all, which is expected. So, in an attempt to do something fun, and as an experiment to see how long I can keep it going, I am going to start doing something Im calling "Design A Day".
Im going to make an effort everyday to sit down and give an idea for a design. Mind you, they won't be beautiful I would expect, but hopefully they will be spawned from good old observation, imagination or creativity that was inspired from some kind of stimulous...good bad or ugly.
Also, this will be a good way I hope to keep track of what I deem good or funny ideas, that way its down for posterity, and I can come back later to have a good laugh at myself for my vanity.
So, Here it goes!

The Bike Oven

I took a trip to highland park to The Bike Oven, which is a unique bike shop. This shop doesn't focus on selling bikes, although they do....however the bikes they do sell are all used and were donated. They put the funds right back into keeping up the facilities and buying tools and parts. You can take your old bike down there to use their tools and their staff's expertise should you need it. They suggest a donation, but definitely won't turn you away for lack of funds. The helpers are all volunteers who have a love for cycling and helping people. I myself spent an hour there trying to get a frozen seat post unstuck with the help of about 4 different people at various times. It was great just to hang out there as well, with friendly people of all ages and backrounds. If you have an old bike lying around not being used, take it down to learn how to work on it and get it road worthy again, or go donate it so it can have a new life with someone out there who can really use it. Located at 3706 N Figueroa St, LA CA 90065

Education First!

The Art Center petition to put education first is closing tomorrow, June 13th. If you haven't signed it already, please do so and tell all your Art Center friends about it!
Art Center Petition: Education First!

I found this interesting feature when I recently uploaded videos to Youtube. It is called "insight", and it let's the uploader view complete statistics and diagrams showing who has been viewing your videos. I found this interesting to see that most of the people viewing the videos I uploaded of the student ACSG meeting were Alumni's between the age of 55 to 65. Very interesting that they care so much for the school still.

Making grocery stores fun again- the Mexican way

This is a photo I took at a mexican market in my home town of Paramount called Northgate. It used to be a Von's market, and Im not sure why it left. This market caters to the local overwhelming hispanic population. I had to go grab something while visiting my mother, and I was so shocked when I passed a whole group of mariachis playing while people were shopping. How cool was this? It's so much more colorful than your garden variety Pavilion's or even Whole Foods for that matter. And it's cheaper of course!

Taking what works into the future

The latest Muji design competition has just been announced, and I thought it was a great project brief. Take a piece of tried and true design, something that you might have taken for granted, or something that was an obvious and great solution to a problem that is local to where you are from, and update it for today's use in the Muji fashion. It will be great just to see what objects come back into the public domain that may have been lost in obscurity or just not seen in developed countries that can have greater uses.