Visiting the musuem with a another designer from Germany, Taiwoon, Len and Wai Lim gave us a personal tour of the entire exhibition, accompanied with a detailed account of each exhibit’s “memory”, how each piece was made, and other interesting tidbits.

Woon Taiwoon‘s “memory” was a Ping Pong bat which he had since young. This led to the creation of his Ping Pong Wall which also featured his childhood hero “Sun Wu Kong”.

Len Lim‘s Marble Seat is a contemporary take on traditional chinese “barrel seats”, without the use of nails or screws.

However, the one thing that struck me at this exhibition was more than just the exhibits. From the moment I met Taiwoon at the door, there was an undeniable air of passion among the designers. The kind of passion that young designers possess, before they become jaded from the “reality of design”. Many of these “older” designers are married with kids, holding day jobs as lead designers, managers and directors in Dell, HP and Philips. Despite the toll of their design job, they have managed to guard their passion for design from the wear and tear of knowledge and experience.

Speaking to Taiwoon, he tells me that Little Thoughts Group does not aspire to be famous. Instead, they hope that their collective passion for design will overflow to designers all over Singapore, and inspire them to do the same. I’m convinced that these folks at LTG have a thing or two to share with young designers around the world: Passion.

Special thanks to Taiwoon, Len, Wai Lim, Leong Chye & Christopher for taking time to make this exhibition a memorable experience.

-TDC

All images courtesy of Woon Taiwoon.

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“Narrow-minded.”
-Zu-Ning Chen

“The worst enemy of great design, is good design. As quoted from Brian Ling @ design sojourn. The worst designers are the ones that settle for good enough when they have it within them to achieve great design.”
-David Woon

“The ones who think only a week ahead..in design you need to think waaay further.”
-Bryan Lee

“Engineers.”
-Charles Rattray

“The kind that can’t accept other opinions and views, and try to impose theirs no matter what.”
-Nicolas Lehotzky

“The ones who are scared to push themselves and their ideas as far as possible, those who fear breaking the rules and pushing the boundaries.”
-Rachel Maria Smith

TDC: Who do you think make the worst designers?

Feature image credits: Andrew Kelsall

Run by a group of five CMU students, and targeted mainly at fellow schoolmates, d’Arte aspires to “connect all the schools within the campus” and represent everyone within them. According to Victor Ng, Art & Photography Director, d’Arte is a unique opportunity to showcase what they do and can do.

“d’Arte Magazine (“dart”) is a fashion, design, and cultural publication founded in 2009 by a group of students at Carnegie Mellon University. The name d’Arte is derived from French meaning “of art” which sums up our goals for the magazine. Our mission is to foster greater appreciation of various forms of art, particularly design and fashion, not only at Carnegie Mellon University but in the greater Pittsburgh community. d’Arte magazine prides itself on discovering the best in creativity and innovation in our community and translating this onto our pages.”

What makes this publication unique is that all of the models, stylists, designers and photographers are CMU students. However, the standard of d’Arte is far from amateur. Full page, full color photographs engage the reader, and subtly but effectively communicate the pride and culture of CMU, albeit in a glossed up visual. These five students share a common vision, and with d’Arte as the medium, they spread their word.Look at their work: The spread above perfectly captures the essence of school spirit, with its photography, models and wardrobe. Throughout the magazine, many of these spreads pick up on this unique visual identity, but others (like the one below) however, which seem to emulate high-end fashion catalogs, appear to be slightly conflicting.

@ Team d’Arte:
Being a “school publication”, you have to perfect opportunity to experiment with visual themes.
Don’t be afraid to push the limit to create a unique style. It might be unconventional, but it will be one that CMU students can identify with.
Of all the visuals, those that were shot on location were the most enjoyable.
Anyone can shoot in a studio, but not everyone has access to school grounds and students, which is an invaluable resource. Make good use of that.

The Design Critic: This is a wonderful online magazine, with an amazing team who obviously do not lack the necessary skills. Many student publications do not showcase such professionalism, and I’m looking forward to the next issue of d’Arte.
Special Thanks to Victor Ng for sharing d’Arte with us and providing us wih all images and text.

d’Arte‘s website was developed by Justin Edmund, previously featured on TDC.

Was looking at some student packaging work today, all of them were pretty good.
Typical clean graphic treatment and alot of rebranding but nothing fresh.

“Better!Butter!” however, caught my eye.

“Whenever we eat bread, at the picnic, in the cafe or airplane, we usually use disposable butter. I replaced its ordinary container lid with a wooden, knife shaped one. This way butter can be easily and quickly spread. Butter has 4 flavors which allow the user to make a choice, just as he would chose his favorite ice-cream. This container is not only easy and fast to use but also it makes daily routine of spreading butter more fun and exciting.”

TDC: Good as a student project, and a refreshing (and fun) take on how we “use” butter. Would definitely look at how the knife/lid can be redesigned to accomodate a closer fit, ultimately using less space.

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Made of recycled rubber, this stool is constructed by bending it’s legs and bolting them in place.

“We designed a stool made with recycled rubber taking this situation
(environmental destruction due to deforestation) into consideration.”

“We hope that this Rubber Stool is widely used as one of the usage of recycled rubber and it would be a trigger that people realize the circumstance of deforestation for making rubber.”

TDC: Again, the details make the difference. In this case, the chamfers on the edges of the stool are the key, possibly due to the fact that it has to bend.

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If Batman were Dutch, his spotlight would probably look like this.

“We designed expo objects such as a spotlight and extension lead with a wooden shell. For us, designing mainly revolves around putting a smile on peoples faces.”

-TDC

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MUJI Calendar (iTunes)

“So instinctive and smooth to use that it becomes part of your life before you realize it.
Pinch-in and pinch-out gestures take you to the pages you want.
Even a packed schedule is easy to see.”

MUJI Notebook (iTunes)

“Advanced features such as handwriting recognition and predictive text input allows you to take notes and to sketch at will.”

MUJI to GO (iTunes)

“For business and for people on the move, MUJI to GO introduces useful products and provides information services such as World Clock, Forex, Weather, and Calculator.”

TDC: It looks like even MUJI is riding on the iWave, but unlike the other products, their app looks undeniably… sweet.

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“Things often get lost under the sofa.
It’s ordinary for a coin which slipped out of your pocket,
or a never-to-be-found remote to be accidentally found
in between/underneath the sofa cushions.
Maybe you’ll find a forgotten 10,000yen bill that you once hid there…”

TDC: Very nice detailing, especially with the orange on the interior faces. Practically though, I imagine it would be a nightmare to clean this sofa.

TDC: Remo’s example of beauty in medical equipment is excellent, and we somewhat agree with him. What do you think?