Student Achievement: Whaletail

Congrats to my former CCA student, Daye Kim, for winning the Core 77 Design Award for student designed soft goods.  Her project, the Whaletail, is a clever way let your kids play on the floor without getting filthy in the process.  By focusing on a specific slice of the traveling population, families with small children, Daye did a great job of discovering an under developed design opportunity.  And she ran with it.

I wish Daye continued success and the best of luck in the future.  Well done!

Barbasket is Live on Kickstarter!

Alright everybody.  The train has left the station.  We're live on Kickstarter! If you like what you see, consider being a backer at whatever level makes sense for you.  Posting our kickstarter link on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. is also MUCH appreciated.  That's how this crowdfunding wildfire spreads.

Thanks to everyone who has helped bring this project to where it is now.  And thanks in advance to everyone who climbs on the bandwagon!

Student Achievement: Duly Noted!

Huge congrats to my CCA student Jean Lin!  Her Arm Ray Wheelchair Lights were deemed notable by the 2012 Core 77 Design Awards for Consumer Products, in the student category.  Jean did this project for ID4, a design studio for juniors, that I co-taught last spring.  The class was asked to create objects that enhance mobile safety, based on design research around a specific user.  Jean chose to study people who use wheelchairs.  And to meet a bunch of them, she found the local wheelchair basketball practice and hung out.  Here's what the judges said:

The jury was particularly impressed with the thoroughness of the research behind ArmRay. Building intimate connections into the user’s life helped establish a design that really answered their needs.

There are still plenty of designers, students and professionals, who see design research as a way to justify what they already wanted to do, rather than inspire new directions.  Jean's  openness to folks with a really different perspective paid off big time.  Way to go Jean!

Barbasket Kickstarter Preview

Barbasket from Chris Luomanen on Vimeo.


Tomorrow is the big day, everybody!  Tomorrow my Kickstarter for the Barbasket goes live.  For the last week I've been trying to get the word out to as many people as possible without making too much of a pest of myself.  It took a lot of work to get it to where it is now.  And its going to take a LOT more work to take it to market.  The beauty of Kickstarter is that we won't be bringing it to market without knowing if people like it or not.  Hopefully they do.  Stay tuned!

Student Achievement: Design for Social Impact!

Huge congratulations are in order for Stanford Design MFA and my former teaching assistant at Stanford, Alejandro Palandjoglou.  He just won the student division of Core 77 Design Award for Social Impact .  His project, the Adaptair Pediatric Nasal Interface, which he developed along with a team of medical and business students, is a simple and affordable way to deliver effective respiratory treatment for children who suffer from life threatening illnesses.  I'd say that's a social impact.

In addition to his outstanding problem solving skills, Ale is a gifted form-giver who has an undergraduate degree in ID and had his own furniture company back home in Argentina.  His strong work ethic, hands on approach, sense of humor and good taste represent the best qualities of the Stanford Graduate Design Program.

Way to go, Ale.  You're a star.

Student Achievement: CCA and Wilsonart

I was at NEOCON in Chicago a few weeks ago and was delighted to see the work of two of my CCA students, Jeni Tu and Rosalie Wild featured as runners up in Wilsonart Challenge!  Both of these outstanding designers have bright futures ahead of them.  Jeni's brother, and fellow CCA student, Kaii Tu was the winner of the challenge.  While Kaii was not one of my students, I did a portfolio review with him and his work is impressive.

It really warms my heart to see young talent getting this kind of exposure and recognition.  Huge congrats to all of you.  And it was great running into Kaii and Jeni at the show.  Keep killing it, guys.