From unique and artistic Wi-Fi router cases and Dale Halvorsen book cover illustrations to a dinosaur themed kettle and a striking protea-inspired chandelier, these are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 111.

1. OnHub Wi-Fi Router Covers For Google

Google asked a group of artists to design covers for their OnHub Wi-Fi Routers to make them more aesthetically pleasing. “I just love Thing Industries’ fluffy creation, made from synthetic fur and wood,” says online editor Lindi Brownell Meiring.

Image credit: designboom.com

2. Dale Halvorsen Illustrations

“South African illustrator Dale Halvorsen, aka Joey Hi-Fi, is one of the best book cover designers in the business. I love his covers for Lauren Beukes’s novels, and this one for Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds,” says copy editor Kay-Ann van Rooyen.

Image credit: alexandersband.com

3. Alessi Tea Rex Kettle

Editor-in-chief Sumien Brink loves this 30th anniversary adaptation of Michael Graves’ kettle with a whistling dragon replacing the traditional bird.

Image credit: alessi.com

4. Willowlamp Protea Chandelier

“This Willowlamp chandelier in a gradient of brass, copper and smoke is just fabulous!” exclaims editor-at-large Malibongwe Tyilo.

Image credit: willowlamp.co.za

5. Tasha’s at Nelson Mandela Square

“The new Tasha’s in Joburg is a perfect venue for a delicious afternoon lunch,” says features editor Tracy Greenwood.

Image credit: Supplied

6. Plantation Shutters

Lise Avis thinks these shutters help blur the line between indoor and outdoor living.

Image credit: plantation.co.za

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Here’s a sneak peek inside Google South Africa’s contemporary new headquarters in Bryanston, Joburg.

“Our new HQ is meant to be a celebration of African design and ingenuity,” says Google South Africa Communications Manager, Mich Atagana. “Key to Google’s operations in Africa is being both a business and skills growth engine for the continent, which is what we envisioned our offices to represent.”

Haven’t seen Facebook’s trendy MPK 20 headquarters yet? Take a look.

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Star architects Bjarke Ingels (of BIG) and Thomas Heatherwick have been retained to design Google’s fancifully futuristic new headquarters.

With styling that’s more innovative college campus than business premises, if it comes to fruition the new precinct will sport bike paths, lakes and carefully planned green spaces, to make visitors and employees alike feel closer to nature.

As for the futuristic component, lightweight prefabricated buildings that can be moved around at will as company needs change, and a mesh-like solar dome to harness energy are all high up on the wish list.

The location of this space-age development is still to be finalised after Google – literally – lost ground to LinkedIn in May 2015, when it was awarded 75% of the land on which Google had set its sights.

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The Designs of the Year Awards is an annual event organised by London’s Design Museum. The idea behind the awards is to acknowledge work “that promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.”

76 nominees have been chosen that fall under six main categories, which include: architecture, digital, fashion, product, graphics and transport. All of the nominees are incredibly impressive ranging from the Google Self Driving Car and Frank Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton to The Ocean Cleanup by Boyan Slat (CEO and founder), Jan de Sonneville PhD (lead engineer) and Erwin Zwart (designer).

An exhibition will be held where all 76 projects will go on show from the 25 March 2015 at the museum. Winners from each category and a main winner will be announced later this year.

For more information, visit designmuseum.org.

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An eclectic roundup including a light festival in Sydney, 3D printed eco-houses, a pearl necklace, digitally constructed photographs, a cordless vacuum, camping shoes, driver-less cars and watch personalities are keeping the team inspired. Here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 55.

1. nendo.jp
2. justinplunkett.com
3. plus.google.com/+GoogleSelfDrivingCars
4. dezeenwatchstore.com
5. etsy.com/shop/TOWNDESIGN
6. designboom.com/technology
7. dyson.co.za
8. vividsydney.com
9. nadeemhaidary.com

 

Browse more like VISI picks of the week series – week 55 on picks of the week 359. 

 

 

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Shoe fetishes, dancing sperm, a RGB vase, a government website, digital music instruments, architectural typography, design hacking and high-rise hell headline the first day of the Design Indaba Conference 2013.

“Creativity is a small defiant act of misbehaving,” announced graphic designer Paula Scher in the opening presentation of the 16th international Design Indaba Conference yesterday morning. And with that small quotable quote, the titan of American design set the tone for a rather mischievous day full of unpredictable design solutions, MCed by the perennially dry Michael Bierut, Twitter darling Khaya Dlanga and bombshell-with-brains Michelle Constant.

Architectural and geographic typography

A partner at Pentagram design Paula showed a striking portfolio of her unique brand of “graphic design”, which she has termed environmental graphics. See, the bold typography and striking colours hardly ever sit on a page: she designs it for installation in architectural spaces and can turn the dullest school gym into a richly layered visual treat. On the side, her weekend art hobby so to speak, is to apply her typography to maps.

Hell, war, art, bras and shoes

The second speaker was Paula’s incorrigible octogenarian husband, Seymour Chwast whose imagination is wild and wit is wicked. His drawings and posters had the audience in stitches – from the satirical “War is good business, invest your son” and “High rise hell” showing a contemporary inverted revision of Dante (with the last level filled with spammers) to the delightful “Kama Sutra of Reading” and ridiculous book of bra fashions. Not to mention his shoe fetish (with lots of toe cleavage). Quotable quote: “I steal material sometimes, but only when it’s appropriate. I have my integrity.”

Government design

One of the Design Indaba survival tips is: never miss the speakers you haven’t heard of. Not only had none of us heard of Ben Terrett but his description as head of design for the UK government (as in he works at 10 Downing Street) sounded like a snooze cruise – and it could have been. But with such humility and insight he described one of the biggest information architecture and design projects ever: Taking 400 UK government websites and simplifying into one, gov.uk, with simple interface and easy enough for everyone to understand and find the information they are looking for.

The need for that in South Africa was evident by the number of appreciative tweets during his presentation. He also spoke extensively about the help he got from Margaret Calvert, the designer behind the UK road sign system that has become adopted almost all over the world. VISI magazine kindly pointed out to him that Margaret is South African.

The sound of a scribble

Next up, Alexander Chen, a creative director at Google, had everyone in the auditorium’s mouth hanging open in a stupor as he showed how he turned simple lines into pluckable guitar strings. His famous Les Pauls Google doodle is but one project, as he also showed his Bach machine and subway map instrument. The real showstopper however was the Google Glasses project in which he showed just how close we are to a science-fiction Minority-Report-type reality.

Visualising time

You know those people that just can’t help being what they are, that are in design mind 24-7? Oscar Diaz, a Spanish designer who studied and works in London, is one of those. Although his ink-absorption calendar is beautiful, we at VISI were particularly blown away by his pound-shop hacks in which he redesigned 10 products typically found in pound-shops. Probably we liked it so much because it speaks to the sensibility of proactive DIY that is in our DIY Deluxe edition. His RGB vase, which used  red, green and blue glass over each other to create yellow, also made us sit up straight.

Student freedom

Another highlight on the conference programme is always the student pecha kuchas. Perhaps it’s the freedom from commercial restraints that gives the student projects an extra sense of wow. This year Howard Chambers and Bland Hoke’s Softwalks project that added seats, tables and plants to city scaffolding; the gestural interactive digital sound instruments of Pieter-Jan Pieters; and the resuscitated prehistoric mammoths by Marguerite Humeau particularly stood out for us. And of course, our favourite, Leanie van der Vyver, born and raised in Paarl who created an internet sensation last year with her Scary Beautiful shoes – she is also featured in our DIY Deluxe edition.

The real gets more respect

Probably the most entertaining presentation of the day came from Japanese art and video director Masashi Kawamura. Starting with the philosophy of “By making something different you will get something different (no duh)” he went on to show just how his work really takes that principle so literally that the “process itself becomes content”. A synchronised crowd-sourced webcam music video, a music video using 250 camera flashes as pixels, a photobooth coupled with a 3d printer to create tangible family portraits and the dancing sperm music video. Dancing sperm? Uh yes, we warned you that this was going to get mischievous! As John Maeda said later: “You have to have a balance of the serious and the jackass to reflect true culture.”

New leadership for a new world

“Why would anyone choose to take the longer, harder route to do anything?” John Maeda mused after Masashi’s presentation? “Because it’s not the hard route, it’s the right route.” John’s presentation was meditative, talky and inspiring; one long string of quotable quotes of which we probably only managed to capture a few. He spoke a lot about traditional management and leadership vs creative management and leadership, as well as how this affects the design process, the start-up business and the “end-up” business. A brave new design world.

Read our higlights from Day 2 and Day 3 of the Design Indaba Conference.

Follow our Design Indaba coverage at visi.co.za/designindaba

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