IMPACT DESIGN BLOG

The only true answer is not often. But sometimes, occasionally, rarely even, something grabs your attention, holds your gaze and you find yourself cocking your head like a puppy seeing something new for the first time.

The real beauty of experiencing something which makes the corner of your lips turn up, is that it has the ability to put what you may have considered beautiful before back in its place and you can’t help but admire something which raises the bar so much that you wonder if it can be beaten.

Confederate MotorCycles

I remember watching Usain Bolt “jog” across the line for a new world record breaking every preconceived notion of what makes a great sprinter and like everybody else who witnessed it just being left in wonder at the spectacle and shaking my head in astonishment. When I saw this design for the first time I had what could be described as the design equivalent of the Usain Bolt experience.

Witness the P120 Confederate Fighter and be left like a curious puppy… (more…)

…Wow…

View my own
architectural animation

Having seen a few episodes of  The BBC series ‘Design for Life’ which follows the reality TV template I find myself conflicted as to who the real Philippe Starck is.

As a product designer I was of course interested in a reality show which highlights real talent and the opportunity to learn something relevant as opposed to the all singing all dancing format which frankly only interests me if  ‘ole Brucie is considering  doing a Tommy Cooper. (sorry Tommy…and Bruce)

Starck ze bullsheeteur or ze icon?

The show gives 10? product designers the opportunity to impress Monsieur Starck with their design skills over the course of the series  rewarding the (so called) most promising  with a six month internship with the prestigious Starck firm.

However after only a few shows I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed with both the quality of the contestants and Starck himself. More than a fair share of the responsibility for this must go to the BBC of course but more on that later.

Starck is regarded as one of the most prestigious product designers of his generation and the opportunity to watch him at work and learn about his talents, his philosophies and what motivates him could have been a hugely successfull show. Unfortunately from what I have seen so far it fails to inspire on any level.  In fact it even fails to provide the entertainment of  the sprightly 85 year old Brucie. (more…)

Welcome to the first Impact Design blog. After much consideration and not enough action I eventually decided to write a blog entry on the CS3 Illustrator blend tool.

I initially discovered this feature when attempting to find a way to apply gradients in illustrator. Its a little utilized but very adaptable and versatile tool. Using this tool you can create some pretty impressive abstract images with varying degrees of complexity. With this feature I created background images for use on websites and desktop images.

Following are 2 images created using the tool.

1: Depending of how comfortable you are with the tool or how much time you have on your hands you can create complex images blending multiple paths with different stroke settings.

2: This second image shows an application of the blend tool as an ambient background image on a website.

Website with Blend Background