Busy, busy

The Search For Adventure
I organised a lecture on some of the experiences of the mountaineer Paul Josse yesterday as part of Brunel's One world Week, which went well and had a very good turnout including guests such as PT and Stephen Green as well as most of the MADE IN BRUNEL team.  Thanks to Emily Riggs for helping me to promote the event.  I learnt from organising this event to make sure to book a larger room than you think you will need, and no matter how many posters you print, using respected contacts to promote your event is more effective.  Next time I will book a better, bigger room, and also try to get it sponsored by Relentless for free refreshments.

Doing
Trying to get my head around Pinterest, struggling to navigate and to change my profile picture on it.  However I can see it does have good points so I will keep at it. 

Still researching into washing up and will start some existing product testing today (which just means lots of washing up!)

Infographics
Saw an interesting newsnight you tube video about Infographics.  I feel the reporter and Nevile Bodey gang up on David McCandless, they both have fair points however I feel I agree more with David, and I am far more likely to look at information if it looks more visual and easier to digest than pages of text to sort through to get the main points and facts.  I reconmend a watch of the video.  Thanks to Farnaz Nickpour for showing this to me.

 

Interests

An interesting project I have been following is the Splinter Bike that you may of seen at The Power Of Making exhibition at the V&A.  The bike is completely made from wood, and is currently the 100% Wooden Bicycle Speed Record holder!  It uses self lubricating wood instead of bearings and a large cog instead of a chain.  The creator Michael Thompson is currently working on a new design which I will feature when it is unveiled.

The future of toys?
An Open design toy company that interests me is Makielab, they call themselves "a new kind of future-smashing toy: customisable, 3D-printed, locally made, and game-enabled."  They are creating toys that you can customise using an app and then be delivered to your door, this I hope is the future, less design work for me maybe?  But that is why Product designers are becoming Service designers.