caravia/design

Fun and useful site about design and ecology for the kitchen, the place of the house where we spend a lot of time :)

New Swedish design for libraries.

"The other day I stopped by my favorite little bookstore, Spoonbill & Sugartown, and found a great book called New Graphical Symbols for Many More. New Graphical Symbols for Many More is "a (Swedish) national development and standardization project aimed at making public symbols more uniform and more serviceable in keeping with the concept of Design for All." What really got me excited- one of the symbols that all 124 competitors had to create for the contest was a symbol for a public library. I've posted scans of all of them below for preview and for educational purposes only.

In my last post I promoted the creation of `pictotags,' user-assigned icons that can help describe characteristics of a book or media object. In the case of that post, the images described the physical location of an object, but I anticipate them being more descriptive in the future. Visual literacy is embedded in cultural histories and mores, so naturally the winning pictograms presented to the Swedes by the competitors will have to make sense to people who live in and visit public places in Sweden. In the age of the inernet and simplified global communication via graphic user interfaces, it becomes more and more challenging to create standards that will translate internationally. How does the designer account for the visual vocabulary of every tourist that might come through Stockholm, and should the designer in the age of global communication be accountable to every possible user?"

What everyone of us were eagerly waiting!! Such a energy saving!! :)

"Sensing a business opportunity as well as a chance to reduce the number of plastic bottles in landfills, J. Eric Barnes, a Southern California entrepreneur, set out in 2005 to develop a reusable bottle with the same cachet as single-use bottles sold by brands like Voss and SmartWater. After three years of work by RKS Design, the Kor One will be available for purchase starting Thursday. Bloggers who got an early look have been atwitter for months over innovations like the small release button that allows easy one-hand opening and closing, the hinged cap that stays open while you drink and the extra-wide mouth. While certain aspects of the product may strike some as ridiculous (the company refers to the bottle as a "personal hydration vessel" and the cap has a place for users to insert an inspirational message), its shape makes it an object of interest even if you never put anything inside. The 750-milliliter bottle is $29.95 at korwater.com."

Nice urban design in a cute minimalist birdhouse, coated with a non-toxic layer of painting. Cool blog with nice tips to the handy...

A blog with rare musical posters from the 50:s and the 60:s. Psychodelical and cool.

Design and beauty in the every day objects.

Matt Flint's paintures are dark as Joseph Conrad's "Heart of the Darkness".

Greensburg, in Kansas, is a nonprofit organization providing the residents of Greensburg with resources, information and support to rebuild Greensburg, destroyed by a tornado some years ago, as a model green community.