TED Talk Thursday – The secret language of letter design by Martina Flor

According to TED.com : “Look at the letters around you: on street signs, stores, restaurant menus, the covers of books. Whether you realize it or not, the letters are speaking to you, telling you something beyond the literal text — that whatever they represent is modern or finely crafted or fantastical or zany. Learn to decode this secret language with lettering designer Martina Flor as she explains how altering the shapes, colors and textures of letters changes how we perceive them.

“Martina Flor combines her talents as designer and illustrator in the drawing of letters. Through her work as an artist and teacher, she has helped establish letter design in the European design scene.”

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxRiodelaPlata, an independent event. TED editors featured it among our selections on the home page.

The secret language of letter design by Martina Flor

 

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

TED Talk Thursday – Simple designs to save a life by Amy Smith

According to TED.com : “Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for turning farm waste into clean-burning charcoal.”

“Mechanical engineer Amy Smith’s approach to problem-solving in developing nations is refreshingly common-sense: Invent cheap, low-tech devices that use local resources, so communities can reproduce her efforts and ultimately help themselves. Smith, working with her students at MIT’s D-Lab, has come up with several useful tools, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity, a simple grain mill, and a tool that converts farm waste into cleaner-burning charcoal.”

“The inventions have earned Smith three prestigious prizes: the B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award, the MIT-Lemelson Prize, and a MacArthur “genius” grant. Her course, “Design for Developing Countries,” is a pioneer in bringing humanitarian design into the curriculum of major institutions. Going forward, the former Peace Corps volunteer strives to do much more, bringing her inventiveness and boundless energy to bear on some of the world’s most persistent problems.”

TED Talk Thursday – Simple designs to save a life by Amy Smith

 

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

TED Talk Thursday – Ross Lovegrove: Organic design, inspired by nature

According to TED.com : “Designer Ross Lovegrove expounds his philosophy of “fat-free” design and offers insight into several of his extraordinary products, including the Ty Nant water bottle and the Go chair.”

“Ross Lovegrove is truly a pioneer of industrial design. As founder of Studio X in the Notting Hill area of London, the Welsh-born designer has exuberantly embraced the potential offered by digital technologies. However, he blends his love of high tech with a belief that the natural world had the right idea all along: Many of his pieces are inspired by principles of evolution and microbiology.”

“Delightedly crossing categories, Lovegrove has worked for clients as varied as Apple, Issey Miyake, Herman Miller and Airbus, and in 2005 he was awarded the World Technology Award for design. His personal artwork has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Design Museum in London. Lovegrove’s astonishing objects are the result of an ongoing quest to create forms that, as he puts it, touch people’s soul.”

Ross Lovegrove: Organic design, inspired by nature

 

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!