ID [PNW]

Students from Western Washington University’s Industrial Design program captured multiple awards in two recent design contests. "Dip," by Western Washington University Industrial design student Larisa Schulze of Gig Harbor, recently won a Silver Award at the annual Shaggies design competition. Larisa Schulze of Gig Harbor won a Silver Award at the Shaggies, a biennial design competition open to designers all across the Western United States and Canada.  She was recognized for the design of her wood laminated reading bench, “Dip,” designed for children. Samuel Martin of Seattle won a Bronze Award at the Shaggies for "Enfold," a design of eyeglass frames constructed of laser-cut tensile steel, rolled and press-broken to shape, and then powder coated to finish. The frames may be fit with any standard polycarbonate reading or corrective lens. Recent Industrial Design graduate Thomas Kloucek won a Bronze Award in the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" category f...

ReMade is an annual project conducted by the Junior Industrial Design class of Western Washington University . The challenge was to study and address some of the issues associated with sustainable design and entrepreneurship. All the products presented were created by utilizing one or multiple materials of consumer or manufacturing waste. Life cycle analysis and recyclability were also considered and incorporated into the designs. It is a material driven design project encouraging sustainable thinking and design for production. 13 students found materials, designed, and manufactured products. Many students set up their own Etsy stores . All 13 products are also available for sale at the Western Washington Bookstore and we are all excited to have our official opening at IDEAL tonight, Friday November 6th from 6-10 as part of Bellingham's Downtown Art Walk .

2. Color as user interface Color can give cues as to how to operate a machine or an appliance. Even without understanding of the function of a form, a contrasting colored feature indicates how and what to do. A green button usually indicates “go” or “start,” a red button may indicate, “stop” or on a trigger may mean, “fire.” Our traffic lights use green, yellow and red to direct drivers with its color cues. The white stripes of a crosswalk on the street direct the pedestrians where to safely cross and warn drivers. The controls of an X-Box game controller are colored differently. Gray is used for the controls that are ordinary and commonly used and colors are used for the special functions. With a series of controls, only the most important and critical ones are usually colored. This application should be used carefully and with consideration. Liberal use of color on many buttons or controls dilutes the power and influence of the colors. Contrasting colors ...

Encouraging the meaningful use of color in industrial design (part 1. The following discussion on paper was presented and published for the IDSA National Conference 2006 in Austin, TX. I thought that I'd post it here for more to read. Please feel free to add comments and contribute to the discussion) Color may be the most influential factor in the decision to buy, or not to buy. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, he suggests that when presented with a choice, the subconscious mind makes a decision within just a few seconds. Even before one rationalizes and investigates the choices, through rapid cognition the mind has already been made up. In relation to industrial design, that critical decision is the purchasing decision. Within those first few seconds the majority of the information that is available is visual information and one of the most dominant aspects of that visual information is color. So, considering this, the application o...