Suits To Transport - BMW

BMW's design projects for students continue to inspire creative and surprising results that will and should change the way we see mobility in future.

The results of the latest initiative, in collaboration with the European Institute of Design in Barcelona, have been unveiled and dubbed as "Suits to Transport" - a unique mixture of mobility and fashion presented in highly creative designs.





The "Comme des Voitures" below would enable an inhabitant of urban cities moving n boots soled with large ball-bearings, with an element of virtual information over-layed on the experience with ambient and real time information on the intelligent visor.


Via - Barcelona Daily Photo

Future Of Mobility & BMW

BMW is about to release series of four films about the future of mobility, where it could lead and how it could be shaped.

Each documentary will be released once a week online,and features interviews with trend-setters, designers, engineers, scientists and pioneers.

Below is a trailer that has already been released - and looks set to be very interesting as a series.

Via - BMW Activate The Future

Mercedes Aesthetics No. 2

Mercedes Benz has just showcased their latest design experiment at the Detroit Auto Show. Known as "Aesthetics No. 2", the designers drew inspiration from organic forms and made use of an extensive sculptural process in order to arrive at the final design.

It's a creative way for a luxury brand to showcase not only their premium nature, but also provides a more human connection for the everyday person and certainly does a great job at building the brand.

Via - YouTube

Mercedes Benz Attempts To Understand Premium Aesthetics

Mercedes Benz's latest attempt at understanding premium aesthetics saw the German automaker collaborate with a group of scientists equipped with camera-equipped glasses and exposed a few test subjects on a quick walk-around the new CLS.

Below is the video of the "experiment" with some surprise findings on what attracts you to the opposite sex for your interest as well.

Via - YouTube

Device For Elegant Tyre Changing

Remi van Oers, a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven, came up with a clever solution for those who find tyre changing experiences distinctly un-premium.

A new rethink in car jacking devices resulted in a self-inflating jack that looks like less of a tool than a new Apple device.


It could be a nice value-add for auto-manufacturers to offer as an extra for products that are more female orientated.

Via - Fastcompany

Designer Morning Sickness Bags For Pregnant Women

As if carrying a baby for nine months accompanied with: weight gain, abdominal cramps, heartburn and indigestion is not enough. Pregnant Women also have to deal with morning sickness; expected moms live with the fear that this side effect of pregnancy may strike un announced.

A Canadian based Company has created the ultimate solution, designer vomit bags that any expected mom would be proud to keep as a part of her fashion accessory, until needed. All morning chicness bags are made of sturdy paper with leak-proof polyethylene lining and horizontal closure clip and are available in six designs. This is proof that anything if packaged and marketed properly can grab the attention of the consumer.

via:morningchiccness.com

Interactive Digital Graffiti

For decades graffiti artists have been actively fighting for their skills to be accepted as an art form, yet society still associates it with vandalism. A UK based company called YR Wall, is set to change all perceptions about graffiti.

The company is launching an interactive digital graffiti wall. The wall avoids the typical negative connotations associated with graffiti, as no paint is used. Graffiti artists paint on a projection screen using a can that's actually an infra-red beam controlled by a button and tracked using a computer vision system.

The spray can’s button works like a cordless mouse and each can is connected to a specific colour. Although this form of virtual digital graffiti will not match the adrenaline of real street graffiti it is a solid contribution to the graffiti renaissance and enables the public to truly celebrate graffiti as an art form.

via: yrwall.com

Kanye West – Louis Vuitton Collaboration.

In a first for French luxury fashion giant Louis Vuitton, the brand has collaborated with American based Hip Hop artist Kanye West to create limited edition designer Louis Vuitton sneakers.

Marc Jacobs, Creative Director for the Louis Vuitton, approached Kanye West after the success of his collaboration with Nike. Kanye West and Nike collaborated to create the Nike Air Yeezy in 2003. Louis Vuitton is launching ten Marc Jacob designs of the Don sneaker.

West commented on the collaboration by saying “I’ve always stressed my passion for design and Louis Vuitton is at the forefront of groundbreaking design”. The sneakers launched in the U.S on the 6^th of July at $ 650 (R5 200) per pair.

Via:headhoncho.com

Bentley's Job-Saving Innovation

Having highly specialised and skilled workers is beneficial to companies for so many reasons. In the midst of the current economic downturn, luxury car company Bentley has found a new, meaningful and profitable way to keep their staff busy.


The company's factory in Crewe employs a team of skilled woodworkers to make the gleaming walnut Bentley dashboard and wood trim. Now Bentley are redeploying 140 members to use off-cuts from walnut wood to make cabinets, tables and other furniture to make unique and bespoke furniture for the factory's reception area.

The UK Daily Telegraph claims that the company also plans to use the furniture in Bentley showrooms and could even come out with a line for the public if there is enough demand - but will probably cost more than most people's houses.

Via: Daily Telegraph

Car Design = Rocket Science

BMW has a well-entrenched positioning as the manufacturer of sporty cars featuring cutting edge technology. A far less known fact is the philosophy of BMW EfficientDynamics which the designers at BMW has been striving towards for many decades.

The premise of the philosophy is really to produce cars that uses less fuel without compromising on the athleticism of the cars. The natural by-product when the philosophy is brought to life is the reduction in harmful emissions released by each car and therefore sustaining the environment.

To prove how serious the company is on their quest to produce cars that uses less fuel, while at the same time providing more performance, the company intends on collaborating with NASA in order to further entrench BMW EfficientDynamics in the design process.

BMW engineers are attempting to adapt the thermo electric system currently used on space ships to function in their cars. The highly complicated system used by NASA transforms heat emitted from plutonium into electricity. BMW wants to bring this system down to earth by reclaiming the thermal energy released in engine combustion process.

According to an engineer on the project, “a motor with an output of 200kW generally creates 400kW thermal energy as a waste by-product. Using that equation, a BMW sedan like the 530i could reduce its fuel consumption by as much as 13 percent, simply by equipping it with a thermoelectric generator.”

Via: Reuters

World Thorium Fuel Concept Vehicle

US designer Loren Kulesus has designed a prototype vehicle for Cadillac which would theoretically be able to run for 100 years under daily use.

According to the designer, there are redundancies and back-up systems built for all the major systems of the vehicle so even if something were to fail on the vehicle it would continue to function.

For example, the vehicle has 24 wheels with individual internal induction motors. All that's required in terms of upkeep on the vehicle is the need for the tyres to be re-adjusted once every 5 years.

In terms of the body of the vehicle, the designer has envisaged that it flexes like a muscle to allow superior road-handling characteristics, as well as allowing for automatic adjustment of the angle of the wheels to the contact surface of the road according to the movement of the vehicle - thereby maximising efficiency to power the vehicle.

Via: Coroflot, PSFK

Puma City

Puma has built the world's biggest pop-up store, which is currently traveling the world with the 70-foot long Puma sailing boat - il Mostro - which is competing in the 2008 Volvo Ocean Race.

The structure is a 11,000 square foot building that contains a retail store, lounge, event space, and offices. The building will be assembled and disassembled a number of times at different harbor sites around the world over the span of a year, which added an extra challenge for the designers and architects.

The designers opted for shipping containers as the basis for the structure. 24 containers were restructured to make up the impressive structure. The store has also been designed to conform to international building codes, as well as adaptable ventilation systems to make traveling to different parts of the world easier.

Via: PSFK

Burger King's New Studio

Fast-food giant Burger King has launched their Burger King Studio, which allows users to create their own personalized Burger King shirts using preselected BK icons.

To create your own Burger King shirt, just click and drag elements onto the shirt. You can tweak their orientation, color and size.

When you’re finished, the shirt is then silkscreened and sent to you. For those who are not feeling creative, there's a "Randomise" option which allows users to choose from one of the many already-submitted designs.

Via: BK Studio

Ego For Bentley Laptop

Bentley, not content with merely building and selling some of the most exclusive and expensive cars in the world, have decided to try their hand at computers too.

The 'Ego for Bentley' laptop share some unique features with the Bentley cars, such as cases for the computer notebooks covered in fine Bentley leathers criss-crossed with hand stitching.

The laptops retail for around £10,000 and the company has decided that no more than 250 will be produced worldwide. It has also been said that the the laptop is supposedly "hand-built" just like the cars.However, both Engadget and Autoblog have reported that the new Bentley offering contains a sub-standard set of specs, which probably wouldn't appeal to the really rich computer geeks.

The Car For "Only The Brave"

Fashion house Diesel and car brand Fiat have created a new car, based on the Fiat 500.

The Diesel 500 was designed collaboratively by both brands with the intention of making the navigation of cluttered city street a lot easier, and doing it in-style. The Diesel branding is subtly incorporated across the exterior and interior of the car, and Diesel’s famous Mohican ‘Only The Brave’ logo can also be found on the 16” inch alloy wheels and chrome gear shift.


According to Trendhunter, "The Diesel 500 exudes attention to detail and includes many exclusive design modifications that bring attitude and style to the popular Fiat car. The driver and passenger are greeted with the ‘For Successful Living’ claim moulded into the door sill, the tachometer and dials have been redesigned to look similar to Diesel’’s distinctive watches, and even the stitching of the leather and fabric interior recalls details from Diesel’s denim jeans."

The car, priced from $15,000 - €$17,000 will be available in a range of engine configurations, and bronze and black colour options.

There is, however, a limited production run of 10 000, with orders initially made available online. Lucky brand-conscious owners can expect delivery before Christmas this year!

Around The World By Solar Power

Louis Palmer embarked on an ambitious journey in July 2007 with the mission to put climate protection on top of everyones' minds. With the help of a crew of around 200 volunteers and various organisations, Palmer built a two-seater car powered entirely by solar power, resulting in a vehicle that emits zero harmful emissions.


Palmer wanted the car to travel around the world from West to East, with at least 50,000 km in total mileage, through 40 countries across 5 continents. All within a period of 18 months... The journey would start and finish in Europe.

The team set-off without a predetermined route but was rather set by the invitation they received along the way. They would also visit inventors, organisations, individuals and scientists, who are active in climate protection

So far, the Solar Taxi has traveled around 43000kms. There's also an in-depth site explaining the intricacies of the project as well as a blog update on their travels. Well worth checking out and shows what can be achieved if we put our minds to it.

Via: Solar Taxi, Elephant

Apple's Continuous Innovations

Apple has introduced a whole lot of additions for their fourth generation iPod Nano, as well as improvements to the second generation iPod Touch and some new features incorporated across the new iPod range as well as iTunes.

The new Nano will be the Apple's thinnest iPod to date and features a sleek new design with a curved aluminium and glass enclosure, available in nine colours. Along with a refined interface and high resolution display, the device also has a built-in detector, which automatically flips the image on screen to fit the way the device is held, and automatically goes into Shuffle mode when lightly shaken -- dubbed "Shake to Shuffle". Also included is the Apple's "Genius" technology, which automatically creates playlists from songs in your music library that go together, as well as automatically going into 'Cover Flow' with just a turn of the wrist.

iTunes version 8 includes the Genius feature and for the first time offers television programmes in high definition for sale on the iTunes Store.

Luxury Retailers Set Sail

LVMH - Louis Vuitton - the world's leading luxury products group is set to expand into the yacht business.

The company is in talks to acquire the services of Royal van Lent, a Dutch designer and builder of luxury custom mega-yachts, currently sold under the Feadship brand. The company currently specialises in yachts over 50 meters which sell for an average of $44 million each.


The news comes just days after luxury group Hermes announced their joint venture with the Monaco-based yacht maker Wally on what will doubtlessly be a new line of sleek and modern luxury yachts with Hermes appointments.

Luxist comments: "Both of these announcements send a strong message that these brands believe the ultra high end of the luxury market is safe and sound in any economy."

Via: Reuters, Luxist

See Your Designer Boots On Arsenal vs Man U Match Day

For all of you who enjoy fast paced soccer with plenty of passion and skills thrown into the mix, you'd know that one of the games guaranteed to deliver are the derby games between Arsenal and Manchester United.

Nike, who happens to be the sponsor for both teams, have decided to make use of the first derby game to garner some more fan involvement and self promotion.


Using the Nike ID application, where users have always been able to customise their own Nike shoes, Nike now lets fans have the opportunity to design boots for 3 players from each team.
The top 10 fan-generated designs as per popular vote gets put forward to the players themselves, who ultimately choose their favourite design and wears that particular pair on derby match day.


An interesting element for fans in their bids to to gather the most votes is through the integration of social networks into the marketing mix. Designers can embed a widget onto their Facebook profiles asking all of their friends to vote for them.

The site is slickly designed and will surely interest a number of football fans worldwide. To design your own boots or at least check out the amazingly detailed flash site, please click here. A wonderfully simple idea that's well executed, it's a little example of why Nike is such a powerful brand.

PS: Below is the one of a kind "George Chen" edition. Bidding starts at $200.

BMW 2015 Concept

The third year students at the at the Istituto Europeo di Design School of Turin had the ultimate opportunity to showcase their talent with an amazing brief from BMW.

The thesis brief was "Designing the BMW of 2015, interpreting the language evolution and the trademark essence, in view of the company’s future perspectives", with the 8 finalists having their designs built to 1:4 scale models and displayed until the end of September 2008.


The initial phase of the project required the students to concentrate on the philosophy behind their proposed exterior design. The participants were asked to find inspiration by looking both into natural elements like the sun, the sea, the wind or the earth and in forms of expression such as music, painting or arts in general.

During the second phase of the project, designers had to use the project essence and formal language individuated in the previous stage to develop both the interior and exterior of an actual car. The model had to be able to fit in with a hypothetical life style in the year 2015.

Throughout the internal stages of project development, a BMW Commission including Thomas Plath, Director Model Techniques and Process Management, and Anders Warming, BMW Exterior Design Director, under the supervision of Chris Bangle, Chief of Design for BMW Group, were present to oversee and guide the participants.


Some really amazing work resulted from the collaboration and it’d be great if one of these concepts were kept in mind for future production.

Via: Carbody Design