The finalists have been chosen for Zink Imaging's Zero Boundaries Product Design Competition, which had entrants design concepts for use with their "inkless printing" technology (click here to learn more). The three concepts above are:

- Mansour Ourasanah's FlashCard Camera, which prints postcards on-the-go
- Neelam Singh's Warm Note digital, ink-free note writing system
- David Bulfin's Inchworm wall crawling robot wallpaper printing system

Click here to check out the rest of the finalists.

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I love my water-saving Evolve Showerhead, which prevents a few gallons of water from going to waste while I'm waiting for it to heat up.

Another novel method of saving shower water has been envisioned by the the student-peopled Samsung Design Membership: The Reduce-Your-Use water-saving bathmat, which is meant to be connected to the tap. The idea is that the pressure-sensitive mat knows when you've stepped out of the shower spray, as we tend to do when we "soap up," and it then cuts the waterflow. Step back towards the spray to rinse, and the agua comes back on.

You can check out other water-saving design concepts by the Samsung group at Aspen Design Challenge's "Designing Water's Future" page.

via fast company

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Here's an interesting factoid: In 1954 Walt Disney was looking to build up an amusement park, and while he had bundles of cash, putting up the dozens of rides and attractions he wanted would surely tap him out. In an effort to build a particular attraction on the cheap, Uncle Walt visited the ID department at Pasadena's Art Center "to see if he couldn't finagle the headmaster into getting his industrial design students to create a car ride for his park, free of charge."

While Disney failed to convince the headmaster, at Art Center he caught wind of alumnus Bobby Gurr, an ID'er and avid mechanic who "at 23...had already written a couple books on industrial design" and was working for a design firm. A meeting was set up; Gurr was hired for a two-month contracting gig to design the Autopia car, prompting him to quit his job and set up his own firm; and what followed was a nearly 50-year career designing rides and attractions for Disneyland. Read the entire tale here.

via orange county register

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"Inside is the new outside" asserts The Big Money's Matthew Debord, in an 1,100-word essay examining the accessories-heavy transformation that car interiors have undergone in the past few decades.

Debord uses that ubiquitous piece of negative space, the cup holder, as a jumping off point:

Most Americans, regardless of how jaded they are about what cup holders represent (our lifestyle of neverending, on-the-go consumption, with hundred of sugary, creamy calories never far away, even when driving), have grown to demand them. Moreover, after more than a decade of pushing the envelope with bolder and bolder exterior designs, automakers--prompted by the kind of expectations that cup holders inspired--have taken on the inside of vehicles, with a vengeance.

Of course, having drinks close at hand isn't enough for the average motorist--we want to plug things in, have digital maps at our disposal, listen to music, watch TV, and even be connected to the internet. Read all about it here.

Also, for a look at cup holder accessory adapters, some of them rather absurd, check out this piece at Coolest Gadgets

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Design education is not keeping pace with the growing demand for new design professionals able to operate in a range of service-based environments.

The paper, Social Animals: tomorrow's designers in today's world by Sophia Parker, published by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), argues that design education is still largely hinged on industrial principles.

Students need to be equipped with a broader range of research and communication skills, alongside their more traditional design skills, and encouraged to think more laterally about the sites and spaces where these could be used.

The report outlines six challenges for design educators.

via Dexigner

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Announced in May, the results from the Gowanus Studio Space Jello Mold competition are in!

Pictured above are the grand prize winner, Jell-O Cocktail Trumpery, by Kandice Levero and Julia Greene, and Jell-roe, from Design Glut, one of several runners-up.

See all the winners here. For more photos of the actual event, check the GSS flickr set and Feedbag's video below (including footage of Daniel Harper's rotational Jello Mold).

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Afterparty, the installation by MOS for P.S.1's Young Architect's Program opened yesterday. The 'stack effect' wind chimneys are made from aluminum fabric stretched across a structural frame, then thatched with a geo-textile sourced from Indonesia, providing a breezy place to hang out.

MOS describes it in terms of a high-formalism afterparty:

One thing about the “"Afterparty," as we're calling it, is the need to look for new promiscuities, new methods of design, after the party of a sort of high-formalism which has dominated academic discourse. In this particular case it's with the basic structural arch and dome geometries, rough base materiality and the production of a totalizing "environment," (literally cooling down the courtyard through stack effect) looking towards a more primitive state of architecture.

Thanks Gaby!

More after the jump.

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Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design
Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington, New Zealand

Join a young and progressive Design School, exploring the junction between Digital Media, Industrial Design, Interaction Design and Culture+Context. We invite applications for a Senior Lecturer/Lecturer level position in Industrial Design to deliver a first year course and a 2nd year elective, introducing students to the fundamentals of "3D digital modelling and making" in an exciting, creative and experimental approach to generating and exploring contemporary design ideas.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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Featured Forum Topic of the Day:
4-6 years experience req'd... for Junior Designer position!

by carton in design employment

I just saw the Junior Designer position at a midwestern company requesting 4-6yrs of experience...You shouldn't need that much experience to get a basically entry level gig, this is an extreme of what I think is a systemic problem in this field, and I've seen other less extreme versions of this same example. If there is that much of a disconnect between where you are when you graduate and where you need to be to get a Junior position, that's a big problem.

>>Read and Reply

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The annual Royal College of Art Thesis Show opens today, and, as usual, the projects are awesome. Ranging from a system that creates clouds that snow ice cream to archival burial vessels, each project takes a close look at the cultural potential for technology now, in the future and in the fictional pas.

You already saw Thomas Thwaites' Toaster Project, but pictured above are Hayeon Yoo's Compass Phone, which indicates the direction and proximity of the person you are trying to reach instead of letting you talk to them, and Will Carey's Gifted, a series of objects and scenarios that allow children to imagine and work towards abilities they may want in the future. Finally, the process behind the development of Dot Samsen's Coin Flipper (a decision making device) is illustrated in the following below:

If you can't make it to the show, you can check it all out on the website.

Design Interactions Thesis Show
Royal College of Art
June 26th to July 5th 2009
11am - 8pm
(closed 3 July; exhibition will close at 5pm on 30 June, 1 July and 5 July)

More projects after the jump.

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