Can building design thwart vandals?

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In a recent article at Architecture and Design, they state that if a building is well designed, it can avoid being vandalized. By placing a well-designed building that is designed specifically for an area, the community will see it as its own entity and it will not be vandalized.

Victorian government architect Geoffrey London stated "If something is well designed it will deliver better amenity to the public and users and it will be more sustainable and it will be honoured by the community that it serves. It’s a desired part of the community rather than something to be tested by vandalism."

Do you agree with this statement?

Starbucks Redesigning Stores

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According to an article in yesterday's New Mexico Business Weekly, Starbucks has begun to redesign its stores in an effort to appeal to a broader audience and enhance its image during turbulent economic times. The report states that, "Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) said it will use the design strategy in stores as they are built and renovated. The Seattle-based company said it hopes to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification on all new Starbucks-operated stores starting in 2010."

Design your own font

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At the Christian Science Monitor, they look at four ways you can design your own font:

Fontifier
YourFonts
Fontstruct
Fontlab

Find out more about these individual websites to create your own fonts here. What kind of creative freedoms can come with designing your own fonts?

Future Trends 2009 Keynote Speaker: Jane Buckingham

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This year we have the pleasure of welcoming Jane Buckingham to be a keynote speaker at Future Trends 2009.

Jane is the founder and president of the leading trend-forecasting and consulting firm The Intelligence Group, where she determines lifestyle trends in the eight to thirty-nine age range for companies including MTV, Levi’s, Nike, Polo, NBC, Microsoft, ESPN, Fox, Sony, and Chanel. Buckingham is also a contributing editor to Cosmopolitan and the author of The Modern Girl’s Guide to Life, based on her Style network show of the same name.

Ms. Buckingham, who at 17 wrote the book Teens Speak Out, is a regular contributor to Good Morning America, The Style Network, and Cosmopolitan Magazine. She has also had recent appearances on Fox News, National Geographic Explorer and 60 Minutes. Buckingham is a columnist for the New York Times syndicate for which she writes a weekly column on trends. She has been featured in The New York Times, Fortune and The Boston Globe. She has also written for magazines including Marie Claire, Mademoiselle, Brandweek, and McCall's and has served as an advisor for the books Revolution X and Teens Shopping for a Better World.

For more information please visit:

Future Trends 2009

Future Trends on Twitter

Future Trends LinkedIn Group

Future Trends Facebook Group

Jane on Good Morning America: New Trends for a New Year

Reminder: Free Webinar Tomorrow by MarketTools: Quality Research on a Budget

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There are a lot of online survey tools available these days that allow you to do one-off research projects for next to nothing. While these inexpensive tools are relatively fast and easy to use, they don’t always yield quality results on which you can base important decisions. Why compromise? There are ways to do quality research without breaking the bank. Let us tell you how.

Join us to hear how your peers are doing high-quality research on very limited budgets. Our panel of experts will discuss their experiences and provide real-life examples of how they’ve been able to do it. During this one-hour webinar you’ll learn:

* Five simple guidelines for doing quality research
* How a panel can reduce your research cost and improve quality
* What companies are doing to deal with “professional” survey respondents
* When is it a good idea to call in the experts
* And much more…

Facilitator:
Mike Waite

Panelists:
Chris Schroll, Senior Manager Strategic Research & Analysis, Wolters Kluwer
Pat Merrill, Founder/General Partner, Merrill Research
and other research leaders from Fortune 500 firms

Register below, make sure to mention priority code MWS0025BLOG
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/375147800

More Exhibits Canceled Due to Recession

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The Art Newspaper has dire news for the art world. Exhibitions are being cut or reduced as global recession hits the art world especially hard. In a report by Jason Edward Kaufman and Martin Bailey write that the situation seems considerably worse in North America than in Europe. This is probably because North American museums are much more dependent on private sponsorship and endowments—particularly hit by the recession—while Euro­pean institutions receive more government funding.

For those of us in North America, what can we do to ensure that our cherished museums do not falter? We can donate, attend and volunteer at our local museum.

As a designer, as an artist this is particularly troubling. What will you do to ensure that our museums live on?


Exhibitions axed as recession bites

Five Tips to Good Web Design

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For some of our veteran designers, good web design comes easily; however, for the newbies or those who are interested in learning more about web design The Miami Herald offers a quick guide to best practices of web design.

Tasha Cunningham rounds up the five tips with these gems:

• Think before you design
• Choose content carefully
• Color your site with care
• Name your pages properly
• Get free expert advice

For the full description of each tip, be sure to check out the original article here.

Any other tips that you'd like to pass along?

Stadium design causing more home runs?

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In a recent article at the New York Daily News, they state that the design of the new Yankees Stadium is the reason for an abnormal amount of home runs being hit in the stadium.

Accuweather.com states, "The wall structure is slightly different than the old park. The main difference involves curvature. The gentle curve from right field to center field seen in original Yankee Stadium has largely been eliminated at the new stadium. This is due in large part to the presence of a manual scoreboard embedded within the wall. Losing this curvature has resulted in a right field that is shorter by four-to-five feet on average, but up to nine feet in spots."

Read more about the stadium design here.

Nokia Invents Battery Free Phone

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A phone that charges itself? No, there isn't an "app for that." Nokia has just sent a statement that its in the process of releasing a cellphone that radiowaves around its vicinity to charge itself. Wow.

Current.com reports, The prototype handset harvests the weak radiowaves from TVs, radios and other mobile phones, basically the radiation all around us. It's a similar concept to how the Transport for London's Oyster cards work.

Zenith Music Venue Cools off Visitors

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I came across the Zenith, which is a state of the art music venue in France on this post in the Design blog. What's revolutionary about this design is that the cantilevered roof structure brings in natural fresh air and it also reduces energy consumption used for artificial cooling. Interesting to see if we will see designs like this one in the US.

Aesthetics and their effect on design

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In a recent article at A List Apart, Stephen P. Anderson looks at the way aesthetics affect the behavior of the user in such ways as feeling, knowing and responding. As a design professional, one must take into account how everything will affect the response or the user. Read this interesting insight here.

Cowboys Stadium designed for more than just football

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In a recent article at the Dallas Morning News, David Dillon looks at the many purposes the new Cowboys Stadium was designed for in Arlington, Texas. This stadium will not only host the Dallas Cowboys, but was also designed factoring in events such as concerts, rallies and high school events. Read more about the stadium's design here.

Kia: The Modern Chic Car Manufacturer

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When we talk about Kia in the US, one would never put the words Kia and Chic together, but with their new German design chief Peter Schreyer, they are making their mark across the globe and in the U.S. This post in BusinessWeek discusses that Kia will find out if their new look will have great appeal when they release models like the Soul, which looks like a crossover of the Scion xB and the Nissan Cube.

One thing is for sure, the U.S. is ready for the cheap pricing of cars as offered by Kia. We'll only wait to see if their designs catch on as well.