A4D-D4A ThinkLab: Parallel lives, parallel designs - the works of Ingvar Kamprad and Steve Jobs.

In photo above: the Mac Pro by Apple, (https://www.apple.com/lae/mac-pro/) and the current version of Strandmon armchair by IKEA,(http://www.ikea.com/se/sv/catalog/products/30361043/).

There is no obvious interaction between some design icons of the century but there is definitely a copy pattern in their evolution and the actual transition of these objects into the 21st century era.
The frugal lifestyle and the democratic vision of universal access to goods and services of the founders of IKEA and Apple- Ingvar Kamprad and Steve Jobs respectively- infuse those very values into the design of the Mac and the Strandmon, but most importantly, they transcend those items to ceaseless, expanding "design machines".
The inextricable fusion of design and manufacturing in order to give a product that will have endless possibilities of improvement the following decades after its birth, remains the key factor in concepts like the new Mac Pro and the Strandmon- revisited numerous times and following the spirit, the etiquette of contemporary society's needs. Super-flexible, highly efficient, uncommonly pretty, eco and energy-friendly, traditional yet innovative, mass-addressed but individually appreciated, ready to be re-discovered and redesigned by the next generation.That's what makes them eternal.

Cordially ?-))
A4D-D4A  

What really happened to Greek design*? A stroll inside the exhibition "160 Years Made In Greece".

In central photo above - Center: Enfield yellow electric car (Neorion & Enfield, Syros island,1970). Left (bottom and top respectively): enamelware and enamel heater and helmet by Kea Enamel Factory (Kea island).

What ever happened to Greek design? Historians and critics often describe hellenic design in the 20th century as something close to the Baby Jane* of European production. That is, in the rare docummented studies where sprouts a brave attempt to decipher the "failure" of the Greek production to trasform and metabolize its inventive powers to something new and seriously forceful to its industrial competitors. The poignant and final fixation- using the Freudian term- of Greek design in the late 70's and the transparent "end" of it in more or less that time, reveal the indisposition of a country with a "full metal jacket" of heavyweight, innovative industries  to pass to the next level(?). The recent design exhibition "160 Years Made In Greece: Industry, Innovation, Novelty" exercises the lawful right to investigate and present to the public a solid survey and collection of the Greek industrial legends and therefore their own design myths. Furthermore, throughout a profound historical study illustrating the major transformations of Greek society, the visitor tends to reach and understand the Leviathan of the Greek production the last century- and the orchestrated deceleration of almost its entity in the beginning of the 80's. The "orientation" of the country to services (whatever that might entail during the Greek postmodern era and beyond), led to a progressive cease of activity and a timid regeneration only recently.
The exhibition will stay up until March 2018 and it is a truly fascinating expedition, a genuine emotional rollercoaster for a Paradise-lost-of-Design: made to Last not made-Up just to show off as a seasonal, tourist attraction. 

Bellow, from top to bottom: Stoves and fridges by FG and Sklavenitis. Soaps and soap stamps by Papoutsanis. Biscuits stamps, presses and cutters used in1933 by E.I. Papadopoulos S.A. Fruit bowl and insulators by Glassworks factory D.C Argyropoulos. KYKLOS chair by Varangis S.A. back in1951. Machine for washing milk containers c.1970, DELTA. Glass bottles for the distribution of fresh milk by EVGA. Machineries used in dominant textile industries such as D.M.C Threads & Yarns and Dimitriades Cashmere Garments. ICAROS decorative objects. Pharmaceutical compounds, textile dyes and OXAL insecticides in their packaging. 

Love + Enjoy!

A4D-D4A <3

First News for 2018 and some new Thoughts ....

Image above: 
WING pendant lamp, by Mineheart: for enquiries and pre-orders, please visit   http://www.mineheart.com

A quick taste of what we are more than eager to expect this year, by the very companies around the globe, that remain dedicated to create awesomeness. Design aficionados get ready and sharpen your senses for the new products of British-based independent design studio Mineheart, about to get launched this March...Perfection, high quality materials, humour and a definite idiosyncracy full of unique industrial expertise giving away great furniture and home decor items...Feel delighted and so privileged by having an extra glimpse on another gem of the new 2018 Collection in the picture bellow: the Kokeshi lamp.

Since last Salone del Mobile 2017, Kartell is making a U-turn regarding her publicity policies. The Italian design giant is pushing the boundaries with great design, an appetite for world domination and an incredible campaign to communicate those efforts globally. Kartell continues touring in the big capitals of the world, organizing key events, exhibitions, talks and also happenings in its flagship stores. The first talk of the year will lighten up tomorrow the Stage at the IMM fair in Cologne, where the "enfant terrible" of contemporary Italian design and a key collaborator of the brand, the playful Fabio Novembre will showcase three new products for 2018: the EUR stool (in picture bellow), the Lantern LED lamp and the Componibili Smile storage unit- his very own reinterpretation of the timeless classic by pioneer Italian designer Anna Castelli Ferrieri. Pure fun!

The rising, preoccupying question of the year 2018, will figure in many articles from our very end of the independent media world: how the blockchain-based technology in different cryptocurrency platforms will affect the design market, from the production line to the final purchase by the consumer? If there is such a case, according to the sceptics of digital cash. We will get back to you on this shortly...

Until then and once more, Happy New Design Year 2018!

A4D-D4A?-))

A4D-D4A Recap 2017 + More News from Salone 2018...

Last year 2017 concretized our content under the influence of precise decisions about publishing pivotal posts of value, covering the most important aspects of the design infosphere- aspects about to shape our societies' future and the global way of living. 

Salone del Mobile, Web Summit, AI, Deep Learning, Architecture in the U.S and in Outer space, Contemporary jewellery now, new designers' collectives, design disruptors, education technology, design Hackathons, design contests and institutions, innovative makers, people and cities: Milan, Seoul, New Orleans, Lisbon, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Athens. 

Next year we promise even more documented material regarding the field of design-at-large and its related topics in the form of live broadcasting: after Residences et al. a new unit made by A4D-D4A called D-ocumentsOnFilm is coming up, our very new entity on social media so stay tuned!

As a last post of the year (since the clock is ticking and there is a hive of creativity in the preparation of the planet's biggest and oldest design exhibition) here you can get the latest releases about the 57th edition of Salone del Mobile 2018 in Milan, Italy that includes this season- among many different manifestations and events in its categories Classic: Tradition in the Future, Design and xLux- the biennials EuroCucina/FTK and the International Bathroom Exhibition. Absolut, much awaited highlight, the theme of this year's SaloneSatellite 21st edition, the oldest formal institution within a design international fair, showcasing young designers and their work: "Africa/Latin America: Rising Design-Design Emergente" and the drums are beating hard about this one...A thing that reminds us of all the fantastic work that pioneer curator and SaloneSatellite founder Marva Griffin Wilshire accomplished throughout the years, her contribution to international young design recently being recognized and awarded with the Ambrogino d'Oro by the City of Milan. 
"Beauty will save the world", the moto for the 2018 Salone edition, guarantees the high expectations of the globe towards a commercial fair that turned out to be a Must for the industrial world, therefore the capital monitor of all evolutions in the design sector and beyond that. A fantastic design year starts again this April 2018 and forth timer A4D-D4A is getting ready for it....

Have a very lovely Holiday and a smashing New Year 2018!!!
A4D-D4A <3 <3

Salone del Mobile latest trends + Let There Be Light this XMas....

Photo above: the design of the first of two light installations realized by Migliore + Servetto Architects for the Intesa Sanpaolo skyscraper in Turin, during the XX edition of "Luci d'artista". Photo credits: Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo / Ph. Michele d'Ottavio.

The official countdown to the Salone Del Mobile 2018 has already started (with a series of important declarations), but the Salone Trend Lab is working non-stop on the current design follow-ups, in order to establish forthcoming values derived by the everyday reality of contemporary habitats. Live and Play while at your home, is the spirit of the times according to the mantra of our bewildered society, thirsty for balance and more than that. Home revival now incorporates the sense of a new playground and not just for children, but a creative, entertaining and self-schooling space of experiences. The process of remapping our house, just to generate stimuluses for living AND working inside IT, is the mega question and the pursue of a group of innovative design studios and collectives, listed in Salone's current Press release, quoting the notions of functional art, unconventional solution, lateral thinking, “serious” amusement, among others. This is the beginning of various interactions between traditional furnishing items and emotional needs, such as the idea of pure happiness. Feel free to explore the works of KI Design, Plumen, Think & Shift, Accent, Paul Ketz and Uuio and get ready for more chapters to read, regarding  the Salone's upcoming edition and all its major factors.

Milan, Seoul, Helsinki: all three are lighting design capitals, for any design lover to intensify his/her research for the best domestic or public/architectural lights. The Milanese wonder makers Migliore & Servetto worked their magic on the Intesa Sanpaolo skyscraper in Turin, during the XX edition of "Luci d'artista" - creating a lighting project of high fidelity and extreme technical excellence. The design is composed of two installations, one external on the 35° floor and on internal, within the greenhouse in the heart of the building projected by Renzo Piano. A truly admirable work, securing Italy's position as the traditional milestone in the old continent's lighting venture. (Views in pictures bellow, Photo credits: Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo / Ph. Michele d'Ottavio.)

Follow us for more Salone del Mobile-plus-More related posts, as we approach the globe's capital design event, mid-April 2018 in Milan, Italy.

Until then, stay awesome!
A4D-D4A :-))

FINDERS KEEPERS: THE STARTUPS NOTEBOOK, (DIRECTLY FROM ALPHA & BETA AREA IN WEB SUMMIT 2017) + BRAZIL TODAY: THE DESIGN EXHIBITION.

Above: still from the incredible Archisketch video, (to check it out in full screen, go to http://www.archisketch.com/feature). 

Cracking startups with incredible app provisions to totally improve and vertically change your everyday life, is a typical feature in the expo areas of Web Summit 2017, in Lisbon, Portugal. Time was short, in order to cover everything in full detail, but here is our condensed list of what we manage to distinguish, among the many companies who revolutionize the tech world with digital media at the service of the citizen. 

1. Archisketch (Interior Design, VR) is the elegant app offering the world's simplest interior design solution and quite frankly- everything a buyer, designer or consumer could only dream to have in his/her toolkit one day. 

2. Alphafish (Hardware, IoT) helps you get control of your peripherals, energy sources and other components, arrange and "smartify" your interiors but also improve your consumption efficiency.

3. Inventify (Hardware, IoT) is the new platform of a team based in London, UK- that performs as an agency connecting designers, engineers and entrepreneurs and helping all ends to meet, eventually produce an idea and place it in the market.

4. FINALCAD (Software), a Web Summit favourite by the audience and the tech critics, is the mega-tool that promises to be the right hand of the civil engineer of the future, offering a number of composites as an app. A super-facility that functions as a team manager, design software, administrative kit, building and safety controller etc.

5. Kaspersky Lab (Cybersecurity) is definitely a Web Summit veteran and it remains something like the Saville Row of the cyberworld - with exquisite custom-made products for every possible known portal or device. 

6. CISCO DEVNET Sandbox (Code, Learning) features a unique dry-run environment for coders of every field. A fully equiped lab for smooth coding and testing at an advanced level.

7. KAZAKHTELECOM-Digital Heart of the Silk Way (Investor, Telecom). This campaign launched by the company for the mythical investment of 1 billion dollars, sets the country as the digital annex of Central Asia in 8 priority sectors such as infrastructure, eHealth, digital agriculture, digital mining, eLearning, fintech, eGovernment and logistics.

8. ScaleUp Porto (Investor, Networks, Strategic Planning) consists of a platform, designed to create a growth network within a city. An overall exemplary and effective case of scaling-up strategy, ideal for other European cities to follow.

If you wish, you can check also people's most favourite startups as they figured in Web Summit statistics:

- Brand Ripplr
- Hyku
- Botly
- Flixel
- Clark
- Zoom.ai
- Contentful
- Flow.ai
- Snips
- Digital Genius
- Deepomatic
- Recast.AI
- Cosmo Tech
- Contentful
- TellMePlus
- Timify
- Seerene

How to pronounce design in Portuguese: Brazil Today, the design exhibition initiated by MUDE museum in Lisbon, is undoubtedly one of the most significant design-related events of the year. Bárbara Coutinho, the director of MUDE invites the curator Frederico Duarte to establish a deep insight of the two countries correlation, their material identity and common culture, now. The result is a fascinating exploration of objects and messages, that transpass the usual design equations of the old continent and stimulate the human intellect to discover new dimensions and new solutions in the contemporary living era. An exhibition of rare beauty and honesty that seriously "flips the coin" of what we used to know up to this point - showcasing products conceived by designers coming from every corner of the vast Brazilian continent - yet so closely affiliated with the current Portuguese history and society, but also aligned to the issues and challenges of the global community. 

From top to bottom bellow, a small selection:
- MELISSA CREATIVES (shoes), 2016: When consumers become designers -CONFETE (prosthetics), 2016, Furf Design: A hopeful prosthesis cover - STED (medicals), 2014, Cusco Studio: An everyday crutch - HAVAIANAS (flip-flops), 2017, Department of Design and Innovation: The Havaianas beyond the flip-flop - UBU (publishers), 2016: All of Ubu's books - LEARN AND PLAY (children's furniture), 2016, Grupo Criativo: A room that grows with its child.

That is all for now!!! More Web Summit 2018 ventures and Lisbon highlights next year, or maybe sooner!

Don't miss our next issue, out around the 10th of December with all the new, hot Press releases about the Salone del Mobile 2018 trends and more!!!

Until then-stay great!

A4D-D4A?-))

Evolutive Digital Technologies: A NEW Terminology (Examples 4 Design & Everything else), powered by Web Summit 2017, Lisbon, Portugal.

In photo above: Steve Raymond, CEO at 8i during his revolutionary presentation on Hologram Making in the immersive era. Technology fusion consisted of Augmented Reality (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), Computer Generated People (CGP) etc.- all made anew for you to carry with, among other content, on your mobile data.

In tomorrow's world what is Content? What is Creativity? What is Impact? What is a Car? What is Community? What is Commodity? What is Ecology? Take it from the people at Web Summit 2017, who prescribed the new inventions on digital solutions, materials, infrastructures, ethics- from now on and in the far or near future.

Nowadays you can 3Dprint a house for 35 euro, a reality that will enable huge changes on demographics, social cartographies, work, architecture and design in many places of the world. Soon it will be possible to carry live memories with you and place them anywhere you wish in space and time: your beloved ones, your commodities, your list of materials, your course lectures, the actual furniture of your studio, your wardrobe. Companies like 8i specialize on creating entirely realistic holograms, made out of volumetric videos: small, streamable and uploadable on your iPhone 10' Volumetric Content Library, a facility soon to be an asset in the post-digital industrial revolution, (in areas such as retail, health, beauty, education), but also an unprecedented emotional experience for all.

As General Manager of IBM Design, Phil Gilbert (in picture bellow during his speech on Creatiff stage at Web Summit 2017) sets the strategy of making an organization grow through design thinking and a specific mindset, oriented also to Agile infrastructures and DevOpps in the making-of and developing of a project or an idea. In times where most working places kill creativity by a rigid, exercised  management of Power with no empathy, the ability to listen to different voices and align every aspect of the business, remains the biggest challenge. Design thinking is the key to success not as an abstract concept but as a bold attempt to innovate and provoke sceptics in a non-obvious way. 

Plastic pollution eats us up and that's a fact, affecting our whole civilization. How we need to redesign our whole system in order to save our planet, our oceans but mainly our health? Professionals like Tim Brooks, LEGO Vice President of Environmental Responsibility (first from the left in picture bellow with fellow speakers at Planet: tech conference), discussed how companies like LEGO with a huge impact on children's creativity and development worldwide for decades, recognize the need to replace plastic with biodegradable materials, by launching a program to do so in the future, starting with the famous LEGO brick. Plastic retrieval has to be imposed, so it can turn from waste to resource for our whole relationship with the material to be re-evaluated, through clever innovative design and a whole different social attitude. Be an urban backpacker, show up with your own ceramic mug and metal straw at your local coffee place and make people talk!

What is going to be the design of non-driven cars? Equity in transportation is a goal, among other things such as private or public autonomous transport. Time inside the cars can be re-usable and quality time, with AI and Cloud sprouts inside every future vehicle for safety, learning and caring purposes (i.e. for people with special features). Electrification is a very important aspect in the future of autonomous vehicles with their energy capacity to rise as the capital issue of the whole endeavour, alongside with safety and of course their production schedule for the market, expecting finished prototypes between 2020 and 2050. Check bellow the companies and their representatives as they talked about the subject at Web Summit Auto/Tech-TalkRobot conference (in picture bellow, on the right): Philipp von Hagen (Porsche Automobile Holding SE), Jim Adler (Toyota AI Ventures), Shakeel Avadhany (ClearMotion). 

Key Terms: Digital Native, Immersive Computing, CGP (Computer Generated People) vs CGI (Computer Generated Imaging), global nomads, Techfugees, MAS (mobility at surface), NI (natural intelligence), SAFER, market transformative, AI-liaised, millenials privacy crisis. 

OUR FAVES! A4D-D4A selects the the Web Summit 2017 BEST of BEST- names to remember- for the following awards:

TalentTalk (Best Journalist): Kara Swisher/ Ryan Heath

RhetorAMA (Best Speaker): Mmantsetsa Marope

JobSCope A (Best Recruiter): Polina Montano

EntrePerennial (Best Entrepreneur): Rebecca Lynn

TechESThet (Best Image Maker): William Sargent

CrashTech Seminar 2017 (Best Knowhow): Ross Mason/ Jeff Maggioncalda

Planet FEmina (Best Activist/ Spokesman-Spokeswoman): Christine Herron

The Jury Stage (Best Invitee): Brad Parscale

The TechCommunity Award (Best Networker): Mike Butcher

TechHEro Award (Best Social Responsibility Entrepreneur): Ismail Ahmed

The LIFE Achievement Award (Best Visionary): Bryan Johnson

The GENIUS Award (Best Innovator/Scientist): Ben Goertzel

The Ground Politics Award: (Best Political Figure): Fernando Medina

THANKS A MILLION to the Web Summit Team and the City of Lisbon for another amazing experience throughout the whole week of the event and the warmest hospitality ever...We are counting to November 2018 for more innovative and life-changing technologies, in the most important conference on the planet regarding the digital field!

Don't miss our next post towards the 29th of the month, featuring startups from the Alpha and Beta areas at Web Summit, plus shortcuts from a design exhibition uniting two enormous cultures!-))

Until then, stay fabulous!
A4D-D4A