StrongMocha’s newest selection of recent TEDTalks

Ray Zahab treks to the South Pole

Extreme runner Ray Zahab shares an enthusiastic account of his record-breaking trek on foot to the South Pole — a 33-day sprint through the snow.

Stewart Brand proclaims 4 environmental ‘heresies’

The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and ’70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his major new book, sure to provoke widespread debate.

Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color
Nina Jablonski says that differing skin colors are simply our bodies’ adaptation to varied climates and levels of UV exposure. Charles Darwin disagreed with this theory, but she explains, that’s because he did not have access to NASA.

The design genius of Charles + Ray Eames
The legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames made films, houses and classic midcentury modern furniture. Eames Demetrios, their grandson, shows rarely seen films and archival footage in a lively, loving tribute to their creative process.

Tom Wujec on 3 ways the brain creates meaning
Information designer Tom Wujec talks through three areas of the brain that help us understand words, images, feelings, connections. In this short talk from TEDU, he asks: How can we best engage our brains to help us better understand big ideas?

In this TED Talk from February 2009 Daniel shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture — raw, risky, emotional, radical — and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit.

One recent example of Daniel work is his plan for the Yongsan International Business District of Seoul.  The new large-scale district features a cluster of residential, office and retail neighborhoods in an extensive urban park along the Han River. “The idea is to create a 21st Century destination that is at once transformative, vibrant, sustainable and diverse,” Mr. Libeskind said. “I wanted to make each form, each place, each neighborhood as varied and distinctive as possible. The plan, and each building within it, should reflect the vertical and cultural complexity of the heart of Seoul.”

Quote from 422′s “Britain From Above” web page:

“422 create Unique time-lapse views of British life using real GPS data for major new BBC series presented by Andrew Marr. 422 has created ground breaking CGI sequences revealing never seen before patterns of life in modern Britain. Starting with GPS data mapping the movements of London taxi cabs, commercial aircraft, Channel shipping, refuse trucks and schoolchildren, 422 MD and senior programmer Craig Howarth translated lists of raw numeric co-ordinates sampled at regular time intervals, into coherent animated paths. 422′s VFX team, led by Art Director Dave Corfield and VFX supervisor Andy Howell visualised the resulting paths in Maya and composited them with satellite imagery of the UK using Shake. The result is simultaneously beautiful, surprising and informative. “Click either of the images to take a look 422′s at web site and watch their reel.

When I first saw it it did remind me of  Uniqlo and of course of the other great IKEA microside we reported about earlier (Atmospheric video (web) Interieur presentation from Ikea). Once again Forsman & Bodenfors has delivered a masterpiece. Kom in i Garderoben (http://kominigarderoben.se/) has a couple of interesting features like playing sound on the keyboards or using a microphone to control the videos. Forsman & Bodenfors included clips of dancing people which forwarded/rewinded according to music or you playing sounds on you keyboard. When the music stops they lay down on the floor. Make sure you take a full tour and have a look into all rooms.

Forsman & Bodenfors has been awarded with Bronze, Silver, Gold and Grand Prix in Cannes plus many other like Clio, Eurobest… Have a look at their inspiring web site: Forsman & Bodenfors web site

All rooms are all fun to watch.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

Top 10 TEDTalks

With 50 million views since Ted debuted online two years ago, TED talks have become a powerful cultural force. Ted has released their Top 10 TED talks of all time

With speakers like neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor and global health expert Hans Rosling, the list proves one of the compelling ideas behind TEDTalks: that an unknown speaker with a powerful idea can reach — and move — a global audience. Links to all 10 talks are found below — or browse through our Top 10 TED Talks Theme. Even if you’ve seen all the talks, the highlights video is darn fun.

Top 10 TED Talks of all time

1. Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han: Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone
3. David Gallo: Underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo
5. Arthur Benjamin: Lightning calculation and other “Mathemagic”
6. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
7. Hans Rosling: The best stats you’ve ever seen
8. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better
9. Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote

Beyond the Top 10 TEDTalks:

A highly recommended book “Graphic Design The New Basics” written by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips.

Some “Graphic Design: The New Basics” reviews:

motionographer.com:  “If you’re at all interested in design education—either as a teacher or as a student—Graphic Design: The New Basics is required reading. Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips have made something more than a mere textbook; they’ve created an authoritative and thorough yet useful and inspiring companion for the successful practice of graphic design. I’m confident that I will happily revisit this book again and again during my never-ending journey as a student and teacher.”

viget.com: “Overall I highly recommend this book as an addition to your personal design library. Whether you are a seasoned design professional or someone just interested in learning more, it serves as a fantastic and succinct resource for the fundamentals of good design. “

nytimesbooks.blogspot.com: “But if you do, check this one out, if only for the fantastically sourced examples”

Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips on their newest book:

“Graphic Design: The New Basics, published by Princeton Architectural Press and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Spring 2008, is a guide to basic design principles.We created this book because we didn’t see anything like it available for today’s students and young designers: a concise, visually inspiring guide to two-dimensional design written for today’s world. As educators with decades of combined experience in graduate and undergraduate teaching, we have witnessed the design scene change and change again in response to new technologies. When we were students ourselves in the 1980s, classic books such as Armin Hofmann’s Graphic Design Manual (published in 1965) had begun to lose their relevance within the restless and shifting design world. Postmodernism was on the rise, and abstract design exercises seemed out of
step with the current interest in appropriation and historicism.

During the 1990s, design educators became caught in  the pressure to teach (and learn) software, and many of us struggled to balance the teaching of technical skills with and critical thinking. Form sometimes got lost along the way, as design methodologies moved away from universal visual concepts toward a more anthropological understanding of design as a constantly changing flow of cultural sensibilities.
This book addresses the gap between software and visual thinking. By focusing on form, we have  reembraced the Bauhaus tradition and the pioneering work of the great formal design educators, from Armin Hofmann to some of our own teachers, including Malcolm Grear.
The majority of student work featured here comes  from the course we teach together at MICA, the Graphic Design MFA Studio. Also featured are excercises from a range of undergraduate design courses. A sampling of those exercises are assembled on this site. To complement the student work, the book also presents key examples from contemporary professional practice that demonstrate a variety of experimental,
visually richdesign approaches.
Graphic Design: The New Basics lays out the elements  of a visual language whose forms are employed by individuals, institutions, and locales that are increasingly connected in a global society. We hope the book will inspire more thought and creativity.
—Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips”

You can read the some sample chapter online by selecting one of the chapters below:

• Front Matter
• Color
• Layers
• Time Motion
• Modularity

About the Authors:

Ellen Lupton is Director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art, and director of MICA’s Center for Design Studies. She is also curator of contemporary design at Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City. She has curated and authored numerous exhibitions and books, including  Thinking with Type (2004), Skin (2002), National Design Triennial (2000, 2003, 2006), Mixing Messages:  Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture (1996), and Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to  Office (1993). She is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal for lifetime achievement.

Jennifer Cole Phillips is Associate Director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art, and Principal of J. Cole Phillips Design. Before joining MICA, Phillips was a tenured Associate   Professor in the program in Publications Design at University of Baltimore. She has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been included in the annuals of Graphis Design, Graphis Poster, Print, the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan Washington and New York, AIGA 50, and ACD100 Show, among  others. She served for eight years on the Board AIGA of Directors for Baltimore.