PSFK's Good Ideas Salon, London-Style

PSFK will be hosting a full day-long Good Ideas Salon, in London on January 30, 2009. From a varied mix of PSFK hand-picked innovators and leaders in creative thinking, attendees will gain insight into such areas as: arts & culture, collaboration, design, digital, marketing, mobile, and youth.

Contagious: The World in Words

The story of a man and his pregnant wife, rushing through the streets of NYC in time to get to the hospital and deliver the baby, with all visual elements represented by words (watch and see for yourself).

"A world made only with typographics"



Made by DJ Alex Gopher.

Fallon Brainfood

Brainfood is a monthly all-agency lunch conducted by Fallon Planners. Wide-ranging topics explore trends, business issues, and actionable opportunities for our brands.

Last month's presentation: Design For All
Fallon strategic planners Aki Spicer and Alyson Heller explore the 360° influence that modern design has on the experience of our brands.

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Prior presentation: Virtuality
Fallon strategic planners Aki Spicer (Aki Octagon) and Avin Narasimhan (Desi Stoneage) have come back from the future to offer their POV about Virtuality and it’s implications for brands.

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*Look for Avin to post last week's Brainfood, Dragon Rising (China) soon.

Taking It To The Streets: Obey Endorses Obama

Well known (and previously mentioned) street artist, Obey/Shepard Fairey, has made a recent endorsement of Barack Obama - and has done so in a quite intriguing way. He created 350 limited edition screen-printed posters (image above), to be sold to fund a larger street poster campaign. The profits are being used to produce stickers and large posters that will be sent to those who are willing to throw down for Obama in the streets. See communication from the Obey team below:

"Thanks for reaching out and wanting to get involved with OBEY's effort to support the OBAMA Campaign. Shepard made this image for the purpose of making pasters to be put on the street, with the money coming from prints sales to help fund the effort. For those interested, we will be sending out a care-package of the OBAMA Paster plus some OBEY stickers to be put up on the street. These pasters will be folded, not tubed, and are STRICTLY for street use. We do not expect to see them for sale on EBAY or anywhere else, so we ask that only the seriously dedicated get involved!"

There will also be non-partisan posters pushing everyone to vote:


Remember, Obey is the guy who over the past 10-15 years has decorated most major U.S. cities with the iconic Andre the Giant imagery:



Look familiar?

Honestly, I see this as a significant endorsement because street artists, in general, tend to be anti-helping-the-man. They are known for being anti-this and anti-that, but rarely, if ever do we see them promoting a politician, or a presidential candidate for that matter. Not to mention Obey has quite the following. Equally, if not more significant, is that the Obama camp appears to be embracing the endorsement.

Wonder if we will end up seeing any of these posters around?

What's Next: The New Keyboard for the Texting Generation

Given I'm just a couple years out and, as many who know me would agree, still as prone to immature humor as ever, one of my favorite sites continues to be College Humor. While running through the RSS feeds today, caught this article on what a keyboard redesigned for the texters and IM junkies among us may look like. Silly as it might be, makes me wonder if this would actually be met with success...


The left...

and the right side...

can't forget that number pad

"Good enough" for green

Scientific American this month focuses in on the various complexities of our current food situation: "The global paradox of obesity and malnutrition." I'd recommend that anyone who is interested in diet, health and consumption should pick this up.

Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat and NYT contributor, wades through many of the conflicting stories we hear to try to get to a simplified view on what to embrace and what to avoid. On the subject of organics, she writes:

Further research will likely confirm that organic foods contain higher nutrient levels, but it is unclear whether these nutrients would make a measurable improvement in health....Organics may be somewhat healthier to eat, but they are far less likely to damage the environment, and that is reason enough to choose them at the supermarket.

She makes a great point here. As individuals, eating organics might not make a difference, but they certainly aren't hurting us, and they are contributing to better living for the whole. I kept thinking about that as I read an article in SmartMoney about green washing machines that questioned whether they get clothes clean enough. The article points out that, since 1990, washing machines have decreased energy consumption by 56% and subsequently, half as powerful. One thing that's making it easier to ignore a shadow of a wine stain: new washers are cool looking. Rainbow colored, smaller, and with touch screen panels, people want them in their homes. While I have to wonder: are our clothes really that dirty?, using other appeals to make it easier for appliance purchasers will help them follow Marion Nestle and endure slightly more in the short term with the understanding that it'll make the long term brighter for everyone.

DO: Inspiration

Lots of talk about getting up and doing more lately (shout to Leland's manifesto about taking action in planning). I think part of the magic potion is finding inspiration so compelling that the spirit moves you into action. So here are a few examples of innovation and invention that will will hopefully move you in that direction.

"INDEX: is a global non-profit network organization that focuses on Design to Improve Life – e.g. design that substantially improves important aspects of human life – worldwide."

Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? Last week, awards were given to designers who had made significant contributions to designing differently.

Of course our favorite computer made the cut.

And the Solar Bottle, an answer to unclean drinking water. After bottling, the water sits in the sun, and pathogens are destroyed by heat. Winning designers, Alberto Meda & Francisco Gomez Paz increased functionality and practicality by adding an aluminum side to increase reflection and a handle to make the bottle portable. Simple, but brilliant.

via creativity.

The Laundry is another example of devising practical solutions. It's a paper recycling system for small businesses in London. And it's easy easy easy. Put your paper on the sidewalk, someone will take it away, and then, voile! magically, 100% recycled paper will return in its place. It completes the loop, so now recycled products are integrated painlessly into business' operations. One small step down the path that can help acclimatize companies to alternative products/uses.

Conscientious Consumption: The 11th Hour and Air Travel

Last weekend, Leonardo DiCaprio's The 11th Hour was released in select cities (Minneapolis: August 31). The film's promotional web site is interesting. (Well, aside from the lame Planet Green game sponsored by Starbucks; reminds me of "fun" children's PSA activities—how many forms of pollution can you find in this picture?—or of Captain Planet.)


A brief quiz lets you assess your carbon output. While that service isn't new, this is a clean and easy way to assess your lifestyle. I don't drive, so my biggest output is air travel. I admire people like John Grant who have cut their impact by reducing travel, but would find it hard to follow suit for both personal and professional reasons. Mine are typical issues: far-flung family and friends, out of town clients, and the not insignificant (and not unselfish) love of travel and exploration (if only I'd been to Climate Camp, perhaps I'd feel otherwise). Purchasing carbon offsets would be a good first step, but that ultimately doesn't solve the problem, it simply incorporates true cost of the service.

So if we can't cut out travel, what to do instead? We have low emission vehicles, why not low-emission planes? And low-emission airports (think of all the trash created while we eat our way to departure time, moving walkways, 24/7 lighting, etc.)? Yet as McDonough and Braungart note in Cradle to Cradle, "being 'less bad' is no good." Is there a completely clean solution? Unlike mass consumer technology, the design of commercial planes—and most major forms of transport—has remained relatively stagnant over the past 50 years, concentrating on improving the existing model versus revolutionizing the idea itself. The physical air travel infrastructure is relatively minimal compared to other modes of transport (beyond airports, there aren't thousands of miles of track or road that must be maintained; fueling stations are centralized); can that be leveraged in a redesign?

Easy questions to pose when you're not an engineer, but as someone whose life has been greatly shaped by air travel, I sincerely hope the eco-vs.-airplane game isn't zero-sum. And if so, perhaps by the time we've reached that conclusion the physicists will have figured out how to make Apparition a reality.