Desktop Calendar Wallpaper: November 2009

So sorry about the slow update…
This is one of my favorite quotes by Thomas Edison. “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

edison2_12801280×800px

1920×1200px | 1680×1050px | 1024×768px

With tons of stuff to do, I haven’t even posted the latest idea. I’ll do it next week I promise. And after that, probably the best post for this year will be here in a few weeks!

Quackie

This is a very weird looking CD player. It looks like a head of a duck when a CD is set. (Why a CD player now you ask? I’ll write a post in Johnnyholland.)

quackie_1

quackie_2

quackie_4

There’s a round body that rolls and a black speaker. the speaker is attached to the body at its axis and it rolls around the body.

The functions are just play/pause/next/previous and volume up/down. To turn up the volume, you roll the body so that the “beak” opens up. When you turn it off, just let it stop quacking.

circles3_image

description

That’s it. I wouldn’t stop rolling it for a while I had it on my desk. And my kids would never leave there.

quackie_5

quackie_6

circles7_image2

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Desktop Calendar Wallpaper: October 2009

Just in time.

maple_1280
1280x800px

1920x1200px | 1680x1050px | 1280x1024px | 1024x768px | iPhone&iPod Touch (without calendar)

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Albert Camus

If I’m allowed to design stuff like what I show in this blog not only in my free time but all day long, I’ll definitely do it. Just wondering.

Post-It on Desktop Icons

This is simple and it might have been used already, but I really want to paste a post-it on a desktop icon so that I won’t forget what I should do with it. So if anybody knows a plugin like this, please let me know!!

post-it on desktop icon1

post-it on desktop icon4

Post-it colors, font size should be customizable just like “Stickies” (a default mac application).

post-it on desktop icon2

Quick Look (a quick preview feature) or hover the cursor to see the enlarged image of the post-it.

post-it on desktop icon3

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

iPhone Dock Sketches

iHammock

I use my iPhone at work and at home. When I’m at work in the office, I can’t make it ring loud when there’s an incoming phone call or an email, so I change the setting to the silent (vibration) mode. But when it vibrates on my desk, it makes even louder noise than a beep, so I was thinking if I could make something soft to put my iPhone on so that it doesn’t rattle when vibrating, and thought that a hammock style would be fun. It looks like your iPhone is relaxing on a hammock, so I added a parasol that works as a solar power battery charger. You open and flip the parasol in the sun to get electricity and close and fix it on the hammock to charge your iPhone.
“iHammock”?

Just for fun again.

hammock_image1

hammock1_image

hammock2_image2

hammock4_image

hammock5_image

hammock3b_image

hammock3_imagec

iAcqua2

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a 3D screen that displays stereoscopic images of music visualizer and stocked photos when your iPhone is docked? It’s like a combination of my old ideas (snow globe screen and iAcqua).

iAcua2-1
3D screen and a speaker

iAcua2-2

iAcua2-3

iAcua2-4

iAcua2-5

iAcua2-6

iAcua2-7
Cover flow in the water flow?

iAcua2-8

OC

This one tilts a bit when your iPhone is docked, making the speakers and the transparent screen float.
It tells you when there’s a phone call and an email by rocking from side to side.

OC-1

OC-2

OC-3

OC-4

OC-5

OC-6

OC-7

OC-8


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

red dot design concept award 2009

red dot design concept award 2009 winner

I can’t believe I won the red dot design concept award for the Looking Glass concept!! (I added some photos of the awarding ceremony on my Flickr.)

First of all, let me thank Radhika Seth (for everything), Mika Ueno and *momoc (for beautiful photos), Takashi Yamada (for first picking up and naming this gadget), Regina Teh (for inviting me for the competition) and my family (for letting me keep doing this crazy hobby).
This is really exciting for me because it’s the first award I won since I became a designer.

I added some new images and fixed a few old ones.

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality
Dragging stuff like a building floor to see its floor map would be useful and fun.

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

future of internet search augmented reality

And here’s the presentation sheet I submitted to the red dot.

future of internet search augmented reality presentation

future of internet search augmented reality presentation

future of internet search augmented reality presentation

I also appreciate all the support I’ve got from the readers and magazine/newspaper editors who wrote articles of this gadget.
I’m planning to attend the award ceremony on November 24th in Singapore, so anyone who happens to be there, please talk to me. I’ll post some photos on my Flickr if I can shoot good ones there. And of course I’ll keep twitting in Singapore, too.

Desktop Calendar Wallpaper: September 2009

genius_1280
1280x800px

iPhone&iPod Touch | 1920x1200px | 1680x1050px

Sorry it took so much.
This is one of my favorite quotes that my teacher taught me when I was in 5th grade of elementary school. In Japanese it says like “No genius can compete with someone who’s making continuous efforts”. Since I knew that quote, I try to do what I want to be good at little by little but every single day.

3D Desktop Concept

I’m back! Thank you so much for all the get-well messages and comments. As I wrote on Twitter, the operation went OK and I’m 90% back to normal. I drew some sketches in my Moleskine while I was in the hospital, and this is one of them.

This 3D hologram video just makes me want to have a desktop like this.

When you’re not using it, it works as a desk lamp.

3D_Desktop4-1_image2

Bring the black curtain down so that the hologram can be seen more clearly in front of you.
There are tiny projectors installed, giving off 3D hologram in front of the curtain.

3D_Desktop4-1b_image2

3D_Desktop4-3_image2

3D_Desktop4-2b_image

A browser window can be resized by actually “pinching” and dragging the tab at bottom right.

3D_Desktop4-7_image

It would be fun if a document could be made as if you were using a typewriter. The curled paper hologram comes out of the keyboard.

3D_Desktop4-6_image

Touching the 3D objects would be really fun. Dragging, throwing, resizing, etc., but crushing paper to dispose it would be the most interesting.

3D_Desktop4-10b_image

You have to adjust the “depth” of the cursor on screen, so how about a mouse like this? By pressing the mouse body downwards, the cursor sinks (goes deeper) on screen. When you release it, it goes back to the default position (front).

3D_Desktop4-4_image
3D_Desktop4-5b_image

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.


See also a related post.