John Edson and other members of the LUNAR team spent Aug. 4-7 in Portland at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s 2010 international conference, which focused on “DIY (Do It Yourself) Design.”

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, John and the gang trade insights and observations inspired by the conference sessions. How can a DIY spirit promote innovation? What does the DIY movement mean for consumers? Why should industrial designers care about DIY?

Listen, share a comment and join the conversation.

Related resources:

• IDSA conference website

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Before the conference, we decided to go DIY all the way and actually screen print the contest entry forms and pen tags ourselves. So we had some prints made, threw on some smocks and spent two full days pulling brilliant pink, green, orange, and blue pigments across the screens. It was messy. It took patience. And it was a lot of fun. Getting away from the computer to actual use our hands and touch the piece we were creating was energizing.

The conference’s theme of “DIY—Threat or Opportunity,” spoke to the question of whether this movement will replace professional designers. But as Grace Bonney of Design Sponge noted in her keynote speech, if the DIYers learn anything about design, it’s that it’s hard! And we can attest to that. While we had a grand time getting out of the office and covering ourselves in fluorescent paint, quality craftsmanship is not something you can just pick up. It is much slower than the professional design process, so you need to be able to commit the time to doing it. And it takes a decent amount of skill. Our summer camp screen printing experience served us well for this particular project, but we’re not about to set up a shop—we’ll leave that to the professionals.

To throw some fun facts at an unappetizing reality, 50% of all food is tossed away. This clocks in at 8.3 million tons, or to attach a dollar sign to it, $20 billion dollars worth of waste. All the while over a billion people have next to nothing on their plates. This squandering of perfectly edible resources comes about by way of an unbalanced food served to food eaten ratio, spoiled leftovers, and generally insufficient foresight. And don’t get us started on the amount of food packaging that goes into the landfill each day…

Since this year’s IDSA international conference theme is DIY, we thought we’d get in on the fun. We are posing a challenge to the attending students to cook up a creative solution to address this conundrum with a DIY food container design. Rethink the way we transport food by creating a container made from found objects. The vessel is one part of the equation, but the interaction it evokes is another. Whether it’s food waste prevention or food distribution, in a restaurant or at home, think about how a singular, DIY assembled, modified or crafted creation can change the way we manage the ill effects of the human managed food chain. Entries should walk us through the thought process by detailing out a “how-to” for the creation of the solution.

To participate, students must be present at the IDSA conference and must submit their entry to LUNAR’s display panel in the exhibit hall of the Hilton. Use the LUNAR Sharpie found in the conference goody bag and post your entry to the panel. The most creative entry wins an iPad!

All entries must be posted to the panel by 5pm on Friday, August 6th. The contest will be judged on Saturday, August 7th by LUNAR’s John Edson, FastCompany’s Linda Tischler, and the team at Preserve, makers of high performance, eco-friendly products for the home. The winner will be notified by phone and announced on LUNAR’s blog by Monday, August 16th.

Official rules can be found here.

LUNAR’s John Edson talks about the contest in this Icon-o-Cast Minute:

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Our devices know which way we’re moving and how dark it is outside. They look us in the face with cameras while we’re tweeting away. They sometimes even understand when we talk back to them.

What do new opportunities in interface design mean for designers and users? What untapped potential lies in physical interactivity that doesn’t involve touching anything at all?

Ron Goldin, senior interaction designer at LUNAR, talked about Truly Invisible Interfaces at the 2010 South by Southwest Conference. He’s produced this online recap of his talk which includes history, insights and great examples of touchless interfaces in entertainment, gaming, medical, urban planning, fitness, fashion, making out and more.

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We gave one of our subjects an early prototype to use. After fiddling with it for a while, he found a feature that we had designed for those with low vision: he bumped the text size up, and up, and up – until he finally saw only one word at a time. And almost as if by magic the struggle faded and pretty quickly he could follow along with the audio. No furrowed brow, no frustration.

It turns out that one of the things that makes reading a challenge for us is something called “crowding.” As this article points out the current trends of smaller screens are already improving the reading experience for dyslexics. “John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University and chair of the Dyslexia Research Trust (says) ‘when reading text on a small phone, you’re reducing the crowding effect.’” In addition to this “one-word-at-a-time” capability, the Intel Reader goes even further to read the words aloud to people, further improving the experience. The recent headlines about e-books, their readers and the world of publishing may mean that printed text is becoming more accessible to everyone, dyslexics and non-dyslexics alike, contrary to popular belief.

LUNAR designed a novel valve design that employs the body’s own breath to create expiratory positive airway pressure, which helps maintain an open airway during sleep. Learn more about PROVENT and sleep apnea on Ventus Medical’s website.

LUNAR’s John Edson checks out the 2010 San Francisco Design Week kickoff party and talks with local leaders about how design makes a difference.

Guests include:

• Donald W. Savoie, Executive Director, AIGA San Francisco
• Alice Bybee, President, AIGA
• Henrik Olsen, Interactive Chair, AIGA
• Christopher Simmons
• Dave Muro, Programming Co-Chair, AIGA
• Madelin Woods

Related resources:

• 2010 SF Design Week website and schedule of events

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The practice of industrial design has changed more in the past 10 years than in the previous 100.  Gone are the days when designers engaged in “make pretty” exercises.

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, SF design leaders Allan Velzy and Charlie Sheldon join LUNAR’s John Edson in a conversation about how the Industrial Designer’s Society of America in San Francisco is helping local designers thrive in this new world through IDSA’s innovative programs and events.

Related resources:

• IDSA San Francisco’s website

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When we had a spare moment to sneak away from the booth, these were some of the things we took in:

Some nice debuts. Council has a nice breadth for their 4 young years, including the new Swarm piece from Mike+Maaike.

Several rocking pieces, from rocking lawn lounger to a rocking bed. Is this some kind of recession/post-recession return to the womb?

Molo is nicely expanding their unique collection of honeycomb cardboard furniture into lighting. We loved their cardboard house and the lamps displayed as clouds around it. Playful and attractive!

Loved the Tom Dixon booth/ mini factory. Hats off to the effort of a well established designer pushing for local/ DIY manufacturing. Being able to see the assembly process, better understand the manufacturing process and even buy a product on the spot was quite new for a professional trade-show. But maybe I’m just a process geek!

Anne Kyyro Quinn’s Bespoke acoustic wall panels: very crafty and stunning felt wall panels. Simple idea, beautiful result. Would love some of them in our upcoming new office!

In general, lots of raw and crafty materials, many indigenous process and designer featured with very high quality and unique pieces.
We could not be happier with our first run at ICFF. Looking forward to next year! And since getting back to San Francisco, Koo has been getting overwhelmingly positive response. Bloggers, retailers and mommies everywhere are singing the praise of multifunctional baby gear that actually looks great.

Here’s what folks are saying:
Apartment Therapy
Notcot
Inhabitot
Design Milk

If you’d like to get updated with our progress on bringing Koo to the market, email talk@lunar.com to be put on our list.