David Lidsky's Blog, page 4617

Calling on the Crowd, to Create New City Branding

Official city logos suck. Either they're boring or hideous or suggestive of all the wrong things, and rarely do they capture the spirit of the place. So designers are taking matters into their own hands. Through the open-source initiative CitID, people can create city logos, then post them online at www.citid.net. The project has drawn ideas from every corner of the earth, from New York and Berlin to Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. Here, we've selected some of the best -- and yes, some of the worst...

Solving the Design Paradox: Budgets Come from the Top Down, But Design Happens from the Bottom Up

In my last post, I told you that to make great design happen, you have to follow the money. There are many companies--Dyson, BMW, Nike and OXO come to mind--that have design in their DNA. And more companies are getting into design as fast as I can type. New direction setting for design is often initiated top down.

For example, Bob Ulrich, the CEO of Target, recognized design as an opportunity to compete against Walmart. He established a mantra--"Trend right, guest-focused and...

Death Star vs. Japan: How Adidas Survived One Viral Ad Campaign Gone Wrong

For Chris Barbour, the digital marketing guru behind Adidas's sports style division (and #76 on Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business list), innovation is always worth the risk, even if the consequences are entirely unpredictable. He told the tale of one such viral marketing strategy that went terribly awry--it ended up offending the entire nation of Japan--at our Most Creative
People conference in New York City yesterday. Here's his story:

To promote a sneaker collaboration...

Innovative Mayor Sam Adams Builds a Cleaner Portland

In honor of our Fast Cities Breakfast coming up on June 22, we spoke with Portland mayor Sam Adams, who, in his first State of City address last February, vowed to make Portland "the most sustainable city in the world."

And this wasn't some populist politician's empty promise. In his first year in office, Adams implemented the Climate Action Plan, a roadmap to cutting Carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050; he's merged the Office of Sustainable Development with the Bureau of Planning to...

Hamish McLennan, CEO of Y&R on Measured Risk

As Global CEO of ad shop Y&R, Hamish McLennan takes a calculated approach to everyday risks from new hires to the creative pitches, whats it it for him? Big Payoffs.

Spain's Ambitious Solar Program Facing Budget Cuts

Spain has long been heralded as a leader in solar power generation. The country, which covered 2.8% of its electricity demand in 2009 with solar energy, is the fourth largest manufacturer of solar power technology in the world. This success can largely be attributed to a 2007 law that offered 25 years of above-market price guarantees to solar developers. Now that Spain is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the government may abolish that law--potentially bringing down the country's solar...

iFive: BP Blunders... Again, College Humor's New Site, iPhone Preorder Chaos, Fast Portland, AOL Unloads Bebo

While you were dreaming of lounging by the pool, BP and AOL continued dog paddling, College Humor jumped into the gaming content deep end, AT&T got deluged, and Portland surfaced as a Fast City. 1. Portland, Oregon mayor Sam Adams (yes, like the brewski), driven to make his city the "the most sustainable city in the world," has implemented a roadmap for cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent in the next 40 years. He's created an Office of Sustainable Development and worked at allocating...

Shadowy Design Mind Artemy Lebedev Speaks About His New Moscow Metro Map

Art. Lebedev Studio unveils a modern subway map for Moscow.

[UPDATE: Through a translator, we managed to secure an interview with Artemy Lebedev, the elusive founder of Art. Lebedev Studio]

FastCompany.com: Why redesign the subway map? Is the official one really that terrible?

Artemy Lebedev: We've decided to redesign the map because the official map didn't show any symptoms of getting better. I call it "explosion of a bicycle chain factory." That describes it perfectly.
What sort of...

Geoengineering Project Paints Peruvian Mountain to Restore Glacier

Geoengineering--deliberate manipulation of the Earth's climate--has gained traction in recent years as a supplement to more traditional climate change reduction schemes. The concepts advanced in the movement range from the practical to the wacky: forests of synthetic trees, microbubbles pumped into the ocean, algae-lined buildings, and ships that spray climate-altering clouds into the sky. But while these schemes largely remain pipe dreams, one inventor has already begun a geoengineering...

Steelcase Reinvents the Hospital Cart for the Health Care Revolution

Rolling through hospitals are the ubiquitous carts that nurses use for everything from calculating lab results to transporting IV bags. In the near future, these carts will do more than simply wheel supplies. They'll need to perform increasingly high-tech tasks, all while remaining easy for caregivers to move and clean, and still feel friendly to patients. Such was the challenge confronted by a new medical cart called Pocket, which debuted at this week's NeoCon show in Chicago.

[youtube...