yves behar – DesignApplause

yves behar designs unagi model eleven the smartest e-scooter in the world.

Nov 19, 2021

at 232 pounds, the beautifully designed model eleven is the lightest full-suspension, dual motor scooter in the micro-mobility scooter space. and it’s smart!

while the scooter isn’t autonomous, with an onboard advanced driver assistance system (adas) just like a car, the scooter knows the difference between a stoplight, stop sign, person, car or inanimate object, and provides both audible warnings with its integrated audio system, as well as visual warnings on the display.

the round touchscreen display provides turn-by-turn navigation and with its integrated led ring that animates in different colors to alert battery, collision detection, lane departure warning, adas, signaling, and other functions. the audio system provides instructions and warnings during navigation and if you’re not using the gps navigation feature, riders can connect to the scooter via bluetooth to play music.

gps is also built into the scooter as a theft deterrent. if the motion-activated alarm doesn’t stop a thief, the gps tracker displays its location and riders can remotely lock the scooter via the scooter’s smartphone app.

the mechanical side of things – the frame, forks, and handlebars – boasts the first two-wheel object to use a space age material designed in switzerland called long carbon composite that allows molds and shapes traditional carbon fiber is incapable of.

the wheels are unique – the motors are integrated into each wheel-well and each tire is hot-swappable making replacement seamless. the tires are foam-filled and puncture resistant.

the version with an adas for object detection will be $2,500, while the simpler model starts at $2,100. both come with different color options including stealth black, electric yellow, a matte black, mint green, and desert sand.

[ fuse project ] [ unagi ]

Why. Herman miller.

Jul 19, 2013

Committed to sharing the stories behind their designs, Herman Miller launches WHY, a digital platform for brand journalism and exclusive content. For the launch, Herman Miller collaborates with Dutch illustrator and animator Christian Borstlap in whittling down 108 years of Herman Miller design history into 108 seconds.

[ mission statement ] At Herman Miller we think, learn, and communicate through design. It is the language with which we share new ideas and address the problems people face. Before we decide what we do and how we do it, we must first ask “why?” It is in this spirit of inquiry that we approach the stories we tell on WHY. For us, design is never just about a finished product. It is a narrative that extends from the designer’s vision to the people it touches and places it transforms. With WHY, we invite you to discover why we do what we do at Herman Miller. [ why ]

Menu. Ambiente 2013.

Mar 27, 2013

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[DesignApplause ] We are in the Menu booth at Ambiente talking to CEO Peter Midgaard.
[Peter Midtgaard] I’ve been involved with menu for almost seven years. I’ve been in this business typolgy before and I’ve always liked design, and seven-plus years ago I was looking for a new business opportunity and found Menu to be interesting and bought a part of the shares and ever since have been working as CEO for the company. Menu is basically a family business created and established by Bjarne Hansen’s father Simon Hansen and was called Danish Steel House and produced most of its products in stainless steel. His son Bjarne changed it into a design company with it’s own designers and other designers and has become Menu’s brand image. Menu’s success has soared with this strategy.

[DA] How old is Menu? When did it become design-driven?
[PM] About 33 years old and about 1988 or so. It was quite a coincidence. I don’t know if you remember PETER MENTIONS A VERY FAMOUS MENU PRODUCT AND SAID THAT WAS THE START OF THE MENU DESIGN ERA.

[DA] Are you in the commercial sector in this typology?
[PM] We are moving into it. Not so deep as of yet but we will go deep in contract.

[DA] Why do you wish to go there?
[PM] We are seeing things develop in different ways. If you look at the design business and you look at the mainstream business it’s about price competition and we don’t want to participate in that business model. If we can get into the contract business we can actually go into projects that are expanding us further. We wish to move away from the mainstream part of the business. One of the things that’s helped us is contract.

[DA] Where are your big customers?
[PM] The US is our fourth biggest country and it’s growing very fast. Of the big countries the US is growing the fastest. The biggest country is Denmark but it’s only 30% of our market. We have Germany and Norway and the US.

[DA] Your not a designer but you appreciate and understand design. Do you study trends and are your products timeless?
[PM] Oh, we’re a design company for sure but what we really try to achieve is the common trends. Sometimes we are part of the trend but when we try and do something we don’t look at the trends. We actually try and anticipate what things are going to be like one-and-a-half to two years from now. We would really like to start a trend.

[DA] How many products do you have and what categories do they fall in?
[PM] We have around 400 products which include new products and classic products that have been very successful the past 10-15 years. We have our own categories. One of which we call ‘cozy’ AND AN EXAMPLE WOULD BE… Another category is called ‘ideas’ and that could a candelabra, a stand-alone kind of product that’s difficult to put into families. The ‘ideas’ category is our edgiest you might say. Let me show you an example. Here are candlestick holders that are concrete. It’s seven kilos (15.5 lbs) for the big one. Bjarke Ingels designed the pieces. It’s a very good example of ‘ideas’. Let’s go down here. Here is a series called ‘Pots’ by Benjamin Hubert. The series is for the kitchen and it’s new for Ambiente. And it’s not for the mainstream market.

[DA] Is there anything you wish to say that we haven’t covered?
[PM] In this interview? A thousand things.

weight here | bjarke ingels | 2012

pots | benjamin hubert | 2013

Bloomberg business week design 2013.

Jan 3, 2013

Businessweek magazine announced Bloomberg Businessweek Design 2013, its first annual design conference, to be held on Monday, January 14, 2013 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA. [ details ]

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Why design. Herman miller asks questions

Sep 12, 2012

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Herman Miller launched a design series [ “Why Design” ] 10 September. Here’s there the official announcement:

At Herman Miller design is the language we use to ask questions and seek answers to the problems our customers face. The design process is a journey into the unknown—or as George Nelson once quipped, “I have never met a designer who was retained to keep things the same as they were.” Before we decide what we do and how we do it, we like to begin by asking the question “Why?” In Why Design, a new video series, we explore the world through the eyes of our designers, and share something of why we value their point of view.

Each Monday morning, from September 10th through October 29th, we will launch a new designer profile at Why Design. The series includes:

9.10.12 – Yves Béhar – “Surfing Is Like
Improvisational Jazz”

9.17.12 – Don Chadwick – “The Camera Becomes an Extension of Your
Eyes”

9.24.12 – Ayse Birsel – “Your Life Is Your Most Important
Project”
10.1.12 – Irving Harper – “Paper Is a Versatile Medium”

10.8.12 – Gianfranco Zaccai – “Great Food Should Be Like Great
Design”
10.15.12 – Studio 7.5 – “Design by Its Nature Is
Collaborative”

10.22.12 – Steve Frykholm – “It’s the Breaks That Allow My Mind to
Refresh”
10.29.12 – Sam Hecht + Kim Colin – “We Need Contrast and Tension to Be
Able to Create”

Accompanying each video is a series of candid photographs from the designers’ daily lives, offering a glimpse into their world and thought processes, and a profile of their design work for Herman Miller and beyond.

[ why design ] [ herman miller ]

Biolit 12. Cecile manz.

Jul 2, 2012

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The boom box is back—again. Portable sound in the age of the IPad and Iphone has taken the form of an electronic picnic basket—the Beolit 12. The Beolit 12 features Apple’s AirPlay technology. Place a device in its tray top and it charges and plays. That link is simpler and surer than the Bluetooth used in such devices as Yves Behar’s brick like Jambox for Jawbone.

The basket, in graphite or blond colors, was designed by a 40-year-old Danish designer Cecilie Manz. She said, “I wanted Beolit 12 to have a clear expression showing its functionality and at the same time blending in naturally in people’s home. The natural leather handle invites you to move Beolit around—it makes it more approachable somehow.”

The look is new for B&O known for its Scandinavian modern space age electronics in the 1960s and 1970s. The work of Jens Jensen and his British born heir David Lewis, B&O was at its height in 1978, when the Museum of Modern Art gave the company’s work a show and has included some 20 of its pieces in the collection: the Beogram phonograph with its sliding tone arm, the CD player that magically opens when a hand approaches.

But B&O audio was never taken very seriously by audiophiles of whom there were many in the 1970s, before the focus of cool tech switched to computers. B&O stuff was for well off guys who wanted to impress women; in films of the 1980s it signaled the cad or villain.

The bright aluminum and glass of that look is absent in the Beolit 12, which just won the Red Dot design award in Europe, also echoes portable tube radios from the 1950s. Manz has designed several hand blown glass products, as well as lighting fixtures and furniture. On her web site is a wicker basket rendered in composites, foreshadowing the Beolit.

The company’s long time design consultant, David Lewis, died in November of last year. One of B&O fans of course was Steve Jobs, who happily adapted the wheel style controls of the first iPod from B&O phones. In January the company announced a new sub brand, supposed to be more accessible. But the Beolit 12 lists at $770. [ b&o ] [ cecile manz ]

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Meeting knives. International home & housewares 2012.

Mar 27, 2012

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Your brain may say more form than function but not as much as you might imagine. And the weight and material feel quite appropriate. The mismatch may be the highly philosophical Fionacci sequence with it’s base of the average hand width that determines the knives proportions and the name of these knives: the Meeting Knives. Suggested retail is $1,250 for the set of four though $750 online. You are paying for precision as the knives fit perfectly together. Not surprising that Yves Béhar, designer of the Herman Miller Sayl, a least materials design solution, put a set of these knives on his holiday gift list. The design won the European Design Award for Cutlery Creation. [ designapplause objects ]

designer: mia schamallenbach
producer: deglon
material: stainless steel, teflon

Best in bikes.

Oct 24, 2011

There’s no shortage of great looking, new bikes being designed all the time now, and as more and more urban planners around the world design their cities with bikes in mind – and bike riding moves steadily from the realm of the leisurely weekend jaunt to actual transportation – you can expect designers are only going to crank out more lustable bikes and accessories. With that in mind, here’s the latest crop of two-wheeled wonders and other bike-related news.

Cannondale/Junk Food Clothing Collaboration: Don’t let the name Junk Food fool you. The LA-based clothing company teamed up with Cannondale to make some seriously luxe leather accessories, including a saddle, a convertible messenger bag (it snaps onto the frame and can be taken off and carried as a bag) and an itty-bitty saddle bag designed to carry a rolled up t-shirt so you can change your sweaty tee post ride and arrive fresh. (You can also enter to win a sweet Cannondale Bad Boy.)

Oregon Manigest Bicycle Design Challenge: You’ve probably seen pictures of the striking, orange and white, surfboard-carrying bike designed by Yves Behar’s Fuseproject in collaboration with Sycip, but that’s actually one of three collaborations designed outside of the competition, presumably to give it some some star power without imposing their celeb status on the decidedly less famous participants. I don’t plan on biking to the beach for a surf sesh any time soon, but I would love another alternative to my awkwardly front-heavy wire basket. The contest ended a few weeks ago; Check out some of the entries.

“Modus,” a Quirky bike: Though Quirky is better known for designing better corkscrew, dog leashes and other home goods, the NY-based community-sourced design powerhouse recently teamed up with Sony Pictures Entertainment on the Moneyball project, a 24-hour design challenge to reinvent the bike. They came up with an open frame structure that houses a clip-in, multi-purpose accessory that is a bike lock, boombox, battery and briefcase, all in one. And yeah, battery means it’s a hybrid, so it’s even more functional as a commuter bike.

“Hal” skateboard light: Do you know how many nights I bike home and almost collide with a skateboarder gliding through the bike lane dressed all in black? Okay, maybe almost collide is a but of an exaggeration, but seriously skateboarders: you guys (and gals) are hard to see at night! Go put one of these new Hal (Clever 2001: A Space Oddyssey reference, anyone?) safety lights under your board so I don’t mow you down on my PM commute.

about perrin drumm

mission one. electric motorcycle.

Feb 5, 2009

Mission Motors builds the world’s fastest electric production motorcycle, Mission One.

Top speed is 150 MPH and an estimated range of 150 miles.

Designed for Mission Motors, the bike was unveiled at the TED 2009 conference at Long Beach, California, today.

The announcement formally debuts Mission Motors, a San Francisco-based company geared to redefine the world of performance motorcycles. The company was founded in 2007 by entrepreneurs Forrest North (CEO), Edward West (President), and Mason Cabot (VP of Engineering).

Building on their backgrounds in engineering, a desire to develop clean vehicles, and a passion for motorcycles, the Mission Motors founders developed a proprietary high energy lithium ion battery pack that could provide both the range and acceleration needed for a high performance sportbike. The company (named Hum Cycles at the time) placed second in the transportation category of the 2007 California Cleantech Open, the largest cleantech business plan competition on the West Coast.

Designer: Yves Behar of fuseproject
Producer: Mission Motors