Excess of time, resources and idleness lead to inventions, that it’s not a secret, think about couture, fine arts and sports, they are products of a relatively secure community with enough money and resources. Take for example Stark’s “juicy salif” lemon squeezer, do you think this beautiful object but completely useless product could have been designed and manufactured in a marginal and poor community? I don’t think so, however this product is completely logical to picture it in the hands of a French designer and an Italian manufacturer.

If we understand security as the loss of preoccupation of a certain thing or matter, we can picture that there are different levels of security, it’s different to be afraid of finding where to pass the night than to be afraid of loosing an appointment with the manicurist. Sure that ironically both could cause the same amount of stress on certain people, but they sure have different consequences.

It is not a surprise that we live on societies with many, exaggerated or not, threats and fears; terrorism, global warming, natural catastrophes, crime, feeding, H1N1, global crisis… you name it, sure there is place for it.

However creation is everywhere, under stressful situations where only a limited amount of resources are available there is also a unique power for inventiveness and innovation, from simple hacks to revolutionary products and systems… We can find one recent popular example in the story of William Kamkwamba a young Malawian boy who found the way to design and build a windmill that generated electrical power for his house, William managed to write and publish his story in the book “The boy who harnessed the windmill”, now he is very popular and supported by all kinds of organizations (as you could imagine).

But this is not extraordinary, is a an everyday thing on many places in the world, one simple look at a Mexican village could give you a huge lesson on how to solve many problems with simple, yet extraordinary inventions.

Now that we are starting to feel the anguish and fear from the much commented war against the drug trafficking in Mexico and other, not less important, problems in our country such as lack of employment and a pretty mediocre education, we as creative people have to analyze where is our opportunity in all of these, where we can find a shifting point in order to change our environment.

Fear, lack of opportunities, violence, ignorance are also stimulants, let’s deal with i

Miguel Melgarejo

Es pequeño, pero suficiente para poder tener tu propia mini fábrica de productos, en el sitio web del proyecto vienen los instructivos completos para poder fabricarla, todo protegido por  creative commons.

Y esto es solo el comienzo, seguramente estamos viendo el inicio de un gran cambio en la forma en la que consumimos y fabricamos nuestros productos… Me quedan muchos pensamientos acerca de si esto tendría un impacto positivo o negativo en el medio ambiente, ¿qué opinan?

39CHZE56UZRP

disabled designers?

(scroll down for english translation)

primero que nada habrá que decir lo siguiente:

EL 50% DE LAS PERSONAS CON DISCAPACIDADES EN MÉXICO SE SIENTE DISCRIMINADO

así lo es, hace un par de días me topé con una nota de el universal que decía esto mismo, aún que para los mexicanos puedo decir que no es una sorpresa saber esto, lo sorpresivo es que estos datos los dio a conocer el presidente de la república, acompañado de varias promesas y planes (como siempre) que se impulsarán en un futuro.

y adivinen que? esta es una oportunidad enorme para diseñar cosas relevantes para nuestro país.
el plan incluye la aplicación de estímulos fiscales para las empresas que les den empleo a personas con capacidades diferentes (quieren lograr integrar a mas de 10,000 personas con discapacidad a la fuerza laboral), y para poder emplearlas necesitarán adecuar la accesibilidad y la forma de trabajo dentro de las mismas, en otras palabras, alguien va a querer pagarte por diseñar nuevos espacios, herramientas y/o formas de trabajo.

creo profundamente que muchas de situaciones en las que una persona con capacidades diferentes se puede sentir discriminado son causadas porque el diseño del lugar, producto o sistema tiene una falla en el detalle de lo mismo, como en la altura de un teléfono, el sentido en el que una puerta se abre, la inclinación de una rampa, la señalización de un lugar, el acceso al lugar de trabajo, entre otras, situaciones que realmente no necesitan de un genio del diseño para ser solucionadas, simplemente se tienen que aprender a ver.

el buen diseño es humano, piensa en los mismos y como se relacionaran con lo diseñado, poco a poco las empresas en México tomarán mas en cuenta esto y lo apreciarán…

si quieres que alguien te pague por hacer diseño, opino, primero enfócate en ser un buen ser humano.

—————————————————————————–english translation

first of all the following statement needs to be done:

50% OF THE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN MEXICO FEELS DISCRIMINATED

that’s right, days ago I read this in el universal (in Spanish) and even though for Mexican people this might not be a surprise, the surprising thing about this is that the president of the republic was the one that told this, together (as always) with promises and plans for the future.

And guess what? This will be an enormous opportunity for Mexican designers to design something relevant for our country.

The project includes the application of tax stimulus for companies that give work for people with disabilities (the goal is to integrate more than 10,000 to the legal labor force) and evidently in order to do this, the companies will need to adequate their accessibility and workflow, in other words, someone will be willing to pay you for designing/re new spaces, tools, systems, etc…

I really believe that many of the situations in which a disabled person feels discriminated are caused because the design of the place, object or system has a failure in the human detail of it, for example the height of a public phone, the way in which a door is opened, the angle of a ramp, the signalization of a place, the access to the workplace, amongst many others, situations that really don’t need a design genius to be resolved, they jus need to be seen.

Good design is human, think about humans and how they really relate with the designed, little by little the companies in Mexico will learn to appreciate it.

If you want to be paid for doing design, first, I think, focus on being a good human being.

Un buen ejemplo de este tipo de eventos es Creative Mornings, organizado por la diseñadora suiza Tina Roth Eisenberg y su estudio y blog Swismiss de Nueva York.

Creative Mornings se lleva acabo una ves al mes, es un desayuno en el que un diseñador/creativo da una plática de solo 10 minutos acerca de algo que le apasione, después de la plática las personas que atienden interactuan entre sí y se conocen, en parte gracias a las etiquetas de presentación diseñadas para romper el hielo y tener un tema de conversación, miren algunos ejemplos:

etiqueta de presentacion en creative mornings

talk me about:

Algunos de los personajes que se han dado pláticas en estos eventos son Khoi Vinh, director de diseño de New York Times y reconocido bloggero, así como Daniel Freitag, uno de los creadores de la marca de bolsas FREITAG, pueden consultar videos o resumenes de algunas de estas pláticas directamente en el blog de swismiss bajo la categoría de creativemornings.

freitag's creative morning

khoi creative morning

En toctoc estamos trabajando para hacer algo similar en Monterrey, solo que estamos planeando no hacerlo en la mañana, si no en la noche, y acompañados no de cafe si no de algunas otras bebidas, si quieren participar o dar alguna idea no duden en mandarme un mail aqui miguelmelgarejo@gmail.com…

Espero verlos pronto por ahi….

david kelley from IDEO

Former students, co-workers and friends share their favorite David Kelley life lessons:

“Success tends to focus your efforts, failure assures me that you try something different and eventually better.” — from Perry Kleban, CEO, Timbuk2

“You’re the best version of yourself when you manage to have fun doing your work.” — from Chris Flink, Ideo

“You can’t think your way through every problem. Trying things and engaging people helps you get unstuck.” — from George Kembel, executive director, Stanford d.school

“The greatest responsibility of any leader is to make new leaders. David knew that neither he, himself, nor any one person has all the answers. He empowers others to do stuff.” — from Tom Kelley, Ideo

“When I was going to design school in Chicago, at IIT, in 1989, a friend of mine and I went all the way to Evanston, a suburb that seemed unbelievably far away from school, to hear this guy David Kelley present at Northwestern University. The thing that was amazing to me was that he was talking about HOW designers should work, not about WHAT they should be working on. I remember thinking how right it sounded, and that it was a pretty fresh message among all the others I was getting about what it meant to be a designer in this world. I still hold true a lot of what he was saying then. — from Ilya Prokopoff, Ideo

“The true brilliance of the human-centered design process is that it keeps us humble. I am in awe of his humbleness.” — from Susie Wise, Stanford d.school

“‘Do not allow hierarchy and status into your teams, and your workplace because it will destroy collaboration.” — PK

“David can take the nature of any experience–from ‘Let’s go to the zoo to let’s go to football game, to let’s hear a speaker, to let’s have cancer’–and bring the same intensity to all of them. He’s in the moment like nobody I’ve ever known. He can take the naïve view of that moment and see what is unique about it, see its virtue and see what he can learn from it.” — from Jim Hackett, CEO, Steelcase

“David is one of those magical people who beams not only generous permission, but pure optimism, into anyone who works with him. His ability to empower others is built-in to the way he is, and the way he engages with people, and yet it is often nearly invisible at the moment of contact” — from Tom Eich, Ideo

“There is no challenge, big or small, in the world that could not benefit from a healthy dose of cavalier creativity.” — CF

“Make the human element as important as the technical and business elements.” — GK

“Your failures interest me far more than your success.” — PK

“Leaders don’t have to be scary. Or egomaniacal. Or people you have to watch yourself around. I’ve always felt like myself around him. I chalk this up to his being genuinely curious about what others have to say. — IP

“David helped me realize that it’s not what you work on, but whom you work with that makes all the difference. This, ironically, resonates even at a company that tackles some of the most exciting creative challenges in the world.” — CF

“Think with your hands, build something or try something, then talk about it, NOT the reverse.” — PK

“You don’t have to choose between doing what you love and making a living.” — GK

“Better to be a jack of all trades than a master of one’ (you will see more possibility then, you will be an empathetic leader to the experts, and you will be a more interesting person.)” — PK

“These are the good old days.” — CF

via fastcompany

“…El habeocorrespondiente a la habitualidad y a las costumbres (da lugar y tiene lugaren las habitaciones o moradas. Y en el libre juego posible entre aquello que el hombre tiene -’habitos’- y le contiene y retiene -’habitaciones’-, se hace el hombre habitante y habituales los lugares……
….No requerimos, pues, una arquitectura funcional, sino practicable -en cuanto da lugar a nuestra praxis- y plenaria: aquella que obtiene plenitud mediante la propiedad e intensidad de sus empleos. “

fragmento de Arquitectónica de José Ricardo Morales

Para el habitante de la Nueva York, París o Londres, la muerte es la palabra que jamás se pronuncia porque quema los labios. El mexicano, en cambio, la frecuenta, la burla, la acaricia, duerme con ella, la festeja, es uno de sus juguetes favoritos y su amor más permanente. Cierto, en su actitud hay quizá tanto miedo como en la de los otros; mas al menos no se esconde ni la esconde; la contempla cara a cara con impaciencia, desdén o ironía: ‘ si me han de matar mañana, que me maten de una vez’………….La indiferencia del mexicano ante la muerte se nutre de su indiferencia ante la vida.”

Hay un montón de cosas que se podrían reflexionar acerca de esto, porque aún que no sea actual, o lo sea, este tipo de reflexiones acerca de nuestras tradiciones e historia nos pueden traer elementos frescos para generar metáforas en, por ejemplo, nuestro diseño.

Bueno el punto de todo esto era presumirles mi lotería, me falta la otra mitad, espero echarle la mano pronto, por cierto, este tipo, Erik de Luna, también esta sacando pines, playeras, tarjetas, calcas jaja, me compré también unas de esas cosas…….En las tablas viene su teléfono, por si a alguien le interesa…… no he encontrado pagina web o algo de él, si alguien lo conoce, dígale que soy su fans.

Así que luego nos juntamos a jugar,

LOTERIA!!!