There’s a very cool BW article on Ikea today that’s worth a look. From the article:

This cost obsession fuses with the design culture. “Designing beautiful-but-expensive products is easy,” says Josephine Rydberg-Dumont, president of Ikea of Sweden. “Designing beautiful products that are inexpensive and functional is a huge challenge.”

No design — no matter how inspired — finds its way into the showroom if it cannot be made affordable. To achieve that goal, the company’s 12 full-time designers at Almhult, Sweden, along with 80 freelancers, work hand in hand with in-house production teams to identify the appropriate materials and least costly suppliers, a trial-and-error process that can take as long as three years.

Tyler Durden may be rebelling, but clearly the world at large isn’t. But a company like Ikea does raise a lot of interesting questions about design and business; individuality and comformity.

Now this was a pleasantly unexpected surprise. Vinyl Pulse has posted an entry with some images that really caught my eye. From the post:

While in Japan this past summer, I discovered the work of d’Holbachie Yoko and was blown away by her whimsical art work. Her psychedelic computer graphic illustrations explored with colorful and simple themed creatures.

Head on over and look at the other images they’ve posted and perhaps make your way to the artist’s site as well.

I don’t recall enjoying spaced-out, psychedelic art this much since I first learned about Rick Griffin a very long time ago. What a great way to end the blog day.

{Image Copyright (c) 1998-2005 d’Holbachie-Yoko}

Car Design News has posted news from the Center for Creative Studies regarding student projects done in collaboration with the American Iron and Steel Institute. As odd as it might seem, I could imagine some really creative work springing from a sincere re-evaluation of these traditional materials (which haven’t exactly been getting great press for the last couple decades). Unfortunately there are only three concepts shown, and those didn’t seem particularly impressive from the descriptions provided. Truth is, the write up flat-out made me wince (e.g. “Aside from the peripheral criteria, it is the ‘extreme’ theme that sticks, the brief satisfyingly encouraging students to really provoke with their imaginations” – uh, right). I don’t know what’s happened over there; CDN used to be such a dependable site. But I guess you take what you can get. So look at the pictures and maybe do some surfing elsewhere for more information. I know I will.

I almost mentioned competitive videogame champion Fatal1ty in a couple of recent posts: the one where gameplay is tied to something like a dance pad, and the one about people making money. But to be honest, I didn’t feel like explaining who he was. Now I don’t have to. Boing Boing has an entry discussing the well-known, well-compensated gamer – with links so you can learn more. Next up: some big-money videogame tournament organized by Mark Cuban and shown at one of his digital theaters, and starring… who else?

Having worked on an ill-fated indy videogame, I’ve spent some time bouncing around the indy game community. For anyone who’s even remotely considered working on an independent videogame, one molehill stands out like a mountain: Garage Games. And today, BusinessWeek has posted a Next Generation article on the company; where they came from, what they’re all about, and what they try to be within the realm of the niche videogame market. From the article:

“There really isn’t any soul left in a lot of the games out there. Whether they’re sequels or Hollywood IP, there really isn’t any creativity going into these games. This is partly because of the schedules that they have to get done on and the feature lists that they have to hit. Basically, we recognize that these are the forces of the market. These are the economic factors. We say that we want to change the game. Online distribution is one of the solutions.”

Just like the reclusive urban vinyl toy segment and the niche handbag market, indy videogames are a part of a much broader movement; a morphing of the Long Tail/ecoToroid. So besides being fun, there’s good reason to take an interest in both Garage Games and the independent videogame scene. As they go, so goes the future economy.