Crunch Time

Here are some photos from recent trips into the city. The first two are from the inside of the elevator at the NYC Apple Store—such a cool place! There’s also a colorful shot of the inside of the Nokia Store (the walls are illuminated by lights that are programmed to change colors every few minutes). Both of those stores were visited as part of research with Sunmee. There is also a shot of the inside of Grand Central Station, taken on the same research outing. It is so cool to see the constellations painted on the ceiling (I tried to take some photos, but they didn’t turn out well at all). My restaurant project is going well so far. Zac, Jansen, and I also took some pictures in the Museum of Modern Art while they were here on the 4^th. In the gift shop, as a designer, I felt obligated to photograph some of the more famous (and unbelievably unaffordable) chairs—even though I was scolded by staff members for doing so. The first is a chair designed in the 60’s by Verner Panton, made out of one continuous piece of polypropylene—although it was originally fiberglass. An original fiberglass model goes for around $1250, but the polyprop versions are only a measly $245. Next we have a coffee table inspired by a design originally done by Isamu Noguchi in 1944. To finish out the ‘Designer Furniture Which I Can’t Afford’ category is the Eames lounge chair and ottoman designed by none other than, Charles and Ray Eames. This piece was released in 1956 by the Herman Miller furniture company and, to this day, remains in production. It is not only notable for it’s unique use of materials, but also for it’s remarkable comfort (something that is sometimes secondary in high-design furniture)—although I was not bold enough to actually test this for myself. Shortly after watching the city fireworks from Battery Park, we noticed a smaller version of Lady Liberty. All day throughout the city, we had seen the same statues painted vibrantly with the colors and logos of various professional sports teams, but this one was different—it bore the Atlanta Braves logo. We had to stop and take a photo, so Zac “stepped up”, and what you see is the result. Everything at work is still going well. I am starting to get to crunch-time, as I only have about three weeks left on the restaurant project. My concept sketches went over well (as far as I can tell) at my scheduled design review this week. Now I have moved into 3D CAD modeling, and will be able to explore more form there. Hopefully, I will be able to print out some test wax models this week! All is well at “home”, and I will keep the rest updated.

Office Par-tay

So it’s now been almost a month since my last entry—oops. I’ve been working for 5 weeks and one day. Everything is going great, and I am enjoying myself. A few Fridays ago there was the big office party for the Innovation & Design department, which turned out to be a lot of fun. One of the directors of design research owns a house on the north shore (actually, pretty close to my place here in Port Jeff). All the locals leave off the "erson" on the end, so I am busy trying to fit in. Someone from work sent us a lot of photos from the event, so I have posted a few here. To make it a little bit easier, I tried to label some of the people that I interact with on a regular basis. Anyone not labeled in a photo is just a significant other or some other type of guest. Here I go through a brief explanation of each person:

Curt – head honcho, Director of Industrial Design

Shane – my boss, and recently promoted senior design manager

Donna – department secretary/office mother

Mike – junior designer, VT grad, and the main reason I got this job

Sean – junior designer, most recent hire (before the interns)

Sunmee – design researcher

Lexie – senior designer, has unofficially claimed the “intern project mentor” role

Ally – the other “kid” as we’re referred to (mostly by Lexie)

Eric – senior designer, really funny guy, knows a lot about a lot

Chad – senior designer, fellow resident of PJ

Mark – junior designer, another Port Jeff-er

Ian – senior design manager

Rich – design researcher

Chandra – design research manager (and the person that Ally reports to)

Last week, Sunmee took Ally and I into the city for a research field trip, mostly to observe corporations that currently use mobile point of sale. This research was mainly for Ally’s project (which focuses on MPOS in retail environments), but we met Lexie for lunch at a Thai restaurant which uses a digital device to take orders. All in all, it was a very long but fun day (it always is when I visit the city). This weekend Zac and Jansen came up to visit to celebrate the fourth (it’s always good to see familiar faces from home). We went into the city and toured the Museum of Modern Art and watched the fireworks near the Statue of Liberty. We also hit some golf balls and grilled out Saturday. The housing situation has become very interesting lately. The day before Jaime and Paula left for Ecuador, a friend of theirs from school was in dire need of a place to stay. Apparently a roommate left a stove on, a house was burned down, and Glenn and I are now joined by Jordi Casanova. He comes to America from Barcelona, Spain. This is his first visit to the country, and he had only been here for about a week when his house was destroyed. I feel bad for him, but he is very nice, and is making the best of his situation. I am told that when Jaime returns from Ecuador, he and Jordi will both continue to live in the room downstairs. I’m sure that I am leaving some things out, but if I think of anything else, I will update in the next blog!