Few days ago I pointed out how I loved design of objects where you just don’t normally think they needed re-designing? Here’s a couple more ideas I thought were interesting.

The Muji Chrononotebook above is a neat concept. I saw this posted across quite a few blogs this past Summer, now I’m seeing it crop up in magazines too. I guess it’s a lot easier planning your day’s schedule around a daily chronograph chart rather then your typical planner where you got all those stuffy lines and boxes?  One page is for the morning hours, the next page is for the evenings.  I wouldn’t mind one…it might be more reliable then this stupid WinMobile phone that’s been driving me crazy. (via: Muji.net)

Now how about a tank suitcase?  One that can be easily pulled up stairs?

I’m not sure how much baggage handlers would love a odd shaped suitcase that slid all over the place though.  You might get that back later with a few extra “designer touches” you didn’t count on.  (via OhGizmo)

Here’s the illustration I worked up for this year’s card I’m starting to send to everyone.  It reads:

We missed our chance to say Merry Christmas & Even a Happy New Year, But it’s probably never ever too late to Spread a Little Cheer!

No it’s not as clever as the Holiday cards from Roy Doty I pointed out a few weeks back, but I had fun doing the illustration anyway.  I think my wife thought I was going crazy because I kept giggling to myself both at the cheesiness of this illustration and the pathetic look on my character’s face. (The new Illustrator tools make artwork SO easy now by the way)

I’ve never been super clever with my Holiday cards. (maybe because I wait till the last minute?).  Here are a couple of my last few year’s attempts

I haven’t been back to “Brand New” for a while, but I’m glad I did.  Looks like they have a new list the “Best & Worst Branding of 2008″.  (via: BrandNew)

I generally agree with some of the picks.  The Pepsi one above I didn’t really notice until they commented about it here. The other week I was having lunch with my wife and I remember saying, “Hey, look the Pepsi can looks different…”.  I didn’t even spot the logo change.

While the new symbol doesn’t thrill me to death. I still think it’s a marginal improvement over the original flaccid wave that just doesn’t really say much at all.

To further my case that design matters…I’m often impressed when I see inventors take every-day objects we take for granted and put a modern improvement on it.

Earlier this year my wife and I invested in the small little ball vacuum cleaner from Dyson.  You know the hype, “no messy filters”, “no loss of suction” blah blah.

Sure enough though, after about 5 months of using this thing, it seems to have held up to its bargain.  From a designer’s point of view, what I’ve loved about this device is that each piece of it seems to have had a lot of attention put into it — the way each attachment or brush is easily removed, even the way it snaps together it sounds so solid that you feel assured that it’s quality. The way they designed the instruction manuals, it’s illustrated similar to those airline emergency instructions….almost no text at all, but yet it’s obvious what to do.  I’m very impressed so far.

As for the vacuum’s suction?  Well, my wife is still happy with it…that’s all I care about.  Happy wife, happy life right?

And then there are products like this Fire Extinguisher

Why not take a 100 year old item and give it a fresh design that you’d feel ok leaving out in your kitchen?  Why not make it more functional and easier to operate? (via: Popular Mechanics)

It’s one of the situations where I’m sitting there going, “DUH, why couldn’t I think of that?” I guess that’s why I feel these things are so clever….they’re just items we take for granted and never considered we should redesign them?

Miss Buddha – Loaded Gun from Kevin Andreshak on Vimeo.

This coming Tuesday (Dec 30th), my band, “Miss Buddha” will be performing in the semi-final event for Star 101.9′s “Battle of the Bands” over at Pipeline Cafe.  We’re up first 8pm – 8:30pm.  Just 3 bands are up that night.  I think there’s a $5 cover?

If you can make it to be part of our cheering section….we’d love ya!

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

Here’s an interesting physics type game that is availabe for the iPhone.  It’s pretty neat.  Reminds me of a game I used to love on PC DOS a long time ago where you build these Rube Goldberg type machines to solve the puzzles, The Incredible Machine.

My best friend asked me the other day, “How do you pick good colors?“.  Beyond the shock I got trying to grasp the idea that my buddy was trying to design something (he always says he can’t design), I got to thinking to myself, “hmm, how DO I pick good colors for my projects?”

I didn’t have a good answer for him. I had color theory in school…but honestly, how much of that I really retained is another matter.  In practice, what I really do to find colors for my various projects is a sometimes a mix of trial-and-error & plain good luck.

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You know, I’m going to REAAAALLY look forward to having a little boy.  Among the many fun times we’ll have watching him grow, I’ll have a bonifide excuse for purchasing toys.  Hotwheels, Legos, Action Figures…oh I’m he’s giddy with excitement.

Talking about LEGO, here’s a personal project that supposedly took someone 4 years and $3000 to build.  Hardcore man. The scene comes complete with Trooper footprints in the snow, Chewie working on the Falcon, and Han Solo running through the snow corridors.  If only he had Luke half buried outside in TaunTaun LEGO guts.

I’ve been very good this year. Do you think Santa will grant my wish and get me this official 5000 piece LEGO Millenium Falcon this Christmas Day?   Come on Santa… I’ll even leave cookies and milk on my kitchen counter for ya.

Here’s a Gizmodo author’s review of CS4 to add on to my own take last week.  I found the commentary to be pretty interesting too, getting a sense of what some people think.  Some love it, some want it, some hated it.  Mah, pretty standard I guess.  It did get me thinking though…are these software companies pumping out new versions too fast now?  CS3 wasn’t that old…

I found this little list of Photoshop releases (yeah, geeky I know…hey I’m curious alright?).  Hmm…2 years between some of the version releases.  Year and a half between CS3 and CS4.  That’s not too bad.  Although I wouldn’t complain if they generally waited 2 years between versions to help us save up the $600 – $2000 needed to pick up the new sets.

Well, I’ve finally uploaded most of the student projects turned into me this semester.  God my eyes have crossed reading all this material and uploading everything.  Take a peek…some of these students may become successful designers someday.