While we recently highlighted the trolling Poynor anti-innovation piece, we can't recommend strongly enough Gabby Hon's thoughtful and insightful rebuttal at Experience Matters.

Inspired by the Mexican tradition of scaring off flies by hanging clear bags from the ceiling of taco kiosks (really?!), designer Jose Delao created the slick "Anty Fly." Handy and beautiful, this object makes use of water's natural ability to refract color and light, both properties which cause too much movement for a lil' fly to tolerate. The trade off? Troublesome pests stay away and your tacos live in peace.

One of the more interesting stands at the Javits Center is the ICFF Studio, a joint venture with Bernhardt Design helping young designers prototype their furniture and find potential manufactures. Pictured left to right:

In some of Manhattan's better Japanese-staffed bars, like Tribeca's underground B-Flat, ice cubes are noticeably absent; ordering your scotch on the rocks gets you a large ice sphere. With less surface area than the same amount of ice rendered in cubes, a globe of ice will melt more slowly, keeping your drink cold without making it watery.

Job-getting guru, RitaSue Siegel, has just published the revised version of 'Get A Design Job'. An authority in the industry, this manual offers insights into everything from Resume tips to Research. First conceived as a series of articles for Innovation magazine in 1993, the 2008 version has grown to include information on a variety of topics that influence not only the job-seeker, but the Design Industry as a whole.
To edit HTML- and CSS-code you only need a simple plaintext-editor — the rest depends on your skills and your creativity. However, to make your life a little bit easier, you can use some more comfortable source-code editors with advanced editing features. These features can effectively support you during coding, debugging and testing. Powerful modern editors provide developers with syntax highlighting, diff, macros, plugins, code-snippets, preview-option and an integrated FTP-management tool.

photography by Vivian Chen

Denver's Mayor, John H. Hickenlooper, announced Dialog:City, an event converging art, democracy and digital media that will involve 10 site- specific art installations in neighborhoods throughout Denver from Aug. 21- 29.
World-renowned artists will come together to create a series of innovative commissioned works in conjunction with local organizations and students.
Some descriptions of the artists' projects follow:

While we usually expect advances in interface design to come out of videogames, iPods or the military, new ideas are being explored in an unexpected place: car dashboards. 3M and automotive supplier Visteon have teamed up to produce a concept car dash utilizing some nifty tricks:
Please consider Architecture For Humanity's appeal, or other organizations poised to help.
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On May 19th, Material ConneXion and Li Edelkoort are double-teaming in LEFT/BRAIN/RIGHT, a two-parter on the greening of architecture and design. Here's the pitch:

On May 19th, Material ConneXion and Li Edelkoort are double-teaming in LEFT/BRAIN/RIGHT, a two-parter on the greening of architecture and design. Here's the pitch:

Renovation is the mildest of the three cleanse options offered by Blue Print Cleanse.

Tim Dubitsky has just prototyped "hood.e", a super-cozy solution to bringing music to your ears without blocking everything else out. The product has a great genesis: Tim originally created the design as a present for his nephew--who walks a dangerous route to school crossing busy thoroughfares--and wanted to make it safer for him by freeing up his ears from blasting earbuds that blocked out all the street noise.
Here's the pitch for the rest of us:

Ever wonder what to do with those old action figures? Check out dominic wilcox's 'Cave' project at nike 1/1 for some inspiration. Designed for the 'Art of Football' brief, Wilcox created three projects, 'Cave' (above), 'Top Corner' and 'Blocks' all using miniature football players.