This weekend, Dirk+Weiss was at A Better World By Design conference in Providence Rhode Island. Held at the RISD and Brown campuses. The conference had workshops and speakers covering all aspects of design, systems, and critical thinking. Exhibitors showed off their new projects, and crowds piled into hear some of the newest, freshest solutions to some of the worlds largest problems.
I had the pleasure of co-facilitating two workshops with Project-M‘er Marc O’Brien, and Ben Gaydos and Karen Stein from GoodGood Design. Workshops: Thinking Wrong and Rapid Prototyping; each workshop deals with staying open, and creative, to all possibilities when working on projects and initiatives. Energy was through the roof, and the paradigms of design were blown wide open. Participants started projects on Friday with a Think Wrong session, and then brought their projects to life on Sunday with Rapid Prototyping. Projects varied from education reform to marine life that can help produce renewable resources for cities and towns.
Dirk+Weiss would like to thank Marc O’Brien for inviting us, and all of the staff and volunteers that made A Better World By Design 2011 a huge, inspirational success. Here are some photos:
Our own Matthew White has been teaching design and app development like crazy over the last 6 months or so. His app development class at a local community college as made some major waves, and landed him an article in quarterly publication for Bunker Hill Community College.
What? That’s right, DW is potentially teaming up with Speed Club this summer to aid in the production of a feature length documentary! We are traveling along side of two friends as the journey across the US on choppers! 4000 miles of never ending road, days of HD video, and a huge chopper rally in Southern California. We are very excited to dig into this project but note, we said “potentially.”
Unfortunately, funding for this project has somewhat dried up in the last few weeks. We are reaching out to any and all our visitors to please review their request and make a contribution in any way possible. Keep in mind, everyone who makes a contribution gets something in return. Whether it’s getting you name listed on the site, getting a free copy of the DVD, or a free T-Shirt, EVERYONE IS A WINNER! Click here to review the project in its entirety and to find out how you can contribute.
We are looking for students in the local Boston and or Cambridge areas that are interested in getting into iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch Applications. We have some current and future projects that require beta testing in focus groups, and let’s just say, we’re pumped!
Beta Tester Requirements
A college student with an interest in mobile application design/development
Have an iOS compatible device (Preferably iPhone or iPod Touch)
Access to the T or public transportation
Signing of a Non-Disclosure Agreement to Begin (this just says what you’re testing and it’s results are confidential and may not be shared with anyone except DW)
If you love apps, design, technology and “enjoying the sights” of Boston/Cambridge, then let us know. Send us a message on our Facebook Page or @dirkweiss on Twitter, or just plain email us. – mw [at] dirkweiss [dot] com
This Pecha Kucha presentation from Scott Thomas, designer of the Obama website, talks about how the need for change did not stop at a new president. The need for change, and the spread of Obama’s campaign across the web and social media is now widely accepted as one of the main catalysts for his election to office.
20 slides, timed for 20 second up-time on the screen. Efficient! We love this presentation format, as it keeps content rich, and audiences engaged. Loose the bore, and the bullets.
