diy

Fantastic tutorial on how to build your own custom designs

Digital music production tools are so powerful these days that it seems you can compose and perform just about any kind of music entirely on a laptop. One of the weak points of digital production though is the physical interface: it’s hard to be expressive when you’re pushing your finger around a trackpad. You can have a lot more control if you have a few physical knobs and sliders and buttons. Enter the generic MIDI controller. MIDI controllers are a popular DIY project as they are relatively basic: a suite of buttons and knobs wired to some kind of controller and mounted in a case. Instructables user Fuzzy Wobble has put together a fantastic tutorial on how to build your own MIDI controller. His approach is clean and affordable, using Ponoko’s laser-cutting service for the panels, and an Arduino-clone for the controller. Best of all, the tutorial is not just about how to build one unit, rather he aims to show you how to design your own custom controller. He’s obviously a big fan of his Personal Factory, and his designs are gorgeous.

Posted in Ponoko News by Rich Decibels | No Comments

Photo by Goodnight Hollow

What is your earliest childhood memory of breakfast cereal? Perhaps your mother refused to buy the sweet stuff, creating an ongoing household battle that ended with you finally convincing her to bring home your first box of Lucky Charms. Maybe your mornings were a race, beating other siblings to the table so that you’d get first dibs on the toy inside the box of Frosted Flakes. In the world of advertising, no tool is more powerful than nostalgia. It’s difficult to measure the impact those cereal boxes made on our childhood brains — a bouncing rabbit, a colorful leprauchaun and a kerchief-wearing tiger greeted us in the morning, powerful symbols that we carry with us in our adult lives.

The cereal box has changed over the years — no longer simply illustrated, they’re visual overload. Filled with excessive messages and graphic flourishes, the product packaging of today does more to irritate than inform the buyer. It’s not always the manufacturer’s fault; packages you see on the shelf today are covered in government-regulated symbols and information. Nutrition facts, recycling symbols, and product warnings are packaging components that have been mandated by the FDA over the past 30 years. It’s hard to imagine a time when a bottle of root beer wasn’t covered in calorie and sugar counts.

Over the past few years, many companies are returning to their roots, reviving a retro aesthetic that plays at our childhood heart strings. PepsiCo, for example, released their throwback soda cans with designs that hearken to the companies’ ’70s and ’80s branding. General Mills also jumped into the time machine, releasing retro versions of Trix, Wheaties and Golden Grahams. When Doritos brought back their taco flavored chips from 30 years ago, the packaging came with it; the bag is a complete replica of what you remember from childhood. The throwback was so successful, the taco chips are now part of their permanent line-up. While these companies say their move toward retro packaging is a way of reconnecting customers with their childhood, they’re actually feeling the threat of the rise of private-label products, better known as off-brands. For example the new, clean branding of Walgreen’s Nice! brand visually jumps off the shelf, its simplicity standing out among a barrage of noisy products.

“Today’s moms are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and ’70s packaging is what they remember,” said Amy Clark, director of snack marketing for Hostess, in a Wall Street Journal article. But that’s the problem — so much of breakfast cereal is for kids. Targeting the design of a cereal box to adults seems counterintuitive, a problem that Allan Peters on The Dieline recognized when General Mills deployed their retro cereal design. “Since most of these breakfast cereals are aimed at children, I wonder if their effectiveness will be lost on today’s youth. Are the kids of today’s ADD generation secretly fans of mid-century retro design?”

Now, new companies are turning to retro packaging to create history; recently established boutique and niche brands are dipping into the retro look, giving off the impression of a long-established product. An article in The Atlantic outlines how bath and beauty items are the most common targets for retro packaging, often skewing to an Art Deco aesthetic. Illustrator Daniel Pelavin recently took direct inspiration from old French soap labels when creating the packaging for a new line of products. Design historian and author Steve Heller finds nothing creative in such an exercise: “Such direct replication is like cultural or commercial grave robbing, in a way.”

Often we look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” we say while faced with contemporary products that don’t stand up against the tried-and-true brands of the past. Retro packaging reminds us of simpler, wholesome times, before fears of additives and unpronounceable preservatives  played into our daily lives. Companies may unfairly play to our yearning for simpler days, but it is often much more pleasing to the eye, a refreshing simplicity that is nowhere to be found in today’s message-laden boxes.

Best of the Blog – Interviews, Thoughts & Opinions Here’s five of my favourite interviews from 2011: we’re talking printed organs, education, DIY, hobby printing, and the future of connectivity. Kick back and tune in!

3D printing organs

PopTech talks to Dr. Gabor Forgac, founder of Organovo, a company that sells “the world’s only commercial bioprinter proven to create tissue.”

What happens when you turn a middle school library into a hackerspace?

This guest article from Thomas Maillioux is a great story about what happens when you mix teaching with tinkering.

DIY in action at MIT

Ponoko co-founder Derek Elley talks DIY at an MIT symposium.

Rick Pollack from MakerGear

Rick Pollack, a pioneer in the hobby 3D printing market, talks to Derek Quenneville about running a maker business.

What happens when everyone and everything becomes connected?

This short film explores how connectivity is set to change our lives in ways never before imagined.

Posted in 3D Printing, Hardware, Interviews, Thoughts + Opinions, Maker Movement, Rich Decibels by Rich Decibels | No Comments