AutoBlog: Mazda Shinari Concept debuts new face of the brand in style

The Shinari concept, which roughly translates to “resistance to being bent,” will serve as a the basis for Mazda’s new design language, and many of the styling cues will make it to future production vehicles. That means that the Shinari will essentially affect the design of every vehicle coming from the Japanese automaker for the next several years.

And

The Shinari Concept represents the first styling concept under his new design theme, KODO, which replaces the controversial Nagare them from the past several years. While the Nagare-styled cars were represented by wavy, flowing lines, a trait that looked great on concepts but was tough to implement on production cars (see Mazda3), KODO is more of an organic style that still takes cues from the natural world, but in a much more solidified and powerful sense. Maeda describes KODO as form with a soul, or bringing form to life, with the three key terms defining the theme being speed, tension and alluring. “There are few products of industrial design that can be compared to living entities which convey energetic motion and which invite affection,” he says. “It is this intrinsically emotional appeal of the car that I wish to express when creating Mazda cars.”

GigaOm: How Tesla Will Try to Keep Its Stock Up

Tesla’s debut on the Nasdaq yesterday was met with a shockingly hearty embrace. The electric car maker started the day at $19 on Tuesday, above its estimated range of $14 to $16, and as of the middle of the day on Wednesday traded as high as $30.42. That’s despite the fact that as columnist Drew Voros put it: “Like the emperor with no clothes, Tesla is a company with no financial fundamentals that warrant it being a public security, much less one that pops on its first day of trading.”

That’s the problem right there. Instead of focusing on making their product great, they’re focusing on profitability. It’s going to cloud their vision, because if they’re (hypotheticallly) willing to do anything to keep their stock up, that (potentially) includes degrading their product.

TwinCities.com: Microsoft to do direct battle with Apple at Mall of America

A Microsoft retail store is coming to the Mall of America and — get this — it’s directly across from one of Apple’s famed retail stores.

Microsoft is a notorious imitator of all things Apple, and it’s doing it again by opening copycat stores across the country (four are open so far). The Mall of America store, with 8,600 total square feet and 5,200 public square feet, opens Nov. 6.

Ah Microsoft, desperate times call for desperate measures. I understand.

But do YOU understand where most of your revenue comes from?

*spoiler – it’s not from consumer stuff.

Wow, how great is this 2008 post from Scott Berkun (via Bobulate):

From all my travels and speaking gigs in 2007, I’m most confident about the following advice: Stop using the word innovation in 2008. Just stop. Right now. Commit to never saying the word again. Einstein, Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, and Edison rarely said the word and neither should you. Every crowd I’ve said this to laughed and agreed. The I-word is killing us.

So, so, so true. This word has been beaten to death and sometimes by people who are in every other respect very intelligent. I came across two posts recently who are guilty:
DesignADay: Four Approaches to Innovative Solutions – A great post, just a bad title. The class Moffett is teaching should be called Solving Problems, because that’s what design is.
asymco: NYT blames yet another culprit: Nokia’s Culture of Complacency – First off, Horace Dediu is a super-sharp guy. Where his post needs adjusting is in his noting of Nokia’s ‘innovation firsts’. Innovations can be firsts but they aren’t always.
I quoted Professor Jan Fagerberg in July of 2009, and I’ll quote him again:

Invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process. Innovation is the first commercialization of the idea.

To not make this distinction between invention and innovation is to completely dilute any power and meaning behind innovation. Thomas Edison has hundreds of patents on his inventions, a fraction of which became innovations within the the marketplace.
As Berkun advised, our best bet is to stop using the word entirely.

AdAge: Why Chipotle Ditched Ad Agencies (via Kottke)

Mr. Crumpacker points out that the chain hasn’t added a menu item in 17 years and it also does not have a regular cadence of pricing promotions. For those reasons, he said, agencies’ experience with other fast food chains is irrelevant.

Why didn’t he talk to Don Draper? Coupons are HUGE with housewives.
And:

Last November, Chipotle made the decision to go it alone and bring advertising in-house. After spending at least six months selecting Butler Shine from a group of 27 agencies, Mr. Crumpacker said it didn’t make sense to take the time to pick another agency. “By the time we picked one and got them up to speed it would have been a year,” he said. “The only reasonable thing to do was to do it ourselves.”

Good lord, this stuff is beautiful. (via Just A Car Guy)

So Microsoft dropped their new phone/phone OS today. Their press release has a fair share of bullshit biz-speak, but it also has some honest words.
For one, it’s one of first times they acknowledge Android and iPhone by name, but the clincher is the last sentence of the last paragraph (my emphasis):

Microsoft is so committed to the new phone that it has arranged for every full-time employee worldwide to be able to switch to the new phone as soon as it launches in their market. And while executives say they are thrilled with the final product, they also acknowledge there is a lot more to be done. When the phone is released, they plan to enjoy the moment – but not for long. “There’s so much more of Microsoft we’ve got to bring out in the phone,” says Myerson. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

You’re over 3 years late to the smartphone game, damn straight you have a lot of work to do.

Most people are reasonable, that’s why they only do reasonably well.

–Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite

Finally we’re getting around to rethinking the shape of cameras.

If you’re still using film cameras, great. Some of my friends still do and the results are awesome.

But if you’re using a digital camera, there’s no film, so the camera can be any shape you want.

Canon’s 4K concept camera is pretty interesting (via Gizmodo):

I’ve been noticing a trend, or should I say, a resurgence in both actual and virtual products that are gritty, worn, vintage, retro and authentic. It’s always been around, but much more pronounced these days.
Perhaps I’m more in tune with this than other people because I’ve always been attracted to the aesthetic. My personal brand, The Combustion Chamber – and by extenstion, Daily Exhaust, are both inspired by vintage cars, car parts, manuals and ads. We are all programmed to perceive the world through pattern recognition. It’s like when you buy a car, you start to see that model everywhere you go. It doesn’t matter if it’s popular or rare, you’re now tuned to see it more because it’s more important to you.
Even acknowledging my weakness for said aesthetic, I still think this renewed interest in things that look and are analogue is real and it’s bubbling up into popular culture. I see it in everything from clothing, to TV shows, to web design, to advertising to mobile application design.
Is it not expected, though? We’re at a point in history where the United States doesn’t make anything anymore. We import goods from China and export our jobs to India. Fewer things are real these days. People break up with their partners via text message. We have hundreds of Facebook ‘friends’ but few real ones. We’ve tossed aside the pencil and paper for an iPad ‘Notes’ app – complete with virtual yellow lined background.
People long for things that have history.
They reminisce of the days when things where real and made by hand.
Below are examples, some big names, some unknown to most, but all have passed through my radar:

Mad Men

Obvious, but can’t be overlooked. Mad Men has renewed interest in everything that made 1960’s New York what it was – The Old Fashioned, men who wore suits, women who wore dresses (and had the curves to fill them) and simple, purposeful product design. Matthew Weiner‘s attention to detail is incredible.

Levi’s – We Are All Workers

Levi’s kicked off a campaign in 2009 entitled ‘Go Forth’ that featured a 1800’s inspired typographic style that tried to appeal to that good ol’ American spirit. They transformed this campaign into ‘We Are All Workers’ for 2010.
From their press release:

Amid today’s widespread need for revitalization and recovery, a new generation of “real workers” has emerged, those who see challenges around them and are inspired to drive positive, meaningful change. This fall, with the introduction of Go Forth ‘Ready to Work’, the Levi’s® brand will empower and inspire workers everywhere through Levi’s® crafted product and stories of the new American worker.

*also see Coolhunting: Levi’s Workwear x Billy Reid

Gilt Manual

The popular ‘flash’ sale retailer launched this site recently with the aim to be ‘The Daily Guide to Permanent Style’. As of this writing (1 Oct 2010) headlines include: Broken in Denim You Bought Raw and How to Stock You Bar for Fall.
*also of note:
Barking Irons on the Bowery
AllSaints Spitalfields
Cool Hunting: Levi’s Workwear
Hostem (via Cool Hunting)
Put This On
Modern Anthology

From their about page:

Modern Anthology is a creative studio and retail store specializing in original deign, one story at a time.

The DUMBO outpost of Modern Anthology hosts a retail store that curates a unique selection of vintage furniture, home and personal accessories and well-crafted clothing that reflects an experienced and masculine lifestyle.

found via FastCoDesign

So Blackberry announced their foray into the tablet market with their PlayBook.
John Gruber wonders if it even exists (via Singularity Hacker).
Sounds very similar to what I wrote about last year with the LG Chocolate Phone. I had a feeling it was vaporware, and that the real product would let me down.
I was right.
Let’s see if RIM can prove me wrong with the PlayBook.

From Digital Kitchen for BMW:

“Do you want a car story or a life story?” Murray is first in a series of documentary shorts we created telling the stories of real people and their connection to the BMW brand.

Beautiful.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

–Author C. Clarke (via Seth Godin)

WSJ: RIM Readies Its Answer to iPad

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. could unveil its new tablet computer–as well as the operating system that will power it–as early as next week at a developers’ conference in San Francisco, said people familiar with RIM’s plans.

The tablet, which some inside RIM are calling the BlackPad, is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, these people said. It will feature a seven-inch touch screen and one or two built-in cameras, they said.

Sorry, but how are they going to ready their answer to the iPad when they can’t even answer the iPhone?
And I truly hope ‘BlackPad’ is an internal name.