Courtesy Sarasota Int'l Design Summit/Pininfarina
Today and tomorrow, the Sarasota International Design Summit continues. (Click here to read an earlier overview of the event.)
At this point, the ideas start coming fast and furious, which is why the summit's "visualization maestro," Tom Wujec of Autodesk, plans to recap yesterday's big ideas (memes, if you will) in sketches this morning. Throughout the conference, Wujec and a team of Ringling College students transcribe the speakers' main arguments and/or research insights into digital tablet-drawn graphics. Believe me, by mid-Tuesday a mnemonic device or two starts to come in handy.
More of yesterday's highlights:
Franco Lodato of Pininfarina described his company's design for an electric car, Sintesi, that engages with the surrounding environment (i.e., the city) as a network. Hair-raising concepts included the absence of mirrors from the car – why have them when the automobile could network with a city's omnipresent surveillance cameras? – and the obsolescence of stoplights when the cars themselves are able to negotiate who will stop when.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2008.