<![CDATA[Gizmodo: royal college of art]]> http://tags.gizmodo.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: royal college of art]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/royalcollegeofart http://gizmodo.com/tag/royalcollegeofart <![CDATA[What in the Name of Bender's Shiny Metal Ass Is This?]]>

[Dezeen]

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<![CDATA[Four Crazy Radio Concepts to Celebrate National Inventor's Day]]> Today is National Inventor's Day, in honor of Thomas Edison, and Giz is going to celebrate it with some designs from the Work In Progress show by students at London's Royal College of Art. There are no less than four concept radios in the show, including this one by Mikael Silvanto, which melds a slide rule with an iPod-esque analog radio. The other three, including one which uses QR codes to hook up graffiti artists with pirate radio stations, are below.

postitradio1.jpgYuri Suzuki's design uses a Post-It pad to mark out the frequencies of pirate radio stations that caught her ear while living in North London. "My radio enables you to make notes about the radio station and mark its position," she says. "The radio looks like a memo pad, but underneath is a speaker; the pencil acts as the antenna that controls tuning and volume."

graffitiradio3.jpgYuri feels there is a connection between graffiti artists and pirate radio stations, as both are art forms that hack into public spaces. Her Future Pirate Radio lets you tune into pirate radio via QR codes. First, the graffiti artist stencils a QR code onto the wall, incorporating it into their work. Anyone who takes a picture of the graffiti will then be able to tune into the pirate radio station that inspired the artist via the internet.

radio_jochemfaudet_01.jpgFinally, Jochem Faudet's work consists of a pair of radios whose controls are grouped together in order to make it easier to use. Actually, it's rather complicated, so here's Jochem's own explanation.
"Radio 1: All the tuning and volume functions are grouped around the speaker. The On/Off switch and volume function is situated closest to the speaker. The AM/FM switch is situated at the end of the tuning circle, by flicking the switch down it points to the FM numbers situated on the outside of the circle or by flicking the switch up it points to AM numbers on the inside of the tuning semi-circle.

"Radio 2: The tuning function and volume function are separated from each other in this concept. To adjust the volume one has to turn the wheel with the integrated speaker, by sliding the AM/FM switch to FM it hides the frequencies of the AM and vice versa."

Nope, still too complicated for me, I'm afraid. [Dezeen]

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<![CDATA[Design Competition Brings Artistic Elegance to Cellphone Concepts]]> Those arty chaps at the Royal College of Art have created some great looking mobile phone concepts. The designs were put together for a competition that was sponsored by the cellular network 3. The runners-up included the Vase phone, which begins as an empty "vessel," but has features added to it gradually, according to the user's needs. The Teiko cellphone was designed for children, incorporating GPS for parental tracking and a rugged general construction.

The LED cellphone had a simple layout, with basic functions illuminating according to need. (Coincidentally, that isn't too dissimilar to a concept we have seen before. Borrowing inspiration were we, Mr Art Student?) The overall winner was the Free Key, which had 40 programmable keys beneath a flexible LCD screen. Check out the lot in the gallery above. [BBC via Textually]

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