Paul Isakson

Project Dream Ball

Came across another great idea that (re)surfaced this week—Dream Ball—from Unplug Design in Seoul.

Children in Africa love playing football. The only problem is, the ball can be hard to come by. Enter Dream Ball, a solution that is good on multiple levels.

1. The ball is made from the packaging of an aid package, helping to come up with a secondary use for the packaging beyond its original purpose.
2. The package itself is a cylinder, which allows it to be rolled from the delivery drop to the desired unpacking location. Rolling a package is a lot easier than having to carry a box.
3. Aid workers can help the children make the Dream Ball out of the packaging; creating a stronger bond between the children and workers.

There a couple things here that any brand would be wise to consider further, one of which Puma has done already.

The first would be, how can you rethink the design of your entire product or service experience to make sure that every bit gets as much use and enjoyment as possible?

The second thing is that according to the comments on Dezeen from back in early December, this project is having a hard time getting the support it needs to take off. Seems like an excellent opportunity for a brand wanting to connect with people through the sport of football/soccer...

To see another form of how soccer, errr footballs, are being made in Africa, watch this:

For more on Dream Ball, visit the original post on Dezeen.

See Better To Learn Better

I promise I'm not on a secret mission to get a job at fuseproject. They're just up to some great stuff lately. For the "See Better to Learn Better" program, they partnered with the Mexican Government to design and provide free eyeglasses to students in need.

"The aim of “See Better to Learn Better” is to provide a solution to children in families that cannot afford the high cost of an eye exam and eyewear. The program gives a free eye exam administered in schools and students pick their own frames. The prescription and desired frames are produced locally by Augen, a Mexican company, and then delivered to the schools."

The result of the work is a collection of customizable and iconic corrective eyewear that is specifically designed for students, ages 6-18 years old.

To learn more about it, go here.

Source: Creativity Online

Yves Behar's Clever Little Bag for Puma

Yves Behar and fuseproject spent the last three years working with Puma to rethink the shoe box. The results? A design that reduces the cardboard used by 65% and water, energy, and fuel consumption during manufacturing by 60%.

"Rethinking the shoebox is an incredibly complex problem, and the cost of cardboard and the printing waste are huge, given that 80M are shipped from China each year," Béhar tells FastCompany.com. "Cargo holds in the ships can reach temperatures of 110 degrees for weeks on end, so packaging becomes an enormous problem. This solution protects the shoes, and helps stores to stock them, while saving huge costs in materials.

After spending 21 months studying box fabrication and shipping, Fuseproject realized that any improvement to that already lean system would merely be incremental. So instead, the "clever little bag" combines the two packaging components of any shoe sale--the bag and the box--with high-tech ingenuity."

While overall this is a fantastic project and idea, there are two things that strike me. The first is the time it took and Puma's dedication to sticking to it. In today's ADD world, many companies give in to pressure to push for fast answers and short-term results. Rather than caving to that pressure, Puma gave Fuseproject the time and resources they needed to really dig in and solve this problem.

The second thing that stands out is (according to Fast Company) that this is the lead project in a complete brand overhaul. Not too long ago, another global brand decided to invest a few hundred million dollars in redesigning and implementing their logo as a start to overhauling their brand. I like Puma's approach infinitely more.

For more on this, here's an interview from Contagious with Yves Behar:

Sources: Fast Company, Contagious

Love Letters

Finally got around to watching Helvetica the other night. Found myself a bit inspired so I quickly and crudely made this in Keynote for fun. Probably will find myself writing a post soon from something in the movie, but for now, just letting it bounce around in my head...

Bits of Wisdom from Hartmut Esslinger

Thought this was just too full of good advice not to share. Especially the bits about hiring people and having the organization adjust to the people, not the other way around. Would love to know what you think...