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TBWA's brain booty and disruptive interestingness across creative culture and media arts.

Curated by Abbey Dethlefs.

Founded by Maria Popova, editor of Brain Pickings.

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Makerbot 3D Photo Booth Creates Personal Portraits

Image via Core 77

If you’re in the NYC area, you’re in luck! As PSFK reported, “At the official launch of its NoHo store, Makerbot introduced its own 3D printing photo booth, taking photography beyond digital. While not as detailed as the one we recently profiled in Japan, users will get a monochrome version of their head.

Amazingly, the service costs a total of $25. Customers will sit in the booth for a $5 scan and pay an additional $20 to get their face printed. This initiative was made possible by collaborating with Shapeshot, a 3D printing company focused on applications that relate to personalization.”

Rad to own, a must to see. Visit Makerbot’s physical location at 298 Mulberry Street in Manhattan or visit the store’s website.

Posted on Wednesday, November 21st 2012

Tags 3D Digital Photography Technology

Created as a resource, the BMW Guggenheim Lab 100 Urban Trends offers a glossary of contextualized definitions that apply to the way we understand, design, and live in cities. Integral to this glossary is the concept of cities as “idea makers.” In cities, people come together, share their thoughts and common interests, and generate the ideas that shape our world. Dense, growing cities have been and continue to be the catalyst for human progress, powered by daily proximity among their citizens as much as anything else. Despite some of the drawbacks of such massive urban centers, they may well embody the future for human life. Today’s cities are competing to attract more people; greater urban density can mean more conflict, but it can also produce a greater diversity of viewpoints and more opportunity for positive change.  From Arduino to Urban Psychology and beyond, download this fantastic read here.

Created as a resource, the BMW Guggenheim Lab 100 Urban Trends offers a glossary of contextualized definitions that apply to the way we understand, design, and live in cities. Integral to this glossary is the concept of cities as “idea makers.” In cities, people come together, share their thoughts and common interests, and generate the ideas that shape our world. Dense, growing cities have been and continue to be the catalyst for human progress, powered by daily proximity among their citizens as much as anything else. Despite some of the drawbacks of such massive urban centers, they may well embody the future for human life. Today’s cities are competing to attract more people; greater urban density can mean more conflict, but it can also produce a greater diversity of viewpoints and more opportunity for positive change. 

From Arduino to Urban Psychology and beyond, download this fantastic read here.

Posted on Tuesday, November 13th 2012

Tags BMW Guggenheim Lab Trends Design Technology Science Culture Social Responsibility Urbanization Arduino Data Visualization crowdsourcing Cities

I Saw The Future Of Advertising And It’s Pretty Awesome | Forbes

by Rob Schwartz, Global Creative President TBWA

Last week I had the distinct privilege of judging the Tomorrow Awards, an advertising award show dedicated to showing the future of communications, today. That’s right, along with my fellow “Monster Judges” from all over the world, we were tasked to scout out and celebrate the best ideas that point the way forward although they have been launched in the here and now. The show is the brainchild of Ignacio Oreamuno, the charismatic and energetic Executive Director of the Art Directors Club and founder of IHAVEANIDEA.org. Now, I cannot reveal what won. But I will share a few pieces that point the way to the future. So in no particular order here are some ideas that captured my imagination in terms of storytelling through technology, social, mobile, and yes, t-shirt.

First up is the Google Glass Project.

You cannot be in the business of creativity today and not admire the folks at Google. They remind me of the Beatles as they create hit after hit. They also remind me of General Motors, in particular the”Motorama” years  of the 1950′s, which showed consumers the “future today!”with all manner of amazing and mind-blowing technology.

One such future-product is Google Glass. It’s a technology you wear, kind of like a pair of glasses. It helps you explore your world with the web literally appearing right before your eyes. And share it. (There’s a cool p-o-v feature that lets you share what you’re looking at.

See videos, cases and read full article here.

Posted on Tuesday, November 13th 2012

Tags TBWA Advertising Awards Technology Creative Design Google Cannes Mobile iOS Trends

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month which means an abundance of information floating around. One scary fact that caught my eye?

The average tumor grows 12 yrs before detected. 

But! If it’s detected early enough, the five-year survival rate is over 95 percent. Now, the new Breast Tissue Screening Bra provides women continuous screening in the comfort of their own clothes. In over three clinical trials, the bra correctly identified 92.1 percent of tumors, compared to the 70 percent accuracy of routine mammograms. More importantly, the bra measures subtle, longitudinal changes in skin temperature that can indicate a tumor as many as six years before a traditional screening would detect it (more explanation in the company’s video).

Thank you, technology. 


via Tech Crunch 

Posted on Tuesday, October 23rd 2012

Tags Breast Cancer Technology Medicine Women

If you’ve ever been stopped in your tracks by a scent from memories past, then you know exactly how visceral an experience can become when smell is added to the mix.  Enter Japanese company Chaku Perfume who’s developed a scent-delivering device that will allow users to sent smells via their iPhones. The add-on plugs into the phone’s dock port, the ‘Chat Perf’ is a tiny “smell tank” that absorbs and disperses the scent of choice. Could be cool, could be odd, but I for one love imagining the smells of my grandmother’s kitchen wafting through the phone during our next catch-up. Drool. via Design Taxi

If you’ve ever been stopped in your tracks by a scent from memories past, then you know exactly how visceral an experience can become when smell is added to the mix. 

Enter Japanese company Chaku Perfume who’s developed a scent-delivering device that will allow users to sent smells via their iPhones. The add-on plugs into the phone’s dock port, the ‘Chat Perf’ is a tiny “smell tank” that absorbs and disperses the scent of choice.

Could be cool, could be odd, but I for one love imagining the smells of my grandmother’s kitchen wafting through the phone during our next catch-up. Drool.

via Design Taxi

Posted on Monday, October 22nd 2012

Tags Technology iPhone Apple Japan Pop Culture

Attention Design Junkies: Custom, 3D Printed Shoes

Many may know that I love innovation when put into practical use. These 3D printed shoes by think tank Continuum almost gets there. With that said, they are pretty rad.

The details: Continuum, which makes customizable or user-designed fashion, is now selling shoes made with a 3D printer. The Strvct line of footwear is based on a delicate but austere pump design or a similar sandal one; from there, users can ask for different colors, styles, or heel lengths. The shoes are then given a patent leather inset and the bottom is coated with textured rubber, making them (theoretically) wearable. 

While this isn’t just for the ladies, but at $900 a pair, it may be for the serious style seekers.

Read more here.

Posted on Wednesday, September 5th 2012

Tags Design 3D 3D Printing Art Technology Digital Printing Style