Problem Playground Commercial by Honda
February 7, 2008 | Categories: Commercial / Transportation

Wieden + Kennedy have made yet another awesome Honda commercial, this time with a brainy edge to it. In the ad you follow a big group of people, a lot of them wearing lab coats, all of them looking rather smart, as they figure out puzzles, both big and small. The creativity of this commercial is pretty astounding, especially the giant Rubic’s Cube murals, and the car at the end. The sound editing is also really great, and you feel like you’re caught up in the fun as you watch.

Found through swissmiss

Bobby

Monument Snowboards
January 22, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design / Illustration / Transportation

In the entry below I wrote about a bike I really love, but I don’t know anything about them. The same could definitely said about snowboards and snowboarding in general, which I hate because I fall on my ass too much. But I can definitely tell you if the graphics on the board are rad or not.
Monument Snowboards is an East Coast company who’s teamed up with some pretty rad artists for their 2007/2008 boards, and they turned out pretty well.

The designs you see above are by The Graves and Maya Hayuk, respectively, who are joined by J. Penry, Donny Miller, Peter Beste, East River Drive, and Sandro/Koop. The boards go for about $500 a piece, which may or may not be cheap, I have no idea. But I’d say that having one of these boards would make you cooler than all the other bros out on the mountain.

Bobby

Affinity Pursuit Bike
January 22, 2008 | Categories: Design / Technology / Transportation

Living in driving in Los Angeles, the idea of anyone riding their bike around town is absolutely absurd to me. I know plenty of people do it, I almost hit them every day. The reason? Because there are cars parked on the side of the street, the streets are too narrow anyhow, and there are maybe 12 bike lanes in all of Los Angeles. Even so, I’d still love to be able to own a cool bike that I could ride to the store and go do random errands. And if I could, it would totally be the bike you see above.

I honestly know zero to nothing about bikes, but something about this bike makes me really happy. I’ve had this link on my desktop for months now, opening it up now and then just to check it out. I think it looks somewhat futuristic, and totally modern with it’s all white frame. The owner is some guy in San Francisco, and he describes the bike as “beautiful, stiff, and could survive the apocalypse.” That’s my kind of bike… epic. For more technical info, as well as some pictures, check out his velospace.

Bobby

Jeep Renegade
January 16, 2008 | Categories: Design / Transportation

For the longest time now I’ve had this weird fondness for dune buggies. I always thought there was something quite cool about the body shape, and how the only thing above you were roll bars. It might also have to do with the over of the original Gorillaz album, but I think it started before that. Now Jeep has obviously taken my love for dune buggies and translated into their new concept vehicle, the Renegade. This is what would happen if they sent a dune buggy into the future, and it came back modified by aliens.

I think this is such a rad looking car. I love how it doesn’t look like anything on the road right now. The over sized tires make the body look even better, the grill is a part of the aluminum frame, the tiny eye like headlamps… the whole thing is amazing. I also really like that color a lot as well, giving it an even earthier feel.

For a ton more info that I don’t really know about, be sure to check out Autoblog’s post about it.

Bobby

The Loremo
January 15, 2008 | Categories: Technology / Transportation

I saw this floating around the internet somewhere last week and was immediately excited by it. It’s called the Loremo, which is made by Loremo AG.. As you can see, the car opens up from the front, which is a pretty cool trick. But what really makes it special is that it only weighs around 1000 lbs., making it a really light car. The lighter your car, the better gas mileage you get, and this puppy here gets about 150 MPG on diesel fuel. Yep.

The other sweet part of this car is that it’s going to come in two different models. The first is with a 20 hp, 2 cylinder turbodiesel that will run about $13,000, and the second is a 50 hp, 3 cylinder engine that goes for about $18,000. That’s pretty cheap for a car that gets such exceptional gas mileage.

Bobby

The Volkswagen Space Up!
October 24, 2007 | Categories: Design / Transportation

The Tokyo Auto/Motor Show is in full swing right now and Jalopnik is spitting out brand new cars left and right for us to ogle. the one that caught my was the newly unveiled Volkswagen Space Up!, which is technically the big brother of the VW Up!, which I posted here about a month ago.

The Space Up! is still pretty dang small, but it’s 23 centimeters longer, and has a larger wheelbase than it’s smaller sibling. It also features 4 doors, and has up to 1,005 liters of cargo space, depending upon what you do with the back and passenger seats. That sounds really small to me, like you could only fit one piece of IKEA furniture in there. Also cool is that it has butterfly doors that open outward from the center pillar.

On the inside it has a two informational displays. The display in front of the driver shows the cars vehicle speed, fuel level, distance traveled, and CO2 emissions. The other sits in the middle of the car and gives you access to the “main menu carousel”, which aloows you to control navigation systems, telephone, radio, internet, images films, and more. The whole deal is touch screen and uses proximity sensors to help you adjust controls easier.

While this all sounds amazing, they’re just now beginning to create production models, so actually seeing anything like on the road won’t be happening anytime soon.

Bobby

NYC Taxi Redesign
October 23, 2007 | Categories: Design / Transportation

Update: My designs are on the New York Times blog, City Room. Pretty rad!

New York Times had an article last Friday, discussing the newly redesigned taxi logo, and how a lot of people really aren’t liking it. While it does unify the cabs, the fonts and text are rather bulky and ugly, and don’t complement each other at all.
So they asked their readers, how would you redesign the logos?

Well I decided to throw my hat in, and do a couple of redesigns, as you can see above. The way I see it, if you’re in New York, you know you’re in New York. Most people are also aware that taxis are yellow, so having a big, bold text on the side of the cab reading ‘NYC TAXI’ seemed a bit silly to me. I decided to concentrate on making the cabs much more graphic, and possibly, something beautiful to look at.

The design at top has a wallpaper-type pattern covering the doors, so when the cab pulls up to you, you think it looks classy, not like a dirty cab. The bottom design is just a simple, bold, repeating stripe, that stretches along both doors. It’s not fancy, but why does it need to be? It reminds me of how cabs can be something you should watch out for!

For the fonts I used the Peter Saville designed (Marc Jacobs popularized) N.O. - Blue Monday ‘88, a font I’m quite fond of. I decided to include the ‘NYC TAXI’ logo near the front tire just in case someone didn’t know the vehicle was for some reason. But I made it rather small, because people do know what cabs are, not matter where you’re from. I also put the fare information near the back door, because that’s where most people look as they enter a cab.

Overall I like how my designs turned out. I think a fleet of different patterned taxis could be totally beautiful. What if they were decked out in plaid, tartan, houndstooth, polka dots! There’s a ton of fun options to explore.

Click for larger versions:
+ Design 1
+ Design 2

Bobby

Yamaha Tesseract Concept
October 22, 2007 | Categories: Design / Transportation

I’m totally in love with this new concept vehicle from Yamaha called the Tesseract. Regular motorcycles scare the shit out of me, but strap four wheels on it and now you’re talking. It looks like it came out of some crazy anime, and also looks like it would be a ton of fun to ride.

Yamaha says it’s pretty much the same size as a regular motorcycle, so it shouldn’t feel too differently. It also has a hybrid, V-Twin engine, with an electric motor, and an automatic balancing function to keep your bike up when you stop or park it.
Pretty cool stuff. Now stop teasing us and frigging make it.

Bobby

The New Honda Concept Cars: PUYO and CR-Z
October 12, 2007 | Categories: Design / Technology / Transportation

Honda recently unveiled two awesome new concept cars at the Tokyo Auto Show, the PUYO and the CR-Z. Both are extremely crazy looking, which is why I’m immediately drawn to them.

The PUYO is sort of a compact van that is completely rounded and has no sharp angles. In fact, the thing doesn’t even has door handles, and the doors slide upward gullwing style. The top of the car is basically all glass, save for a few structural supports. It’s also uses a fuel cell, so you’d (hopefully) be saving money on gas as well.
I’ve always wanted a bubble car like this, I think it would be so much fun to have.

The CR-Z is the reworking of Honda’s original sporty compact, the CR-X. But now it’s got a gas-electric hybrid system, and almost entire glass roof, and a beautiful body style. Those headlights are extremely rad as well.

But honestly, I’m kind of sick of seeing concepts, I want some real damn cars already!
Also be sure to check out Jalopnik’s coverage of the Tokyo Auto Show as well, there are ton of amazing concepts to check out.

The Volkswagen Up!
September 19, 2007 | Categories: Design / Transportation

Okay, here I go on another crazy rant about how small cars are really awesome!
Last week at the Frankfurt Auto Show, Volkswagen unveiled their new Up! concept vehicle, a tiny, city car that looks really amazing. I think what instantly drew it to me was the extra wide wheel base. What other car has a similar profile? Mini, the best freaking car in the world.

The car is a 4 passenger vehicle, has the engine mounted in back and a crazy-futuristic console display to make it easier to change the radio while you drive. One of my favorite details is the tailgate, which is made of a clear panel that has the VW logo behind it. When you turn your headlights on, the VW logo lights up! Another awesome feature is that all but the driver seats can lifted out and folded up, offering a ton of space for trips to IKEA.

I’ve read that they won’t immediately release this car to America, that Volkswagen wants to see how the Smart cars do in the market before they release something equally as petite. I say, hurry up and get them over here!

For a lot more techinical info, check out Zer Customs.

Bobby