ACID - protecting our ideas

It's great to see ACID reporting on our client, Nomad and their recent success in the DME Awards 09. We get a little mention too - thanks Nomad, thanks ACID..... no one will get away with copying the MK1 - it's a one unique innovative design!

We've been long standing members of ACID (Anti-copying In Design) for many years because we believe in originality of ideas and we hate plagiarism with vengeance!

Read more...

Designers Kiosk Invite

WonderCulture Designers Kiosk (Designers Market little bro) is happening next Thurs 3rd Dec and Thurs 10th. 12pm til 10pm. Designers, Christmas gifts & a fun creative-thinking activity. Nomad & Nest will be there with a stall.

Read more...

Design Up Your Street Issue #2

We're up for another 48 Hour Challenge... Are you?

Design Up Your Street & the 48 hour Challenge is back by popular demand!
We're now scouting for anyone with an interest, experience, knowledge in design to contribute to the next issue #2. If you want to join this new dynamic design community and would like to be a contributor, a design writer, have something thought-provoking to say about design, a photographer or good with a camera then contact attic 2 by 19 Nov. In your own words you could inform and inspire the wider community from the general public to education, from private to public sectors. We're looking for design stories & pics, design news, design-led events, companies or organisations interested in funding a page to promote your own design stories in an issue and essentially anyone up for the 48 Hour Challenge. We also want you, the consumers and users of design to take part in our A Question Of Design feature.

Issue #2
We're still Talking Design in Wales, Design beyond Wales, Design in your Community, Design Up Your Street. We're sticking with the same inclusive 'design is for everyone', the community-spirit, the same fast, fun and focused approach. We're keeping features such as A Question of Design, Think Ark, Design Thinking and Design events calendar so we need to know what design stuff is happening and when.

New Stuff
Issue Theme - It'll be top secret until 7 days before the challenge! To keep it fresh, intriguing and in the spirit of the challenge this issue and future issues will be given a slightly ambiguous theme to provoke spontaneity and lively responses in design articles and features we publish. And to add to the challenge we will let you writers and contributors know what the theme 7 days before the publication production challenge starts.

Design Up OUR Street - yes, we need your street! We will be looking for interesting design stories up your street anywhere in the world from Llandeilo to Leeds, Mumbles to Melbourne, Bangor to Berlin. We may want to feature 6 neighbours with their favourite design objects or we may want to feature urban design up your street or cool design destinations or design events that may be happening up your street. We'd like this to be a regular feature so if there's design up your street then let us know. Help put your street on the design map.

Design Contributors
This is our Tribe of design writers and reporters who'll be writing about all sorts of design stuff. The exciting but scary thing about each Tribe of contributors selected for each issue is we won't have a clue what features or design topics they'll be sending us until just before our Edititorial deadline and that'll be up to the wire on the start of the 48 Hour Challenge. And how contributors interpret the Issue Theme is anyone's guess - it'll be their spin on design!

Community Partners & Issue Partners
There's no escaping. Design Up Your Street costs money to produce. But as much as we'd love to be in a position to fund it all ourselves, we're not. One thing we wanted to do from the start was produce an accessible free design publication for anyone to pick up, read and keep. We still believe this is the absolute right approach and this is where our partners come in to help the costs. We've 2 created Partner packages - Community Partner & Issue Partner. If you, your business or organisation would like a design voice and it's your voice the Design Up Your Street could be right up your street.

More
Design Up Your Street is evolving - that's the nature of the beast so keep an eye out for updates and more NEw Stuff we're planning on introducing into Issue #2.
For more info on Design Up Your Street, issue #2, being a contributor or a partner please call Lynsey or Ange on +44 (0) 29 2049 0498 or email info@attic2.co.uk

Read more...

Nomad wins DME Award

Congratulations to our client Nomad Wheelchairs for winning the Design Management Europe (DME) Award in Eindhoven recently. The guys at Nomad really pushed some design boundaries and it's great to see that their first-hand experience and commitment to employing design as an integral part of their business has been internationally recognised and rewarded. For a newly established business and brand with no experience of working with design the guys did a commendable job pulling 3 design studio's together to work on the MK1 wheelchair concept with attic 2 responsible for the design and development of the soft-seat system 'Wear', SDA studio for the design of the frame and chassis and Elfen for the marketing literature. We're proud to be a part of the team and a part of the Nomad community.

Read more...

A wheelchair first

Project – Wheelchair ‘Wear’ Soft-seat system
Client – Nomad Wheelchairs
Designers – Angela Gidden & Lynsey Jackson 2008/09

We were commissioned to design and develop an innovative seat system for a unique wheelchair concept, the MK1, being launched by newly established company Nomad Wheelchairs. The guys at Nomad are committed to promoting positive change within the wheelchair industry and global market. This was an opportunity to push many design boundaries, including our own so we took up the design challenge and the immense complexities intrinsic to the bespoke nature of the MK1 wheelchair.

Pushing Boundaries
The question – Why hasn’t anyone designed a seating system that fits the fashion conscious and technologically savvy wheelchair users that gives them the freedom to chose?

From the outset we dismissed the industry’s crude and standard approach to style, actually the complete the lack of it! So daring and determined to break the mould we introduced our own style language. We explored the world of technical fashion and created a wheelchair ‘Wear’ concept inspired by technical fashion outer-wear introducing influences from the jacket to the shirt tails, from one to wear to one in the wash, from one to wear to a business meeting to one to wear to a gig, from off-the-shelf to bespoke and customised, from the twin-needle stitch detail to the label, from simple to sophisticated, from tailored to casual, from wardrobe to wheelchair.

The Greenhouse
From the start we involved Nomad in our Greenhouse design process taking them from the Seed Factory workshop through to Yield. The project required intensive research and a fresh intellectual design approach. Our research not only covered the international wheelchair sector and users but also fashion and out-door technical clothing markets, stitching hi-tech environmental materials and potential manufacturers.

We developed the concept brief which established the need to create a stylish and more visually appealing, highly user-friendly, well-engineered, comfortable, practical and inter-changeable seat-system solution that presented a unique alternative for Nomad’s target customers primarily defined as 20-30 something's with potential to appeal to other demographic lifestyles within the U.K and global wheelchair user market. We understood the requirement to make the seating-system not just fit for purpose and fit for a free-spirited way of life. As well as being highly functional we ensured that the design concept considered a production and cost efficient seat-system solution that must not only enhance the aesthetics and quality of the MK1 wheelchair but importantly fit those fashion conscious and technologically savvy consumers determined not let their disabilities hold them back. Material sourcing and selection, distinctive stitch details and treatments and avoiding the overuse of fixings like Velcro were paramount. Our Future-Thinking was at the core of the project ensuring that the final solution met our and Nomad’s key environmental criteria. We were committed to 'less is more' - less nasty chchchchchchchchch noise pollution from the industries favourite hook and loop tape, less miles of unforgiving nylon fabric, less manufacturing energy, less weight per seat unit and less ‘user-muscle’ to make even the smallest adjustment.

Yield
The yield is more simplicity, more sophistication, more style, more comfort, more freedom, more customer choice, more sustainability, more functionality, more durability, more brand distinction, more customer satisfaction, more sales and more profit. Launched April 09, now in production, selling, international exposure and interest, shortisted for international design awards.

Read more...