A New Open Design Collective

February 23, 2012 in Featured, Projects


I’m excited to say that after many months of discussion, good talks late at night, keynote lectures, emails and excessive tweeting across the world, we’re finally launching a working group which is quite important to all of us involved as designers, builders and makers. I have a feeling it’s going to be an interesting journey.

We’ll be using this blog to post updates about workshops, conferences and festivals we’ll be at, so be sure to stay tuned through our discussion list in the future to get involved in the conversations.

In the meantime, a quick share. I’ve spent many a moment lately browsing through design-focused images on Flickr’s Commons (a photograph-focused catalogue of images in the public domain, many of them old and weathered black and white snapshots) and have found some really amazing relics in the midst.

This photo is one of my favourites. It displays the cameras of Thomas Smillie, the Smithsonian’s first curator of photography in the 1870s. Smillie graduated from chemistry in university but fell in love with photographic hardware and took some amazing photos of old cameras throughout his term with the museum. I feel like the gauzy, ethereal facade draping this snapshot adds interesting character to its already oceanic mood.

That’s it for now, but I look forward to meeting many new members of this group in the near future!

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