TEI (Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction) is a really great conference. For 2011, they are starting a Design Challenge competition only for students. The venue is Funchal, Madeira in Portugal, not bad! Here is the full call for participation:

Always wanted to fly, zap your enemies with lightning, or own an invisibility cloak? Now’s your chance to apply your design and engineering skills to achieve your dreams. TEI 2011, the fifth international conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, is delighted to announce its first student design challenge, which will focus on superhero costumes and accessories. More information is available below and on the design challenge website: http://www.tei-conf.org/11/participation_/design-challenge/

Looking forward to seeing you (and your superhero alter ego) at TEI 2011!

IMPORTANT DATES
October 31st: Entry deadline (a simple email with details about your team, nothing actually due)
December 10th: TEI early registration deadline (confirm challenge participation by registering)
Dec. 10th-Jan. 22nd: Project development
January 23-26th: TEI conference: design presentation

PRESENTATION, JUDGING and AWARDS
Projects will be presented at a special runway event held during TEI 2011. Each team will have 5-10 minutes to dazzle the crowd with a demonstration of their costume in action. This presentation will be modeled on a fashion runway show, so teams should arrange to have someone wear and demonstrate the costume in person.

We will award cash prizes of $1000 each in three categories:

• Inventiveness
• Quality of execution
• Presentation and style

All TEI attendees will vote to elect the winners in each category.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

See all the details on the TEI 2011 website

The 3-day event combined a mixture of keynote speakers, student research presentations, workshops, interactive sessions and social events.

We had the pleasure to have Heather Martin, Zachary Lieberman and Erik Stolterman as keynote speakers for the event. The videos of these presentations are now available online for you viewing pleasure.

Visit the Ingredients In Gradients website for the full proceedings and some pictures of the event.

Sponsors

INGREDIENTS IN GRADIENTS
SIDeR 2010 conference • March 24–26 2010
Umeå Institute of Design • Umeå, Sweden
http://www.ingredientsingradients.com

– CALL FOR PAPERS –
Umeå Institute of Design and the Interaction Design Program are thrilled to host in March of 2010 the sixth edition of the Student Interaction Design and Research Conference (SIDeR). Our organizing committee invites design students to participate in this event to inspire and nourish evocative discussions on the subject of interaction design. We aim to receive thoughtfully written submissions and expect the presenters to demonstrate their inspiring visions with either tangible or visually rich (or both) evidence.

– ABOUT THIS YEAR’S TITLE — THE REASONING BEHIND THE WORDPLAY –
Ingredients in gradients: with this phrase we are aiming to communicate the intrinsic playfulness of the process behind the building and thinking involved when designing interactions. Further, our aim is to evoke the broadness and openness of the interaction design field.

We deliberately chose not to have any particular theme for the conference. We feel that the absence of thematic constraints—both for the students that desire submitting proposals and for the invited keynote speakers—will help generate the most passionate, thought-through and critical views on interactivity-related subjects.

– INSPIRATIONAL THEMES FOR ARTICLES –
* Interactivity for the real world – A spin-off of Papanek’s famous book. What is (or could be) “[Interaction] design for the real world”?
* You and me equal interactivity – Discuss the societal implications of ubiquitous gadgetery and embedding technology everywhere.
* One dose of code, two doses of craft, and a sprinkle of wit – Show us what you mean by a true and well thought-through systemic approach to design.
* Design for them or with them – Any luck with co-design? Share your recipes of recent success stories, or life-enhancing failures.
* Long lastin’ interactin’ – Give us your wide (and wild) intepretation on how one make sustainable and viable interactions come to life.
* Freebie – Push the boundaries of IxD and blow our brains out (or in).

– SUBMISSION –
The students who intend to present their work during the conference have to submit a video showcasing their interactive prototypes and systems, as well as an article that supports the video with solid and thoughtful (design) arguments. The goal for the article is for it to contribute both to design research, and to a greater extent, building and sharing knowledge amongst design students about interaction design.

The articles should be of a maximum length of 2000 words, using the Springer guidelines and be submitted by January 24, 2009. We are currently building the web infrastructure to receive all submissions. We should be able to accept submissions online by December 24, 2009.

– DATES –
SIDeR10 : March 24-25-26 2010
Submission opens : December 24 2009
Deadline for submission : January 24 2010
Notification of acceptance : February 21 2010
Deadline for conference registration : March 7 2010

– CONTACT –
For all questions and inqueries, please contact us at recipes (at) ingredientsingradients (dot) com
http://www.ingredientsingradients.com

High quality version: UID20_timelapse_640x480_105mb.mov [Quicktime, 105 MB]

See all the details and links at http://www.dh.umu.se/default.asp?P=2118&naar=2009

Following the success of the Sensing And Sensuality Spring Summit, Umeå Institute of Design invites you to the

IxD Fall summit 2009, November 6-7-8 2009
One full day of talks + an incredible two-day of workshop with Fritzing.
Talks all day Friday. Workshop Saturday and Sunday (200 sek fee)

Preliminary list of speakers
German Leon
Vodafone User Experience (Germany)

David Rose
Vitality (USA)

Karsten Schmidt
PostSpectacular (UK)

Reto Wettach & André Knöring
Potsdam, Interaction Design Lab and Fritzing (Germany)

Jan-Christoph Zoels
Experientia (IT)

Clive Van Heerden
Philips design (ND)

More information to come.

Check them out: http://thishappened.org/talks/

The graphic identity for this year’s festival is quite interesting too in its own sense. It consists of an interactive typography contruction rendered from online feeds. It was developed by a team from Wieden+Kennedy, Karsten Schmidt and Nokia. The team decided to go with a generative model to build the brand identity for the event, quite unusual for that sort of client work.

Why do I mention all this? Mostly because the work of Karsten Schmidt is very impressive, and it happens that he will be at Umeå Institute of Design soon! The IxD2 students will have an intense Processing workshop with him for a full week in early November.

Here are some videos explaining the thing.

Some pictures of the presentation the group gave about how this years onedotzero festival identity design was developed.

http://www.onedotzero.com

This exhibit enables visitors to explore various forms of electricity, and to experience and reflect on energy consumption. Some of Sweden’s best known artists and designers have been brought together with engineers, technical know-how and environmental consideration in this ground breaking exhibition. You will see electricity as never seen before. By the Swedish Institute and the Interactive Institute

Energy AWARE Clock is an electricity meter that resembles an ordinary kitchen clock.

http://www.visualvoltage.se

Take a tour through the Life in 2020.

[via]

Check out the presentations from this year’s From Business to Buttons conference. It’s a nice lineup of presenters.

http://www.businesstobuttons.com/stream

multitouch-barcelona.com
Multitouch Barcelona is a recently born interaction design group that explores natural communication between people and technology. They design touch sensitive environments where real world interactions move to a digital context. Interfaces where people touch, play, move, feel…Where senses play their natural role, where everything just ‘happens” as it does in the real world.

Call for entries: Designs for the next 90 years

Electrolux Design Lab 2009 invites industrial design students to create home appliances that will shape how people prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes over the next nine decades. First prize 5,000 Euro and a paid internship at Electrolux.

Deadline May 31, 2009. For more information and registration: www.electrolux.com/designlab

electroluxdesignlab09_call-for-entries_press-release.pdf

Spring summit 2009
Friday March 27, 2009 at 10:00

Umeå Institute of Design & Tellart present
Sensing And Sensuality

Adam Greenfield – “Towards a Newer Urbanism”
Speedbird; Everyware
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Mikael Wiberg – “Interaction & Textures”
Umeå Institute of Design
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Matt Cottam – “Professional Amateur”
Tellart & Rhode Island School of Design
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Matt Jones – “Anything Essential is Invisible”
Dopplr
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Lennart Andersson – “Industrial Design meets Interaction Design”
Ergonomidesign
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Erica Robles – “Media Spaces & Mega Structures”
HUMlab, Umeå University
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Camille Moussette – “Craftsmanship in/for IxD”
Umeå Institute of Design
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Jack Schulze – “Media products, phenomena and the bendy city”
Schulze and Webb
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Timo Arnall – “Making Visible”
Touch & Oslo School of Architecture and Design
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www.dh.umu.se
More information on our website