http://www.fastcompany.com/1614807/puma-and-yves…

Puma’s “Clever Little Bag” is an interesting approach to the issue of packaging and waste. Rather than having a complete box, which consumers will put into a (usually disposable) bag to carry home, the design combines a cardboard skeleton in a reusable bag made of recycled material. There is no plastic liner, nor is there any lamination on the card. The whole idea is to reduce environmental costs at each stage of the package’s life: raw materials, production, shipping and disposal. The concept is particularly interesting because it takes something that is very standardised, and seemingly minimal, and finds a new, and seemingly better, way to do things.

This diagram gives an abstract, high-level overview of how the Internet is structured. The aim is to allow a teacher to introduce concepts such as TCP/IP, packet switching, LANs and firewalls, without going into too much detail. It leaves some interesting questions: Why a cloud? What’s in the cloud? Do we really need to know? At what level (education, career) is it important to know?

Download the file.

http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/03/eco-coke-bottle-design.html

An interesting study into the environmental impact of square drinks containers

http://cssremix.com/

This is one of the best web design showcase sites. A perfect source for inspiring designers to improve their own work.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks?currentPage=all

Spurred on by the development of the OLPC project, ASUS created the EeePC, and in doing so created a whole new computing market: the Netbook. This development is interesting for many reasons, not least because it demonstrates the speed at which things can change for businesses and technologists. Students might be asked to consider the factors, both technical and social, that allowed Netbooks to become so popular.

Despite the comical voice over, this video provides some interesting material on the history of the Internet and the developments that lead to it, such as time-sharing and file sharing. This provides an interesting way to bust the myth that the Internet is a recent development.

http://picmarkr.com/

Picmarkr makes it easy to add watermarks to images, allowing content creators to protect their work before it is shared online.

http://goldenratiocalculator.com/

The Golden Ratio (approximately 1.618) is a mathematically derived number that equates to rectangles of pleasing appearance. This simple website makes it easy for web designers to apply the golden ratio to their layouts, helping them produce more attractive websites.

http://www.tartanmaker.com/

Generate unique and colourful tartan patterns for use in web and graphic design.

http://vectormagic.com/

Most images available on the web today are in bitamp file formats, and so cannot be scaled up. This website takes such bitmap images and converts them to scalable vector formats, such as SVG.