Heliotropic Billboard

The concept of this billboard is to following the movement and temperature of the sun. This was inspired by the sunflower which displays a process called floral heliotropism.
Heliotropic flowers track the sun's motion across the sky from East to West. During the night, the flowers may assume a random orientation, while at dawn they turn again towards the East where the sun rises. The motion is performed by motor cells in a flexible segment just below the flower, called a pulvinus. The motor cells are specialized in pumping potassium ions into nearby tissues, changing their turgor pressure. The segment flexes because the motor cells at the shadow side elongate due to a turgor rise. Heliotropism is a response to blue light. Some solar tracking plants are not purely heliotropic: in those plants the change of orientation is an innate circadian motion triggered by light, which continues for one or more periods if the light cycle is interrupted.

The billboard will be made up of panels that begin by being flat in the east and as the sun rises as does the temperature the flaps will begin to lift. By the end of the day and as the sun has gone down the flaps will be flat once again and will display another image. The billboard will reset itself much like the sunflowers do at night. The billboard will be completely solar powered.

Above is an example of what the billboard would look like in the east or flat.

As the sun rises the panels lift revealing another image.

Zebra Camouflaged Annual Reports

To humans, a zebra's stripes stick out like a sore thumb, so it's hard to imagine that the stripes act as camouflage. Zoologists believe stripes offer zebras protection from predators in a couple of different ways.

The first is as simple pattern-camouflage, much like the type the military uses in its fatigue design­. The wavy lines of a zebra blend in with the wavy lines of the tall grass around it. It doesn't matter that the zebra's stripes are black and white and the lines of the grass are yellow, brown or green, because the zebra's main predator, the lion, is colorblind. The pattern of the camouflage is much more important than its color, when hiding from these predators. If a zebra is standing still in matching surroundings, a lion may overlook it completely.

This benefit may help an individual zebra in some situations, but the more significant means of protection has to do with zebra herds. Zebras usually travel in large groups, in which they stay very close to one another. Even with their camouflage pattern, it's highly unlikely a large gathering of zebras would be able to escape a lion's notice, but their stripes help them use this large size to their advantage. When all the zebras keep together as a big group, the patte­rn of each zebra's stripes blends in with the stripes of the zebras around it. This is confusing to the lion, who sees a large, moving, striped mass instead of many individual zebras.


Having said all that. How boring can annual reports and confidential documents be? I thought about camouflaging annual reports and confidential documentation much like a zebra. Using a black and white print of a zebra pattern and splitting the information between two transparencies. The documentation looks very confusing and doesn't make much sense until you lay the transparencies over the top of the zebra pattern.

Above is the plain zebra pattern.

Above you can see the transparencies with the writing.

Above is the completed document and it is now legible.

One Critique

Nature settles for "good enough," not "optimum," design. Results are all driven by natural selection and what is immediately sufficient for survival, not what's the best design. But even so, after 3.8 billion years of refinement, the existing designs at least provide seeds for even better ideas, ideas we wouldn't have thought of without nature's inspiration.

“Nine Laws of Nature”

With my many trips to the library I came across a book which has been super helpful with all things regarding Biomimicry. I came across something that made me realise nature also offers some good insights into reinterpreting the processess and organizational structures that are found within the graphic design profession. Here’s what she (Janine Benyus) calls the “Nine Laws of Nature”:


Nature runs on sunlight.

Nature uses only energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excess from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

Think about some of the evolving traits of great organizations. They’re efficient and well-designed, close to and insightful about their markets, and increasingly are energizing and transparent, attentive to ethical and social values, diverse points of view and teamwork. What are some of the practices and processes graphic designers would like to change? and how can we look to nature to solve them?

Source: Biomimicry - Innovation Inspired by Nature - by Janine Benyus

Looking at Nature as Model, Measure, or Mentor

If we want to consciously emulate nature's genius, we need to look at nature differently.  In biomimicry, we look at nature as model, measure, and mentor.  

Nature as model: Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then emulates these forms, process, systems, and strategies to solve human problems – sustainably.  The Biomimicry Guild and its collaborators have developed a practical design tool, called the Biomimicry Design Spiral, for using nature as model.

Nature as measure: Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the sustainability of our innovations.  After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned what works and what lasts.  Nature as measure is captured in Life's Principles and is embedded in the evaluate step of the Biomimicry Design Spiral.

Nature as mentor: Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature.  It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.

Re-Designing: Part Two

In this part I tackled the Nando's packaging project. I applied the design spiral once again and asked the question again What do I want the design to do?


Fit together in a structurally sound way
Save space
Create a pattern
Open up interestingly


By using asknature.org once again and from previous research I had done on Biomimicry I started with the structure.


Structure


Beehives and cells serves as a hexagonal structure


The beehive's internal structure is a densely-packed matrix of hexagonal cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen), and to house the "brood" (eggs, larvae, and pupae).


Whether we look into beehives, man-made devices, living tissues or even atoms we can find surprising examples of a characteristic hexagonal pattern. We call it hexagonal close packing and it is in fact most effective to pack the largest number of objects in a minimum space.

Using the beehive as inspiration this is what I have produced.

Results:

The images below are examples of the flat designs of the packaging. You will notice that I didn't change much of the design style because I thought that it was successful in that respect. The only thing that I did do was update it somewhat and tidy up the end result.

Pop Your Cherry

Have Him Anyday Not Just Sunday

Split That Banana

Below is an image of a scaled down version of the package mocked-up. The hexagons fit perfectly together. If these packages were produced and packed up for distribution they would be able to fit a large amount of objects together in a minimum amount of space.

Morphotex Structural Coloured Fibers

Colored fibers and fabric without chemical dyes

While scouring the great wide web for resources I came across a company as well as an artist that are working with structural coloured fibers. 


Product or Process


Morpho butterflies remain a vibrant blue throughout their lives, without ever needing a coat of paint to spruce up a dull finish. The scales on their wings are made of many layers of proteins that refract light in different ways, and the color we see often is due entirely to the play of light and structure rather than the presence of pigments. Teijin Fibers Limited of Japan produces Morphotex® fibers. No dyes or pigments are used. Rather, color is created based on the varying thickness and structure of the fibers. Energy consumption and industrial waste are reduced because no dye process must be used.

Below: An example of the reflective fabric

Above: A close up of the butterflies wing.

The artist Signe Rand Ebbesen has started incorporating hand woven paper yarn and the morphotex fibers into his artwork to create unusual results with textiles.

You can clearly see the reflective quality of the textile. What I want to find out is if this technology can be applied to the fibers of paper. To create the same effect. Thus utilising the reflective quality in the paper to hide text or imagery and it is only revealed once positioned towards the sun. I will be getting in contact with a biologist to find out if it might be possible.

...Sheena...