PBS OFF-AIR
Interactive Knowledge (IK) of Charlotte, N.C., is not a typical commercial web design firm. They don’t design sites for retail, entertainment, banking, or software companies. Instead they focus their considerable talents on education. (No, they’re not allergic to money.) Clients include such venerables as the Smithsonian, PBS, National Geographic, and the Girl Scouts. Their most recent project for PBS, “Off the Map,” introduces Visionary Art to visitors of pbs.org by profiling 10 eccentric artists who forever changed their communities with installations of elaborate environmental designs. Tressa Prisbrey’s quixotic Bottle Village in Simi Valley, and the formidable Palais Ideal, the melodramatic product of a French postman’s obsession with lime and rock, are among the exalted.

Visitors are encouraged to explore the handmade homes of the 10 artists and create their own virtual backyard masterpieces with a cluttered but ample supply of bric-a-brac. “Off the Wall” is quite the coup for IK as it is the only site on PBS that does not promote a broadcast—and IK owns the copyright. Although they had the support of the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, it was IK who ultimately wrote the proposal that won them the grant to actively research and develop all of the content. And to help clients compete in today’s nonprofit world, currently domineered by “Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,” IK has also recently incorporated writing grant proposals as an added service.

SHIFTING WHEELS
“We wanted to get rid of all the fear factors usually associated with learning how to ride a bicycle,” said Scott Shim, associate professor of industrial design at Purdue University, who recently won first prize at the 9th International Bicycle Design Competition in Taiwan. His 16-inch-wheel bicycle—the prototype is called Shift—looks like a modern tricycle, but as the child gains momentum and learns to balance, the two rear wheels shift inward to merge into one wheel. This causes the balance to gradually shift from the bicycle to the child. “It was designed with my 4-year-old son Kevin in mind,” says Shim.

While the university negotiates with investors to have Shift manufactured, Shim is already at work on his next product design: Cross, an ergonomically appropriate polyurethane cushion for those who sit in cross-legged postures. This time, his students are his source of inspiration: “They’re always waiting outside of the classroom with their legs crossed, and it looks so painful when they try to [get up and] walk.” Imagine how popular Cross will be among the world’s 350 million meditating Buddhists.

ESTABLISHED EMERGING TALENT
It helps to have design-savvy clients like Prada, KnollTextiles, and the Brooklyn Museum if you’re going to produce truly innovative graphic design. New York firm 2x4 can attest. High-visibility clients have allowed 2x4’s multifaceted portfolio—including avant-garde environmental design, dramatic commercial video, and even custom-designed wallpaper—to be experienced by millions. Also, patrons of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art can trade fog for bracing clarity peering at a collection of 2x4’s sumptuous patterned work, on view until Nov. 27..

2x4/design series 3 is the third installment from the museum’s Architecture + Design Department of annual exhibitions devoted to emerging talent in architecture, graphic, and industrial design. The selections, handpicked by curator Joseph Rosa, make one reconsider the phrase emerging talent. Many of the featured players have certainly been on stage before, but it’s indisputable that 2x4’s imaginative work deserves the attention of mainstream media. Hernan Diaz Alonso, the Argentinian architect oddly compared to Matthew Barney, is the subject of the fourth series in April 2006.