Design of useful things (11 talks)

Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, wants to spread her appreciation of design -- in all shapes and forms -- around the world.

TED2007, Filmed Mar 2007, Posted Jan 2008

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Your medical chart: it's hard to access, impossible to read -- and full of information that could make you healthier if you just knew how to use it. At TEDMED, Thomas Goetz looks at medical data, making a bold call to redesign it and get more insight from it.

TEDMED 2010, Filmed Oct 2010, Posted Jan 2011

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Fifty percent of traffic accidents happen at intersections. Gary Lauder shares a brilliant and cheap idea for helping drivers move along smoothly: a new traffic sign that combines the properties of "Stop" and "Yield" -- and asks drivers to be polite.

TED2010, Filmed Feb 2010, Posted Mar 2010

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Designer Yves Behar digs up his creative roots to discuss some of the iconic objects he's created (the Leaf lamp, the Jawbone headset). Then he turns to the witty, surprising, elegant objects he's working on now -- including the "$100 laptop."

TED2008, Filmed Feb 2008, Posted May 2008

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John Hodgman, comedian and resident expert, "explains" the design of three iconic modern objects. (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.)

TED2012, Filmed Mar 2012, Posted Jun 2012

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Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment.

TEDGlobal 2010, Filmed Jul 2010, Posted Oct 2010

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It may seem that big problems require big solutions, but ad man Rory Sutherland says many flashy, expensive fixes are just obscuring better, simpler answers. To illustrate, he uses behavioral economics and hilarious examples.

TEDSalon London 2010, Filmed Apr 2010, Posted Jun 2010

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Design legend Niels Diffrient talks about his life in industrial design (and the reason he became a designer instead of a jet pilot). He details his quest to completely rethink the office chair starting from one fundamental data set: the human body.

TED2002, Filmed Feb 2002, Posted Apr 2009

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Kevin Surace suggests we rethink basic construction materials -- such as the familiar wallboard -- to reduce the huge carbon footprint generated by the manufacturing and construction of our buildings. He introduces EcoRock, a clean, recyclable and energy-efficient drywall created by his team at Serious Materials.

TED2009, Filmed Feb 2009, Posted Jun 2009

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Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

TED2009, Filmed Feb 2009, Posted Mar 2009

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Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).

TED2011, Filmed Mar 2011, Posted Apr 2011

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