The Ryobi P715 flashlight.

Some development work on the P715 Ryobi Flashlight.

I love it when art and science join forces. Although I suppose this is more of an artistic expression with a lot of technical and programming muscle. Don't you hate the guys who can hold all that information in their heads and express it artistically? I respect engineers who understand aesthetics, and designers who can retain all the technical aspects of a project.

I just heard of another reason why to apply for design patents- to protect your tooling.
A co-worker was just telling me about a cancelled project. The tooling was owned by the factory and we did not want them to sell the final project under another brand name. Apparently this has happened in the past. We used a design patent to protect the tooling from being used by another company.

The Potato-head school of thought advocates the strict and reflexive application of design elements. With rigorous Git-R-Duun protocols potato-head designers and marketers gleefully slap on recognizable design elements onto their concepts.

Never is a potato-head designer happier than when confronted with a parts bin. Slap that grill on- instant Rolls Royce sub-compact. Forget all about stance, proportions and surface tension.

The potato-head designer knows that when you have to design the Rolls-Royce of speakers, you might as well use Rolls Royce design . Even better-you don't have to design your own elements. BRILLIANT!

If anyone is interested in joining please shoot me an email.

The Usborne Book of the Future was what really inspired me when I was a kid.
A scanned version can be found here. Man, I loved these books. The art was awesome and the ideas were well thought out.