Please Redesign This:

image credit: defendingwomen.com

I've carried this clunky thing on my keychain for the past 3 years now. Luckily I've never had to use it. It's one of those love-hate relationships. I love that I feel safe with it. I hate what it looks like. It's clunky, it's obvious and on display for the world to see. If people weren't fascinated by pepper spray, it would be borderline embarrassing. More importantly, I find myself thinking it would be hard to use if I was presented an actual situation in which it would serve its functionality.

The point is, I think there needs to be a redesign. I did some online digging and found these "redesign" examples. Seriously?! Pink, a gun, a ring, a carry case (Do explain who has the time in the midst of being attacked to take their mase out of a carry case?), a crystal, blinging one, and a miniature. 

I suppose many women love the one with crystal/bling. I see the fun in it as well. It's not really my style but I get it (the DIVA, is a bit much for me, but again, that's just me). It's been featured in many news stations so I'm assuming it's popular? Anyways, I appreciate the company, Pepperface, (www.pepperface.com)'s, valiant attempt to make this product better, less clunky, less embarrassing and less of an eye sore. This is appealing for a lot of women, but me, I'd just like something simple. The problem with this is that I just want something unobvious and the clunky one I carry is obvious but so is this studded one.  

My favorite out of all of them is the very last one, the miniature, which is a product from Malaysia. It's cutesy but at least it's fun and cheeky... and not clunky. 

image credit: mase.com

 image credit: defendingwomen.com

image credit: ubergizmo.com

image credit: notcot.com

image credit: kaboodle.com

image credit: pepperface.com

image credit: alibaba.com

There must be a more ergonomic solution to safety... Maybe one already exists and I missed it. If that's the case, please enlighten me!

Digital Media Cool School

I keep joking that I might as well go back to school if I don't get a job. Joking was the key word until I read an article in Fast Company called Hyper Island Grooms the Next Generation of Digital Media about a school in Sweeden called Hyper Island. Okay, so I won't really be thinking about going back to school, but if I did, this would be the place.

Click on the link or just read the article in full here:

MATTIAS HANSSON, 40, helps train 1,300 students a year in digital media, interactive art direction, and digital business management in Stockholm and on a former prison island off the coast of Sweden. Graduates are hotly recruited by such firms as Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Ideo.

"Look into the eyes of the creatives you know and ask them: If they could choose, would they pick the traditional academic world or an opportunity to learn by doing real stuff such as building e-communication solutions for MTV, Ikea, and others. We don't have classrooms or auditoriums, and we don't focus on grades. We don't educate people to become something. They have to decide that themselves.

Great talents get an opportunity to boost their skills while they are with us, and then they become very sought after. Every student has at least five job offers from top international agencies. The student with the most this year got 56 job offers. Around 80% go abroad. We're more of a household name in Manhattan, Paris, or San Francisco than in Sweden."

I haven't fully researched it yet but it was way too cool not to share.