Behance Network Creative Roundup

Cameron Parkins, November 5th, 2009

Artists and creatives of all types are sharing some incredible CC-licensed content on The Behance Network.

Levi van Veluw showcases miniature landscapes built on a human canvas in Landscapes (BY-NC-ND); Glenn Jones offers ideas for future t-shirts (BY-NC); L Filipe dos Santos highlights illustrations with See. Saw (BY-NC-ND); Si Sott offers a poster series in Silent Records (BY-NC-ND); and Iain Crawford shares his stunning still photography (BY-NC).

It is fantastic to see this kind of up-take with our licenses, and Behance is only one of the many content directories that use our tools to help increase sharing and reuse. For more info on Behance, be sure to read our intervew with founder/CEO Scott Belsky as well as explore the Behance Network itself.

Excerpt from See . Saw Series by L Filipe dos Santos | CC BY-NC-ND

TED Fellowships Deadline

Jane Park, September 16th, 2009

I blogged about the past year’s fellows in February, and now the deadline for 2010 is approaching next week. For those who don’t know what TED is, I’ll quote myself,

“TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” and their talks are given annually at the TED conference in Long Beach, CA. 50 speakers give “talks” or 18 minute speeches about a variety of issues, including “science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world.” (Past speakers include Al Gore, our own Lawrence Lessig, and Jill Bolt Taylor—a brain researcher who describes the stroke she suffers in exhilarating fashion, to name a few.)

Now, with the new TED fellows program, extraordinary people you may not have heard of yet (without the $6,000 to pay for standard admission to the conference) can give talks, too.”

To apply for a fellowship, go to their website and follow the instructions there. The deadline for all applicants is noon (EST), September 25. It’s eighteen minutes of exposure to talk about anything you want; you could very well be that spokesperson for your cause. All TED talks are licensed CC BY NC-ND.

Winning Open Design for Classroom of the Future

Jane Park, September 10th, 2009

On Monday, the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge announced the winning design for a sustainable classroom of the future, concluding a competition with over 1,000 registrants from 65 countries around the world. Of the 400 designs entered, the winning design was developed by Teton Valley Community School and Section Eight Design. They were awarded $50,000 to translate their design into action, with a $5,000 grant for Section Eight to help them.

The winning design is not the only outcome of this challenge, however, as all other designs are openly available online via various Creative Commons Licenses (the winning design is CC BY-NC-ND) for others to improve, adapt, and implement themselves, which calls for additional support in much-needed areas. The massive response by schools and design companies around the world also signifies how learning has evolved, and how the old brick and mortar classroom is no longer considered sustainable. By redesigning our learning spaces, we are making concrete the new technologies and pedagogies of the 21st century.

I would especially check out some of the other winners in categories such as Urban Classroom Upgrade open via CC BY (by Rumi School of Excellence in India and IDEO, SF) and Rural Classroom Addition open via CC BY-NC-SA (by Building Tomorrow Academy in Uganda and Gifford, LLP).

Logo contest for Open Education News blog

Jane Park, April 30th, 2009

The title says it all. From Open Education News:

“In this contest, your task is to design a logo and banner picture for Open Education News.

The blog authors have different backgrounds but something great in common: the passionate belief that Open Educational Resources are a great way to produce quality educational materials that are far more accessible and flexible than traditional, commercial materials.

Open Education News provides readers with a daily dose of the most relevant open education and open educational resources news from around the world.”

The prize for the winning logo are t-shirts from CC’s much coveted schwag collection and the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. So if you are suddenly hit with inspiration during your lunch break tomorrow, read the contest rules and submit a logo by May 31!

SomeRightsReserved, CC Licensed Design

Cameron Parkins, September 29th, 2008

SomeRightsReserved is a download-only design firm that produces “blueprints to a range of different products and objects”, connecting “designer straight to consumer, empowering all parties.” SRR uses different CC licences on different products, enabling customers to take the ideas therein and use them in a variety of different ways. From SSR:

Imagine being able to buy the digital blueprints to any object, being able to take it to a skilled professional and have it produced directly. Imagine instant access to quality design ideas and the means to manufacture products on demand. Imagine completely removing the middleman.

Some Rights Reserved lets designers get ideas out directly to the public, on their terms. Designers have greater creative freedom, flexibility, spontaneity, and control over licensing. Consumers are given the chance to purchase design instantly, either printing it out on their own printer or taking the file to a listed supplier for production.

SSR has some absolutely amazing projects, some for sale and some for free – be sure to explore what they have available.

Open Design: Industrial Design under CC

Michelle Thorne, September 10th, 2008

CC Israel Project Lead Rotem Medzini writes about an initiative to combine computer numerical control (CNC) with CC-licensed design information:

Open-Design is an alternative way of designing art. In his M.A. thesis, Ronen Kadushin felt there was a problem with realizing creativity in industrial designs. Ronen, an Israeli designer that also lectures at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, saw that while in fields like music, graphic design, video, etc., creating became inclusive for all and also independent of publishers or producers — all thanks to the digital technology and the internet. But according to Ronen, it isn’t like that for industrial design. It is being left behind because it has material output that needs marketing investment and support from producers.

To solve all that he came up with Open-Design, which combines CNC production and CC design information for publication and distribution. “It is an alternative method to design and production that in my view, is in touch with the realities of information technology and economics,” noted Ronen. He added that while doing his research, he liked the flexibility, clarity, and simplicity of CC.

According to Ronen’s thesis, consumers today are design aware and often look for products with attribution to the designer, as an added value to the designer’s fees. Ronen sees Open-Design as a way in which the designer is also at the center of the customer-base, not only th producer or product. For him, Open-Design is an adventure, an experiment involving his profession and life.

CC-Israel wants to thank Ronen Kadushin for answering our questions and sharing with us his work.

“Flat Knot – stainless” by Ronen Kadushin available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.