We are all very excited to announce that Kaley Hymiller, a senior at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), has accepted a full-time intern position here at Orange Element. Kaley is a super-talented Industrial Design major there, which was really interesting to us as a graphic design and marketing communications firm. As you probably know from past blog musings on my part, we’re big believers in the importance of having a strong product or offering in order to be able to create a powerful brand. We are excited to have Kaley aboard and look forward to having her skillset in-house to be able to develop even more perspective on the intersection of product design and branding. You can see more of Kaley’s portfolio at http://www.coroflot.com/khymil20.

And while we’re on the topic of product design, I wanted to share something I read about in my latest issue of Popular Science (I love this magazine, as well as Popular Mechanics - call me a dork, I don’t care). It was an article in their Concepts & Prototypes section about a solar-powered sailboat that a Turkish design firm had concepted called Volitan. The article discussed that while using wind power is by default sustainable, nearly every sailboat has a motor that burns gasoline. In the US alone, there are over 10,000,000 gasoline marine engines.

Designnobis has come up with a solar powered craft that uses both wind power as well as solar to propel the hull forward in the water. It’s a boat concept with stunning good looks, but that to me seems completely feasible as a production model (although the carbon fiber hull would probably make for an extremely costly venture). Take a look at the pictures below and read more about Volitan at Gizmodo HERE.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com/

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