My latest invention is the static pencil. Basically it’s a pencil that remains in one spot, in order to use the pencil, pen, crayon or drawing tool, you move the canvas below it with your hands. I was thinking some people might not want one consistent line on their paper so, I thought a simple foot pedal would raise and lower the drawing tool. I would imagine the device would allow you to easily swap out your preferred drawing device and would have an adjustable tension on the device in order to press down on what ever canvas you might have.

I believe this invention solves the problem of having your arm block what you are working on while drawing or writing. I also think this invention will prevent pencil and pen thefts. I could see these devices being put in banks and schools. Every child should have access to a static pencil.

Below is a rapid prototype of how this invention might work…

Hosting Woes
The biggest problem with buying two years of hosting in advance is when that two years runs out. That time is in the very near future and I’m slightly worried that the bill might be a bit more than what I’m going to be capable of paying. On January 6th, 2008 I’m going to need to shell out $382 for two more years of hosting. It breaks down to about $16/month. For what I need hosting wise this is about the cheapest I can get it. The wonderful thing about DreamHost is that I can host as many domains as I would like and I get a ton of bandwidth usage.
So I host a number of my sites like buymysketchbook.com, describbles.com, mustacheregistry.com and about 20 others as well my Mom’s pottery site Red Bird Pottery.

So I’m currently seeking some help with the hosting for the next two years. The nice thing about donating to the hosting is that it goes directly to the hosting company so you know exactly where your help will go.

Click this button below to lend us a hand if you are feeling generous.

For those of you that are wondering if this site has made any money, I’m still working on getting to that point. The sponsors have really helped in keeping the gallery space although it might be a little longer before this site actually makes any money. MoHDI just isn’t to the point where we are pulling in more than $16 a month. I might actually try marketing the site one of these days.

If you are not in the donation type mode perhaps you could check out the shop and see if there is anything you might be interested in. I hope to get another run of Powered by Gasoline stickers printed up soon.

Art Shows
I’ve got two art show coming up.
Friday January 4th 6-9PM the SE Tiny’s coffee shop will be the first art show of the month. I’ll be showing some of my best new work yet.
In February I’ll be in a group show at the Goodfoot and will be displaying a piece that is my largest and most ambitious work yet. It’s something that you will not want to miss.

Wieden + Kennedy Seeking
Some advertising company in Portland is actively seeking some creative talent.
www.wk.com/seeking

By January 1st they are trying to get 5000 people to submit a pdf to them that is no larger than 6 megs and under 20 pages of pretty much what ever content you want. 50 people out of the 5000 will be chosen to come to Portland (at WK expense) and hang out at the agency for a little while to see if it would be a good fit.

Since I’m pretty much a powerhouse of creativity, I feel this might be a good opportunity for me to apply. I honesty feel I have a decent chance of being 1out of 100 people picked for this. I’ve had no time though to work on a large pdf yet, my plan is to do this over the weekend. I figure most people will put together some sort of portfolio that contains information about them with some interesting work and some interesting and fun art or creative stuff. The content of my pdf is going to basically talk about my ideas and contain a small bio while being wrapped in some of my drawings and doodles. When I finish what I send them, I’ll post the file someplace so you can see what I sent to them. I doubt I’ll get much feedback from them right away but it will be interesting to hear what others think of it.
I know my own strengths and weaknesses better than most, I realize though that it’s good to throw something out there for feedback as it can be a great learning experience.
I believe I would be a great fit at W+K if it’s in the right position. I suppose my dream job would be to sit around and come up with ideas all day then have someone bankroll my ideas as I develop them. Idea Developer, I wonder if that’s a position they are looking for?

I heard from someone who heard from someone who know a person that works at Wieden + Kennedy and they said they are “cleaning house” and that is part of the reason for the whole Seeking thing. I feel the source is reliable enough so I sort of feel bad for current employees of them who are not feeling like it’s working out.
This might be totally wrong though as I also heard that they just went through some house cleaning not to long ago. When I say “house cleaning” I actually mean layoffs and firing.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

If it doesn’t work out with them, I’ll probably just start my own advertising agency, I think I would like that.

MoHDI Seeking
So… I was talking with my friend Jen the other day and the idea of Seeking came up. This is going to be something you will see on mohdi in the next year sometime but, basically it’s an interactive social chart of friends that allows people to easily find the person you are “Seeking”. It’s a very interesting idea that I’m going to do a working model of on MoHDI and then probably all of the social networks will steal it as it’s actually brilliant and social networks lack something like this… Perhaps I’ll develop it for facebook as it’s fresh, new and would be very useful.

Great Idea, maybe next year
I probably should have done this but it could wait till next year or translate to other holidays.
Imagine an online application that allows you to upload a photo of your house with your holiday decorations up, then you can choose from a variety of Santa images to composite them into your photo, you could then print them out and leave them for kids on xmas day saying you woke up and caught Santa in your home.
It’s a fun idea that might have to wait till next year to implement…

It’s good to be back home and there are tons more things to share but, they must wait for another day. It’s past 4:00 AM and I need to get some rest so I can spend the weekend working on this Seeking thing.

When I saw the video above a while ago I was really excited.

After checking out Instructables I saw they had just announced another laser cutter contest. I felt that my endless sketchbook was a really fun entry but, if I was planning on winning this time I was going to have to come up with something extraordinary. This brings me back to the Jeep waterfall display. I was thinking that it would a lot of fun to make a small scale mechanical version of that display.

I added this idea to the MoHDI think tank and started thinking about the design of such a display. At some point it occurred to me that instead of making a fountain type of thing, I was thinking it might be easier to use bubbles to display a variety of images and animations. Instead of falling like the waterfall, the bubbles will rise.

Since I just love mechanical things I was also thinking it would be great to build mechanically. Mechanical animations are just amazing if you ask me. I think if I can get it done in my little spare time, I will try to design, build and enter this into the new laser cutter contest. I think it might have a decent chance of doing ok.

Here are some of my notes about this project. I’ll explain some of my thinking after the image.

The basic idea of this is that through a series of holes that constantly rotate and allow air to pass I’ll be able to manipulate the air bubbles enough to make out some recognizable shapes and text. There are numerous difficult tasks in order to achieve what I would like. For instance I might have to somehow strobe the air and the water. I was also thinking that when the air bubbles go up, water will come down a pump at the bottom of the device might be needed.

My thoughts go to a double cylindrical shaped device where I could have air bubbles go through the main section in the middle then use the outer cylinder to actually pump the water back up.

Information…
You won’t get it….

My thinking about storing the information on a mechanical device is rather interesting. I have a number of ways to actually do this, each might be a disaster when it actually comes to working with the water and such. I’m thinking of creating something that would work a lot like the old player pianos or music boxes. The simplest idea is basically spinning a disk with only a slice of this disk being allowed to have air escape through the holes. As the disk spins different holes are exposed and different imagery will occur as the air passes through the water.
This disk with the holes in it idea gets really fun when instead of a disk you think about a sphere or a series of rotating spheres to allow you to work in more space.

Now I say water but, depending on the speed of the bubbles and quickness of the animation I might have to try a variety of liquids to actually get the desired effect.

I’m not sure how much information could actually be placed one single disk but, I would imagine it wouldn’t be a lot. Perhaps a word or two. The actual cool thing is being able to think in 3D space instead of flat and be able to have a variety of images pass through. ….

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m rambling but, I just want to get some of my many thoughts about this idea out there. I’ve been experimenting with some things and hope someday to have something to display..

Who knows perhaps this might be a way to display 3D shows someday. Maybe you could take and display pictures or something with this thing or it might lead to something much bigger….

The next phase of my plan is to get a proper billionaire outfit. I pretty much would like to dress like the dude from the New Yorker

Initially I wanted to spell out the words “Spare Some Change?” then after doing a gem and time inventory, we decided that “Spare Cash?” would be best. It implies that I’m looking for bills instead of change… It might also be a question though, “Spare Cash?” I’m guessing that when I dress up and ask people for their money they will be lining up to place money on my platter. In no time mountains of cash will be coming my way. It’s well worth the $4,500 I spent of diamonds for this project…

Just kidding, those aren’t really diamonds. It was rhinestones that I spent the $4,500 on.

So when I got home I purchased the domain www.MustacheRegistry.com in order to develop this idea more.
I’m open for ideas about how the site should work and operate. If you have a mustache, live in Portland and would like to be on the board of directors for this project please don’t hesitate to contact me.

The phone number project is an idea of mine that will allow people to easily remember numbers by simply looking at a shape. The overall project is a study in memory, design and psychology. It’s a very complicated project that involves many many studies of different things. Memory is a big part of my studies for this project. I would really love to show someone a shape, and with no instruction on what the shape is supposed to be, the person should be able to cypher a phone number from it. I know it’s ambitious but, I do think that it’s doable.

This test below is one of the first tests I was working on. When I lost my computer not long ago, I also lost a number of notes and files related to this project… (ugh) So, you are looking at an in the works version. Try it out, it’s kind of an interesting study in memory.

Wasn’t that fun?
Now let me tell you about texturalization. Basically, instead of relating number to images, you relate numbers to textures.
The basic idea is to imagine a bowl made of 5 different textures. You imagine running your fingers down the side of the bowl… so let’s say you feel brick, steel, glass, plastic and clay, this might represent the numbers 1,2,3,4,5. You might shift the sequence of textures around depending on the number. Now, that covers 5 numbers, the fun part then is to imagine a food item in the dish. This item is a layered series of food textures. You then imagine putting your hand into this food dish, as you push through each layer of textures, you should be reminded of a number.

Texturalization, I believe is something that when applied is an easy way to remember long sequences of numbers. You might also want to try doing something similar with smells. It’s kind of wild.

One product I might make from this is my texturalization bracelet. basically a series of different textures that you can use as a tool to help you remember things. This is great and all but, it’s only a small part of creating this magical variant shape that I’m on the quest for.
If I figure this phone number shape out, I see loads of potential applications for completing such a study. I do realize that it’s highly unlikely to actually find this magic phone shape but, I believe in the process of hunting for this shape some other amazing results and ideas will emerge.
Below are some of my notes on this project.

If you would like to get involved in this project, please write me at drew@mohdi.com and I can give you some more details of my thoughts on this.

Anyhow. I could easily talk about this for a long time but, I’m way tired and have things to do.

Then I was thinking that it would be really cool to have a sketch watch. It would be a scrolling sketchbook you wear on your wrist like a watch. The following photograph shows the potential for awesomeness with this device.

So while drinking coffee at the bar I hang out at and watching old music videos late on Sunday night, I put the first prototype together. Using bar coasters, straws, rubber bands and paper, I was able to have a working version of the sketch watch.
I decided to hold off on making the early versions of the sketch watch allow the paper to loop. The mechanics would be more difficult to work out. I’m sure as this product develops, I will be offering many more versions and features. Remember, this is still the prototype stage.
Since Sunday night, I’ve done a bit more work and drafts of the sketch watch.

Four of the prototypes

The bar coaster version is simple and rough, I would love to be able to upcycle some materials to make these watches. For some reason bar coasters aren’t the right material, they tend to absorb liquid and lose shape quickly. The cardboard and matte board versions both look pretty good and are somewhat functional. I’m not the greatest woodworker in the worlds and our shop expert Dave Selden has been out of town so, my balsa wood version is still needing a lot of love. I would like to have our final product made out of some nice wood and ideally use no glue or nails to keep it together. I’m a fan of rubber bands and they tend to work very well. I’m sure Dave will have some great ideas about production and overall design of these sketchy products.
It would be great through the prototype phase of this and get into production on these watches. I would love to send one to the Coudal Partners Swapmeat as they extended the deadline for this articipitation project until the end of May.

Designing such an awesome product like this isn’t easy. My initial drawings, I really over engineered this watch, I had many gears and different ways of having a hard backing push against the paper. Then as the design notes evolved, the less engineered versions just made more sense, they would be easier to build and work better too. Simple is good.

Here are some images of me wearing one of the prototypes. Keep in mind that the size on this is quite a bit larger than what I’m looking for, the depth will probably stay the same as I need to fit a large scroll of paper in there. The sides are not built and I’m using 2 braces to hold the spinning knobs in place.

As you can see, I’m amazed at this watch. The backing for the sketch paper is tensioned by 2 rubber bands. Each side of the backing has more than enough room to allow the paper to slide through. This backing provides a solid surface to sketch on.

You can see here how the tension holding it together is not actually on the brackets but 4 loose pieces of dowel. You can see how much of the watch can be slimmed down here too.

Atom suggested putting a led light inside to back light what you’re drawing. I think this would be awesome. It would add a little to production time but since we are still in the prototyping stages, it’s not a problem. Wood is certainly my first pick for materials although a clear plastic version would look pretty awesome. Metal would also be pretty cool. As I think about it, tin or aluminum cans would be interesting, cardboard, old phone books might work, perhaps water bottles or glass, there are a lot of options. It would be great to find something that is in large abundance yet people just throw it away… computer parts???

Below are some consolidated notes on this idea. I basically combined several pages of notes and ideas to this page. I wanted this to be fun and if I ever sell some creative input, this is a great example of what one might get.

Click to see Larger version of
Sketch Watch and Endless Loop Sketchbook notes

There is a lot to do with this project but, I do hope to make at least a hand full of these watches to sell on MoHDI and give as gifts. If I can share how to build these products, then the people building these will really help in improving this product. Also it might win me a laser cutter.

If you have ideas or suggestions feel free to comment on this post. I’ll be writing again about these soon.

SpashCast launched an awesome new product today that I believe will change the way people use the internet. For MoHDI.com this will allow us to easily share our ideas and concepts thouroughly and quickly. It’s about time a tool like this has come along. First go check out our new MoHDI BRODCAST page then go to the SplashCast site and get your own channels going.

Friday, 26th of January
opening show (for every
fanclub member)
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Tuesday, 30th of January
first show at www.neinaffenein.de
for Dr. Katze from Hamburg,
Germany

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Thursday, 1st of February
second show at beckwheeler.com
for Beck Wheeler from Melbourne,
Australia
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Tuesday, 6th of February
third show at txitua.org for Txitua

from Lima, Perú
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Thursday, 8th of February
fourth show at mohdi.com
for Drew from Portland, Oregon, USA
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Tuesday, 13th of February
Tour final en myspace.com/magonman

for Magon from Israel