Transparentius
From: Art Lebedev via Engadget
Safety tends to take a prominent role in my blog, for several reasons. For one thing, I think safety in design sort of go hand-in-hand. You can't consider safety without considering such things as human factors, new technologies, or the economic feasibility of safety. However, I think there is just something beautiful about a unique take on safety. It is making something mundane, something we often take for granted, and making it into a desirable object or idea.
Now, if you'll let me bring it back to the concept at hand, we have Art Lebedev's Transparentius concept. It's a pretty simple concept: a semi truck, a camera, and some way to project a large image onto a flat surface. The camera would take live video of what was going on in front of the truck and communicate it to those in tow. The idea is that safety can be enhanced if you were able to see around the truck in front of you.
SWAY Studio
From: SWAY Studio
I'll be the first to admit: I've seen their stuff around and never even known it. Okay, your turn. Go ahead and fess up.
SWAY Studio's proprietary CG technology is ubiquitous on those pesky things you fast-forward your DVR through nowadays. They can mostly be found in just about every car commercial out there, but other clientele include a utilities company, Bon Jovi, and Kanye West/Complex Magazine.
Their work is so amazing that, most of the time, you don't know you're even watching it. I first started trying to figure out "who made this" when I saw this GMC Terrain commercial below. Not because it looked unrealistic, but because I really enjoyed the planar feature callouts. This is still one of my favorite commercials (even though I hate American cars), because of its simple and elegant design.
A couple more really neat ones below... A "making of" Bon Jovi video and (another) one of my favorite car commercials of all time (but mostly because of the classic video game reference).