Misty water-colored memories....

Design Discussions general design discussion
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This month Core77 is ten years old. A lot has changed over that time—personally, economically, technologically, socially, and globally. But throughout it all we’ve been slugging away here trying to shed a bit of light on the world of industrial design.

Our original mission statement reads as follows:

Core Industrial Design Network is a worldwide web-based ID information center. This service, free to users, is intended to promote design and designers, raise awareness of the profession, and provide a forum for exchanging career, educational and design-related resources. The site features articles, reviews and projects, as well as lists of firms, competitions, job postings, and other information that impacts the design world. The target audience for this undertaking are members of the design profession worldwide, students and anyone interested in or affected by design.

Core is an experimental site dedicated to improving the design process by encouraging new thought and interdependent design activities. The site is organic in nature and will consistently evolve to fit the needs of users based on direct input. In striving to publish conceptual and innovative projects and articles, we hope to expand the awareness of design, its meaning, and its position in today’s culture.

Some of you may know that Core77 started out as graduate industrial design thesis project. The accompanying CD had the first three versions of the site and a Netscape 1.1 installer so that whoever was looking at this could read the files (this was before browsers were built into the operating system). To imagine the environment at the time, here is a quote from the “Read Me” file to help the viewer understand the project:

Netscape is like a word processing program. CORE is like a document which was created in that word processing program. In order to open CORE up you must do it from inside Netscape. Just as if you were opening a text file in a word processing program.

We’d like to collect feedback from our users on their thoughts about what the last ten years has meant to them. What events or developments have had the most impact? What are the high points and low points in the field of design (and anything related) over the past ten years?

That is a lot to think about, but with any luck we’ll be doing this again ten years from now!

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biggest thing imo is Wal*Mart and China.

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wow…core77 is ten years old.

my perspective:

in 1995, i was one year away from being discharged from the Navy. luckily for me, we were not at war. my time in the military definitely helped me to discover that the military was NOT for me. i had interests in photography, art, and cars, not bilge water and 100 degree work environments. industrial design was still a foreign word to me yet it was something that unknowingly beckoned me and constantly surrounded me. at this time in my life, i didn’t even know the word “internet”. today, i can’t imagine what my life would be like without it. in the span of ten years, the internet was as significant to shaping who i would later become as were all the people who would come and go in my life. having the internet was like having Yoda, or some wise sage at my fingertips. if there was anything to i wanted to know, the internet could dispense information on a whim. it’s easily the greatest tool to quickly, and almost without effort, share information in the modern world.
i’m grateful to have discovered it at a time when i was discovering myself.

i love the internets. %^)

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Frank Goldstein

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karim rashid cookbook

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Been surfing core since about '97, when I was doing my first job hunting. I got some of my first interview leads from core. It has evolved and grown so much over the years. Its been cool to see that change.

We in ID may have our difficiencies, but I think core has really helped us move ahead of a lot of other professions in terms of providing an online resource/inspiration hub, networking center/debate team/support group.

Thanks guys.

The Frank Goldstein stuff was very memorable.

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I remember you guys when we were at Pratt in 1994-95. Good work!

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and more NYC Offsites?..Those were gooood.

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A Core77 memory:

2001 Natn’l IDSA conference, I’m a student: I remember thinking Core77 was the coolest thing in the world beacuse they got me absolutely crunked in some dive bar in Boston… on Ashlar-Vellum’s dime.

And I still won’t use Vellum.

Thanks for the memories Core… and the jobs.

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Speaking of crunked. The ICFF party you guys threw with Designboom in Chinatown last year was probably the best part of the week. I think Bombay Sapphire payed for that one.

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I think Core was the first to hyperlink to my college portfolio site back in '95.
I built that thing on my 66Mhz 486 using Notepad and Photoshop 3.

Ahh yes, here it is in the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. I am Immortal!

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Nice reading all those posts. A walk down memory lane huh?

I first heard about Core… i think in 2001. I wasnt a registered user on the boards untill few months back. Damn… I would have 3 or 4 of those orange stars by now.

Back then Core was my only source to design news, updates and cool stuff. I run my own small (but pretty cool) design blog now at http://designgrid.blogspot.com
I remember reading about the Offsite and dreamt about flying into nyc to go to one of those things. But that remained a dream.

Im still in my teenage years, and there’s a long way to go from here, and hopefully after ten years, I’ll share my experience of being a second generation hardcore Core member.
Good goin guys.
Maybe Ill check back on this post in ten years.