Wearable electronic designer and crafter just got a new, fabulous source of information and inspiration from Open Softwear and it’s authors Tony Olsson, David Gaetano, Jonas Odhner, Samson Wiklund.

Open Softwear is a book about Arduino boards, conductive fabric, resistive thread, soft buttons, LEDs, and other things specifically targeted towards wearable electronic prototyping.

The eBook centeres around the Arduino platform covering both the ‘standard’ Arduino and the LilyPad Arduino. It is split into three parts covering in the first section the basics of hardware, software and the use of the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Part two give examples of using eTextile materials and the Arduino to make first cool projects involving LEDs, Piezo speaker and my favorite, the Digital and analog zipper.

The third part is dedicated to show how to write programs for the Arduino platform. This all might sound very technical for fashion/clothing designer but don’t be afraid, it is easy explained and covers just as much as is needed for wearable electronic and not for building an new space station.

The book is in a Beta version right now but has already over 100 pages full of highly interesting material. The authors are looking towards the eTextile community to read this beta version and report back whatever seems is missing or needs to be corrected.

The team is looking for pictures of projects similar to the examples in the book. If you have made any and want to contribute, contact Open Softwear under info [at] softwear.cc, or leave a comment on their site.

Open Softwear – the book is open source and can be downloaded freely via this link (PDF file) or via the Open Softwear website.

[via: Fashioning Technology]

The wait is over, Diana Eng invites to her book launch party with Haute Tech fashion show tomorrow, March 19, in NYC.

Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech is shipping now, get your copy and indulge into the many projects the content table of the book lists like ‘Get-the-Message Bag’, ‘Light-up Petal Purse’, ‘Headphone Hoodie’, ‘Lightning Bug Costume’ and more.

Diana Eng belongs to a new generation tech fashion designer who combines technology, math and science with design. She got into the public spotlight with her participation in Project Runway Season 2.

Since then she dedicates part of her time/creativity to explore technology for fashion designer and surprises with beautiful designs that keep always a practical touch to it, one could say: ‘ready-to-wear interactive fashion’.

Her close relation to the crafting community (she is also contributor to Craft: magazine) might have been her motivation to share the experience and tips with the e-textile crafting community.

As teaser for what we can expect to find in Diana’s Fashion Geek book she has posted a video how to make a light up shoe which is described in the book. The video shows only how four light animated shoes will look like in action.

An exiting reading weekend is ahead of me as UPS tells me my copy will arrive ‘within the next 2 days’. Stay tuned for a review of Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech here on talk2myShirt.

While ordering my copy of Switch Craft: Battery-Powered Crafts to Make and Sewby Alison Lewis which started shipping two days ago I stumbled upon two other upcoming books from Diana Eng due to be launched in the first quarter of 2009.

The first one is TechStyle: Create Wired Wearables and Geeky Gear in cooperation with Natalie Zee Drieu who is running the blog Coquette will launch in January and the second book by Diana Eng is Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech

Diana Eng first made headlines with the creation of the Inflatable Dress she created together with Emily Albinski. Diana gained even more popularity with her participation in the fashion reality television show “Project Runway”.

Her creativity and fashion style that blends math, science, and technology brought her up to the sixth round before her futuristic design was a bit too much for the jury.

She now works on these two books to share her experience and to inspire others in the field of wearable electronic.

In TechStyle: Create Wired Wearables and Geeky Gear Diana starts with a lesson on how to be creative and ends with instructions for programming a microchip. Diana leads readers step by step to discovering fashion and technology through the story of her own experiences exploring the two subjects.

The book has an interactive design, containing projects in each chapter that allow readers to experience the discover for themselves.

In her second book, Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech, she pioneers an emerging generation of tech savvy women crafters (or would-be crafters) who demand stylish yet practical designs that are chemically charged.

Diana describes and shows ways on how to make out of simple, girly items such as a hoodies or scarfs must-have techno-accessories through step-by-step directions.

Until Diana’s books become available I will have plenty of time to read and study Alison’s book Switch Craft which should arrive tomorrow. Look forward for my review of Switch Craft next week here on talk2myShirt.

Usually we do book reviews but today we are ahead of time and bring a book preview. Reading the description of Sabine Seymour’s upcoming book – ‘Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science and Technology’ I went straight ahead for a pre-order.

Sabine Seymour offers in her book an up-to-date look on the interplay between electronic textiles, technology, fashion, design and science.

This book offers a compact survey of the theory involved and an explanation of the role technology plays in fabrics or articles of clothing.

Practical applications will be explained in detail and numerous illustrations serve as clarification. Over 50 well-known designers, research institutes, companies and artists, among them Philips, Burton, MIT Media Lab, XS Labs, New York University, Hussein Chalayan, Cute Circuit or International Fashion Machines are introduced by means of their latest, often still unpublished, project, and a survey of their work to date.

About the Author
Sabine Seymour received a Master of Social and Economic Sciences from the University of Economics in Vienna and Columbia University MBA program in New York and an MPS in Interactive Telecommunications from NYUS Tisch School of the Arts.

She introduced the course “Fashionable Technology” and is a long standing faculty member at Parsons The New School For Design in New York and joined the University for Art and Industrial Design in Linz.

This book is a must for all those wishing to know everything about fashionable technology like talk2myShirt reader, Scientists, lecturer, students, curators, museums and industry in the field of design, interaction design, fashion, media art and mobile communications.

You can pre-oder ‘Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science and Technology’ and be one of the first to read it when it goes on sale end of May or you wait for our book review here on talk2myShirt.

Summer time is a great reading time. Lying on the beach, the pool or siting in the park (always with the Juice Bag next to me) is the best way to relax and reflect.

Although Techno Textiles 2: Revolutionary Fabrics for Fashion and Designis not a new book, I like to re-read it and get inspired by the wealth of information that Sarah E. Braddock Clarke and Marie O’Mahony compiled in this book.

Techno Textiles 2 explores the exciting area of art, design and technology that defines our 21st-century way of life with textiles. We are constantly surrounded from textiles, we are wrapped in them, we sleep on them we walk on them and many (inside) walls are covered and dressed up with textiles. This book introduces new textiles for fabrics that shrink or expand to fit; textiles developed from carbon, steel, glass and ceramics; materials that protect the wearer from every environmental extreme, anywhere on earth or in space.

The book is divided into three sections:
Innovations which explores how the newest textiles are dreamt up and made
Applications – from fashion and design, to architecture and art
Reference which includes a glossary, biographies, directories of addresses and public collections, and an extensive bibliography

Although Wearable Electronic is not the main topic in this book, reading it inspires by showing with many photos the possibilities that can open up in combining cutting edge textile technologies with electronic elements.

I can only recommend reading Techno Textiles 2: Revolutionary Fabrics for Fashion and Designfor both professionals and anyone prepared to be stimulated and informed about the new environment in which we live.