What I Learned When I Started a Design Studio. Earlier in the year, I wrote a bit about the design services industry in two blog posts: first, I wrote “The End of Client Services” in July, which outlined my thoughts on why the best interaction design is done outside of the studio/agency model. Then in August I followed up with “In Defense of Client Services,” which expands a little bit on why I believe services is such a difficult way to earn a living as a designer.
I had meant to write a third post, but getting Mixel out the door got in the way. Over the past several days I was finally able to find the time to hammer out this follow-up. Actually, I’ve been making notes for this blog post all year long, because it was ten years ago that I co-founded an interaction studio here in New York City, partnering with some colleagues from a previous employer. What still strikes me the most about that experience was how little my former partners and I understood at the outset about what it takes to build a successful services business. People. X to Close — re:form. X’s are everywhere in user interface (UI) design. A powerful symbol, [x] is capable of closing windows and popups, toolbars and tabs and anything else that might otherwise be cluttering up your screen. Clicking on [x] to close a feature has become an instinctual part of using a computer and a standard in web and software design. Although it may seem like the ubiquitous [x] has always been a part of Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), a quick jaunt through the history of GUIs reveals that this actually isn’t the case.
So where and when did the [x] first enter into the UI lexicon? To track the [x] back to its origin, let’s start with the status quo: Microsoft. If you are using Windows then you should be able to spot at least one [x] on your screen right now. But Windows 1.0 didn’t use an [x] to close. Nor did 2.0. Or 3.0? The [x] button didn’t show up until Windows 95, when the close button was moved to the right hand side, joining minimize and maximize. It worked. Mac OS didn’t use an [x] to close.
Lasersaur Manual. Squink Lets You Print A Circuit Board For The Price Of A Cup Of Coffee. 3D printing has changed the way engineers test products, allowing them to cut down on time and costs. But what about 3D printing the components that go into most of these products? Botfactory computer engineer Carlos Ospina said that most of the people he encountered didn’t believe it was possible. But he’s proven them wrong with Squink, a portable circuit board factory that allows you to test your project in minutes in the comfort of your home — costing around $2 to print.
Launched on Kickstarter last week, Squink prints conductive ink on specific materials such as photo paper or glass. The circuit board is designed through a web-based portal usable only with Squink plugged in. Botfactory and Squink were created by a group of engineers who met at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.
You can also find a circuit board you’re interested in building online and input that into the Squink portal. IMAGE BY Julian Chokkattu (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED) Formlabs Form 1+ 3D Printer at werd.com. Graphic, violent old public safety posters from Holland. Man, these vintage Dutch safety posters from the early through late 20th century are scary and beautiful as hell. If you're squeamish, maybe don't click. The messages are also blunt, with no attempt at making people feel good about bad things that befall others.
Below, "Have every wound of any significance taken care of. This mutilation is his own fault. He messed up himself. " More here, with translations. [via, HT: Dean Putney via Meredith Scheff-King] Study finds walking improves creativity. By May Wong L.A. Cicero Many people claim they do their best thinking while walking. A new study finds that walking indeed boosts creative inspiration. Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, was known for his walking meetings. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot. And perhaps you've paced back and forth on occasion to drum up ideas. A new study by Stanford researchers provides an explanation for this. Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to a study co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education.
The study found that walking indoors or outdoors similarly boosted creative inspiration. "Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. Walking vs. sitting The study also found that creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk. 262 Share. This Is What Your Face Will Look Like In 2060. Google Glass is now old news. In January, Google announced it was working on a product even more closely melded with the human body: Smart contact lenses that contain a chip to measure glucose levels in diabetics' tears.
Google engineers aren't the only ones working on fusing wearable tech to skin. And no longer is it such a crazy, far-off fantasy that the human form will feature elements of the cybernetic--that these contact lenses could project augmented realities onto our physical world. But what does this mean for the future of, well, faces? Futurist designer Jenny Lee has created a series of "digital skins" that she imagines might grace our lowly, animal mugs in the year 2060. "With my project, it's the idea that we're utilizing technology as a means to evolve beyond biological bodies," Lee, founder of Studio Aikieu, says.
If we can place masks over the real world, we could also put masks on our own faces. That discomfort is also part of Lee's point, too. 2014同济创新Yi动课堂-轻装前行，梦享澳洲，全球招募！ Interactive Fabrication » New Interfaces for Digital Fabrication. Fabricate Yourself 26 Feb 2011 Fabricate Yourself is a project that documented the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference. Usually we think of documentation in terms of text, photography and … Beautiful Modeler 02 Nov 2010 Beautiful Modeler is a software tool for gestural sculpting using a multi-touch controller such as an iPad. Cutter 28 Jul 2010 Cutter is a tangible interface for generating three-dimensional digital models by hand crafting polystyrene foam. Shaper 20 May 2010 Shaper is a prototype device that uses a three-axis computer numerical control (CNC) machine to interactively dispense expanding polyurethane foam material. Trace Modeler 03 Mar 2010 Trace Modeler is an application that uses real-time video to create three-dimensional geometry.
Speaker Speaker interactively sculpts wire forms based on sound input. Spatial Sketch 08 Aug 2009 Waveform Necklace 20 Feb 2011 One Liner Bowls 13 Feb 2011 Cross Section Rings 06 Feb 2011 Cell Cycle 05 Nov 2010 Trikoton New Scientist / TEI. Reflective Prism. Philip Beesley Architect Inc. - Sculptures and Installations. Petting Zoo: Interactive Robotic Creatures That Evolve Over Time. Petting Zoo The pets in the installation Petting Zoo by architecture and design studio Minimaforms—Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos—are unlike any pets you've come across before.
Not only do they look like they come from another planet, but they're AI creatures that learn from their interactions with participants, displaying life-like qualities to "foster human curiosity, play, forging intimate exchanges that are emotive and evolving over time. " The installation takes the form of neon-lit robotic tentacles that hang from the ceiling. As members of the public draw near these automated helixes react to them, responding to movement and changing their behavior depending on their interactions with the visitors. Minimaforms' work explores the experimental applications of technology with regards to architecture and design—and this latest project follows on from their previous work that examines cybernetic and behavior-based design systems. Minimaforms explain: @CreatorsProject. I left New York for LA because creativity requires the freedom to fail | Moby | comment. I was born on 148th Street in 1965, and from then until the late 1990s it never dawned on me to live anywhere other than New York City.
When I lived on 14th Street in the late 1980s, I paid $140 a month to share an apartment with a bunch of other odd and dysfunctional musicians and artists. AIDS, crack and a high murder rate kept most people away from New York back then. But even though it was a war zone, or perhaps to some extent because it was a war zone, Manhattan was still the cultural capital of the world. Of course everything's changed since. New York has, to state the obvious, become the city of money. People say your rent should be 30% of your salary; in Manhattan today, at least for many people, it feels like it hovers around 300%. The gradual shift in New York's economic fortunes and mores reminds me of the boiling frog theory.
And, to again state the obvious, New York is exclusively about success – it's success that has been fed steroids and vitamin B. Open Innovation: Getting Started. A hundred of OI flowers Let a hundred open innovation flowers blossom. Beyond the traditional one-to-one partnership for coinnovation, whopping initiatives are thriving on a one-to-many scale: it seems we have already entered Spring. Taking a closer look, one can sort out different intents, resulting in distinct open innovation processes. First thing to is select the process which corresponds to your purpose. 1. 2. 3. 4. Prepare for intense dialogue Regarless of what form you will go for, launching an open innovation project seems to me like starting a relationship: You better know what you look for, and reach out with a clear brief of your problem;Spot shrewd trigger for your community: a reason why, incentives in cash or product discount, grades, and peer recognition;Open Innovation forms show that frontiers are blurring between innovation community and user community: thus open innovation includes a community branding dimension; What, why, how, who, and when?
Wait! No Longer Clashing, Wearable Tech Embraces Fashion. Continue reading the main story Video WEARABLE electronics have been stuck in a design rut. Bulky watches, bright wristbands and Roman-gladiator-meets-the-Jetsons arm straps have been the go-to look for manufacturers like Nike and Jawbone. But these wearable gadgets — often a dull representation of function over form — are finally getting a fashion-industry makeover. Fitbit, the maker of the Fitbit One and Flex, has teamed with the designer Tory Burch to make new trackers that look like stylish jewelry. In January, Intel started a wearable design competition that will award a total of $1.25 million in prize money.
(Intel also signaled its seriousness about wearable tech this week by purchasing the fitness tracker company Basis for a reported $100 million, so look for new design ideas in future Basis products). And a handful of companies are already shipping wearable electronics that look less like athletic gear and more like well-chosen accessories. Photo Then, of course, there’s style. Designing a timeless smartwatch. 605inShare Jump To Close Why can't great smartwatches look like normal watches? Smartwatches, for the most part, can be divided into two categories: vague approximations of the future like the Pebble, Gear, and Gear Fit, or conventionally styled watches from companies like Citizen and Cookoo that offer far less functionality.
Gábor Balogh is a freelance designer from Hungary who, like many of us, wants an attractive, watch-like watch that just happens to be smart. After posting his concept for a smartwatch on Behance, Balogh took some time to talk through his interface ideas with The Verge. Although the interface itself will be down to watch and phone companies to decide, Balogh offers up some simple but polished ideas that go very well with Triwa's design. "I like products with discreet technology. " "I like products with discreet technology," explains Balogh, "when they serve me, my real needs, and make my life easier rather than simply changing my days. " Parametric 3d printing : Beautiful Seams | design blog. Experimentations in parametric 3d printing About a year ago, I got a great book on using the Kinect for art and design work : “Making Things See” by Greg Borenstein↓.
This book gradually introduces working in Processing with the kinect infrared and rgb cameras, creating a point cloud in space and even tracking people and body gestures. The last chapter is dedicated to exporting STL files with a Makerbot 3d printer in mind. Taking printable 3D pictures with a kinect is actually quite simple thanks to a library for Processing called Modelbuilder made by Marius Watz as part of his residence with MakerBot Industries. Using Modelbuilder with a Kinect the Borenstein way is straightforward: get the point cloud, iterate for each point and create a triangle from this point to two other immediate points. Working from these first programs (I have a bunch of Kinect experiments I’ll show in another article), it is possible to imagine new parameters to use in order to generate shapes. Liquidity | Desktop. Patrick Stevenson-Keating is an experimental industrial designer – working largely on speculative, critical projects that deal with scientific or technological issues and ideas.
You may recall in the recent December/January issue of Desktop (#289 — Futureproof) we featured one of his projects called The Quantum Paralleograph, a fascinating device which simulates the experience of users being able to glimpse into their “parallel lives” and observe their alternate realities. Patrick is now developing his first commercial product, Liquidity, which is a set of imaginative, exploratory table lamps marrying the modern material technology of conductive ink with hand blown glassware.
We recently spoke with Patrick about the project, and he had this to say about its development — Inspired by the potential of BARE conductive ink, and curious to explore an alternative use for this new material, I aimed to exploit its properties in its crude liquid form. Slidedocs. Museum of Handcraft Paper by TAO. Slideshow: this cluster of asymmetric wooden huts houses a museum dedicated to the craft of paper-making in a mountainside village in rural China. Designed by Chinese studio Trace Architecture Office (TAO), the museum comprises eight timber-clad blocks connected to one another by glazed corridors.
The largest of the buildings marks the museum entrance but also houses studios and accommodation for artists or other guests upstairs. The six single-storey gallery huts line the edges of the site, sandwiching a small courtyard and a two-storey tearoom in the space between. Square windows frame views of the landscape from inside the galleries, although all necessary ventilation is provided through the porous volcanic stone at the base of walls. Lengths of bamboo cover the rooftops, which all pitch in different directions. Other museums we've featured in China include a bulbous one in the Gobi desert and an icicle-shaped museum of wood. Photography is by Shu He. www.futurebrand.com/images/uploads/studies/cbi/MADE_IN_Final_HR.pdf.
Afterglow | transmediale. The secret to creativity, intelligence and scientific thinking: Being able to make connections. Conflict and Design. 5 Presentation Predictions for 2014. Joseph Muller-Brockmann’s Typographic Re-boot. DIY 3D Head-Mounted-Display using your smartphone. Smart Phone Controlled Christmas Tree with RGB LED Strip. The $74 PVC Mega Awesome Super PVC Table.
The book we all wish we could have read as children. A Stand-up Desk (Ikea hack) : Kelli Anderson. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. Skull armchair. Photos of "the world's most exquisite libraries" 2013 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture（Shenzhen） Designer Creates Logos For Typefaces, Made Using Other Typefaces. Forget Microsoft's Kinect, some students in Vietnam have a much better solution. Putting a Systems Sensitive Design Tool Through its Paces. Fully Booked. Ink on Paper. Design and Concepts for New Publications. 1: 2. Dong-Hoon Chang | Meet The 13 Designers On Fast Company's Most Creative People List.
Meet Drone Shield, an ambitious idea for a $70 drone detection system. How-To: HAL-in-the-Box. Irony: Just As 3-D Interfaces Are Getting Good, Apple's UI Is Going Flat. Frog Predicts: Flexible Displays Will Soon Change The World. An Ingenious Cookbook Uses Infographics Instead Of Words. 8 | Can Bud's New Beer Can Become An Icon Like The Coke Bottle? How Reframing A Problem Unlocks Innovation. The secrets of body language: why you should never cross your arms again. A Design Revolution That Could Lift Humanity. How an accountant created an entire RPG inside an Excel spreadsheet. What's The Secret To Design Innovation? Extreme Immersion. S April 2013 Trend Briefing covering the consumer trend "CLEAN SLATE BRANDS" Replace Your iPhone Interface With A Dieter Rams Classic.
First Look: How The Google Glass UI Really Works. CollabFinder Wants To Make Hackathons A Part Of College Life. How Serious Play Leads To Breakthrough Innovation. A scientific guide to saying "no": How to avoid temptation and distraction. A scientific guide to saying "no": How to avoid temptation and distraction. From Google And Berg, A Superb Concept For Better Video Chatting. 3 Paths Toward A More Creative Life. The Next Big UI Idea: Gadgets That Adapt To Your Skill. Blog Archive RAWR Open House: Future of Design & Tech in China » LumDimSum. 11 | 12 Trippy Scenes From The Master Of GIFs. No Joke: Polaroid Plans To Produce The Instagram Camera By 2014. Remarkable Images Of Volcanic Lightning, A Scientific Mystery. From Google Ventures: 4 Steps For Combining The Hacker Way With Design Thinking.
3 | 7 Of The Biggest Lies In Graphic Design. 5 | From An Apple Alum, An App That Makes Design Presentations A Cinch. 8 Brilliant Concepts For The Future Of Wearable Tech. Why This Oscar-Winning Disney Short Looks Like Nothing Made Before. What you should really copy from Apple. A History of Future Cities: The Rise of New Shanghai. Envisioning the urban skyscraper of 2050. A Dictionary of Surrealism and the Graphic Image.
Kickstarter’s New Mobile App Feels Like Instagram For A Reason. Watch: Space-Time Explained With A Music Box And Möbius Strip. 4 Lessons From The Web’s Most Ruthlessly Addictive Site. How-To: $5 Mobile Phone Projector. Infographic: The Intricate Anatomy of UX Design. S Infographic of the Trend Briefing on “Virgin Consumers ” Maker. CODING FOR GOOD. How Design Thinking Could Help Solve the Skills Gap | Education on GOOD. BigDataforDevelopment-UNGlobalPulseJune27. Animadver : The creative process from Weibo... Journal of Design Research (JDR.