Interactive Design: 2009

Monday, June 22, 2009

annual reports gone wild.

Annual Reports have been a part of a designers repertoire for many many years. And for a long time it was the physical printed piece. A bookly, leaflet, some kind of hands-on information packet. But now the digitalization of Annual Reports have taken place. Putting all of your info online for investors and employees to see. It's a really interesting transition. How do numbers and letters translate into a visual and spoken form. Phillips has done one that is not the most interesting, but one of the first I've seen and it seems to be well ranked. It is quite easy to use. I wonder what business people prefer to use now. Is a video version as memorable? Is a paper version too wasteful?

Innovative-y.

Everyone's got a good idea! Put together by some innovative bloggers, and still taking form a group called "The board of Innovators" started a 24 hour innovation contest where groups from all over the world sent in some really cool innovations in almost every industry. It's amazing to see how many incredible ideas there are floating around and how close everyone is getting because of rapid digitalization.

Thinking outside the car?

What a great idea! In Detroit, the Lt. Gov. has had an idea to put the unemployed automobile manufacturer employees to work...and for something good! The point of the proposed program would be to train these people in industrial design towards use in water usage/conservation. Using detroit's infamous experience with engineering to benefit not only the state monetarily but unemployed workers is a brilliant idea. The knowledge and innovation that may come from a project like this can also grow into a much needed export worldwide. US Businesses make up for 1/3 of urban water usage and a lot of them are wasting time, money and especially energy transporting and treating used and new water.

Here is an enormous market -- estimated to generate $500 billion worldwide annually -- that cannot help but grow in importance. Now is the time to harness Detroit's design expertise to launch this great industry in the United States.

Friday, June 12, 2009

App Wall

Holy cool! This wall is a visualization of all the iphone apps available up to this date. It was at a conference at the Moscone Center in San Fran, and its main purpose was to display all the awesomeness of the iphone as the new version is about to come out. The coolest thing about this wall, although not touch sensitive, every time someone downloaded one of the applications, that specific icon would become highlighted for a second or two in real time. wow!

Fellow Pratt-ers

Here's something by our fellow Pratt students, who are a part of the Grad Design Management program. Its all about strategic design and focusing on NYC.

It plays into grad com d because we are all eventually looking to be part of a management team at one point in our career and learning from our fellow students on the best ways of dealing with creative solutions to every day problems is a beautiful thing!

Operationalizing Innovation

This blog post finally puts into words why our corporate world hasn't embraced many of the cool innovations out there technologically. The truth is, a lot of these companies are in the here and now, watching the market daily, barely thinking years in advance. No one wants to shell out the money needed for research to make the best ideas come to life. Everyone wants to win right now and boost their egos and resumes within a few weeks rather than be part of something huge later. A later comment on the blog talked about Patagonia's redesign of their headquarters to match their internal company culture and they started to get it completely wrong. They talked the talk but didn't walk the walk by way of energy efficiency and green work practices. They eventually realized their mistake and turned everything around, but it shows you that even the most free-spirited companies who should be leading the world in innovation, tend to follow the easy route and look at the quickest way to up their bottom line.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Serendipity

Portable networking and social device called Serendipity. This cool watch looking product does everything like an iphone, ipod, facebook and music sharing software. It looks like the next step for social networking. We are going to carry around our profiles, resumes and interests, sharing them more easily with others. It may not be a huge leap but it at least looks cool, and having all of the personal stuff on your computer in one portable place seems like a great idea. Just dont lose it!!

The future is here!

Microsoft has this incredible video of what technology may be like within the next 5 to 10 years. What I was really struck by was the incredible amount of interface design that will be needed for all of our new devices. Communications Design is always changing and has to reform itself depending on the different growths in business and technology, and this video shows pretty much the way our field will be headed. Cool things like digital newspapers, a reinvention of print, is really exciting to see, as well as touch screen everything. Designers will be more in need than ever in this kind of world because of the immense amount of information being generated and filed. I thought this was really awesome and opened my mind up to the possibilities my career may have within this field.

The loss of Wisdom

This is the wisdom project, founded by photographer and director Andrew Zuckerman. It emphasizes the face that we have lost touch with the experiential knowledge our elders have from just simply living through so much more. An excerpt from Jane Goodall:

“It is awfully sad that with our clever brain, capable of taking us to the moon, we seem to have lost wisdom … and that is the wisdom of the indigenous people, who would make a major decision based upon: how would this decision affect our people seven generations ahead?”

We as a world do not think in this form. We think of the here and now. We want results immediately and rarely think in terms of the big picture or even into the near future. Other cultures are learning and respecting the elders within their society, we have decided they lose relevancy around age 65. All of their knowledge could really help us especially in today's faltering economy. Wisdom can help in any genre really, art and design included.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Internet Wall Flowers

I'm Just Here to Watch.

An article in the Guardian, a UK newspaper shows us that basically only 1% of the people are doing the creating out there, where the other 99% is just sitting back to enjoy the show. Should all this stuff be trustworthy? Who are the experts? Is the internet population all that diverse?

Archinets

Social Networks Designing our Workplace?

Architect Michael Fazio, a Chicago based architect has been using his studies on informal social networks to design new workplaces that serve as a more efficient place to do buisness.

Bad to the bone.

Bad Time to be a Creative?

Michael Mandel of Business week, an article found through Nussbaum on business says that the job market for creatives has bottomed out. I find this interesting also weirdly positive. The good thing is that most of us in PrattComD are still in school and will be for at least another 6 months. Hopefully we've hit rock bottom and by the time we graduate a hiring rise will be right on on time. Like he said, our work is sometimes and more so than other businesses, intangible, and industries like ours are the first to decline in employment. Sad, but true.