I have always loved minimalist design. It has a beauty about its simple forms and clear lines that appeal to me. I came across this bin design by Grace Youngeun Lee and I liked it so much I began to visualize where I would put her design in my own home. That’s when I began to run into trouble. I live in your average apartment with the standard features, two bedroom, kitchen / living room combo, bathroom. Even though I thought the design was beautiful, I could not think of one place I could put such a distinctive item. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, that all the minimalistic items I love so much would struggle to work in your average home. The qualities that make the design striking cause it to sit uneasily in a mainstream context. Its clean aesthetics clash with your standard mass-produced product.

Does this mean a minimalist design can only work when surrounded by other minimalist products? Or the opposite, a lack of other products and just shear, clean space that allows it to be appreciated for its aesthetic beauty? If this is the case, where is the line drawn for its range of influence? Is the only true home of a minimal piece a modern residence, where clean lines and crisp aesthetics were at the front of the architects mind?

Perhaps the piece is intended to sit in contrast with the relative chaos of mass production? That this contrast serves to highlight its simple beauty.

I guess until I can figure out where to put my beloved Grace Youngeun Lee bin, I’ll just have to stick with my mass produced swing top. Function over form anyway, right?

Here is a good example of a design which looks beyond the simple functions of the product to the emotional perceptions and requirements of the user.

The Playpump is used to pump water in schools in such places as South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia. It is essentially a windmill on its side. Unlike other pumps, the Playpump is designed to be driven by children in play, who use the wheel as a merry-go-round.

Water pumps are placed in areas of high drought and provide drinking and irrigation water. They greatly benefit the surrounding areas and are seen as something to be celebrated. Designing a pump which incorporates the play of children, takes this emotional element into account. Its design combines the function of the pump with the celebration of its installment and use.

Rather then the traditional approach of designing emotion into a product, the Playpump is a manifestation of emotion generated by its presence. It is an interesting perspective to consider when trying to design that ‘must have’ product.

Just a few weeks ago I was talking about “The age of speed” and how technology evolves so quickly in this century. I was talking about Microsoft Surface and being one step closer to teleportation. But technology evolves a lot faster than we can imagine.

A group of students from MIT Media Lab in Long Beach California, transformed the Internet into a ‘Sixth Human Sense’. They developed a wearable computing system which can turn any surface into an interactive display screen. The system relies on a webcam as an input device and a small projector with a mirror as the output device.

Here are only some of the functionalities of their system:

• Creating a frame by using your fingers tells the camera to take a photo.
• You can project the photos that you took on any surface and use your fingers to browse through them, rearrange them or resize them.
• You can browse through menus.
• You can search locations on a map.
• You can draw on a wall just by using your fingers.
• You can even call your friends by dialing their number on the palm of your hand.
• On the way to the airport you could check if your flight is delayed or not.
• You could know the time just by drawing a watch on your wrist.
• You could project information about any person you meet.
• And even watch a video of the news that interest you in the newspaper.

If you want to find out more and see how the system works, here are two videos that show its functionality:

Students transform the Internet into ‘The Sixth Human Sense’ – Video1

Students transform the Internet into ‘The Sixth Human Sense’ – Video2

In today’s world most managers face the same problems, which become more pressing since most of the countries are facing recession. The most common question in the current economical environment is: ‘How can we reduce costs?’ and it doesn’t take long for a company to realize that one powerful opportunity lies in improving their energy management strategies.

At this stage there are lots of software companies which provide Real Time Energy Monitoring Systems and there are a lot more which are planning to enter this market.

During the last months I’ve been researching software that allows a company to monitor their energy consumption and here is what I found:

• Most of the software provides real time monitoring and alert systems.
• In order for that to happen, the companies providing the software will install their own meters.
• They store historical data in a database which can be accessed at any time through their software.
• They send alarms every time the energy consumption rises over a certain value.

(more…)

I look forward to reading the transcript from Bill Buxton‘s lecture tomorrow (11 June) at the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO). The Oregonian caught up with Microsoft’s principal researcher prior to the lecture for an interview and an explanation.

The pervasive notion was that thinking and knowledge were somehow something that happened inside the head … more recently, our notion of cognition has broadened considerably, and in particular, it embraces the notion that thought and knowledge may well occur as much in our physical and social environment as in the cortex itself.

Can design thinking be institutionalized, or does it happen to cities and businesses serendipitously?

This is one of the most important questions to ask. My answer is decidedly yes, it can be institutionalized. But at the same time, I have to qualify this by saying that the most creative challenge of any management is to figure out how.

Additional reading:

A New Mantra for Creativity

The title suggests these tips are just for those folks working within design consultancies and innovation labs, but the creative techniques in this Inc. magazine article are applicable to any group looking to stimulate creative thought. To some, these approaches might appear a bit bonkers, but essentially they boil down to tested themes: applying multiple perspectives to a problem; providing the time and space to explore wild ideas; encouraging risk; and hiring and rewarding smart, passionate people. The word “process” is mentioned once, and only in relation to lack of process. But aren’t these creative approaches processes in themselves?

Related link: frog Design Mind

My favourite TED Talk used to be Ken Robinson talking about creativity and education. That top spot has now been replaced by William McDonough relating his philosophies of cradle to cradle design. With a great sense of humour, he designs a realistic future where all products become biological or technical nutrients and architecture creates buildings that make more energy than they need and purify their own water.

Regardless of whether you are a designer or not, these two videos are worth 40 minutes of your time if you are a human being.

I haven’t spent a lot of time on the blog, Education Futures, but I stumbled upon the site through the following post (bordering on rant) around designing curriculum (and “design is mentioned 14 times) to be more relevant to students, as well as the use of games for teaching. You may recall another post on this blog about using games.

Games create challenge, purpose, skill implementation, and reading and acting with purpose. If it is a good game, they will play it. And the actions are the assessments. Games assess and evaluate by their very nature. If you do not have mastery, you do not move forward. But the game will also give you help if you need it—no one designs a game that is too hard. So, maybe we should be thinking about games and how we might begin to design and structure instruction and content. We are at risk of losing our kids to disinterest because we are becoming irrelevant in teaching to the minimum standard. We can do better for them.

The world of knowledge and information is at our fingertips and it will be creative skills that are needed to synthesise this information in meaningful ways. We need to create the next generation of design thinkers.

My favorite definition of “play” came from my days at Crayola, where after exhaustive research and expert opinion, we landed on: “It’s what kids do.” That’s how kids learn about the world around them.

Play provides a safe environment for experimentation and (*gasp*) failure. Games offer the ability to role-play or introduce healthy competition.

Jess McMullin and others (Luke Hohmann, Serious Games, LEGO, Pat Kane) are using games and play within product, software, service and even policy development. This article via boxesandarrows describes why we use games, core game principles, how to apply games, and how to sell design games to your organization or client. There’s also some good links and great commentary.

Go play.