The Fruit That Fell

People don't see the point in the iPad. I can't blame them.

The truth is though, that people like to be accepted. And so we tend to act like sheep. apart from the wool bit. So once someone says its rubbish, we tend to jump on the bandwagon. However, I would like to take this opportunity to instruct all human kind to raise their right hand to their head and remove the blinkers. After that you can look around. Its wonderful, isn't it... seeing and such. Trying a different perspective for a change.

This is a clear case for the benefits of technology such as the iPad and I am a firm believer that the product will revolutionize the book and newspaper industry the same way the wheel revolutionized wheelchairs.

Sports Illustrated - Tablet Demo 1.5 from The Wonderfactory on Vimeo.

Now would you really say you wouldn't want to browse a magazine that way? Thought so

Sweet dreams are made of this

Often when something really innovative, different or seemingly brilliant comes along we tend to accept it and choose to think it is ingenious. Well, its not.

When I thought about writing this blog entry I was thinking of what to say. Should I compare it to a walrus and say how it enhances movement, should I say it fits you like a banana fits a monkey or should I say it is as versatile as sleeping equipment as a donkey on roller skates? But then an obscure idea climbed in my ear and decided it was a perfect location for nesting.

Would I like to sleep in one of them? I don't think so. Having been contained by clothes formed to my body all day I rather enjoy a simple square piece of cloth on me at night. I like crossing my toes and trying to fit a heel between them - as you do.

Philippe Starck asks whether a product deserves to exist before he designs one. Does a product that doesn't fulfill its primary function to a satisfying standard deserve to live? Maybe I am just being picky, I will let you decide that and encourage you to challenge a design before glorifying it.

DEX-tiles

Recently, mainly due to a friend and her obsession with weaving cling-film, I have become obsessed with textiles myself. And it has been with great joy that I feel a blindfold has been lifted from my slightly itchy nose.

I mean, I have always known the importance of great material selection but never have I looked at textiles the same way I do now. I guess it reassures me again that cross-discipline interaction can only benefit a designer.

I have been working on a project involving body sensing technology for athletes and have had first person encounters with the importance of textiles in terms of function. Even though I make it sound as if this is some sort of an alien, it happens to be a good alien, the A.I. type, or the slug from District 9 that wasn't evil. Sort of, happy alien.

Such as these: the tiles by Dex. They are happy and playful and warm. What else could you really ask from a tile? They are concrete and look as if they are woven, but to me they are made of awesome.

The book can also be... a hat

You can find these on Designspotter.com and Design-milk.com

Now, answer me this - why wouldn't we think of objects in terms of the interaction we have with them? Isn't it just a bit obvious to you that if we have a coffee table we are going to litter it with magazines and newspapers and all sorts. So why in the world would we not design for this? WHY?

Hey sexy!

Gorgeous!

Enough said.

I am a homeless chair. Love me!

Blu Dot Real Good Experiment from Real Good Chair on Vimeo.

A friend tweeted about this interesting experiment on boingboing.net and I happen to love it.

Last night I was reading about market-orientated innovation and business strategy for my design exams and it related well to the conversations the INCOs had with the people conducting the experiment. However, that is not what I want to talk about.

Why I think this experiment is interesting is because of the way we interact with products. More importantly, a product that is out of its natural surroundings. I saw this video last night and instantly thought to myself how different and sometimes weird objects look and seem once we take them out of their natural habitat: such as the razor and coffee mug on the rocky beach.

I think it is important that we do this though, because we are bound to view objects in a more creative way once we stop accepting them as they are and start challenging them. Because let's be honest, a lot of the products out there are not making much sense.

Matrix is here...kind of

This finishes what the Wii started. So well done Microsoft!

However, this will not be perfect at first, so I hope the development team will be as stubborn as a wombat on a mission, as it will take a long time to tweak the motion, face and voice recognition to a fully functioning level. But after that is done, this will be a wonderful gadget.

In the meantime I can see a great bunch of angry chubby kids smashing the console and their mummy and daddy's beloved 50-something inch plasma screen because the console thought they wanted to eat a badger instead of perform a roundhouse kick. Except, they will not be chubby. This is brilliant because it makes people a lot more active when playing the game. The nerdy kind with their super-human thumbs will cease to exist and we will all have to be aware of the geeks/gamers on the street because soon they will physically possess the power to roundhouse kick the living crap out of you.

You have been warned!

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

This is the interior of Fornari Group Offices in Milano. And it's dreadful.

Don't get me wrong, I love open spaces, big rooms with integrated light effects and so on. I mean, if anyone has read this blog (and according to some filthy rumors, there are a few people like that) they would have found out that this design is as much me as a design could possibly be. But what on earth could be wrong then?

Functionality. I can accept the fact that in hallways there is a lot of space that just has to be accessible in an emergency. That is the essence of public architecture and interior design, but could the designer not think of the function a bit more? What I love in design is adaptability. For example being able to use rooms for more than one purpose. For example the front rows in the Nokia Kontserdimaja in Tallinn can be lowered and seats removed to make room for an orchestra. That to me is thoughtful design!

This however is not. Design is not art. Design serves a function other than looking great. Although it has to look great too. Naturally. Otherwise it is rubbish design. That is all!

The Fruit of Knowledge and Wisdom

Right, so there have been so many rumors about the next Apple product and chances it being a tablet that I simply cannot overlook this any further and must say a few things. On any other day I would now go on to say how amazing it is and how much I want one. Well forget it.

I do not doubt this will be a success, since it is an Apple product and I have respect for companies that continually come out with well-selling products and have the creativity and knowledge to constantly re-innovate. However, I promise to send a congratulatory letter (e-mail) to the Apple R&D team if this turns out to be a success on the notorious iPod, iPhone scale. And this is why:

People do not want net-books that can just display pre-installed content such as a book. Bookworms do not know how to turn the device on and technogeeks will complain about the lack of just about any other function imaginable.

So what you can word-process stuff and even browse the web? (by God I hope you can browse, because if that is not possible, and I have heard rumors that it is not, the alleged iSlate will crash and burn faster than the Hindenburg, and that took what? 38 seconds? Nothing like some good old fashioned German efficiency) Where was I? So you can type a letter and read a book on it. Well done, Apple, well done indeed!

The reason iPhone is so successful is that you can do anything on it. You can tell your iPhone to drop your nan off to the bingo game on saturday night and guess what? - There is an app for that. It does your laundry for you and the latest model can even be used as a pickle jar opener. Apparently Apple have said that it will not be a keyboard-less laptop. At which point I set off on my quest for tissues to dry the tears on my cheeks. "Yet another recently departed Apple employee tipped me: "You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet." reports the NYT. Let's bloody well hope so, because things aren't looking too bright apart from the usual hype that arises every time Apple is making a launch.

Its about time the book-and-that-lot-made-of-trees-and-such-industy got a facelift and with the growing number of people reading news on iPhones and what-nots, I'm quite excited about what it can do in the newspaper-magazine department. Which, by the way, has been mentioned to be amazing on the tablet in more than one places. However, please-please, Apple, this is not the time to stop pushing the envelope. Make something that's capabilities will blow our minds and make us crave it like dogs crave a bit of leg. Please!