Archive for October, 2006
Art-o-Meter
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“Art-O-Meter is a device that measures the quality of an art piece. It bases its evaluation on the amount of time that people spend in front of an artwork compared to the total time of exhibition. The measurements are graphically represented by comments and a 5 star rating system”.
The design of the physical artifact aside, I think this device is symptomatic of a two interesting issues: 1) Democratization of content selection, and 2) Love/Hate is better than Indifference.
1) Democratization of content selection
Just a while back, Internet search engines like Yahoo!, Altavista and Lycos (*gasp*, do you still remember them?) and others were still grappling over who had the largest directory. As hindsight would tell, it wasn’t the quantity that mattered, but the quality of these sites. The spawning of larger masses of choices made human top-down editing nearly impossible, and spurred the creation of aggregate sites like Digg and Reddit, where users upvotes or downvotes site links that interests them. The collective scores would reflect the aggregate interest level in the community, and be afforded prominence on its site accordingly.
I can imagine the same happening here too. When an art museum installs this (hopefully more discreetly), it could gauge the human interest level in their patrons with respect to individual art pieces and adjust accordingly. At the elementary level, the art museum may shift the more popular pieces to more strategic locations, like nearer the entrance, around the corners etc., and perhaps also influencing which pieces get stored and which get displayed more often. In a longer run, I can even envision a user-generated art museum that has tools where patrons contribute, and the pieces be up/down voted by fellow patrons based on the Art-O-Meter principle.
Some may argue that nothing beats the artistic taste and direction of a human, experienced curator. Well perhaps there are indeed art collections that will pale if one or more pieces are removed from the series; but I do believe that there are room for both types (curatorial vs popular choice) of galleries, just as there are both types of websites today.
2) Love/Hate is better than Indifference
Of course, some may say that the time spent in front of a work cannot equate to its quality - for all you know, he could be condemning the piece - and surely that must be the worst possible rating. But alas, the purpose of art is to provoke, to suggest, to bring in new dimensions. As many marketers (and perhaps also college fraternity boys trying to get a girl) preach, the worst part of the love-hate curve is in the middle - in the “indifference” zone. “Love” is good, “Hate”, you can still work it out, but indifference - not even noticing or caring that it’s there - is certainly the worst.
Borrowing a diagram from the blog “Creating Passionate Users“:
Mac vs PC. Pepsi or Coke. Starck. Chris Bangle. Settling and compromising for something that pleases everyone eventually would be a guarantee for failure - the zone of mediocrity above.
Wow, did all rant all that just because of a little black box? Hmmm, looks like it’s pretty effective already!
Cigarette tray in a pack
The ASPAK ashtray. Simple, to the point.
Visionaire
Visionaire is almost like a style magazine, and yet not quite. Published 3 times a year, each issue follows a central theme like “Smell”, “Toys”, Uncensored”, “Taste” etc., and each issue is unique. Unique because the physical look/feel of each issue is different according to the theme. For example, the issue shown above is “Light”. In order to capture the feel of the theme, it is made of 24 large format transparencies contained in the sleek black light-box, lit by paper thin filament. See the issues in their website - even though it’s just selected pages off each issue, I think you’d like it!
Of course, such indulgent luxury and pursue of detail comes at a price - annual suscription comes to the tune of $675 (yes, for 3 issues), though you’d get the assurance that you’d get your individually numbered edition (as they only publish a few thousand for each). Someone actually paid $32,000 to collect issues 1-49.
I think Visionaire is not so much “published” as it is curated. Established artists, designers, photographers and art directors have all propped in, and from the website, it really does impress as a collection of extremely high quality images and experiences.
I’d really like to get my hands on them - so bluff/wring your design managers into this worthy suscription, and let me know! Meanwhile, I guess I’d just have to stick to Colors.
[via Stephen Gates - another cool blog]
Audi - Designed to Thrill
I’ve always been partial towards Audi cars - for me, they symbolise a fusion of well-thought engineering and refined design. Here’s a print ad campaign for the Audi RS4 - I think the execution for this series of ads simply crystallized that Audi spirit, expressing it in a clear and yet artful manner.
A toast to those who can see the art and beauty of engineering! And here’s the video for the campaign:
LG KB6100
Woo! Cellphones with antennas are back! The old-school phones needed antenna for better voice signal reception; in this new LG SB6100 though, it is for wireless digital TV broadcasting signals - you can even record the TV shows to watch later. I totally dig the retractable, telescopic antenna.
It has a 1.3m cameara, MP3 player, 2″ display - and packing all these into a very slim 10.95mm (3mm thinner than the Razr). The best part of it - it comes well-integrated with a leather wallet - if there’s just an elastic band on it, I could see myself storing some essential cards/cash with it - voila, an integrated “bring-it-all”.
Bravo, LG!
[via Akihabara]
Daewoo Two-Door Microwave Oven
This is a Daewoo microwave model that will hit the stores in 2007. While the design itself does not fascinate me, the innovative feature of having double-doors are great - especially as home kitchens become more de-emphasized in the the future. Cabinets that encircle the kitchen space are slowly giving way to space-saving kitchen islands - some homes even forgo the concept of having a kitchen as a room, in favor of a flexible space surrounding a bar top.
Anticipating that, Daewoo would be launching this microwave oven. I suspect that in the future, as food preparation becomes more straightforward and simpler, the relative importance of the stove diminishes, while this microwave could just be the cornerstone feature of a kitchen island.
Guess the Movies with Stationery
Office supplies get creative! Viking and 3M, suppliers of office stationery, has come up with an interesting website campaign. Using various office supplies like papers, staplers, scissors, post-it notes etc, they have composed cryptic images like the one above that represents a movie. If you can get the one above, head on for 19 more!
Warning signs from the future
Anders Sandberg conceived of possible warning signs from the future, and explains the rationale for it in his blog. Scarily though, some of these symbols are actually rather conceivable in the near future.
Inspiring Father-and-Son: Hoyt
When RickHoyt was born, he was strangled by his umbilical cord. As a result, he had brain damage and was unable to control his limbs. Doctors said he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life, and advised to put his parents, Dick and Judy, to put Rick in an institution.
But the Hoyts refused. They noticed that Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. They brought Rick to Tufts University, asking if there’s anything to help him communicate, but was told that ‘there’s nothing going on in his brains’. Dick didn’t buy that, and challenged them to tell a joke. They did, and Rick laughed.
And so, they hooked Rick up to a computer that allowed him to control a switch with the side of his head. Rick was finally able to communicate. When a high school classmate became paralyze through an accident, the school organised a charity run for him, and Rick typed, “Dad, I want to do that.”
So Dick, a self-described “porker” who’ve never ran more than a mile, tried, and pushed his son for five miles. “Then it was me who was handicapped. I was sore for two weeks!”
After the race, Rick typed, “Dad, when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!” That sentenced change their lives. Dick was compelled to give Rick that feeling as much as he could. He trained up and became in such fit shape that they were ready to try for the Boston Marathon.
The officials were not keen on letting them participate and compete. They couldn’t fit into the categories: the father-and-son team was not a single runner, but they don’t quite fit into the wheelchair category either. For a few years, they just joined and ran anyway. Finally in 1983, they ran fast enough to qualify for Boston the following year.
And somebody said, “why not a triathlon?”. Dick had never learnt to swim, and had never rode a bike since he was six. He’d have to lug 110-pound Rick through the swim, cycle and run segments of the race. Still, they tried.
Now, at 65 and 43 respectively, Dick and Rick had ran their 24th Boston marathon. Their best time was 2hour 40minutes, just 35 minutes away from the world record - a record held by someone who didn’t need to push another man in a wheelchair. They’ve done more than 200 triathlons, and gruelling 15-hour Ironman competitions in Hawaii. Some have asked Dick to try and see how well he’d do if he was on his own, but he refused. He does it purely for the awesome energy and feeling that he gets with Rick.
Dick and Rick continue to give motivational speeches around the country, and take to competing in races every weekend. “No question about it, my father is the Father of the Century,” Rick says.
“The thing I’d most like, is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once”.
The videos are below:
A truly inspirational example of great love and self-belief. Wow.
[Story: Rick Reilly]
Centre Pompidou & Nike Air Max
This is the Centre Georges Pompidou, a museum for the modern art in Paris. Its architecture was bold and controversial: in the midst of classical Parisian buildings, it proclaimed its presence with big exposed service elements outside the main columns - red elevators, escalators in clear plastic tunnels, and various color-coded tubes: green for water, yellow for electricity, and blue for air. The “inside-out” approach let it stand out from its neighbourhood, and gave it an uncluttered inner space for artworks and displays, though it also also drawn fierce critics labelling it an oil refinery.
This is the Nike Air Max I. It is the first of the Air Max series, launched almost 20years back in 1987. It was a pioneer in utilising Nike’s air-cushioning unit in the shoe’s sole, and was a popular item for both runners and casual wearers. The series draw a somewhat cult-following over the years, where fans anticipate and collect each year’s models.
Question: Why are these two disparate items appearing in the same post?
Answer: Tinker Hatfield was originally hired by Nike as its corporate architect, in charge designing its offices, showrooms, and retail spaces etc. He was requested to design a shoe - the first Air Max. Being an architect, he naturally brought his archictectural background and perspectives in his shoe design process. In the video, he shareshow he was inspired by the Pompidou in the Max design, most conspicuously the exposed air cushion, which does indeed draw reminiscence of the Pompidou’s ventilation shafts.
As with the case of the Pompidou, Nike’s Head of Marketing was not in favor of the shoe with a hole in the side, and there were concerns about perceptions of leakage and vulnerability. Nike went ahead with it anyway, and as with the case of the Pompidou, it turned out to be a major hit.
