Design Crit

So my posts have been far and few between…I’ve been working on a personal project that has taken priority.  I hope to get back to this with a little more regularity.

So lucky for me that Nook had production delivery problems. That just saved me $500. Now I’ll just wait for the ipad to come out.

On that note of products being late…that’s just a killer when it comes to generating sales and making business numbers. Designers should know this, but often don’t really assimilate the impact of being late and its consequences on the business.  What does that mean to the design process?

Ok, i want one of these…there was something about the kindle, that made me wonder if I should plunk down $300, uh ok, $250 (since the intro of nook).  I was unsure when I wrote about this a while back and am now certain, that i won’t buy a kindle.

For now, until i can go to Barnes and Noble to buy one, my thoughts based on what i’ve read on the web and what i can see in pics:

Look: winner Nook – ok the Nook is nice and clean, not a stunning design, the Kindle 2…pretty darn bland, i can see the braun/rams/bauhaus inspiration, but, still just too plain. And the original Kindle, well honestly, that thing was pretty ugly, I mean, look at that keyboard.

Technology: winner Nook – dual screens, gotta love it
UI: winner Nook – jury out, but the potential of, the dual screens!
Experience – Nook – bring it to a Barnes and Noble and read stuff for free. Phyigital Reality, making digital things act like real life things
Cool Factor: Nook

Had a discussion about this with another designer the other day regarding my minus ten series…bottom line, stuck in time isnt always a bad thing…as it can sometimes mean…Defining the times.

See some posts that had imagery that were Stuck in Time yet defined it as well.

Memphis and Miami Vice

SGI and the era of boldness

what’s up with the random cowboy model kit?  James Bond, the cowboy?

this thing blows those talking digital cards…ok so you can’t customize the message…but you can’t say this about the digital versions:

“Put da needle on da record…”

a post card from Korea with a tongue in cheek message around how to report spy activity.

Ok, so this is a old vintage crazy graphic.  Not sure what to make of it. Even though a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes its just a few WORDS that really shed light to the context.

Here are some captions that change the thought:

“i wish this babysitter would go home”

“don’t move, let me shoot that fly off your shoulder”

“there’s a really bad man behind you wanting to steal your rasta hat, i gotchya back”

any more???

“minus ten”. A look back 10 years to see what was going on. I’ll pick out what I feel got Stuck in Time, good or bad design that was clearly of the moment. Ahead of Time will be a look at something that had brought some insight to the future and finally, the Test of Time will soon be design classics, at least imho.

Hey how about that, my friend Paul Pierce’s work ON THE COVER!  I wonder what he thinks of this thing now!

ID Annual 1999, there’s gotta be some good pickin’s for this post:

Stuck in Time:

group shots are always stuck in time…can you say big balls!

Ahead of Time

OK i may be biased, I lined up and paid extra to get this car…call me a sucker.

Ahead of Time AND Stuck

above, dated, below better, but those triangle buttons, dated, the concept of ebook readers….AHEAD

WAY Stuck in Time, actually BEHIND the times…

Memphis Group disbanded in 1988, this was designed in 1999…uh hello?

Test of Time

So this may not  win a beauty contest, (oh wait, it did!) but this aesthetic has definitely stood the test of time for this type of product.  You know what these colors stand for, yeah?  Hmmm, seems like a new opportunity here to do something different.

So I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t more things that stood the test of time or were ahead of time.  Some things that made this issue I had already covered…Karim for Issey Miyake but that’s about it. LOTs of stuff that got stuck, frog, lunar (me!), apple, ideo, phillips all guilty.

There was one product from Design Central that was way ahead of time, but only got a shitty black and white spot and honorable mention. They did a rubberized shoe, form fitting, all one piece, molded in tread…copied several years later, or uh borrowed or unmistakenly reinvented by the likes of fuseproject, crocs and any student who did a shoe project and knew how to use alias.

From ID Magazine July 1999

strategic design

cultural invention

experience design

meaningful experiences

design thinking

business design

design for business

service design

world design centers, california, london, tokyo, silicon alley, etc.

design research

human centered design

changing people’s behaviour

changing the way people see the world

analysis paralysis

what ever happened to the simple pleasures, passion and beauty that design brings?