Love these.
Author Archives: Max
egg
Adidas Superstar Kasina
Love this edition of the superstar
Gundam Lands in SF
Applejack progression
inked by Kiki
AT AT visits Altamonte Pass
CES 2018
Google making a big splash with their voice assistant.
Google dots, remind you of anything?
My Little Pony
Applejack. Yes, I’ve entered into the world of My Little Pony. Yes, I saw the movie. I listen to the soundtrack, its actually not that bad. Sia and CL sing on it…
Gimmick or real?
gimmick?
So I’ve heard about cameras with projectors built in. That feels pretty gimmicky as a proposition. But everyone I showed this to generated the jaw drop effect. COOL! was the typical repsonse.
ipad leapfrogs all
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? Start earlier? So What? Better late than never?!
nook leapfrogs kindle
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
James Bond, korea style
Love the random cowboy model kit? James Bond, the cowboy?
old school talking cards
this thing blows 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…”
All about the spy
a post card from Korea with a tongue in cheek message around how to report spy activity.
Crazy post cards – even pictures need context
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 scary man behind you wanting to steal your rasta hat, i gotchya back”
any more???
Time Warp: July 1999
What 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. The colors have a stood the test of time…Rugged.
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 mistakenly 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
why so deep?
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
humanizing technology
changing people’s behaviour
changing the way people see the world
analysis paralysis
what ever happened to the simple pleasures, passion and beauty that good old fashioned design brings?
NBA draft picks
The recent NBA draft got me thinking, what does this have to do with design? You might think, “nothing” since American team sports and designers in general don’t seem to mix, maybe its that “I’m an artist” vs. “I’m a team player” mentality, but that’s for another post.
Work with me here for a sec. Let’s look at some NBA draft results over the course of a few years.
Atlanta Hawks – 2005 – Selected Marvin Williams ahead of Deron Williams and Chris Paul
Detroit Pistons -2003 – Selected Darko Milicic ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.
Golden State Warriors – 1996 – Selected Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash
Los Angeles Clippers – 1988 – Selected Michael Olowokandi ahead of Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce
And arguably, the biggest mistake…
Portland Trail Blazers – 1984 – Selected Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan
The process of the NBA draft is full of analysis. Players come in for workouts (testing prototypes), lots of statistics (intensive research), analysis on how they fit as part of the team (portfolio analysis), then ultimately making the selection (placing the bet on the product). The “companies” spend 2-3 years doing this research on any given player.
Look above again, all that testing, research and ultimately, placing the bet on how to move forward, sometimes, just doesn’t pay off. Look at how many “bets” ended up as busts.
The Design connection: lots of research, data and testing doesn’t always pay off, especially if the data is wrong (duh, but lots of people don’t realize they are just looking at bad data), as in the examples above. Even if the research was right, just seems like there are so many other factors that can turn things upside down that data doesnt seem to uncover. What’s the current economic condition? What’s the competition doing? Did your product/idea have a hidden flaw? Your product tested well, but just didn’t perform in the real world, that’s full of so many unknowns. But that’s what’s great about life, it always throws you a curve. (sorry for the mixed sports metaphor)
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate research, but i also think you can’t go overboard and you can’t let that drive every last decision you make.
Sometimes, you just gotta let passion drive…
Time Warp: June 1999
ID’s first cut at judging media in 1999.
Time Warp Is a look back 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.
Issue of ID before the Annual is always light, not very many ads from the consultants as they we all saving their pennies for the Annual. Regardless, I was able to find a couple of nuggets.
John Maeda was making jaws drop in 1994 with Reactive Square, Flying letters and in then in 1998 with Tap, Type, Write. This stuff is still great and WAY Ahead of Time. Its a shame that it only runs on a PowerPC.
Oh, and look at young John back then!
Heres something that i used to like. The Motorola iden phone was clearly a memorable design. But does it stand the test of time? It’s Stuck. Those damned ellipses!
From ID Magazine, June 1999.
tropicana packaging
Arnell Group did the design of the new Tropicana package. Seems like a lot of people hate it, so much that Tropicana are going back to the old design. Designers like it, most of my non designer friends don’t. Tropicana went back to the old packaging stating that consumers liked to see the orange with the straw, but they still paid the consultant a lot of money to make the change.
Was this a case of consultants trying to convince the client to do something that was “designed well” and to ignore consumer sentiment? Well Tropicana agreed to change the package, at least for a while.
The clients ARE responsible for making decisions, regardless of what famous consultant is providing the advice. That’s a big part of why I’m getting a taste of being the client…I know that I have the ultimate responsibility and accountability for decisions that get made, regardless of who might be whispering in my ear.
Google Tropicana packaging, lots of passionate dialog on this.
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