r+d

Posts on innovation, user experience, research and design 
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Blind camera

Blindcam

Interesting concept called the Blind Camera. Here's how it works:


When you hit the button, it begins searching the net for a picture, any picture, taken at that exact moment. The picture might show up after a minute or two, or maybe not for hours. Not very useful as far as an entertainment device, but it’s kind of fun to think about: somebody, somewhere, pressed that button at the same time you did. And the only reason you know that, and saw the picture, is because you pressed your button then.

I think my friend Aaron will like this concept for the same reasons I do. It's a novelty for certain, but it's also something the fully captures the amazing connectedness of the world and how we're so easily able to tap into that connectedness. It's like finding your temporal photographic doppleganger out of all the noise of the world. 

Sounds like a machine straight out of a Ray Bradbury story.

via

Filed under  //   Ray Bradbury   art   connectedness   photography  

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Experience human flight

Going for the trifecta on video posts. Came across this captivating video by Betty Wants In, a Melbourne design studio. The combination of music and slowed down footage of skydivers in flight is worth 1:51 minutes of your life. At least in my opinion.

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Filed under  //   Betty Wants In   advertising   art   skydiving  

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Worn out

Interesting little movie from Ryan Kothe. Where this ties in to innovation is from the post on Core77 where I found this video in which the poster remarks on the quality and restorability of a 1938 Singer sewing machine:

I recently restored a 1938 Singer sewing machine as a friend's birthday gift. The gears are all metal, which explains why I was easily able to get the 73-year-old machine running like it was brand-new. Singer's plastic-geared machines from the 1960s, on the other hand, would not be so easy to restore. The plastic gears can simply rot.

There's a maxim that everyone today seems to adhere to about new products being more cheaply made than their predecessors; that everything now is designed with a shelf life whereas in the past they were built to last. What are we making today that is designed to last more than a few years? With electronics, it's on the order of months and weeks.

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Filed under  //   art   creativity  

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A higher purpose

Gargoyle

Wonderful article in Fortune this month on Chief Justice Roberts that related this passage from a speech he made in 2004 to oral advocates. He urged these advocates to approach their craft as medieval stonemasons did their work:

Those masons - the ones who built the great cathedrals - would spend months meticulously carving the gargoyles high up in the cathedral . . . gargoyles that when the cathedral was completed could not even be seen from the ground below. [Similarly,] the advocate must meticulously prepare, analyze, and rehearse answers to hundred of questions, questions that in all likelihood will actually never be asked by the Court. The medieval stonemasons did what they did because, it was said, they were carving for the eye of God. The advocate who stands before the Supreme Court also needs to infuse his craft with a higher purpose. He must appreciate that what happens here, in mundane case after mundane case, is extraordinary - the vindication of the rule of law - and that he as the advocate plays a critical role in the process.

Great advice. You may not be presenting a case to the Supreme Court, and at times you may feel overburdened with mundane processes, but craftsmanship is all about the attention to detail you are able to bring day in and day out to whatever your trade or craft.

photo via

 

Filed under  //   Chief Justice John Roberts   Supreme Court   art   craft  

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A digital park bench

Like many others, I've been a long-time fan of The Sartorialist. I didn't know much about the man behind the camera, but this video from Intel changed that. I love this concept of the Internet as a digital park bench.
 
Because the Internet is the world shrinking. Are we all becoming too homogenized? Milan hasn't changed. Paris hasn't changed, New York hasn't changed. So I don't think it's really homogenized anything, but I do think it's given us what I like to call a digital park bench. So many people you meet say 'Oh I love to just go people watch, to just go sit in the park and watch people. And before, you were limited to the people you could see right there in front you, at your park. Now, you can go on the internet and really the whole world is open to you now.

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Filed under  //   Internet   The Satorialist   art   inspiration   photography   startup  

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The Meaning of Colors Around the World

Colors

As someone who occasionally dabbles in design, I've always wanted a reference chart like this for international designs. [via flowingdata]

Filed under  //   art   color   color theory   design   global   international   multiculturalism  

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The Colour of the Inner Content

Interactive_cd_cover_1

CDs are on the way out (or already long gone for me) as a form factor for music delivery, but one of the innocent bystanders in this shift to digital is album art. Sure you can still get album art and packaging as a digital image, but it's not the same, obviously. There's just something about the smell of the aromatic dyes of a nice glossy album cover that is very familiar and rewarding when you open up your new disc. Sigh. 

That said, CDs and their covers aren't dead yet. Hubero Kororo recently worked with the band Uceroz to come up with a very interesting CD package. Initially the packaging is white with only the black text on it, but when you open the package up, an ink packet is ruptured causing the ink to bleed out onto the white canvas of the CD, resulting in unique album art on each disc. That's how I would explain it, but I personally like Hubero's version. 

Hubero remarks:
The design of the cover also reflects [the  musical] motif. Like when you are listening to this piece of music for the first time being still untouched by the unique experience of Ivan Palacky´s peculiar performance, also the album cover makes you feel like that. After opening (tearing off the seal), the outer minimalistic graphic of the snow-white package is irretrievably disturbed by a stain, which turns to the colour of the inner content.

Irretrievably disturbed by a stain. Nice 

Some additional interesting info about the project and the band via Hubero's description:
  • Uceroz is a new music brand by Ivan Palacký, a musician playing an amplified knitting machine called Dopleta 160 (180). 
  • The title "Uceroz" is an abbreviation created from two Czech words : „učesán a rozcuchán“. It consists of two editions, where „učesán“ represents a smoother kind of musical expressiveness however „rozcuchán“ tends to be more experimental.
  • Depending on the technique of opening, (some extreme technics of opening have already been noticed, like using a drill in order to create a peculiar mark.) some patterns arise, which give each piece a certain uniqueness.
Here's the video of the opening:

Filed under  //   art   design   music   packaging   visual  

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Art + Branding - Tokujin Yoshioka Hermes Installation

I don't have much commentary on this. I first saw this video of Tokujin Yoshioka's Hermes installation a week or so ago but it's still running around in my head. Why is it so memorable for me? Not sure. What I do know is that it's simple, understated, surprising and elegant. Those are all good things for marketing.

Filed under  //   art   brand   design   hermes   marketing  

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