Viewing Category: Inspiration
I am kind of a sucker for interesting marketing and creativity, so when I got a note from Marketing Fresh Peel about their creativity contest, I was curious enough to check it out. The idea is to take a photo that represents creativity and stick it up on Flickr; the details for submission are on the website.
That's already pretty cool, but the icing on the cake was the prize: a Metamemes ThinkCube. I was not familiar with this product at all, but here's what the website says:
ThinkCube is a complete solution that provides you with all of the tools you need to innovate. It represents the culmination of 10 years of research in creative thinking and synthesizes today's leading creativity tools, techniques, and processes. Whether you use it alone or in a group, ThinkCube trains your brain and lets you exercise your creative muscles.
That's interesting, but what really got me was what it looks like:
Creativity pr0n! I am all over that :-)
There's a really slick Flash demo that explains the process, and it's fabulous. I can't really speak to the process itself as I was too busy ogling the production values on the website to read through it, but any creativity methodology is likely to have benefit. And this product does seem to exceed my threshold of excitement on first glance, which doesn't happen that often. I also read that it's the fruit of a husband and wife team collaboration, which just makes it all that much cooler.
I am listening to The Art of Acting, an hour-long interview on On Point with Tom Ashbrook with acting coach Susan Batson. The popular media calls her "The Oscar Coach" because she works with lots of A-list actors who have gone so far to thank her in their acceptance speeches.
I was expecting something kind of salesy, but I was pleasantly surprised at how down-to-earth and genuine she sounded. Batson has a book out now, Truth, Personas, Needs, and Flaws, for which actor Nicole Kidman wrote a heartfelt introduction (emphasis below is mine):
I can't create unless I have truth--I have to feel it. Susan helps me to find the truth in myself and use its purity, intimacy, and honesty to make my work real. She's helped me to nurture and protect truth in myself and in the characters that I've played. What I've learned from Susan is how to keep the truth alive no matter what. There's so much more to acting than just creative success. It runs thicker and deeper than that. It has to--it's in my blood, it beats through me. I know that it's in Susan's blood, too. I feel like we've been together my whole life.
I think there is an emotional amplification that happens with great acting, and that this has parallels to what I try to do with information graphics. In my work, I strive to uncover the essential ideas behind the problem, then present the entire solution with clarity. It is, in essence, the search for truth. And I'm not talking just about the veracity of facts; I'm also talking about truthfulness in our action and our communication, which is all about acknowledging that we are human. If you do not address that in your design work, at best you've created style. At worst, you've created an undeployable solution that will not stick.
At the 27:40 mark, Ashbrook asks Batson about her "trade secrets", which she apparently describes in the book. She tells a story about how she had to create a "walking, talking human being" as a character for a director, and came up with the idea that every real person has a need, deeply planted by the time you're like 5 years old. But since the world is a harsh place, we create a persona to cover the need, the "mask" that protects the vulnerability. When the need and the persona are in opposition, things get "jammed up" and what emerges is (and remember we're talking about acting) the tragic flaw, which adds depth and subtlety to the character. She gave some interesting examples (from her book, which I haven't read yet):
In the movie The Aviator, Leonardo di Caprio's Howard Hughes had a "need to be mothered", but he created a persona that was the opposite of being a "momma's boy", knowing no limits of adventure, to cover it up. However, the tragic flaw that emerges is that he goes crazy.
In Monster's Ball, Halle Berry's character has the need to "be loved". The persona she develops is to push everyone away, "to be the porcupine". The tragic flaw: she becomes a victim.
In Lost in Translation, Bill Murray's character has the need to be "pure and honorable". The persona he developed: "to be a hustler". The tragic flaw is that he loathes himself.
Batson says that in these performances, there is a very deep, connective thing that happens, creating dimensionality and personality. It goes beyond mere acting. It's very real, empathetic, and authentically draws from the great actor's experience.
I couldn't help but wonder how Batson's model of need, persona, and tragic flaw could be applied to my own struggles. After all, I'm a real person too! In science, models are very useful for clarifying a situation and outlining possibilities. Because I've been interested in applying storytelling to my design work, this is a fruitful line of inquiry. And frankly, I still have to work out a lot of things for myself, just like other real people. Having the strength to "go there" and confront those basic embarrassing needs is very hard, but I think it's a necessary part of working through my motivation to live my own life in alignment with my values. Perhaps my writing here is the "expression of my art"; since I can't paint or write music, writing about my experiences, anxieties, and solutions to deal with them is my way of facing them. My solution: If I can do it, so can other people, and then so can I. It's circular logic, but that's how it works for me :-)
So give a listen to Susan Batson's interview. I found it quite enjoyable.
I have a paypal account that I use as my "research" fund, and the latest purchase is these Mini Cards from Moo. They were all the rage last year, when Moo was offering free sets of 10 for a limited time. Since I have a bunch of pictures now in my Flickr account, I thought I'd give the service a try.
Moo is based in the U.K., so my $20 order of 100 cards took a few days to get here via Royal Mail. The cards themselves are quite small, 2 3/4" by 1 1/8" inches, or about the size of a squattish stick of gum. They're nice and stiff, coated with that nice matte finish...very nice. They all come packaged in a sturdy plastic box.
I printed these via the Flickr photo sharing service. The Moo printing option allows you to pick 100 different pictures so they're all different. Since SXSW is coming up, I thought I'd have a bunch of these on hand to give to people in case they needed my mobile number; the conference was kind of nuts last year with all the people running around, and I've been thinking of ways to make it a little easier to keep track of everything. This year I plan to be prepared!
The flip side of the card has some customizable contact information, and a URL to the actual photo. They're a bit pricey at 20 cents per card. It would have been cheaper to get some custom printed business cards of comparable quality online (it's shocking how cheap this is now), but I wouldn't have been able to get a different photo on each card on such nice paper stock. Plus, the experience of picking a card itself will become part of the fun. When faced with a selection, how will people decide what to pick? What will that say about them? If I were to break up the 100 cards into 10 groups of 10 photos, I might be able to make some kind of psycho-analytical tool, maybe create a mini card game of some kind. These mini cards have a powerful totemic presence that's very tempting to apply in a creative business context.
Anyway, the Moo Minicards get a thumbs-up for me! I believe they're only available with Flickr photos, so you'll need an account (free ones are available). You can browse my flickr account to see what I've been doing over there, if you haven't clicked on the photos in the sidebar before.
A buddy IM'd me just now, faced with the unenviable position of having to pick a favorite website out of zillions. I figured I would be just as screwed, but then something popped into my head, and I realized I truly did have a favorite!
It's HybridWorks, the website of some kind of graphic design studio in Japan.
Why is it my favorite out of many more, um, useful and perhaps informative sites? Well...this is the site that has absolutely the most masterful use of color I've even seen online anywhere. There's not one sour note, colorwise, that I've been able to find. I love the boldness of the illustration, and again the use of color gradients is simply outstanding. The artist or artists have a keen grasp of subtle color complements, accents, tone, proportion, and form. And if that isn't enough, the interaction is crisp and to-the-point, well-sequenced, and mesmerizing to watch. The level of pixel craftsmanship is also very very high.
There are a lot of sites like that, so I think what puts it over the top for me is its baffling and mysterious nature. I find myself drawn into it in a way that is kind of hard to explain, so I'll just give up and say I just like it unconditionally; that's a rare and wonderful thing. The site may speak a secret language that only my innermost subconscious thoughts can understand. Take, for example, The iCorn Movie...what the heck is that about? Every time I watch it, though, I am a little bit changed for the better.
Weird!
I was at Circuit City a few days ago, browsing the digital camera aisle. My trusty Canon G2 has served me well, but its bulk prevents me from carrying it around with me at all times. I also have to admit that its operating speed is starting to feel a little sluggish compared to the newer cameras. It wouldn't hurt to look, I reasoned.
As I looked over the assembled Nikons, Canons, and Olympus cameras, I found that none of them really moved me. Feature sets, form factors, etc...all of them have pretty much settled into a silvery melange of difficult-to-differentiate product. What stood out most, though, was the surprisingly attractive Kodak EasyShare One and Kodak V570One cameras.
Good-looking consumer electronics design from an American company???
Something a Little Different
I had become used to skipping over the blobby, featureless designs from Kodak and HP for years, preferring the matter-of-factness of Japanese industrial design. They have a visual design vocabulary that's hard for me to describe; part of me thinks it comes from living in high-density urban areas and a love for iconography and fine detail. My favorite American design tends to draws on the bold attitude that accompanies having lots of resources and the space to show it off. Admittedly, I haven't done an exhaustive review of the American design scene other than what I see in big-box retail stores; what I see there isn't very inspiring.
So it's nice to finally come across a couple US-designed cameras that catch my eye.
Innovative Features. The EasyShare One was the first camera, apparently, to have built-in WiFi. It also has a very large LCD back panel with a stylus for clicking things off...that's pretty cool. The V570 has a dual-lens design: one is for zoom, the other is for wide-angle. In practice, the transition between zoom and wide-angle seemed a little sluggish and uneven to me, but it's a great feature, in a compact package.
Nice Design. A lot of American consumer electronics design is just terrible. At best, it gets the job done without being too ugly (Dell comes to mind here). When it comes to making something look awesome, though, it's hard to touch the Japanese. They live and breath small. The only American company that comes to mind in the same space is Apple, with their luscious iPods and brushed-metal Macs. The balance between austere unblemished surfaces and clusters of electronic functionality is usually overlooked. The Kodak V570, by comparison, draws upon retro influences (I love the lens cluster) and bold rectilinear form. It's just so yummy...it's a brick of digital camera goodness bursting with visual candy. It manages to strike a balance between that austerity and excitement, a little reminiscent of the Sony PSP, but more fun. The flat front face almost looks like a cartoon diagram of a digital camera...awesome! And the lens closing mechanism makes the coolest "thunk" sound.
I have no idea if the camera shoots well...I'll have to check Digital Photo Review to see what they're saying about it. This camera, though, is at the top of my list for a new point-and-shoot, if it meets my technical criteria...and when I have some money to spare. In the meantime, the old G2 is shooting just fine.
Can I Pick 'Em or What?
I was curious if the V570 was designed in-house at Kodak, so I did a search on "industrial design V570 kodak"; I discovered that the camrea won an IDEA 2006 Award from IDSA, the Industrial Designers Society of America.
A little further digging uncovered the design house that worked with Kodak on both the V570 and, as it turns out, the other Kodak camera I liked: Blue Map Design in New York City. They have a great photo spread (see above) on the V570 camera. Sweet!
Be sure to check out the other IDEA 2006 award winners...great design deserves recognition! According to the Blue Map website, they also were a Red Dot Award Winner in 2006, a prize I am not familiar with. The Red Dot website, though, looks like it has a lot of interesting communications design resources. Bookmarked!
