Having recently spent a few days with my brother, Tim (a sculptor – you can find examples of his work at www.timmorgansculpture.co.uk), my thoughts have returned to one of our favorite topics of conversation – the dualism (or perceived dualism) between “art ” and “design”. Tim is presently working on a proposal for a new project, so naturally we talked about the submission process, and the back-and-forth with his client and their approvals committee. Read the rest of this entry »
“Art” vs. “Design”
March 16th, 2010 by garethIs Google the new Microsoft?
February 17th, 2010 by gareth
Just as Microsoft seems at last to be struggling out from under the weight of it’s own mediocrity, and is finally, albeit under palpable threats to it’s survival, starting to put usability and desirability at the forefront, Google appears, in turn, to be reaching that tottering, preponderant level of product-portfolio obesity where corporate arrogance begins to seriously outweigh business sense. Read the rest of this entry »
Is interaction design finally going mainstream? ;-)
February 15th, 2010 by gareth
For many years, north america’s hi-tech behemoths have had a tendency to favor engineering over design, leaving the art of creating products that are at once useful and desirable to the likes of Apple. Now, finally, the era of mainstream interaction design is upon us, or at least, that’s the impression I’m getting as 2010 gets underway, particularly after watching today’s launch announcement from Steve Ballmer regarding Microsoft’s latest refresh of their mobile platform.
Windows Phone 7 is a major clean-up, but it had to be. Apple has rightly poured scorn on Microsoft’s previous design mis-fires and Redmond was heading for redundancy in the mobile space. Design-wise, the Zune player was a step in the right direction, but is an irrelevant product in a market that has already been lost. Mobile is a far deeper space, and one in which the race is still open – certainly for a number 2 or 3 slot. Read the rest of this entry »
All-new Iforma brochure for Q1!
January 11th, 2010 by gareth
To freshen everything up for the new year, we proudly present our new products and services brochure for your perusal.
The draft is going off to the printer today, so we should have hard copies available within a week or so. If you’re not on our mailing list and you’d like us to send you a copy, please use the contact form and drop us a line. You may download the PDF here.
“In The Bubble: Designing in a Complex World” by John Thackara
January 5th, 2010 by gareth
Happy New Year!
We took a couple of week’s holiday over the new year, and I finally had the time to sit down with John Thackara’s profound, although somewhat disturbing, book “Designing in a Complex World” and give it the attention it deserves (much to the consternation of my 2-year old daughter, Rosie).
Thackara, design guru and consultant extraordinaire, runs the “Doors of Perception” series of conferences (and blog, linked to by this site) amongst a great many other things. His range of experience is incredibly broad, and this is reflected in the book, which explores topics including (but not limited to) manufacturing, architecture and social media, but nevertheless carries with it a couple of predominant themes – that of ‘human-centeredness’, and that of ‘lightness’. Read the rest of this entry »
Interaction design could (should?) rule the future of news.
December 8th, 2009 by gareth
Although I continue to subscribe to The Economist, it’s an exception that essentially lives in the bathroom; in general I read all my news online. If The Economist online service was a little less awful, and there was a convenient handheld reader with a large, color screen, I would certainly switch to that. Read the rest of this entry »
Swirly logos
November 20th, 2009 by garethA new post on Post Secret (a wonderfully cathartic blog and art project for people to express their inner-most secrets creatively and anonymously) features the Thomson Reuters logo, with something of a revelation regarding it’s design significance:
The irony is that I think the analysis could well apply to all swirly corporate logos – and there are a lot of them.
Why non-designers should not design products
November 17th, 2009 by gareth
OK, so that’s not really a fair title. I have no idea if the idiot(s) that coagulated (to call it ‘design’ would be an insult to designers) this laughable disaster are professional industrial designers or not, but I seriously doubt it. However, it’s a case-example of how-not-to-design-a-product, and the mentality that thinks that adding more features, and thus complexity, to a device will automatically improve it is not the mentality of a designer.
In fact, I have done a little research. The inventor of the ‘OOMouse‘, which is apparently the product of having gained access to “the data gathered from more than 600 million actual mouse and keystroke commands enacted by users”, claims to be a game designer. One must assume that he was very good at game design, and made loads of money, for it is hard to see who else would bankroll the development of this monstrosity. Read the rest of this entry »
Stand-up comedy, an auction, and great Montreal DJ’s
November 6th, 2009 by gareth
This is way off-topic, but it’s for a very good cause, so please bear with me.
GRIP Montreal is a local community organization with whom I volunteer. Their mission is drug education and prevention – basically to inform and educate young people in schools, colleges and the bar and rave scene in Quebec to help them make elightened, reasoned decisions regarding drug use.
It’s been a tough year for GRIP, as for all community groups, as discretionary federal funding is cut to the bone, and corporate sponsors tighten their belts, limiting their community support.
SO, this year GRIP has had to focus more on fundraising, at the expense of some of it’s key mission objectives, and so are kicking off Montreal’s 2009 Drug Prevention Week, the GRIP Montreal is putting on a major fundraising event. The goal is to raise $20,000 in order to add an additional full-time field-worker to the permanent team. Read the rest of this entry »
Google Wave invites
October 29th, 2009 by gareth
I’m currently testing Google Wave and I have to say it’s a lot of fun!
I have a few invites left, and am prepared to offer them to readers who pop over to the contact form and send me a request with an email address. First come, first served! Oh, and if it seems lonely, try entering “with:public” into the search box, and watch the entire wave world update!! (thanks Kim)