Category: Technology

Product Design

Moleskine for e-Book Notetakers

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Corporate anthropologists who observe consumer behavior watch out for “workarounds” — solutions that people rig up to overcome shortcomings in the design of a product. These are typically one-off designs that are sometimes ingeniously clever and sometimes humorously strange and barely workable.

In coming up with a Moleskine cover for an Amazon Kindle e-book, Moleskine admits it eavesdropped online when bloggers posted workaround suggestions or wrote wistfully of the satisfaction they got when jotting notes on paper.

“The very idea of this new cover came from ‘notebook hackers,’ who create their own custom-made accessories weaving together paper pages and digital tools,” Moleskine says on its website. “Throughout the web, hundreds of communities and discussions can be found where such Moleskine ‘hackers’ publish their own invention.”

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Public Service Campaign

Writing with Water

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Sometimes the medium is very much a part of the message. This public service display to warn people about the dangers of unsafe drinking water was created for Worldwide Day of Water by BDDP Unlimited in partnership with NGO Solidarities International. Essentially, BDDP constructed a “liquid poster” in the heart of Paris, using AquaScript technology. Developed by German artist Julius Popp in 2008, AquaScript’s proprietary computer and software system can be programmed to synchronize hundreds of magnetic valves to expel drops of water on command, forming any number of words and images out of pure liquid. Words literally rain down from spouts. Lately AquaScript displays have been appearing all over the world at trade shows, new product unveilings, casinos and nightclubs, and even as the centerpiece of posh parties in Abu Dhabi. It is still a novelty that causes people to pause in wonder, but when the technology is used strategically, as in this clean water campaign, it can add strength to the message and be more than the latest fascinating gimmick.

Publishing

iPad Raises Questions, No Answers

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Sports Illustrated and Wired are the latest magazines to demonstrate a prototype of how its online content could work on an iPad-like tablet. While dazzled by the possibilities, as someone in the communications design field, I started wondering about all kinds of practical production matters. This may seem silly but I wondered if reporters and designers would be “joined at the hip” creatively, assigned to sit side-by-side, desk-to-desk, in the editorial office and work in unison to produce “content”? It used to be that editorial and art departments were separate entities and sequential processes. And the interactive staff often was not even in the same part of the building. Now, more than ever, visual, interactive and editorial content have converged. How will that change the physical configuration of an editorial office?

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Technology

Telecom’s Interactive Light Show

By Delphine Hirasuna |

New Zealand’s iconic Auckland Ferry Building, an Edwardian Baroque-style structure built in 1912, has become the site of spectacular 21st century light shows, using architectural mapping and interactive projection technology.

A creative collaboration of Inside Out Productions, YesYesNo, The Church and Electric Canvas, the Ferry Building light show turned the audience into the performers by taking their body movements and amplifying them five stories high. The installation used three different types of interactions – body interaction on the two stages, hand interaction above a light table, and phone interaction with the tracking of waving phones. Six scenes were cycled every hour for the public.

Produced with the support of Telecom and the Auckland City Council, the four-night event was a great way for Telecom to position itself at the cutting-edge of technology and a great way for the city to bolster tourism and civic spirit.

Technology

Lost Boys’ Christmas Mobile Mobile

By Delphine Hirasuna |

When James Theophane Jr. was asked by his employer Lost Boys, an interactive marketing firm in the UK, to come up with a Christmas card, he thought of the 50 or so mobile phones discarded after the agency went through a company-wide upgrade.

That inspired the constructions of a gigantic mobile, with each phone programmed by computer to sound a single tone that together formed a choral arrangement. The interactive sculpture hoisted at the entrance of the Brick Lane studio can be enjoyed by anyone visiting the live stream and tapping out his/her own jingle on the onscreen keyboard.

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