AR Business Card from James Alliban on Vimeo.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
My business card is the best card in the whole world and nobody can tell me otherwise! - part 2
I thought this was a fun response to one of Andrew's previous articles about the best business card in the world.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
What is everyone doing?
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Do it differently - MOS DEF
Came across this article via Matt Mason's Blog
Some artists get annoyed when “sell more t-shirts” is presented as a solution to beating pirates, which I can understand because it implies recorded music is worth nothing. But Mos Def has hit upon a way to do it which still gives the music value; the album is the t-shirt.
Def is putting out his latest album The Ecstatic as a shirt. The music tee has the album’s cover art on the front, tracklist on the back and a code for a downloadable version of the album on a tag. The medium (not to mention the S, L, XL and XXL) is the message.
I love this idea. This is a really authentic product that will mean something to fans and values everything the artist does. I’d like to see other things being used as media for digital content. A world where the format you release your work on is as bigger creative choice as the cover art is way more interesting than one where the only choices are CD/download.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
millennials
We have been looking into stereotypes recently for a seminar series we will be hosting later on this year. I came across the millennial at work article by Claire Raines.
They’re the hottest commodity on the job market since Rosie the Riveter. They’re sociable, optimistic, talented, well-educated, collaborative, open-minded, influential, and achievement-oriented. They’ve always felt sought after, needed, indispensable. They are arriving in the workplace with higher expectations than any generation before them—and they’re so well connected that, if an employer doesn’t match those expectations, they can tell thousands of their cohorts with one click of the mouse. They’re the Millennial Generation. Born between 1980 and 2000, they’re a generation nearly as large as the Baby Boom, and they’re charged with potential. They’re variously called the Internet Generation, Echo Boomers, the Boomlet, Nexters, Generation Y, the Nintendo Generation, the Digital Generation, and, in Canada, the Sunshine Generation. But several thousand of them sent suggestions about what they want to be called to Peter Jennings at abcnews.com, and “Millennials” was the clear winner.
In this uncertain economy and highly competitive business environment, companies across North America recognize that the differentiator is their people. Those organizations that emerge as winners in the battle for talent will have their fingers on the pulse of this newest generation. They’ll design specific techniques for recruiting, managing, motivating, and retaining them.
The Millennials are just entering the workforce, and, as they do, employers are scrambling to find out everything they can about them. Are they Gen-Xers on steroids? Or are they a new breed entirely? How do they choose a career? And why? How will they change the workplace as we know it today? What are they looking for when they post their resumes on monster.com? What is their work ethic? What is unique about them? How do the best and brightest managers communicate with and motivate them?
While we’ll continue to see older colleagues—Xers, Boomers, and Veterans—supervising the newest recruits, other scenarios will become commonplace: experienced Boomers reporting to a fresh-faced Millennial…members of all four generations working side-by-side on teams…a Millennial calling on a powerful Gen-X client. Just as the Xers and Boomers finalize their own negotiations for an uncertain workplace peace, optimistic Millennials find themselves at the mercy of Xer skepticism. Gen-Xers complain the Millennials are another indulged generation like the Boomers—that they’re self-absorbed and Pollyanna-ish. Millennials charge that Gen-Xers are cynical and aloof—that they throw a wet blanket on fresh ideas and idealism.
As the most recent generation to enter the fray, the Millennials are likely to ask their older colleagues to chill out, get a life, and walk a mile in a younger generation’s shoes.
see the rest of the article here
They’re the hottest commodity on the job market since Rosie the Riveter. They’re sociable, optimistic, talented, well-educated, collaborative, open-minded, influential, and achievement-oriented. They’ve always felt sought after, needed, indispensable. They are arriving in the workplace with higher expectations than any generation before them—and they’re so well connected that, if an employer doesn’t match those expectations, they can tell thousands of their cohorts with one click of the mouse. They’re the Millennial Generation. Born between 1980 and 2000, they’re a generation nearly as large as the Baby Boom, and they’re charged with potential. They’re variously called the Internet Generation, Echo Boomers, the Boomlet, Nexters, Generation Y, the Nintendo Generation, the Digital Generation, and, in Canada, the Sunshine Generation. But several thousand of them sent suggestions about what they want to be called to Peter Jennings at abcnews.com, and “Millennials” was the clear winner.
In this uncertain economy and highly competitive business environment, companies across North America recognize that the differentiator is their people. Those organizations that emerge as winners in the battle for talent will have their fingers on the pulse of this newest generation. They’ll design specific techniques for recruiting, managing, motivating, and retaining them.
The Millennials are just entering the workforce, and, as they do, employers are scrambling to find out everything they can about them. Are they Gen-Xers on steroids? Or are they a new breed entirely? How do they choose a career? And why? How will they change the workplace as we know it today? What are they looking for when they post their resumes on monster.com? What is their work ethic? What is unique about them? How do the best and brightest managers communicate with and motivate them?
While we’ll continue to see older colleagues—Xers, Boomers, and Veterans—supervising the newest recruits, other scenarios will become commonplace: experienced Boomers reporting to a fresh-faced Millennial…members of all four generations working side-by-side on teams…a Millennial calling on a powerful Gen-X client. Just as the Xers and Boomers finalize their own negotiations for an uncertain workplace peace, optimistic Millennials find themselves at the mercy of Xer skepticism. Gen-Xers complain the Millennials are another indulged generation like the Boomers—that they’re self-absorbed and Pollyanna-ish. Millennials charge that Gen-Xers are cynical and aloof—that they throw a wet blanket on fresh ideas and idealism.
As the most recent generation to enter the fray, the Millennials are likely to ask their older colleagues to chill out, get a life, and walk a mile in a younger generation’s shoes.
see the rest of the article here
Freddie Flintoff - Sure for Men Viral
Following on from the recent news about Freddie Flintoff announcing his retirement form test cricket after this ashes series, I had to post the video for Sure for Mens recent viral campaign with him in it. For those who do not know the significance of the pedalo Mr Flintoff was fined by the English Cricket board for being drunk during a series against the West Indies, where he was found messing about with a pedalo. Enjoy
Monday, 13 July 2009
Design Principles questionaire
We are currently researching design and the connotations of design. We are therefore asking for your help to some of our research:
1. What does design mean to you?
2. What does good design mean to you?
3. How important are designers for society?
4. Are there any core principles that 'design' should have?
5. If something is considered good for the environment, how would you perceive it being?
6. What is your favourite piece of design?
7. Designers work under a number of guises but what do you believe their core attributes are?
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Friday, 10 July 2009
Future of MUJI
As having written about MUJI in a number of articles and compared their products with that of Dieter Rams I found this future message from MUJI and thought I would share.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Give focus groups the real experience
Through our (Hoffi) branding workshops with our clients, we do a lot of work on research and data gathering . The traditional way being to collect information by an arranged focus group scenario. In our experience though you very rarely get true insight and knowledge from such exercises. In the end most of our work centers around being an agony aunt, and putting people at ease. This generally take most of our time, and then form there we look into the aims of the project we are working on. I came across an article by Ravi Sawhney about focus groups and how through the production of real prototypes they get more from the focus groups. This does seem to be a no brainer in some sense as, people mis-interpret, see in a different light, misunderstand items very easily. The more real you can make the focus group the better.
For us we also like to take people out of the concept of being in or at a focus group session. By breaking down social boundaries then the data gathering and knowledge we gain seems to be of a much higher quality compared to traditional focus groups.
see Ravi's article here
future forecasting - google v's new york times
What will it be like in 2015? well although a bit end of the world in feel, the link below does make you think about the possibilities of what technology will allow us to do in the future. for me the end part about us becoming our own broadcasters is definitely something I can relate to and is happening even now. You only have to look at BBC sport page where they get a jo public to commentate on the games, and the recent use of camera video phones footage which has been used to report on an event.
see the movie here
Our portal to the web
I came across this article by Rohit Sharma via a Twitter by Wolff Olins. It's an interesting read and something I am unsure of. It does make me think are our brains now using more of their capacity learning all of these different programs, but then again as a speaker at a recent event I attended said. How many telephone numbers do we actually have memorised these days? So maybe it all evens out.
Last summer, when I got my first iPhone, I found myself spending an equal amount of time downloading and installing various applications — some paid, some free — and using the excellent Safari browser to surf the web. Over the past few months, I realized that I was barely using my browser anymore, that the applications had gotten so much better that I was content to let them speed me to my web destinations.
Sometime in the past few weeks, I had an even bigger realization: The browser is dead. And it’s because all those apps that now monopolize my time have taken their pick of browser parts from the bin and blossomed into a phenomenon all their own.
The browser is dead - long live the browser
Last summer, when I got my first iPhone, I found myself spending an equal amount of time downloading and installing various applications — some paid, some free — and using the excellent Safari browser to surf the web. Over the past few months, I realized that I was barely using my browser anymore, that the applications had gotten so much better that I was content to let them speed me to my web destinations.
Sometime in the past few weeks, I had an even bigger realization: The browser is dead. And it’s because all those apps that now monopolize my time have taken their pick of browser parts from the bin and blossomed into a phenomenon all their own.
See the rest of the article here
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Sony new User Interface
Looks very blue and not sure we will all be able to afford professional photographs of us.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Correction at chapter
Thought this summed up my ideas of transparency, from a local arts centre in Cardiff, called Chapter.
Can eco-design be for everyone? reach chemicals legislation
We have been working on a number of eco-design projects recently at the studio (Hoffi). While going through the initial research of eco-design and how people perceive eco-design the feeling of elitist and middle class came out strongly. In someways this is true eco-design products on average are more expensive than other products on the market, and it seems that this is going to be the case for sometime yet. I did come across a glimmer of hope though when I recently was pointed in the direction of the REACH legislation.
See more information here.
Anthony Gormley - Fourth Plinth - One and Other
Yesterday saw the first day of Anthony Gormley taking over the fourth plinth. As I was traveling most of today I managed to get through a fair share of newspapers. The big question that was underlying in all of the articles was the concept of art and what is art? In an age of facebook it seems that art is art yes but also for me it seems to be more in some ways it needs to be a community and interaction. People are hidden away in their own homes communicating through electronic devices, yet experience and the production of experience seems to answer a desire to be sociable. We are sociable beings.
See the telegraph article here
Michael Goldhaber on the Attention Economy
Following the recent posts about open source and free I came across a recent posting by Michael Goldhaber.
Text of an interview with Michel Bauwens, conducted by email on March 30, 2006:
Interview with Michael Goldhaber on the Attention Economy
"1) My educational background is in theoretical particle physics. The threat of nuclear war and the Vietnam war both made me aware that scientists had a responsibility to understand the wider world in which their discoveries were being used and how, and to act for what they understand as the good of all. Aside from some direct political work, I began to be interested in how the history of science fitted into socio-cultural and economic history. By chance I decided to test my understanding with the relatively short history of microprocessors. This was around 1980, as the personal computer was just taking off, when there was much talk of the "paperless office" and so on.
If we were entering a "post-industrial" economy, I wondered what was motivating it. That led me to think in terms of an economy based on information rather than things. But that formulation continued to trouble me. Economies are supposedly organized around the allocation of what is scarce, but even then it was completely evident we were wallowing in information. It was far less scarce even than the super-abundant consumer goods of the old material economy. The need for more information just doesn't work as a motivating factor. I began to be aware that what is intrinsically scarce yet highly desired is attention. What is the point of putting forth information if it doesn't garner attention?
There were all sorts of things to learn to make sense of this, and that is why it has taken so long for me to develop the idea fully.
for the rest of the article see here
More information at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_6/goldhaber/
Text of an interview with Michel Bauwens, conducted by email on March 30, 2006:
Interview with Michael Goldhaber on the Attention Economy
"1) My educational background is in theoretical particle physics. The threat of nuclear war and the Vietnam war both made me aware that scientists had a responsibility to understand the wider world in which their discoveries were being used and how, and to act for what they understand as the good of all. Aside from some direct political work, I began to be interested in how the history of science fitted into socio-cultural and economic history. By chance I decided to test my understanding with the relatively short history of microprocessors. This was around 1980, as the personal computer was just taking off, when there was much talk of the "paperless office" and so on.
If we were entering a "post-industrial" economy, I wondered what was motivating it. That led me to think in terms of an economy based on information rather than things. But that formulation continued to trouble me. Economies are supposedly organized around the allocation of what is scarce, but even then it was completely evident we were wallowing in information. It was far less scarce even than the super-abundant consumer goods of the old material economy. The need for more information just doesn't work as a motivating factor. I began to be aware that what is intrinsically scarce yet highly desired is attention. What is the point of putting forth information if it doesn't garner attention?
There were all sorts of things to learn to make sense of this, and that is why it has taken so long for me to develop the idea fully.
for the rest of the article see here
More information at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_6/goldhaber/
The Pirates Dilemma - Matt Mason
This is a video of Matt Mason speaking at Trendtag. As a designer in a branding agency this idea of the pirates dilemma is really interesting and it does seem as one of my previous articles would indicate the idea of free can very much be called into question.
14. Deutscher Trendtag: Social Wealth / Matt Mason: The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism from Trendbuero on Vimeo.
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Friday, 3 July 2009
The world is free and Malcolm is wrong
I came across an interesting article today by Seth Godin about a recent review of Chris Anderson's new book 'FREE' by Malcolm Gladwell (you can see the article here), Chris Anderson is Editor of Wired and is probably best known for 'The Long Tail'. The recent book 'FREE' is very interesting for myself and the company I work for Hoffi, as the value of companies is shifting at a huge speed with the ability to produce, comment, and adapt becoming possible for more and more people where is cost going to come from?
Also see other reviews of the book here
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Olympic logo's - part 1
The recent debate about the london Olympic Games Logo is an interesting one, and one that does not seem to be going away. I had come across this article and thought about looking into if peoples thoughts had changed.
see the article here
There is a link lower down about an alternative logo.
There is a bit more at this link
Good Magazine - Natalie Jeremijenko
Came across the below video about the Clinic after the recent talk by Jacqueline Thaw.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Cardiff Design Festival website launched
Well it has been up for a few days now but don't forget to check out the brand new Cardiff Design Festival website.
authenticity on the internet
Following the recent deaths of Jeff Goldblum and George Clooney* the internet has become the new obits pages for the worlds media...
*ok so these were rumours started on the internet that within hours had circumnavigated the globe. Friends of the stars contacted agents to check what had happened and to send their condolences. The question is a age old one of authenticity sites such as wiki and google to some extent all seem to deal with perspectives of authenticity. It seems that we also like to enjoy the detective nature of finding out your truth.
*ok so these were rumours started on the internet that within hours had circumnavigated the globe. Friends of the stars contacted agents to check what had happened and to send their condolences. The question is a age old one of authenticity sites such as wiki and google to some extent all seem to deal with perspectives of authenticity. It seems that we also like to enjoy the detective nature of finding out your truth.
Retail, event and DIY
Encastrable is French collective which does guerrilla interventions at gardening and DIY megastores in the Paris area. They just use the materials available in the stores for their temporary installations and sculptures. They didn’t ask for permission so it was only a matter of time till the employees cleaned up behind them.
source: today
yoko ono cut piece
Cut piece by Yoko Ono first performed in the nineteen sixties more recently repeated by Yoko Ono in 2003. The piece is a performance art piece and one that can be performed by anyone. I am still looking for the description of the piece for anyone wishing to perform it but for now see videos below.
1965
2003
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1965
2003
>
The Institute for Aesthletics
I was at a workshop yesterday with Jacqueline Thaw of Thaw Studio, she showed some recent work, and also some other works by other artists. The line between art and design in the terms of performance art and event was really what the whole workshop was about and to show this a bit more see video below.
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