Amsterdam based advertising/branding agency, Strawberry Frog, have created a very pretty 2008 campaign for my favourite shoe company Onitsuka Tiger using model making, motion graphics, video and photography. The campaign is based on the brand’s Japanese heritage (with the theme being made of Japan, similar to their previous campaign) and uses elements from modern day Japan such as vending machines, Narita airport and specifically neon signage. They’ve also published this making-of video, which shows the process of making the model shoe. Onitsuka Tiger are also doing a number of collaborative projects this year, one of their latest with Italian, but Japanese inspired, designers Tokidoki — I might have to get myself a pair!

Something else that has inspired me recently (again) is the aesthetics of letterpress printing. It actually now seems feasible to purchase some equipment to try a few short runs. There are two websites that guide you through the process of setting up letterpress printing; British Letterpress and Briar Press. This video from 1947 will then teach you how to make a book using all your ‘new’ equipment!

The differences between designers from different disciplines is not one of process or evaluation, or even the specific interests and abilities of the designer, but of constraints. Product designers work with the constraints offered by every day objects, graphic designers with 2D mediums and typography, interior designers with the relationship between people and space while architects with the built environment. These constraints are not just limited to the medium, they gather complexity and borrow from other disciplines to varying extents depending on the context of the design outcome and discipline in which the designer works. Fields such as: anthropometrics — the size of people for the use of physical objects; physiology — the way bodies work for the design of man-machine systems; psychology — how the mind works for when interacting with computer systems; sociology — how people relate to each other for the design of social systems; anthropology — how people from different cultures interpret meaning for global design; ecology — how the living world works to ensure sustainable design. Once a designer is trained and has worked within one discipline it feels normal and natural to continue working within those constraints. So while designers will usually follow a similar process and evaluate against a similar criteria the variety of their experience within constraints is the key to generating innovation and that’s why using a multidisciplinary team can create a better outcome.

I‘ve been looking at ideas based around 3D information systems recently, as research for a project I might be working on this month. While I haven’t finished researching, one of the topics that has got me interested is the redundancy of interactive elements such as icons and scroll bars when navigating a 3D space. In a 3D environment the content can replace the icons as you can zoom in and out, and actions within that space can replace scroll bars. A simple example of the implementation of these ideas can be found in OSX. Apple has started using a preview of the actual content of a file as it’s icon and implemented the cover-flow system to scroll content.

For a richer example we can look at Mirror’s Edge, an upcoming game and one that I’ll no doubt be buying. Traditionally a game that was 3D would still have a 2D interface that would sit on top of it. This game has removed the 2D user interface layer and integrated it in to the 3D environment. It uses colour to indicate health, as your character loses health the saturation of the environment decreases. Colour is also used as a marker for navigation within the space — your character can grab on to red objects, or interact with them in a more complicated way.

Dead space, another new game, displays the interface within the 3D environment. While the interface is still in a 2D form it uses content within the game instead of icons to access it. You can see the ammunition left in the gun is displayed within the environment as a hologram in this video, other in-game interface elements are displayed the same way if you explore other videos.

As internet connection speeds improve and small screens increase in their resolution the use of 3D navigation will increase on the Internet as well as devices. Interestingly the games industry has begun to adopt these concepts even though they’ve had the technology for years. I wonder if there is a future with no more icons and scroll bars? Research continues..