© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
This is an interesting paper called The WALL: participatory design workspace in support of creativity, collaboration, and socialization written about workspaces using various techniques to support creativity, collaboration and “socialization.” The paper describes and advanced design studio for a “Nordic … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
The disadvantage of having so much fun taking photos of skateboarders is that I have less “design research-y” photos to go along with the dispatches here from the Laboratory. So..I’m reusing some and digging deep into the archives. Anyway. I’ve … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
A familiar challenge is to translate the seemingly unyielding demand to put a specific technology into something because it is expected, or because the name of the technology is the new great thing. It doesn’t matter what it is in … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
The Innovation Center for Young Minds as an enviable-sounding studio for Fall 2010: In “Design Fiction Studio,” we will focus on experimental ways to combine science fiction story telling with new forms of media production. The students will be asked … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
Found another design fiction in the form of an Apollo 11 Owners’ Workshop Manual, published by the folks at Haynes. I remember having Haynes service manuals for the two service-it-yourself buckets I had — a 1980 VW Rabbit and that … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
Okay, well..Now the week is ending today. Whatever. Couple of things to note this week. I finally finished the Kicker Studio’s Six Questions. They’ll put it up coming up here. I really didn’t make a big thing about it, just … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
An intriguing short article in the Economist from weeks ago, that I just read in what will surely be a failed attempt to *catch-up on back issues. In this one the article looks briefly at some of the things that … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
Paper map next to its alternative. From William Gibson’s recent Book Expo American luncheon talk? “..the future, be it capital-T Tomorrow or just tomorrow, Friday, just means more stuff, however peculiar and unexpected. A new quotidian. Somebody’s future, somebody else’s … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
Just came across this one, via @bruces over on <a href="“>Beyond the Beyond — a series of *design fancies created by Matt Brown which appear to be cleverly fictionalized designers to go along with these designers design fictions. Wonderfully inventive and I could see this sort of thing being quite therapeutic for normal, factual designers. You know — either imagine a colleague, or take a piss on the designer jackhole.
The image above is a book done by this designer — with two editions, one particularly rare.
Kurt Manchild was an author and inventor born in Jackson, MO in 1952.
From a fairly young age Manchild found that he had ridiculously vivid dreams of finished inventions. He spent his teenage years thinking that dreams like this were normal. It wasn’t until the ’72 National Sleep Science Association (N.S.S.A.) convention that he found out his dreams were unique. He spent the next few years talking with bartenders, clergymen, and designers about his deep sleep brainstorms and formed a whole new philosophy. Armed with this knowledge he wrote his first and only book, Silent Brainstorm: Ten Dreams That Every Designer Should Have at Least Once a Week. In the book he describes ways to trick your brain into certain dreams. He writes about the “Garage Sale Dream” where you go to a garage sale and see new products and then wake up and draw them. He also writes a lot about “Museum Dreams” where you would go to a design museum and it would be filled with amazing stuff that again, you would draw out upon waking. His book was a best seller in most of Europe and was available in two editions. The black version is semi-rare.
Why do I blog this? A very intriguing way of constituting an imaginary, design fiction concept. The strength of the imaginary thing — the design fiction — is elevated by the story surrounding it — it’s *backstory or moment of production, including the designer with a personality and a home town and so on. It’s a bit of an intriguing special effect of a sort that I should add to my modest catalog of design fiction genre conventions. Nice work.
Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
Well, the house is proving a persistent but not at all unwelcome distraction from blogging stuff, but that’s okay. Managing to set up even a M*A*S*H*-like *Man Lodge was mitigated by, like..unpacking scores of boxes containing mostly books, old disk … Continue reading
© 2010 Julian. All rights reserved.
((Via Unhappy Hipsters. The photo caption is: It was far more satisfying to relive their romance via iPhoto slideshow.)) The Unhappy Hipster site has the tag line “It’s Lonely In The Modern World” dryly shifting design toward self-mocking irony. Perhaps … Continue reading
Mike Kruzeniski-Poetry & Polemics in Creating Experience from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo. Just two quick points on this great talk by Mike Kruzeniski. First, this idea of developing new languages to describe decision points in the creation of technical … Continue reading