Final Presentation:

Check it out!

Part Two

Links can be found here:

Part 2.1

Part 2.2

I enjoyed Exercise 3.3 the most. It reminded me of my love for scenario planning and futurology. It also made me think about how we could use the ‘speculations way of thinking’ to sell design ideas. By thinking of a design idea from multiple standpoints into the future, we could help preempt many questions that will be raised in response to our design recommendation.

For example, if we are designing an experience like a river park, it is going to compete with many other projects for resources. A city, as we know, has many more challenges than there are resources ($$) to address those challenges. However, if our design recommendation can think through its potential impact in the future, in ways that cannot be seen today, then we’d be building a stronger case for our design recommendation. Policy makers, politicians, and various other decision-makers do not fear doing interesting things, they fear the negative consequences of their actions. If we ‘de-risk’ their choices by helping them ‘see things into the future,’ and if we can give them a story and a strategy to take that future to the potential nay-sayers, then selling bigger, better and long-term design ideas will become that much easier (and enjoyable).

Our site is UCI’s campus.  Currently, we have slides that will be put together into a quick video.  Here is a link to the slides – please let me know if you have permissions issues when accessing.

View the .pdf

Persona

Scenario

Joyce is walking through downtown as she usually does, visiting different shops and saying hello to everyone she meets. She grabs lunch at Peak City Grill, one of her favorites. Her waiter, John, greets her as usual, and notices she’s recently upgraded from her flip phone. “I know you’re an expert on the town’s history, but I bet even you could learn something new about the city from that new app the Historical Society made!” he challenges. “I’ll take you up on that, but lunch is on you if I don’t!” Joyce retorts. They laugh and John agrees to the bet.

She downloads the app and tests it out. As she sits in the restaurant, she realizes it’s one of the locations for the scavenger hunt. The clue mentions a fire that burned downtown, and she remembers one happened in 1905. This fire was common knowledge for anyone growing up in the city. “This’ll be easy, she thinks. But there is no key! As she looks through the different time periods, she learns that two fires burned downtown, one in 1905 and another in 1911. Since she’s a regular, lunch is still on the house. She thanks John and continues down the street, learning more about each building as she greets the rest of her friends.

Storyboard

Persona

Scenario

Ray Hines has lived in Hayes Valley for over 30 years. He’s seen the place change over to the gentrified neighborhood that it is now. However, access to affordable food is still an issue. Most restaurants are high-end dining establishments, and the cheapest lunch place down the street offers $15 salads! Ray is on a budget and is struggling financially, so he needs to cook often at home. However, the closest grocery store is pretty far away and he doesn’t want to give up his coveted parking spot on the street. As a result, he has to traverse over hills and cross dangerous streets to get to the Safeway. As he is getting older and has bad joints, this is difficult for him to do. He arrives at the grocery store, and now has to worry about getting his groceries back.

Storyboard

Journey by thatgamecompany

“Your game practically changed my life… It was the most fun I had with him since he had been diagnosed… My father passed in the spring of 2012, only a few months after his diagnosis.

Weeks after his death, I could finally return myself to playing video games. I tried to play Journey, and I could barely get past the title screen without breaking down in tears. In my dad’s and in my own experience with Journey, it was about him, and his journey to the ultimate end, and I believe we encountered your game at the most perfect time.

I want to thank you for the for the game that changed my life, the game whose beauty brings tears to my eyes. Journey is quite possibly the best game I have ever played. I continue to play it, always remembering what joy it brought, and the joy it continues to bring.

I am Sophia, I am 15, and your game changed my life for the better.”

Created by thatgamecompany, an indie studio with a handful of employees at the time, Journey is an indie game featuring no dialogue, direction, or goals. It’s easily completable in six hours, yet takes you on a vast trek starting from life to death. The game is simple; explore and unlock the next stage through runed temples.

Yet where the game excels is in emotional design, the three pillars of which are flow, movement, and choice. Katherine Isbister of How Games Move Us detailed that video games are a special medium that requires interaction and elicit strong emotional responses – sometimes negative, sometimes positive. Everything about Journey was designed with emotion in mind – from the color palettes, the smooth physics of movement, even the Grammy-award winning music from Austin Wintory, lent itself to creating an interaction that pushes users to have a “religious experience” by the end.

Jenova wanted to push the boundaries of emotional design in games and started by breaking down what social interaction meant to him, and isolating the interaction one by one – for example, why did social games like World of Warcraft make him feel even more lonely and isolated? He noticed a few key gaming interactions on how players build a connection, two of which are:

• The gradual player empowerment, which lends itself to an easy toxic environment and “flaming”, the act of posting insults with profanity as skill and strength begins to divides its players
• “Are you a boy or girl? How old are you? The answer is always a sad ending.”

One of Jenova’s design goals then was to eliminate age, gender, skill/strength, and other factors that create chasms between players and their interactions (universal design principle of accessibility here) in order to make make gaming a more healthy medium.

The players in Journey don’t interact until about the midway point where a second player (usually farther along or reached “enlightenment”) is suddenly introduced, and lends itself to the second player “guiding” the first unconditionally and uncommitally. At the very end, the players you played with, where you played together in the game, and where they are from in the world are displayed, and you are able to finally connect to these players.

Jenova’s vision was a game that could affect its players to be better people. Even though it’s been almost six years since I’ve played Journey, I still find myself thinking about the game on a near daily basis. Through careful design, Journey is an example of a product that empowers and enriches its users to be compassionate and empathetic to each other while reminding us what it means to be human.

Jenova Chen’s GDC talk is long, but worth it.

Journey artist Matt Nava is less of a speaker, but still interesting to see the visual design process and tech and product requirements changed the game here, and finally the incredible soundtrack here.

New Technology Meets Classic Design

Looking at the object below, you may not see something incredibly beautiful or innovative, but I do.  The image above is a saddle I use on my horses.  Saddles have been around for hundreds of years and while there has been some advancement in the design as technology has progressed, it has been fairly minimal.  The design aspect of this saddle that I find so beautiful and inspiring is the piece in the rear that is circled.

But why is this so innovative?  Most saddles up until this one did not have nearly as much cushioning, known as flocking in the saddle world, in this part of the saddle.  This meant that when you landed heavily or moved a lot, the horse easily felt it and often caused pain for their back.  In addition, it did not really provide any support for the rider’s back as well.  What is so great about this design is that the flocking in the rear reaches a bit out past the actual end of the saddle but is not obvious.  Horse showing and horseback riding are heavily focused on tradition, so this saddle is able to combine modern technology and innovation with a design that still looks clean and classic.  This saddle not only provides comfort to horse and rider, but also still looks low profile and classic enough for the high-level show ring.

To me, this saddle is the epitome of good design because you hardly even notice it. Even an experienced rider would have a hard time pointing out exactly what is different from a more traditional saddle, but as soon as you sit in it, both horse and rider feel the difference.  The positive impact this design is able to provide has been immensely appreciated by everyone from Olympians to every day riders such as myself.

Barns & Noble Classics

The Barns & Noble Classics collection was designed by American letterer, type designer, and illustrator Jessica Hische. The books are leather bound and foil stamped, each using one metallic and one non-metallic stamp. These vintage-inspired book covers, primarily focus on lettering while achieving an elegance and cohesion that spans the entire series; it includes titles by classic authors such as Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and other beloved novelists.

The primary focus of the cover designs is the lettering. Lettering on each book is unique to that novel and portrays a style corresponding with the theme of the book. For example, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen displays a soft, flowing script lettering that reflects the romantic nature of the novel. In contrast, the Gothic horror novel Dracula by author Bram Stoker uses the lettering style blackletter, sometimes referred to as Gothic script to portray the dark, Gothic plot of the novel. Despite utilizing a variety of lettering styles, Hische achieves a high level of legibility in the text and a sense of consistency between the novels.

Hische uses lettering, color, and iconic representation to inform the reader of the tone and plot of each novel. The joyful, romantic blue of Pride and Prejudice, the rich, blood red of Dracula, and the natural, countryside brown of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn set the tone of each novel before a reader even opens the book. Each cover is decorated with subtle iconic representations of the plot in a beautiful rotating and reflecting design. The cover of Dracula depicts ivy dripping blood and leaves which morph into bat wings; subtly cluing the reader into the vampiric plot of the novel. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is decorated in cattails and ship’s wheels reminiscent of a Mississippi riverboat’s wheel, depicting the setting of the novel in southern antebellum society along the Mississippi River.

The decorative symmetry of each cover along with the alignment of the titles and authors on each bookend aid in the aesthetic consistency of the collection. Hische successfully turns a series of seemingly unrelated classic novels into a cohesive collection. These novels compliment any bookshelf and bring new interest to some of the best known and most beloved classics.

Coink Piggy Bank

After years of tossing my spare change into zip-loc bags, mugs, and countertops, I finally came across this elegant product. It’s the Coink Piggy Bank, designed by Scott Henderson.

There’s much to like about this design: its sleek white porcelain form, the witty design flourishes—it has a money sign for a tail. But what I like most of all is its funnel. Whereas most piggy banks have a narrow coin slot forcing users to deposit coins one at a time, this bank allows for a handful at once.  At the end of the day, I just want to reach into my pocket and toss down one big clump of change. And the funnel design lets me do that.

An emotional component

The Coink Piggy Bank was designed for MINT, a New York City-based design collective founded by Scott Henderson, Anthony Baxter, and Alberto Mantilla. Their product line represents what I love about the Coink piggy bank: a blend of modern minimalism with humanist, emotional touches.

In a September 2008 interview with the Design Glut blog, Henderson spoke about this design aesthetic when describing one of their most famous products, ‘The Hug’ salt and pepper shakers, designed by Alberto Mantilla:

“The people who are experts in design seem to hold onto this idea of modernism– that things have to be austere and minimal, and that form follows function. The Hug salt and pepper shakers don’t really adhere to that. They’ve got this emotional component. It’s not austere, it’s not about minimalism, because it goes to another level with these black and white forms hugging each other. It’s a statement, and it’s romantic. It has all these emotional connotations that are totally unrelated to modernism. And it appeals to people who aren’t design experts. It appeals universally.”

These designs inspire me to strive for warmth and humanity in design and to always be on the lookout for ways to combine the lessons of disparate design philosophies.

“The people who design our world have a lot to learn from the natural world — all they have to do is take a look.”

This was Kurt Kohlstedt’s closing statement on his 99PI article exploring Biomimicry. As someone who is generally resistant against non-linear design without good reason, I can definitely get onboard with this design principle. If you think about it, life takes form in ways that have been developed over billions of years on Earth. There are evolutionary reasons for everything and why living things look the way they do. It works!

Biomimicry is what many engineers use to design our material world in order to mimic the talents of the natural world. For example, the famous Japanese bullet train, Shinkansen, was re-engineered to optimize speed, silence, stability, and efficiency based on the anatomy of birds. This was done by a team of brilliant engineers. Recently, Autodesk has also created a top-down CAD program called Dreamcatcher that will automatically generate the optimal organic structure based on your priorities and constraints while minimizing material, mass, and volume.  This is another way of approaching organic designs for functionality. Meanwhile in other cases, there is a novelty factor in reverse engineering organic forms to create mechanical replicas.

A few years ago at a Maker Faire, I came across a company called Les Machines de L’ile, who specializes in creating massive mechanical animals that can be maneuvered by human drivers. I instantly recognized the schematics and sketches as being reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man and other biomorphic studies for planes and such. This led me to attend Burning Man that year to see more of their fire-breathing kinetic sculptures. It is utterly amazing what these guys can do combining their knowledge of animal physiology and mechanical engineering.

Although the feat of recreating natural animal abilities and movement is impressive on its own, the main reason why this type of design in particular inspires me is because it takes my distaste for organic forms and makes it much more pleasurable. There are undoubtedly many functional benefits in mimicking animals. But while designers can easily dissect their physical traits and embed them in unrecognizable ways, this group retained the familiarity of the overall form, it becomes amusing and relatable. Designs like these motivate me to be more flexible and creative, while designs like the bullet train motivate me to research, integrate, and repurpose my findings. Both are personal reminders to take a step back and see the world from a different perspective because inspiration can be found everywhere.

The History

Located in the city center of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the Markthal building is the country’s first covered marketplace. It was designed by dutch architectural firm MVRDV in response to the city’s competition in 2004 for a market hall that would double as a residential space. Completed in October of 2014, it’s arch stands at 40 meters tall and comprises of 228 apartments ranging from two to five bedrooms. Below, the open space consists of 96 stalls for food and produce, 20 units for retail shops, and an underground parking garage. The designers utilized the space above the stalls by adding space to eat, lounge, and grow plants. Printed on perforated panels of the curved internal arch is a large mural of produce and flowers by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam. This is one of the largest murals to date, as it covers 11,000 square meters of surface. This multi-functional space combines all of these different elements to be considered a frequented urban architectural landmark in Rotterdam.

Why I love it

If you know nothing about the history of Rotterdam, it is quite fascinating. Most of the city was bombed during World War II, and since has rebuilt itself with loads of culture and modern architecture galore. I first saw and got to experience this massive building after exiting the Blaak train station walking towards my hostel for the weekend. This building affords to walk through it, as any other massive piece of architecture might. The glass facade affords translucency so that people know they can explore inside but the grid of stainless steel cables and glass panels are an anti-affordance to the outside elements. Not to mention, the building is sustainable and practices methods to reduce environmental impact. Locals think it is an eye sore, but its uniqueness caught me off-guard. From a design standpoint, the space is highly functional and caters to the urban citizen.

Further readings:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Rotterdam-Netherlands

https://www.archdaily.com/553933/markthal-rotterdam-mvrdv

“Keep your favorite coffee at the perfect temperature until you’ve had the last drop”

This smart and high-tech mug is ideal for a coffee or tea lover. You can simply control the temperature of your drink at the perfect temperature for as long as you like. It has LED display lights and touchscreen buttons to control temperature. It can be charged on the charging base and the battery holds a charge for about 5 hours. It also includes a coaster that fits into most standard cup holders and is powered with a USB adapter; so, you can easily charge the mug in the car as well. It is convenient, efficient and easy to use anytime, everywhere! 

The innovative technique, practicality, and simplicity of this product give me a lot of design inspirations. Most people do not know exactly what techniques and methods are used to build this smart heating travel mug. However, the concept of this product is a common idea that people can often imagine in their daily lives. It is amazing that the designs of things I’ve imagined were created and are used in reality. 

“Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability – they should go hand in hand.” (Donald A. Norman)

This mug delivers not only high-quality tech solutions with great functionality, but also is visually eye-catching and achieves simplicity. Black is a color that both males and females generally like and makes the mug look more attractive and intelligent. 

A Story in Four Acts:
Bot & Dolly’s “Box”

– 1 –
Transformation

It’s extremely easy to be mesmerized by the stunning visuals and elaborate choreography of Bot & Dolly’s aptly-named “Box.” The moniker evokes a simplistic object, one in which things may be placed and from which things may be taken. But these actions are highly constrained by the properties of each object in the process – “Box” artfully considers this notion and then obliterates it in a matter of minutes through their mastery of projection mapping.

At its core, this performance transforms our very ideas of a box from something constrained and humble to something infinite and all-encompassing. The ‘box’ in this instance hides boundless patterns and geometry, and is ever-changing in both makeup and content. The universes held inside are shifted, split, and reorganized, all while being affected by the placement and interaction of their pieces. Our very understanding of the box is toyed with as the camera playfully glides from one side to the next, changing both our perception and the outcome of each canvas.

Yet, as viewers, we’re still tethered throughout the performance by a single, simply dressed participant – a deft partner in this elaborate dance. As this person pushes and pulls the canvases, we’re brought back to the constraints of reality, of something human and finite. But this is shattered once again as we are urged to question whether they are operating on the piece, or if it is operating on them.

– 2 –
Levitation

In every sense of the word, Bot & Dolly have elevated design and entertainment in creating this piece. Completed in 2013, “Box” was a clarion call towards greater interactivity between technology, art, and design in ways unseen prior. Not only a collaboration between video, sound, and performance, this piece married robotics and entertainment into a new standard; since purchasing Bot & Dolly, Google has leveraged the robotics for use in contemporary film, including 2013’s “Gravity.” Just as practical effects became (almost) overshadowed in use by computer-generated imagery (CGI), Google’s ‘Iris’ technology might hearken a return to more physical means of capture that is complimented by digital means, similar to what we see in “Box.” Echoing the canvases throughout the piece, this technology has completely transformed the industry in which lives.

– 3 –
Intersection

The intersection of humanity and technology is extremely tense at times, especially regarding robotics. Often-heard threats of outsourcing and layoffs seem to follow this field closely, and can be paralyzing to the industry as a whole. More recent examples like Amazon’s automated warehouses spark debate over the validity of human staffing in the future, but this is a key opportunity for new industries and opportunities to open. Circling back to “Box,” this work did not create itself. Human minds had to conceptualize, construct, test, choreograph, and output every aspect of the piece. This technology might be more efficient and less error-prone, but it cannot exist within a vacuum. This notion is perfectly visualized throughout “Box,” as robot and human merge into a compelling visual odyssey.

– 4 –
Teleportation

As the introduction to “Box” playfully notes,

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
–Arthur C. Clarke

Go see for yourself or click any image above to be transported by the magic Bot & Dolly have created in their masterpiece, “Box.”

Three words: Bathroom. Air. Showers.

In my opinion, these three familiar-sounding nouns aren’t anything truly remarkable on their own. However, when combined, they become something incredible. One of these magical things is located in a gorgeous shopping center called Shibuya Hikarie (built in 2012) of Tokyo, Japan.

Imagine you’ve just had some delicious Korean barbecue in Shibuya, Tokyo and you don’t realize how much you smell until you step out of the restaurant. You’re about to meet someone for drinks but the barbecue smell is way too strong. What to do?

Fear not.
Because bathroom air showers.

Now I’ve never stepped inside the men’s room so I can’t say if the men’s restroom has one but on the 3rd floor of Hikarie, there is one inside the “gallery-themed”women’s bathroom.

Photo credit: https://woman.mynavi.jp/article/131118-057/

You step in and you can choose to smell like nothing (an actual option), fresh soap, or something floral. The air shower also removes dust particles and pet hair if you are concerned about them appearing on dark clothing.

Air showers may normally be known as cleanroom air showers or laboratory air showers for the purpose of reducing particle contamination. It truly amazes me that these things are readily available in a public bathroom. Since everything is within walking distance and one can basically do and find anything in Shibuya, I wouldn’t be surprised if people just went to mall just for the bathrooms.

It’s just that great. 

Here are just all the bathrooms in Hikarie.  Clean bathrooms are not a “nice-to-have” in Japan but a standard. Even toilets in personal homes almost all have a bidet. I’ve visited this country once every year and it’s hard not to notice how important hygienic care is to the culture. This phenomenon translates to food preparation, scented products, indoor shoes, and even bathrooms where there is casually an air shower room.

origami.me

The Art of Origami

This link will bring you to one of my favorite websites: Origami Me. The website posts a rich content of what you need to know about Origami.

Origami is the art of paper folding. The creation of Origami dates one thousand years ago, and yet is still well recognized in the society of modern arts. The fascinating part of Origami is that its output of all folds is extremely symmetric which has taught the folders the importance of learning the geometric principles and shapes.

 Origami. me  created a neat online community for their fans to exchange ideas and showcase their crafts. This site is artistically designed, yet still keeps the fundamental features of being an open channel to provide people with the wide variety of resources. Their goal is to provide the support for their members and at the same time to help to promote the artists by showing their great creations.  You will also find many video tutorials on the website to learn the paper folding and become a master folder.

If you go to look at their collections under the Blog, some masterpieces are so amazing and could take your breath away. Because of the complexity of the folding techniques, most items require a designer and a master folder.

“Origami is a branch of art that only uses geometry, which is the same base for mechanical structures.”  –  Soroush Kamrava

Soroush has spoken the truth: Origami is the perfect coalition of art and engineering.

The Vertical Forest – Stefano Boeri

Although I absolutely love living in urban environments, this city gal misses greenery and often yearns for the smell, shade, protection, and relaxing vibes of nature. I’m absolutely mesmerized by Stefano Boeri’s Vertical Forest in Milan, Italy. The two residential towers fully embody the dichotomy of my two opposing needs. The mixture of modern, clean, and industrial lines blended with lush, vibrant, and wild greenery, is truly stunning.

The architectural beauty, inaugurated in 2014, serves as a prototype for Boeri’s sustainable “Vertical Forest” model. While Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings that were harmoniously integrated into nature, Stefano introduces nature into the concrete jungle. The Vertical Forest creates a unique biodiversity within the urban ecosystem to help lower air and noise pollution, welcome wildlife, and offer shade.

The success of The Vertical Forest has made Boeri a highly sought after architect and urban planner. Since its unveiling, Boeri has been commissioned to create much larger scale projects – including vertical forest cities! I’m extremely excited to see how his Liuzhou Forest City will turn out. It’s expected to feature “40,000 trees and almost one million plants, comprising 100 different species.” (Gibson, Dezeen.com)

When I was little, I always liked to take apart machines and just take a look at what was inside. I always liked to pull off the cases and unscrew all the little screws, but the one thing my parents never let me open up was their computer. Continue reading “Histories: Greg Puett”

Prada Fitting Room Technology

The technology used in Prada retail store in New York is inspiring. Specially using a magic mirror in their fitting room. There is a display in the mirror that has a 3 second delay so people can see how the clothes look like form the back. Continue reading “Histories: Sahar Abdizadeh”

“Our mission is to help the world learn
from its data”

In the middle of the page is news content and I like how they chunked this information together and used progressive disclosure to only show the first three. And near the bottom of the page, they list out their locations, but they have a great illustration that demonstrates the locations in a neat way by showing an iconic feature of each city. The Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, the Space Needle, and the Golden Gate Bridge represent New York, London, Seattle, and San Francisco in a fun and unexpected way.

Continue reading “Histories: Kathy Emsoff”

In this month’s Marketing News, J. Walker Smith writes, “the analog edge isn’t going away just because digital technologies are taking over.”

As someone who still takes handwritten notes and keeps a handwritten to-do list, I’m comforted by Smith’s prognosis.

It’s also why I’m inspired by the Rocketbook Smart Notebook. It allows me to continue using the analog method of writing that I prefer, while incorporating digital technologies that increase usability and convenience.

Features include:

• • Scan and save notes in the cloud
  • Copy and share with collaborators
  • Easily sketch on dot grid pages
  • Microwave to erase and reuse pages

These features align with a number of Dieter Rams’ principles of good design: the Rocketbook is useful, innovative, long-lasting, and environmentally-friendly.

It’s also an example of how a product in a seemingly stagnant and saturated industry (paper notebook manufacturing) can be modified or improved.

But what inspires me the most is that the Rocketbook uses technology to complement and enhance an analog practice, instead of attempting to replace one.

You’re in a new car, and suddenly there is a torrential downpour. What do you do? Do you grab this shiny knob or push that red button. No. The answer is you do nothing. Automatic windshield wipers are a technology that seems to have snuck into new cars without a whole lot of fanfare. They have been designed to work when you need them and disappear altogether when you don’t. They magically find that sweet spot where the wipers whisk away the water but don’t screech across the windshield when the rain is all gone. You no longer are reaching for controls haphazardly, dramatically trying to figure out how to change the speed only to turn on the wiper in the back. It rains; they turn on. It stops raining; they turn off. It is a simple and elegant design.

When the car in front of you hits a puddle and splashes water into your line of sight, the automation kicks in and calmly swipes away the hazard. It is a simple but luxurious design. Why this inspires me is because it shows that sometimes good design can be invisible. It takes action to help us in our daily lives and doesn’t add to our cognitive burden. Automated windshield wipers help us drive safely, while at the same time eliminating the difficulty of manually controlling their function.

Of course, the specific implementation of these wipers will be slightly different depending on the manufacturer, and in this particular case, I have only experienced them in Volkswagen cars. They designed the windshield wipers to be automated by default, but you can manually override them at any time. They are ultimately there to support you in your driving adventures.

Ralph & Russo, the Eden Heel Pump

Yes. You will find by clicking on the link above that this is a shoe worth about $2000. What I find so inspiring about this image is what it represents about beauty in the things we take for granted.

Shoes keep your feet safe from the natural elements, that is their purpose. The way that the fashion industry has approached shoe design created a culture of obsession, creativity, and self expression. This heel in particular is a great example of how simplicity and elegance can make a bold statement about who you are. The addition of the carefully placed leaves intertwining and climbing up the heel to an otherwise plan rose colored shoe gives a sense of classic beauty that I personally would love to wear and show the world.

Moreover, I love how this design reflects the values of the brand, as stated by Michael Russo in an interview: femininity, modernity, and creativity, in an approachable way. $2000 for a pair of shoes is not approachable for me, but the other values are clearly visible through the modern shape of the shoe as well as the placement of their show stopping detail, vines crawling up the heel rather than covering the entire shoe or adding detail to the toe box, an arguably more visible section of the shoes.

EAMES^® LOUNGE AND OTTOMAN
For Herman Miller

The iconic Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman (1956) designed by Charles and Ray Eames, inspired me in the past and continue to inspire me today.  When Charles and Ray Eames designed Eames Lounge Chair, they were inspired by “the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt.”—Charles Eames.  I appreciate their desire to take familiar fixture like a lounge chair and made it sophisticated and simple.  I love the combination of soft and luxurious leather with sleek modern lines of molded plywood.  The construction of contrasting materials coming together beautifully as one sophisticated piece really inspire me.

“Design is an expression of the purpose.” Charles Eames

When I look at the lifespan of Eames Lounge Chair, I am reminded when an artifact is well designed, it stays connected with the world of today and tomorrow.  As a designer I strive to be more creative and more expressive in my designs.  However, at the end of the day if I’m not focused on the end user, I would have failed as a designer.

This is a rain garden. It’s a strange idea for this recently arrived transplant to Seattle. But it’s not strange at all here, where it rains – a lot.

Rain is a big deal here, and rain runoff is also a big deal where the objective of Green Stormwater Infrastructure is to “welcome the rain – storing, draining, and cleaning it.”

The purpose of a rain garden is to slow up and clean polluted runoff from roads, roofs, etc. before all that dirty city rain can run off into the Puget Sound, Lake Washington, or any other body of water.

There’s another important reason rain gardens exist. Rainwater that runs into the city’s sewer system can cause sewage backups and flooding. Blech. To do their part, homeowners disconnect their drainage downspouts from the system and manage the runoff in cute garden features like the one above.

On a larger scale, the city of Seattle has committed to managing 700 million gallons of stormwater runoff using green infrastructure. One of the ways this is done is by creating rain runoff gardens on a large scale, also known as bioswales. Bioswales operate just like those little home rock gardens – storing, draining and cleaning the rain runoff before it is returned back to nature.

I chose these rain gardens as my one design idea because they are a great example of design solving a need, and so much more. They look great, are an avenue of personal expression, and a win for Mother Nature.

This isn’t just any trashcan, it’s a Walt Disney trashcan.

While most people know Walt Disney as the man who created our first theme park, it is a lesser known fact that he revolutionalized the trash tossing experience and created our modern day trashcan design. His objective was to encourage parkgoers to throw away trash more frequently so the theme park could be kept clean.

Before Walt’s innovation, trashcans were uncovered mesh cans with holes in them. What this meant was that the trash inside was both visible and smelly. This didn’t exactly beckon for people to come hither, nor did it promote Disney’s vision of “the happiest place on earth”.

The old trashcans simply stunk.

Walt combated the immodest trashcans of his era with a revolutionary new design — a rectangularly shaped bin with a lid and two flaps. Not only did this new trashcan conceal the unsightly trash within, but it also cleverly trapped the smell. However, his vision did not end there.

Walt wanted to do more than merely change the design of a trashcan, he wanted to change the experience of throwing away trash and make it more accessible.

To do this, he would pick a starting point and begin walking while eating a hotdog. When he finished his hotdog about 30 steps in, he would place another trashcan. In this way, he imagined that parkgoers would always have a place to conveniently throw away trash.

Since then, Disneyland trashcans have become so iconic that the theme park sells salt and pepper shakers in the shape of trashcans. Disneyland even has a robot mascot by the name of Push the Talking Trash Can. This just goes to show how the power of design can turn something seemingly gross into a lovable attraction.

The United States Courthouse building in downtown LA is consistently a bright spot in my day. When I leave work in the evenings, especially in the fall and winter when the sun sets earlier, I am treated to a completely different view reflected on the building based on the time of day, position of the sun, and whatever else goes into the lighting outside (including perhaps the amount of pollution creating haze).

After looking the building up, I discovered that the facade was especially designed to manage the intense sun exposure the building receives from the east and west sides. The east and west facing pleats are opaque to minimize solar thermal gain, while the north and south facing pleats are transparent to maximize natural daylight inside the courthouse.

Mostly, though, I’m just impressed by the shiny colors and reflections. Form and function.

The ceiling of The British Museum’s “Great Court”

The glass ceiling of the inner courtyard, dubbed “The Great Court,” encloses the largest public indoor space in Europe. The idea was that wherever you walk in the space, you would get a different view of the ceiling. All of the panes of glass are slightly different in size due to the curved nature of the ceiling which further enhances this effect.

Why I love it

Originally the space was an open-air courtyard inside the museum. London does not always have the friendliest weather for outdoor travel so the ceiling performed the needed function of protecting from rain or snow. By choosing glass they preserved the feeling of being outdoors with natural light. It was a much more bold choice to create the entire ceiling out of glass instead of having a solid ceiling with selected skylights which would focus light into only specific locations. I say bold because it implies an openness to anyone and anything inside the museum’s walls, seeming to invite those from all walks of life and from any culture to come visit and partake in the history.

The choice of using triangles creates a view of the sky as if through a kaleidoscope. As you walk around the area, the ceiling seems to twist and turn, spiraling away from the perceiver. The lattice-work shadows also spill across the floor and shift throughout the day with the movement of the sun. The supports branching out from the central circular reading room hint at the interconnected nature of the variety of exhibits from areas around the world.

For Approval, an internal Mainframe project.

Simply stated, this graphic is a masterpiece. Not only does it nonchalantly defy the laws of physics, but it also alters the subject matter to the unexpected. I personally find it frustrating, yet highly enjoyable. The reactive approach they used to get viewers engaged with this short clip is genius. I found myself subconsciously guessing on how the next graphic will behave and reacting in different ways after realizing I had guessed wrong.

The colors used are visually pleasing, and the sound by Max Greening is clever and amusing. Using colors and lighting that are not harsh on the eyes and had enough contrast to the background made the objects stand out and allowed the viewer focus on the animated clip. I believe the sounds heightened the overall animated experience. The choice of sounds varied from things that correlated to the graphic (the bounce on the light bulb and waterfall from the glass) to others had more of a twist (water faucet that dispenses a cloth and the deflating sound of the cut “balloon”).

I found the graphic inspiring due to its simplicity and unconventional properties. It took things most people touch and interact with and turned it on its head. It reversed everything we know and made something completely new and creative out of it, allowing the mind to wander and question what we know to be true.

Yup, that’s a manhole cover. The kind that covers sewer holes. Just walk outside and you’re bound to run into one. They’re typically made of metal but look closely and you might notice the one in the photo is made from fiberglass. So how is this inspiring?

To better appreciate our fiberglass friend, this story is about the Internet and the country of Uganda in East Africa. I was working on a project to bring faster internet capacity to the country. Part of the strategy involved laying fiber optic cables underground. Manholes are added every couple hundred yards to enable easy access for future repairs and cable splits. The original project plan called for metal manhole covers. But it quickly became evident these were stolen by local thieves to be melted and repurposed. This was not only a costly oversight but immediately left open manholes that pedestrians could fall into. After a few phone calls and engineering stress tests, fiberglass quickly became the material of choice.

This is a humble reminder that context matters for design. While one can aspire to design a one size fits all product, sometimes the world just says no. My team assumed metal manhole covers were valued in a universal way only to realize it’s malleable nature opened up possibilities we never considered.

Making old things do new things

I saw this “home-made waterproofing for a power cord,” hanging from a tree by the side of the road in Beijing (China). As we can see, its primary purpose is to provide water proofing for an extension cord being used outdoors. This inspired me in a few important ways:

1. Creativity in constraints – solving a problem with limited resources.
2. Connecting unrelated things – linking unrelated things and developing a solution by combining them creatively.
3. Learning from things around us – the solution reminded me to stay observant and learn from the many ideas and inspirations around us.
4. Staying humble – this solution also nudged me to stay humble and learn from people who might not be professionals and yet be very good in solving problems. The shopkeeper who designed this is not trained in design and yet she still found a novel way to solve her problem. Great design ideas can come from anyone.

Overall, it’s uplifting to see design ideas coming alive and solving everyday problems in unexpected ways.

The Archie’s Press Portland map created by designer and inventor Archie Archambault provides a simple and clever way to explain the city. While he has created a series of simplified maps, there are three design choices unique to the Portland map that make this a treasure (and the only souvenir I purchased during my trip!). These decisions highlight the city’s conceptual model in interesting ways.

1. The circular shape to denote boundaries and outline the “Quadrant” conceptual model

Portland has no defining characteristics other than the Columbia River on its Northern boundary. As a result, Archie simplified this and created one large circle that contains the city. This becomes even more clever once you take into account the conceptual model native Portlanders use to describe where things are. They consider Portland to be a quadrant system with the streets Martin Luther King Blvd and Burnside St. as the intersection that divides the city into four parts. This is not a precise center point, but this design decision simplifies the viewer into thinking there is symmetry in the design of the city. The four main areas are highlighted as a result— NE, SE, NW, and SW.

Neighborhoods are also designated within the city as smaller circles, again simplifying the boundaries. The size of the circle corresponds to the area of the neighborhood. Further, the designer colored “Downtown” in blue. Many Portlanders also describe where things are in relation to Downtown, so this is another area to highlight in their conceptual model of the city.

2. The inclusion of the Wilamette River as an exception to the conceptual model

The only natural feature highlighted on the map is that of the Wilamette River, which comes in from the northwest edge of the map traveling southeast. At a point close to the eastern-most edge of Downtown, the line changes directions and travels straight south.

While the river isn’t actually this straight, its simplified path provides an explanation for one potentially confusing exception to the quadrant rule. There is a “slice of the pie” labeled “N” for North Portland, which is bounded by the Wilamette River and Martin Luther King Blvd. While this is technically part of the NW quadrant, Portlanders consider this to be a different area than true NW, which is mainly Downtown and the large public space of Forest Park.

3. The expanded detail in NE and SE

Lastly, a series of horizontal lines serve as important roads in NE and SE Portland. Only calling out the major roads here is an interesting design decision. It may stem from the fact that NE and SE are objectively the “hot places to be”. This is the Portland of hipsters, restaurants, and artisan shops that many outsiders believe to be the true Portland. I spent most of my visiting time here, so it certainly is true for me. I assume end-users include tourists like me, so the designer may have expanded detail to focus on areas the user might find most interesting.

My Hot Take

I love this map not just for its simplicity and unique abstracted design, but because it actually outlines the conceptual model of Portland in an extremely simple way. To quote Don Norman, “Precision, accuracy, and completeness of knowledge are seldom required.” In my experience traveling, if you have the general rules of the city understood, you probably know it better than if you were to blindly read a map.

Le petit théâtre de Rébecca is a book by one of my favorite contemporary illustrators, Rebecca Dautremer. I’m using the term “book” loosely here, because–as the title might suggest–it’s a book designed to simulate a theatrical, interactive experience. Each of the 200+ pages contains an illustrated cut-out that reveals something new. Printed text below each cut-out does the same, with a piece of dialogue and stage instructions for the illustrated characters, all of whom originated in the author’s previous works. The reader can see glimpses of future illustrations through each successive cut-out, like visual foreshadowing.

It also challenges the idea that picture books are for children. This book is too delicate to be handled by a young kid, far too long for most children to enjoy, and has only a loose plot. So who is the intended audience, and what is the author saying through these unusual choices? Like many of my favorite pieces of art, this book innovates beyond the usual boundaries of the medium and challenges its audience to reimagine what the intended function of this medium is. When we read books or look at illustrations, is it enough to simply consume them or is there more opportunity for interaction than we realize?

The amount of time and expense that went into designing this book (and mass producing it) must have been considerable. I can’t even imagine creating something this complex and interwoven. The things that inspire me most are usually things that feel far beyond my own capabilities, so this book is a reminder that another human not only dreamed up this concept, but worked hard until it was a reality. Basically, it makes me feel like anything is possible, and no idea is too far out of reach.

See the book in action.

This is a website called Talkspace, and it is what I call modern day therapy. The website and app uses different communication channels with different levels of media richness. Unlike traditional therapy where you have to schedule a time with your therapist and visit them in their office, this app lets you text, facetime or call your therapist in the comfort of your own home. You can text your therapist 24 hours a day 7 days a week and they respond within a given time frame. Depending on the type of membership, fees are paid monthly and range from $198 to $316 . This might seem like a lot at first, but compared to traditional costs of therapy, this can be very cost saving alternative. The app itself is very easy to use and easy to understand, and more importantly it makes users feel comfortable.

This website and app is inspiring to me in two ways. First, it is very well designed and uses a lot of the same functions as other messaging systems; this makes it very easy to learn and start using. It also builds trust and alleviates any frustration a new user might have while using the service. Second, it really meets a need that is not only important but often ignored or not talked about. Therapy (I call it Mental Spa Day) is important to our mental well-being and making it more accessible will not only make it easier for more people to use but hopefully change the perception about therapy.

The Joule Immersion Circulator, by ChefSteps. This gadget inspired me because it is beautifully designed, conveniently sized, yet difficult to connect via WiFi. An immersion circulator is a tool that makes precise, temperature-controlled water baths to cook vacuum sealed food. The benefit of this style of cooking is that you never end up overcooking foods, such as steaks and roasts, because the temperature is consistently kept at a maximum temperature. The Joule does this task with relative ease as it’s controlled by a mobile application to set temperatures and timers.

One of the reasons I purchased the Joule was to cook at friend’s houses due to it’s portability (standing at 11 inches tall and weighing roughly 1.25 pounds). The issue I have with the Joule is that it first requires a WiFi connection to work. Since I originally connected my Joule to my home’s WiFi network, it has trouble connecting anywhere else. Since there’s no physical interface on the Joule to reset a WiFi connection, I’m helplessly unplugging the device, replugging it back in, and hitting the physical button on top in the hopes that my phone will recognize the device. This process usually takes 10-20 minutes to figure out, whereas it connects instantly at home. As much as I love using this tool, I’ve recently grown to despise the connection process. I admire the beautiful aesthetic of the device, but would love a physical button with appropriate signifiers and/or feedback to expedite the connection process.

The Alessi Juicy Salif, designed by Philippe Starck. Inspiring to me as a cautionary tale: beautiful, and yet useless The only time I ever used one it broke. (I also broke the only Starck chair I ever sat in. Starck and I don’t get along.) Comes complete with an origin myth: per the Alessi site, “was sketched in its essentials by Starck during a holiday by the sea in Italy, on a pizzeria napkin.” Argh.

Image courtesy Stardust Modern, which further elaborates on the myth.

(Side Note #1: to be clear, while I find this object seductive, I also think that it is, by propagating Starck’s cult of genius, representative of one of the worst tendencies of design. Be skeptical of genius.)

(Side Note #2: this is perhaps a bit of a bad example of something inspiring. Don’t necessarily follow my lead here, or ever. But to elaborate: I find this design to be a source of inspiration because it reminds me to always strive to be a better designer. Beauty is important—as important as function, even—but designers should strive for more.)