Ged Carroll

Category: design | 設計 | 예술과 디자인 | デザイン

Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.

But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:

  1. It is innovative
  2. It makes a product useful
  3. It is aesthetic
  4. It makes a product understandable
  5. It is unobtrusive
  6. It is honest
  7. It is long-lasting
  8. It is thorough down to the last detail
  9. It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
  10. It is as little design as possible

Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.

The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.

On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.

  • WeChat payments + more things

    WeChat payments and wallet function brought to the international version of WeChat with its last version update, but I only noticed it this week. Does this mean that WeChat is now putting all the pieces in place before they get serious about an international market push? They are already trying to get foreign credit card merchants on board accepting WeChat payments to  provide extra convenience for Chinese consumers travelling abroad.
    WeChat wallet now for louwai
    TfL brought back its experiment for having people stand on both sides of the escalators. For those of us who live in London this is quite a change to our usual routine. We are used to standing on the right or moving along the escalator on the left. It caught me out the first time that I visited London.

    But TfL research found that you net out moving people more efficiently by encouraging everyone to stand. This allows a ‘denser’ escalator and better times clearing people off platforms.
    Stand on both sides - people living outside London won't realise what a paradigm shift this is
    A comparable shift would be say, New Yorkers suddenly becoming unfailingly polite and accommodating. I do quite like the ‘blue pill’ footprints that TfL use for signage on the escalators.

    Japanese producer TOYOMU reimagined Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo based on reviews and a list of the samples used. Japan hasn’t embraced streaming music unlike western lemmings music buyers. I think what he came up with is far better, see for yourself.

    Forthcoming Russian superhero film Guardians looks even more intense than the Night Watch and Day Watch films. Apparently the bear packs a chain cannon a la Jesse Venture in Predator.

    Luxxury releases Greg Wilson remixes of the their track on yellow vinyl, have a preview of it here. I am a huge fan of Luxxury and the lush nu-disco products that he manages to come up with.  More Luxxury sounds here.

  • renaissance chambara retrospective

    renaissance chambara retrospective – whilst looking at something else I decided to do an animated GIF showing what my blog had looked like in various incarnations over the years.

    I didn’t even remember a few of the designs in the finished GIF.

    Disappointingly flickr doesn’t host animated GIFs so had to use another service instead.
    renaissance chambara since 2004

    make animated gifs like this at MakeaGif

    Before there was the website this was a contributed strand to an online community founded by Tony Perkins who had previously founded Red Herring magazine. Red Herring was one of the go to media for the original dot.com boom and bust. The site ran on a CMS called Netmodular and provided a community experience somewhat like Facebook, but more specialised.

    The AlwaysOn Network went through a number of changes. So I decided to strike out on my own with my writing. This was partly precipitated by my playing with platforms to work out how they could be useful for clients.

    I eventually went with Blogspot because it was free and had a good community at the time. The platform was easy to use and customise (in a similar manner to the way MySpace or Bebo were later on). Eventually, I wanted something that felt a bit more professional and the website moved from Blogspot to WordPress on Yahoo! Small Business Hosting.

    I chose Yahoo! Small Business Hosting for my first WordPress blog because I got a staff discount.  This decision was disastrous. I lost a good deal of my content, which I tried to recover via the Google cache and was partially successful. I then moved on to Media Temple as my hosting provider.

    The design of the site changed a bit over time, partly because the themes that I used were no long being updated from a technology point of view. I was very influenced by Derek Powazek’s approach to blog design with a single column of content.

    It turns out that doesn’t completely break down when you go through the site using a mobile device. Anyway that’s the renaissance chambara retrospective. Let’s see what the next 13 years of blogging will bring…. More on the transitory nature of the web here.

  • Facebook Live + more things

    Facebook live

    A Facebook live streaming service (a la U-Stream and YouTube) was newly launched this week. You can stream on your page or in-group. There is a map to discover streams going on in realtime. I already  found one seminar by Nu-Skin a multi-level marketer of wellness and beauty products in Hong Kong as an example of where Facebook Live was being used from a commercial perspective.

    The Stanton Warriors embraced the new Facebook live streaming service to promote further fan interaction whilst they were in the studio. It will be interesting to see the best and worst that brands do with this medium. From a piracy point-of-view I would imagine that it is likely to be used for streaming live sports coverage – expect the Premier League to be very unhappy.

    RUN and RUN

    Not exactly the same sound but J-Pop act lyrical school’s debut track RUN and RUN has a really clever smartphone optimised video with amazing breaks of the fourth wall.

    UPDATE: Our James pointed me in the direction of an even better link for the RUN and RUN video on Vimeo that I hope works here

    RUN and RUN / lyrical school 【MV for Smartphone】 from RUNandRUN_lyrisch on Vimeo.

    If you can’t see anything point your browser here.

    Godzilla

    Japan’s king of all monsters, Godzilla returns from chilling out on Monster Island for his 31st outing in the Japanese cinema. This new trailer is interesting as the visuals evoke Fukushima Daiichi  nuclear disaster and the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011. Check out the Cloverfield-esque shots in the 30 second trailer below. There is a longer trailer where Godzilla appears fully in shot leaving no mystery to how bad ass he is this time. This means that the film is likely to go beyond his usual mayhem and might touch on contemporary issues.

    Vintage CGI

    Last, but not least; a vintage show reel by 1980s CGI shop MAGI Synthavision in its full neon wireframe magnificence and southern country rock soundtrack. More similar visual stuff here.