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.

  • Holly Herndon + more things

    Holly Herndon

    Holly Herndon and Jace Clayton in conversation. Holly and Jace are interesting characters. They are academics, at least one published book author and artists. They have explored areas such as sampling themselves and the use of machine learning in composition and sound creation.

    Holly Herndon on process is fascinating. I think this has wider implications for creative industries. It does raise question about the nature of creation itself in terms of intellectual property.

    James Lavelle

    James Lavelle on the history of Mo’Wax. These films by FACT magazine are nice. Although they miss a few things.

    Lavelle’s impact goes beyond music:

    • James Lavelle has been a taste maker, he helped popularise a lot of Japanese clothing including A Bathing Ape (BAPE) in the UK and Europe
    • Lavelle’s Unkle was more than a music brand. There was a strong focus on merchandise and clothing including the Surrender streetwear brand. The merchandise was a great product as you can see in Lavelle’s archive. You only see Surrender items come up on eBay every so often because they are so valued and highly prized by owners. The big issue seems to have been one of distribution and hype. There is no interest on the likes of StockX for these items despite the heat behind designers Futura and manufacturers Mediacom and BAPE – again distribution would have been so important for awareness

    Lavelle has managed to self destruct and reinvent himself, which is only obliquely touched upon in this footage.

    More on the history of Mo’Wax. There is more serendipity in this than this video lets on. Also Japan’s Major Force Records needs more kudos than seems to happen in this video. If you liked this it is well worthwhile checking out the

    Sleep app pivot

    How J&J Research Led From Bath-Time to a Mobile Sleep App | Digital – AdAge – fascinating story how consumer insights can dramatically shake up product development and or service design

  • Come to Singapore + more

    Come to Singapore

    Come to Singapore! The Sights (And Branding) Are Lovely | WIRED – it feels very Monocle-esque in terms of editorial style. Come to Singpore! is very different to the Conde Naste Traveller type editorial. Singapore is aiming at developing a start-up culture so targetingWired (US) readers make a good deal of sense. More Singapore related posts here.

    Decline of cyberspace

    William Gibson on the decline of cyberspace. It is fascinating in terms of how Gibson’s inspiration has evolved over time. He was reacting against genres that he didn’t want to write as much as ideas he wanted to convey. The ability to say no, is a very interesting creative process and it reminds me of an interview I saw with an Apple executive talking about why the iPod didn’t have an FM radio.

    Renault Alpine Vision

    Interesting to see Renault going back to Alpine’s sports roots with the Vision sports coupe. It is made to a similar formula to the original 1960s cars that made Alpine famous. A light, small car, a rear-mid engine placement with a highly tuned small capacity engine. Performance is viewed by the Alpine team in much more holistically with an equal focus on handling and breaking.

    Tesla Model X

    I am a sucker for well done manufacturing and process films. The first one up is from Tesla, highlighting robots working in a manufacturing cell on their X model vehicle. Tesla has had problems around areas like panel fit. I am not sure if they have resolved those quality issues, but robots should provide them with a very consistent process and higher throughput.

  • Monster Hunt & more news

    Monster Hunt

    China’s highest-grossing film of all time Monster Hunt flops in US, takes in $21,000 during opening weekend: Shanghaiist – interesting that they didn’t bother to put some marketing wallop behind Monster Hunt, they had enough time to do a good English dub (great way to get Asian Americans on board) and push it out to a more general audience in the US. It would have been a great China soft power vehicle. Instead a China soft power opportunity was lost.

    Then there is the other view, that Monster Hunt performed to expectations. There is a possibility that its Chinese ticket sales were inflated. I and others that I know have gone to see a western film on more than one occasion in a Chinese cinema. The ticket is rang out as a local film and then the screen number is crossed out and the western movie screen number written on by the assistant.

    Secondly, Monster Hunt didn’t spawn a Toy Story-esque merchandise avalanche in China and other Asian markets. Which indicates it wasn’t that much of a cultural moment and ergo, not as successful as one would believe. More China related posts here.

    Consumer behaviour

    Blu-ray Isn’t Going Anywhere – Park Associates – interesting demographic pattern of ownership – “Owners have higher incomes than the overall broadband household population as well as a strong preference for the highest-quality video.“

    Hillary Clinton is losing young voters to Bernie Sanders. | Slate – not scientific but interesting. It also gives an interesting viewpoint on Corbyn’s political chances.

    Design

    Arriving at San Francisco – interesting delve into Apple’s new system font. Unfortunately I can’t download it in a format to use it in documents

    Gadgets

    StarTech Unveils Dual-Display Thunderbolt 2 Docking Station with 12 Ports – AnandTech – this looks like all my peripheral prayers were answered. I ended up with two of these. They work well for handling by two Apple Cinema displays

    Ideas

    Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did | INSEAD Alumni Magazine – Despite being an exemplar of strategic agility, the fearful emotional climate prevailing at Nokia during the rise of the iPhone froze coordination between top and middle managers

    Why Yahoo Couldn’t Adapt to the Smartphone Era – The New Yorker – the irony is that they got on mobile services early. Yahoo! Go had been launched when I was there at the beginning of 2006. It was a one stop shop to search, access email, share photos on Flickr, get news and access Yahoo! Finance. Christian Lindholm was at Yahoo! back then. He was the director in charge of the S60 operating system interface at Nokia prior to

    Innovation

    LLVM Patches Confirm Google Has Its Own In-House Processor – Phoronix – interesting that they have a custom processor, it is related to their internal network infrastructure

    Media

    Why Jeep’s $10M Super Bowl Ad Only Used a Third of the Screen | WIRED – interesting example of online considerations driving TV creative decisions – mobile devices

    Telemundo to Build New $250 Million Miami Headquarters – The Wrap – which indicates how big the Latin media market is

    On the hypothetical eventuality of no more free internet – FT – interesting discussion of Internet economics and how it relates to  the commons (paywall)

    CBS Says Super Bowl 50 Broke Streaming Records With 3.96 Million Unique Viewers | TechCrunch – which is still relatively small compared to broadcast TV audiences for major events such as this

    Online

    Akamai earnings call hints at Apple CDN – Business Insider – not terribly surprising, Akamai has strategic partnerships with Apple rivals as well. Akamai earnings hint at the service’s ubiquity

    Security

    US intelligence chief: we might use the internet of things to spy on you | Technology | The Guardian – not terribly surprising, each technological frontier represents opportunities and IoT won’t be any different in that respect. The very pervasiveness of IoT is what makes it such a security risk

    Singapore

    Come to Singapore! The Sights (And Branding) Are Lovely | WIRED – it feels very Monocle-esque content on Singapore

    Web of no web

    This Google app could forever change the way you travel – Google’s translation app has a new feature that will come in handy for travelers. You point your smartphone’s camera at a sign printed in a foreign language, and Google’s translation technology

  • Susan Kare + more things

    Susan Kare

    Things that made my day this week included mac pioneer Susan Kare, Luxxury, Greg Wilson and JG Ballard:

    Great interview with Susan Kare. Susan Kare is famous for her icon designs that appeared in the first nine versions of the MacOS. Even now veteran Mac users will have a reaction to the ‘Dogcow’ that Susan Kare used to illustrate orientation of paper in a printer. More Mac related topics here.

    Luxxury

    Luxxury have cut a new slice of post-disco, pre-house 1980s dance music that Maze or Hall & Oates would have been happy with. Take it Slow is out on iTunes

    JG Ballard

    JG Ballard’s High Rise makes it to the big screen alongside some great late 1960s / 1970s set dressing and a great Kraut Rock soundtrack that Daft Punk would love.

    Apple Watch

    Finally, an Acceptable Use of the Apple Watch | Hackaday and 3D printing for that matter. A lovely Mac Classic homage as watch stand. You can now find this in silicone on Amazon, if you don’t want to 3D print your own version.

    Greg Wilson & Francois K

    Great interview with Greg Wilson and Francois K talking about the early days of modern dance music. From DJing to production and everything in between. What becomes apparent is something that Robert X Cringely, pointed out in his book Accidental Empires. That the same set of (48) names keep cropping up again and again in the development of something. In Cringely’s case, this was the personal computing revolution. Watching this video; you ge the same sense in the development of dance music.

    Greg Wilson helped develop the culture at the Hacienda and  brought beat and scratch mixing to UK television in the early 1980s. Francois K’s impact was as a DJ and producer since the early 1980s. The career longevity of these pioneers is fascinating.

  • Cool tools & things that made last week

    Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools website has a podcast series, this episode on great tips

    Cool Tools is a direct descendant of The Whole Earth catalogue. Kelly started his career helping Stewart Brand edit the last few editions of the Whole Earth catalogue. He was then an editor for follow on projects including the Whole Earth Review and The WELL (Whole Earth eLectronic Link). More Kevin Kelly related stuff here.

    For the right content Chinese audiences will watch longer form branded content, Pepsi’s Bring Happiness Home campaigns are designed to tap into Lunar New Year celebrations and this February ushers in the year of the monkey. This is a beautifully made short film about the different portrayals of the Monkey King over time.

    There is a new Monkey King film due out with an awesome looking trailer

    The X-Files has a new teaser out for the six-part TV series reboot, more over at a microsite which seems to be strangely appropriate. I enjoyed the original series just at the start of my internet usage at college and watched series one of The X Files on a Casio TV with a postage stamp sized LCD screen.

    The campaign: Zwitsal is a well-known baby brand in the Netherlands. For many parents and carers, it has associations with the first formative years of a baby’s life.

    The aim was to use Zwitsal’s famous fragrance and team it with Robijn laundry (both cleaners and conditioners) to produce a unique highly-emotive new product that would extend the reach of both brands.

    Nostalgia and the power of smell was the focus of the brand campaign which used bloggers and Facebook to engage and harness the sharing power of socially engaged mothers.

    The results: The campaign, which ran over ten months, saw over 3.5 million people engage with it on Facebook (average engagement rate 8.4%), 137,752 YouTube video views, 23,861 online views and an 11% uplift in sales.