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.

  • Facebook marketer tools +

    Facebook marketer tools – Digital media has been historically very focused on performance marketing tools. The new generation of Facebook marketer tools are an attempt to shake things up from a brand marketing perspective. A lot of inspirational work coming out of Brazil (non-olympic related).  Don’t think of it as hyper-targeted advertising, think of it more akin TV advertising. The challenge is then where does it fit in terms of relative cost of reach in comparison to old media. At the moment old media has that as an advantage. While we wait for old media / new media dynamics to change check out the following Facebook marketer tools:

    • Telescope TV – great tools producing live TV broadcast experience on Facebook Live (I presume it would also integrate with the likes of U Stream, YouTube streaming etc)
    • Facebook’s business and developer facing site on all things Messenger
    • +rehabstudio – agency with a similar mix of hardware and coding a la Berg London (RIP) who are doing interesting things on Messenger (ok interesting-ish things copying what’s already been done on WeChat and LINE). The website doesn’t show it but they were behind National Geographic’s Tina the T-Rex chatbot
    • Pullstring – better quality chatbots

    P&G to Scale Back Targeted Facebook Ads – WSJ – interesting read, P&G moving more towards reach and frequency away from targeting. On a cost basis traditional broadcast media may be more competitive in their fight with online. Which explains the business imperative behind these Facebook marketer tools

    Culture

    Bret Easton Ellis weighs in on the ‘snowflake generation’ | Dazed

    Design

    rule40 – the ironic thing is that their clothing feels like a branded by absence product similar to Muji. I haven’t bothered watching the Olympics and don’t intend to thanks to Netflix and similar

    Subway launches refreshed logo | Branding Source – nice in a 1970s kind of way

    Finance

    WSJ City – City Lobby Groups Jostle to Be Heard on Brexit – not terribly surprising, expected that it would be a feeding frenzy of lobbyists

    Innovation

    Apple’s stagnant product lines mostly reflect the state of the computer industry | ExtremeTech – Apple’s relatively lax refresh cycle is mostly driven by the low rate of improvements in PC hardware these days. Apple is just more honest about it – and this says a lot about Moore’s Law

    4K, 8K: In Japan, ‘TV Is The Thing’ | EE Times

    Media

    Reporters, Editors Still Rely on ‘Old Media’ (Study) | SocialTimes – interesting article, surprised that social media as a source ranked so high in APAC compared to other regions

    ‘We need to be better and faster at making work’ Ogilvy & Mather UK CEO Annette King tells staff as Ogilvy Labs shutters | Marketing | The Drum – interesting move apparently attached to the Brexit outcome. The tone it sets is interesting

    Hulu Ends Free Streaming Service | Variety – and this makes the Verizon deal potentially more interesting

    Not every white male creative is a member of the boys club – Mumbrella

    Online

    Yahoo patented technology to ‘pre-deliver’ emails before you even write them – Business Insider – interesting…

    People are using Instagram’s ‘Stories’ feature to ask for follows on Snapchat | TheNextWeb – interesting to see how Instagram will handle this

    Social Music App Eyegroove Shuts Down, Team Joins Facebook. Should Musical.ly, Dubsmash Be Worried? – hypebot – seems to be a wider challenge in social music based platforms – though Crowdmix are an outlier due to their management issues

    Uber uses Brexit to pressure TfL over English tests | Campaign Live – on the other hand it offers another opportunity to close Uber out of London

    The Deeper Significance of Didi Chuxing — The Information – this is positioned as new, but the reality is that Baidu out-exexcuted Google in China as well. When Google complied with Chinese law it failed to understand the dynamics of the Chinese web and Baidu out crawled them. Google did its China market ‘stunt’ after having lost the mass market in China

    Didi, SoftBank Lead $600 Million-Plus Round for Grab – Bloomberg – which will then be competing against Uber – interesting, I suspect Didi will win this battle as well

    Retailing

    Retailer Acceptance – Contactless Life – basically your wallet isn’t dead yet

    Web of no web

    Artificial Intelligence Drone Defeats Fighter Pilot: The Future? « Breaking Defense – here comes SkyNet…

    This site lists all the Siri commands you’ll ever need | TheNextWeb – useful, but also shows the current problem with AI-like technology; it needs its own guide / instruction manual

    Wireless

    China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech – The New York Times – actually much of this is a continuum from what was happening in Japan, but a hell of a lot bigger, interesting that Huawei and Xiaomi didn’t get a name check though

  • Frankfurt + more things

    I spent a good bit of time in Frankfurt this week, working with one of our clients on demystifying analytics and trying to put in frameworks out which they could get actionable insights. Being in Frankfurt was more exciting than the previous sentence makes it sound and great to meet people in person that I had only dealt with by phone or email.

    Untitled

    Japan-ized Cities: Surrealistic “Worldwide Tokyo-lization Project” – it gives you a good idea of how information-rich the urban landscapes of Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo are in comparison. More on Japan related issues here.

    I love this video: Salute – Storm

    Clint and Scott Eastwood: No Holds Barred in Their First Interview Together | Esquire – Clint Eastwood’s interview split people along political lines, but the sense you get of him not being beholden to anyone is something to admire.

    Eastwood is probably the last generation to really think about physical expansion. California didn’t really come into its own until a post war migration to it as GIs demobbed. In some ways he is a connection to the cowboys that he ended up portraying in the southern Spanish deserts of Almería, villages in Sardinia or just outside Rome.

    The Designers Republic Remembered – Creative Review – TDR didn’t necessarily do great graphic design, in reality it was more like art. As art, I think that their work ranks highly. It is hard to imagine the cultural impact that TDR had on UK design through to the early 2000s. You saw it in night club flyers, record sleeves, merchandise, video and web 1.0 design.

  • The QRcode post

    A few years ago, I was involved in a project that used a QRcode across OOH (out of home) activity for a retail launch. We had it on advertising hoardings and on the back of public transport.  QRcode scanners varied in performance. In addition you had to think about:

    • Contrast – did the code stand out?
    • Relative aspect – would it be too big or too small for the audience to scan?

    In the UK, the QRcode is seen by marketers as old hat (but then marketers and consumers in Europe didn’t ‘get’ them in the same way that their peers in Asia did). Many people don’t really understand how to use them.

    Early adopters downloaded QRcode readers. But now, due to the uptake in Asian usage we will see QRcode reader function build into the phone operating system instead.
    QRcode 101
    Above is the picture of the local cafe around the corner from my office. The QRcode contrast is just ok, but the glyph is too disjointed. I am not too sure if this is by design, or due to a poorly maintained inkjet printer.  The image is too blurred for devices to read. I asked a member of staff about it and he told me that he thought it was some type of logo…

    More on QRcodes here.

  • Amerigo Gazaway + more

    Amerigo Gazaway

    A great summer soundtrack by Amerigo Gazaway who do some of the best blends of hip-hop with soul. More on Amerigo Gazaway here. Amerigo Gazaway has produced some amazing hip-hop versus soul and blues mashups including the likes of Marvin Gaye and BB King. 

    Unsafe At Any Speed

    I got this crash test video from an old college friend who had studied industrial design. The crash test of a modern car versus a 1959 model tells you a lot about how safety and design has come on in leaps and bounds.

    The massive improvements in car safety design depends a lot on owes a lot to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed. In his book Nader posited that cars were deliberately designed to be unsafe. I don’t think that it was the result of intentional design decisions, I just think that it didn’t explicitly put safety on the design brief.  

    I find it fascinating how the kinetic energy of the crash ripples through the Bel Air as if the car was a jelly mould as the metal and glass explodes to get out of the way of the Malibu. It’s also sad to see a car that has survived more than 50 years go out in a display of wanton destruction. More on design here.

    Unlimited Future by W&K for Nike

    Weiden & Kennedy for Nike came up with the Unlimited Future campaign. Nike opponents pointed out that it could be construed as a reference to their sweat shop factories. Either way you don’t see other sports apparel brands doing powerful brand anthems like this

    Manhole covers

    Pirate Printers: Shirts and Totes Printed Directly on Urban Utility Covers | Colossal – just waiting for a Stanton Warrior t-shirt or using city and prefecture customised Japanese manhole covers

    Marlene Dietrich as you’ve never seen her before

    US public broadcaster has been bringing some of its vintage interviews to life like this video featuring Marlene Dietrich

  • Benetton – new positioning

    Benetton was, from my personal perspective, a photo-streetwear brand of the 1980s and early 1990s. It had a particular European look.

    This was back when European tennis wear like Lacoste and Australian by L’Alpina were exotic. The Pet Shop Boys were singing about the Paninara sub culture that was obsessed with designer clothing and American movie style. Benetton made highly branded t-shirts and rugby shirts, but it was best known for its knitwear. It was a family run business that pioneered the use of technology to automate clothing manufacturing in the face of globalisation.

    At that time, thanks to Fiat adverts about its production line for the Fiat Strada, Italy was considered in the UK to be a highly sophisticated manufacturing power. There was a clear contrast with the striking British Leyland factory workers. Of course, the Fiats still rusted like their predecessor cars.

    Being a family business Benetton was also able to do a famous series of adverts that provided progressive social commentary through shock tactics.
    Benetton new positioning
    It’s new positioning is a marked move away from this heritage. It’s ‘Clothes for Humans’ tag line moves the brand towards the everyday – almost norm core in its message. It positions the brands as clothes for everyone – more Uniqlo or Gap than designer wear.

    More on streetwear here.