Archive for the ‘design’ Category
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Note to Self: Stop Making Sense
4th June 09
Posted in creativity, culture, design, music
This is simply a note of appreciation to David Byrne, who continues to remind me that interesting ideas don’t always require explanation and that great success can occur from the oddest of experiments.
Byrne doesn’t simply make music. He also designs chairs:
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“Data tells stories about our lives”
11th May 09
Posted in creativity, data, design
- Mind blowing: Flight patterns by Aaron Koblin http://www.aaronkoblin.com/
If data visualisation is the new rock and roll, Elvis has (just) left the building. Aaron Koblin played to an enthralled audience of BBH-ers this afternoon, blew our minds and incredibly kindly agreed to be interviewed by Labs afterwards.Our interview to follow soon, but to whet your appetite, a quick download of our (and your) key questions for the rock star of the data visualisation world.
Balancing immediacy and intrigue: A frequent criticism of data visualisation is that while often extremely beautiful, sometimes it doesn’t make the information contained any clearer-it can sometimes even seem to obfuscate in the name of art. Should great data visualisation simplify or should it embrace complexity and reward exploration? Should it be reductive or expansive in intent?Where left brain meets right brain: When embarking on a project, which comes first, the data or the technique? How critical a role does software play? Do the themes and memes recurring in data visualisation reflect the artists’ preoccupations or the data sets available?Proliferation versus privacy: One of the key enablers of data visualisation is the phenomenal explosion in the amounts of data we now generate everywhere we go. We live in a golden age of open-ness around personal data but will we reach a tipping point where we reclaim our personal privacies? Or will we opt in to share anonymised data for the common good?The power of synesthesia: Some of the most compelling data visualisation projects are those which express one medium-almost one sense- by means of another. Visually representing dance or music, aurally representing data sets-what is it we find so compelling about this “synesthetic” effect?Crowd-sourcing versus the wisdom of the crowd: Koblin’s recent work experiments with crowd-sourcing but suggests an ambivalence about the process. While a central theme of data visualisation is the wisdom of the crowd, how does it skew the data if the crowd knows it’s being watched? Is the unconscious wisdom of the crowd purer and more compelling or is conscious collaboration of the masses the future? How important is the role of the curator in that process?
Answers – or at least compelling and considered answers – on a blogpost near you shortly….
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“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them”
5th May 09
Posted in creativity, design
Have just finished a fantastic article in the New York Times, on “Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas“, by Allison Arieff. It covered, in wonderful detail & with generous illustrations, the uncategorizable work of Steven M. Johnson, a kind of hybrid planner, architect, designer, futurologist, inventor. He comes up with crackpot ideas such as this, the “Nod Office”. Brilliant; reminds me of Douglas Coupland’s sketches of ‘veal fattening pens‘ in Generation X.
I found it inspiring, exciting and instructive all at the same time (I fully recommend you go and read the whole thing, I won’t even attempt to do it justice here; Arieff puts it together superbly well and ensures Johnson is the hero of the piece).
And it got me thinking . . . about the value of mavericks. In a world of frenetic recycling, mash-ups, re-tweeting and outright imitation I wonder how we can find more left-field thinkers and, as importantly, allow them to flourish when we find them? Does the sharing of everything, all the time, with everyone, combined with the sheer volume of stimulus that assaults us, result in the lobotomizing of the renegades, the free spirits, the natural geniuses? The natural evolution of average. Not survival of the fittest so much as survival of the most popular.
Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion House Prototype (c.1945)
Buckminster Fuller, referred to throughout Arieff’s piece, and without question a misfit and visionary some decades ahead of his time, once memorably proposed, “everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them” (even his use of the word ‘de-genius’ is a maverick move). Wonderfully phrased but also, surely, terribly sad?
(Thanks to Tim Geoghegan for the heads up on the NYT article to start with, and the awesome addition of the Supertramp video).
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The Battle Between Art & The Algorithm
28th April 09
Posted in creativity, data, design, interactive
Technology … is a queer thing.
It brings you great gifts with one hand,
and it stabs you in the back with the other.
–C.P. Snow, New York Times, March 15, 1971–
There’s a battle raging, yet it’s almost Truman Show-like in its subtlety. It’s the battle between art and the algorithm. Between emotion and rationality. Between indescribable magic and perfect information.
Jim Carrey, in 'The Truman Show'
As the granular world of relevance, measurability and accountability tightens its grip on the increasingly emaciated flesh of businesses struggling to re-tool quickly enough to survive, many are rushing too quickly away from striving for the magic that has characterized the work we all admire, no matter what the decade or canvas.
As far as I know, no one is trying to kill me. Yet, I sometimes feel a little like the unfortunate hero at the center of the dystopian sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” John Anderton. The famous mall scene in which Anderton (Tom Cruise), is assaulted by dozens of individually targeted ads — some of which, much to his horror, even loudly broadcast his name as he passes — represents a world a lot closer to ours than the fictional date of 2054.
It’s a world of perfect targeting. Optimization. Zero wastage. Absolute utility. Total accountability.
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Crowdsourcing Our Logo: The Crowd has Spoken
24th April 09
Posted in crowdsourcing, design, social media
And boy, did we get an earful.
To quickly recap: As a innovations unit tasked with exploring new models in communications, we needed a logo that can convey our mission and philosophy. So it made sense to try crowdsourcing to experiment first-hand with how all this might fit into our industry down the line. In the process, we hoped to find fresh talent who are marketing their skills in new ways.A lot of people asked why would we do something like this? Don’t we have great designers in-house? Doesn’t that stuff commoditize design? Isn’t that exploitive?
That’s beside the point: the pros and cons of crowdsourcing design can be debated ’till we are blue in the face but the fact is, the model seems to work and therefore deserves our attention.
Currently, we believe it works best for small or start-up clients. But as the model evolves it has a lot potential to work for larger clients with more demanding needs.
These new technologies aren’t going away, so it’s now our duty to understand how to work with them. We can continue to insist that us trained professionals are irreplaceable by the untrained crowd (and end up like our poor friends in journalism), or we can start figuring out how to turn eggs into omelets. From our viewpoint, this isn’t about preparing for the day that creative agencies can outsource design, it’s about preparing for the day that clients can outsource creative agencies.
BBH Labs believes that in the not-too-distant future, creative agencies are going to resemble expanded networks, with core teams overseeing expansive partnerships rather than the more vertically-integrated models existing today (more to come on this topic later). We see these kinds of partnerships and platforms happening across media increasingly already.
The task now is to find out how to build these new models in a way that is fair to all involved. Crowdsourcing our logo was the first tiny step in a larger Labs process to come – the medium was the message.
(For full post click below)
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We are the Robots!
20th April 09
Posted in BBH Labs, creativity, design, process
In eager anticipation of the new Terminator film, I’ve done a little poking around into what’s happening in the world of robots.
The main action in this area is clearly in Asia. And while Korea pushes ahead with plans to build robot parks, even going so far as to introduce legislation for a robot code of ethics to “Prevent Android Abuse and Protect Humans,” it’s the Japanese who appear to be in the quickest sprint to building a creepy robo-future.
Due to strict immigration laws and a quickly aging population (its expected that 1/3 of its citizenry will be over 60 by 2050) the country is racing to realize a day when robots can provide care for their elderly, clean homes and provide administrative office tasks. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is actively involved in supporting the development of intelligent robots and hopes to introduce many of the models in development into the marketplace by 2015.
Here’s a cross-sample of what’s in store…
PARO
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Paro is the “World’s most therapeutic robot.” It uses an array of sensors to respond to audible, visual, and tactile stimulation. Each Paro attains a unique personality of sorts due to its ability to be trained to execute (or refrain from) specific actions. Pet Paro and he knows he is being rewarded for good behaviour, smack him and he will do his best not to repeat that behaviour. (For full post click below)
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