No ruminations, just the facts: Once again, Christophe and I went to Schwäbisch Gmünd for a two-day workshop with the master students of the HfG. We also did some workshopping at the Brand Perfect Tour event in Berlin. There was a kick-off meeting for a new project (“Kootenay”). We started working on it together with Christian, a freelance designer. Philipp did some analysis and drafts for Osoyoos. Another project Michael, Christophe and I had been working on recently went awry (bummer!). We’ve talked to an internship applicant and liked what we’ve heard (ace!).
Again, my calendar software was filled with little, colored dots this week. Most of them were red, which means something related to precious. Christophe and I had three lunch meetings with partners and (prospective) clients. We also spent quite some time on the telephone. A lot of talking, but unfortunately not enough time for doing. I guess that’s part of the deal when you are trying to lift a design studio to the next level. It’s a period of change and we need to learn how to cope with that (lesson one: say “no” more often).
But it wasn’t all talking this week. We also started working on first ideas for the re:publica conference. I can’t reveal the topic for next years conference yet, but if I would, the subheadline for this weeknote should be “oh irony”.
A little poll about (emerging) music consumption patterns
We love music – and we’re sure you do, too. We have discovered a drastic change in our music consumption habits, though. We’d love if you could take a minute and answer the following three simple questions. We’re currently doing research on the topic and would love to hear how your specific music consumption patterns are. If you have something more to let us know (or if you don’t fit into the poll grid), please use the comments and leave remarks or tell us your stories. Thank you!
This was my first week in the studio after a month of road-tripping New England and Eastern Canada. I didn’t have a laptop with me and my phone was shut off all the time. But with the iPad in my bag, I couldn’t resist scanning emails occasionally. Christophe, however, did a great job handling everything and keeping me out of it.
For the last three years I’ve taken September off for traveling. These weeks are the most precious time of the year for me. Not only on a personal level, but also regarding work. Freed from the daily routines at the studio, in a foreign country thousands of kilometers away from home, it is the perfect setting to reflect on the previous months, plan for the future and charging the batteries to make these plans a reality.
I don’t think in calendar years anymore. The chunk of time called “year” ends with my timeout from the studio. Hence, this week started a new year!
On my first day back, we finalized a new version of our portfolio presentation, which Philipp and Christophe developed during my absence. It’s got a revised layout and features new projects. We sent it to a prospective client and presented it at another new business meeting this week. Although our old portfolio was OK, it feels so much better with this shiny new presentation.
On Thursday, Michael, Christophe and I met the re:publica team. A first brainstorm session produced some crazy ideas for the upcoming conference. The vibes went from motivated to psyched.
We’re also pretty psyched about the release of iMaschine from NI. We worked on this iOS app a long time ago and we are happy that it is finally available to the public. First reactions were mostly positive and judging from the iTunes charts, people buy it like hotcakes. Native Instruments invested a lot of time and effort to enter this new market and we’re glad to see them succeed.
iMaschine – and most other projects we did in the last years – wouldn’t exist, if Steve Jobs hadn’t pushed the computer industry where it is now. With his focus on users and his attention to detail, he also did more for the design profession than any designer. More and more companies understand the value of design and I’m sure that Steve Jobs has played a major role in that. His massive success proofed that design should not be a mere paint job, but at the core of a product or even business. Obviously a studio like ours benefits from this development.
Digital devices and physical objects forming hybrid experiences
We sometimes have an unreleased bonus track in our talks about Multiscreen Patterns. All six regular patterns are about relationships between digital devices, but we always loved the idea of combining them with physical objects to create hybrid experiences. So we sometimes show a 7th pattern introducing hybrid interactions.
As much as we were fascinated by Scrabble on iPad, our first thought was: wouldn’t it be even cooler to keep the real board and tiles, but have the game digitally augmented where it makes most sense? Joining the haptical material quality of physical objects with the smart and connected capabilities of digital devices.
I’m writing this post because in addition to the one we sometimes show in our talks, I saw two more great hybrid products popping up this week. Here are three examples (you might already know the first, but I wanted to post it anyway, since I still think it’s quite stunning). And if you have kids (or are a kid), you got some early christmas gift suggestions on top.
We’re offering lectures and workshops for all kinds of schools and businesses. If this sounds interesting to you, please let’s discuss how we could cooperate.
precious is a design consultancy for strategic design & visual languages. Our output ranges from user interfaces to record sleeves, from websites to visual identities – for small businesses, multinational brands, public administrations and rockbands.
2nd rec: Our record label, established in 2001. As of today we have released over 30 records, from electronica to hiphop to indierock and in-between.
Future Audio Workshop: When some Irish and French fellows came to our offices and asked if we wanted to start a new audio software company with them, how could we say no? Until today, we released Circle, a software synthesizer for Mac and Windows and Touch Mix for iPhone and iPod Touch.
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