One of the main components of my jive project was a tangible user interface, this was meant to be a RFID+TUI but I wasn’t able to create thin enough antennas to work in this manor. That is why there is a RFID Antenna on the middle stand.

The tangible user interface uses Phidgets magnet sensors to sensors when a ‘friend pass’ is placed onto the screen. This then triggers one of three actionscripit animations, the initial design and implementation is really simple, but this is just the beginning.

If you are an experienced AS3 coder and know anything about XMLsockets, I would be great full of a hand to get this prototype working to its full potential at the graduate shows. Also, if it could dynamically load photos from Flickr, or really get Tweets that would also be amazing!

Jump in to find out more…

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The Golden Ratio

is approximately 1.6180339887. This number is the basic ratio of making stuff look good. It can be in Type, Buildings, Products, but most importantly its constantly seen in nature. When creating a product, I would recommend thinking about the golden ratio and how you could use it to complement the form.

As part of a second year university module I applied the Golden Ratio to my class mates faces. You can see the results bellow, I have also included my own Layered TIFF with Overlay, So you see how beautiful you are.

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Addicted to Cheap Shopping? Most people believe that prices are constantly rising, but in reality the cost of most consumer goods have been drastically falling over the past 10 years. Libby Potter crosses three continents to reveal how ‘cheap’ has changed the world.
In America she visits the busiest mall on earth – which can house 32 jumbo jets – and the small town where one store revoluntionised the way everything is now sold. In Europe, she meets shopaholics and sees how one retailer totally transformed how we buy. She also goes shopping in the ‘citadel of cheap’ – the largest wholesale market in the world and discovers why communist China no longer wants to be capitalism’s low price manufacturing workshop. But how long will our addiction to cheap last? [S,SL]

This afternoon I saw a BBC 2 program about the state of England’s addiction on cheap shopping. As a product designer, you have think that its my occupation that are making things worse, but this is my design solutions to a couple of questions proposed on the show.

PROBLEM: So many products, so cheap, products are disposable. Recycling centers can’t keep up.

SOLUTION: a ‘Cradle to Cradle’ design response, where each product is easily up-cycled into the same product or even a better product. See my book review post.

PROBLEM 2: There is always a looser in cheap products.

SOLUTION: Yes, Socially resonability can be built into the design. For example during my time at Resolute I investigated VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) used in our manufacturing process. By designing our products to use a low VOC, we lowered the risk of casnergenic compounds introduced to Resolute workers by 80%. This investing in design and design for the assembly line and the environment add an extra cost to the product, but that’s better than cancer… Isn’t it?