As designers, we constantly crave inspiration from new things to be inspired by.  For the most part however, there is a tendency to seek out images, themes or concepts that clearly demonstrate, a sense of beauty, perfect proportions, dramatic themes and interesting compositions.   A sensual curve here… some techno-babble there, we make a habit of drawing inspiration from a variety of places to avoid getting stuck designing with the same themes over and over again.   We try to avoid the boring cliches’.   We try to see life through a new lens each time, to gain a new perspective on the world.

So what are some of the common themes that stimulate our creativity?   Sometimes designers find inspiration from nature, sculpture, fine art and even architecture.  For the last 50 years in Automotive Design however, the influence has mostly come from a pervasive attachment to sensual forms and seductive images.  Designers have typically tried to capture the energy of these ideas and translate them into physical gestural surfaces, feature lines and graphics. Now, with the advent of the modern constraints combined with a change in cultural reference, there have recently been new identities formed.  Under a wave of newer technologies, and emerging markets there seems to be more influence coming into Car Design from things like Japanese stylized robots (Mech), motorcycles and even electric appliances (cell phones).  Other than the visceral influence of Formula 1 racecars or Syd Mead’s futurist visions,  I cannot think of a more sampled subject for inspiration (typical of the designers of today) than the phenomenon of stylized mech-suit robots such as Gundam, Evangelion or even Ironman.

The influence of all these robo-heros are beginning to influence the faces of cars.  Take Audi for example.  They have gone to great lengths to create a signature theme for the brand with their LED headlamps that better differentiate themselves from other European brands.  There is a tremendous amount of effort that goes into faces of cars to make them more recognizable and distinctive.

So what will automotive design look-like in the future if these tendencies continue?  The answer likely depends on the region you are referring to and also depends on your physical relation to an urban environment.  As the size, safety and engineering constraints take hold, the visible evolution for cars will probably have more to do with materials and aesthetic finishes that each brand chooses to portray.  However, there are many experiments taking place right now in automotive design and it really comes down to how well corporations can cohesively integrate their Design talents with their Engineering talents to address weight, functionality, and versatility for customization.

I think that the next level in aesthetic design will occur when we start to see production cars utilizing more anthropomorphic forms and physical features.  I think Chris Bangles’ contributions is very relevant in this regard as a pure concept that clearly demonstrates the transformable skin of the GINA Light showcar.  This departure from a static sculpture will rapidly open up many new possibilities. Consider the acceptance of the Sci-fi films; Transformers Movies and the Bay film franchise on the younger generations, what will they grow up to design?

Perhaps it is the sub-conscious affect on my generation (Gen X) of seeing the 007 Aston Martins in the James Bond films; the way they always featured special tools.  Or perhaps it was just the way cool ‘more-than-meets-eye’ multi-mode capability of the Autobots that pushed our desire to seek out multiple features in our design proposals.   Don’t be too surprised when in the not-to distant future, you see an automobile that looks more like a sexy robot than a car.  Perhaps we will finally see those ever-elusive Fembots.

I Need these things…

Tic-Tac Toast

Because regular toast is just boring. Just think of possibilities: peanut butter versus jelly, Tuna versus Mayonnaise, hummus versus Baba-Ganoush. Competition + food= the ultimate combination.

Pick Your Nose Party Cups

Because its finally socially acceptable to pick your nose in public- plus these cups are a cheaper alternative to plastic surgery.

Egg-White Separator

Because despite how handy I am in the kitchen, I can never successfully separate the whites from the yolk.

Pizza Boss 3000

Because The food Network and HGTV are my favourite channels.

The Ex Knife Set

Because I have made some pretty bad choices in my day.

If my desire says anything, there is clearly a market for the kitchiest of kitchen accessories.

Justifiable purchases? I know so.

HCI is about people, interactions and system interfaces. First, people do what people are good at, such as observation, interpreting, determining what is important, and making the final decisions. There are situations where human decisions need to be assisted by data visualizations. Secondly, the computer does what it is good at, which is repetitive tasks and routine. Finally, collectively, people will make better decisions or influence each other on their decisions. But neither people (individual or communities) nor computers are forced to do what the other does better. HCI strives to integrate the two so they can compliment each other to achieve more productivity.

There are quite a few challenges in applying universal design in the context of HCI in order to provide the formative insight needed to design interactive products that can be experienced by the mass in different contexts. The distinctive characteristics of these products may be identified by briefly considering the changes in the socio-technical paradigm; from the early days of computing to the 21st century human interfaces intended to provide a gateway into the world of distributed information paradigm; the scope and context of use of the computer (hard to define what a computer is these days, what is the computing power needed in order to be called a computer),;as it becomes a mediating tool for increasing different types of human (both business and personal) activities.

In another short 5-10 years, mini or micro computing devices will be everywhere as medical and consumer devices becoming mass. While HCI is still in its infancy, some HCI practitioners are trying to break away from common conception of an “average” user interacting with a laptop in the office to get work done, and to engage in a conscious effort to develop new understanding, methodologies and tools, in order to understand the following:

How emerging new distributed computational paradigms will create new challenges for HCI designs? How do we research behavior that does not exist today?
How new interaction /interface design can be effectively used to serve an increasing range of system-mediated human activities?
When does interactions / interface design cross the line and becoming service design? Interactive artifacts are now being introduced into service settings in a larger degree.
How new visceral interactions that are driven by interactive paradigms rather than user needs emerge, beyond the imagination of the novice users?
What are the emerging threats to privacy that force us to rethink some fundamental concepts in HCI when attackers, ranging from the curious to the highly malicious, might abuse or subvert the system?

Today, I’m waiting for a flight in Boston Logan airport. And for a change, I’m delighted. What is clear is that this airport has put a bit of effort into some thoughtful design. Armed with my trusty iPhone and an hour until take-off, I thought I’d share a few of the design elements of terminal E that have been pleasantly surprising.

1. Human Centered Seating
Generally speaking, seating in airports is terrible. We’ve all been stuck on old torn leather chairs in dehumanizing rows with uncomfortable leather arm rests designed to ward off delayed travellers looking for a rest. Well Logan has clearly thought about the design of its seating.

While those old friends with sharp arm rests are indeed present (and serve a necessary use), Logan clearly understands that travellers are humans, and humans interact. In addition to the uncomfortable classic, Logan has clearly examined the types positions people sit in at the airport. Ever put your feet on your travel luggage? Well they offer a slightly reclined chairs with a foot rest for the tired. Ever awkwardly sit to have a conversation with the person you’re travelling with? Well Logan has chairs in V formations that allow people travelling together to have a comfortable face-to-face conversation.

In an industry where everyone has to wait, this airport has thought about how to make waiting a little more comfortable.

2. Inviting Spaces
Travel presents a long period of maintained stress. Airports must be one of the lowest quality experiences for the money. A visit to the spa costs you a hundred bucks. Airport taxes aren’t that far off that price.

While an airport can’t necessarily fix all of the experience breakdowns of flying, Logan has created some opportunities for escapism. The airport features several spaces that allow passengers isolate themselves from other travellers to relax. Including these spaces (and offering rocking chairs) gave me the right kind of escape to work on this post.

3. Understanding the needs of the Modern Traveler
As a business traveler, I often look at the airport as my office. A few months ago, I flew out of the Buffalo airport on my way to Boston for some meetings.  As any business traveler flying in the afternoon would do, I entered the terminal and looked for the nearest plug to make sure I had enough juice for the flight. Upon further investigation, every potential outlet was covered in impenetrable metal. The only available outlets? A “Pay for Power” station offering me a charge for a charge.

Logan clearly understands that waiting is more pleasant with entertainment, and modern entertainment requires a plug. Everywhere I looked, there was a free outlet – no co-opted marketing angle, no sitting on the floor next to an outlet because there were no chairs around. Just an understanding of what people need.

4. Wi-Fi for All
In addition to the four letter words most regular travellers drop regularly while being dehumanized, we have a six letter word as well – Boingo. In a world that increasingly looks at the internet as a right not a privilege, the idea of paying $10.00 for 24 hours of Wi-Fi is insulting. Do your passengers a favour – give them a little internet access in exchange for their airport tax dollars.

Logan airport progressively offered me free Wi-Fi upon arrival (all be it, sponsored by Google).  The result? I could catch up on a bit of work and find enough time to jump on  Wordpress and offer the airport my compliments. When you have a good experience, you return the favour. If anyone is reading this – connect through Logan.

Airports with empathy
Sure, not all design changes lives. But we should never forget that good experiences certainly have the ability to impact them. Designing a decent airport experience is not rocket science, and a good experience at an airport could go a long way towards helping an industry notorious for experience breakdowns.

Logan airport was certainly not perfect, but what’s obvious is that it was designed with empathy. Somehow, they’ve managed to understand traveler needs and behaviours, and support them with the best design and features they can. Logan airport tries in an industry with a terrible reputation for under-delivering on customer experience, and I can’t help but leave with a positive perspective on my visit.

Have you had a great airport experience recently? Leave a comment and let us know what made it so great for you.

Sydney-born, Portland (OR)-based designer, Cameron Booth has illustrated today’s US Interstate System in a mashed-up map style that’s comparable to the elegant design of H.C. Beck’s masterful London Underground diagram from the 1930s.  Suitable for framing.

Check out a full size of the map here:  Flickr.

Anything elegant is often simple; not everything simple is elegant. Things that are simple are often user friendly, not everything simple is user friendly. Sometimes complexity is needed. Simplicity has different meanings. Good businesses need to be simple and easy to understand, and that’s the investment criteria for Warren Buffet. Businesses are getting too complex these days and most executives, let alone CEOs, know all the moving pieces or have any idea of their risk exposure. And some rely on SAP to manage their enterprise and that’s unrealistic.

There are many different kinds of simplicity, sometimes in form and sometimes in function and sometimes both. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Elegance is “far side” simplicity that is emotionally engaging, profoundly intelligent, and artfully crafted to be two things at once: simple and powerful. Why elegance? Is it an elusive target? Is it only applicable to design?

A business model includes the raw function of what we (economist) refer to as its “industry” (it’s a bank or a retail chain or a newspaper, for example), but can also include particular ways of operating the raw function (a branchless bank or low-cost airline, a discount retailer or a free online social network, for example). Thus the business model “function” can shade into “performance” when particular approaches to types of customer, levels of service and brand ethos are considered. The architectural side of the business model is how the core components are stacked together and that impacts the function as well as the performance. It can be simple and elegant AND it can be complex and elegant.

Hu2 line of designs includes inspirations from the British graffiti artist, Banksy, and several other designs that can turn a plain space into something more fun.

Many of the designs also have a functional purpose, such as these usable chalkboard stickers (chalk not included).

Where these get even more interesting is Hu2’s ability to  make custom stickers from your own images.  The potential applications for these labels is endless, and they could be a very cool gift or great way to personalize an office in some interesting ways.  Zazzle or Cafe Press would be wise to offer something comparable.

The program is designed to create three-dimensional sketches such that a viewer could rotate freely in any direction and understand the shape and geometry of the sketch with almost no need for interpretation.  Upon first glance, it reminds me somewhat of Google SketchUp’s relationship to fully fledged 3D Software like Alias Studio and 3D Studio Max.  It allows one to sketch on 2D planes in a 3D space, therefore giving the user the freedom to construct 3D sketches.

Car Sketch Made in ILoveSketch

Such a program has never really been tried before in this manner (that I am aware of).  Some similar tools have been packaged with expensive 3D Suites such as Alias Studio, but nothing quite this accessible for the average designer.  It loses much of the less pristine, rawness that some designers crave for their work, but it also gains incredible amounts of potential.  Since these lines in 3D space are Bezier curves, they can be replicated in other 3D programs, and potentially printed to Rapid Prototyping machines.  The ability to be able to sketch something in a few minutes and then immediately be able to handle it and look it over, is an undeniable advantage that would immediately make this a compelling software choice for at least some designers.  Furthermore, they are now aiming another version of the program at those who are not necessarily professional designers, but would enjoy using such a program, called, EveryoneLovesSketch (the names could probably use a bit of work).

Click to Watch a Youtube Video of EveryoneLovesSketch

The development of this program is intriguing, even though it is certainly not for everyone.  Many designers have a hard time acclimating to using a tablet or computer for any kind of sketching, and this does seem like it would be less inviting than Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro.  However, for those who are keen and have gone digital, it looks like it will be one more weapon at their disposal.

Product or service design to introduce new or tweak existing sales is one thing. Service-cum-experience design for the purpose of encouraging healing and transformation is another. A brief article on Fast Company details some inspiring ethnography+ methods that informed Astorino’s design of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. To get the full scoop, make sure you download the Research PDF.

A Creative Block

Creative Block Feels Like This

We work on a timetable that is rarely of our own choosing, and running into a creative block the night before a big review can be cause for a mild (or severe, depending on your demeanor) panic attack.  1 AM, staring at a blank page in a sketchbook, coffee by your side, pencil laying on the desk, unmoved in minutes or longer, hearing the seconds tick by until the review mere hours away.  I don’t think there is a designer around that has not been through such a scenario almost word for word.  Sometimes that lightning bolt of inspiration can strike and save the day, and sometimes that paper stays mostly blank.  It can be a tough road block to overcome at the best of times, and if you pile on other daily stresses and worries, it can be enough to break one down temporarily, or at the very least leave you banging your head against a wall in frustration.

Since it is such a common occurrence, most designers have little tricks and routines they go through in order to try and coax that inspiration  out of hiding.  For some, they immerse themselves in design, surround themselves with other examples of creativity and success, hoping those ‘good vibrations’ transfer onto their own sketch pages.  Others will use the ’shotgun’ approach, sketching whatever comes to mind in the hopes that at least one of the sketches is on target and go from there.  Still others will completely walk away from the task at hand in order to clear their mind and gain some perspective and clarity on the situation (I wonder if Steve Jobs thought up the iPod while in the shower?) and try to come back to the problem a little bit later more refreshed.  Everyone is different, and thus we all tend to handle the situation a little bit differently. Even still, there are things that can be done to  help minimize the effects of creative block.

One measure I have been using (though admittedly I have been slacking lately) is keeping a log of any ideas that pop into my head, whether they be for post topics, or design ideas.  The idea doesn’t have to be thought out or even revolutionary for me to log it, but I like to put them down before I forget them.  All too often I have sat there for hours trying to remember an idea that I had had the night before, and this method has saved me multiple times.  When you have a catalog of ‘idea seeds’ to look at whenever you need to come up with a concept, it can help get the creative juices flowing, even if none of the cataloged ideas are what you choose to pursue.

Another method that can often be extremely beneficial, is completing a quick sketch or some other task that is relatively easy and a known quantity.  Frequently when I am completely out of ideas, I will sketch out some comic book characters in order to build up a little confidence and get ‘loose’ so to speak.  In every major sport, athletes build themselves up before ‘big games’.  Boxers and MMA fighters have their trainer’s build them up as though they were invincible in order to get the best performance out of them.  The same principles hold true with designers.  If we allow ourselves to mentally take ourselves out of the game, we are already losing the battle.

Personally, I like to do a medley of different things in order to break through the wall and overcome the block.  Often times I will go for a run with music, attempting to tax my physical self and giving my brain a bit of a rest from worrying about the looming deadlines.  I will often try to change my environment of work in order to stimulate the brain and get things going.  One of the more commonly cited ways to overcome the block is to schedule working time and stick to it rather rigidly, but, for myself, as is the case with many designers, I have a difficult time sticking exactly to a schedule.  So I like to keep a sketchbook on hand almost anywhere I go in order to combat this and help make the ‘flexible’ schedule more efficient.

We all work differently, and we all deal with the stress of deadlines and creative block in very different manners.  Sometimes they work perfectly, and sometimes we feel like we are still just spinning our wheels.  What do you do to get over the hump and get pencil to paper in a successful manner?  What tips and tricks get you and your brain into gear?