Posts tagged “london”

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • The Story: A one-day conference about stories and story-telling – The Story will be a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome about stories, in whatever medium possible. We’re hoping to have stories that are written, spoken, played, described, enacted, whispered, projected, orchestrated, performed, printed – whatever form stories come in, we hope to have them here. The Story is not about theories of stories, or making money from stories, but about the sheer visceral pleasure of telling a story. Whether it is in a game, a movie, a book, or a pub, we’ve all heard or told or been part of stories that have made us gasp, cry or just laugh.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Waldo Hunt, 88, dies; repopularized pop-up books in 1960s – "He was such an important publisher of pop-up books who really advanced them technically. The pop-up designers who worked for him were amazing creative engineers," said Cynthia Burlingham, director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum of UCLA.

    The first golden age of movable books began in the late 1800s, when European publishers crafted elaborate books for children, and ended with the onset of World War I. With Mr. Hunt's epiphany, the second golden age was about to begin.

    "I knew I'd found the magic key," Mr. Hunt said. "No one was doing pop-ups in this country. No one could afford to make them here. They had to be done by hand, and labor was too expensive."

    He started Graphics International, and produced a series of pop-up ads featuring zoo scenes as part of a magazine campaign for Wrigley's gum. Soon, his company was creating pop-up table decorations and greeting cards for Hallmark.

  • Electronic Popable Books from MIT – Electronic popables integrate paper-based electronic sensors that allow amazing interactivity — turning on lights and moving images at the touch of a finger. Will it catch on or will the line between printing on paper and electronic media become so blurred that consumers will opt to watch the story on a screen?
  • StoryCorps: National Day of Listening – On the day after Thanksgiving, set aside one hour to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone you choose: an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood.

    You can preserve the interview using recording equipment readily available in most homes, such as cell phones, tape recorders, computers, or even pen and paper. Our free Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide is easy to use and will prepare you and your interview partner to record a memorable conversation, no matter which recording method you choose.

    Make a yearly tradition of listening to and preserving a loved one’s story. The stories you collect will become treasured keepsakes that grow more valuable with each passing generation.
    (via BoingBoing)

  • London 2009 – a set on Flickr – My London pictures from our recent visit
  • Every year, The Harris Poll asks a cross-section of adults whether they think about 20 leading industries do a good or a bad job of serving their consumers. – Note that the cable industry regularly appears on this poll as doing a bad job.
  • Time Warner insincerely and manipulatively asks customers to "vote" if it should "get tough" or "roll over" – Facing expiring deals with a number of key programmers, the nation's second-largest cable operator is launching a Web site, rolloverorgettough.com, which it says is designed to give its subscribers a voice in what it calls unfair price demands by content suppliers. Time Warner says those who operate broadcast and cable networks are asking for "incredible price hikes," as much as 300%. Customers will be able to vote on whether the operator rolls over, or should get tough, about price increases.

    "You're our customers, so help us decide what to do. We're just one company, but there are millions of you. Together, we just might be able to make a difference in what America pays for its favorite entertainment."

London Bananas

In our recent AIGA Gain article about noticing, we relate how the process of noticing once and then noticing again is a way to find patterns and uncover themes.

During my recent trip to the UK, I took this picture of a discarded banana peel.
banana-in-london.jpg

I didn’t notice other bananas, but someone else did and they’ve started the London Bananas Project, a fantastic archive of banana peels in the London public space.

When I arrived I noticed something straight away: there’s a lot of banana skins around.

I see them everywhere. They’re languishing on doorsteps, hanging out in the middle of the road, dangling off street signs, peeking out of piles of garbage, reclining in the middle of the sidewalk, riding the bus for free. A great number of them are bright yellow as if they’re fresh and have just been dropped, although they appear in all states of decay. I don’t know how or why they caught my attention, but within a week of being in London I couldn’t get my mind off these banana skins. Where were they coming from? Who was eating all these bananas and leaving the skins around? Why was it always bananas I was seeing, and not, say, oranges? Was it a sign? Was there something sinister going on? Apparently these little hazards were a covert operation going completely unnoticed; everyone I asked about it said that they had never noticed anything of the sort and looked at me as if I was nuts.

That’s a great description of the power of noticing (even if it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s still a great set of muscles to keep flexing).

Here’s bananas in Bangalore:
bangalore-bananas.jpg

See also: Street Mattress

Framed framework/conceptual art

Upon entering the Visitor’s Centre at the Battersea Power Station we encountered an enormous graphic, printed on canvas, and mounted on the wall like a work of art.

Here’s a thumbnail (click to see it on Flickr – account required)
battersea-power-station-con.jpg or view it full size here.

Here’s a detail:
framework.jpg

It looks as if the team working on the redevelopment conducted (or simulated the output of) an in-depth brainstorm session and had someone illustrate the resulting mental map/conceptual framework/jargony-jargon-jargon. But this is a bit of insider cricket, so why is it presented like artwork and the first thing that greets a visitor? An odd, if intriguing, way of using an artifact like this.

Previously on Battersea Power Station

Also: see more of my London and Sheffield pictures here.

The space between yes and no as a local indicator

While in the UK recently I took advantage of an extremely rare opportunity to tour the long-closed Battersea Power Station. It’s an iconic part of the London landscape, known to many for appearing on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals.

The tour was basically a community open house, to try and drum up support/input for the redevelopment plans. Visitors were asked to complete a survey…

battersea.jpg

…and this question caught my eye:

dontmind.jpg

I really got a kick out of the localized UK English choices for the responses.

Also: see my pictures from the Battersea Power Station here and more of my London and Sheffield pictures here.

Previous posts on surveys:

Aesthetics of interactivity

carnabystreetnav.jpg
Carnaby Street kiosk, London, July 2008

In a previous post I described an interactive display that looked like a static display. Here’s a static display that looks like an interactive display, through the color palette, the type of graphics, and the use of touchable materials (such as the black rubber) from consumer electronic devices.

See more of my London and Sheffield pictures here.

Minding manners

togetherforlondon.jpg
Manners poster, London, 2008

Different town, different ideas about public behavior. While I don’t want to smell anyone’s odors (fragrance, bodily, or foodie), the declaration that “smelly food” will be avoided was surprising to me. It’s a rather specific act that I hadn’t really thought about before.

We had a good conversation about this poster today at the BBC. I talked about social norms, and how one tactic to changing behavior is to help more people do something, so that those who choose not to do it are clearly on the outside. They shared the history of these posters, where the specific things being avoided by the characters are not new, but instead of the previous version where a blue-text-on-white authoritative voice warned that smelly food and other actions were prohibited, this has shifted to a more inclusive collective voice – “together.”

It’s also a story about following the rules (for the greater good) rather than not following the rules.

Update: another poster from the campaign here.

See more of my London and Sheffield pictures here.

Steve in the UK, coming right up

Less than a year after my last trip to London, I’m headed back to the UK – to Sheffield – to give the opening keynote at DRS2008 (Design Research Society conference), offering my perspectives on disciplinarity and rigour. If you’re attending the conference, drop me a note so I’ll know to look for you.

I’m also bookending the time in Sheffield with a few days in London before and after. It’d be great to meet up with firms and folks interested in culture, design, and innovation (etc.). I could probably throw together a little presentation or discussion starter for your team. Get in touch if you’d like me to stop by.

steve_trafalgarsquare_1990.jpg
Steve in Trafalgar Square, 1990, photo by Richard Wintle

steve_trafalgarsquare_2007.jpg
Steve in Trafalgar Square, 2007, photo by Avi Soudack

See more pictures from my London trip in 2007 here.

Body Self-Image

Photos from my various travels depicting global cultural variations of the fundamental person icon.

bali.jpg
bali2.jpg
Bali, Indonesia. They’re some pretty small people, so why does that first person seem so hulking and Cro-Magnon-y?

taipei2.jpg
taipei1.jpg
Taipei, Taiwan. Note the hip chapeau the stroller is sporting, and the protective headgear (?) worn by the worker.

london.jpg
London, UK. This fellow toils as above, but without the benefit of a helmet. Less chance of sunburn, maybe?

tokyo.jpg
Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese cute aesthetic shows up in the large head and even larger cigarette.

bangkok.jpg
Bangkok, Thailand. Who takes care of children?

providence.jpg
Providence, RI, USA. Not just walking, but actively moving forward, dancing, and exuding joie de vivre.

And Karrie Jacobs has a nice example here.

Industries have culture; culture drives usage

This piece in the Financial Times about how anthropology is important to understand the behaviors of bankers is well-timed and relevant (if indirectly related) to the story of Société Générale’s Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader.

For one thing that anthropology imparts is a healthy respect for the importance of micro-level incentives and political structures. And right now these issues are becoming critically important for Wall Street and the City, as the credit crunch deepens by the day.

But what is crystal clear is that if you want to understand which banks will emerge as winners from the current mess, it is no longer enough to look at their computer systems and balance sheets. Now, more than ever, investors need to understand a bank’s culture too – and the degree to which it is tribal.

We just wrapped up our second study of traders and it’s really gratifying to see this column. Traders, as a profession, have a lot of strong character traits (humor, macho/aggression, social) and much of their work is competitive and manipulative. The tools they use are pretty straight transaction machines, though, that don’t reflect the complex layers of intention that are driving everything the trader does. The only product that seems to echo or reinforce trading culture is the Bloomberg terminal which, in addition to all the data-oriented tracking and graphic capabilities, also offers an IM/email/Facebook-like platform to a closed, consistent, and co-located (The City in London, Wall Street in New York, and other neighborhoods in major financial markets) community.

There’s enormous potential for the other software tools used by these traders to similarly match their offering to the dynamic culture of their users. It’ll require these vendors to take a fresh look at how their products can really bring exceptional value to the people who make their living with them. Failure to understand and design for these folks will undoubtedly lead to more stories like the current scandal.

socgen3.jpg
SocGen (as it’s known by people in the industry) in London (actual fieldwork photo!)

img_0540.jpg
A new Krispy Kreme located in the heart of London’s The City (the financial district) gives away free boxes of donuts, causing a run

FT story via antropologi.info

Series

About Steve