Interactive Projects, Cell Phone Bracelets and Lit Tables

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Interaction Design recently posted an article about 20 "cool interaction design concepts." They wrote about both 2D and 3D designs which range a myriad of products from bracelet cellphones to chop sticks which interact with your computer monitor much like a mouse or stylus would.

The concept "MADE in China" was the winner of the "Next-Gen pc competition" in 2006 and was especially designed for the Chinese market. This concept would be the chop sticks mentioned which interact with your computer monitor. This would drive me nuts, although I am sure I would have a lot of fun wasting time until the frustration settled in.

There is a cellphone bracelet concept similar to the snap bracelets I wore as a kid growing up. Remember those bracelets which would would slap against your wrist and they would swing themselves around and stay put? This cell phone concept is similar. Though I'm not sure I would ever own one if it came to be. Imagining now all the times I hot my wrist against my desk at work. And how likely I'd be to jump in a pool still wearing it! Oy!

Of all 20 concepts my favorite is the LED coffee table. The BecauseWeCan.org designers came up with the idea. It has 640 LED lights just below the glass surface which react to motion. If you move your arm over the glass surface the LED lights will follow this motion by lightening up. The intensity of the light is linked to the distance between the surface and the table. I just imagine it would be a pain to replace the lights. And you wouldn't want it active if you were having a family movie night.

I bet there is some way you could make a game out of it. I mean if you put a game piece on the table and moved it around, it would interact, right? What if one bulb lit up a different color and whoever got to that bulb would win. Eh, now I'm concepting off a concept.

Either way it's always interesting and inspiring to see what designers come up with when given project topics.

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    We all have a dark side

    Tuesday, June 26, 2007

    And as John Neerland and Nina Orezzoli from the American Institute Of Graphic Artists discovered, many graphic design terms have an inherent dark side to them.

    There are 25 graphic related terms you can find in the flash project they created. Listening to the blood dripping down the drain is a bit unnerving, but the site is well done if you like this sort of thing.

    One of the terms is bleeding (hence the blood dripping) and as print designers know, bleed is when an element extends to the edge of a page.

    I think even if you find the design grotesque, you'll have to agree the illustration is very well done and the concept of learning design terms in such an interactive way is pretty darn cool.

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    Name: Christy Mannering
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