Thoughts about design & creativity
“You have to become an expert yourself to be able to explain this information to others” says Juan Valesco, an expert in Inforgraphics.
In this video by Gestalten, Valesco compares the work of designing an inforgraphic to the work of a writer for a newspaper, where precision, simplicity and clarity are key to its success.
It’s lovely to see how a complex problem can be solved while offering so much added value.
This is the story of how product design and system design intertwined to offer a holistic solution to homeless people.
A small pick into a comedian’s way of approaching the creative process :)
This beautiful video gives a refreshing approach to communicating values of sustainability:
This video is a beautiful demonstration of the design thinking process in product design. The IDEO team received a challenge to design ‘the shopping cart or the future’ (mind you, it was quite some time ago…).
Even though this video is from quite some time ago, core aspects of ‘designerly thinking’ are right there – focusing on the customer, getting to the heart of the problem by looking at it through different lenses, being optimistic about the possibility to solve the challenge, thinking creatively and practically together.
Enjoy!
I recently had the chance to go to a Pecha Kucha event in Tel Aviv.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a unique presentation format that brings creative people together to share their work. I was lucky to get tickets as the 4 thousand tickets sold out within about 20 minutes!
It was a lovely event. One presentation in particular caught my eyes – an artist called Liron Kroll shared some of her work and I’d like to share some of it with you as well. She demonstrated a new technology she is working with, that transforms a normal-looking postcard into an animation when pointed at a camera. This video (although very rough…) explains it:
The animation is beautifully done. The first video shows a short clip, and the second shows how it was made:
You can see more of her work here.
Enjoy!
This inspiring TED talk, got me wondering about our role and impact as designers in decision-making, and the basis to the decisions we make in our own practice. Design is power, and we should be mindful in how we use it.
This is one of my favorite TED talks! You really can’t help but smile…
I usually use this video as an example for the use of PREZI, which, if you are not familiar with it, is a presentation tool that seems to be used more widely everyday.
Many desperate PowerPoint casualties are seeking a change, a way to visually communicate their ideas in a non-linear manner. PREZI is proving to be the answer for many of them.
What PREZI offers is basically a large canvas into which you can insert text, images and other media. You create a presentation by marking the areas you wish to zoom into on your canvas, and the order in which you want to zoom into them. PREZI then creates a zoom-in and out movement between those areas when you present. This particular function is what captures most viewers in the first minute, and makes them totally sea sick for the rest of the presentation in most cases… This unique ability had also granted it the glorious nickname “PowerPoint on Steroids”.
Like in the video above, some presenters create a presentation that uses a full zoom out function at the beginning or end of their presentation to demonstrate the relationship between the different parts of the presentation.
Due to this function, PREZI is considered to be less “linear” than PowerPoint. However, I find that using PREZI on presentation mode,the “linear” aspect is exactly the same as it is in PowerPoint.
So, if I try to summarize what I think PREZI’s pros and cons are, this is it:
Pros: working on a PREZI presentation invites the presenter to think about the relationship between the different parts of their presentation. This is due to the fact everything is laid-out on one large canvas.
Cons: The transitions are incredibly destructing and it is very easy to create a BAD experience for your audience.
I’m looking forward to the day PREZI will make their transitions more seamless!
Until then, we can smile anyway (or eat a lot of chocolate…) enjoy the video!
Words as Images – a nice reminder to how strong and creative Typography is. Thanks Naama for introducing this to me.
Enjoy!
This is “a documentary exploring design thinking, a movement that tries to distinguish design as a ‘surface’, from its thinking ‘behind.’”
These guys are looking for support and donations, and are offering some creative ways of thanking their supporters. Learn more on: kickstarter
Thank you Stacey Sheppard for introducing this beautiful project to me.
Ayelet Lazarovitch 