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SoniBall now online!
Regular readers will remember seeing me write about how successful my project was for Golan Levin’s class last semester. That project (which nearly all of my friends have played at some point or another), was a game/toy called Soniball and written with Processing. Sadly, I was not able to get Soniball working on the web for a long time. Well, it turns out that Java applets don’t like to run when the applets resolution is bigger than the browser. So, I’ve scaled Soniball down to mini-size and now have it online for everyone to enjoy!
I’ve even left in links to the code. But please don’t talk to me about what a nasty mess my code is - I’m well aware but have neither the time nor the motivation to fix it. I’m a designer not a developer. The only reason I’ve left the links to the code is because several people have asked me for it. Well, it’s there and free to anyone to use. The only thing that I ask is that if you use the code (or scrap it and rebuild the whole thing), please credit me. Or, better yet, get in touch with me and we’ll work on improving the whole thing together! I would love to see this project continue, but I simply don’t have the time to code it right now.
Finally, a few things to know before loading it up: you’ll get a message asking if you want to trust a certificate from Sun, just say “yes” or “trust” or whatever. Also, be patient! The applet is about 10 megs because of all the sound samples, so it takes a while to load. Also, please remember that the original version that I was so proud of was huge and projected on the wall, making for rather a different experience.
So, without further ado, I present SoniBall!
September 28th, 2008
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Designing for Meaning When Data is Intangible
I was reading a post at createdigitalmusic.com recently when a new thought occurred to me regarding a possible path to successful products in the digital age. The post quotes Roger Daltry recently bemoaning that mp3’s have killed the album, saying:
“They’ve destroyed the form, as soon’s it went digital. The CD was a confidence trick,” Daltrey said. “It wasn’t just music that people used to buy, it was a total art form. … I think that’s what people like. They like it personal. They like vinyl because if you scratch vinyl, it’ll be scratched, but it’ll be your scratch. It will only be on your record.”
Daltrey takes pride in The Who [Associated Press, via CNN.com]
Reading this, I thought to myself, maybe that’s what made the iPod so successful. It wasn’t the design per se, nor the functions, nor the timing. Rather, it was a conflagration of factors that (perchance by chance) led to the iPod becoming the physical object in which people invest all the personal meaning that used to be placed in physical record albums. As a result, iPod users are often insanely loyal to those little pieces of plastic and metal.
So the question, then, is how can designers use this? I would say that the first step is to identify those trends wherein a physical object that has traditionally been a repository of physical meaning is being replaced with an “object-free” digital alternative (as the record album was). Then, we should look at how we might design a product that can step into and take advantage of the “meaning-gap” that occurs. I’m not sure yet what these opportunities are, but I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes open.
September 26th, 2008
Posted by Paul in Design Thinking | 2 Comments »
Chill Mix
Just a little mix I threw together for myself when studying - a nice selection of chill tracks covering a 15 year timespan.
Tracklist:
Earball - Isala
Aphex Twin - Pulsewidth
Silicone Soul - The Hikikomori
Underworld - River of Bass
Kayot - Clear Sky (Manoo and Francois A mix)
Radio Slave - K-Maze
Dark Globe - Atoms (Henrik Schwarz Dub)
Underworld - Mmmm Skyscraper I love You
Pitch Black - South of the Line
Aphex Twin - We Are the Music Makers
Underworld - Tongue
Dobenbeck - Please Don’t Go (Shawn Mitiska remix)
Enjoy!
September 26th, 2008
Posted by Paul in Music and Movies | No Comments »
The new and final year of D-School
I realize that I never wrote much about my summer experience at Intuit. In part, this was purposeful - I was (and still am) hoping to receive a job offer from them, and so felt that it would be better if I weren’t publicly blogging my thoughts on everything. I do, however, feel that it represents something of a gaping hole in my blog, and so have decided to write a little.
What can I say that won’t violate some sort of confidentiality (explicit or implicit). I had a good time. The people I worked with were top-notch and I got to see what design in practice is like in a large company. I personally worked on the Quickbooks product, and though I can’t go into detail about what I did, I can say that I believe I had an influence on my team. Sunnyvale was suburban coporate central - I lived literally down the block from the Palm hedquarters and a Sun Microsystems campus. If you read this blog you’ve probably seen my photos, so that should come as no surprise. Don’t ever live there without a car. The weather, on the other hand, was perfect. Just perfect - no rain, no clouds, warm but not too hot.
And now I find myself back at CMU for one more, final year. It’s funny how framing it that way makes it sound like such a long journey - I could also say that I’ve returned to CMU for the second half of my interaction design education, in which case it sounds bigger and I more energetic. Second year is different: I’m only in two actual classes, my thesis project and paper making up the other half of my curriculum. The two classes I am in are Designing for Service with Shelley Evenson and Graduate Typography with Kristin Hughes. Service is much like the other Shelley classes I’ve taken - one short project (already completed) and one very long group project. This semester we’ll be looking at the concept of “medical home” on behalf of the Mayo Clinic. What is that? Well, we’re not sure yet, but the main idea is to move the burden of medical information off of the patient and onto teams of medical professionals. The idea has been around for a while, but no one has ever done a good job of figuring out how to actually do it, and thus our project.
Type is turning out to be a bit more of an art class than I expected. Theres a lot of standing around watching Kristin point at our stuff saying “this is no good because of that. Do you see that? Do you see that?” And me standing there thinking “nope. don’t see it. no, still don’t see it. nope, not seeing it.” But then, I remember experiencing similar things in art school many years ago, and I’m sure it will pass and my sense of aesthetics greatly improve. So, I try to smile and bear it.
My thesis is a bigger problem, in large part because I’m now nearly a month into the semester and I don’t really feel like I’ve accomplished much. I am doing both paper and project on sound in interaction design. Simultaneously, I am still trying to get my seminar paper from last spring published - which is a learning process for me. More on all that as it progresses.
What I worry about more than anything else, is that I haven’t been posting my thoughts on design here on this blog. I believe that thinking deeply about things is a learned habit, and one that is easily unlearned. As such, I feel that it is important to blog my thoughts in order to keep my mind limber and open.
At any rate, there’s the personal update. hopefully I’ll have more interesting things to say soon, and that are more relevant to those interested in design, rather than my largely uneventful academic career (nudge, wink, sigh).
September 18th, 2008
Posted by Paul in CMU, Intuit, thesis | No Comments »
A Little Random Photoshop Art
Just playing around, taking a break from my reading…
September 1st, 2008
Posted by Paul in Communication Design | No Comments »