Continuing my quest for simplicity I designed this set of spoons and forks. Though minimalist in spirit these objects do have some ornamentation. As I worked on these “Ornament and Crime” by Adolf Loos kept running through my head.

I guess we as designers are all criminals in some form. I found myself trying to add style without ornament. Some could argue that the principles laid out by Loos are impossible in today’s modern society. For me I thought I was adding style and not ornamentation, but in fact the angles, bends and splashes of color do constitute ornamentation.

I stayed true to my personal approach of simplicity, but I feel Loos would probably be disappointed with the outcome. But this is 2011 not 1908 so maybe Loos’ principles have no place in our society.

Does this mean I’m going to designer hell for blasphemy?

A new social media app has hit the scene with in the past couple of days. Just what we need a new app that allows you to share your location with your friends. yippie?! But hold on – this thing has some promise. Basic principal is foursquare-ish. You check in to locations and you turn it into a game. Your reward appears to be coins. What you later do with these coins is unknown to me, but dammit you get coins and who doesn’t like coins?

By laptop/desktop there isn’t much to do on eightbit.me. You can set your eightbit graphics style avatar, view random profiles and watch a snazzy little video. The genius as I see it comes from heading over to the site on your iphone (and soon android device).

No need to download an app from the iphone app store.
Before you can interact with the web app you receive a message telling you to add the bookmark to your device home screen. The creators have effectively gone and told Apple to go and “eff” themselves along with their lengthy wait for app store approval and their 99 bucks annual developers fee. At the moment I struggle to see the immediate benefit for the end user, but it opens the door for others to take a chance and experiment with more web apps. If this keeps up Apple could see part of their business model collapse, although it is some time away before Apple would have to close down shop.

Head on over to the site eightbit.me and set up your avatar. It’s easy, all you need is a twitter account, that’s it.

Today I came across a bug or two using the app. But, by reading the eightbit twitter stream it appears they are frantically ironing out the ghosts in the machine.

Every now and again we get something in our heads and in order to move on to other things we must get it out. This is one of those cases. This chair has been haunting me for the past two days. So I fired up one of them there 3d programs and set this little diddy up.

Yeah yeah I know structurally it might hold your cat, but that’s a problem to solve for another day. The point here is to get the idea out and move on.

See the remake of the Benny Benassi hit video “Satisfaction”

An entertaining, yet slightly disturbing, remake of the popular “Satisfaction” video. Usually I’m looking for more original thinking in the things I show here on “New”, but in an odd way the re-appropriation of the song and video style seems to feel originalish. I mean come on how many of us would have come up with this after receiving a brief to raise awareness about equal pay for women?

You get more info about Equal Pay Day here http://www.equalpayday.be/

Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired, discusses and shows the importance of the delivery of data to accomplish behavior change in health care. The value of this presentation actually lies in the lead up with the simplified explanation of the Feedback Loop and what actually drives behavior change.

Check it out

No Flash? See it here: Thomas Goetz: It’s time to redesign medical data

Meet The Fuzz. A 10 second animation.

Exploring the hair tag function in Cinema 4d. I decided to create a quick little animation of the first meeting of a small creature from another land. Not only was this a hair tag experiment, but also an experiment in lighting in C4d. To add a little more mushy atmosphere I did a little post production in After effects. enjoy.

Puttering around the internet I came across this video about creativity: Well worth the time it takes to watch. This 43 minute video has the power to motivate and inspire. Immediately after watching I started to view the world a little differently.

Belief Design – Chain Reaction from Alex Fuerst on Vimeo.

The New Mac App Store launches – is it all that?

Recently Apple launched it’s newest approach to streamlining consumer access to software, The Mac App Store. The App Store touts a current collection of over 1000 apps for download through a desktop shopping cart interface.

Is this new service from Apple a benefit to consumers or is it more of a benefit to Apple itself? I understand that the ultimate goal of any product or service is meant to increase the profits of those offering them, but it does appear that Apple has more to gain than the consumer on this one.

Apple benefits
In a wise move Apple is re-appropriating a successful mobile interface into the desktop environment. They have already trained and gotten the consumer acclimated to the process and interface through the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch versions. They have also kept purchasing apps tied to the Apple ID account keeping the experience streamlined.

With any development of this scale costs are substantial, but by reusing the current mobile model the cost savings are surely less than providing a totally new service. (if it isn’t broken – don’t fix it)

As with the previous mobile store Apple has the whole world to supply content (apps). They can sit back and let others develop the products in their store front. Allowing Apple to collect a percentage of the sales.

It requires Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.6). This is the reason why I will not be in a hurry to get on the App Store bandwagon. I run a slightly older operating system that does everything I need it to. I am not interested in spending $30 to upgrade my OS just for the privilege of spending more money on Apple’s App Store. It has however driven others to upgrade the OS. This will probably make up for the lackluster sales of the 10.6 OS. But the real benefit will be the affirmation that Apple can control and entice the consumer to conform to their (Apple’s) agenda.

The Macbook Air doesn’t come with a built in dvd/cd drive. This will offer a way to increase software sales to the consumers previously removed from the market. Those consumers being the ones who didn’t opt for the additional purchase of an external optical drive.

Consumer benefits
Faster access to apps. No more shipping times or lengthy complicated installs

The ability to separate bundles or to only purchase individual apps that matter to the consumer. For instance if I want the new version of Garageband, but I will never use the other apps in the iLife bundle I can download only Garageband at a reasonable price. This saves time, money and disk space.

The ability to find an app quickly in one central location. A quote from their site: “The app you need. When you need it. Can’t open a file you’ve downloaded or received in an email? Mac OS X can search the Mac App Store to find the app that can open the file. Buy what you need instantly and get back to business.”

What others are saying
There is a lot of hype out there on the web about the Mac App Store. Some good news and some not so good. The ones who love it, well, they love it – final. There are differences among the ones who are not too enthused about it. Some mention that the OS update required is buggy. Some are unhappy that apps purchased on their iPhones must be repurchased to work on their non mobile machines. Some claim that the App Store itself is buggy – claiming that this is another example of Apple rushing a product to market without proper testing.

Here are two other interesting takes on the Mac App Store I found after finishing this post.
Why The Mac App Store Sucks
Why You Might Really Like the Mac App Store in the Long Run

This morning there was a little excitement in Asnieres sur Seine. An office/residential building in my neighborhood caught fire and the firefighters from the area were called to action. Fortunately it didn’t appear that anyone was seriously hurt.

I took the opportunity to brush up on my cold weather photo skills.

TF1 has started their yearly holiday push for donations to benefit Les Restos du Coeur. View the videos of the 26th campaign.

Les Restos du Coeur is an organization that was founded by the French comedian Michel Gérard Joseph Colucci that started as a food bank for the less fortunate. Today their principle mission is still that, but it has expanded to much more. It includes a toy bank, clothing distribution and resources to help the unemployed find a job.

This year’s videos: (sorry iPhoners this needs Flash)

Rough translation (really rough, but hopefully you’ll get the point):

Woman:The hardest was to convince him to come. Its not easy for us to come here.
Man: It’s understandable it’s shameful
Counselor: Where are you staying?
Man: The house of a friend we found, but we can’t stay there a very long time.
Counselor: Why can’t you stay there?
Woman: We can’t that’s all.
Counselor: We’re here to help you. We can help you find a job and a roof as well.
Woman: Thank you.
Man: There’s a lot of people; I never thought (realized).
Counselor: It’s the same every year.
VO: Thank you to send you donations for Restos du Couer to (address on screen)

Rough translation

Woman: Excuse me I’m late.
Man: This is (name) my neighbor. It will be she who comes to pick up…..
Woman: He doesn’t want to be recognized that’s all. That doesn’t bother you?
Counselor: Not at all. I will mark it in the file.
Woman: Very good. You understand, it is a small town; everyone knows each other…
Man: And I worked all my life and my wife too. We don’t understand what happened.
Counselor: And your children? Can’t they help you?
Man: No, I don’t want them to know.
Woman: Not be able to eat at (our age?). That’s harsh. Don’t you agree?
VO: Thank you to send you donations for Restos du Couer to (address on screen)

I left these in the TF1 player because it is a good thing they are doing by sponsoring these spots. I don’t want to steel their thunder by using the YouTube versions.

If you are in France and want to donate or volunteer your time to Restos du Coeur head on over to their site to get more info. http://www.restosducoeur.org/ They also have operations in other European countries. Check to see if your community has a Restos du Coeur.

If you don’t have a Restos du Coeur where you live. I’m sure there is something similar. Please help your local charities.
And if you want to help me straighten out the translations I would be grateful.

And last year’s video This is a little more warm and fuzzy, and you don’t need to speak French to get it.: (again this needs Flash and it will take you to the TF1 site)