I found this really nice blog post on fastcodesign exploring and explaining the creative process behind the ‘face’ of IBM’s supercomputer Watson.
Watson recently featured on US quiz show Jeopardy, in one of the latest installments of the Human v Computer battles. IBM hired renowned digital artist/designer/technologist Joshua Davis to create a visual avatar for Watson.
The video in the blog is a great insight to the creative process and final visual execution.
Ever wondered how on earth some projects have been created?
If you’re a creative, designer, developer or techy working in one of the many creative disciplines then no doubt you will spend a good deal of your time researching campaigns, sites, virals, social media etc from your peers, competitors and rivals.
In my experience of working in agencies there are normally two responses to viewing other peoples work. The first and most common (if creatives and designers are involved) is unfortunately to go straight for the jugular and start pointing out flaws, describe in detail how badly it’s been executed, wonder if they didn’t have the budget to finish it or explain how you would have done it differently and obviously better.
The other response is to sit in awe, to call colleagues over, send an email and to say under your breath “I wish I’d thought of that” or “how on earth have they done that?”.
North Kingdom frequently fall into the latter category, they appear to have won just about every major award possible and now they’re giving everyone an insight into how much work they put into their projects. They’re obviously working with considerable budgets but there is no denying the amount of work and detail that is executed at every level.
If you have a bit of time to kill then I suggest you give their site a visit and have a good study of the behind the scenes.
Recently I’ve blogged a lot more about mobile devices, software, apps and in particular gesture driven technology and interfaces.
I am a fully signed up fan, champion and user of these devices and spend more time than is healthy researching and future thinking how all of these converging technologies and platforms will change what we currently perceive as digital.
All major hardware and software companies are now developing for mobile devices and the market is expanding at an incredible rate. You obviously have Apple with the iPad and Samsung with the Galaxy but both Blackberry and Microsoft are now taking serious considered steps into the tablet arena, and we know how much market share these brands currently enjoy.
MIcrosoft partnering with Samsung have developed the Surface technology into a very powerful platform. Microsoft also recently signed a deal with ARM and demonstrated it’s Windows OS running on ARM mobile chips.
Apple are taking the best elements of their iPhone and iPad OS and interface and integrating them into their latest Mac OS X Lion operating system. We also know how copied Apple are so expect other brands to follow (cue Microsoft).
There are lots of developments behind the scenes too, the likes of Google with the development and merger of AdWords and Analytics, Apple also introduced the iAd platform and with these developments brands will find more clever and innovative ways of connecting to audiences and consumers.
So what does this mean for the end user?
Well if you couple the above (which is only scratching at the surface of what’s happening) with the advances in browser standards, HTML 5, WOFF, JS, etc then websites will go through a huge change in the next 2-5 years. This will be prompted both by technology advancement and user experience and behaviour patterns.
Make no mistake this is already happening! The debate on Web ‘v’ Internet currently rages.
Get ready, the future of digital is changing right before your eyes.
Post Digital? – Rubbish.
Have I just experienced the future of media and the internet?
Am I getting a bit over excited about something I know has been coming for years?
Is it really as good as I think it is or am I being blinded by how much I like ‘The Dude’?
I’m not sure, but what I do know is the whole reason why I invested in an iPad and why I am getting pretty excited about the next few years in digital is for things like PROJECT magazine.
Ok so before I go too far in proclaiming this is the future of everything I obviously understand that it’s not. However smart mobile handsets and tablet devices are really having an impact on how people like to experience, consume and interact with different types of media and content.
I guess what really gets me excited is not what’s happening right now but that the possibilities for this are infinite and mind blowing. When this becomes more personalised, relevant, tailored, and real time we will really see the persuasive power of digital media.
It is also the blend of static & motion graphics, video, editorial layout and interactive design that really interests me as a designer.
I’ll post more when I have spent a bit more time browsing and hopefully done some comparison tests. If anyone out there knows of any other similar ‘digital magazines’ then please let me know.
The point of some of the last posts on this site have been to showcase what people are doing with cutting edge technology, this post is to showcase the everlasting beauty of old school technology. Namely letterpress and the art of relief printing.
I have always loved the process and results generated by letterpress. I still have a couple of mini presses and drawers full of type at my mums house from when I experimented with it an university. Sometimes you just can’t beat getting your hands dirty and being surrounded by physical type and the smell of the inks.
Reverting to Type is an exhibition curated by Graham Bignell & Richard Ardagh, showcasing the work of 20 contemporary letterpress practitioners from around the world.
It looks absolutely stunning, I shall be popping along I suggest you do the same if you’re in or around London over Christmas.
10th–24th Dec 2010 and 4th–22nd Jan 2011
Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD
Open daily 10AM–6PM
The Minority Report gesture browsing style gets a step closer!
Students at MIT have developed DepthJS which is a web browser extension that allows any web page to interact with the Microsoft Kinect via Javascript.
Kinect + Computer Vision + Javascript = Very Cool
Get the code and more at depthjs.media.mit.edu
Great Interactive bus shelters throughout San Francisco invite commuters to partake in four games based on Yahoo! mobile apps, as part of a neighborhood-on-neighborhood competition. The neighborhood that scores the most points at its shelter wins a block party with OK Go!.
Really nice campaign. People have really taken to gesture driven interfaces and devices (think iPhone, Android, iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab etc) and mainstream acceptance means the possibilities for great interactive campaigns are almost limitless.
Have just seen this Kinect puppet prototype on the Creative Review blog. I wondered how quickly we’d see people from outside the gaming industry using this technology. Really nice application, this is going to open up a whole new world of possibilities.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people hack systems, release drivers and a raft of open source code and share all their brilliant hard work. Oh it’s all getting very exciting out there in digital world.
You show me someone who doesn’t love a good mashup and i’ll show you a liar!
This is cool, #uksnow map. UK real-time snow reports using Twitter.
How to join in – Tweet the hashtag #uksnow, the first half of your postcode, and rate the snow that is falling out of ten (0/10 for nothing, 5/10 for steady snow and 10/10 for arctic blizzard conditions).
Optionally, you can include the depth of snow (cm or inches), attach a photo and add a description to your tweet.
Get tweeting UK 
To some of us oldies that remember back to the Betamax v VHS war and the beginnings of DVD the recent sad news of the demise of old faithful Blockbuster came as a bit of a shock, I guess it was inevitable in this digital age.
It was mortally wounded in it’s last few years with tough competition from Netflix, Redbox, LOVEFiLM and the like, and the killer blow will have come from the phenomenal rise in web video, and people downloading from p2p networks.
The rise and rise of web video continues unabated. A few facts:
24 hours of web content uploaded to You Tube every minute
One third of all web traffic is video, by 2013 it is predicted to be 90%!
Alongside this rise of power come technical innovations that enable brands and agencies to be creative with video like never before. A great examples is the recent Tippex – NSFW A hunter shoots a bear! video that went viral.
The TED talk above is pretty inspirational, Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. Crikey!
I like to create and design nice useful things using lots of digital cleverness. This blog is a random collection of projects, thought pieces and inspiration
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