Infographics is a short of information graphics, which are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. A great infographics summarizes a chunk of text in a simple elegant visual graphics which tells the story itself. Here’s an example of an alternative way to explain the terms Dweeb, Dork, Geek, and Nerd done by Matthew Mason.
Need I say more?
I saw this photo of smart advertisement which cleverly make use of its medium to communicate the message across. Notice there’s not even a single word necessary to communicate the designers’ idea to the ads viewer. This reminds me of some creative ads I posted last year where a tangled electrical wire is smartly used to illustrate messiness.
Japanese giant manufacturer Mitsubishi motor sell its first mass-market electric car in showrooms today. This electric-powered vehicle technology is one of the key answers to international calls for emission reduction in the automobile industry. And the great thing in 2010 is the affordability of this technology to reach the mass.
The electric car can travel 160 km in a single charge which takes about 14 hours using household electrical outlet or a quick 30 minutes charge using designated charging station at public places. Presently, there are about sixty public charging stations in Japan and the government is planning to increase the number in the coming years as more electrical cars hit the road and demand for such charging station increases.
Other car manufacturers like Nissan, Toyota, and Ford are preparing their electric cars for sale in the next 1-2 years. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Ford are collaborating to develop smart technology to manage and tackle the charging challenge which is likely to happen when there’s a surge of electric car ownership in a neighborhood.
Certainly, the automobile industry, electrical and utilities board, information-technology player, and our society in general are progressing towards a cleaner transportation mode which put less strain on our planet.
A recent (hmm.. not so recent actually) seminar I attended discussed what it means to formulate and sculpt an experience. The answers encompassed broad spectrum of perspective ranging from those closer to psychology, to ethnology, to art, and everything else in between. It is certainly not a concept which comprised of identifiable discrete factors, nor an easily formulated recipe that works for everyone. If it’s that complicated, then what it means to design the experience that people wants nowadays?
Observing design-scape in the recent years, since I delved into visual design that is, one branch of the trends is going deeper into minimalism where plain, basic, simple design is treasured as much as a heavily adorned piece of artwork. Minimalism sprouted in interior design, architecture, product design, visual design, and everywhere else in design-scape. Do people appreciating these plain and bare designs try to escape from hurdles and complexities in their life? Perhaps. Well, at least that’s what works for me.
I ditched the operating system that bog me down with weekly and monthly maintenance.
I pass on a feature-packed organizer which gave me an overly complicated synchronization problems.
I tossed away that overly confusing scientific calculator, packed with arrays of buttons, opting for a less scientific version.
All those overly complicated but feature-packed devices were replaced with something simpler. Less features, less bells and whistles, but works like a charm. Hey that works better for me! Relating this back to the minimalism, designing something with less feature can possibly be a must-have feature!
Recently, I stumbled upon this iPad paradox which echoed my thoughts! Have a look at it if you have five minutes to spare; it’s a nice article.
Customizable friendster profile page, low-level customization of WindowsMobile-based smartphones, and feature-packed MP3 players are some of the things of yesteryear.
Now I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people out there who are hungry for products with less feature, locked-down services, and minimalism in general. Yes, one size doesn’t fit all. Minimalism isn’t the only way to go. But the popularity of twitter, facebook, and Apple’s “i” products certainly show a sound trend towards simplicity.
Here’s a cleverly designed stop motion video clip using post-it notes—or stickies as some of you know it as. I personally like the rain scene and how rain droplets fall and drip on the umbrella.
This clip is as amazing as Oren Lavie’s music video clip I posted months ago.
I’ve been busy crunching numbers and digesting journals in the recent weeks, so much that I didn’t have much time to open Google Wave invitation that has been sitting idle in my inbox for long. Well, today I did, after the majority of my loads are off of the list.
Google Wave’s fun factor depends on the number of friends (or family and colleagues) you have in your contact list. Only those with Google Wave account can hop on your communication wagon.
The interface design is pretty good, but it is still not intuitive enough for beginners to discover what they can do with it and how to do it. Perhaps mimicking typical email interface to something that is revolved around the complexity of Google Wave isn’t a good idea afterall.
Judging by the performance, Google Wave isn’t that great when it’s running on my Safari; It ran slower as soon as I opened Google Wave. Aside from that, there’s really nothing much to comment at this moment…
Still, Google Wave is an interesting communication concept that works pretty decent at its preview stage; It worth trying and exploring. I feel excited imagining a streamlined communication and collaboration for work and leisure. Not to mention the amount of reducible paperwork if this streamlined communication works well.
Why don’t you take Google Wave a spin yourself and see how you like it? I do still have some Google Wave preview invitations left. Drop me a line if you wanna get one.
If you know fun ways to use Google Wave, drop me a line, leave a comment below, or wave me directly.
Overview of projects that have been keeping me busy lately:
The first project up on the list is ShuttleNet, an interactive kiosk displaying shuttle bus arrival information, route, schedule, and map. This interactive application is built using Flash from scratch with user-centered approach—gathering input from the users during design phase and continue involving them in usability tests in implementation phase.
The result? An attractive interactive system that works the way users expect it to be, effectively delivering information in a visually pleasing manner.
I switched my Gmail theme from Minimalist to Ninja since I discover Mini Ninja that I used for Infotech recruitment flyer. Just like Tea House, Ninja changes according to the time. It’s fun to see what the Ninja is up to while busy reading and writing emails.
Programmers
Designers
Ninjas
All are welcome, regardless of their Dojo and belt color.
Read more
Eight cool coffee mugs featured in oddee.com, especially the on/off mug, are very interesting. I’d love to see it myself, turning from OFF to ON and back to OFF when I finish my favorite coffee.
Hmm… I saw My Cuppa Coffee some time ago but I can’t recall where that was.
If you enjoyed the post, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed.
