Designs
Design: Paper cutters
The paper cutter has to be toward the top of my list of favorite office supplies. Really, when I think about it, I would probably place it second behind the noble stapler. Yet my affection for the device that is an accident waiting to happen seems misplaced since I can’t say that I have had a great user experience with it.
Just the other day I was cutting out some screenshots for a design I had printed off. Maybe it’s me, but I get so annoyed trying to line up the cutting blade with whatever I am trying to cut. The grid on the cutting board surface is only usable if you know the measurements of what you’re cutting out of the top of your head. Even if I did know the measurements of one of my designs it would be in pixels rather than inches. Usually I turn to just sort of eyeing where the cut is going to fall based on the visible edge of the cutting board where the paper is not covering it. You can even typically see through the paper enough when cutting a single sheet to see the edge through the paper. Regardless, the finished cut tends to always be slightly off. I have an X-acto knife and straight edge in my cube for when precision is particularly important. This tends to be tedious, though, if you are cutting things out of multiple sheets of paper. All in all, I find any of these routes to be unsatisfactory.
Being able to make a precise straight cut is not much to ask in my opinion. That’s when I got to thinking. What if we could attach a laser to the paper cutter? As long as the light was calibrated to fall precisely where the blade was going to fall, then your cuts would be magic.
Oh yeah, you probably don’t want that laser shooting off into space; but it made for a more fun picture.
Design: For the lonley traveler
I have spent a good amount of time traveling alone. On one hand, I find it very freeing. There is no planning, scheduling or accommodating other people. On the other hand, it can be a bit lonesome. My travels alone have inspired the following concept.
The idea is that a person traveling alone can sign up for a service that allows you to find other lonely travelers with similar interests. Before I explain the concept, I want to let it be known that this design was intended for use on an iPhone. So here it goes. You sign up for an account. Rather than having to fill out another personal profile, you point the ‘Lonely Traveler’ to other social networking services that you have accounts with. From these accounts, it aggregates your interests. A person should also be able to supplement their pulled interests with new ones to be entered in to the system. When signed in to our account, the “Lonely Traveler” matches your location with other account holders’ locations and subsequently informs you of those with shared interests. Based on shared interests, the system searches your local area to make suggestions about where you can meet up with other lonely travelers.
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I hope I’ve explained this concept well. If not, feel free to drop me a message (nquaglia at gmail dot com)
Design: Futureboy Academy logo
In an attempt to bolster my graphic design skills I have agreed to take on some freelance design work gratis for the Futureboy Academy. Below is the logo I have created. I will be designing a series of promotional posters as well.
Design: Rosie the recipe generator
I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while. Do you ever look in your fridge, see seemingly disparate items, and wonder how you are going to make a meal out of them? This concept aims at aiding individuals with ingredient-troubled refrigerator and cupboard situations. The idea is simple.
- You sign up for an account.
- You tell the system what you like and what you don’t.
- You then do a search for recipes that contain the items you have or let the system create a recipe for you.
Okay, admittedly that’s the tricky part. If you could get the logic down, though, it would be fun to see what kinds of things it would suggest. The name, by the way comes from Rosie the robot on the Jetsons. For some reason, this idea made me think of that cartoon. I’m not really sure why, but for this concept I’m not going to question it. Obviously the UI needs a lot more fleshing out, but the pictures below convey the general concept.
