Archive for September, 2008
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.
Observation: High chair repurposed
The other day I was out to dinner with my wife. As we were sitting there, a couple with a young baby was being seated next to us. The couple asked their server for a high chair. Upon obtaining the high chair, the couple proceeded to flip it upside down so that the larger base was in the air and somewhat cockeyed. Here is a sketch to illustrate what this looked like. The chair on the left is your right-side-up sketch with the one on the right being the situation present in this story.
They then nestled the baby basket (I’m not sure what you call this thing, but it looks like a seat for a baby with a handle on it) on top of the upside-down chair. It was obvious that the ‘baby basket’ wouldn’t have fit if the chair was in its normal position. The whole time, however, I was worried that the thing would fall over and the baby would go tumbling. I voiced to my wife that the whole situation looked rather precarious. To my surprise, she said (having worked in several restaurants over the years) that this was a normal thing for people to do.
Here’s the point, as you may have guessed. Why aren’t these things designed with this use in mind if it is common practice for people to use them this way? I love when people repurpose items, but it also screams to me a need that is not being fulfilled.
Observation: A few tidbits about driving
I drove to the South Carolina Upcountry this weekend and had a few ideas about the driving experience along the way. First, though, let me say a few things. Greenville, SC was quite a surprise. I can’t believe that I haven’t heard about this town more. It had a pleasant downtown area and quite simply felt right. Also, I am feeling very tired and not very clever. Please give me a break on this post
Let’s talk about the stereo. I own a VW Rabbit. In my opinion, you would be hard-pressed to find a better value in a vehicle; but it’s not without flaws. I found myself constantly fussing with the volume on the stereo. There was a back and forth between conversation with my wife and then some time listening to the stereo. I felt like I was constantly turning the volume up and down. It made me wonder why the stereo has no ability to adjust itself. In my mind, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for the stereo to be able to monitor speech sounds in the car and parse them from musical sounds. Also, why not monitor other ambient sounds. If you hit that patch of pavement that is rather loud, then adjust accordingly. My point being, If someone is talking in the car; then have the stereo adjust to a volume appropriate for conversation background music. Yes, I know there are some potential issues with this; but doesn’t this seem like a good idea in general?
The good folks at Volkswagen have designed one nice feature with the stereo. No matter what volume you leave the radio at when you shut off the car, it will reset to a reasonable starting level when you start it up. You can sort of see the scenario. Coming home from a frustrating day at work, you blare your favorite anthem of the week. You shut off the car, forgetting that the volume will be startling when you go to start your car at 8 in the morning. Problem solved.
The other thing I thought was funny/interesting about driving is the ludic experience of driving. It seems that human nature is to make a game out of just about anything. The same holds true for driving. I found myself constantly monitoring my expected arrival time on the GPS unit in order to try to lower the time. After a while, I started declaring a time that I was going to make my destination by. This would, of course, require shaving several minutes off the time that Garmin estimated. I arrived back home approximately 30 seconds after the time that Garmin predicted. I was pretty disappointed.
By the way, I refer to my GPS unit as if it were a person. I call it ‘Garmin’. I never call it ‘the Garmin’. When it sends me the wrong way, I say ‘Damn it Garmin’. I find my own behavior fascinating, amusing, and somewhat creepy.