king talk

The whole design concept of the decoded conference is based on a graphic coding of words. The code creates generative forms which represent the name of the speaker, mottoes or any text you want.

The visual coding concept consists of few specified rules for each single letter. The basic geometrie is based on a triangle, each corner stands for a letter within the prompted word. All characters are located on a specific angle of a circle depending on the last position. Triangles are always built on two existing corners together with the currently created vertex. Furthermore this means that new triangles always have a same side with the previous triangle. For shaping the generative appearance the triplets of letters are therefore more important than single letters.

Color and shapes are based on the letter frequency in german. The letter »E« (17,4%) occurs more often then the a »Q« (0,02%) for example. For this purpose the guiding principle is, that less frequent letters need a more noticeable graphical change. Coming back to our example the »Q« has a more saturated color than the »E« which is setting an emphasis within the whole generative structure.

If you want, you can try to type in your own name:
http://decoded-conference.com/generator

Just a quick note here: we updated our official portfolio site. Most videos are now also viewable on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad – and of course on many other mobile devices that do not support Flash.

I’m a huge fan of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, which means I have tremendous respect for John Cleese. In this video, he is talking about how he started writing, what helped him and what hinders the creative process.

One of his main points is that interruptions kill creativity, especially when you try to do deep thinking. Now, I know that these days it is en vogue to  promote lateral thinking and group thinking as the golden way to be creative. And certainly that kind of thought process carries great value and produces interesting results – as a matter of fact it is how most projects here at envis precisely get started.

But in the end, it only represents a small part of the creative process. The rest is mainly deep thinking, developing narratives and solving problems (and of course pushing pixels and lines of code). And this is where focus and concentration are sacred. Cleese makes a compelling case here, as he has more experience in being creative than most people out there calling themselves designers. Writers like him are probably among the most skilled people when it comes to using creativity, simply because they have to create both, a problem and a solution and weave them together into a story.

I really hope that this way of thinking gets back some traction in the design community. It is easy to point at a pile of post-it notes and label that »creativity«. But for every post-it, there is a story of an idea yet to be developed – and those stories deserve more exposure.

It‘s almost two days ago that we launched the decoded conference, an event which will interconnect people from the field of design and programming.

The decdoded conference is focusing at the development process of interesting projects within the limits of design and code/technology. The projects should be inspiration and build a base for further discussions. At this conference we will online show projects, that have been done or which have been prototyped already. Ideas and visions have to be brought into reality. The conference will foster the cultural interchange between the fields of design and tech. Topics and projects about generative design, gaming and human computer interaction will be presented by the speakers.

Our featured speakers are:
Mario Klingemann – Schönes aus Code
Moritz Stefaner – Ästhetik von Information
Benedikt Groß & Hartmut Bohnacker – Generative Gestaltung
Tilman Reiff & Volker Morawe – Games, Art & Testosterone
Massimo Banzi – Tinkering with Arduino

Like the decoded concept itself the the organisation team is a mixture of the fields of code and design. we as envis precisely, a design studio for interface and interaction design, are organizing and hosting this event together with our nerdy coding friends from reppa.net. We are looking forward to see you there…

You can find more information about the conference and ticketing at
www.decoded-conference.com

As i love supporting good friends when they produce such awesome work, i thought i would post something that a friend has recently been involved with. The video responds to the Munich 2018 Winter Olympics hosting bid. The interface design and animations are by Marc Osswald.

Marc was approach by Schusterjungen & Hurenkinder and Technik und Design GmbH in München to produce an interface system that would coincide with making München stand out as a vibrant and inspiring city to host the famous winter games in 2018.

The interaction helps the viewer navigate themselves around the famous Germanic city of München. The user is able to explore around the ‘proposed’ sites that are being turned into Olympic and tourist hotspots. Many of us already know that München last hosted the games in 1972 in where the Olympia site still stands to this day; I hope that if München wins the bid that the old site will both reflect and being incorporated in a way that responds to its history.

The interaction was used as a showreel piece during the winter Olympics this year in Vancouver, Canada! Bravo to Marc for such nice use of interface design!

The people over at deviantART have a nice new HTML-Webapp called Muro. What does it do? It allows you to draw artwork using semi-generative brushes, that give any stroke a very unique appeal. Also, it has been done entirely without Flash, so it will also work on most mobile devices.

Our WordPress Article Count says this one ist number 250. Time to celebrate over one year of news and stories about Interface and Interaction Design mixed up with a little bit of envis. For the next 250 blog posts we wish that we can provide you with some information about hot and new and sometimes weird stuff again. At the moment we are preparing the relaunch of the envis-precisely website. We‘re confident that we will get it going the next weeks. The blog will be redesigned too, so watch out!

Today I found out about a new community which is a driven site for Artists, Designers, Makers, Builders, or anyone interested in the world between electronics and code. Its name is bildr, at this site they are rethinking the ways in which DIY sites have previously approached this world like instructables or make:projects and so on. Typically, the approach has been to showcase an individual’s project, while including instructions that would enable a user to create a duplicate. bildr’s method is quite different. Instead of focusing on individuals’ projects, bildr features community-written, collaborative articles that can be used as the foundation of an individual project. The articles come in two forms: Components and Modules.

On the one hand you have Components – (for e.g. an ADJD-S371 Color Sensor) show you how to connect and use an individual component. These pages also include code when needed. On the other hand you have Modules as mini-projects. These are all about how to make one thing. Like making an electro magnet, or sensing distance.bildr is about simplifying information to help you get your ideas made as quickly as possible. If you want to join bildr, just log on to bildr.org an register your seat at the public beta.

If you want you can try it with invite code: bildrInvite76f3

via make magazine

Every good designer has known that an applications or websites success many times rely on how well designed the User Interface may be. We as designers, should do what works best for us and our users. The dzineblog published a great resource for Interface Designers. Below you will find a optimized version of a different excellent User Interface resources that will allow you to access, redefine, and create a well designed UI. You should use these resources first as inspiration, and second as somewhat of a guide as to what your users may need when they come face to face with your UI.

1. Interface Design Libraries:
MephoBox
UI-Patterns
Yahoo Design Pattern Library
Pattern Tap
Pattern App
Icon Finder

2. Interface Design Blogs:
UX Mag
UX Booth
Designing Interfaces
UXmatters
inspire UX
Usability Post
Boxes and Arrows
Signal vs Noise
Konigi
Usable Web

3. Interface Design Inspiration
atebits
made by giant
Icon Dock
Versions App
Pure Volume
Threadless Typetees
Silicon Prairie
css edit
Pallian Creative

4. Interfaces for Web Apps
Subernova
Copper Project
Typetester
PXtoEM
Let‘s Freckle
Twitter
Adobe Kuler
Crazyegg
Google Analytics
LaterThis

As the year marking the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Bauhaus, 2009 is an appropriate year for an exhibition dedicated to the examination of the social networks of the Bauhaus movement.
In preparation for this project, biographical details of all of the members of the Bauhaus, as well as their individual personal relationships with other members, will be systematically structured and entered into an online research database.
The impressive volume of information resulting from this effort will then be presented in three dimensions within this illuminated 4×4 meter cube at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

The exhibition then becomes an immersive yet highly-structured digital archive rich with historical details. Complex interrelationships will be made more accessible through the implementation of an innovative graphical interface. All visualizations of the complex network are drawn directly from the research database and presented in an intuitive computer-generated form. At an interactive digital tabletop, spectators can furthermore examine individual parts of the greater network in more detail.

more information at Impuls-Bauhaus