The sun never knew how great it was till it struck the side of a building.

Louis Kahn

Joseph Schumpeter argued in 1909 that small companies were more inventive. In 1942 he reversed himself. Big firms have more incentive to invest in new products, he decided, because they can sell them to more people and reap greater rewards more quickly. In a competitive market, inventions are quickly imitated, so a small inventor’s investment often fails to pay off [...]

Politicians should certainly stop demonising big firms and sentimentalising small ones: an economy needs both. But they should not allow their new-found appreciation of big companies to degenerate into a taste for picking national champions. Such firms typically gobble subsidies and crowd out smaller, more creative firms. Nor should they start tolerating monopolies. The key to promoting innovation (and productivity in general) lies in allowing vigorous new companies to grow big, and inefficient old ones to die. On that, Schumpeter never changed his mind.

Schumpeter column, The Economist

We make a big effort in Vostok to choose our clients wisely and there’s a reason for it: when you work with people you admire you work better and quicker. Like a well-oiled machine. There are pros and cons, true, but they’re worth it. Basically because you have days like today.

Today Minube and Ducksboard are taking two important steps forward. For one, Ducksboard has launched. If you haven’t checked out the pretty awesome video yet, do. We made the video with the Riot Cinema team.

Next in line is Minube. After winning Apple’s Spain’s best app of the year award and the App Date [links in Spanish] award a few days ago, they’re organizing a pretty cool event today to celebrate the launch of their social traveler guides on iPad.

All in all, a pretty good way to begin closing 2011.

A few weeks ago we got together with Joaquín Torres of studio A-cero architects for a quick chat. Putting his public persona aside we found a man who is confident, humble and honest. He has a no BS approach that is quite disarming. Here are a few snippets from that conversation:

I couldn’t care less about architecture magazines. Of course it’d be great if El Croquis wrote about my work but, to be honest, I know it has less to do with the quality of my work and more with the fact that I’m not part of their clan. Early on I came to terms with the fact that publications like these –publications targeted to architects or designers- do nothing but feed our own egos. I’d rather appear in magazines that are less prestigious but reach the public we are interested in.

If nobody knows you exist, it doesn’t matter how good you are or how wonderful your work is. Knowing how to sell your work and the product you do is crucial. Unfortunately most of us architects believe we are beyond good and evil and that we don’t need this.

It’s the world you should aim for. I have learned from other spanish businessmen that Spain falls short in many ways. So we opened a branch in Dubai in part due to an architecture prize we won and following the advice of one of our client’s at La Finca. Since then, we have invested a lot of time and energy in making the studio international. We opened branches in Ho Chi Minh, in Bombay and tried in Santo Domingo and Sao Paulo, though we ended up closing these last two in the end.

I live in a state of chronic dissatisfaction. I always feel that we should do more and better. And I don’t give up until I get it. I have the advantage –or the disadvantage– of being overly critical of my work. I know when something is good and when something is not. I don’t need others to judge fairly the quality of my work.

I’m very demanding but I consider myself just. I have very clear ideas of what needs to be done and how to do it. I know how to value things that are done well and things that don’t work. And I’m not scared of saying it out loud and putting my finger on it. I think I have surrounded myself with a group of loyal collaborators because of it.

We think we have the monopoly on good taste but what we actually need to do is listen. The most important thing is to keep the client happy. In the end he’s the one who is going to live the house day in and day out.

We should put ourselves at the same level of our clients. If they talk to me about Mies van der Rohe then great, we can push the level up. If they don’t, then we should keep it simple. It depends. In the end, architecture is about the way we interact with space. And anyone can relate with that.

Internet is not the future, it’s the present. I guess I realized intuitively that having a solid online presence was critical. Social networks are very important to us. I invest at least two or three hours a day to answer comments on our blog, tweet and update our profile on Facebook. We have a communications team that oversees this full-time but in most cases I like doing this personally.

I never use computers. I just use them for social networks. I do sketches by hand. I stopped using AutoCAD years ago. Although we have a great team of draughtsmen in our studio who use the best and latest programs, I do corrections by hand.

We have an amazing client portfolio. I’m proud to say 99.9% of them are happy clients that do nothing but recommend us. A-cero‘s popularity is based on word of mouth. When people criticize my work I always ask them: Have you been there? Have you been in-situ? Have you talked to the client? Have you asked him why he’s so satisfied with our work?

There are three turning points in my career: designing my father’s house in Galicia, knowing when to say ‘no’ to clients and my friendship with Luis García Cereceda. I will always be in his debt. For his friendship for his faith in me and because career-wise the La Finca project opened up many doors and brought about many more projects. Not everybody is as lucky. I was and I made the most out of it.

You need much more than just talent to succeed. Yes, I’ve been lucky but the true recipe is to work, work, work. Work more than anybody else. And know how to sell. How to sell yourself.

The first time I saw Robert Frank‘s photos for his project ‘The Americans‘ I got a glimpse of the connection between exhausting road trips and great photographs. Perhaps it has to do with the lack of sleep, the lack of good food, the monotony of endless roads that push your body –and your head– to the limit. After all, extreme fatigue does develop a sense of acute awareness and sensitivity that’s difficult to replicate with non-chemical (and may I say, legal) substances.

Unlike Frank’s compilation, Tina Bagué and Tori Morimoto‘s Japan Photo Project is less about Japanese society and more about the culture and beautiful landscapes of the country, less about capturing instants and more about knowing the right towns. But the veil of fatigueness-channeled perception is there. No question about it.

Plus, the JPP blog is the perfect traveller’s guide. In 365 days they visit all sorts of towns and meet all sorts of people. Next time I’m in the country, I’ll be sure to throw away my Lonely Planet and instead, read their blog carefully and save every single stop in a map.

A compilation of the photographs has recently been published. The book is called, ‘Japan’. Published in collaboration with the Catalan publisher, The Private Space, Japan’s first edition is officially sold out but, after December 8th you’ll be able to order the book here.

Only two companies were featured in RTVE‘s (a Spanish national TV channel) coverage of FICOD (Spain’s most acclaimed forum for digital content) last night. We’re proud to say both of them are Vostok’s clients with whom we’ve been working and desigining together for some time now.

Are we bragging? You bet. It’s not every day that two products you did strategy and design for receive this kind of offline attention. We’re thrilled. Kudos to Filmin and Minube :)

You can watch it online here.

The location, the actor and the voice-over are made by Vostok. The script, the photography, the music and the editing are made by Riot Cinema. A special thanks goes to Luis Enrique Carrión. This man can do wonders with a Canon EOS 5D and a bit of light.

I would encourage you to read along side a great post by Arquinauta’s Karina Ibarra in UX Mag that covers extensively lessons learned, she now shares, when designing for kids. Especially kids 3 and under.

We wish Arquinauta’s team the best and hope to see such a beautifully-designed app used in many more languages.

So the news is that the IFC Center  will premiere Eames: Architect and Painter by directors Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey. PBS will air it in December as part of their American Masters series. From this interview (Part 1 and Part 2) I get the impression that the documentary will be really good. Cohn’s devotion to the project (he has spent five years working on it: fundraising, documenting and filming) and his passion for both the Eames’ work and work ethos gives me confidence. The fact that he’s a journalist with a design sensibility and not a designer with a journalist sensibility is also a good sign. It’s a subtle but important difference.

The difference between telling the story of two people that happened to do great design and were able to convey the value of it to non-designers, making “the best for the most for the least” and something more centered on doing an appraisal of their work and the value of their legacy. I’m not saying that a designer wouldn’t have done a great job, I’m just saying it’s a matter of focus.

Sometimes people who are not designers are good at explaining the value of certain design concepts in layman’s terms. Sometimes not. We’ll see.

Until then, here’s the trailer:

Honest design is what we try to pursue by logical thinking. An ideal form is derived naturally through the process of attempting to maximize the potential of client’s demand, material and its function. I realized that it was important to make ‘honest’ design by going back and forth and to be surrounded by different materials to be used in the experimental process. In architecture or interior, product and furniture design the attitude does not change. I try to maintain a similar philosophy.

Keiji Ashizawa

We stand by every single word.

Ashizawa Design Co. is based in Tokyo. For an overview of some of his work in interior design, architecture and furniture take a look at this image search.

In Cockedey‘s own words: stick it on full screen, watch in HD, turn the sound up, sit back and just take it all in.

Camera: Canon 5dmk2
Music: “Main Titles” and “Blush Response” from Vangelis.

More information on the process here.

Today I came across this knife box made by Keiji Ashizawa Design via Tokyo Art Beat:

In Ashizawa’s own words:

Hirosaki Knives have been around for approximately 1000 years. The cases for the knives are made from paulowina wood and apple tree wood. These woods are used not only for the unique look of the design, but also the efficiency of the protection of the knives. Paulownia is unique to the history and culture of Japan. Finally, the apple tree that is used as the rail and connection comes from the apple tree in Hirosaki which is the most famous producer of apples in Japan.

But, as with all artificial restraints, temptation always ends up looming in. And following the trace of Murakami through Tokyo in this NYT article is what did it for me. (Side note: it’s great to see what the NYT design team can do when they don’t have to juggle with enormous amounts of content and ads):

Perhaps I will read 1Q84 after all. Just, you know, one more for old times sake.

I suggest reading the entire NYT piece, The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami, and if you’re interested in buying the paper edition of the book, watching this video of Alfred A. Knopf’s cover designer for 1Q84 for a sneak peek of what your money will be worth. Fun fact: “The title of “1Q84” is a joke: an Orwell reference that hinges on a multilingual pun. (In Japanese, the number 9 is pronounced like the English letter Q)”.

UPDATE 31/09/2011:
A beautiful signed and numbered (only 111 copies) limited edition of 1Q84 is now available. This project is a collaboration between Simon Rhodes, Kristen Harrison at The Curved House and designer Stefanie Posavec. Covers printed by Justin Knopp at Typoretum. Photos available here.

Jean Prouvé was once quoted saying: never design anything that cannot be made. Part designer, part architect he always conceived himself primarily as a craftsman, a builder. In Norman Foster‘s own words, in Prouvé’s work “technical imagination is placed at the service of function and economy”.

And that’s infinitely apparent when you understand the thought process behind his first attempts at prefabrication. How to produce furnishings and components that were simple to ship and easy to erect? How to create structures that were both solid and adaptable; temporary and long-lasting? Simple: modular design. His structures tended to be light, flexible, and even mobile, combining traditional building materials with aluminum and steel.

At the time, Mr. Prouvé was revolutionizing the concept of construction so he went back to the basics. He kew that if he was to create a new language, he first needed to devise an alphabet and that’s what he did, he created “L’alphabet des structures”. Because once you devise the basic elements of a system, it doesn’t matter what the future holds; you’ll know what to do, how to react.

Most of the problems we face as designers today aren’t new so it’s always refreshing and inspiring to see how others have tackled them before. And then it’s just a matter of learning, adapting and applying.

If you have a chance, Industrial Beauty (though I like the name in Spanish better, Belleza Fabricada), is an exhibition at Ivory Press Madrid of some of Prouvé’s most significant work, including drawings, sketches and furniture. It will be open until November 12th.

For an overview of some of his work, this Flickr compilation is a good start.

It seems as though they find –or at least prior to the earthquake they did– great pleasure in portraying themselves that way to the world. “We’re weird, we’re geeky but we’re awesome”. And few people have done as much to get that message accross than Morinosuke Kawaguchi. His first book, Geeky-Girly Innovation: A Japanese Subculturalist’s Guide to Technology and Design is an ode to that.

Happens to be that Mr. Kawaguchi will be in Madrid next week in the third edition of Asia Geek, an event organized by Casa Asia and Fundación Japón. We’ll be there so if you happen to drop by, come on over and say hi.

‘Til then, here’s his conference on TEDx Tokyo on…above all things, Japanese toilets, to keep you entertained.

1. Demonstrate from the top that high quality and attention to detail are prioritized and appreciated above everything else, including being the first to market, having the most features, or having the most aggressive prices. If you can get those as well, that’s great, but quality will not be sacrificed to do so.
2. Instill these values in your staff. If you can’t, hire a staff for which you can. Better yet, hire a staff for which you don’t need to.
3. Aggressively pursue simplification, elegance, craftsmanship, and the highest-class user experiences in the product line. Ruthlessly cut or hold features or entire products that aren’t good enough.
4. Make it pretty.

How not to bring good design to a platform?
Skip steps 1–3 above.

Marco Arment

Infographics are super useful to help you understand complex information quickly. Minube, Spain’s leading social network for travelers (and cherished client), is giving them a try. How else can you convey that in four years the number of visits to your company (website and mobile) has increased by over 600%? No small feat by the way. That travelers value mobility immensely. That what seemed like an enormous amount of content three years ago, today, users can create it in just a few months?

Minube keeps growing and we’re proud to join them on that ride.

Tender and succulent pork loin braised in Perdo Ximénez with a side of juicy grapes braised in Drambuie and sweet apple purée. The chef: Marcelo Soria. The occasion: nothing in particular, just good friends sharing good food one Friday afternoon. Thank you sir.

Mark MacKay and María Munuera, former members of the Vostok crew and now merry autonomous soloists started Method of Action a few months ago. In their own words: “peer to peer education for people who want to get things done”. Their latest education tool is pretty fun. It’s called KernType and it’s one of many soon to come tools meant to help people become more familiarized with design notions.

We write about it because it’s a simple concept beautifully designed with a twist on the game-ification of learning (not new but always fun to watch when done right).

Things we like:

• The use of color. Neutral-coloured backgrounds allow color to be used more resourcefully.
• That you need to wait a few seconds to know what your score is. The more you wait, the higher your score, so waiting is not a drag.
• Small details like using lighter/darker shades or subtle lines here or there give a lot of texture to what is basically a pretty monochromatic website.
• You learn a bit about typography (the who’s, the what’s, the when’s).
• Learning is a game (missions are accomplished or failed, you need a certain score to ‘pass’ on to the next mission).

Overall a sweet entertainment for all those closeted O.C.D’ers out there. I would also suggest reading Mark’s post You’re already a good designer alongside it.

Looking forward to what’s next in production. If you want to learn more you can follow Method of Action on twitter.

There are three ways of funding Japan’s reconstruction (total damage amounts to 7% of country’s GDP): issuing government bonds, increase in taxes or expenditure shifting (spend less on non-essentials and more in affected areas). Much has been debated and the government has decided on government bonds (to be paid in ten years). Economist and former government economic adviser, Takatoshi Ito considers this to be a huge mistake. The main reason: Japan’s working-population is getting smaller and not necessarily richer. The burden of debt will bring about new problems in ten years. His proposal: make the baby-boom generation (today’s highest income profile sector and tomorrow’s retirees) share the burden along with the rest of the population. Don’t wait 10 years, do it today: increase VAT taxes, that way everybody pays.

Unfortunately Mr. Takatoshi Ito’s motion (and that of other economists as well) will remain unaddressed; taxes are infinitely unpopular.

Mr. Ito’s full talk at the Fundación Ramón Areces is available here.

Almost seven months have passed since 3/11. Time enough to erect a barrier separating what was from what will be. And it looks like Japan is making the most out of it.

The bittersweet reality of catastrophes is that, despite everything, they honor you with a precious gift: the opportunity to start over. Funnily enough, what comes across most strongly is their desire to start anew, create something that’s their own and not just an interpretation of other cultures. This documentary grasps a tiny tiny glimpse of that.

You can watch the complete series here.

The expo was huge. We were mostly for the interactive and mobile stuff although you could find many other design areas represented by all sorts of products: cars, domotics, furniture, pottery, home appliances…

After overlooking the whole expo we headed to the mobile design stands. I have to say most of what we saw was not surprising at all: tablets and phones whose only difference was exterior styling (shape and color) but were the same on the inside: android. Perhaps the most interesting was the IIDA infobar, designed by Naoto Fukasawa and Yugo Nakamura. The Infobar has a complete different approach both on UI and exterior design. Also, its marketing campaign is very intense, focusing on the personalization factor. Check the commercial:

I confess I was a bit deceived with the whole thing. Well, I’m an iPhone user, therefore I will judge anything up to those standards. But isn’t IIDA’s Infobar competing with the iPhone after all? There is one thing that really impressed me, though: it’s lightness. It looks heavier than it is. That is a good thing but the counterpart is that It’s not as solid as one might expect.

But the best piece of the whole expo, as seen with interaction design eyes -Eri and I agreed on this- were the vending machines, which happened to be working by the way. A big crisp, colorful touchscreen to chose your favorite beverage. Motion, layers, and directionality all very well applied. Check it by yourself on this video (sorry about the quality, I think I messed up with the frame ratio):

Overall it was a very interesting visit. We are looking forward to come back next year and perhaps display some of the products we’ve designed during this last year at Vostok Studio.

PS: check this post for more info on the Good Design Award and this other post for pics and more info on the expo (in Spanish)

今、私は３６歳になり、インタラクションデザインスタジオを経営している。そして日本で仕事をしようと決心した。

Vostok Studioは日本へ進出する。以前のように旅行者としてではなく、日本人と共に、日本人のために仕事をするデザイナーとして。日本は長年に渡って私たちに多くのものを与えてくれた。今こそ、そのお返しをするときなのだと感じている。いつも私たちに何かを教え、ワクワクさせてくれた国、そして最近ではその国のことを思い、多くの人たちが涙を流した。そんな国から興す美しい復興の一員になりたいと心から思う。

優秀なデザイナーなら誰しも私たちの仕事が日本文化から多大な影響を受けているということを意識しているはずだ。日本庭園、武道、寿司、禅、CASIO、SONY、SEGA、BANDAI、MUJI、Panasonic、SEIKO、TOYOTA、アニメ、ガンダム、深澤直人さん、原研哉さん、・・・その他多くの人やメーカー、ブランドなど、名前をあげれば切りがないほどある。

品質や完璧さ、職人技、美やバランスの感覚、高尚さ・・・これらはVostokが追求する価値でもある。そのような共通点もあり、日本への最初の第一歩を踏み出すのに今が絶好の機会だと確信している。ワクワクせずにはとてもいられない。

私たちは、尊敬する様々なブランドやデザイナー、多くの成果を見てきたが、日本のインタラクションデザインにはまだまだ成長の余地が多く残っているように思う。素晴らしい技術者がいる国、そして、技術者主導のプロダクトが持つ否定的な側面へも寛容だった社会、日本。しかし、iPhoneが日本へもたらされたとき、適切にデザインされたインターフェースとユーザーエクスペリエンスが日本社会でもすぐに受け入れられ、歓迎された。ということは、私たちVostokにもチャンスがあるのではないだろうか。

他国でデザインスタジオの活動を広げていくのは容易ではない。まして、スペインで誕生した小さな会社が国際社会に飛び込み、しかし組織のサイズは小さなままで活動を続けていこうというのは普通ではない。不安定で険しい道になることは間違いないし、具体的に何をどうしていくのかという懸念もある。でも私たちは本気で取り組む事にした。マドリードと東京の双方から仕事をし始めて数ヶ月が過ぎた。将来日本からのクライアントとなり得る人たちへ向け、私たちの仕事や、デザインに対する考えがきちんと伝えられるように、東京にいるチームが映像作品や、ケーススタディ、ビデオなどの翻訳や、異文化適応対策に取り組んで来た。文字を翻訳しただけでは十分伝わらないことは分かっているので、ポートフォリオも準備し、視覚的な面も含め、より様々な角度からVostokを理解してもらえるよう努めて来た。Eri KageyamaとDani Alíasの２人は東京で活動している私たちの誇るVostokチームの仲間だ。Karyna Wallaceも多大な助力をしてくれた。何十年も日本に住み、ファッションデザイナーやファブリック設計に従事してきた彼女は、自身の日本での活躍などを喜んで私たちに教えてくれた。これらの人たちの支えや、そしてもちろん、マドリードで共に働く私のVostokチームの協力のお陰で私は自信を持ってここまで来る事ができたのだと感謝している。

かくして、私は第一歩を踏み出した。入学前日の子供のようにワクワクしている。５年前のVostok Studioの誕生以来、今までで一番重要な決断なのだから。そしてもうすぐそれは現実となり、動き始める。日本へ進出するというのは、険しく冒険的な決断だと思う。膨大な時間やお金もかかることだ。しかし、こうして私を突き動かすのは、純粋に日本が好きという気持ちなんだと思う。

I’m 36 now and I run an interaction design studio. I’ve decided that we are going to work in Japan.

Yes, Vostok Studio is going to Japan. Not as tourist as in the previous trips but as designers who want to work there, for the Japanese, with the Japanese, among the Japanese. Japan has been giving us many things for many years. Now it’s time to give back and to be part of the beautiful renaissance that will come from a country which always teaches us, excites us and recently made us cry.

No good designer can ignore the influence of Japanese culture in our doing: Japanese gardens, Casio, Sony, Sega, Bandai, martial arts, Muji, Panasonic, sushi, zen, Seiko, Toyota, anime, Gundam robots, Naoto Fukasawa, Kenya Hara, and many other inspiring names and brands…

Japanese commitment to quality and perfection, the craftmanship, the sense of beauty and balance, their integrity… These are values that we pursue as well at Vostok. I believe we share a common ground in a perfect momentum. We cannot be more excited about this.

We could go on and on, listing all the references we have, all the brands and designers we admire, all the achievements… And yet, we still feel there is an opportunity to contribute to a better interaction design in Japan. The country has had always great engineers and a society that is tolerant to the downsides of engineer driven products. The arrival of the iPhone to the country showed that their society welcomes well designed interfaces and experiences. Will there be room for us?

Expanding the activity of a design studio to a different country is tough. It is unusual for a small company born in Spain to go international and still want to remain small. Our road is paved with insecurities and doubts on what to do and how to do it. But we are serious about this. We’ve been working on the move for some time now, both from Madrid and Tokyo. Our people there have been translating and adapting many of our materials, case studies and videos so we can better explain what we do to our potential Japanese clients. We felt that translating was not enough so we decided to go even further, to have a stable presence there. That is the job of Eri Kageyama and Dani Alías, two excellent professionals who swim confident in the seas of design. Karyna Wallace has also been of great help. Being a western fashion and fabrics designer who has lived in Japan for a decade, she knows her deeds there and she has been willing to share them with us. The work and help of these marvelous people plus the unquestionable commitment of my team make me feel confident.

So here I am in a Japan Airlines plane that will land in Haneda Airport in four hours. The cabin is dark, people are sleeping but I can’t rest. I’m excited like a kid before his first day at High School. This is by far the most important move we’ve taken as a studio since we were born, five years ago, and it’s about to become real. Starting in Japan has been a bold and risky decision. It is also a great investment in time, money… and love above anything else.

This is a staple at Vostok. Popeye had spinach, we have this. Any idea of what it is?

Original recipe by @richmanblues

It’s quite discouraging to see so many failed attempts at adapting a product as important to society as newspapers that we felt we needed to ask the guy to go to for this subject to share his thoughts on what has changed, what newspapers are doing to adapt and why their changes are so timid. We encourage you to watch the full-length interview in case you want more information or, like me, are just curious about the man. If not, here’s a good 4min compilation of snippets of the most important things we touched on.

On a side note… One of Vostok‘s dream jobs would be, without a doubt, to design an online newspaper. It would also be one of our worst job nightmares…You have to deal with infinite layers and inevitable complex structures, not to mention the frustration of having to play by the rules when you know the rules are no longer valid. It’s not an easy task. You can read a compilation of what our stance is when it comes to online news design here.

Agree? Not agree? Let us know what you think.

What do you think? We are dying to put our hands on one so we can check by ourselves.

Bought this yuminess at Mallorca Market near Colón.

Happy Birthday, Ric!

As ‘Gabriela who works at Vostok‘ this is pretty much what I have to say. But, as ‘Gabriela who loves movies and doesn’t know what she would do without them’, I would like to say a few more things about Filmin:

1. It’s one of the best online video services out there. It’s run by people who love movies, it’s simple, it’s efficient and it has a great catalog. Sure there are a few things I wish they could do better… but hey, I also want my man to be handsome, intelligent, sensitive and understanding…everyday, at all time…so hey, who cares?

2. It’s one of the few bridges between –and I’m gonna be intentionally simplistic here to stress my point– the two sides of the Spanish film industry today: the more “internet is the devil” side Vs. “internet is our savior”. There are millions of caveats, trillions of nuances and loads of things one cannot talk about unless one’s there, working at it and sweating it but, I can say this: we need middle-grounds, we need fresh air, we need companies, people, organizations and production companies that realize film distribution (and exhibition) has changed and that the new change will only bring good things for cinema.

And that’s it.

So congratulations and in Monsieur Tarantino’s own words:

We were hired by Movistar, a high-powered Spanish telecom with important international presence, to envision the best solution for what their online video and television service should be like. We have spent the last few months designing it and collaborating with Movistar’s UX team. And we are incredibly proud of the results.

It’s the product of months of work but, most importantly, it’s a representation of Vostok’s design principles: it’s simple, it’s elegant, it’s honest.

The premise: An online service for film, TV series and linear TV that could be accessed anytime, anywhere. For clients and non-clients. Our solution: a native grid system that responds to a set pattern of interactions that work across all platforms (PC, TV and mobile phones).

To share our thought process we have uploaded a slideshow that puts together the design premises we kicked off with. And a webpage that shows a selection of the design aspects in the final product we find most interesting.

Last, but not least we release a video made in collaboration with Riot Cinema that is the perfect accompaniment to this product. Don’t forget to check it out :)

Curious to know what you think.

For a bit of Rams eye-candy, you’ll find some good photos of him in the Thomas Mayer Archive. And to help you refresh your memory, in case you don’t know it by heart already: Rams’ good design decalogue.

The Madrid electoral board is pushing to have the protest banned before the elections. To defy the ban people must get together and sign a petition. And they are. From all over the world. And a map is registering it all live.

There are only two things I have to say:

• You would never ever find this kind of map coming from traditional spanish mainstream media. And that says something.
• It’s a great example of a simple but powerful mesh between mapping, information design and political awareness.

Kudos to Vizzuality and Actuable for documenting and sharing this real time. Not only for Spain but for the world.

This is how we celebrate ‘5 de mayo‘ at Vostok. Better late than never. Not the most important of Mexican holidays but, anything’s a good excuse to roll-up a couple of tortillas and indulge in some spicy salsas. Slow-cooked pork in chile sauce, red pickled onions, cream (real cream, not that liquidy stuff), tortillas and nopales salad.

Hello Javier, I’ve always been passionate about interaction design. I have some notions and I’ve read many books but I don’t have any real experience so it’s hard for me to get hired as an interaction designer. I’ve thought studying a master on interaction design would help me. What do you think?

Interaction design is quite a young discipline and the entry gates are diffuse. Most of those who have been formally practicing it learnt the basics in a semi-selftaught manner. I myself have a background in sociology and new media communications but no formal training in design. All I know I learnt from colleagues, talks, books and articles. Well, and a lot of practice.

These days there are a few decent courses, degrees and masters on interaction design. The good ones are in northern European countries. Mediterranean countries are short of them; besides they usually lean towards the artsy-fashion side of design instead of focusing on what really matters.

So, what is my advice to those who want to enter the field but have no experience? Instead of putting 5000-15.000€ on a masters program, offer yourself as an unpaid intern for 6 months at a very good studio. Work part time there, learn from the experienced practitioners, get involved in whatever you can, get yourself inside meeting rooms and be quiet, listen, observe how designers use their tools, copy their work, ask many things and be helpful in whatever you can. Ask for advice on what to read and practice at home in the afternoons. Show your work to the senior fellows and ask them for guidance. Adopt one or two mentors (one for career issues and one for technical skills). Go have some drinks with them some time and again, listen more than you talk.

It is an investment, yes. You’ll be earning no money in 5 months. Live on a budget during these 6 months and it won’t cost you more than 10.000€. After that you’ll have experience and colleague recognition. Some great studio will be on your resumé, perhaps some nice work on your portfolio and if you are good, committed and sharp you may even get a full time job at that studio. You’ve sacrificed yourself and have demonstrated committment, a good boss will always value that.

Long live Yuri!

To me, The Daily is a near perfect realization of exactly the idea that occurs to print editors every single time they get their hands on digital media for the first time, regardless of what the underlying technology might be: “Let’s make it just like what we know so well in print.” As a result I found it sadly lifeless and lacking in urgency. What a waste of US$30 million.

Khoi Vinh on The Daily

Bernardo, for those of you who don’t know him already, is Worldwide Director of Emerging Products at Google.

Website credits:
Vostok has done the design, Pep Gómez has supervised the implementation and Jorge González from Wakalaka has done the mockup and CSS.

www.bernardohernandez.com

Here’s a bigger version.

We release it to the public domain. Feel free to copy, share or republish it.

They put their visual and interaction design skills to the service of initiatives that, using their own words, matter. Be it to locate and identify stars, endangered species, protected areas, migratory species or even visualizing aid in disaster stricken countries. To put it bluntly, they choose their projects wisely and put their money where their mouth is. It makes us proud to have someone we respect so close to home.

Yesterday they launched a video made by Riot Cinema featuring one of their most recent projects: Planet Hunters. Let them speak for themselves:

Some major changes, not always apparent in the video:

• cleaner navigation
• ‘My Times’ a personalized NYTimes.com
• articles are more scanneable and scrolleable
• more videos, and better players
• the sections of most popular, most emailed, most blogged
• Times topics (articles organized by categories and not just sections)
• Articles can be printed and shared online

Years of trial and error redesigns, facelifts, surgeries and tests implemented by the NYTimes.com design team to keep in check. Admirable? Absolutely. Enough? No. What happened with less but better?

I think the human body and buildings have a lot in common. Buildings are as weak as they are heavy, and one tool in our armament is a process known as genchiku, which we can use to decrease the overall weight of a building – you could think of it as a process that gets rid of unwanted flab and beefs up muscle where it’s needed. However, I think that some people don’t consider balance in quite the same way – simply putting more on top doesn’t necessarily make a structure stronger.

Shigeru Aoki at The earthquake from an architect’s perspective

Go back ten years or so and the image would have looked something like this:

Today though, pixels can be just as beautiful as (and more informative than) picture posters:

What’s the best approach? Let’s see…

• Ad posters make us skeptical, we’ve been so perverted by publicity we no longer believe what they say; numbers on the other hand…well, we still associate them with hard facts.
• Infographics allow you to  play around with data visualization, using images, diagrams or icons to make your data more…(for the lack of a better word) graspeable. 100 million means nothing, a pile of cards that’s actually taller than Mount Everest, does.
• Ad posters are movie-frames, Infographics are more like short films, you need to put several frames together to come up with a story.
• Ad posters allow for one layer of (simple) information (the message must be understood at a glance, so the idea must be conveyed quickly and efficiently); Infographics allow for various layers of (simple) information helping you give more bits of information without over-complicating the message. Plus, the LinkedIn guys even get to be kind of funny.

When it comes to advertising a company it looks like an infographic is better equipped for storytelling, better equipped to look more like a ‘serious study’ and less like blatant publicity. So well done, LinkedIn :)

See it in full here.

If you wanna stay in the loop: @ducksboard

Celebrating many more years to come…