The Splayd

Ok, I've never personally seen or used this object, but I'm fascinated by the graphic and the analysis of the Splayd, and the concept that one utensil could serve all these purposes. There are two issues here:

1) What are the advantages of reducing our utensils down to one? Is this a gimick, or is it really useful and practical?

2) The idea of using this diagram as a model for showing the overlap between other like but dissimilar designs (for example, my telephone and my iPod) could create other sweet 'object mash-ups' (the iPhone, in fact, if I use my previous example). I like that idea of simplification.

Link to original post from the ragbag.

Moleskines

I just recently picked up two new Moleskines for my collection. Moleskines are kind of the ultimate artsy-fartsy accessory. I have quite a few of them, and I love them for more than the status symbol that they convey as an object. They are beautifully designed notebooks, and speak to a certain aesthetic, which I happen to hold quite dear.

Simple, small, practical and pleasing to the touch. My preferred versions are the larger side-opening note pads, small sketch books and the hardcover day planner (although I don't use it for day planning, because it doesn't quite fulfill my needs on that). I'm going to focus here on the side-opening note pad, because it's the one that I've managed to complete the most of (I think I'm up to 4 now in the last 2 years).

Some features I like: the texture of the paper, the fact that the binding opens all the way up to allow you to cover every square inch of the paper (and to make full layouts if you so desire), the pocket in the back, the last few pages with perforations so you can rip them out if you need to give a phone number or a open or a sketch, the elastic band which stretches just enough to fit a pen inside, and the fact that the notebook itself is just about the length of a pen, so you're not adding any extra space by hooking your pen in that way.

What don't I like about these Moleskines? Not much. Basically the same things I dislike about all other forms of handwritten notebooks: it's hard to write when you're in the first pages because your wrist raises off the table, the slipperiness of certain inks and the blotting through for some types of inks on the reporter paper, the fact that I never have anything of any value to write about. Otherwise, what is there to complain about? It's simple, well thought-out and customizable—the way I think most consumer objects should be.

Speaking of customizable, I use the day planner as a daily journal: two sentences each day about my reflections, and a sentence of reflection. In the opposite page, I reflect on the whole week with some terse statements and feelings about what I've experienced. This leaves a lot of stuff I haven't figured out how to use in the planner: personal data, address book, travel planning. I have started using the yearly planner to write in the big events of the year, so I can either plan in advance or document them in just one word. It's a work in progress.

Update on the Tropicana box

They had not sold out of these boxes at one of my grocery stores, and I'm now the proud owner of one of those neat little orange caps. Now if only I had the proper collection place to display such things.

The Worst Shower on the Planet

How would I define worst? I actually had a pretty nice shower, once it was a shower and not a bath. Worst would mean absolutely least intuitive with the least clues possible for my success at showering. All I wanted was to take a stupid shower.

I like to think I'm pretty good at figuring things out. I spend a lot of time thinking about design, I'm frequently called to fix broken things, and I have a damn degree in mechanical engineering. None of those things helped me make this shower work. I spent about 20 minutes closely examining all the details of every part of the shower, with absolutely no success. I called my mother, who thought this whole predicament was (understandably) hysterical. I finally caved and woke Ben up to ask him how the hell this thing works.




Seriously. How was I supposed to know you pull down on the tub faucet. It's an aesthetically pleasing design (kind of), if only because there is nothing distracting you from the beautiful and soothing white tile. BUT, there is no clue to indicate that you can pull down on this other than the bumped edge, which barely seems to exist until you realize/know that's a clue for your hand.

Maybe I'm just bitter. Maybe my pride was a little damaged by this experience. But still. This is a crappily designed shower (no offense to Ben - it was relatively clean and it worked fine once it was on), and left even yours truly pissed and confused.

Objects from No Impact Man

No Impact Man, one of my favorite bloggers on sustainability, recently shared an object that represents culture, sustainability and elegant design all in one. These types of objects provide experiences that specifically remind us of specific cultural decisions and influences, and bring us present with our actions. Not to mention this is a particularly beautiful set!

The one question I have about this object is how although the design is so appropriate for the function, the use is not particularly intuitive. Would it be possible to make this set more intuitive, or would you lose the simplicity of the design? I guess it would be intuitive to those who are raised in a culture that interact with this object.

Me and Objects Versus Everyone Else

Last week, for her senior project, my friend Cambrie did a series of workshops to open people up to the concept of dialogue. I participated in three of the four, and was particularly interested by an exercise we did in the first of the workshops - bringing in and sharing an object that was significant to us. Of course, me being who I am (clear by being the author of this ridiculous blog), I was so amped. Deciding which object to bring was actually kind of hard because there are so many that mean so much to me as a part of my life. I settled on my most important one: my bike. Some of the other options included my helmet, my cell phone and my planner. The explanation that I have for my bike is that it the single most important object in my life, and the representation of so many things that I strongly value, including freedom, mobility, connection to my community and my environment, and taking a joy in life. When I explained this to the group, I also tacked on that my parents had purchased the bike for me as a graduation present and I was grateful to them for having done that.

What made my object and my explanation and understanding about it different was that nearly everyone else brought an object that was attached to a person or a story in a more significant way. There was a lot of jewelry, a fair number of photographs and a few other non-functional tokens of love, affection and stories together. People described the story related to that object, or the emotion that they felt when receiving the object or when they interact with it now. It was a lot about reminding oneself about past experiences.

I know that I interact with objects differently than other people, but it's not frequently that I am blatantly reminded of that. My interpretation of objects is that they are not equivalent or even (most of the time) tied to memories, experiences or relationships. Yes, I keep a lot of stuff, but most of it I keep for it's intrinsic value as opposed to the memory that it triggers. But, for me objects are only valuable as themselves. This kind of makes me concerned that some day when I start losing my memory (more than I already do for those of you who have unfortunately experienced my rough short-term memory recently) I may need those objects to evoke a memory, emotion or relationship for me, and I may simply not have them.

So, perhaps this puts me in a position where I'm not a great person to be conducting research about why people care about objects, and how they relate to them, since I don't have any grounding in their relationships with objects, rather just my strange and unusual relationship. Maybe it this is what makes me so fascinated with human interaction, though.

The Shape of Food: Tropicana Redesign

Yet another food packaging redesign brought to me (and therefore you) by Rachel. Tropicana recently redesigned their orange juice boxes, to relatively poor outcomes. It did so poorly they're actually pulling it off the self.

Now, I don't drink Tropicana, and this is not a product placement (neither is the cool whip entry), but I have some feelings about the qualities of both boxes as objects.

First of all, as a consumer object, the new box is more sale and less information. The old boxes are clearly labeled by their color and their text in the front and center. The for "pulp free" nearly disappears into the glass of orange juice, and the band along the top does little to inform. The glass of orange juice doesn't actually invoke orange juice (at least not for me), but says something more along the lines of orange Faygo. Gross? And the font is pretty boring, mundane modern text. Anyone could make that Word 2007 with the auto fonts.

But what do I love about this bottle? The cap, clearly. It's shaped like a little half an orange, evoking the previous symbol of Tropicana and the contents of the case itself. The little half-orange is pitted like a real orange (except made of plastic), and gives a continual reminder that , in fact, drinking orange juice is a pleasure.

So the redesign may have failed the test of the consumers (with whom I generally agree), but as far as I'm concerned, they were able to redeem themselves with that one little cap change. I really hope it stays, so I can get one and add it to my collection with the Cool Whip cap. Or I'll have to run out to the store soon and get one before they disappear off the shelves (as collectors items?! Probably not in Missouri...).