ineedmydevice; design, interaction and animation

3D printed chocolate

ineedmydevice — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:14:52 +0000

Design Direction for Moving Brands. From their site:

With a new toy in the studio – the RepRap 3D printing machine – we were inspired to test the limits of its prowess. From across our global studios, MB’ers selected a personal story from which to design a 3D sculpture. These were converted into .stl and then g-code files, and printed in plastic to create a physical artefact of their maker’s memory. With the help of RepNap, we recalibrated the printer and software to print each of the models in chocolate, creating a collection of stories to populate an advent calendar online and in our London studio.

Some of the ideation process behind the project can be read here, and here from a more technical stance.

As featured on Creative Review, FastCo and TrendHunter.

Hand Drawn; a Kinect hack

ineedmydevice — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:36:44 +0000

The software functions as a tool for building a collaborative typeface, dynamically capturing a user’s gesture – a hand traced through the air – and adding it to a pool of data. A live video feed offers a frame to compose a character, while a second viewport shows the 3-dimensional ‘volume’ of the last captured character. Characters can be cycled through, while a virtual typesetter’s tray highlights both progress and popularity as it fills up with the composite letterforms.

Over time, and as more and more marks are captured by it’s users, the typeface evolves, incorporating both flaws and common traits from those rolling up their sleeves and using Hand Drawn. No ligatures, serifs or elaborate quirks; the typeface that is beginning to emerge is the average of peoples’ perceptions as to how a character of Western type appears to them.

First and foremost however, it is a link in a process – a means of collecting 3-dimensional data acquired through gestural input and a tool with which to explore how gestures can be used to control an interface. In the latter, first time users of the application frequently rely on gestures that are more familiar: the screen is poked and swiped and hands in the air attempt to coax a double-click from an invisible mouse controller. In the former, the data acquired can become many things: print, animation, or models of the captured gestures, for example.

The above film was recorded at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire, 2011. Read more here.

With Daniel Soltis for Moving Brands, London. Filming and editing by Nicholas MacDonald.

Mohsin Cooper architects; identity

ineedmydevice — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:08:36 +0000

Print identity for an architectural practice.

Penki iOS app

ineedmydevice — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:50:33 +0000

UI, UX, custom font design and production for the Penki iOS app by Dentsu London and BERG.

Spun off from the Making Future Magic light painting film, this app let’s people make their own 3D light paintings, with parameters for switching between (custom, optimised) typefaces or characters, colours, distance and orientation. The accelerometer and geo-loc data is then tapped into, offering up a card summing up the little light painting that’s just been created.

Want to see some results? There’s a Flickr pool, and it’s available to download here.

And it’s won a few awards, including a D&AD.

Making Future Magic; Light Painting

ineedmydevice — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:28:58 +0000

3D animation, production and technical direction for a film by BERG and Timo Arnall, for Dentsu London.

You can read more about the thinking, initial strategy and process behind the project here, on Dentsu’s blog, and here, over at BERG’s.

Making Future Magic; The Journey

ineedmydevice — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:46:26 +0000

Animation, tracking and compositing for a film by BERG and Timo Arnall for Dentsu London.

From BERG’s site: “‘The Journey’ is the second ‘video sketch’ in the pair with ‘Incidental Media’ – this time looking at the panoply of screens and media surfaces in a train station, and the opportunities that could come from looking at them slightly differently.

There’s no real new technology at play in any of these ideas, just different connections and flows of information being made in the background – quietly, gradually changing how screens, bits of print ephemera such as train tickets, and objects in the world can inter-relate to make someone’s journey that bit less stressful, that bit more delightful.”

Making Future Magic; Incidental Media

ineedmydevice — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:43:10 +0000

Animation, tracking and compositing for a film by BERG and Timo Arnall for Dentsu London

From BERG’s site: “Each of the ideas in the film treat the surface as a focus, rather than the channel or the content delivered. Here, media includes messages from friends and social services, like foursquare or Twitter, and also more functional messages from companies or services like banks or airlines alongside large traditional big ‘M’ Media (like broadcast or news publishing).

All surfaces have access to connectivity. All surfaces are displays responsive to people, context, and timing. If any surface could show anything, would the loudest or the most polite win? Surfaces which show the smartest most relevant material in any given context will be the most warmly received.“

Mag+ for PopSci

ineedmydevice — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:34:40 +0000

UI/UX design and animation – in conjunction with the teams at BERG and Bonnier – for the iPad form of Popular Science

From BERG’s site, “The goal was to create something as satisfying as their paper forebears, which research reveals possess an extraordinary degree of engagement and attachment amongst all other media. We created a conceptual prototype in video that was made public in December 2009, and with the announcement of the Apple iPad on the 27th January 2010, we begun a rapid implementation of the concept – resulting in the first magazine on the Mag+ platform, (Popular Science, as PopSci+) being available in Apple’s AppStore for the US-launch of the iPad just over two months later on 3rd April, 2010.”

As featured by Apple.

With BERG, Bonnier and Timo Arnall. Read more from BERG here and Bonnier here.

Mag+ concept for Bonnier

ineedmydevice — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:59:20 +0000

Design, animation and compositing for BERG and Bonnier – a video exploring how traditional print might transition into a mobile, digital, tablet format.

From BERG’s site, “The goal was to create something as satisfying as their paper forebears, which research reveals possess an extraordinary degree of engagement and attachment amongst all other media. We created a conceptual prototype in video that was made public in December 2009, and with the announcement of the Apple iPad on the 27th January 2010, we begun a rapid implementation of the concept – resulting in the first magazine on the Mag+ platform, (Popular Science, as PopSci+) being available in Apple’s AppStore for the US-launch of the iPad just over two months later on 3rd April, 2010.”

With BERG, Bonnier and Timo Arnall. Read more from BERG here, and from Bonnier, here.

Here & There

ineedmydevice — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:01:52 +0000

Illustration produced for Schulze and Webb (Now BERG London), with James King, looking at alternative means of mapping an urban space. Featured in the June 2009 edition of UK Wired.

From Schulze and Webb’s site: “Here & There is a project by S&W exploring speculative projections of dense cities. These maps of Manhattan look uptown from 3rd and 7th, and downtown from 3rd and 35th. They’re intended to be seen at those same places, putting the viewer simultaneously above the city and in it where she stands, both looking down and looking forward.”

See the animated version here. Read more here.