Wooooow

Forgive me the post title, but that's what I thought when I have seen the video below. And it's not about the fact that it's about Harry Potter. It's about the animated figurines made of book pages.


via A White Casousel

Beautiful and enchanting - the more I think about it, the more I realise the beauty of printed text. Lines of letters on a creamy backgound - on the one hand very structured, aligned, restricted with margines, paragraphs ect, but on the other organic and chaotic. When I was little I used to imagine every page has a hidden game between the lines of the story - that the letters form a labyrynth and there is a 'path' between them. Also the slightly rough texture of the paper adds a lot to it, causing tiny defects in print and giving each letter unique shape. No Kindle can provide that.

So take this piece of art: a printed page texture and make it into a poetic, fairytale landscape with tiny figures of spiders galloping through hills formed by book pages. Isn't it pretty? Not sure if it fits the style Harry Potter though - I'd rather animate some sort of philosophical story this way...  One day maybe.

but don't get me wrong - I'm so signing in!

Lego booties

When I was little I hated tying my shoelaces. I bet if I was given a pair of those Kickers Lego, doing my shoes would have been my favourite thing.

I think that Lego's interlocking system is one of the best fastenings ever invented, so using it in many different applications is a way to go. And being used in children's clothing and shoes gives them amazing play value.

via Babygadget

Trzymyszy - cardboard toys

And again I find myself sighing about a toy design...

Trzymyszy (from polish: three mice) is a designer duo that is designing and producing cardboard toys for children. Inspired by their own kids, two graduates of  Warsaw Art Academy decided to make DIY houses and planes from card that can be build and painted by children according to their own taste.
I believe this is a great idea which encourages kids to make their own toys. Besides, how many times did the packaging box become more entertaining toy than the actual content.

house and its creators

pilot and his aeroplane

this clock looks amazing - I wonder if the gears turn - how cool would that be if it was actually working

Irrational toys

Something I really appreciate about childhood is its irrationality - kids perceive the world according to what they see and experience. The rest is dictated by their imagination often stimulated by stories, tales and legends they hear or watch. As adults I don't think we can fully understand and appreciate the beauty of this imaginative and irrational thinking. Therefore I really value toys that are produced to satisfy children's abstract rationale.

One example of a irrational toy I have seen recently on Yankodesign.com and it's called Echo. It is a soft creature without face but with a big ears and a peculiar wooden trumpet instead of mouth. The ears are connected to the trumpet using the string-phone fashion so Echo responds when a child is whispering some secrets into its ear.

It was created by Emi Schenkelbach.

via Yankodesign

Another really nice design which stayed in my memory since I have first seen in in Mint Design shop in London a year ago. It is called Buba and it was produced by Alon Meron.

Buba is a guardian against dark matter and its magical power comes from children's fallen milk teeth. I think this is a beautiful story. And here again  Buba doesn't have face - he has two rows of sharp teeth that scare the ghosts and monsters of the night.

Accessibility Design

To finish off the discussion about the EPS projects. I just wanted to say that I finally decided to be working on the accessibility project. I find it the most connected with users and giving great possibilities for development. I still need to wait for Pedro's approval, because what they are trying to do here, is to mix up people with different backgrounds.

The project is very open, first of all we have to choose one group of users with some accessibility limitations, mostly connected with their health, disabilities or age. I have some experience in designing for disabled children (the Sensations project we have done in the first year) and the Microsoft project we've done last semester in Dundee taught me a lot about designing for old people. So this time I wanted to focus on a different group of users. Again my reading of polish Polityka came useful. In the article from 16/08/08 "Wejście Smyka" I read about the new social trend concerning bringing up children. Obviously, the article was mostly taking about Polish society, but I believe it's generally true for most of Europeans. Parents take their children everywhere with them - to the restaurants, on the exotic holidays, on the board of planes. As they do not want to resign from their normal life, they combine parenthood with everyday activities. Which basically means that children are more present in a public space which is often not children - friendly. This creates problems not only for parents but also for other users. I'm sure many people experienced a flight with crying baby on board. Nightmare, isn't it? To be fair, the first thing I do while coming on board, I try to spot all the babies and take a sit as far as possible.
I think this is a design problem that gives wide possibilities - it can be a product, a service or some interior design solution.
It also quite interesting for me, as I may be a future user.