Printed Antimatter

Apple ad confuses at least one person: A play in one act

Friend: So what's so special about the new iPod nanos? Besides the fact they glow in the dark.

Me: They don't glow in the dark. That's just the commercial.

Friend: Oh.

THE END

Messing with perfection

  The best remote ever! 
  Originally uploaded by soulposition.

The dude who wrote The Little Prince once said, "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." A brilliant sentiment famously made flesh by the designers of the TiVo remote. This must-read article about the creation of an instant icon mentions the struggle to keep the buttons down to a manageable 34.

Now my colleague Ben Smith at 128 Hours brings unfortunate news about the new version of the remote, for TiVo's HD Series 3: While the designers have kept the same number of buttons, they couldn't help shuffling them around-- apparently making it worse. The all-important volume and channel controls have been moved away from the natural resting place of the thumb, in order to bring the Thumbs Up/Down buttons closer.

I can't imagine why the designers thought that necessary, unless the Thumbs Up/Down buttons are about to become a lot more important for some reason we don't know about yet. But from the comments from this post on PVRblog, it seems that:

1. Some people like the new placement better anyway
2. If you don't you can still use your old remote with your new box.

I'll reserve judgment until I have a chance to get my greasy fingerprints all over the new remote's shiny black surface (a change that I personally don't like). But all this is making me want to dig out my old Sony RM-V30, an egg-shaped universal remote that stands on end like a Weeble. It was the first remote that felt as natural in my hand as TiVo's does now. (Photo from here.)

The sweet spot of design

My friend AW was in town just this week and, knowing how much I love weird little gadgets, she collected a couple for me. Take a look at them and see if you can figure out what they're for. (Answers after the jump.)

Object 1

Object 2

The fact that AW knew I would dig these specific items made me come up with a rationale for it just now, plus a little graphic to illustrate it. I realize that I really enjoy objects that sit at the intersection of the three C's: Clever, Cool, and Cheap.

Clever: They solve a problem you didn't even know you had, and they solve it elegantly.

Cool: They're fun to look at, hold, and use.

Cheap: They're intended for everyone, not just people with cash to burn.

This, to me, is the sweet spot of good design, even if the result often winds up sitting unused in a junk drawer.

Design for the litter-ati UPDATE

We here at Seen And Not Seen love hearing from our readers, because it lets us know that we have them. And today we had the honor of hearing from Arielle of Kattbank, a company whose products I previously discussed. Her comment was very sweet and polite, especially considering that I made fun of her company's work using toilet humor. Go read the entirety of her response to my post. An excerpt:

Your comments have given me pause as to my choice of photograph for our new product solo or as you coined it the "cat sarcophagus" - it probably doesn't show the product very well. With that said, I have to tell you that cats LOVE it. We have only had great response from buyers, and my two cats spend most of the day inside of the solo.

Which brings up an important point. The Seen And Not Seen testing labs did not obtain either a Kattbank Solo or any cats, so were not able to test whether cats actually like it. We just assumed based on our previous experiences of having cats as pets. Which highlights a critical difference between blogs and traditional journalism: In a blog you can shoot your mouth off without having any facts to back you up. In journalism, that makes you a political pundit.

Coincidentally, I also heard just this weekend about a veterinary-student friend who fashioned a Kattbank-like solution from a trunk. She has 4 cats and a small apartment, so living room placement was mandatory. Let's hear her tell it:

I do indeed have a superfabulous litter box that I made myself. It is actually a wooden sweater chest that I ordered online. It's pine, cedar and alderwood. I modified it by cutting out 2 doorways (need 2 so the cats always have an escape route in case one is waiting to ambush, and it ensures that they will feel comfortable using the litterbox at all times - I've never had an accident) and putting the bottom lower. For the actual litterbox, I use a tupperware. Tupperware has high sides, which is great for male cats with urinary issues, or 'splosive diarrhea. The tupperware also seems to endure longer than regular litterboxes. The wooden litterbox is also high enough that there are no 'enclosure/claustrophibic' issues. The cats don't have to duck to get in, or use the box, so it provides complete freedom of movement. It's also super easy to clean... In the pic you can see I've got a plug in auromatic diffuser, I also change the litter once a week, and scoop the poop once or twice a day. I got the original idea from a cardboard litterbox my stepmother had sent. But they wear out, and got gross, and I couldn't actually find the replacement anywhere.

I love all the thought that went into this... Having two doors was a brilliant idea, and the plug-in diffuser is a good touch. Another friend who visited her confirmed to me that the living room was odorless. Four cats and no smell? I said I'd need independent verification, and now I have it. The Kattbank suddenly makes a lot more sense to me. My apologies, Arielle-- Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity!

How to make a simple interface needlessly complicated (or: Hate on an Elevator)

Everyone knows how to use elevators. In fact, it's almost ridiculous to say that, because what's to know? It's like saying everyone knows how to walk. Here is the interface for the elevator in my apartment building:

Simple, right? The button doesn't even have to be labeled. If it had a label, it would say "USE ELEVATOR." You see the elevator, you want to use it, you press the button. It's almost irreducibly simple, right? The only way to make it more simple would be to have a pressure sensitive floor instead of the button, so if you want to use the elevator, you stand in front of it and wait.

Sure, some are a little more complicated... They have two buttons, like this one from the SFMOMA.

The button on the top with the arrow pointing up means "I WANT TO GO UP," and the button on the bottom with the arrow pointing down means "I WANT TO GO DOWN." But surely there's no need to make it any more complicated than that. Right?

Here's the elevator interface in the lobby of my office building:

What the hell? What are all those buttons for? What's going on?

AW∑SOME!

We've all seen an upside-down M being used as a W on a movie marquee, and vice versa... We've seen V's and A's flipped upside down to sub for each other... even 3's being reversed to fill in for E's. But it takes a special kind of guts to turn an M on its side to make an E.

This is a lot like what I was saying about emoticons... Existing symbols repurposed to have a new meaning, in an attempt to circumvent the limitations of the medium. In this case, the limitation was that they ran out of E's. They could have rewritten it to use fewer E's, like saying "FANTASTIC HOT CAKES" or "YUMMY HOT CAKES," but they opted for the creative solution.

Of course there's the possibility they did it deliberately to capture eyeballs. The sign belongs to old-school hipster-magnet It's Tops Coffee Shop on Market and Octavia. I didn't have the hot cakes, but I hear they're awesome. I bet they sell like .mobi domain names.

About this blog and its author

This is a blog about design, but it is not a blog just for designers.

When I was urged-slash-required to start this blog, I gladly accepted, because I think most design blogs focus too much on artsy thcotchkes and industry talk. Design is such an expansive topic, and there's a whole world of designed objects in our homes, on our streets, and in our pockets that merit a closer look. We see design all the time, but we don't really see it. (See the Seen And Not Seen manifesto here.)

My name is Eric Siry, and I work as the Creative Director for Business 2.0. In the past I have worked for such leading magazines as Rolling Stone, Wired, and Bon Appétit, and helped create typefaces at the Hoefler Type Foundry (now Hoefler & Frere Jones). I grew up in New York but now live in San Francisco, and I think it's funny when people write their bios in the third person.

Seen And Not Seen gets its name from a Talking Heads song in which a guy re-designs his own face by sheer force of will.

The Siry portrait/logo is based on the fantastic logo for Japan's Suntory Boss coffee.

It even has a key ring so you can hang it from your belt loop.

The only thing funnier than this ridiculously overstuffed 85-tool Swiss Army Knife is the offended reactions it engenders in people on the internet message boards. Relax, friends, Wenger doesn't really think you're going to cut up your apple with a three-inch blade protruding from an encyclopedia-size handle. It was built as a showpiece for trade shows, and it turned out people actually wanted to buy 'em.

For collectors, the $1,200 it costs is probably well worth it. I love it as an example of engineering gone mad, and an illustration of the law of diminishing returns. I can imagine the Wenger CEO as a modern day Dr. Frankenstein: "If a Swiss Army Knife is so useful with 7 tools, imagine how useful it would be with 7 MILLION tools! Mua ha haaaa!" [lightning flashes, thunder cracks]

Volkswagen's Eos: Strong enough for a man, made for a woman?

When I first moved to California in 1998, I did what any reasonable person would do-- I started shopping for convertibles.

I almost bought a Volkswagen Cabrio, but one thing stopped me: It was a chick car.

Now, this is not my label-- I learned it on the internet. But basically, a convertible is a chick car if it is (1) cute and (2) underpowered. To be a manly convertible it needs a roaring beast under the hood and aggressive cock-rocker styling. (Cock-rocker styling optional if the car costs $35K or up.)*

At the time I thought: "If only VW had a convertible Jetta with a V6 engine, that thing would sell like crazy!" And then I bought a non-convertible, V6-having GTI.

A few years later, Volkswagen retired the Cab and replaced it with the New Beetle Convertible. They outfitted it with a turbo, which was good, but being a Beetle, it was cuter than a box of baby hedgehogs. Verdict: Still a chick car. Once again, VW ignored the all-important "dudes who like convertibles but not heavy metal" demographic.

And now, VW has produced the hard-top convertible Eos. I haven't had a chance to drive it yet (for some reason VW hasn't responded to Seen And Not Seen's requests for a review car), but this is exactly what I've been waiting for all these years. It's got non-cute Jetta/Passat styling, but with an innovative 5-piece folding roof, which itself has a sunroof. Best of all, it comes in turbo or V6 flavors! Finally, a manly VW drop-top. Gentlemen, start your checkbooks!

But wait-- it looks like VW is planning to sabotage itself.

Microsoft tries to out-Apple Apple; shoots Zune in foot

This was making the rounds a few weeks back just before I started blogging but I want to pile on too.

First, re-watch this classic video, "Microsoft designs the iPod package." (For us designers, it's hilarious in a depressing way.)



In case you didn't know, that was created in house by Microsofties, frustrated with their own company. Well, it seems that someone in command over there took the message to heart, because here's the new Zune packaging:



I applaud them for trying to be artful, but they went about 5 steps too far here. Elegant simplicity is one thing, but willful obfuscation is not a good idea. Looking at this box, I have no idea what's inside it. No one will. Unless you walk into the store to specifically ask for a Zune, your eye will slide right off the featureless brown surface and light upon some other shiny toy. As Long Zheng points out, as simple as iPod packaging is, it shows the damn iPod.

It's painful watching Microsoft trying to gin up an aura of hipness out of thin air (and millions of marketing dollars). They can drone "brown is the new black is the new white" until their mouths fall off but it won't change the fact that BROWN IS NOT COOL. The last time anybody had brown electronics, it was a faux-wood-grain TV with a dial.