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Archives For December 2009

Creature design?

December 30, 2009 — 19 Comments

Avatar image

I came away from watching Avatar the other evening stunned by the ingenuity and beauty of the world that James Cameron and his team created. Like any design geek I loved the futuristic hardware and the user interfaces that were even more seductive than those in Minority Report. What really blew me away though was the biology of Pandora. The design of the eco-system was  both visually seductive and functionally believable, at least for the most part. I was particularly enamored with the little ‘helicopter lizards’. One only needs to watch an episode of Planet Earth to know that some of these weird creatures created by Cameron could be quite plausible and I couldn’t help wondering how much of a leap is it to go from representing the plants and creatures of Pandora in cinematic 3D to bringing them to life in real life 3D?

Avatar makes the idea of designers creating new life forms that much easier to believe. I am sure there is much that is technologically challenging about going from software models to flesh and blood but personally I found many of the biological ‘inventions’ of the movie just as desirable and interesting as futuristic inventions of the past like the Star Trek communicator or the light saber from Star Wars.

In visual design ,
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Redesigning California

December 30, 2009 — 5 Comments

CA flag

There is a move afoot to hold a constitutional convention in California. The purpose is to address some of the issues that are causing complete gridlock in the governance of the state. Given the successive budget crises and the seeming inability to think about long term and strategic issues, as well as the worrying erosion of infrastructure, this would seem to be a good idea. Certainly as a resident of the state, I wonder how far things will have to degrade before regions like Silicon Valley lose their allure and innovation moves to more attractive environments.

So this seems like an opportunity for some redesign. But my question is will any design thinking actually happen? Is it possible to include creative and divergent exploration in such an initiative? Having watched the zero-sum negotiations taking place in Copenhagen around climate change and the US Senate around health care reform I have my doubts. And yet without some new ideas I wonder whether there is any chance of achieving significant improvements. Could the run up to the constitutional convention include a series of design activities statewide that provide a selection of new ideas for the delegates to consider? I think it would be worth experimenting.

The organization behind the call for the convention is called Repair California and you can find out more here.

In design of government , ,
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