JasoNunes

Back from SXSW - Design for the Dark Side was a blast

2010-03-20T20:28:00.005-04:00

We are back from SXSW. The panel is complete. A good time was had by all.

Here are some tweets by some folks who attended (thanks for the great feedback, ya'll), starting with my personal favorite:

@katerutter Both loving and hating the messages in the #dfds panel, which is totally the point. So glad I got up for this.

@nicolemckinney #dfds - great panel. Surprised that many of the “dark” examples aren’t in the future, they are now. Something to think about #icsx

@meanica #dfds - fascinating panel from a conceptual aspect. thank you

@wd5iyt #dfds outstanding panel. thanks

@bunkywu Great panel on designing for the dark side and dystopias #dfds.

And here is my part of the preso:

DesignForTheDarkSide.pdf

Come see: SXSW interactive panel - Design for the Dark Side

2010-03-13T10:14:00.006-05:00

Design for the Dark Side

Design usually focuses on making the world around us better - optimism often rules the roost in our industry. But what might happen if we forced ourselves to design for a catastrophic or dystopian future? Can we learn something by designing for a darker side of human experience?

Location

Tuesday, March 16 at 09:30 AM

10AB

Map/Directions

Rest in peace Cory Haim

2010-03-10T13:29:00.002-05:00

I must admit that I wasn't shocked to hear that Cory Haim died on Wednesday, but it still makes me sad.

I worked on a Cory Haim film in the mid 90s--Fast Getaway II--which starred Cory, Sarah Buxton, Leo Rossi, and Cynthia Rothrock.

Here's me dropping a pancake that Cory was supposed to have flipped onto Sarah's head in one scene (ah, the magic of Hollywood... well, or in this case Tucson, AZ):

I was the property master. An added responsibility was watching Cory's dog when he was on set:

Due to the low budge nature of the film, the crew and actors all stayed in the same grungy roadside motel. And since I was responsible for product placement--primarily a Sega Genesis--a lot of the crew and Cory would hang out in my room at night. He was a good kid, which is ridiculous to say because he was only 2 years younger than me. But he was sweet, and lonely, and sad, and obviously damaged. As so many actors who become famous young are. I left Hollywood pretty soon after that.

I actually ran into Cory again, years later, randomly at a comic convention in Northern California. I was shocked that he actually remembered me. He said he wanted to hang out again. Asked me if I had a room in the hotel. Maybe we could play some video games. His handler, a severe Russian woman, wasn't having it. It freaked me out, but I remember feeling that sadness again. Poor kid.

Those 2 words really sum it up for me. Poor kid.

My new favorite photo blog!

2010-03-05T09:57:00.002-05:00

http://dorkyearbook.com/

Hasn't been updated in 4 months, but I sure hope they continue. I'll have to try to dig up pics of me on my dad's old Heathkit with the 60 character wide, 1 character high screen, or playing D&D with the guys until 3 in the morning hopped up on Mountain Dew.

Those were the days...

Experience Maps

2010-02-27T07:58:00.002-05:00

I'm a sucker for this kind of documentation, which illustrates a user type, and tells the story of their engagement with a brand or experience. But then I always have been a map geek.

Here are some great experience maps from Canadian UX agency nForm:

Now, just because I'm a sucker for docs like this doesn't mean that everyone else is. So, what's your opinion? Do they serve a purpose? Are they valuable? What are other ways that we communicate this information to our clients?

What do you think?

Where are the tweens & teens?

2010-02-19T13:42:00.003-05:00

Ever since a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project indicated that teens and tweens have been losing interest in blogging, particularly Twitter--basically spurning the desktop screen for their mobile device screen--I've had repeated client meetings whose primary user base are tweens and teens where twitter ideas get shot down because.

And, yup, there's definitely some compelling data to back up that belief:

8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter.2 This makes Twitter as common among teens as visiting a virtual world, and far less common than sending or receiving text messages as 66% of teens do, or going online for news and political information, done by 62% of online teens.

That said this is evidence that tweens and teens are still using Twitter, but it's mostly young adults?

Using different wording, we find that 19% of adult internet users use Twitter or similar services to post short status updates and view the updates of others online.

Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year olds post or read status updates.

So, if you've got tween/teen users, where should you focus your energy anyway? Mobile certainly. But what about online dollars? Where should that go? Tweens and teens are definitely still using the internet. AND still using Twitter. Albeit not in the same numbers as young adults.

Teens are not using Twitter in large numbers. While teens are bigger users of almost all other online applications, Twitter is an exception.

Here are some nice graphs from pingdom showing where some of those elusive tweenagers are.

Guess I'd better start learning more about Bebo...

What do you guys think? Are their other reasons for this? Should we be taking into account where these users are coming from? Bebo has more popularity in Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK than it does in the US. Are American tween/teens different from their counterparts across the pond?

Thoughts?

Assumptions we didn't even know we had...

2010-01-29T12:30:00.001-05:00

A great mini-Ted talk by Derek Sivers:

Beautiful glass works

2010-01-14T10:56:00.002-05:00

From Danish tool maker Steffen Dam.

From Cool Hunter:

The process for making the panels begins by using the traditional glassmaking method for solid objects. Dam then covers each solid block of clear glass, employing a welding torch with "either colored glass powder, a thread of black glass, layers of metal foil or thin layers of carbon." Once all of the applications have been added, the object is covered in several more layers of clear glass and each one is fused together to make one Specimen Panel—an otherworldly biology lab usually consisting of 25 or more individual glass blocks.

another one for #thingsIcovet

Amazing porcelain artworks

2009-12-16T07:14:00.003-05:00

By Kate D. MacDowell

categorized under "things I covet"

I miss making props...

2009-12-15T12:01:00.003-05:00

Just made an IV bag for our last day of shooting for Exit Strategy. Not bad (if I do say so myself) for a ziplock bag, a used saline solution bottle, and hand cream pump. It made me nostalgic for the good old days when I made a living as a crazed MacGyver cranking out sets and props for some of the best straight to video horror films of the 90s.

Here's some grainy old nostalgia:

I love this concept: Infographic Coins

2009-12-08T10:16:00.002-05:00

From designer Mac Funamizu a redesign of coins based on pie chart slices.

Back from the wilds of Pennsylvania...

2009-12-07T13:37:00.002-05:00

...from the Exit Strategy shoot. Fantastic locations. Amazing performances. The hardest working crew in show business. What more could you ask for? I can't wait to see edited footage.

In the meantime, here's a crappy iPhone photo from the shoot:
of our incredibly talented (and beautiful) actors--Erica Hernandez, and Gabrielle Senn--in our favorite location.

Mandlebulb - The Mandelbrot fractal in 3D

2009-11-29T13:37:00.002-05:00

Inspired by Rudy Rucker (one of my all time favorite authors), the 2D Mandelbrot rendered in 3D. Amazing.

What's your poison?

2009-11-25T11:39:00.002-05:00

Internet Vices by illustrator Patrick Moberg

Websites as substance addiction. I think I'm a Tumblr Vimeo kinda guy. How about you?

is a bottle of wine

A quiet night in with a couple friends, and a couple of their friends. Spilling nostalgic stories, flipping through photo albums, singing favorite songs, aiming for poignancy, and occasionally stumbling onto it. Emotions flow freely and without thought.

is a tab of good acid

Everyone here is pretty nice and pretty chill. You'll witness some truly beautiful things. Sometimes emotional, visits can be long or short, but you'll leave amazed, and with a better understanding of the world.

OK, so what about Four Square? That's gotta be some variation on Twitter (cocaine)... rock cocaine? Freebase? What'cha'think?

We got both kinds -- Creepy & Cuddly

2009-11-22T11:11:00.002-05:00

I love these mohair sculptures by Alexandra Newmark

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T09:00:00.001-04:00

I vant to suck your bluud.

Here's a pic of me from Halloween 30 years ago taken by my friend Tom Lisowski. (Thanks, Tom!)

Cell Size and Scale

2009-10-30T15:17:00.002-04:00

Very simple, but effective interactive data visualization from the Genetic Science Learning Center of the University of Utah that shows the relative scale of things like amoebas, skins cells, viruses, etc.

Starting with a scale we can understand--Coffee beans, and grains of rice...

you can quickly zoom down to the level of cells, viruses, finally ending at a carbon atom, and get a real sense of how small these things really are.

Very nifty.

Exit Strategy is GO!

2009-10-08T12:36:00.003-04:00

We're cracking open champagne over at Small Media Extra Large. Teen Nick has hired us to create and produce a multi-episode pilot of a web series called Exit Strategy. I've been working on the series bible and scripts, and am really excited about the world we're creating.

Interactive Story Diagrams

2009-10-01T13:37:00.002-04:00

OK, I admit it, I'm a diagram junkie.

I really enjoy this Flickr set of diagrams from the planning documents for the CDX game:

Where am I?

The Story Plan

Who's a cooler band than They Might Be Giants?

2009-09-22T08:21:00.002-04:00

A slick mobile homescreen ineraction model...

2009-09-21T15:11:00.002-04:00

...for Android phones from Larva Labs.

I really like the way the message centric interface splits a user's life into the private and the public. Email, text messages, and phone calls vs. news and friend feeds. And how easily and intuitive it would be to define a preference between private vs. public priority.

Click on the Watch Video link to watch a demo.

How important is analytics?

2009-09-16T08:52:00.004-04:00

I've often thought of it as one of the primary foundations of web 3.0 (not to overuse an already overused phrase.)

Understanding how your audience interacts with your content and experiences is vital not only towards understanding how much to charge an advertiser, but also in being able to create targeted, personalized experience. The contextual web.

It must be pretty important. Adobe just spent $1.8 billion to buy Omniture an audience analytics company.

Levels of intimacy...

2009-09-14T13:41:00.001-04:00

A great diagram showing the 10 levels of intimacy from Please Enjoy

"Safe no matter what you make..."

2009-09-14T13:38:00.002-04:00

I really enjoy this Play-Doh campaign from Singapore:

Beautiful Infections

2009-09-10T13:59:00.002-04:00

Smallpox, HIV and an 'Unknown Future Mutation'

I love these lamp worked glass sculptures by Luke Jerram of various viruses. Beautiful.