Revealing Consequences

Modern conveniences and urban infrastructure shield us from the messy consequences of our behaviour. For example, what happens to the gunk we wash down the drain? Where does it go? How is it processed? What are the accumulated consequences? We assume that it all gets taken care of—processed cleanly and safely. That’s often not the case. And our ignorance can lead to increasingly reckless behaviour.

How can information designers better reveal the consequences of actions? How can the systems we rely upon be shown to us in an understandable way without oversimplification? What parts of the system should be revealed? Where should this information be placed so that people see it at the right moment? What behaviours should we encouraged and how can those behaviours be enabled?

Perhaps as importantly, how do we make people care once the implications of their actions are revealed? Is it enough to reveal the down-stream consequences of our actions, such as in the diagram above. What about what happens after that? How do the consequences come back to haunt us? How do you visually explain that?

Metro Groper

As an information designer, I sympathise with those tasked with visualising a touchy subject. Depicting a pervert intentionally groping a woman in the subway could come across as lewd, which sets the wrong tone for a warning sign. It’s interesting how much of this sign depends on comic book tropes, such as storm-cloud icons to show anger and a lightning-bolt icon to show an aggressive stare. For this technique to work, however, the storm clouds have to be recognisable. I’m not sure that’s the case. The facial expressions communicate most of the meaning, with the ambiguous icons causing a bit of distraction.

Design technicalities aside, what does the depicted scenario say about policy-makers’ perceptions of the problem? And the cultural assumptions and sensitivities that go along with that? For example, what expectations does the angry third person (the one with the hat) convey about what social pressures are appropriate from bystanders?

Wearables?

The practice of installing mittens on scooters, instead of wearing them as an article of clothing, is handy. But what does year-round usage say about the purpose? Protection from wind and rain? Certainly. Protection from sun? Yes. Pollution and road grime? Perhaps. An extra layer of collision protection? I’m not so sure, although that might help the women pictured above given that she’s driving on the wrong side of the road (a frustratingly common practice in Beijing).

I often say that the future of urban transport is multimodal, meaning that well designed cities provide lots of options for getting around (by foot, bike, scooter, subway, car, and so forth). Crowded, chaotic, polluted mega-cities put an extra burden on certain modes of transportation. To what extent will that burden come in the form of extra layers of protective clothing? This spring, fashion shows in China have been featuring models wearing air-filtration masks. Is that more than a clever fashion statement? A portent of the future? If extra layers of protection are in our future, to what extent will they be attached to the objects we use instead of worn in the conventional way?

(Related: Skin 2: Cover Up)

Portable Office

A few months ago, I gave a speech on the future of officing, an ongoing research interest of mine. I’m intrigued by how our workstations are becoming more portable and modifiable as our work takes us to new places. Such workstation designs close the physical and social distance between workers and enable new forms of collaboration. They also allow previously office-bound workers to get out into the world to be closer to those who are affected by the work. That removes a layer of mediation and abstraction. Unfortunately, established organisations have an inertia that make them reluctant to adopt radically new officing technologies. Thus, as much of my research is on the cultural inertia as it is on the technologies.

The tools I need to do my job (Macbook Air, power cord, Hyperjuice battery pack, iPhone with Mophie Juicepack, iPad, softcover Moleskine notebook, one of my smaller cameras, and a handful of Staedtler pens) now fit in a small messenger bag. Just three years ago, my tool bag took up twice as much space and weighed three times as much. These tools allow me to work anywhere, even places without power and internet access. But what about workers who need more office amenities, amenities that can’t just be carried around?

China’s national police force has the answer to that question. Make the office into a vehicle. As you can see, the vehicular aspects of the portable room are kept to the bare minimum. Most of the design effort went into making sure that as much space as possible is devoted to office use. This particular movable-room even contains an old fashioned water cooler.

Where else would these movable-rooms make sense? What other occupations and organisational functions would benefit? How can the vehicles be platooned together to form larger offices? How would widespread use of movable-rooms change the nature of organisation by making them more flexible and adaptable, as well as fewer steps removed from clients? How do truly portable offices fit into the highly interconnected organisations we see emerging in many sectors of the economy? Do organisations need a building in a local neighbourhood to maintain a local presence?

Pop Star

Grape, lemon, and orange; otherwise known as Taeyang, G-Dragon, and TOP of the boy band Big Bang. At what point does a celebrity endorsement become a brand upstaging another brand? When celebrities release their own products (think Dr Dre and Lady Gaga headphones), how does that disrupt a market? Or do such co-branding methods make it easier for an unknown brand to enter into a new market?

(Related: Endorsed)

Ground Spam 2

With phone screens grabbing spare attention, people’s field of view changes: more gazes are directed downwards. That’s an opportunity for advertisers, who know a thing or two about using your peripheral vision as a gateway to full attention. Ground-surface ads work when they’re visible (large, contrasting, colourful, moving) and expectation-defying (Is that a miniature truck? Is that a face on the ground?). There’s an even bigger pay-off if the ads form a trail that leads you to a commercial transaction.

The remote-control truck as ad-platform has me thinking. What is the future of physical, moving objects that lure you into a store by guiding the way? What about moving lights and video images imbedded in the ground, responding to each person’s presence? Those technologies exist. How long will it be before they’re deployed by advertisers?

At what point will the physical platform become the communications “platform”? Will marketing-system companies like Clear Channel eventually pay for ground construction in exchange for the ad space? And if that technology evolves and becomes more affordable, what other purposes make sense? Wayfinding? Traffic direction? What else?

(Related: Ground Spam)

Rack ‘em, Stack ‘em

North Americans’ love of the automobile has had an unfortunate consequence for the landscape: sprawling parking lots. One problem is the space inefficiency of devoting large tracks of land to lifeless asphalt flatland. Another problem is convenience. Finding a spot in a large crowded lot is an ordeal. Remembering where you put your car in a large crowded lot can be another ordeal. There are the safety problems caused by high collision rates, not to mention the cost of property damage by poor parkers. And then there’s the ugly single-use emptiness of parking space amid the built environment. The waste seems egregious considering that most cars are used for only brief periods of the day.

There are alternatives. You can bury the parking lot and create an underground parkade. You can also build the parkade upwards as a building. These sheltered parking lots have advantages in harsher climates. But many inefficiencies still remain.

This has me wondering about the future of “filing” cars into racks and carousels. In some places—South Korea and Japan, in particular—this approach has become commonplace. As the pressures of urban density increase, will this approach spread. What are the attitudinal barriers to adoption? What is the most energy efficient design? How big can they get—what economies of scale can be achieved—while maintaining a small “footprint”? As the photographs suggest, there is already quite a large range of sizes. (Notice that the high-rise version doesn’t have the same ventilation requirements and footprint as a drive-in high-rise parkade.) How do these racks affect driving behaviour? And the surrounding neighbourhood? For example, how is the “walkability” of a place improved? This section of Seoul has more of a village feel than, say, downtown San José, where parking lots prevent a critical mass of street life from coalescing.

(Related: Parking On The Edge)

In The Slow Lane

As you can see, bike lanes in China don’t always live up to the name. Miscellany lanes is a more apt description.

I’m about to do some do-it-yourself repairs on my bicycle before hitting the lanes for the first time this season. There’s still a DIY repair culture among cyclists. Hardcore cyclists accumulate tools and know-how over the years. The bicycles themselves are heavily componentised, which makes it easy to disassemble and swap parts. Yet there is a point beyond which it gets too intricate and fiddly. High-end cycles are engineered with such precision that it often doesn’t pay to fix things yourself. The fiddliness makes me miss the bikes I rode around Beijing, which were constructed more like AK47 rifles: simple, durable parts; assemble with blunt instruments to loosely fit together; ride in all weather and surface conditions without worry.

But then again, even basic cycles call for more serious maintenance … that you shouldn’t try at home.

(Related: Parking Hacks 2: Plate Stashing and Tarmac Motif)

Bike Station

One of my ongoing projects is documenting the world’s cycle-friendly urban infrastructure. It’s an interesting area of governance because it cuts across the state, commercial, and non-profit sectors. And it’s interesting because there’s a lot of experimentation going on, with different cities having very different histories with the bicycle. As cycling season kicks off where I am, I thought I’d share a few innovations.

This cycling service-station is connected to Seoul’s World Trade Center. The station is enclosed, thus protecting bikes and riders from the weather. Bike racks have two tiers for greater space efficiency in a city where parking space is scarce. That can be awkward as a self-service option, so an attendant helps with the racking. Bikes are checked in and out for greater security. What other services would be ideal for such a station? Cleaning? Maintenance? For example, topping up tire pressure or changing brake pads would add a lot of value and convenience to the service. What about accessory sales?

In some places, such as China, bicycles are treated as low-brow utility vehicles. In other places, such as parts of North America and Europe, bicycles are high-brow recreational vehicles and hipster status symbols. Seoul is interesting because there are aspects of both cycling cultures at play, which partly explains the high quality of the city’s cycling infrastructure. What role could full-service cycle stations play in making bicycle riding more mainstream and popular? In other words, how important are such stations for normalising bicycle ridership by making it more convenient and raising it’s social status?

(Related: Work Bikes and Street Fixers)

Scaled Niche

Merchants peddling similar wares often cluster in the same city district. How narrow can the niche get? At the same time, how big can it scale? So-called Big Box retailers, such as warehouse-sized stores selling office supplies or shoes, have been pushing the limits of large-scale specialisation for brick’n'mortar shopping. Or have they?

It’s sometimes hard to communicate the size of economic production and distribution in the Pearl River Delta. The district shown above is a case in point. It’s a large section of city devoted to nothing but hotel supplies. The first two photographs show a full-sized shopping mall for dishes. The other photos show block after block of retailers, each specialising in a different hotel item. There are several multi-storey shops selling only bathrobes. And several selling towels. And several selling uniforms. And there’s even a store for hotel sushi-restaurant accoutrements. The pedestrianised street in the last photograph is for chandelier retailers. It isn’t the only one in the district.

This district is supported by a rapidly expanding hotel sector. (China has been playing catch-up in that sector for a while.) And the hotel sector is supported by double-digit economic growth rates. So the question is: how sustainable is a district like this when the growth plateaus? Will it diversify its customer-base by catering to an international clientele (most of the retailers sell online too)? Or will the district diversify its goods and services for a local clientele? If Big Box retail centres pose a problem for socially oriented human-scale urbanism, what challenges are posed by a district like this?

(Related: Gün Runners)

Podular

Here’s another case where the design inspiration comes from the natural world. Indeed, these motorcycle-mounted containers look like giant nuts or seeds. The design probably has similar qualities to a nut shell: the round contours provide strength; the overall shape is self-righting. These pods may even be reasonably aerodynamic, resulting in less drag than standard, boxy courier luggage. Perhaps most importantly, the pods remind us of the natural world in an eye-catching way. In a city full of right angles and hard edges, natural contours offer a refreshing contrast.

I wonder about the viability of also adding natural variation to designs. Notice that the pods don’t seem to be created from a mould, yet they are copies of the same original; the patterning is the same but with subtle differences. That suggests hand-crafted copying. As 3D printing and other custom fabrication processes evolve, will we be able to purposefully mass-manufacture subtle variations into the design of each object to make it unique? How will quirky differences affect consumer tastes? And expectations? Will this become part of the movement towards mass individualisation of goods and services?

(Related: Organic Simulacrum)

Ad Jacking

Poster space with lots of walk-by traffic is coveted by street advertisers. Those who put up posters have few inhibitions about papering over someone else’s ad. Some social pressures are at play, however. Papering over a freshly posted ad can result in reprisals. But it’s understood that are no guarantees that a poster will remain unobscured for long. Such are the social expectations of street posting.

But what about posting an ad into another poster? Here a sticker-ad for soup has been placed on beverage posters. In one of them, the blue sky and splashy water become an eye-catching frame for the intruding ad. According to the norms of the graffiti world, this is the ultimate form of disrespect—modifying someone else’s work can result in lengthy feuds. What about among street advertisers?

Some consider unauthorised ad-posters to be a form of parasitism (benefiting at the expense of a host). Are the “ad jackers” parasites of parasites? As with parasites in an actual ecosystem, how will the hosts evolve to defend themselves? Will defences evolve, such as poster designs that make ad jacking less attractive? Or will the stickers be targeted for reprisals? Will the conflict raise the ire of the larger host (building owners and public authorities), thus harming both parasites? Will an ecological equilibrium of sorts eventually develop?

Germ Defence

I just watched Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion (2011) about a plague that spreads rapidly across the world with the help of global transportation networks. The film’s message made me pause for thought, especially as someone who contracted the Swine Flu from a township dweller in Pretoria during the height of the epidemic … and then proceeded to take the illness on a tour of some of the world’s biggest airports.

As cities become denser and more crowded, and as human mobility increases, how do we prevent the germs and viruses from spreading? Cultural practices play a big role but those spread slowly and unevenly. In China, both germophobic paranoia and hygenic nonchalance are on display. It doesn’t help that germs cover our touchable surfaces (paper money, door handles, key pads, touch screens, et cetera). So does that mean we should turn to technology? Will gestures and motion-detection overtake touch as a mode of digital interaction in those situations where there are hygiene concerns? And what happens when hygiene concerns spread to a wider array of situations?

I notice a few new low-tech options gaining popularity in Asia. Surgical masks are giving way to facial sneeze-guards, which makes sense considering the importance of smell for cooking. Food preparers are now expected to wear plastic gloves, a practice which is spreading to diners eating hand-held foods. How effective are these technologies? Are they just gimmicks and half-measures? Or are highly visible gimmicks the point? That is to say, do these technologies exist to plaquate fears more than guard against germs? Or raise awareness of hygiene problems?

(Related: Food Prep 1: Ratings)

Smiley Face

A printer. A delivery man. A neighbour. Common feature: a genuine smile; a smile that’s expressed with the eyes, not just the upturned edges of the mouth. This distinction, I’ve just learned, is called the “Duchenne Smile”.

In its basic form, the smile is recognised universally across cultures. The universality of the smile helps when trying to communicate in a place where you don’t speak the language. It often instills a sense of trust and ease in others—it serves as a “social lubricant”, so to speak. However, as Ron Gutman points out in his book Smile (2011), smiling isn’t exactly the same across cultures. In many cultures a smile isn’t considered genuine unless it’s of the Duchenne variety. As an example, the focus on the smiling eyes can be seen in the different emoticon tradition that developed in Japan.

These emoticon characters are important for preventing misunderstanding when communicating with text, given how often we look to facial cues to interpret meaning (for detecting sarcasm, as one example). That said, as Gutman explains, smiling can create all sorts of cross-cultural misunderstanding. For example, smiling is considered the appropriate response for blundering embarrassment in some cultures, yet the appropriate response is something more obviously remorseful in other cultures. Everyday public smiling differs from place to place, ranging from poe-faced reserve to eery perma-grin. And subtle differences in smile can betray where you’re from, with experiments demonstrating that Americans show more upper teeth while Brits show more lower teeth.

Those interested in the psychology of impression management take note: smiling creates rapport. It improves customer satisfaction, which is why the “emotional labour” of smiling has a market value. People who smile are considered more charismatic, attractive, approachable, and trustworthy, provided the smile isn’t perceived as contrived. Most importantly from Gutman’s perspective, smiling energises and puts you in a good mood … something which is socially contagious. All of this makes me wonder, as communication and commercial transactions move online, how do we build rapport and convey friendliness when real smiles aren’t available? What’s lost by substituting smiles with emoticons, cutesy illustrations, and stock-photos of smiling people?

Finally, I obviously couldn’t write something about smiling without posting some art by Yue Minjun, the Chinese artist who’s famous for his wacky smiling men. Understanding the subtle subversiveness of these figures can tell you a lot about Chinese politics.

(Related: Expressions of Genre)

Organic Simulacrum

This installation by THUPDI is called The Tree of Life. It was part of a light show in the centre of Guangzhou. The name suggests that the stemmed pods represent a forest canopy, with jungle tendrils hanging down. To my eye, however, they seem more like lily pads, as seen from below. Perhaps I’m too strongly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous lily pad pillars in the Johnson Wax Building. The texture also reminds me of podular plants with a leafy skin, albeit with an alien luminescence. The magnified photographs of plant life seen in science magazines, as well as the aesthetics of science fiction, are undoubtedly my cultural references in that interpretation. That said, it’s entirely possible that these were the actual design inspirations, with the installation called The Tree of Life because a committee of bureaucrats just wanted a vaguely uplifting cliché for a name.

I’m a big fan of design inspired by the organic world. I’m strongly influenced by the thinking of Ross Lovegrove, especially his idea of “organic essentialism”:

Organic, meaning the way we think; meaning a full organic, three-dimensional, polysensorial view of life. So you have massive awareness of what’s around you. Organic, meaning form; organic meaning material in the way we deal with cradle-to-cradle [comprehensive recycling] issues. So that organic has more of a meaning than you think. The second one is essentialism, which means nothing more and nothing less than you need. So you scrape away all of that stuff which is extraneous. The economics of anything benefit the world because it costs you less material, it costs you less money, and often costs you less effort to be economic. And I don’t mean minimalism because minimalism without meaning is just cheap.

As futuristic as The Tree of Life looks, the installation is rather antagonistic towards this vision of design. It’s a brash, power-hungry, centre-piece spectacle. There are minimalist influences, yet it can also appear ornate (when the tendrils light up). It’s a temporary structure constructed with conventional materials. Guangzhou planners have acquired a taste for avant-garde architectural styles, but not much of a taste for avant-garde design philosophies.

Rachel Armstrong’s excellent book Living Architecture (2012) was published today. She points out that cities, particularly “mega-cities” such as Guangzhou, are deserts of natural life. That need not be so. Instead of treating the natural world as an inspiration or a source of raw materials, designers could integrate biological systems into the actual buildings.

Synthetic-biology approaches change our expectations of architecture. Rather than being inert, buildings could respond to the seasons as our parks and gardens do, with living coatings adapting to the availability of more or less wind, sunlight and water. Protocell-based coatings offer not only the capacity for a unique growth of materials but also potential applications in “healing” “broken” buildings, by which molecular interactions detect and deposit material into stress fractures to form “scar tissue” at the microscale. … Novel materials may change the “fertility” of an urban environment. Cities could be active sites of resource production rather than sumps of consumption. (pp. 56-57)

Thus, instead of relegating organic life to little patches, organic systems would become a more integral part of the city.

How would this vision of a “living city” change urbanite’s connection to the natural world? And their perceptions of organic life? What affect would it have on aesthetic tastes? For example, Armstrong discusses a scenario in which “living paints” on buildings would change colour or texture as they react to the surroundings, such as drawing pollution out of the air. How could biological building surfaces become interfaces that convey meaningful information about our surroundings?

(Related: Podular)

Contemplative Photography

I’ve been reading The Practice of Contemplative Photography (2011) by Andy Karr and Michael Wood. The book is about noticing in a mindful way, with the camera as aid. As the authors put it:

Unfortunately, much of the time, we are cut off from clear seeing and the creative potential of our basic being. Instead, we get caught up in cascades of internal dialogue and emotionality. Immersed in thoughts, daydreams, and projections, we fabricate our personal versions of the world and dwell within them like silkworms in cocoons. … Generally we are unaware of these currents of mental activity, and it is hard to distinguish what we see from what we think about. … Photography can be used to help distinguish the seen from the imagined, since the camera registers only what is seen. … We are often surprised to find that our photographs do not show what we thought we were shooting. (p. 2)

Very true. The authors make a distinction between the conceptual and perceptual ways of seeing. We are invited to shed the intellectual concepts that cause us to selectively filter out the world. Instead, we are encouraged to view our surroundings in a primal, emotional, unassuming way. This awareness allows us to dwell on aesthetic details that would otherwise be ignored. That’s not to say this mode of awareness is undiscerning. Certain aesthetic values, such as simplicity, draw the eye as we explore inquisitively. As you might suspect, this approach is strongly informed by the Buddhist notion of mindfulness.

I find it useful to switch to this intuitive, contemplative noticing from time to time, especially to jog my brain out of routine. My take on mindfulness, however, is mostly about conceptual ways of seeing, with the concepts drawn from design and social science thinking. Knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and attention to minutia can help you see things others ignore and take for granted. And taking on the concepts of another culture can introduce you to new ways of seeing and interpreting. True: conceptual thinking is a filter. But who says you need to use the same concepts all the time? As Ellen Langer points out in Mindfulness (1990), mindful learning comes from paying attention to how concepts and categories guide our way of seeing, while regularly suspending and redefining those mental constructs as we reflect on our experiences.

As you can see from the progression of photographs above, I enjoy delving into the aesthetics of simplicity … but not for long. There’s always a high concept around the next corner.

Religious Status

I’ve been reflecting on the latest religious imbroglio in Jaipur. I won’t go into the details. The important point is that it’s a free speech controversy between nonreligious novelists and religious activists, with authorities seemingly siding with the latter. The controversy highlights India’s model of secularism, which strives for religious harmony by trying to put the many religions on equal footing while policing inter-religious conflict. This isn’t a separation of church and state, as you’d find in France, Turkey, and the United States. It’s the promotion of equal status of every religion within the public sphere. Often times, however, the model puts the vocal nonreligious in a precarious position.

You see India’s version of secularism on view in the streets. Religious imagery in public spaces celebrates multiple religions, not just one. Of course, different religions have their own artistic traditions. Should the imagery reflect these different styles? What are the risks of not doing so?

A new book by Charles Taylor et al., Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (2011), wrestles with the main challenge posed by this model of secularism.

Under an ethics of dialogue, citizens engage candidly in discussions about the foundations and orientations of their political community, using the explanatory and justificatory language of their choice, while at the same time displaying sensitivity or empathy toward core convictions that are an integral part of their fellow citizens’ moral identity. But how are we to reconcile that ethics of dialogue with the fact that liberal and democratic states also define themselves as “open societies,” that is, societies in which freedom of expression and the vigorous debate of ideas reign? (p. 108)

The authors waffle on that question, concluding that freedom of expression shouldn’t be limited, but that an “ethics of concern” should cause people to self-censor their potentially hurtful views for the sake of community cohesion. What about an “ethics of resilience”? That would entail a duty of citizens to develop a “thicker skin”—be less sensitive, take things less personally, act less threatened by opposing views—on matters of political and religious controversy? Which ethic will become dominant as societies become more diverse? Put another way, which ethic is better at reducing conflict? At promoting freedom of conscience? Or, as a matter of pragmatic coping, will people be required to adopt both ethics to some degree?

Mobile Computing

The revolution in touch-screen computing continues … sometimes much faster than the trade in accessories.

Motorcycle couriers in Seoul have made tablet computers—Samsung Galaxy Tabs, by the looks of it—an integral part of their job. How can a courier keep these displays front and centre while speeding through the city? By turning the tablet into a handle-bar-mounted dashboard, of course. These are crude-looking hacks. That’s not to say they aren’t well thought out. Notice the padding to counter road vibration … the easy-open containers for swift removal … the sun shade to prevent glare … the sturdy weldings to secure the holder … the chopstick holder for, uh, lunch. But notice, too, the obscuring of the motorcycle gauges and the creation of an enormous blind spot. There seems to be a market for a polished, adjustable, and better situated version.

When desktop computers revolutionised the office, professions were transformed relatively slowly. For example, accountants had their jobs changed in the late 1970s, whereas many executive jobs weren’t changed much until two decades later. Tablet computers seem to be spreading more rapidly. Today we see motorcycle couriers relying on tablets. What other commonplace jobs are ripe for a touch-screen make-over? Which ones aren’t very computer-intensive at the moment? What are the lucrative accessory markets just waiting for an enterprising entrepreneur to move in?

Tarmac Motif

Lines painted on roads are there to regulate traffic. Unfortunately for traffic authorities, unlawfully crossing a line seems like a minor transgression to most motorists. That’s why bustling cities are increasingly placing hard barriers on roads to guide traffic. Instead of hard barriers, however, what if cities just changed the symbolism associated with the lines?

As you can see here, some roads in Seoul are subdivided with lines into motor-vehicle lanes, bike lanes, and walkways. This is the repurposing of narrow roads to encourage multimodal usage instead of car dominance. To reinforce the subdivision, the surface of the road has been painted a brick motif with dark outlines (bike lane) and light outlines (walkway). The motif makes it cognitively easier to perceive the different lanes. The illusion of brick lanes also increase the anxiety caused by crossing the lines illegally. For example, not only is a car parked on the walkway easier to spot, making it more likely that the driver is subjected to social sanctions (such as tut-tutting), but the significance of the transgression is amplified by the different surface; it appears as if the driver has gone “off road” physically. Even if everyone knows that the surface is just a paint job, the anxiety-inducing impression can persist.

The main drawbacks of this approach: the intricate patterns have to be repainted periodically, wear unevenly, and are less obvious than a raised surface when it snows. The motif can also look tacky, especially amid gentrified surroundings. As a design problem, how can some of these drawbacks be overcome? For example, would a different pattern work better? Different materials? Subtle textures? How can the effect be maintained while also ensuring cost effectiveness?

(Related: Colouring Outside The Lines and In The Slow Lane)

Kitty Shelter

For every consumer product you can name, there’s probably a Hello-Kitty-branded version being sold somewhere. The Japanese commercial character is the standard-bearer of the cuteness economy. That said, I’m pretty sure that the Sanrio corporation, owners of the brand, didn’t license this Hello Kitty homeless shelter. It was clad together by a member of Seoul’s cantankerous, underground-dwelling homeless population, the one depicted in Jin-Mo Jo’s brilliant film Suicide Forecast (2011). In a world where branding is ubiquitous, is it possible for a company to avoid negative associations with its proprietary imagery?

Fashion companies are recoiling from such cases. News agencies broadcast images of a Norwegian serial killer wearing the Lacoste alligator logo, as well as an arrested Mexican drug-kingpin showing off Ralph Lauren’s polo-player logo. Not all publicity is good publicity. A consumer base’s sense of brand affiliation can sour quickly when the brand suddenly connotes the wrong kind of associations. Yet undesirable associations can also open up new markets, as some companies discovered when gangsta rappers made a point of ostentatiously trumpeting luxury brands in songs and music videos. Brand owners can’t always influence the “buzz” surrounding their products … and that can have unanticipated benefits.

That doesn’t mean brand owners won’t try to exert control. I fearlessly predict that, in the coming years, news agencies will be pressured into blurring out logos in imagery of crime suspects and disaster victims. You already see this censorship tactic in some markets when advertising is inadvertently caught in news imagery. Some logos are blurred out in trashy reality-TV shows. Will such practices become widespread? What’s fair game for this form of tangential censorship? Will a disconnect emerge between our ad-saturated surroundings and ad-sanitised published imagery?

(Related: Gun-running Muppet and Cuteness Economy)

Around the Block

Wayfinding in South Korea is dominated by high-tech gadgetry. It’s refreshing to see a clever, hand-crafted alternative that adds charm to an otherwise sterile space. Wood slabs represent each shop in a craft market, as annotated in hangul script. Colour coding differentiates each neighbourhood block. The map takes up an entire wall, making it easy to see from a distance and from many different angles.

As makeshift as the map looks, there are several sophisticated design features in use. As merchants come and go from the market, slabs can be replaced easily. The lack of strict uniformity prevents the switch from looking out of place. The colour pallets of each neighbourhood block cohere, showing an understanding of how colour works. The colours don’t obscure the wood grain, creating a rustic look that highlights the use of natural materials instead of synthetic ones. The overall impression is of a place that is approachable and down-to-earth. And there’s an implicit, subtle reminder that the products in the market are the result of human hands, not robots and assembly lines, and should be valued as such.

What are the other ways in which conspicuous hand-crafting and raw-looking materials can add contrast to our plasticky, enamel-coated world? There’s a fine line between shabbiness and sophistication with such an approach, it seems to me. The design has to age gracefully. It has to demonstrate artistry, care, and taste. What will become more rare and valuable in the future: the natural materials or the ability to apply them skillfully?

Egghead

Packaging an individual food item is controversial when it already has a protective covering, such as a shell or skin. The company Del Monte learned that lesson the hard way when confronted with a political backlash over its plastic-wrapping of individual bananas. Preserving the freshness of the food often has less to do with the decision to package than the needs of the information economy (inventory-management bar-codes, branding logos and slogans, legal disclaimers, expiration dates, and so forth). I’ve talked before about one way around the problem: imprinting directly on the natural covering. These egg hats from a Seoul convenience store are certainly wasteful, but at least have the virtues of being minimal in size and informationally space-efficient. Zero-packaging grocery stores (such as Austin’s in.gredients) may be on the right side of history, but the current global trend is more informational-packaging, not less.

What makes the egg hats particularly interesting is the design inspiration. Would it have occurred to a non-Asian designer to add conical hats to the eggs? In other words, to what extent do actual conical hats used throughout Asia inform the design as a cultural reference (as opposed to a purely functional form)? Are the hats a subtle message to consumers? Does the egghead analogy make the eggs seem cute, and therefore more desirable, in a place where the cuteness economy is popular? Would most customers outside of Asia perceive the analogy? If not, to what extend would that undermine the spread of the design?

(Related: Custom Skin)

Rent-a-mob

Street protesting isn’t permitted in China. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. Tens of thousands of spontaneous mobs cause authorities headaches every year. These usually involve a local dispute or injustice that escalates as others join in. Many of the mobs get violent. There are also the illegal strikes (which sometimes involve kidnapping bosses) and sit-ins (some quiet and some not so quiet). The widespread impression of China as completely pacified by authoritarian overlords could not be further from the truth, which explains why the state is so touchy about protest movements in general.

And then there’s this roaming mob. It isn’t protesting high prices. It’s protesting high prices. That is to say, it isn’t a political protest against inflation, stagnant wages, and the high cost of living. It’s an advertising ploy to draw attention to a grocery store’s special deals. Motives and affiliations matter. So do political optics: this isn’t an aggressive group of rabble-rousers shouting radical slogans near a government monument; it’s a laid-back group of commercial-jingle chanters who amble casually down the sidewalk in a shopping district. Most bystanders treat the mob as just another onslaught of marketing messages to be filtered out. Quite a few bystanders, I suspect, are a bit unnerved by the spectacle due to the symbolism that street protests have in Chinese political culture. The mob is probably not the grocery store’s best marketing idea.

This case has me thinking about the role of rent-a-mobs in other places. Social media technology has helped coordinate spur-of-the-moment, mischief-making “flash mobs”, as explained by Bill Wasik in the book And Then There’s This (2009). In recent years, information technology has been used successfully to recruit and rally protestors in old-fashioned sit-ins and street protests. How long will it take before advertisers make productive use of these methods? Or is the risk of adverse consequences keeping advertisers away?

Kuribayashi’s Drift

The snow is starting to accumulate where I am. Not much snow. But enough to signal the change in season. And that has me thinking about Takashi Kuribayashi’s installation at the Museum, Beyond Museum in Seoul. The installation is called In Between. What you’re seeing in the photographs is the centre piece, which the German-educated Kuribayashi calls Wald aus Wald [Forest from Forest].

An amorphous snowdrift overwhelms the sharp-edged, geometrically defined space. The branch and crinkled-paper textures contrast nicely with the clean walls. The layers and levels of the exhibit remind us that, in the snowy forest, one creature’s ground is another creature’s roof. The vantage points in between the layers offer some of the most interesting perspectives.

As I write this, I’m watching the snow fall on a bustling city. Cities are full of levels and layers, with another one forming before my eyes. It has me wondering: what are all the in-between perspectives of the cityscape?

Ad Dress

Where do people look when they’re standing in a cramped subway train? Where can they look from their vantage point? Where can they look safely because of people’s instinctual inhibitions and the prevailing social norms? Those are the places you’ll increasingly find advertising, I predict. What kind of advertising? What kind of information? Given that most people in the vicinity have a phone, I suspect that ads will take advantage of that. The game is as much about breaking down the barriers to attention and elaboration as it is about enticing curiosity.

There is a difference between visability and social visibility. We ignore those things that we don’t distinguish conceptually as noteworthy objects (perceptual inattention). We ignore those things that make us feel uncomfortable for whatever reason (selective inattention). In a social encounter, we may glance at a stranger to acknowledge their presence but then avert our gaze to prevent feelings of awkwardness (civil inattention). When people stand in close quarters they tend to be more self-conscious and anxious about where their gaze is pointed. Thus, when in dense urban spaces (subway standing-space, elevators, queues, and so forth), people look for “safe” places to stare: at the walls, at a phone screen, and at the yoke of another’s shirt. And in the “attention economy”, as advertisers call their markets, these spaces are where the money is to be made.