Keep Up with Keeping Up

Keeping up with the ever-changing technology comes with the job of being in the creative media industry. This is especially important for those designers who create for the mass-market. How can you design the ‘next best thing’ when you don’t know what the ‘current best thing’ is?

Madeleine Morley at the American Institute of Graphic Arts says,

“A trend never simply emerges for a single year and then disappears in a puff of smoke. Instead, an aesthetic becomes popular gradually, even mysteriously, over time before fizzling out slowly without much notice at all.” (2015)

We know of the hamburger menu that makes our life so much easier, the long scroll websites with big hero images to grab our attention, and even the minimalist look of flat design, right? When and how did these get so popular?And what new things will come along to sweep these under the rug?

To stay up to date in design is to be able to stay ahead of the game to innovate and inspire people. Sure, there are ways to try to keep up, such as following Behance, Dribbble, Co.Design, or Trendlist… But is there an easy way to constantly stay ahead of the game without checking every single one of these websites for something new to pop up? Please let me know if you find one.

One of my goals is to somehow combine my love of design, tech and education into one and live happily ever after. To work towards this, I try my hardest to stay up to date with the latest trends in educational technology which could affect the design curriculum. We all know about how social media and mobile learning is latest and greatest way to chat to other students and teachers about classwork, but what about the physical hardware we see in our classrooms?

Showcased at the EduTECH exhibition last week, Sprout is the latest innovation by HP — the all-in-one collaborative device (HP, 2016). The Sprout can scan documents, map 3D objects placed on the touchpad, capture a screenshot of a conversation and annotate it instantly, and so much more (Bourque, 2016).

It’s pretty safe to say that one day computers will become invisible in the classroom just like blackboards, pens and books have over time. The kind of technology like Sprout is only going to evolve and become more efficient and ubiquitous. Whatever comes next will have to continue to enhance students’ network with collaborative work.

When it comes to collaboration in design, we are only going to see more gadgets come into play to help us connect and share from anywhere in the world at any time. Polycom is a great example of a company who strives to keep up in design and technology trends to create the best product and experience to its customers.

So what’s the ‘next big thing’ going to be that is nothing like we’ve ever seen before? Hopefully, one day, somewhere along the line if I’m really lucky, I’ll be the one who helps to create it.

Bourque, B. (2016). HP unleashes a new and improved Sprout Pro for the classroom. Digital Trends. Retrieved from: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/hp-sprout-pro-education-edition/

HP. (2016). Sprout 3D AiO Desktop. Retrieved from: http://www8.hp.com/au/en/sprout/home.html

Morley, M. (2015). The Trick to Predicting 2016’s Graphic Design Trends. Retrieved from: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-trick-to-predicting-2016s-graphic-design-trends/