#40/100 Days of experience: Illustrations, storytelling, and functional products
Take a look at your phone. How many things can it do? Don’t worry I’ll wait for you to count. 20? 40? 100? Infinite? Is it almost far more useful and convenient than Rosie in the Jetsons? Today’s products are extremely functional, and you can do almost everything faster, better, more efficiently. But then there are things that these products and the makers of these products do which aren’t about functionality. Maybe even not directly about a “core metric”.
In “dead poet’s society”, this is what Robin Williams’ character says “ We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
In the digital age, what is the poetry of the things on your phone? What stories do they tell you? Maybe you go to Google every day, not just to search, but to also see what is the doodle today. What is Google saying about the culture today?
Google doodles are adorable. They bring you in, make you keep coming back everyday. Because Google is trying to tell you about what is important enough today, that is art worthy.
Or maybe this simple, but adorable illustration, which tells a story of new undiscovered lands, significant leaps, and a spirit of exploration.
It’s tiny, but use an illustration, and you infuse story and love and care in your product. I mean, your product needs to have those things in spirit too, but illustrations can help you actualize it.
So what will you create today?
