Heart material design
I think everybody in design is at certain points taken by the material design in which you create a product.
Getting the “hands dirty” in a real sense is something the digital designer probably envy of a physical product designer. It is quite rewarding to go through material exploration. Digital design is all about Meta design or Cognitive design between perception and interaction. It becomes real through repeated use, but often the experience is not immediate like objects.
Exploring the softness to change the relationship of a control interface is of course not new. It is part of the tradition in design. All the wearable computer is about how to make the controllers into the everyday fabric. From the moment, the glass surface became a norm (whether touch or not touch), it was in the design gene to explore the material.
I have tested silicon used for implants, playdoh, silly putty to make my work. In the end, I separated the interaction part (made of silly putty for unstable conductivity via water in the silly putty ) and the form design part made of silicon oil and special rubber material. The latter I believe is called condom in the supermarket.
This year, I noticed a project at Milan design that I liked that explores the material that has this organic quality of softness and bouncy. As we advanced in creating robots as the norm of electronics, it is important to push the material design to enrich the interaction with it.
There is also RCA graduate, Lyne Saleh,exploring this idea of skin like for tableware is attractive as well. A tableware that is edible shall take the market for fast food to reduce the pressing issues of pollutions.
I wonder what would be the material design for digital design. Is it design frameworks such as Material Design guideline or IoS human interface guideline?
Speaking about reducing waste with smart material design, I would love to see Ooho product go to mass market. You “eat” water, as water is packaged in algae based wrapper you can eat. Neat idea. I can see hurdles for sales distribution for the mass. We honestly need to get into slow food so that we do not transport water from the far away alps to the cities.
