/Big Question/ Inspiration nation
06/04/2009 | Filed under Discover > Big Question
What’s the most inspirational design you’ve seen recently?
Ecommerce expert
Ben Dyer
Actinic
This year I have fallen in love with tea, finding out all about the different brews. In fact the whole web community seems to be tea crazy at the moment. Brew 2.0, anyone?
To help get my perfect cup of char, I discovered a beautiful site from a company called Eteaket. In my view, the site is stunningly elegant, and gives a real master class in top end design.
It’s also refreshing to see the blend (no pun intended) of great design with ecommerce. Of course, they provide detailed information about their products, but the site also presents a number of nice touches like their ‘Tea Wish’ feature, and the inside story on the tea life cycle. It makes me feel great about their offering, and it’s my pick of the year.
Ben Dyer is director of product development at Actinic
Social media and comms expert
Rachel Hawkes
Elemental Communications
The most inspirational piece of design for me over the last year has to be
my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 mobile. This is my first Windows Mobile handset, and I wasn’t expecting it to be as neat as it is; the user interface is intuitive, flexible and most importantly, easy to navigate.
Many of the touch phones have a big clunky and often obtrusive stylus that sticks out like a sore thumb, but on the X1 it’s tucked in very neatly and unless you know where it lives, it can be hard to find! The sliding arched keyboard is a godsend; the keys are very easy to use and the space bar is a friendly size. The added bonus with the phone is definitely the universal headphone jack - it’s about time that handset manufacturers started listening to their users on this point!
Many of my mobile-enthusiast friends and colleagues are amazed at how small and lightweight the phone is for the type of handset it is - and I have to agree. I knew I wanted this phone for months before I even held a demo version and I was amazed at the size of it.
The only really disappointing thing I have encountered with my X1 to date is the lack of applications for Window’s Mobile and the X1 in particular. It’s more frustrating than I can even express to see how many thousands upon thousands of amazing apps there are for the iPhone and now the Android, and I have perhaps no more than ten useful ones available to me on the X1. It’s not good enough, Sony Ericsson.
What we really need is an application that allows developers to build apps that work across multiple devices without having to individually build them for each handset: wouldn’t that be sublime?
In terms of ‘real life’ inspirational design I’ve seen in the last year, I made my first trip to mainland Europe (Oslo) as an Antipodean late last year and the buzz from the local Oswegians was that the ‘must-see’ was the recently built opera house. I made my way there, to the beautiful waterfront and saw this giant glass construction reminiscent of my own country’s opera house sat on the picturesque Darling Harbour.
Although Oslo’s opera house is undoubtedly beautiful, it felt like the poor cousin of the Sydney Opera House so although I’ve not seen it during the last year, SOH would be my most inspirational ‘real life’ design over the last 12 months. Speaking as an unbiased Australian of course... or perhaps just a homesick one.
Rachel Hawkes is an account director at Elemental
Creative guru
Marc Peter
on-IDLE
The website that’s most inspired me in the past 12 months is Audi’s ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ microsite. Developed by Neue Digital/Razorfish, it’s an amazing use of animation and video to communicate high-involvement product information in an engaging, inspiring and intuitive way. Apart from the initial annoyance of having to select your continent and country, the execution is absolutely stunning. It’s exciting to play with the ‘dots’ that make up the car and you can’t help learning more about transmissions, energy management and engines than you’d ever do if you were wading through dry pages of technical data.
Marc Peter is the creative director of on-IDLE
Hosting expert
Steve Holford
Fasthosts
The Welsh National Assembly building – the Senedd in Cardiff Bay – is a great example of inspirational modern design. The building has a fantastic mix of wood and slate, with lots of natural light and a warm atmosphere. Being environmentally friendly (operationally and in terms of its construction) only adds to its appeal.
Steve Holford is chief marketing officer at Fasthosts
Business specialist
Dickie Armour
Fibranet Services Ltd
I’d nominate Second Life. It’s a free, online virtual world imagined and created by its residents. From a pure design perspective it’s a little bit clunky at times, but the entertainment, exploration and even business opportunities in SL are endless. The whole concept has been designed very cleverly to enable so many different experiences and with over 15 million registered residents it looks set to continue to grow.
Whilst to some it appears to be a game, people are starting to take SL quite seriously and generating decent revenues from this virtual world. A lady in Germany became the first resident in 2006 to make a million dollars in SL and in autumn 2008 IBM reportedly saved $320,000 by hosting an annual conference in SL.
Dickie Armour is general manager of Fibranet Services
PART TWO
Bookmark with:
Comments
Maria Melendez / 21/04/2009 / 17:37
