Nur Ahmad Furlong

Islamic Experience Designer

Creative Thinking

Modular Smart Phone by Phonebloks – So cool I had to share

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broken iPhone
Photo by Lars Plougmann on Flickr

I haven’t posted anything to any of my sites for absolutely ages but the following project is just so inspiring and “necessary” that I thought it’s a definite must share. I know more than anyone else the problem we have with our “smart device” becoming unusable because one small little part broke. In many cases the cost of repairs are so high we end up tossing the device and just getting another, which is an extremely wasteful practice. My daughter just washed my iPhone and destroyed the screen. Even though all the other parts work perfectly fine the phone is useless and I’m struggling to find someone to repair it at a decent rate. I wouldn’t have a problem if I was using a Phonebloks Modular Smart Phone.

THE PROBLEM

A phone only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or becomes obsolete. Although it’s often just one part that killed it, we throw everything away because it’s almost impossible to repair or upgrade.

DESIGNED TO LAST

Phonebloks is made of detachable bloks. The bloks are connected to the base which locks everything together into a solid phone. If a blok breaks you can easily replace it; if it’s getting old just upgrade.

Modular and Reusable Phoneblocks
Modular and Reusable Phonebloks

I’m absolutely stunned that we’ve come so far without solutions like these becoming mainstream. Of course we know that’s driven by the consumerism being shoved down our throats by the corporations merely interested in profits and not sustainability. If we can use collaboration and networking to create mass movements we can surely get 1 simple and very necessary product developed.

A movement not a product

I think The Phonebloks project is more of a movement that a 1 off product and deserves our energies to see it realized. These types of solutions are what improve people’s lives drastically while not completely destroying the environment. It’s a matter of changing our mindsets and looking further than the status of the latest and most flashy device.

I highly recommend giving this project your support, getting the word out there and adding your voice to the Thunderclap.

I’m working with another like minded designer to create a community directory of dwelling modules along a similar lines. It’s called Wikidwell, the brainchild of Irina Papuc. It will contain fully modular items, free of toxins and completely recyclable

WDC2014 taking Cape Town Design onto the World Stage

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You may not have heard but there’s a City down South, at the very tip of Africa that’s been buzzing with the sound of creative innovation for some time. It’s a really beautiful place like none other, almost laid back and extremely friendly and hospitable. It recently hosted thousands of International visitors as part of the Soccer World Cup and is about to make an even more ambitious Bid to launch itself into the creative psyche of the globe. You guessed it, yes, Cape Town, the place I currently call home.

Creative Cape Town communicates, supports and facilitates the development of the creative and knowledge economy in the Central City of Cape Town.

The WDC2014 Initiative is aimed at getting Cape Town voted as the “World Design Capital 2014″ as a recognition of the advances in use of design to enhance society. Seoul was voted the 2010 World Design Capital and Helsinki for 2012.

What is WDC2014?

This prestigious status is designated biennially by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) to cities that are dedicated to using design for social, cultural and economic development.

Also View some of the Case Studies posted on the official website to see how the vision outlined above is coming to life

Visit the Following 2 Websites which are currently spear heading the initiative to find out more about the why and how of the project.

Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 bid concept, “Live Design, Transform Life”, focuses strongly on socially responsive design. – www.capetown2014.co.za

Join the Facebook Page and become part of the effort to get Cape Town recognized on the World Design Stage

Grab your supporter’s badge and be part of the team

Now go out there and slap some design on The Mother City! And don’t forget to share!

HTML 5 and digital generative art ALA Joshua Davis

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Heard the name Joshua Davis? If you’ve been into any kind of digital creative for some time you might have encountered the legendary digital artist who’s inspired some of the biggest brands out there to make use of his computer generated abstract art in their marketing efforts. Some of these Brands include – BMW, Motorola, Nike, Volkswagen, Sony, HBO, Canon & Nokia to name a few.

Hillman Curtis has done an excellent video piece on the BMW project to give you an insight into the world which Joshua Davis inhabits

The HTML 5 <canvas> element

Onto the scene steps HTML 5 and more specifically it’s Canvas element, turning the blank screen into a virtual blank canvas of 2D vector expression which allows artists like Joshua to unleash their special Brand of digital creativity. Add the brilliance of the Mix Online development team and you end up with a blend of creativity and modern web technology which allows the rest of us to enter the realm of the digital art space.

The Mix Digital team has developed a Javascript framework which plugs into the HTML Canvas element

Okapi is an open-source framework for building digital, generative art in HTML5 brought to you by Joshua Davis Studios and MIX Online. Mix Online Labs – http://visitmix.com/Lab

Okapi.js was commissioned by Microsoft to celebrate the launch of their latest and most HTML 5 compliant browser IE9. Finally a step in the right direction for Microsoft in the browser battles.

endlessmural.com

Using the Okapi.js framework, Joshua Davis created the Endless Mural project, where the drawing platform can be used by anyone with an HTML5 compliant browser to generate their own unique artworks to contribute to and enter the drawing competition.

The Interface allows for manipulation of vector symbols and pictograms, and controlling the patterns and textures they create by setting their speed, angle and rotation in various ways. The results are very random and abstract right down the alleyway of Joshua Davis’ unique style.

Here’s what I muddled together

You can watch my creation process online by visiting – http://endlessmural.com/#8833 to see how the elements spiral and grow, sprout and burst into the final chaotic vector garden which I created.

The Digital Space is surely getting really interesting with these new technologies opening up untapped avenues and making it more accessible to the rest of us. This is just one example of how HTML 5 is being leveraged. I’d like to hear what other interesting examples you’ve come across recently.

Faith 47 & the South African Reality

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Many of us who have spent the last few years in Cape Town may have come into contact with the street art of Faith 47. I’ve always wondered about the purpose behind these activists and their semi-subliminal messages which are scattered about on the neglected walls of our society. Faith 47 being one specific artist who’s work has always interested me, possibly due to the name Faith or maybe because it’s clear there’s more going on behind the scenes than just street art.

When I saw this video I gained a much better perspective, and almost an instantaneous appreciation for the value of consciousness art, something as a web designer for the last decade I have almost completely forgotten about.

the cape of good hope from rowan pybus & faith47 on Vimeo.

The Cape of Good Hope tells the story of the tragic and sometimes horrific newspaper headlines that people are faced with every day. It captures the darkness while suspending the headlines in time through a visual installation in the grimy district of Gympie Street in Lower Woodstock, Cape Town. The music for this video was produced by Inge Beckmann. – found on designindaba.com

This video presents a street art piece, captured in an intensly emotive video presentation. It takes a deep look into the messages which litter our street lamps and signs about the ugly side of life in South Africa.

No further comment!

Getting the most out of What We Do

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Last night I had a highly insightful chat on gtalk with @naeem who runs a number of successful online businesses and interest sites out of Johannesburg, South Africa. Naeem is someone I admire for being able to see a business opportunity around almost every corner, you can tell he’s been doing what he does for quite a while.

He passed on a really great online business idea

It was Something really simple and with potential to make some good dosh online, which got me thinking about the way I have been approaching my career. I’m not about to share his idea with the world to run off and make it irrelevant to me, but after coming across the following post written by Bud Caddell on whatconsumesme.com, I also re-thought whether just any good business idea would do for me.

venn

This Venn diagram gave me some serious food for thought in terms of how to go about sticking to what I do well, what I love doing and still making a decent living out of it. The post is entitled “How to be Happy in Business“. Apart from being a really well designed piece of informaton design, the concepts really hit me hard and also made me think back to my business ideas convo with @naeem. Would it do to get into just any type of business just to make money?

Budd lists the 3 problems highlighted by the diagram:

  • We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well.
  • We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town.
  • We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do.

I’m the type of person that generally comes up with business ideas connected to a direct need I have, and also most times relating to something which I’m really interested in, which helps me get my head fully inside the whole development process. Ok so I haven’t really succeeded with any of my crazy business ideas yet, LOL, nor have I even progressed to prototyping phase with some of the more serious ones, but this means that something disconnected to what I love doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even featuring. Then comes the problem of monetizing what I’m really truely passionate about.

Me gots lots to think about regarding this diagram!

On the same little stroll around the interwebs, I also found a really great way of identifying my own special business model, and applying my efforts in that direction. Gina Trapini, “software and self improvement junkie” wrote a piece on Freelance Switch where she says,

“While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction.”

(While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

She shares her personal “business model” in plain & simple terms, What’s important to her is more than just paying the bills while doing what she specializes in.

Personal Business Model of Gina Trapani

This particular concept highlights the importance of consantly tracking your activities based on what’s most important to you. Of course knowing what’s most important is step 1, having a plan to engage more in those areas comes next. I found in the last 2 months, tracking my activities in detail has given me huge insight in where the problem areas are. I’ve started taking a few steps in a new direction and these 2 posts/diagrams has helped wrap my head around the way forward.

Custom Word Cloud images, using Wordle

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I’m very much a fan of tag-clouds and have noticed a trend in typographic design to make more interesting use of them in experimental typographic designs. Wordle.net is a free online tool you can use to generate a custom coloured Word Cloud using either word’s of your choice, your site’s RSS feed to pull your site’s tags or your delicious feed. I’ve played with it and generated the following images, and with a few flexible tools you can create even more interesting versions of your selected list of keywords.

picture-3