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Andy: What was your motivation to create objects out of street maps?  What inspired you?

John Briscella

John: In the past few years, I have been living in different cities around the world and started to have different emotions for each one. I am originally from Philadelphia, but was living mainly in Vienna, Austria, and my favorite city at the moment is Tokyo. One of my favorite things to do within a new city is to walk around without a map, try to get lost, and then if I make it back, chart out on a map the path I was going. Sometimes I miss alot about the city and sometimes I happen to find interesting areas, its all relative, but I try not to make the same path twice.
The clocks were an idea from these explorations, as well as some of my other projects, that begun to connect the formal aspects of the street network and their inherent qualities of the space.

Andy: How did you find Fluid Forms and how did things start?

John: While in Vienna, I happened to see the Fluid Forms Earth Bowl Design at a friend’s gallery shop. The concept was interesting and similar to my ideas about place. After taking a look at their complete works, I noticed I had similar works that might be interesting to them and sent them a email about my thoughts. Stephen wrote me back mentioning he had saw my Urban Gridded Notebook at the Kunsthaus in Graz, while looking for a gift.  From then on, we were having discussions about collaborating on new products.

Andy: What was the best / hardest thing to do in this project?

Urban Grided Notebook

John: Working with Stephen is really cool. We have been talking about techniques and he is able to see where the potential is to develop into a Fluid Forms concept. The hardest part of the project is to find the correct associations between the objects, the street network, usability, and production method. Its a delicate mixture.

more about John on his blog
more about the Urban Grided Notebook
buy the Urban Grided Notebook on Walking-Things.com

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We’ve been asked to organize a creative coding workshop during the Ars Electronica Festival. We have invited a good mixture of creative minds (Martin Fuchs, Adi Hofmeister, Stefan Kainbacher, Cedric Kiefer, Kristian Kwiecinski, Andreas Nicolas, Michal Piasecki, Frederico Weber) and are looking forward to all the ideas and projects which will pop up during the workshop. Together with these guys we try to come up with personalised products resulting from the marriage of geometry, code and data. The parametrically generated forms will be produced and tested using the FabLab production facilities. Everyday from 16:30h to 18:00h the workshop is open to everyone. We’ll do a short presentation about the workshop and show the current state of the projects. Please come along and talk to us about creative coding, generative design, digital production or whatever else is on your mind. Thuesday the 8th at 16:30h there’s the final presentation of the workshop results.

On Friday the 7th at 14:00h Eva Tucek will hold a public pesentation about wax-3D-printing for jewelry.

Beside this workshop Stephen and I will do a presentation about emotional interfaces for generative design. We would love to see you there as well.

If you can’t make it to the Ars Electronica Festival 2009 in Linz, we’ll keep you updated during the workshop on our blog, twitter, facebook and flickr.

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We are happy to announce the launch of the EARTH BROOCH SILVER, the first customizable silver jewelry in our Earth product family!

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Similar to our Earth Bowls, Tables and Lampshades you design your own silver brooch in three simple steps:

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1. Select your desired location on our interactive map.

2. Adjust the pane to define the perfect view

3. Order your unique piece of silver jewelry

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The custom brooch is 3d printed in wax an then silver (975 silver) casted and shipped within 2 weeks worldwide. Not bad!

Who will be woooooooing? Everyone looking for a really unique anniversary gift. And definitely the ones who receive it!

Great work Stephen and Hannes! Thanks to Karin Lernbeiß for the cool product pics!

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Now you could easily go on your own personal trip around the world. And it is really easy: Just enter your favourite bar around the corner, where they recently got  Earth Lamps by Fluid Forms installed.  The old walls were spiced up with these 3D-printed lamps out of Polyamide. Now you can call your fav bar TRENDY! Because you can not only see Graz from bird perspective, but also New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Paris gloom from the walls.

Only a dream? No! The creative guys, who work at Fluid Forms made it possible: You can change every place on earth to be a gleaming polyamide lamp framed in brushed aluminium. The ways of designing are seemingly endless. On their do-it-yourself-homepage one chooses his/her favourite place on mother earth and the journey begins. Later, the prominent relief is 3D printed in polyamide, mounted on a brushed aluminium frame and equipped with an energy saving ring bulb. Now something very special is born: A unique lamp, which was designed by YOU!

Of course, such way-out lamps do not only look good on the walls of your favourite bar, also in your own private living room they make a reeeally good figure.  They will be an eye-catcher and point of fascination at the same time, because not many people have seen such an extraordinary construction before.  (Sad, isn’t it? It is such a beauty!) You can then switch your favourite place on or off whenever you want. (fun!) But: Does it really help against itchy feet, who want to go someplace other? That’s a different pair of shoes. What we can be sure about is, that the Earth Lamp is a milestone of Mass Customization.  Thank you, Fluid Forms

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About two weeks ago I posted the article “Mass Customization WON’T Make it for a Mainstream Business Model“  in which I mentioned the reason why so many companies experimenting with “Create Your Own” products stuck or even fail.

I also noted that the ominous Design Space (or Solution Space as Frank Piller e.a. call it) can serve as a source for  Mass Customization’s “salvation”.

I additionally mentioned that we use Creative Coding (to be understood as a certain kind of programming based on mathematical rules) to define Design Spaces and thus enable our customers to easily create their own products.

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Today I am introducing  Generative Design & Art, which are expressed best by Creative Coding and explained best by this quotes:

Generative Design allows to produce new designs automatically by the push of a button. A basic form, pattern, or object is automatically modified by an algorithm. The result: infinite random modifications of the starting solution (within a solution space set by the designer).
Frank Piller

Generative Design Processes is about the modeling of initial conditions of an object (its “genetics”) instead of modeling the final form.
@eloisapaola

Generative Art is a term given to work which stems from concentrating on the processes involved in producing an artwork, usually (although not strictly) automated by the use of a machine or computer, or by using mathematic or pragmatic instructions to define the rules by which such artworks are executed.
Adrian Ward

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Next time I’ll show you some awesome Generative Design & Art in action!

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…because most mass customizers don’t stop puzzling their prosumers.

In my article “Why Generative Design Pushes Mass Customization to the Next Level” I allured that the mass customization management system has still not made it for a mainstream business model.

The main reason why?

Companies are  overburdening its prosumers with pointless customization choices (a.k.a The Paradox of Choice).

Design Space/Solution Space (red shape)

I also introduced the concept of the “Solution Space“.  Frank Piller, Fabrizio Salvador and Martin de Holan from MIT Sloan School of Management argue that introducing the concept of the Solution Space, mass customization is applicable to most businesses.

So what does all this have to do with Fluid Forms? Everything!

Creating and implementing Solution Spaces or Design Spaces (as we prefer to call it) for mass customization was one key topic of Hanne’s academic diploma thesis back in 2004.

The Design Space, a set of mathematical rules to be understood as the border within prosumers can move freely and create their own unique objects, is the origin of Fluid Forms custom products.

By defining a Design Space for every product idea we try to limit customization variety to an essential, often emotional core. With the Earth Bowl as an example, customization is focused on favorite places or places someone has a strong emotional connection to.

Additionally our Creative Coders use Design Spaces to guarantee that each fluid form created online is functional, producible and cost-effective. Defining Design Spaces we can also assure that our products are in accordance with the design essence initially conceived by the Creative Coder.

Some of you probably argue now that with the Earth design interface you have almost infinite customization choice. Superficially looked at this might be true. But really think for yourself: How many favorite places on Earth do you have or do your friends have you would like to turn into a unique product? Thousands? I would guess a few.

Next time I will have a closer look on the mathematical rules I mentioned above. But don’t be afraid! I won’t make a lesson in algebra.
I just want to introduce the kind of programming  which is necessary for creating fluid forms: Creative Coding.

What’s your opinion? What’s the reason that mass customization is still a niche phenomena?

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QR Codes get more and more attention even in Europe – I think we’re partly responsible for that  . 

Using the momentum we give you a glimpse of what we are compassing next and consequently like to introduce the QRring and the QR Cuff Links to you!

Yep! Soon you can leave your old-fashioned, granny style rings at home and show off your 21st century interpretation of the classic signet ring. And the QR Cuff Links will make it for an action loaded scene in the next James Bond movie

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This was the “pain in the a**” creation of the first prototype:

More to be announced soon!

Learn more about QR Codes.

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Image by Cocreatr

In Japan it’s already “so today”. Well, in the rest of the world it will be “so tomorrow”! Trust me! I’m talking of a technology called QR (stands for quick response). A matrix code, which resembles –at least a little- the bar code we all know from our live-long experiences in shopping malls and supermarkets.

I’ve added a shortish (Canadian) video with loads of information on qr codes:

In Japan this black and white square is all over the place. You can see it on posters, advertisements and even over whole house walls. People who are interested in further information (like the webpage etc…) on a product, time and date of a major event or just any other message that is hidden between the seemingly arbitrary little squares, simply photograph it with their cell phones and through a QR orientated program the information will soon find its way to the right section of the phone.

Imagine how much easier our lives will be as soon as we all get a new cell phone and/or install the suitable QR-readers!

The sudden appearance of QR-codes also raises some questions: What should I get first? QR tattoed on my forehead saying: free advertising space? Or rather a simple QR Belt Buckle with a link to my personal myspace-page? I don’t know yet. Do you?

Wouldn't it look nice on my forehead?

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Image by Chris Carlson

Believe it or not: All of these different images have the same root: They are varieties of the famous Mercedes Benz-star. The program Mathematica makes it possible. The magic word is: generative design.

Just the imagination that a simple form only consisting out of three points framed by a circle can be formed into a whole new multiplicity of signs that I would never connect with the Mercedes-Logo, but with cinematography, folk art or some occult organisations makes me goggle. However, this is for real!

This program by Wolfram Research helps you with modeling, simulation, visualization, development and documentation. The pictures, which are displayed here should only demonstrate what can be done out of very simple forms that everybody recognizes immediately.

But how does it work? As Chris Carlson, a graphics develop

er at Wolfram Research puts it: “The geometry of the Mercede Benz-star is easily described in a few lines of Mathematica code.” At the end even he was surprised that a “straightforward parameterization” can lead to such a bulk of new images.

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“If you’re doing anything technical-think mathematica”-is the catchy phrase that should get everybody on board the program that has been developed throughout the last 20 years.

What came out of a more complex logo, namely one designed for a special edition of a magazine by Franco Grignani, is even more impressing.

These calculations out of the upper left symbol are both artistic and futuristic and simply make me wanna buy

this program, even though i’m not into mathematics at all. Maybe there is a slight chance that Mathematica7 will change my mind?

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Image by Patrick Chia

The oxymoron mass customization has been buzzing around for some years now. As far as I know the first big mass customization wave passed through back in the mid 90s. (Although the term was discussed before by e.g. futurist Alvin Toffler in the 70s . Toffler also coined the term “Prosumer” in the 80s by the way).

Mass customization was/is praised as the holy grail of customer satisfaction. But has the mass customization management system made it to become a widespread mainstream business model yet? Not really, maybe only within in a handful of branches (e.g. automotive sector).

But why not?

Let’s make a step back to Joseph Pine’s definition of mass customization in 1993:

In the mass customization management system, the goal is to develop, produce, market, and deliver affordable
goods and services with enough variety and customization that nearly everyone finds exactly what they want.

I think we should put some stress on the phrase “enough variety” to answer the question why mass customization isn’t so widespread yet. “Enough variety” does not necessarily refers to hundreds of product options to choose from.

“Enough variety” means that prosumers always feel good (receiving an additional benefit) when changing parameters or pushing triggers of a product configurator. Whatever they do, they should never feel overburdened while co-creating/co-designing a custom product.

In practice “enough variety” is often misunderstood: prosumers are often confronted with so many customization choices that they feel puzzled and uncertain about their custom creations. Offering an overwhelming variety of product options can even reduce the perceived benefit. This phenomena is known as the “Paradox of Choice”.

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Barry Schwartz (author of the book with the same name) on the Paradox of Choice:

.watch Barry Schwartz key lecture on youtube

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So how can we define “enough variety” then?

Frank Piller, Fabrizio Salvador and Martin de Holan from MIT Sloan School of Management argue in a recently published paper that the right amount of variety can be defined with what they call a “solution space“:

A mass customizer must first identify the idiosyncratic needs of its customers, specifically, the product attributes along which customer needs diverge the most. (This is in stark contrast to a mass producer, which must focus on identifying central tendencies so that it can target those needs with a limited number of standard products.) Once that information is known and understood, a business can define its “solution space,” clearly delineating what it will offer — and what it will not.

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The lessons we should learn for today:

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1.  Find out what you will not offer.
2. Offer a level of customization-attributes that make sense.

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Read next time:

- Fluid Forms generative design approach to define the solution space -> the Design Space
– Explanation of generative art and generative design

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