Map your neighbourhood with a very large balloon, a long length of string, some rubber bands, a plastic bottle and a digital camera… a simple idea coupled with technology and vision and you’ve got this project on Kickstarter.
New iPad app inspires in-the-moment personal problem solving to help you live better every day
There are times in life when the blank notebook page stays blank for far too long—even the most productive people occasionally get stuck. For moments like these there’s Unstuck, a recently released iPad app to help you work through the situation at hand. Acting as a step-by-step troubleshooter and catalyst for action, Unstuck walks the user through a series of questions that end in a diagnosis, complete with suggestions of thought-provoking tools to help find a solution, as shown in this cleverly animated intro video.
Released by SYPartners, the free Unstuck app marks the first endeavor of a new sister company that taps into their nearly 20 years of experience helping big-name companies, leaders and teams during times of transformation and offers these strategic lessons to the individual. Having helped great leaders lead over these two decades, SYPartners felt compelled to take up the journey to offer this accumulation of knowledge through “tools and methods” to help people people get themselves unstuck. As Keith Yamashita, Chairman at SYPartners, said in our recent conversation, “we’re driven by greatness by trying to help people, companies, teams be great.”
The user-friendly app features a clutter-free layout with eye-catching infographic-style illustrations and easy-to-read instructions designed to get your mental gears moving again. As you work through the series of fill-in-the-blank questions Unstuck uses an algorithm—combined with your answers—to offer a diagnosis of what’s likely to be going on. From here the user is given a series of tools to help themselves work through the situation. Check out this demo for a closer look.
Most importantly though, Unstuck delivers a different diagnosis each time to account for the user’s ever-evolving situation. This adjustment mimics real life in the sense that no situation is ever stagnant and the reasons behind it generally change over time. And thus Unstuck becomes a tool that can be used time and time again.
To make the app accessible to as many people as possible it’s been made available for free download through the App Store’s Lifestyle section. Once Unstucks’ subscriptions build more community-based aspects will be rolled out. Here individuals will be able to instantly connect with others who are in or previously were in the same place, to work as a team and share the good will to help one another get unstuck.
It is amazing how one little dog (and amazingly talented and sincere woman, Camilla Engman) have inspired so much love and creativity! Purchase the book on Blurb and proceeds go to the World Society for the Protection of Animals.
Just spotted some great photos of Lisa Congdon‘s studio on The Limner, a photography project profiling creatives (who are seeking Kickstarter backing).
(Lisa’ book, A Collection a Day, that I designed and published would be an excellent gift! just sayin’!)
The book comes packaged in a special collector’s tin!
To order your copy visit our online shop.
This book is also available in our UPPERCASE Book Bundle: all four of our recent publications including The Elegant Cockroach (October 2010), Work/Life 2: the UPPERCASE directory of international illustration (February 2011), A Collection a Day (March 2011) and The Suitcase Series Volume 2: Dottie Angel (August 2011). Save on the overall price as well as shipping when you order the bundle!
A new iPhone app rewards good memory with discounts
Putting a modern twist on the childhood matching game of Memory, the newly launched iPhone app REcollection tasks users to uncover product pairs for real-life rewards in the form of discount codes. Created by Dave Brown of the daily lifestyle blog Holiday Matinee, the app is not only a well-executed digital game, but a savvy marketing tool for participating companies at the same time. “We built this app because we wanted to turn people on to awesome products designed by awesome people,” explains Brown. “There’s no denying that feeling when you discover something super creative and this app lets you experience that 40 times over.”
To play, users flip over two face-down “cards” from the board and try to match up products. The more boards you complete, the more discount-code prizes you win. Products featured on the game boards come from a roster of independent designers that includes Curse of the Multiples, Orange and Park, The Quiet Life and many others chosen by the Holiday Matinee team, while discount codes unlock incentives for lifestyle brands also hand-selected, like Toddland, Photojojo, WeJetSet, Feelgoodz and Holstee.
The memory-testing paid game app goes for $0.99 at iTunes.
photo: Jacqueline Jaszka
Photographer Jacqueline Jaszka has a great photography project called The Local Creators in which she documents the artisans and makers in her San Francisco community. When planning a feature about 3Fish Studios, also in San Francisco, I discovered that Jacqueline had already shot everything I would want in a feature about this printmaking and illustration studio. Her images capture great detail as well as broader studio shots—and her portraits of this husband and wife creative duo are warm and endearing.
Thank you Jacqueline, Annie and Eric!
Read about 3Fish Studios in the current issue #11 of UPPERCASE.
Photo from RGD Ontario
I’ve been a fan of Chip Kidd‘s book cover design for a long time. But I must say that Mr. Chip Kidd, presenter, is also entertaining and amusing and complex—and more flamboyant! The first half of his presentation was funny, affected and full of ATTITUDE.
Case in point, on design for printed books:
photo by Allison Toohey“Creative people should have a mantra, something to provide peace and solace in times of stress…” he advised. Expecting some wise words, the audience listened attentively. Kidd shared his mantra: “Oh my god! this is an F*ing nightmare!” We all laughed, realizing that we all have our own version of this exclamation that we utter to ourselves during the frustrating times.
Photo from RGD OntarioHe then elaborated with a detailed story involving a long line for KFC, a greasy cashier and a man ordering three buckets of chicken and how it resulted in a new mantra…
Photo from RGD OntarioKidd dotted his presentation with words like “rapidograph”, “photostat” and “Quark”, playing up his persona as an old school designer. His hairstyle, glasses and cardigan were also suitably old school (or at least mid-nineties). The second half of his presentation chronicled the development of his dream project: to write an original Batman comic which is slated for release sometime next year.
Chip Kidd was a tough act to follow, especially for the gentlemen of Chermayeff and Geismar who appeared quite tired for their keynote address which closed day one of presentations.
Photo from RDG Ontario
Keynote speaker Rei Inamoto is chief creative officer at AKQA, a firm that creates campaigns for big media spenders Nike, Visa, Xbox and others. His presentation was broadly on fostering an innovative creative culture. “Innovation is what keeps you relevant in the business and creative landscape of the 21st century,” he contends. “It is the culture, not process, of a company that makes innovation happen.”
With the digital and social options provided by today’s media, advertising (or the delivery of any creative or commercial or community message) can be enhanced by ‘story doing’ rather than the traditional ‘story telling’. Involving the reader yields greater results.
Inamoto’s five points in designing a culture of innovation:
Fun quote that Inamoto left on the screen at the end of his presentation was from Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys: “Lick the lollipop of mediocrity once and you’ll such forever.”
Robert Wong‘s presentation was my favourite presentation; his was mix of personal story and professional fulfillment. His keynote was “Crap I Think About At Google: 50 mins of random thoughts about life, love, work, happiness, HTML5, and a better world through creativity.” To label anything Wong is doing at Google ‘crap’ is a completely inappropriate (but in keeping with the crass language that most of the keynote speakers enjoyed delivering). Executive Creator at Google Creative Labs, his job description seems quite open to whatever he wants to make of it. When Google came calling to hire him, he likened the experience to a spaceship landing in his backyard… he couldn’t not go in and see where it took him.
He spoke of “highjacking the 7 trillion”, a reference to the amount of money spent globally on marketing and advertising. At Google, Wong has the ability to harness a nice chunk of those funds and channel them to worthwhile endeavours—projects that promote art, community, awareness—while promoting the Google vision. The journey with Google has yielded some amazing work, which I will share here in links and video.
Some points from Wong’s presentation:
Wong used the video spots to great emotional effect; when his talk ended one could hear the sounds of rustling kleenexes and sniffling noses.
Chrome Experiments (requires Google’s browser Chrome)
Google Chrome ad
Google Chrome ad that aired during the Superbowl
When we were in Seattle last month, we took a little road trip to the countryside and discovered a lovely farm that was hosting a family day. One of the activities was decorating gourds and other vegetables, attaching wheels and then racing them down a ramp. Fun! Here are some of the zippy veggies…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
