Design Talk 19. The Friday inspirations project


In this episode we share 6 digital design inspirations, from a sci-fi film script written by artificial intelligence to a fashion collection influenced by sound waves. Prompted by a move to Basecamp for MEX collaboration, podcast co-host Alex Guest introduced ‘Friday inspirations’, a recurring task for each member of the team to share a weekly ‘find’ with colleagues. Alex and co-host Marek Pawlowski take turns explaining why they picked each inspiration and how it relates to digital experience design. It leads to a discussion about how the project has influenced the work of the MEX team and how tangential inspirations inform the day-to-day of MEX research and conferences.

On this edition

"If you take users outside boundaries of cultural familiarity, understanding of design patterns quickly falls away…" -- Marek Pawlowski, founder, MEX, Episode 19, MEX Design Talk podcast

Alex’s inspirations

  1. Sunspring’, an entry into the 2016 Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge, the script for ‘Sunspring’ was written using AI (LSTM recurrent neural network).
  2. Cameron’s Lament’, musical interpretations of David Cameron’s parting ditty after resigning as Prime Minister, published by Classic FM.
  3. Pzizz is an app which uses sound to improve sleep. Recently, the app released a 90-minute prototype track ‘to help you get in the zone and get stuff done’.

Marek’s inspirations

  1. The Natural History Museum has a new exhibition looking at the evolutionary relationship between the development of the eye and the development of colour in nature.
  2. Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen’s collection, shown in Paris, was inspired by ‘cymatics’ – the study of sound waves.
  3. Deepart.io uses machine learning to apply the style of one image to the content of another.

Follow future Friday inspirations

Track #mexDTI on Twitter, or – better still – post your own Friday inspiration to the MEX team.

Bonus links

"So often it takes the most complex underlying technologies to create the simplest user experience on the surface." -- Alex Guest, CEO, Zingy.life, Episode 19, MEX Design Talk podcast

About MEX Design Talk & how to get in touch

The podcast for the MEX community, interviewing UX pioneers, exploring emerging technologies, user behaviour and how to design better digital experiences.

Thanks

  • Jukedeck, for the artificial intelligence engine which provided the music

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