Tag / music
How to Play the Innovation Jigsaw Game
Image Source : Business InsiderCreative problem solving is a learned skill that every service designer, developer or researcher needs to master. Seeing a problem and devising a possible solution requires specific knowledge within a discipline and a flexible mindset. But new inventions come in many different shapes and sizes. Indeed, when a medical breakthrough is made, it is sometimes (but not always) referred to as ‘wholly original’. This means the solution is novel and no part of it has ever been used before. Which raises the question, are other inventions generally not?
“Most problems are multi-layered and don’t contain one solution alone.”As a matter of fact, no. Most problems are multi-layered and don’t contain one solution alone. This means existing solutions to other problems can be brought together to solve a brief. Often, the very best solutions are the product of other discoveries.
Take Galileo, for example. The Italian is often credited with inventing the first microscope, b..
Who uses Service Design?
“A “service” sign in a room lit up at night” by Mike Wilson on UnsplashNetflix, Google, Spotify & iPhone are all highly aware of the importance of good Service Design. We can see this through their business models. Did you ever wonder why Netflix charges customers on a monthly basis instead of per movie or why Spotify also only offers monthly subscriptions? And why did Apple switch from iTunes to Apple Music? The reason is simple. All of these providers wanted to move away from selling products and into selling services. Through well-designed services, providers hope to build and maintain a relationship with you, the customer. This relationship means that they can predict their revenue better, re-invest in improving customer experiences, up-sell and introduce new products and services more effectively to their existing customer base.
The benefits of brand loyalty, which companies such as Nike developed and cherished in the eighties and nineties, are reaped with more certainty through s..
Website Personalization Planning
Users’ expectations are high, and attention spans are short. There’s a multitude of alternative destinations if a website doesn’t present messaging, content, or functionality that immediately connects with what a visitor wants and needs. If a company is lucky enough to get users to its website, it should do everything in its power to keep them there and content. Website personalization is a proven way to engage audiences more effectively. Not only does it create better experiences for users, it can increase conversion rates, generate more revenue, and build brand affinity. Organizations who fail to personalize experiences are missing out on opportunities to better connect with prospects, retain existing customers, and generate greater brand loyalty.
What is personalization and why does it matter? Website personalization is about creating a highly relevant, targeted, and individualized experience to suit a user’s needs. It is dynamically presenting something that might be helpful or mo..
Raf Simons A/W 2018
Mood board: The cautionary tale of Christiane F, a teenager that took to the streets of 1970s West Berlin, riddled by drug use and addiction, was the main inspiration behind Raf Simons’ latest creations. Entitled ‘Youth in Motion’, the collection not only delved into the dark, rebellious and utilitarian aspects of late 70s/early 80s counter culture, it also wove in text excerpts from Cookie Mueller and Glenn O’Brien’s 1980s play Drugs, which appeared as graphics that were scattered across the garments. Scene setting: Set on a raised stage adorned with wilting flower arrangements, platters piled with pears, pomegranates, charcuterie, cheese and wedges of chocolates, and a spread of empty bottles and glasses filled with wine and poised for the taking, the opulent backdrop to Simons’ standing room-only presentation was akin to a Flemish still-life tableau brought to life. Juxtaposed by reverberating techno music and club-worthy laser lighting that pierced through the room...
The Haçienda nightclub voted one of the UK’s top historic sites
In the history of nightclub design there are two pulsating neon beacons of hedonism that shine on despite their demise – New York’s Studio 54 and Manchester’s The Haçienda. The latter’s importance in British culture has received an unlikely endorsement from Historic England as part of its celebratory campaign A History of England in 100 Places. The legendary club, which opened in 1982 but peaked during the Madchester and rave years of the late 80s and early 90s, has been chosen as one of the ten historic places for music and literature. The list was voted for by the public and selected by novelist (and fan of the club) Monica Ali. Fellow nominees in the list include more traditional destinations such as the homes of literary greats Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen. The only other music venues listed are The 100 Club and Abbey Road Studios. The...
Expression of sound
‘How do you talk about acoustics in a meaningful way, that is not just technical?’ asks Harpa concert hall director Svanhildur Konráðsdóttir. ‘What matters is the emotional experience.’ In a way, it’s an obvious take: music’s power is its ability to exhilarate, to transform a passive moment (the act of listening) into something visceral and transcendental. Translating this into a building is a challenge on both conceptual and industrial levels (the extreme nuance in creating a room built for clarity of sound is taxing in itself, stresses Tateo Nakajima, an acoustics and theatre director at Arup) but Harpa, explains Edward Arenius (also of Arup), was designed to echo Iceland’s landscape – the expanses of lava-covered nothingness, an image of both vastness and crystalline clarity. ‘It’s a house for music,’ says Andrzej Kosendiak of Wrocław’s National Forum of Music. Timelessness is key: the hall was designed...
Chanel S/S 2018
Scene setting: ‘Saving the best for last’ is an apt expression for Paris Fashion Week, at least when it comes to show settings. Over the last few years, the legendary French maison has become just as known (if not more) for its otherworldly show scenographies as it is for its quilted 2.55 bags or its petites robes noires. As a matter of fact, the brand has spoiled us so much that guests hardly batted an eyelash upon witnessing a life-size waterfall – complete with stones, moss and all – in the middle of the Grand Palais. It was something between an Amazonian forest landscape and Peter Pan's Neverland. The catwalk was a zigzagging, wooden bridge, elevated over a pool of water (disclaimer: no influencers fell in the pool while taking selfies). Looked at from the fresh point of view of a fashion newcomer and not from the blasé, exhausted eyes of regular showgoers, it certainly was a once in a lifetime experience.
Mood board: As usual, it was Michel Gaubert’s music which fully set th..
Wonder walls: a new book celebrates the modernist house as a cultural icon
Fetishised in the new book Ornament is Crime: Modernist Architecture, the modern house has never felt so iconic. Editors Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill have curated a visually-led book of black-and-white photographs showing detached modern houses. Modernist architects of the world – from Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and Eileen Gray, to Sean Godsell and Arne Jacobsen and many more – unite across double page spreads, where houses are organised by formal similarities, regardless of chronology or location.
‘The purpose of this book is to identify its key aesthetic characteristics and show how this most trailblazing of architectural styles is still thriving in the twenty-first century,’ writes Gibberd in the introduction. Here he visualises the great modernist architects as a family tree, with Smiljan Radic, Tadao Ando and John Pawson on the lower branches, and the greats at the top – Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Yet beyond the introduction, which draws connections betwee..
Holy order: a Dutch collective brings a spiritual slant to gin
To fit with the transcendent theme of this year’s Holy Handmade! exhibition, we searched far and wide for a suitably divine drink to serve up to guests at the Wallpaper* Handmade party during Salone del Mobile. Taking place at Mediateca Santa Teresa, a deconsecrated church on Milan’s Via della Moscova, the party required an elixir with a certain spiritual slant.
On reading about #CHURCH – an independent band of party organisers from the Dutch city of Groningen who began producing their own gin, named Holy Water, in 2015 – we knew we’d found the perfect partner.
‘Our collective started out organising parties and music events back in 2006,’ says co-founder Jesse Terpstra. ‘Core to every idea that came to fruition was the belief that we could do everything ourselves, and even better than anything already out there. This approach led to us hosting parties, with home-made food and local musical talent, that quickly caught on in the community.’
‘The same mentality was key to launching our..