IDEO: Ely Lilly lab posters for scientists

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Here’s a great example of a graphics driven IDEO project! Project Date: 2009

http://www.ideo.com/work/laboratory-posters/
From the website:

Inspiring scientists to be more patient-sensitive

Lilly is in the midst of an organization-wide transformation to become more patient-centered.
As part of this effort, the pharmaceutical company wanted to encourage its R&D scientists,who develop molecules and formulate therapies, to consider patient needs earlier in the drug development process. Lilly asked IDEO to design a series of inspirational posters for display in laboratories and hallways.

Together, Lilly and IDEO set out to create a series of posters for display in the labs and public areas of the formulation group that would address three needs:

    • Visually Arresting: The team wanted something attention-getting enough to catch the eye of heads-down scientists, compelling enough to remain on display for an extended period of time, and coherent as a system.
    • Provocative: Once a scientist moved in for a closer look, the team wanted the posters to be able to quickly educate them and inspire them, challenging their assumptions about the patients and how they experience the condition and therapy.
    • Informative: Beyond use in the hallways, the team wanted the posters to be useful in brainstorming exercises, with enough substance and explicit challenges to help the researchers connect the empathy to the reality of formulating new therapies.

Rather than use marketing messages or scientific language, they used the words of patients and their caregivers…to help scientists relate better to patients…great example of interdisciplinary effort…learning to talk like someone else in order to solve a problem.
Privacy restraints prevented them from using straight up patient shots, but they rather addressed challenges (and staged the photography, I assume)

Reaction from scientists withing the PR&D group: positive…used as inspiration throughout the company…bringing human-centered value to product development.

Project date: 2009

Bjork: NYT article on Biophilia

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/arts/video-games/bjorks-biophilia-an-album-as-game.html?_r=1 accessed 3/5/12
 

Playing the New Bjork Album, and Playing Along, With Apps
By Seth Schiesel, October 24, 20011

“What if the musician joined with programmers and visual artists to turn the songs into encompassing interactive experiences? What if listeners were to become participants?

That is what Bjork has accomplished with her latest conception, “Biophilia,” among the most creative, innovative and important new projects in popular culture. “Biophilia” essentially turns an album into a sort of audiovisual game, delivering a miniature production studio into the world’s willing hands.”

“ambitious artists and executives in the struggling music industry will recognize “Biophilia” as a vital step forward in rethinking how their work can be conceived, packaged, delivered and made relevant to the public.”

“In “Dark Matter” the user (no longer merely the listener) takes control of a sound-creation tool, tapping pools of light to combine and mix tones of Gregorian complexity. You may start with a chromatic tone, but with a few taps the program says you have created noises called “Balinese pentatonic” and “mixolydian augmented.” My favorite was described as (take a breath) “double harmonic/Gypsy/Byzantine/ chahargah.” (If you don’t know, chahargah is an ancient Persian musical style.)”

“What I felt shining through the interactive elements of “Biophilia” was commitment from the people behind them, including Bjork herself, to deliver something wholly creative. I could sense an artist who wanted to communicate a feeling, a vision, a passion, an idea — not just through sound and words but also through the modern tools available to the public.”

“For many musicians and composers, the notion of giving fans the ability to mess around readily with a treasured creation will be anathema. Yet for the confident, bold artists who are ready to help propel the musical experience to a new level enabled by personal technology, Bjork has shown the way.”

Drew Berry

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Biomedical animator and Bjork collaborator. Trained as cell biologist and microscopist.

On working for Bjork:
“I’m just having a lot of fun: that’s the main goal for me – just to let loose and have fun and, as Björk described it, ‘go Jimi Hendrix on biomedical science’.”
From an online interview,”Drew Berry’s Bio-animations,” by Chris Hatherill, Dazed DIgital, published around Dec 11, accessed 3/5/12 by Zvez   http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/11179/1/drew-berrys-bio-animations

A video clip on his collaboration with Bjork:
http://blog.reneedicherri.com/post/17193156502/drew-berry-speaking-about-his-work-with-bjork-at
The part on Bjork starts at about 14:30 mins. At 16:00 he shows the whole 6 minute amazing animation he did for the song Hollow.

Lose notes: …Bjork used the program Mathematica, computer hacker, gamers, musicologists…biophilia — love of living things. Bjork wanted “bling dna” …maya is berry’s tool of choice, been using it for 10 years. Homages to Archimboldo (Bjork’s face in her dna) and The Eamses’ Power of X (huge zoom out).
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From bjork.com:
armed with two science degrees and trained in the use of advanced microscopes, drew berry isn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill animator. the creator of bio-inspired animations on biophilia spends his days painstakingly poring over scientific papers before putting virtual pen to paper and recreating the vast worlds that exist within our bodies – microbes fighting infections, parasites replicating, proteins repairing…
his animations have exhibited at venues such as the guggenheim museum, moma, the royal institute of great britain and the university of geneva. in 2010 he received a macarthur fellowship “genius award”.

Berry Tedx (CalTech) talk
Visualziation: Biology and Complex Circuits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPC1MZ-xAu4
Talks about scientific visualization…David Goodsell, scientist who painted scientific illustrations (Scripps Research Institute). Wanted to add motion to the kind of work Goodsell did, to make it more dynamic. Amazing animation of stem cell dynamics. DNA science visualization.

Quote by Berry:
“My approach is the opposite tack to simplifying the science,” says Berry. “Rather than dumbing it down, I set out to show the audience exactly what the scientists are talking about. By building accurate visualizations founded on real scientific data, the animations come alive of their own accord, engage the audience, and go a long way towards explaining what the science is about. The science is rich, detailed and fascinating, and if you can watch it in action you will intuitively get to know how it works.”
– Drew Berry, Drew Berry Biomedical Animator, by By Paul Hellard, 24 October 2005, CG Society, an online publication, accessed 3/5/12 by Zvez  http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/biomedical_animator 

Bjork’s collaborators on working with Bjork

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“She has this ability to sort of inject her ideas into your mind with a few simple words. ”

“Whenever I’m talking to her, she really knows what she’s talking about and has done a bunch of research. I think that’s why she is so good at explaining her ideas for different concepts.”

– (both above quotes) Max Weisel, born 1991, app developer for Biophilia live shows, from The Creators Project, an online publication, http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/meet-max-weisel-the-20-year-old-behind-björks-interactive-live-set-up, accessed 3/5/12
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“She has such a clear vision for what she wants creatively, and such a gentle way of expressing her own ideas, or when some thing should change.”
– Scott Snibbe, app developer for Biophilia, from The Vine, an online publication, http://www.thevine.com.au/music/interviews/bjork-%27app%27-album-creator%2C-scott-snibbe-_-interview20110819.aspx, accessed 3/5/12

snippet of virus animation from biophilia app

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Drew Berry
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Bjork: Show Us the Future
(I just ordered this back issue on 3/5/12.) Bjork guest edited the 200th issue of Dazed and Confused magazine (August 2011), featuring a lot of her collaborators across the disciplines:
http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/10815/1/dazed-confused-august-issue-bjork-guest-edit 

MM Paris: Biophilia and other works

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Wonderful intro screens on Bjork’s new site. Site design by MM Paris. Love the galactic type.

I’ve heard two versions of her Biophilia intro with either Bjork or David Attenborough narrating the same text. It sounds like a manifesto and it seeks to unite nature, music and technology. Nancy, since you have an iPhone, maybe you could look at this app in total? Might be worth the investment at $13, available here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bjork-biophilia/id434122935?mt=8
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Tree of Signs, MM/Paris collaboration with sculptor Gabríela Friðriksdóttir.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/buddah/2509630239/sizes/z/in/photostream/
5 meter tall bronze sculpture using the font created for Bjork’s album Medulla, and erected in a yet to be developed swath of land in Iceland.

Scott Snibbe

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www.snibbe.com
An interdisciplinarian! Interactive designer for Bjork’s Biophilia app. A computer scientist and fine artist by training.
Biophilia pics from www.snibbe.com:

EDUCATION:
1992-1994 M.Sc., Computer Science, Brown University.
1987-1991 Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science, Brown University, Magna Cum Laude.
1987-1991 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Brown University, Magna Cum Laude.
1989-1992 Experimental Animation, Rhode Island School of Design.
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Article on his work on Bjork’s app Biophilia in The VIne, an Australian online magazine. Author Jason Treuen, Aug 19, 2011, Accessed 3/4/12 by Zvez
http://www.thevine.com.au/music/interviews/bjork-%27app%27-album-creator%2C-scott-snibbe-_-interview20110819.aspx

“While other artists have used apps to spruik their album, Bjork’s app is her album. You don’t just play the music, you play with the music. A mother app houses ten unique designed apps, which each contain a new song, music score and an interactive ‘game’ that lets you manipulate the track.”

Scott Snibbe is Biophilia’s executive producer…his company created the mother app and three song apps – ‘Virus’, ‘Thunderbolt’ and ‘Cosmogony’

Bjork worked with Apple…this is a very Apple-heavy project, using iPads in live performance, etc.

Virus’ is the latest song/app to be released. What can you tell us about it?

SS: “It’s as if you can touch this microscopic world. There’s a series of cells and a virus that attacks the mother cell in the centre. It’s kind of a game – you can fling the virus cells away, but if you do manage to do that, the song never progresses. So you have to lose the game to hear Bjork’s song. It’s really in line with the message of the song, which is the virus loves the cell so much, that she destroys him.”

….
“I also think the economics of the music industry are a big deal. Sales of recorded music have collapsed, so apps are a way of generating revenue if you have one that’s popular enough. And there’s probably a sweet spot. Biophilia is definitely a concept album kind of method – really big and expensive and time-consuming. But if you look at some of the other apps I’ve made, you can make something quite small that’s also quite popular. I think there’s a way for musicians to partner with interactive artists.”

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Snibbe talks about his work for Bjork in this clip: http://vimeo.com/29256409

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Motion Phone, an interactive animation, “a new form of communication”:

MM Paris

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1>>>
MM Paris received the Tokyo Type Directors Club award in 2012 for Björk’s Biophilia CD artwork, book and iPad application.
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/july/the-return-of-bjork

more intriguing is Björk’s Biophilia app, which was created in collaboration with interactive artist and app developer Scott Snibbe, and the musician’s long-time design collaborators M/M (Paris). The app opens with a kind of manifesto on nature, music and technology, written by Björk and the Icelandic poet and author, Sjón, and narrated by Attenborough. Once the intro has finished, users can interact with the cosmos shown by using the standard Apple stroking and pinching techniques. There is also a menu that allows access to the individual songs. Like the Radio Soulwax app, Biophilia makes good use of the unique aspects of the iPad and iPhone, particularly their interactive elements. It again places visuals at the forefront of the music experience, providing yet more proof of the creative possibilities that technology is opening up for artists and musicians.

Not that Björk is entirely turning her back on the joy of analogue, however. In the shop on her website, you can pre-order a copy of Biophilia: The Ultimate Edition. For a cool £500, you will receive a lacquered and silkscreened oak-hinged lid case, containing the ‘Biophilia Manual’ along with 10 chrome-plated tuning forks, silkscreened on one face in 10 different colours, stamped at the back, and presented in a flocked tray. Each fork is adjusted to the tone of a Biophilia track, covering a complete octave in a non-conventional scale.

“…but much of nature is hidden from us, that we can neither see nor touch. Like the one phenomenon that can be said to move us more than any other in our daily lives: sound. Sound, harnessed by human beings, delivered with generosity and emotion, is what we call music. And just as we use music to express parts of us that would otherwise be hidden, so too can we use technology to make visible much of nature’s invisible world. In Biophilia, you will experience how the three come together: nature, music, technology. Listen, learn, and create.” — Sir David Attenborough, intro to Biophilia

2>>>
collaborative alphabet with inez van lamswwerde and vinoodh matadin http://www.mmparis.com/thealphabet/index.html

 

3>>>
collaborative scarves with Kanye West

Last Fall, Kanye West asked m/m (paris) to design the album packaging for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. West had commissioned George Condo to create a series of paintings featuring the characters who populate his musical fantasies.During the creative process, m/m (paris) created a series of hand drawn ornamented frames to adorn the powerful and iconic Condo paintings.Playing with the many possibilities of combining the paintings and the frames, m/m (paris) and Kanye West wanted to find a luxurious expression of their creative efforts —and decided to use the most striking combinations and transform them into voluptuous silk scarves.

http://shop.mmparis.com/categories/kanye-west-scarves/

Building Creative Confidence

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Excerpt from Ted Talk on Creative Confidence 2012, might be a topic worth addressing in method chapter.http://blog.ted.com/2012/03/01/building-creative-confidence-david-kelley-at-ted2012/

David Kelley starts off his story in third grade, at Oakdale School in Ohio. His friend Brian was making a horse out of clay. One of the girls sitting at his table looked over and said, “that’s terrible! That’s not what a horse looks like.” Brian’s shoulders sank, he wadded up the clay and threw away his horse–and Kelley never saw him take on a project quite like that again.

This type of thing happens all the time. People often become uncomfortable around creativity — and yet surely creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. And so, Kelley set out to understand this phenomenon and think about how he might counter it. One of his first stops: the Stanford psychologist, Albert Bandura, who developed a step-by-step process to help people overcome their phobia of snakes. An unexpected consequence of this methodical journey: overcoming fear in one domain subsequently gave people new confidence in other areas of their lives, too…

Then he puts his own wish to the audience. Don’t divide the world into “creative” and “non-creative,” he urges. Let people realize they are naturally creative. “Let their ideas fly; let them achieve what Bandura calls self-efficacy,” he concludes. ”When people regain that confidence, magic happens.”

ideo.org

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Ideo has started a non profit connected to the Gates Foundation amongst many other NGO’s. Designers both in-house and beyond can apply to participate.

Founded in 2011, IDEO.org has been busy creating change where change is desperately needed. Take a look at some of our recent projects and get as excited as we are about designing solutions for social impact around the world.

https://www.ideo.org/projects/history

1>>>
The Ripple Effect project: Innovations solutions to improve access to safe drinking water.

Social innovation seeks to create transformational change in under-served, underrepresented, and disadvantaged communities worldwide. At IDEO, we use design thinking to address issues such as poverty, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, economic empowerment, access to financial services, and gender equity.
Our projects involve clients in both the private and public sectors. To help them develop effective solutions, we create not only products and services, but also the entire system that supports them. This often means spending considerable time in the field, living and working with the people we’re striving to assist. We routinely partner with local leaders (who act as our trusted advisers) to ensure that all concepts and solutions are practical, culturally appropriate, scalable, and sustainable.
This means that before introducing anything new, we figure out what really matters to the target population—and what will motivate them to accept and adopt our solution.

2>>>
IDEO.org worked with the Bezos Family Foundation to design a campaign about the importance of early learning and engaged parenting, with a focus on supporting families in low income communities.
https://www.ideo.org/projects/early-learning-with-the-bezos-family-foundation/completed


“We’re trying to turn everyday interactions into opportunities for brain development. Shopping at the grocery store can be like a visit to a museum and singing can be the new reading. It all helps promote brain development.” Robin Bigio Ideo Fello
The latest brain research shows that the more parents engage with their children during the first five years of life, the more prepared they are to learn once they get to kindergarten. Many of the children showing up for kindergarten who are unprepared to learn live in low-income families. By providing tools, information and assistance that parents need to be their children’s first teachers, we can help low-income parents build their children’s brains, and create a future of more and better opportunities.

3>>>
Frameworks for improved nutrition
http://www.ideo.com/work/frameworks-for-improved-nutrition/

Obesity in the U.S. has reached record-breaking levels, especially among children and teens. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an estimated 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 are overweight. Resulting from an imbalance in the number of calories consumed and those expended, this epidemic involves genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors that could lead to serious health problems later in life.

The CDC, a sentinel for global health and wellness, strives to provide people with reliable health information and the benefits of strong public and private partnerships. Recognizing the growing obesity epidemic, the CDC and the Academy for Educational Development engaged IDEO to conduct a workshop relating to research done around lower-income women and exercise. The brief workshop led the CDC and IDEO to another congressionally mandated project for social impact—looking at fruit and vegetable consumption among tweens.

Currently undergoing this sixteen-week project, IDEO and the CDC are examining ways to change the habits of an entire generation of tweens—a group far more likely to change attitudes and behaviors about health before they become life-long issues. To date, IDEO has begun observations with a number of stakeholders and change agents, including nutrition experts, participants at the Edible Schoolyard, and children and staff members at 826 Valencia, a non-profit organization working at the forefront of examining new models of tutoring and tween behaviors. While still in the early phases of development, and with final deliverables still undefined, the team is looking at communication, product, or service design possibilities to promote wide-scale change and prevention in the battle against youth obesity, and the promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption.