For allot of you reading this, this is not a new or revolutionary idea. But rather a mindset that we have been using to design new digital experiences for some years now. For me, this notion of ‘Playful Design/Development’ was introduced during me collegiate years by an interactive artist by the name of David Rokeby. I had the pleasure of attending David’s presentation/lecture on his “Very Nervous System”. This for me was one of the most influential lectures about his creative process. If you’re not up on David’s work, you can always googlize him on the WWW. Or better yet, check out this video:

David’s process in creating this timeless experience had an extraordinary influence over the way I approach design/business problems to date. It’s essence is the idea of going from concept to prototype and then using the system to help inform and prioritize the next iteration of the concept.

I remember when I started designing interfaces for cd-rom experiences (circa 1995, Macromind Director). I would start off sketching on paper the various design ideas for the various states of the interface. As soon as I had a couple strong directions sketched out, I would then cut out these states and try to see how I might flow from one state to the next. Sound FX included This was such a great exercise in helping to visually brainstorm with the other team members. As well as poke wholes in the grid structure that I was using as my underlying framework for the interface.

Now that Flash Catalyst is almost a release candidate, I think it would be useful for me and hopefully others that I start to capture my experiences with this product and how I will use it as part of our design teams process at R/GA - San Francisco.

I am a big fan of organic code studies and this is top shelf. Flight 404 is not new on the scene and have always loved his work. I stumbled upon this example via BIT-101’s post and I am glad that I did.

“Airmikan is desktop virtual pets of digital comic [mikan seijin gril], which is based on Adobe AIR. This Airmikan is selfish so you need to look after carefully. It will die or become so big and your computer will be running slow. You need to watch out!”

http://wwwz.fujitv.co.jp/takeshi/AIRmikan/download.html

It’s nice to see that there is a conceptual model with AIR that far out weighs creating the same experience in the browser. They are utilizing a transparent window (multiple actually) that seems to be a key feature in defining this experience.

This is a really cute experience. I had a similar idea for a “digital organism”. That as you hunt for content and consume content the “digital organism” then reflects this as a healthy activity and the end user is rewarded with a healthy “digital organism”.

Some more data visualization love. These different treatments are worth a look. Heck… Download them as a screensaver(s). Enjoy!

“The labs provide a broader (and deeper) view of Digg. A lot of stuff gets submitted to Digg every day, so good things can sometimes fly right past you. Labs projects look beneath the surface of the Digg community’s activities.”

Digg labs projects are the results of collaboration with Digg partner stamen design. They have also released a public API for Digg so that anyone can turn Digg data into their own visualizations.

This is a very nice photographer portfolio site. Have a gander.