Last week I visited “Decode – Digital design sensations”, at the

Last week I visited “Decode – Digital design sensations”, at the V&A in London. Decode showcases the latest developments in digital interactive design, and focused on three themes. Coding, which explored how computer code can be used to create great pieces of conceptual design; interactivity, that looked at work that responded to physical presence, and Network charts or reworks that visualizes stats from its surroundings.

The exhibits were all very conceptual in their approach and they all tried to interact with their surroundings or people in different ways, and this is why I think it was such a great show and why everyone there was enjoying it. Families were creating 3 second video spots for the video grid by Ross Philips, Children were throwing their arms and legs about in front of a canvas to create their own art on Mehmet Aktens Body paint. There were even some of the more senior visitors looking slightly nervous about the amount of data traces that can be pulled from the real world.

There were a couple of pieces of work that really stood out for me. Daniel Rozin’s Weave Mirror. Since seeing this I’ve had a quick look at other work by Rozin and there’s a couple of other great pieces, the mirror’s mirror and the snow mirror are worth a look if you haven’t already seen them, both are his website.

Another piece of work that I was really impressed with was Simon Heijdens “Tree” just because of how simple but great the idea was, plus it had the benefit of looking brilliant. The digital tree reacted to the weather conditions outside, so would blow in the wind. The tree would also shed its leaves which were projected onto the floor and then the users could kick through.

The show was great, I enjoyed reading about all the different projects at the exhibition and seeing how digital design is slowly but strongly expanding from screens and into the physical world. It was also refreshing to see that this wasn’t another geeky digital exhibition, its audience was wide spread the world was being enjoyed by everyone. If you get chance I would recommend you get yourself there, but be quick it’s only on till the 11th of April.

Here are the rest of the photos from my trip to Decode, on our Flickr account.

Wilkinson recently launched a new internal charity initiative as part of their continuing CSR commitment. The scheme will help raise money for a different charity each year, whilst at the same time offer Wilkinson some amazing insight into what its team members think about the quality of its products.

Penny for your thoughts allows staff members to give their honest opinion and review the entire range of Wilkinson products. For each team member product review or thought Wilkinson will donate 1p to its chosen charity. This year’s charity is the Children’s Hospices UK, an amazing charity helping support children and their families dealing with long-term illness.

By creating a very simple, easy to use website, we have given Wilkinson an online portal to not only gain valuable feedback from its own staff on the quality of products it sells, but also help to support a range of local and national charities at the same time.

As an additional thank you for sharing their thoughts, each month Wilkinson are choosing one lucky team member who has left feedback and rewarding them with a £50 voucher.

Back in April last year I posted a video I’d seen exploring the potential of gestural interfaces.]]>

Back in April last year I posted a video I’d seen exploring the potential of gestural interfaces. This video from Oblong takes things a step closer to a true spatial operating interface, as seen in the Spielberg film Minority Report.

Oblong’s gesture-based g-speak spatial operating interface platform has been in development at MIT’s Media Laboratory since the early 1990s. It’s been a top secret project for many years, and has only recently been leaked. Other systems, including Microsoft’s Project Natal for Xbox, are promising similar types of gesture interaction as soon as this year. With the recent release of Apple’s iPad and similar tablet devices on the way, is the end in sight for casual-use laptop and desktop computers within the home? I think so.

Credits: g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Majesticare are a luxury

Majesticare are a luxury care homes provider with 17 premier care homes across the UK. We’re proud to have worked with the Majesticare team to create their first online presence.

The company

Specialists in nursing care homes for the elderly, the Majesticare team of registered nurses provide the best possible standards of personal care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All Majesticare residential care homes make it their number one priority to look after the health, comfort, and dignity of all its residents. Majesticare also operate a number of specialist dementia care homes which are specifically designed for sufferers to be able to live their lives in the most comfortable way in their own specially created environments.

The brief

With an ageing population and the crowded nature of the private sector, our focus has been to bring to life the exceptionally high standards of living and care that Majesticare strive to provide.

We’ve been inspired by the commitment that the Majesticare team show to focusing on the things that matter to residents and their families – from locally sourced ingredients to holding family evenings, to launching a pioneering indoor gardening facility to designing each property to feel like a real home from home.

The site is aimed at prospective residents and their families. The approach we took to content recognises the emotional journey that enfolds when choosing a care home.

Experiencing daily life in some of their care homes and capturing this on film enabled us not only to get a feel for the many unique aspects of each of their properties, but also allowed us to create a truly authentic photographic representation of each place and the people. We created content using language that was professional but warm and engaging - all to help the user feel comfortable with the subject matter and feel motivated to want to find out more.

The result

“I am delighted with the Majesticare website, it exudes the feeling of care and quality that is generated throughout our homes by our dedicated staff teams.

I have been very impressed with the team at Jupiter, their attention to detail, availability to hand hold and desire to deliver a top quality product has provided us with an exceptional web site that is representative of the standards that we aspire to deliver. They have clearly placed us head and shoulders above our competitors and portrayed a care organisation as we believe it should be.”
Managing Director, Erica Hart.

The site will play a key part in raising awareness of the brand and driving enquiries and initial visits.