A weekend Project. No.1, “singing Sushi”, a small loudspeaker with dock for casual hearing. iPod shuffle works here as a “media key”, from where music is extracted, and a play/pause button (similar to SD-card slots). The reason for not using iPod’s control is, I prefer a haptically more intensive, more mechanical procedure for that “casual” feeling. However, being unsure about whether the shuffle could be controlled over the 3.5mm minijack, this design stays a speculation.

No.2, a wall mount picture-frame-alike loudspeaker that presents the shuffle as a precious and delicate art piece. Of cause paintings don’t have power cords, so I made a plug underneath the iPod. Thinking of recharging a picture is charming, it can also be seen as a installation. (Aug 2007)

Teamwork with my colleague Jens Schardetzki under the guidance of Prof. Frank Zebner to “redesign” the Tizio by Richard Sapper from 1972. We had several hands-on of the original to check out how well it functions and how it looks and feels in different poses / from different viewing angles, read all relevant texts we could find to get Sapper’s thoughts and other people’s opinions, referred to some 30 lights that are relevant to the Tizio in one way or another to better know what a Tizio is and where our “redesign” should go. The final dicision was, while keeping the electric connections cable-free, to make an elegant one-beam construction with integrated counterweights that reminiscent of Tizio’s parallel arm construction when in its “typical pose” (pic 2), and to use a table clamp without screw / with a built-in power adapter and a touch switch.

The arms of the new light measure the same with Tizio’s thinnest / longest arms in cross section, which is 12mm x 4mm. The dimension of the new light lies slightly under that of the Tizio, as respect to the original. A more detailed, somewhat provisional construction is made afterwards by myself (Jens was then doing an internship) as I regard this as an inseparable part of the concept.

LEDs to use: LUXEON Rebel, Neutral-white / Warm-white. Original with 140° viewing angle; through correction lens a 60° viewing angle, which is similar to the Tizio, can be archieved; this can also be adjusted to meet other needs. Some tungsten must be used for the counterweights. (Aug 2007)

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Meanwhile (Jun 2008), this project is being further developed. By interest please contact me.

Form study to make a closed system showing pressure and tension. Teamwork with my colleague Philipp von Lintel under the guidance of Mike Ambach. Made of ordinary balloons, sticks and wooden balls. More infos on request. (Jul 2006)

Project about making simple products from cardboards, under the guidance of Prof. Sigmar Willnauer. I went along to explore the aesthetic aspect of this material. One result is this CNC cut lamp that uses the corrugated structure to project light patterns. I tried to simulate light patterns beneath trees and reflections on water surface, which would be relaxing. More details on request. (Jan 2006)

Project about the identity of digital audio players, under the guidance of Prof. Sabine Wald. Unlike its predecessors, digital audio players don’t have dedicated, standardized, voluminous storage media like CDs or tapes and the peripheral mechanics. They can take almost any physical form; they (yet) have no archetype, no clear identity. It’s sometimes not easy to tell them apart from other digital devices, like mobile phones and GPS handhelds. The pictures above show some of my first thoughts about this issue. I made a shape that resembles music rhythms. A wrapping display forms the media layer, which is manipulated through control elements “from inside”. The buttons are significant and show in their traditional form: volume control turns up and down, play/pause button pushes down, keeps half-way in and pushes up; there’s also a separate switch for selecting play modes. (Jan 2005)

A logical alternative to display time, under the guidance of Prof. Sabine Wald: this lineal 24-hour dial that doesn’t show time in an endless motion like a round dial but “cut” it into days. It defines a begin and an end, thus easier to see how the day progresses: By mid of day the hour-hand appears in the middle, by evening it appears near the end. With some time to get used to, this will appear more instinctive than the traditional round dial. Above displayed time is 9:40. (Jan 2005)

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A closer look at various display methods of time:

The most commonly used one is a 12-hour round dial, which indicates time using angles, a similar type to the 24-hour round dial, which is mainly used by pilots and scientists. While the idea of the 24-hour round dial clearly came from sundial, this kind of natural relation no more exist with the 12-hour version. This makes time display on a 12-hour round dial losing reference. With 6 a.m. pointing at the bottom doesn’t make any sense.

There also have been several historical methods. The oldest one of them is the sundial mentioned above, which is very natural, though limited only to out-door use on sunny days. Water clock and sand glass use increase / decrease of certain substance by controlled flow to measure time. The German idiom “die Zeit ist abgelaufen (time has ran out)” attributes to the former one. Burning candles and incense sticks were also used to measure time. Despite of spends and inaccuracy, most of these methods (except some variants of water clock) show very intuitive information.

The numerical display, unlike all these above, is not a visual implication but a code. It has to be processed and stored as (spoken) words. An evidence for this is, when being asked by my German colleagues for my seldom used mobile phone home zone number, I came up first with Chinese in mind though I speak fluently German. It reveals that my output is not based on reading from a visual signal but on a stored verbal/audio signal. In this case it’s in Chinese since it’s more natural to me. For the more often used mobile phone mobile number, this info is then overwritten in German. Though words are good for the communication with other people, they are not instinctive enough; where ever possible, we tend to replace them with visual signals. So do I remember the password of my bank card as a graphical pattern according to the numpad layout. With these said, the numerical display is not intuitive. And another minus point about numerical esp. digital numerical display is, they don’t feel real.

Some alternative time display methods are around for a while now. Disappointedly, most of them are just ridiculous. One have to study them first in order to read the time. One example here is the binary watch.