About eight years ago I was working in a studio with one of the more energetic designers I’ve ever met, Patrick Douglas (currently a design manager for Target). Patrick was the kind of guy who, when he wasn’t slaving tirelessly on some in-house effort, was busy working on one of his own projects; usually something furniture-related (unless he was re-tiling his bathroom). When his personal interest in flat-packed, ready-to-assembly (RTA) furniture found synergy with some internal projects, I not only got a first hand look at an interesting niche segment but a chance to both puzzle over and contribute a little to one of these projects.

Back then of course this sort of product was still very much the domain of large established companies. When someone said something was a flat-packed item, it generally meant the thing was a cheap piece of RTA furniture made from particle board and covered in cheap veneer. The exceptions were on the other end of the spectrum – usually intricately laser-cut and pricey; laser-cutting – as a service available to small design boutiques – was still relatively new at the time.

The cool thing about laser-cutting was it’s ability to accurately and cleanly cut complex shapes, and it didn’t take long for clever designers to set about the task of creating objects intended for assembly without fasteners. While I don’t know if it’s a good correlation, I suspect the growth of Ikea has something to do with throwing into their basic recipe a large helping of clever design along with a dash of laser-cutting technology (among other things).

Anyway, that was then and it seems as if we’re now seeing a second (maybe even third or fourth) wave of new, creative products that begin their lives flat. Not all are beholden to laser-cutting machines, but many may be indebted to the earlier solutions that the technology enabled. Let’s look at some samples:

Notice anything here? These aren’t the products of large manufacturers (Muji is by far the largest; and is an easy exception to make). These are coming from increasing numbers of small outfits working beautifully within their business constraints. They also don’t limit their solutions to laser-cutting flat stock – note the injection-molded Emulation Kits.

More than anything, the goal of these upstarts seems to be efficient packaging to take advantage of e-commerce and ubiquitous shipping services. But wouldn’t that be the goal of every manufacturer? No one likes to “ship air”. How is it that these small, relatively inexperienced businesses can come up with these fabulous products when large multinationals can’t? or… won’t?

The product I mentioned earlier – the one on which I contributed – was designed to ship flat, but instead was shipped assembled out of fear the consumer would have trouble figuring it out… all five pieces. Makes you wonder why they bothered proceeding with the design in the first place, doesn’t it? Makes me wonder what companies are going to do when the world goes flat.

I took a peek over on Machinima.com earlier today and noticed yet another one in what seems to be an onslaught of machinima videos created in the recently released “The Movies” videogame. This one caught my attention by virtue of the title, “The French Democracy“. I didn’t stop to watch it.

Just a few minutes ago I happened to notice mention of it over on Water Cooler Games. I didn’t get halfway through the article there when I decided to head back to Machinima.com and have a look for myself.

Well, it’s primitive and the QT version I saw has a fair share of compression artifacts. The subtitles can be difficult to read, the pacing is erratic, the music can be overblown at times, the editing could be better, and the end reminds me of early government “lesson” films (in other words: it’s cheesy). But it doesn’t matter. For all it’s faults – and there are plenty – the message isn’t lost.

Watch it for yourself. This amateur bit of videogame moviemaking is ushering in a new age.

{Updated to include this Link over to Chris Anderson’s post on this same topic and further updated to add this Link to a post on WorldChanging}

After my last post I’m happy to let an image and some Quicktime clips do the talking. The above image is a screencap from some amazing video clips showcasing Scanline Production GmbH’s new fluid renderer, Flowlines. Check out the videos here and mind your jaw. Imagine that technology – currently available for integration (plug-ins?) into 3D applications like Max or Maya – as a plug-in for a virtual world simulation. Too cool.

Back in the 80’s there was an interesting development in, of all places, the comic book industry. A collision of circumstances – everything from issues regarding creator rights to the explosion of the independents – changed the entire industry (the wikipedia has a decent entry on this period here). As I was living in San Diego at the time, I had an almost front row seat to some remarkable changes (San Diego, by virtue of it’s huge comic book convention, being an epicenter of sorts). One change was the rapid growth in specialty comic shops which carried not just the major independents, indy zines and an increasing flood of anime from Japan; but “direct to market” comics by the majors; things you couldn’t get at the convenience store. There were of course comic shops long before (one being my childhood favorite, the infamous Planet Comics), but before this change they weren’t really treated much differently than the local 7-11.

What makes all that relevant now is that the humble comic book is still on media’s cutting edge and probably a pretty good indicator of where things might be headed. They did it with creator rights (spear-headed in part by Neal Adams in the late 70’s). They did with self-publishing. And they did it with direct-to-market product; going from mass distribution straight to the consumer at these specialty shops. They were, in effect, singing Anderson’s Long Tail tune before we even had the sheet music (and it’s one reason that reading Anderson’s original article on Wired wasn’t so much revelation for me as it was confirmation of where I saw things headed).

Since the rise of computers and the internet, there have of course come changes to the comic book market. Videogames have eaten into sales (some were saying not so long ago that comics would simply disappear in this new environment). Webcomix have sprung up and slowly gained sophistication and audience. Indy communities who were once held together by specialty zines (like Tim Corrigan’s “Small Press Comics Explosion”) have banded together online and sprouted annual meet-ups and conventions. And more recently print-on-demand has emerged as an option for small press people unable to fork over the cash for even the smallest of print runs (I won’t get into the debate over whether POD is worthwhile). All very interesting stuff. And relevant to anyone and everyone selling a product or service… especially when fab-on-demand and open source enter the picture.

I like shifting around so I’m going to do that now and recount an interesting article I read back in 1997 while sitting in traffic. In Toyama, Japan. The article was in one of those Eastern versions of an American magazine; the kind that Western executives stuck in overseas assignments have lying around their offices. The article was about the Japanese pipeline for all that anime stuff that was flowing West (it was still kinda new to lots of people). It described how a property might begin life as a comic carried on a newstand (unlike the U.S. which gave birth to the form, the rest of the world attaches no stigma to reading comics, and because of this the medium has shown itself to be an excellent proving ground for new ideas). If a particular comic was successful, it might then be moved up the media chain.

As a property successfully moved upward – indicative of it’s mass appeal – it became increasingly less risky to sink larger chunks of capital into it. This meant that at the top of the pyramid, a movie might be financed or tooling to manufacture toys might be purchased. The big difference between that and what seemingly happens in the West is planning. A property like Frank Miller’s “Sin City“, for example, was popular from the beginning, yet was only made into a movie recently – long after its debute in the early 90’s. Why the delay? Miller has an excellent track record in both comics and film. It was a hot property; one that the Japanese would have groomed. What gives? Well, the way I see things, it’s like Japanese companies have Method, and U.S. companies generally have Madness. They have a steady, long-term approach, and we have a hit-or-miss short term one based too often on some executive’s gut feeling (shades of “Brazil“). The movie was a hit of course, yet it wouldn’t have been made if not for the efforts of cutting edge director Robert Rodriguez. Is all this sounding familiar? It should. News lately has been carrying reports that Toyota will likely overtake GM as the largest automobile manufacturer in the world sometime within the next year or two. How does that happen if not for a lack of long-term planning.

The point I’m making is that there are things to learn, even from lowly comic books and economically-troubled island nations. So let’s learn something.

Boing Boing is carrying an entry on a new multi-spatial comic called “The Bold Explorers” created by Jim Munroe (see his announcement here). The comic was created partially from input from readers of a previous work, can be read for free online, and can be purchased print-on-demand from online service Lulu. Sounds like Jim is keeping his word:

Jim Munroe is a novelist who left HarperCollins to showcase and propagate indie press alternatives to Rupert Murdoch-style consolidation. There’s more than one way to play the publishing game.

There’s also more than one way to play the manufacturing game. Expect news any day of an emerging direct-to-niche world with products that span the real and the virtual. So plan ahead. Read your comics.

It’s been so long I stopped paying attention. As a design student in the early 90’s I worked on concepts for a home media gateway (a “black box” which is effectively the same thing as Microsoft’s XBox 360), a holographic display device and holographic storage, so this news is a long time in coming and very welcome.

Computerworld has an article from last week titled “Turner Entertainment turns to holographic storage” that I’ve just now read. From the article:

Turner Entertainment Networks has its lenses focused on holographic storage for the future of storing and retrieving its movies, cartoons and commercial spots. The network giant has completed a test of the cutting-edge storage technology, which it said will soon move the company away from tape- and disk-based storage.

I wasn’t aware things were so far along. Now imagine the advantages of having holographic memory for virtual worlds. Not only can it grow more easily at less cost, the memory is random access – unlike current storage devices. It’s faster and more easily accessed. And for consumers, the ability to maintain larger caches means that distinctions between data types becomes less an issue as they can locally store more information. I’ve been wondering lately about an increased mix of 3D mesh data and parametric data in the Second Life virtual space. This is the kind of news that opens up some possibilities for the future; including privately-hosted sims.

Besides that, all the news stories of the new XBox 360, the $100 Laptop, and now this make me want to dig out my old sketches and do something creative. Very cool news.

via Wired