2 posts tagged “design”
Nina and I stopped into OSH yesterday after breakfast. Our ostensible purpose was the purchase of a behind-the-door towel bar, but really we just go to the hardware store to get into trouble. "Trouble" yesterday consisted of a $180 kitchen faucet.
Now, our existing kitchen faucet is a piece of crap. Our architect spec'd it when we remodeled our kitchen a few years back. We have hated it ever since - low water pressure, drips, and a microscopic "warm" window between hot and cold. I don't know why it didn't occur to us to replace the thing earlier.
So we're at OSH, and fate leads us to the faucet aisle, and we are drawn to this marvel of ergonomic engineering like moths unto a candle flame:
Photo uploading seems a little wonky just now so a link will have to do.
Anyway, the faucet's got the spray trigger thingy on the bottom of the spout instead of the top, so you can trigger the spray regardless of how you grab the spout. It's an elegant little piece of engineering that made my interaction design heart go pitter-pat.
We brought it home and installed it last evening. I can't believe the difference. The water pressure seems to have tripled, it doesn't drip, it's easy to access a wide range of temperature settings, and the pull-out spout extends and retracts smoothly.
Little change, big impact. I'm still marvelling.
Via Miniver Cheevy, an article on applying medieval heraldry to modern corporate logos. I was quite the heraldry geek in college, so I found the article tremendously entertaining.
Look beyond the obvious humor of the article and give it some serious thought. Heraldry is a rich visual language. If one understands that language, one can communicate a wealth of information in a very small space. I wouldn't go so far as calling it "elegant", but I think "efficient" is pretty close to the mark.
Of course, all the failed artists out there who now call themselves "designers" would never let something as sensible as corporate heraldry come to pass. Like most good design, heraldry doesn't allow the designer much room for self-expression. So sad.
