The. Best. Waterguns.
The is a (sometimes derided) theory in social sciences called “the broken window theory”. This espouses that minor infractions of law and societal norms (vandalism, graffiti etc) if left visible and untended will lead to an increase in frequency and severity of other crimes.
There has also been proposed an inverse and corollary version: the aesthetic domino effect. This proposes that signs of attention, of social cohesion, all signs of care, will encourage more of the same. Which is to say that people react to things that have received the intention, care and consideration of others.
What is true of the built urban environment is also true of more discrete works of design.
Case in point: the Team Magnus Incog Watergun.
The care and deliberation paid to this is evident in everything.
The design (and it looks amazing), the packaging, the after-sales care, all speak of a product that has been cared for. The packaging contains info on maintenance, storage, hydration, even the company’s charitable endeavours and social causes.
As a designer I’m alway intrigued, whether my perception of an aesthetically (not to mention ergonomically) superior product has any reflection in the way that people view or use that product. This attention to detail, this evident care over the product, the Apple-ficiation of a water-gun has been reflected (so far….) in my kids treatment of the guns.
The guns are drained after use, and reside in the original box, stored in the boys bedrooms, rather than with a stack of other discarded water-pistols in the shed.
We are an essentially imitative species and one of the outcomes, I believe, is that people react to good design in an imitative way. Which is to say they care about things that which other people have evidentially cared about.
More AI-art.
Like a lot of people I have jumped all in on the AI art bandwagon, with both Midjourney and Dall-E. Both much, much easier to use (the former via a Discord server) than my previous attempts using Colab & S2ML locally.
The quality of the results is astounding, and I’m seeing more and more use-cases of it through various channels, beyond the sheer wonder and novelty of it. This is absolutely the arrival of “centaur" design” (the equivalent of centaur or cyborg chess) In which designers, especially those working in early conceptual stages, will be use AI image generation such as these, to generate new ideas, to bend their thinking a little and iterate far more rapidly (and illogically) than a human alone can do.
Despite all these real-world applications I am still stuck firmly at the “wonder and novelty” stage, making lo-fi zine covers of Kurt Russell juggling fish or wondering what a space vehicle designed by Frank Lloyd Wright would look like.
Like this, apparently.
New favourite snack.
These! These are the best.
Kallo Spinach and Pesto rise cakes.
Vegan.
Only 40 calories per cake.
What are you waiting for?