“Stain is a set of a teacups designed to improve through use.”

By artist Bethan Wood, these teacups stain at an uneven pace so that some parts of the cup turn brown more quickly than other parts. The end result is a beautiful design demonstrating how products can age gracefully too.

Labels: artifact design

“The best ideas are always next to the crazy ones” but that doesn’t mean the crazy ideas are good or feasible.

This idea comes from someone (Julie? Tiffany?) I met at a seedy bar in Mountain View called the Cocktail Lounge:

Car and train companies should work together to tune their products so that traffic noise will instead be music. This way the sound of mass mobilization will not be the cacophonous white noise as we know it but something more soothing and entertaining.

Where I think this will break down: What's more annoying than traffic noise? Listening to the same song over and over again! I once played Rocky Raccoon on repeat for three days in order to drive people out of my dorm room. It worked. What song would you pick anyway? Is there a song in this world that we can all be happy about? Elevator music? Ride of the Valkyries?

I think I would rather have a quieter car and pick my own music, but this does bring up an interesting point about designing for artifacts. If your product creates a undesirable or unavoidable artifact, why not make it something positive?

Labels: artifact design, car, crazy