play in design

Admittedly this isn’t super playful. It’s just a beautiful piece of electric bicycle design. Given I’m currently on the hunt for a bike to navigate Denmark’s progressively wetter streets, I’m just divining rod-ing.

My notebooks are filled with my own doodles, some good and some bad. But I love the idea of coloring books, especially if the paper is quality enough to withstand whatever pencil or paint I throw at it.

Everyone should seek to transform and reclaim the world around them, upending whatever established behavioral paradigms they like. A hugely difficult thing to control is sound, but these seem to present a playful way of listening more purposefully. They remind me a lot of Alex Brainwood’s investigation into nonisolation headphones, though admittedly without as much fantastic beard or copper tubing.

There are some things, play-related, of which I am a huge fan and immediately draw me to it (Note: this is obviously not an exhaustive list):

Eccentricity.

Interesting takes on non-zero sum type play, where there is no obvious win-state.

Neko Atsume hits both. “Kitty collector” is a good subtitle for this game, as that is essentially what you are doing: you put out food and toys and cats come and visit. When they visit, they bring you things so you can buy more food and toys for them. And that’s it. Sometimes when you open your app, there won’t be any cats there. Sometimes, it will be completely full. When they are there you can take a photo of them, but they leave you gifts either way. Sure, this game involves kittens and is from Japan so I’m just hitting a bunch of stereotype qualifiers here, but bear with me, because cats are not the reason why this is good. 

Games, by many peoples’ definition, have some kind of quantifiable end state. That is to say, a winner or a loser or a time limit with a score — something that ends play. By not having this at all, Neko Atsume has created a playful experience and experiment. We get glimpses into this fantastical world occasionally at independent game festivals (indiecade, IGF, fantastic fest arcade, etc.), but Neko is completely different and much more accessible. It just is what it is, no pretense.

It’s a kitten collector.

I am very much looking forward to the day when there are no distinctions between media. All entertainment will exist on a spectrum between being in nature and sitting in a virtual reality pod from the matrix, where each medium will have its advantages and disadvantages and it’s OK to like everything.

Until this [inevitability] happens, I’m happy to see a blend of at least two mediums: games and TV. Minimal interactions that dramatically interfere with the plot points is something that Tell Tale is also doing, and it’s a very easy way to slowly bring interactive entertainment to a wider audience.

The most glaring issue right now is that these experiences are largely marketed toward and sold to demographics that already accept and play games. It would be interesting to see what form it would take if it came from the other angle: what would TV look like with more interactivity, rather than what would games look like with more video content?

How many romantic ideals is this one hostel hitting? Oh all of them? Oh great ok. The interior design is fantastic, it appeals to the innate human desires of browsing a bookstore and sleeping, and it’s in Tokyo. 

Bright colors, a playful nostalgic feel, and some well-textured buttons and mic covers.

IKEA instructions have an established and playful language, but it’s important to remember that even the most playful and seamless appearing designs were, in fact, not seamless and not playful at some point. Iteration and testing are incredibly important to the process, and while every designer understands this phenomenon, getting glimpses into the process of such a major company is usual.

Backyard Playhouses

There’s a huge discussion to be had in terms of this cleansing of play, which seems to be coming both from a design (the popularity of scandinavian aesthetics) and a behavioral (play time has moved inside and is more controlled) standpoint.

But my god these are beautiful. Can I just use one as a detached studio?