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Interface inspiration at the office

37signals.com

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Re: Interface inspiration at the office

#2

Post by gdubs »

This is great. I used to be an avid reader of Amiga World, and this reminded me of something in one of Mojo's columns. (Mojo was a VFX supervisor on Babylon 5, which made heavy use of the Video Toaster, and LightWave – he wrote a monthly Op-Ed for Amiga World.) I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, "If you go to film school, make sure you study things other than film. Otherwise, when you get out of school, you'll have nothing to make films about."

Edit: Ah, it was not Amiga World. It was 'New Tekniques'

Re: Interface inspiration at the office

#3

Post by jwarzech »

Really cool idea, however I'm wondering how necessary it was to hire an outside group. Why not just dedicate a space and slowly fill it with items that employees find interesting?

I do remember an article awhile ago about a company (perhaps 37signals) that kept a collection of different textures/materials to use as inspiration. I always thought this was a great idea.

Re: Interface inspiration at the office

#5

Post by fiatpandas »

jwarzech wrote: post #3

Really cool idea, however I'm wondering how necessary it was to hire an outside group. Why not just dedicate a space and slowly fill it with items that employees find interesting? I do remember an article awhile ago about a company (perhaps 37signals) that kept a collection of different textures/materials to use as inspiration. I always thought this was a great idea.

A lot of times, creative processes are best fueled with unfamiliar or alien sources of inspiration. If employees brought in objects they like, how much is their decision influenced by how they already think about computer interfaces? Adding an external group to the mix is healthy in my opinion.
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