Combining Art and Technology

You can do amazing things when you combine art and technology.

Soso Limited’s piece called Patterned By Nature uses LCD glass, animation and sounds to represent natural occurrences like raindrops, clouds and birds in flight.

Lisa Kaczmarczyk’s Interdisciplinary Computing Blog describes Justin Manor co-founder of Soso Limited’s inspiring presentation at a recent IxDA meetup.

Art, UX, Computer Science (happy campers)

I was also impressed by Soso’s designs for the CSIS Global Data Chandelier scheduled to be installed in 2014. The lights of the chandelier are shaped like a map of our continent. The lights will display global statistical data such as natural resource availability, energy use and consumption, population data and more like highlighting regions of the world that are currently being discussed.

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Turning Ideas into Apps

Todd Moore’s 2012 book Tap, Move, Shake Turning Your Game Ideas into iPhone & iPad Apps is a great book if you want to build an App for Apple devices. Here are some of the steps that are detailed in this book:

1. Register as an App Developer at developer.apple.com/register
2. Download Xcode
3. Register your Apple devices for development and simulation
4. Code in Objective-C
5. Create UI .xib “nib” with interface builder
6. Use best sound and graphics
7. Check US Patent website and name App
8. Submit App to for Apple iTunes distribution
9. Market and Sell the App

The author shares the code and all of the details to explain how to build a game (in this case- pong) App. In the end of the book, he even shares many of the rejection letters he received from Apple. This book is a handy companion for any new App developer.

For more on Apple App Development see: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#referencelibrary/GettingStarted/RoadMapiOS/chapters/Introduction.html

Getting Feedback

As a nice counterpoint to my enthusiasm for Augmented Reality(AR) in my blog post “Linking Print to Digital”, I’d like to post this screenshot of the Starbucks AR Application and point out needle11’s poignant comment below…

Linking Print to Digital

I know its decadent, but there is something special about a great printed piece. There are so many papers, inks and designs and so much that can happen when you skillfully combine them. I love going to the Print Industry Association (PIA) Trade Show in San Diego. This year’s show was a fraction of the size of previous years due to digital, but many of the best paper and printing companies still thankfully remain.

I asked exhibitors to tell me about their favorite marketing pieces or what’s new with their company and the resounding answer was Augmented Reality (AR) Codes. AR codes are like QR codes and they link your printed piece to digital. When you are reading printed material and you see an icon (these can be custom made), you can capture it with your phone, and then your phone displays more information such as a video or even the page where you can purchase the item.

Ricoh called it “Clickable Paper” in their Spark Session talk. SOS Printing is using QR Codes and Augmented Reality with the Printergize app.

Jennifer Lamm at NewPage demonstrated the Layar Augmented Reality app in action.

Watch the video below. It’s one of my favorites because the guy on the cover of the magazine comes to life with Layar.

Eye/Comm focused marketing solutions were one of the first of the exhibitors to mention this technology and they have some links to some great uses of AR in their blog post: Enhance Your Direct Mail Marketing For Better Results. Read this post and be sure to see what Starbucks did, if you haven’t already seen it.

At this trade show you can see and feel the surfaces that are available to print on. All kinds of paper, much not made from trees, wallpaper and even window shades. I met some experts today who I can call upon to get the job done right!