Nose Ninjas!

Spring brings smells.  Every day now when I walk out the front door of my office to go on my lunch run (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), I get a shot to the nose of some fantastic floral scent.  I don’t know where it’s coming from, there are no flowers or flowering trees at the entrance, and that’s what’s so fantastic about it.  Spring is full of happy scent ghosts standing in invisible pockets of surprise excellence, waiting to be stumbled upon.

 (image courtesy of www.maileable.com)

It makes you wonder why more people don’t use scent to enhance experiences.  You’ve probably heard the example of movie theatres that pump the smell of popcorn in through the air vents to make you want to buy popcorn.  But think also of Starbucks.  You wouldn’t be there unless you already wanted coffee, so how great is the experience of walking in and getting that first hit of coffee smell?  How fantastic is walking out your front door on a December night and getting that cold snow/wood fireplace scent?

Smell is a crucial part of any experience whether or not we notice it.  Makes you wonder why more designers don’t use it.  Obviously, we don’t want churches to be so bathed in incense that we can’t breathe, but a light scent wafting through the air could be a fantastic joy ninja, coming from nowhere to heighten any experience, only to disappear in a flash.

Anyone want to go huff some trees with me?

--Becky

Useless Hipsters Unite!

Why won’t hipsterism ever go away? Consider that technology (facilitated by capitalism’s emphasis on efficiency; i.e., consider the assembly line a technology as well as the internet) is stripping people of what has been traditionally defined as “useful” or “legitimate” or “meaningful” work, and thus stripping meaning from their lives. “Nothing productive left to do since the robots came; better make my consumption more flamboyant and self-announcing!” 

 --(courtesy of http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/137272-/ )

Ahhh, the modern urban hipster.  Everyone loves to mock them (including them… self-awareness is crucial to a hipster’s repertoire), but it sounds like, for those of us who are not destined to invent the next printing press, we’re screwed for finding meaningful pursuits.  This author goes on to explain that the resulting path is “designy-ness, creative-class hucksterism, culture industry” as a means of insisting upon one’s own importance and value.  While it would be easy to be offended by that, I actually agree.

The creative types in the world seem to be finding new, more innovative ways to express… what, exactly?  That they’re new and innovative!  That they’re a force of creation and ideas!  Don’t think I miss the irony, here.  I know full well that this blog is a perfect example.

Perhaps that’s why this article struck a chord with me.  Design and creative expression seem to be the only way to feel relevant in our mega-tech, soft-skill culture.  When you design a building, clothing, a website, there is something permanent in the world that is a monument to its creator.

Egotistical?  Totally.  Real?  Also yes.  Important?  Nothing moreso.

--Becky!