Week 471

Another jam packed week, but quite busy so this will be shorter than usual. Presented first draft of the design I’ve been working on, wireframes quickly thrown into a deck and a 1 minute UI ‘visual sketch’ which hopefully got across some of the more experiential elements I was hoping to include. Obviously it’s quite exciting to present new work, but this was tempered with the reality that this is a first draft and it felt it. Response was muted.

Clearly there is more work to be done. Things need exploring more, some things need to be made simpler. Some need to go. We’ll be bashing out details this afternoon to take another run at it for a second draft.

During the lull of midweek I popped along to the Toy Fair up the road at Olympia. It was a bit depressing really. I’d previously first visited about 15 years ago, and a few times since, but this seemed to have had the life sucked out of it.

No videogames, or interactive things really. Very much ‘old’ toys and very many of those with licensed brands. This year: Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2 the  big properties. All a bit lifeless. All a bit constrained by already professionally imagined worlds.

And then there was the launch of the iPad. Literally a blank canvas: lovely, exciting, endless new possibilities. Not least, possibilities for toys. Games, drawing, music, PLAY - all these things should shine on the iPad. I literally cannot wait and have downloaded the iphone SDK to fiddle, maybe even learn some basic app programming skills.