though i usually care little of my past, or any history for that matter, i do care about my roots. and since this is a column about creativity and design, i will talk about my creative and design roots. and there’s one place to find these roots: eindhoven. the glorious light city of the netherlands.

eindhoven is becoming the netherlands’ design capital, as it seems. but because this time has not yet arrived, i will provide you dear readers out there with a wishful view on eindhoven as a design capital. let’s get started!

to start with the appearance of this city should be quite different; one cannot have the new mecca of design look like a mishmash of random styles. the city will be redesigned by promising architects and designers, though we might need to drop a “small” bomb to get rid of the old buildings from the industrial era. the creators will be handed unlimited amounts of cash and given total freedom in design as long as they stick with the dominant color; cupertino white. the motivation for this choice is quite simple; it provides a uniform background and at the same time gives the city a bright appearance which you have to admit; would be great advertisement when using google earth (though we won’t name it “the white city” just yet). unfortunately i was told that neither the adobe nor the bob ross-palette will support this color in the near future…

another important aspect of the aesthetics of the city can be found at the bottom of the contract the creators signed. it states, in font-size 0.1, the city will be re-designed each year to stay up-to-date with the current styles. and as for history, not to worry, a small museum will be built to showcase all those city-versions, creating a unique array of
design throughout the years.

but such a city should not be just about design, but also about technology. upcoming technologies will provide the much-needed innovation and possibilities for its inhabitants. to start with i’m thinking of free ultra high speed wireless internet all over the city; hmm call it phileas, after that other oh-so successful product. besides that possibly embed rfid into all products and minority report-style interfaces just for kicks & coolness, infinite power supplies for all our mobile products, personal teleporters for everyone and, obviously, those super-pda-thingies the size of a credit card with everything you’ll (n)ever need.

however, let us not forget the ubiquitous functionality, a vital part of user focus. creating a pleasant and persuasive
interactive experience in an affective environment using tangible controls implemented into intuitive interfaces is an important aspect in creating intelligent and ambient products. all right, i admit: i like to use fancy words, comes with the education…

or we could just use some kind of touch-sensitive clickable wheel-shaped concoction which allows for surfing through content and easily selecting it and stick that interface on everything that needs to be controlled by us…hmm, sounds good, i might need to patent that idea…

we might as well do something good for the environment and only write with e-ink on our e-papers publishing them in e-books and selling them on e-bay, making paper superfluous and saving some trees. though i wonder if we’re going to need an e-pen for that… but come on people, e-ink? that’s like sooo 2008…

and last but not least: we are only allowed to use apples, whether you eat them every once in a while or use them to run photoshop cs-whatever is up to you. come to think of it, we should name this city “beginhoven”, because this is were it all begins; at the capital of design!

jan van der asdonk is a contributor to studio469 in the shape of his creative spamming, manifesting itself in his somewhat distorted views and theories of the world around him. feedback, topic requests and fan mail are all very welcome at jan@studio469.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 12:34 and is filed under Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.