Designs of the year 2014

On Sunday, I visited the Design Museum in London to see the Designs of the Year 2014 exhibition, which encompassed architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphic, product and transport design.

The digital section was what I was most interested in. These were some of the nominees:

Hello Lamp Post- Lamp posts and bins and other street furniture in Bristol that you could converse with by text message.

Lego Calendar - A calendar made of Lego, which you can photograph and then it synchronises with an online calendar.

Oculus Rift - Virtual reality headset.

PEEK (Portable Eye Examination Kit) - Eye examinations using a smart phone.

Touch Board by Bare Conductive. This was a good interactive exhibit, as they had painted keys onto the wall which you could then touch and they would play sounds.

In the Product section:

Clever Caps - bottle caps that you can also use like Lego (and with Lego).

Nest smoke alarm.

I had heard of a number of these before, so I did start wondering if I should look be looking on Kickstarter instead for cool designs, but the Designs of the Year exhibition often has a focus on designs that can help people or are sustainable/ethical. Also, I enjoy looking at the other exhibits, as I am often not aware of new design outside of the digital space.

Some of the exhibits you can try out or even buy (such as the Clever Caps, Bare Conductive paint, etc), but often you can't - It would be great if I could have conversed with a lamp post, became immersed in virtual reality, examined my eyes using a phone, tried out some of the chairs and so on.

What I did in April

Saw many bluebells:


These are some more of the things I did in April:

I spoke Icelandic, at my last Icelandic class.
I saw the world more clearly, due to new glasses.
I watched Laputa:Castle in the Sky at the BFI, and saw an island fly and robots tending gardens.
I planted apple trees and chased butterflies, amongst the falling blossom, while playing Animal Crossing.
I found a space invader and the Tate Plane in Brixton and sipped hot chocolate in the Chocolate Museum.
I wandered around St James' Park and saw bluebells, pelicans and forget-me-nots.
I walked around Alexandra Park.
In Roehampton, I saw a lucombe oak, and then walked through Richmond park amongst the deer.
I saw wonderful bluebells in Kings Wood in Kent.
I wandered around Scadbury Nature Reserve, amongst old trees and more bluebells.
I walked on the beach in Ramsgate and saw the Smack Boys Club, and stared out to sea. I also visited the Micro Museum with lots of old computers and consoles.
I listened to talks on Interaction design on the outside at IxDa.
I looked at cool inventions at the Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum.
I ate Kinder ice-cream and mascarpone and fig ice-cream.
I went to Barnes and saw the Barn Elms Plane.
I made a necklace glow.
I met my fuelband goal on every day of the month.
I was very happy when my boiler was fixed, after spending a week without hot water or heating.

Selected tweets:
It was the morning and the snails were crawling, through the mist.

"Stay in familiar surroundings," she was told.
She ate tartiflette and drank pink lemonade and went to see the mermaids after that.

( A few photos of Ramsgate )