Sublevel.us

The Habitualization of Innovation

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:39:00 +0100

Half a million unique people viewed my work online. I’ve worked as a freelance designer with great people at IDEO, Microsoft, Samsung as well as startups. Reflecting on the work I did in 2012 I would like to share some of my learnings with you. One of the most important ones is the ability to habitualize innovation. A competence I believe to be a major skill in times of innovation, thriving but also disrupting markets, education and government.

After I realised technology as a tool for my work, I wondered: How can I use it to change areas in life that challenge us? For example, how can I use technology to enrich the ways we interact with knowledge, our bad habits or finance? I asked myself those questions to design tangible products that really make a difference in the way we approach those aspects of life.

Case study Sang Lee and I developed for our Startup Thrives.

A Shift to Making Frustration My Favorite Emotion

Lets look at some examples I just mentioned: I don’t feel like it’s worth working, I don’t earn enough to make a living. I feel stressed, I just cannot get enough sleep. Why are we not doing better with education? Why is our business not reaching the goals we set? Questions we ask ourselves or hear from our colleagues and friends.

„Well, there is an app for that” people said if I started a discussion around things that frustrate us. Apps to organise our tasks, appointments, finances and contacts. When I looked at their devices I sometimes saw screens filled with unread messages and notifications coming from different apps they started using to tackle their problems. Other friends who did not turn to their devices tried out habits. They started spending € 100 a month, in cash only (no cards) for their daily needs. They set a € 500 limit per month on their credit card. Or they stopped eating white sugar products. Why? Because they were frustrated with their current situation. Something moved them to change their habits. Things that we see as negative: too high debts, too much body weight, too stressful lifestyles.

What if those moments of frustration are actually positive (I know it sounds counterintuitive but give it a thought)? By using a given solution you spend time getting into someone else’s habit. Learning from others is great and it helps us find solutions. Sometimes it might be a placebo. For us as designers this idea could result in creating adaptive products that get you involved and create a relationship with its content.

Gaian.me celebrates nature. A project to support awareness for climate change within the design community. We changed the angle from focussing on raising awareness to an aspect that is very relevant for designers: the inspiration nature gives and celebrating it with a yearly release consisting a motion trailer, illustrations in form of wallpapers, icons as well as music.

Foster New Habits with Problems

Looking at approaching a project from this perspective I want to share a personal example, finances. I now like doing finances. That might sound strange to some but it’s actually right. Why? Because my tax advisor and I made the process so easy. Utilising the cloud my tax advisor has access to the invoices as I write them and he can give advice if needed.

Thinking about it, there are quite a few situations like this one interacting with finances. I spent time trying to get inspired, talk to people around me or watch movies that supported my current mindset, though my current mindset did not help moving forward with the task I had to do. Neither did the apps that attracted me. Looking at needs from this perspective made me appreciate moments of frustration and products where experienced people from different disciplines got together to find great solutions.

Wearing That Black Shirt Every Day

One of my favorite examples is Outlier. I much enjoy taking my bike or just walk to the places I work at. It really wasnt easy to find clothing that is good while riding to work but also feeling good during work time. If you look at some people who love their jobs you might notice some of them have a quite minimal wardrobe when it comes to daily clothes. Steve Jobs who accidentally bought a lifelong stock of Issey Miyake turtlenecks (after finding out his staff did not want to wear a uniform). Or Mark Zuckerberg who comes to work wearing that black shirt every day.

The two founders of Outlier talking about their motivation to design their products: “We want to make those clothes. The ones where you are like: I dont know even why I grabbed it, but I definitely want to put this on”.

A Serious Wow

In times where we are able to build our own applications, products and companies, design and innovation are fascinating areas to work in. Outlier started with thinking about products that solve the needs of their founders. Keeping frustration and problems as a positive pinpoint could help us build products which are so lean that they open up space for each individual to adapt it to their personal use. And maybe even seriously wow you with all new discoveries. I for example can now put on a classic pair of pants that gives me a great time and space to move while getting to an office and enjoy a productive workday.

If it’s the iDesk or a custom series of furniture I built this year, it’s often the little things that make something a serious wow. Like the local wood residues we used for the sideboard drawer inlays. Or the thinking of the team behind one of the two bikes I use with much joy. Such things get me excited and let me use them with a smile.

The work I did for Microsoft for Windows 8, the default Start and Lockscreens that come with every copy of the latest version of the most used operating system worldwide.

Looking back at 2012 I much enjoyed working with the talented people and teams I met this year. Thank you for the good times and great products we worked on.

New Project with BlackBerry & Porsche Design

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:01:00 +0100

Over the past 6 months I had the great opportunity to work closely with BlackBerry to take their new BBM to market and add a revolutionary feature, the Camera View. Now used by millions of BlackBerry users, this quite exciting new product is connected to a second project I worked on, the P9981, a smartphone created by Porsche Design and BlackBerry.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Augmented Reality often appeared as a science fiction technology in movies or as a gimmick feature on technical devices. As one of the leading mobile phone producers, BlackBerry is the first to introduce a new experience to messaging with BBM 6. I worked on the project from the start and developed the user interface architecture and experience for the camera view.

Announced at the BlackBerry DevCon 2011, the new Camera View got great press feedback. It started a quite interesting discussion about Augmented Reality (AR) and Applied AR in particular. We considered and respected privacy in the development process and integrated features to set your visibility for other BBM users. In movies, AR often appears to be a very powerful tool to browse data and navigate through spaces. In reality it needs a lot of thinking to filter the right data in the right moment.

Beside the BBM 6 Camera View we worked on the P9981, a BlackBerry Smartphone developed by Porsche Design. I created a custom User Interface to complement the streamlined and beautiful front design for the P9981. With millions of users, this is one of my largest and most exciting projects I´ve worked on. It was a great experience to work with both teams and I would like to thank everyone who was involved, especially Wikitude, the company that build the technology behind this great product release.

Time Space Everything

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:02:00 +0200

Last August I had the great opportunity to go to New Delhi, India and work with the talented digital artist Archan Nair. While we worked on our project for GQ Magazine, I realized some distinctive difference between a digital artist and a digital designer. As an illustrator I was curios to explore a style between art and design. The outcome is my biggest collaborative effort yet with over hundred artworks and my first art book.

Systemkings started as a collaborative project between Jared K Nickerson and me in 2009. The first release was quite succesfull and well received on networks like MTV´s Swatch Playground or the Behance Network. It was a pure digital design project between two illustrators. This year I invited two gifted artists. Both brought a different approach to the Time Space Everything release.

“Good design delivers one message”. That´s one of the key parameters for my projects. If you can deliver one message very clearly, your design is functional. Where art leaves interpretation and discusion. We wanted to bring those two disciplines together and I think you can see it quite well in Time Space Everything.

Here are some impressions from the wonderful vernissage for our exhibition in Munich, Germany. I would like to thank the University of Applied Sciences, their gallery staff for the support and Michael Hermann for the great coverage!

What is my job and why am I doing it?

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:07:00 +0200

The plain and simple answer is, I am a designer and I love my job. But what does it mean to design for clients like BlackBerry, China Mobile or Mercedes? To work in a constantly evolving industry, associated with companies like Apple and BMW, designer kitchen tools, all the way up to our favourite items like the desk I am sitting at right now?

Read on for an essay about my thoughts on design and why I decided to leave my daily job as a psychologist and primary teacher for a business that makes me get up at 6.00 am with a smile.

A press image taken from my first furniture project called iDesk

I wanted to take the time to write this essay for everyone who might be in a similar situation at some point and for those who are interested in hearing more about my philosophy.

A while ago I visited the wonderful village where my family and I used to live. 24 years ago we had our daily lives with no electricity, warm water or heating. It was a beautiful old farmers house with pear and apple trees and an ever flowering garden. Except for this new kitchen we got with it´s brand new radio and that green dial pad telephone. No internet connection or TV. I remember being outside all day, watching my grandparents work on their farmers land and the smell of fresh, warm milk.

I had wonderful days in my childhood. Still there were many things I struggled with. I got my first E grade in second grade in one of my lesser loved subjects, arts. My teacher always said my drawings were terrible, they had nothing to do with the given topic. I was no genius in any other subject either and far from being good at sports or handcraft. And so I resigned to the fact that I would never study or be able to pay for a flight on an airplane and see the world from above like the birds that I always admired.

One of my illustrative works for Quicksilver inspired by my favorite animals

Encouragement´s coinage

Time passed by and I made my way through school, did some summer jobs here and there and moved to a new city almost every year as my parents lived in different places. After twelfth grade, school was over. I was seventeen and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be or what I was good at. I knew I had this love for making themes for my favorite mp3 software called WinAmp and designing wallpapers. I shared those on some online communities and quite a few people liked to use them.

It was a different reality though. There was no money to earn or any perspective to get a job for anything like it in town. For the time being, I started in my mother´s discipline, teaching. I went to the academy of social science for three years and worked as a primary teacher. It was a great time, seeing the passion for music grow in the eyes of kids, supporting them and helping them improve their skills with new media, experimenting with audio and video.

Everyone except me knew it though, this was not the right place for me. Almost every day before and after work at school and an institute I used to work at, I did websites and logos for smaller companies or friends’ businesses. I won several fashion design contests at Threadless, LaFraise or DesignByHumans. And there was it, one of those magical moments, when I received this first package from the US with a shirt that had my print on it. It was awesome to see all that passion that I put into the illustration on my digital screen come to life on this t-shirt. All shirts were sold out within weeks and my wallpapers, icons and themes got more and more great feedback.

The Design printed for DesignByHumans

Two jumping feet

At the same time I finished with an A grade diploma from the academy with the best grades and education so far. I was not sure what to do. Should I take the risk and expand my growing digital design side job or study psychology, backed up by the academy’s recommendation?

At that time I loved to go for longer runs around the old house. Of course the house had changed, it got torn down and was rebuilt as an apartment house. Still the beautiful nature around it was there and I was passionate about extending my physical endurance. It was so inspiring to see training can lead to something bigger. After every run, even if I was exhausted, I jumped into the lake and took on another challenge.

The original Design for “Drink the sun”

Of course this had to be possible in my not so successful search for a career as well! I decided to take the jump and do both, become a psychologist and work as a freelance designer. I was so happy that I found a solution! Everything seemed to work out well for a year, but I got exhausted and ended up having a serious spine injury after a long mountain bike trip and overlong work days. While I was in hospital and at home for five months I made the decision to take the risk and jump into freelance design as a full time job.

Technology as a tool

With my beloved shirts and first projects for Mercedes, Pepsi and other companies I created my online portfolio under the label Sublevel.us. Utilizing this platform I had the great chance to do more and more projects. It seemed so easy and I was so, so happy that it all worked out.

All the tools I used, like my MacBook Pro, the all new Wacom tablet I bought and a huge screen made me way more productive. I constantly improved my skills by working with other creatives, learning to accept critique and feedback. I started meeting other designers and had my work exhibited in galleries in Berlin and Vancouver. I could never stop smiling during those meetings and events. I talked to online contacts face to face, made great friends and learned that the digital world was actually not a separated virtual reality.

A hero image for FLUD, a News Reader for mobile devices I initiated with Bobby Goshal and Barton Smith

Everything I called virtual or digital was actually a result of utilizing those technical tools. Those tools opened up amazing possibilities. New concepts of working together, being able to support someones potential and skills or save resources. If you ever play computer games, you might find yourself in a similar position. You use the game´s mechanics to improve the skills of your avatar. You find the strengths and weaknesses of your avatar. There is a great discussion about games or the digital world in general. Some emphasize the risks and how we loose so many talented people to the digital world.

What if they just found a tool to ease their need to express talents and potential? What if those games and social networks are tools to discover new ways of businesses, social life and everything else.

A promotional image for the Ouidoo Gaian, a device developed for China Mobile, designed by me and Barton Smith

Not a minute of regret

My parents did not really understand what I was doing while being in Shanghai or San Francisco, creating ‘something that goes onto the iPhone’. I did something nobody did in our family before. I was the first to get the chance to academic education and I exchanged it for an what seemed to be a very insecure and hobby-like job.

A detail shot of the User Interface Design I did at China Mobile for the Ouidoo Mobile

Though for me it took away the worry and need to work eight hours a day in a ‘real’ job and not having the time to experiment more with my tools. The worry was gone, I made the decision and decided to have my real personality in the digital space. I released my design work on the domain MariusBauer.com, constantly adding background information about the process to each project. Now, working as a full time designer, I have the energy, passion and motivation to work on challenging projects while having fun.

Sounds like someone found his destiny and a happy end? With the experience I gathered over the past five years I definitely work in the right discipline, yes. Not in the discipline of making things prettier but also achieve their full potential.

This month I had a workshop with a client in London and we talked about my background and motivation for being a designer. The CEO of the company told me about her work experience and talked about her, what sounded to me like, very impressive career as a lawyer for well known companies. Now, having her own company, she said: “I feel like it all makes sense now, my passion and work happen at the same time.” I asked her about the work she did in the past as I thought about my own biography. And she answered: “No, it was no wasted time. Every day I learned something, even if it was just how to send out thousands of letters, that makes so much sense for me as a CEO now. I don´t regret a minute of it.”

A future post-gamification

My Interaction Design work for Gaian.me - A community to celebrate the beauty of nature

Here I am today and the answer to the primary question is still the same. I am a designer and I love my job. I love to create visually appealing furniture, apparel, software and hardware. But what thrives a great idea or product? The desire to be bought? It´s use as an inspirational tool? Why do something if it is not worth doing it?

Technology as a tool empowers us to create whole new experiences of fun and awe. We are passionate about building the perfect town in Cityville, collecting huge amounts of coupons for something or bashing huge groups of aliens to save the world on our gaming consoles. We have fun, we feel the flow of being in the game and actually enjoy the challenge of doing work to reach big goals.

Those things make so much sense that more and more applications of them are seen in the ‘real’ world. Better known as the age of gamification, the use of game play thinking and mechanics to solve problems and encourage audiences. Those mechanics have been applied to shopping processes, company structures and even school classes. Technology plays the major role in this movement, it enables us to create amazing things. Things which unfortunately often end up being a thing on a digital screen.

They are missing the touch of your hands, the smell of real materials, the challenge of being actually solved. It is an amazing thing on the screen but feels like it´s not ‘there’. Relationships, money, projects, they often appear in connection with the adjective virtual or digital. Most of all the main character. It is always your personality. You might improve your digital avatar’s financial skills in CityVille or the power of your shotgun, at the end of the day your gaming machine is shut down and it is you who used a tool to express or discover something.

Let´s have a look at my latest project with RIM, the social connect feature you can use through your phone’s camera.

You are in a new city, you want to explore it, talk to new friends you reached with the use of digital networks. You can see who is in the city, send them a BBM message instantly and meet to discover this new place with fun and in a way you could have never done by yourself.

Smile

I felt the need to write this essay because of the discoveries I made recently. While working with my great clients, meeting brilliant and inspiring personalities and finally experiencing the world from a bird’s perspective. Those discoveries inspire me to create useful tools everyday.

Taken at the West Berlin Gallery for the BloodSweatVector Exhibition

You might ask yourself, why did I read this whole article? Everything you just said is so obvious! I know my strengths and weaknesses, I know what I am capable of and how to realize my future visions. Very true, we live in amazing times and there is good design made by great people. There is gamification done the right way. We are connected as never before and we all want to do great things, want to be encouraged by others.

If you think like that, you got my idea, probably love your job and wake up inspired with a smile.

Grove iPhone 4 Case

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:38:49 +0200

The combination of wooden material and technology has always been an interesting field for me. Grove is a company that specializes in exactly that, 100% natural cases for mobile devices made out of local grown bamboo in Oregon. They recently produced one of my illustrations as part of their artist collection.

During the production phase for iDesk I was very fortunate to be involved in the actual cutting, varnishing and designing of a handmade outcome. Ever since I wanted to do another product which brings natural textures in your hands. Grove contacted me for a custom iPhone 4 Case as part of their artist series.

A Grove Case is made out of local grown Bamboo which results in a very sturdy and qualitative cover for your mobile device. The artist´s artwork is laser engraved on the back of the cover utilizing a CNC Machine

“birdland” by Sven Palmowski from Grove on Vimeo.

I was happy to work with this company as they are in line with my own philosophy that every good idea deserves to achieve it´s full potential. You can really see it in the way the cases are designed and produced.

I would like to thank Grove for this great work and Jared for the collaboration on the actual design. And here is the final product:

De Vetpan Rebrand

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:48:00 +0200

Ever since I perceived the photography from De Vetpan Studios for the first time, I was impressed by the quality and emotion captured within. Siebe Warmoeskerken, the artist behind De Vetpan, and I recently worked together to rebrand his studio with a new visual identity.

With current features in Elle Girl (Korea), the flickr community and many more, De Vetpan is a quite well known photography studio based in the Netherlands. The main characteristics of their work is the presence of nature and beautiful, vibrant color schemes. As part of the portfolio Siebe offers a great variety of professional presets packages like the currently released Summer Boost pictured above.

If you take a look at some selected works you can get a good impression of what makes this Studio so special and has become a distinctive style you will recognize easily:

Bright orange, blue, green and purple accents are present in most of those wonderful examples. You will also recognize a very creative and quite unique approach to commercial and experimental photography. Beside the striking color palettes we highlight this special creativity De Vetpan puts into their work. In the following images you will see how I developed the icon and typography:

While developing the visual aspect of the rebrand Siebe mentioned he is about to widen his portfolio in the commercial space and add a store to the website as well. We wanted to make sure the new brand represents this side of De Vetpan but also captures the mentioned personality behind the studio. The last image below shows the final version which is now in use on the new De Vetpan website

Applied AR, a running project

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:39:00 +0200

Augmented Reality (or AR) has always been an impressive feature in Sci-Fi and Action Movies like Iron Man 3 or Transformers. Today, we often see it implemented in Applications as a gimmick or fun feature. Though, this kind of interaction with content has advantages compared to a regular browser. Since February 2011 I lead the creative direction for the world´s best AR Browser which now comes preinstalled on every new BlackBerry 9900 and is used by millions of users on other systems such as Google´s Android or Apple´s iPhone.

With such a big user base and years of experience behind the product, Wikitude offers a lot. You can discover a new city, be guided through an exhibition or even find your colleagues and friends around you. The information for all those interactions is aggregated from multiple sources such as Wikipedia, your personal address book or people you follow on Twitter. Those are some of the features why the Wikidute APP has been featured on Google´s Android Market and several other magazines and websites.

Once you downloaded the application onto your device you have access to millions of points of interests around you.

When you hear about Augmented Reality you might think of things like this great user interface pictured above (copyright by Jose Ortiz).

How are you able to use this mass of information effectively? Imagine you would have thousands of information blocks around you like Robert Downey Jr., how do you get to that particular detail you want to see? For me as the creative director the main goal is a literally augmented experience that is not based on maps (like you could have it with Google´s Map Application) or gimmick features such as the mentioned ego-shooter versions.

One of my favorite applications is the integrated BlackBerry Messenger we developed for the new Wikitude version that will be preinstalled on each new BlackBerry 9900 device. Get in touch with your friends in seconds and catch up with someone who lives in NYC or would like to explore the city with you.

Opening up for innovation

Instead of limiting the abilities with a Browser, the Wikitude Team just announced the ARchitect Developer Platform to use the high quality technology that has been developed and refined over 3 years in cooperation with the W3C. ARchitect has been announced (links to featured article on Wired Magazine) at the ARE in Santa Clara, USA earlier this month.

With so called “drawables” the mentioned points of interests can now be used as interaction elements for navigation, stores, games, social applications and about everything else you could think of.

Beside the new BlackBerry and Android Apps for Wikitude we just relaunched the new website for the company. Thanks to Benjamin Becker and Siebe Warmoeskerken for the photography assets and Wikitude for the great partnership so far! I will post more about this project in the next few weeks with updates, new releases and features.

Acquai - A modern browser

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:10:00 +0200

Since iOS was announced 7 years ago the standard web browser, Safari Mobile did not change it´s appearance. Even the great upcoming update with iOS 5 is missing some of my favorite features and a appearance that goes well with Apples wonderful industrial design. If you are an iOS developer and like this concept, please send me a message! I would be quite interested to realize this design concept.

Making of "Nectar"

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:19:00 +0200

NECTAR is the first in a short series entitled Pinpoint.

“Pinpoint | Sublevel to the visible” is an experimental project for me to explore motion, photography and video.

NECTAR from Marius Bauer on Vimeo.

The idea behind the project:
I always remember when one of my Psychology Professors said: “If one of my employes would build a camera as bad as the human eye, I would fire him”. Unfortunately our eyes are limited when it comes to focussing on small details. Using the Canon 7D and a MP-E 65MM lens I had the chance to take a closer look.

The sound and video is unsteady and chaotic during the first half as you cannot really describe what you are looking at. After a while the person starts to focus on two objects and zooms in.

FLUD for iPad, iPhone and your Mac

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:31:00 +0100

FLUD is a modern, beautiful and personalized mobile news ecosystem with a vision to empower it’s users to interact with each other to access, engage and broadcast news topics that are relevant to them.

Last year I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Bobby Ghoshal and Barton Smith in San Diego. While we were on a project for a company focussed on building mobile devices, we talked about the wide variety of possibilities for “mobile news”.

Apple just released their first version of iPad and we started to sketch out our ideas. I was fortunate to be involved during the first weeks of building this iPad App to aggregate all your favorite rss feeds within one functional and visually appealing design. After 6 Months, FLUD now became a news ecosystem for all iOS devices. FLUD Founder Bobby Goshal and I will talk about recent updates to the news ecosystem and upcoming releases on my blog during the next days.

Content aggregation plays a major role in one of my latest projects which I will write about more soon.

FLUD for iPhone

FLUD for iPad