I've been playing with the Spore Creature Creator for the last few days and am thoroughly impressed with the interface, the manner in which the creature data is saved in tiny .png files (which are "shared" among users) and the clever manner in which the entire application makes the process of 3D modeling addictive. I'm seeing countless comments via a search feed, and I've yet to see a negative reaction to the application.

While engaging in some banter, I was reminded of a blog entry I'd made two years ago in which I said: "Imagine the near future. I’m a toy maker with a rapid-manufacturing system (aka “fabber”) and I’m looking for new products to fab and sell. I don’t have my own designs and I don’t want to pay for any, so I play an online MMORPG..."

I wasn't thinking of Spore when I wrote that (Link below), but it certainly seems as if Spore - or rather, its creation tools - will be the catalyst for some of the changes I've been anticipating. It's starting to get the attention of the CAD community ... and the CAD developers as well.

Anyway, playing with the Creature Creator inspired me to create my own creatures and test whether or not there might be any barriers to "ripping" the 3D data. Unfortunately for those of us who work in 3D, our work is seemingly as vulnerable as everyone else's who is working digitally - from graphic artists to musicians.

Meanwhile, I've tried making "product"-things, but that's difficult since they tend to fidgit as you're playing Doctor Frankenstein ... attaching/moving/resizing body parts. Consequently, I'm looking forward to the other tools; especially for vehicles and buildings.

I stumbled across this band surfing around MySpace. There was something particular interesting about them but I couldn't put my finger on it; plenty of similar bands on social networking sites, but this one caught my eye (and ear). Having watched the above video somewhat repetitively, I'm beginning to see a variety of elements which have inspired me at one time or another.

First, the band is a self-proclaimed "cyberpunk" group. Being a big fan of the literature that spawned the sub-culture, I'm inclined to take an interest.

Second, there's a distinctly gothic visual quality to the group (they might be more accurately labeled "cybergoths"). I've previously listed the "gothloli" fashions of the Harajuku district as an inspiration, so no surprise I'd find this compelling.

Third, both visually and musically the guitarist reminds me of Nash the Slash (Wikipedia article); visually the head piece he wears reminds me of a character from the Japanese film "Casshern".

Fourth, the music itself is a form of industrial rock (with samples), so there are easy comparisons to bands like Front 242 and Frontline Assembly, especially since both have similar visual elements in their music videos (as expected).

Fifth, the singer's voice - or rather the Japanese language - reminds me of anime in general. I don't care for most Japanese music because of the vocals, but like Malice Mizer (Wikipedia article), this band does its own thing and sticks with what sounds right for them. Under other circumstances I'd not perceive a relationship between the above video and the intro scene for  "Ghost in the Shell" (1995), but the appropriateness of the vocals in this soundscape is compelling.

Sixth, the old school theremin sound generator shown in the video.

Finally, it occurs to me that I'm not likely to ever see this band in concert. For all practical purposes, they're virtual to me. They may as well be the Japanese band putting on live performances in Second Life.

Came across news of BMW's new concept vehicle, GiNA, and the first thought that entered my mind was "morphable architecture" and shape-memory based structures.

Of course fabric-based skins for vehicles isn't news. Fabric skins were once commonly used for aircraft. Dirigibles use them. And 3D "seamless" woven composites are beginning to find their way into the mix, even if they're often intentionally rigid.

Morphing skins isn't new either. The U.S. military has explored flexible wings for decades; dispensing with slats and slots and simply re-shaping the wing to modify the chord and thus the aerodynamic properties. I even suspect cars have had fabric skins, though none comes immediately to mind.

None of this is intended to take away from BMW's concept. They're introducing quite a few people to the idea and that's highly commendable.

Given what I know, however, it's something else that has me inspired: the combination of all these things - as BMW has done - in addition to some of the body armor technology of which I've read. Specifically, the ability of fabric weaves to stiffen on impact and so-called "liquid" body armor, both which are intriguing in their own way and have been very much on my mind for the last year or so. Given the long term project on which I'm working, exploring this further seems an excellent idea.

There's a Bruce Sterling piece on Abitare, "The New Materialism", discussing the future of architecture and design in the context of mathematics and biological processes. The focus of the article is on Neri Oxman, one of the contributors to MoMA's recent "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition. I'd come across Ms. Oxman's work last year for the first time on Desktop Engineering, in a piece discussing the "raycounting" process she was using to generate biomorphic shapes which a rapid-prototyping service was "growing" for her. Interesting, but not the kind of engineering I've long wondered about since the first time I saw the cross-section of a bird's bone and fully understood both the amazing beauty and the structural complexity of it.

Doing a bit of research on Ms. Oxman, I came across a short video on Seedmagazine.com, and in it she discusses the kinds of physics and engineering concerns I'd hoped she'd addressed in her work. Unfortunately, other than simply addressing the topic, I haven't found anything else of note. However, reading about what has been done is inspiring me to re-energize my own efforts which happen to fall in the same general arena.

For those less mathematically inclined, the work shown and discussed is still compelling and it's well worth taking the time to read Sterling's piece, as he poses an interesting question regarding the future of design.

While not as finessed as I'd expect from a professional, some of the avatars in Second Life can be both interesting and inspiring. It just so happened that I saw this one while reviewing some of Roger Dean's work (see previous "inspiration"). Still, I'd not have added it here had it not been for some interesting things I learned the past couple of days regarding the fashion industry (see the link; or my latest post here). It's nice how they all seem somewhat related.

When I was growing up I was a big fan of a) the band Yes, and b) designer/artist Roger Dean. I'd not given that early influence much thought lately, but my preference for organic forms probably stems primarily from his work and to a lesser degree from my later interest in both Luigi Colani and Antoni Gaudí. As I was browsing through concert video footage posted online, I happened across a clip from a Yes concert for which Roger and his brother, Martin Dean, had done the set design. I'd seen a few photographs, but never a video clip. A simple photographic doesn't do their work justice. Curious, I immediately did a quick search and found the object shown in the image here; a "retreat pod". There's additional material online, but right now that image is rekindling my interest in Dean's work and inspiring me to find a new way to integrate some forms with which I've been playing for some years. {Image Source: Daily Telegraph Magazine}

I recently finished Henry Jenkins' book "Convergence Culture" but in the middle of the text I'd already decided it was something applied artists should take the time to read. More than most, I find that designers in general, and industrial designers in particular (including me), often become too focused on their work and mostly oblivious to what's going on around them. For me, this explains not only the general disinterest in business topics but also a surprising lack of awareness regarding topics such as RFID, ubiquitous computing, social networking, aso. So many of my contacts are dug into details - what does the physical button feel like? what material is the product? what color is it? what CAD program should I use to model it? - that I often wonder if they're following the larger cultural shifts which will almost certainly affect both the use of their products and consumer expectations regarding the experience they expect to have using them. "Convergence Culture" isn't about tangible products, but it is very much about consumers, their increasing empowerment, and the ways in which they're manipulating what's being handed to them. We've already seen this occurring beyond traditional media: the success of "Make:" magazine and popularity of "Ikea hacks". With ongoing discussions about open sourcing hardware and developing a GPL license for tangible goods, it's worth everyone's time to understand what's happening, and this book is a great start. It's certainly gotten me thinking. {Image Copyright © 2006 New York University Press}

Okay. Maybe not exactly an inspiration. But along with a few other music video directors, Floria Sigismondi has almost certainly had an impact on me at some level. And where someone like Chris Cunningham appeals to me more for technique, Sigsmondi's appeal is more visceral. Perhaps this is a result of the way Sigismondi treats her subjects. Whether real or not, they often get the jerky, stop-motion treatment that seems to be the hallmark of her style. When I see something like that in Cunningham's work, it feels like a mechanical delay. It's cold. With Sigsmondi, I'm more sensitive to it being a distortion of Time. It's more human. It's the feeling one gets when you're momentarily not paying attention and real life jumps just a little. And as Time-based issues have occupied me of late, I currently find her approach to distorting it of interest.

While it might seem like I'm calling out the aesthetics, I'm actually inspired by communities that form around aesthetics, fashion trends, or product types. In other words, "modern" artifacts. The GothLoli crowd is especially interesting because they share Victorian fashion sensibilities with the Steampunk crowd, which I've started to follow more closely. {Image Copyright © Craig Smith}

The "Freakwave" material created by Brendan McCarthy and Peter Milligan was, as far as I'm concerned, among the most interesting comic book stuff to come out of the direct sales explosion in the mid 80's. Graphically it was some of the most exciting stuff around; a kind of unrestrained, psychedelic version of what Steranko was meticulously crafting over on "American Flagg". Narratively - or what I recall of a narrative - "Freakwave" felt like one big, nonsensical hallucination. I've been thinking about this work more and more lately as it fits into an idea I've been batting around. Finding increasing references to it on the web brings back some memories and is definitely inspiring me to push my own ideas forward.