Narration X

Rodrigo and Gabriella return to Dublin

Vicar St. Dublin, Sunday the 15th of November 2009

Few artists have the ability to transcend genre by attracting such a wide spectrum of followers from different walks of life as Rodrigo and Gabriella do.

Vicar St. last Sunday was like a who’s-who of Dublin demography. Representing emos, office monkeys, rockers, yuppies and even a few chavs, all-present with one common goal: To watch and listen to the entertaining, magical tour-de-force that is Rodrigo and Gabriella.

My jaw must have dropped at least thirty times during what must have been one of the tightest sets I have ever seen. RodGab have come along way since their debut album that we all love, having transformed themselves into musical legends at such an early stage in their career.

RodGab opened the set with lots of new tracks, many quite short, but all punchy with fresh and exclusively unique rhythms. They were full of energy, standing for most of the gig, occasionally turning to face one another to have a quick “set” related conversation. They cascaded from one track to another with flawless ease taking us on a musical journey infused with majestic classical guitar melodies, uplifting latin-esque movements, riffs from the heavy tomes of metal and descents into atonal vignettes that would make even Radiohead proud.

The new use of new effects, especially the “wa-wa” was a welcome addition to their already riveting sound. Gabriella was on form with her signature guitar drumming, which at points has evolved into a rave-like dance beat that really got the crowd amped.

Rodrigo and Gabriella bring people together. In an era of depressing global economic deluge, their sheer tenacity, intense passion and nonchalance for convention sheds a glimmer of hope, by showing us a innovative and mature worldview not driven by faux-faced commercialism.

Welcome home to Dublin RodGab!

Happy 2009!

Hello my lovelies,

2008 was a very busy year for me. I have been completely neglecting Narration X (not by choice), got sucked into the facebook universe and of course twitter. It is a little overwhelming being a part of so many communities but at the same time very exciting. I have decided to use twitter for my little interesting tidbid links and have returned to plain old blog land to start writing more wordy content about the new things I learned in 08. I actually feel that I have alot to write about again.

I officially started a new company called “Graphic Mint” with Julian Becerra. Its focus is on the visual and interaction design side of branding, products, and services. We care about providing experiences that look-and-feel great.

Multimediawise, 2008 was probably my most prolific to date. I really learned to crank stuff out and that sometimes you have to cut corners even though you don’t want to. This was a big shock for my perfectionist side as I always wanted more time to finesse. But thats what your learn when you work for a start up.

Thats all for now, but I hope that 2009 will be a year where I can publish more useful stuff about what I learned in 2008. Yeah right! I just started up a company. Oh well! Heres to even longer hours

Flashy Friday Interface Fun

A couple of engaging interfaces I stumbled upon this week:

Don’t Click looks like its been around since 2005 but has been getting some mixed reactions on an IxDA community thread this week! Garish design but innovative concept!

Legends telegraph is Nokia’s latest product newsletter offering. The interface emulates an old fashioned newspaper that you can ramble around by dragging and dropping your mouse. The page is dotted with digital video vignettes that give the overall impression of something from a Harry Potter movie.

Check ‘em out!

Faster than wireframes

Today at work I spent six hours in a room with a product manager reworking the flow and interface design of a product demo. This may seem like a long time to be in a room, but we were paper prototyping, an activity that is commonly used in user-centered-design because of it’s fast and cheap nature.

A key benefit that I derived directly from this activity was the ability to quickly and directly update the designs, iterating on the input provided by the sales and dev teams during many lightning feedback sessions. This process saves so much time as it facilitates faster group-consensus-building around a design and provides a low-tech medium to elicit a range of opinions from the stakeholders.

Developers tend to overlook the fact that the final artifact that you hand them looks like a stack of hard-to-read scrawl written by a seven-year-old, when you explain what the point of it all is. In an agile environment paper prototyping can really unclog bottlenecks, encourage communication and promote rapid iterations.

But don’t take my word for it – use the following links to prove that your not crazy next time you start paper prototyping at the office!

http://alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping
http://www.paperprototyping.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_prototyping

An Introduction to Information Design. . .

. . .but not by me

How could anyone sum it up as well as this downloadable booklet I came across at backspace.com. Although the booklet’s theme relates to the use of Information Architecture within the Advocacy realm, it features a concise yet detailed summary of the subject, including definitions, methodologies and examples, that will be of use to all.

Brilliant!

Summer Update

I have been beneath the surface of more creativity than you can shake a stick at over the past few months. Namely, a software project at work and a demo version of my first album at home. I also have been helping my partner set up a company brand and website, and some logo side projects. I even had a cameo role in a friends movie. Over the next few months I intend to share my new insights into the various activities that I have been engaged in. Some of the topics I would like to discuss include.

• The presentation of the presentation layer
• Using personas in design: My “A-HA” moment
• Wireframes, mockups and prototypes: not just design tools
• One-man music making
• Promoting a music demo online.

In the meantime sit back and enjoy my friends movie “The Athenrides”

My Top 3 Blogs

Not having much time on my hands makes it increasingly difficult to read Blog posts; never mind writing them

Recently, I started to subscribe to email feeds of my favourite blogs as it is easier for me to keep up to date and digest new content.
Here are three blogs that have stimulated my inbox (and me) of late.

Information Aesthetics

Putting People First

UX Matters

Best Careers 2008

It was reassuringly satisfying to see Usability/User Experience Specialist listed as one of 31 careers with a bright future in 2008 by US News and World Report. This is a great sign that UX is entering the mainstream and gaining much needed validation as an important role in the design and development of technology.

Carbon Feet

Another Fun Demo: This ones about the impacts of our carbon output - So Get Green!!!

Mapping the Total Brand Experience

Since I moved back to Dublin, I have been working at an Irish software company as an User Experience Designer, but for the last couple of months I have been utilising my visual design skills to create a new look and feel for the company brand. In today’s faced paced information age, a company’s brand is no longer just a logo but a living, evolving, entity that manifests across multiple touchpoints. These touchpoints can be as diverse and disparate as websites, t-shirts, brochures, email signatures, business cards, powerpoints, and even signage.

Recently, I attempted to list the many touchpoints that make up the complex ecosystem of a company’s “Total Brand Experience” and graphically map the connections between them. It was no easy task. The difficulty stems from the complex interdependencies between the touchpoints. These multi-threaded relationships are best visually represented by using a mind-mapping software product like Freemind.

Upon completion of my first attempt at mapping the Total Brand Experience, I immediately desired to explore the relationship between User Experience and Total Brand Experience. This is a current direction that I am exploring and although I have no answers yet and ever-increasing questions, the area is intriguing. I hope to discuss more about the relationship between Total Brand Experience and UX on this blog in the near future.