At the i-Design ‘08 conference Brendan Dawes, Creative Director of Magnetic North, spoke about how physical representations of ourselves are beginning to be lost to our hard drives.  CDs, usually on display in our homes are being replaced by downloads on iTunes.  When a visitor comes to our home, they will lose the sense of who we are.

I have wondered about this before, and although these new technologies are fantastic, we’re in some way losing our individuality.

As a response I’ve come up with a few ideas as how these new technologies could be visualised in our homes.

iTunes Objects

Physical objects in our homes could display music or films we regularly listen to.  A digital wall could display the last cds we listened to, lining them up as a block of their covers.  The same, in a cheaper format, could be a lamp, wired up to the computer.

Digital CD Shelf

Our iTunes collection could be digitally stored on a shelf, with touch-screen interactivity, so cds could be selected and sorted through.

Holographic Ornaments

Many of the speakers at i-Design spoke about growing online communities, and how technology was becoming more feminine.  Holograms of objects could be displayed in the home as traditional ornaments are, and different objects could be sent from friends.  If a relative went to New York, for example, they could send a hologram of the Statue of Liberty.

Allows you to physically stick notes on (magnetic might not be possible, some sort of moveable clips?  or post its?), write on with removable ink and upload images from the internet or your computer.

Could also be a better way to visualise e-cards - friends could send stuff directly to the screen.

Waitrose* is known for locally sourcing food, and with topical concerns about how far our food travels, I felt it could offer customers more information about the actual farms its products are produced at.

Customers would be able to select their local store and choose a product, to track exactly where it comes from.  This could also encourage customers to select more locally sourced food over their usual choice.

*could also be applied to Booths or the Co-op

Thinking about how information could be viewed more physically and intuitively, I began to consider how we select and filter through information online.  Rather than navigating through menus or clicking ‘next’, it could be possible to move through the options with our hands as in the real world.

This could be done with some sort of physical object, possibly with some sort of origami-like folds that could be undone and played around with to access different pages.