Displair – Interactive vapour screen
Unveiled at CES 2013, Displair is a gesture enabled water-based monitor. It works by having a touchscreen device connected to a projector, which puts the touchable image onto a continuous stream of vaporized water. It looks like it’s primarily marketed as an advertising display unit or presentation device. I was hesitant at first, thinking that [...]
Total Recall – UI Design
Here’s a highlight reel of the UI work from the 2012 remake of Total Recall, by the amazingly talented Ash Thorp. There’s quite a good range of HUDs and GUIs in Total Recall. In the clip you will see HUDs, hologram displays, scanners, maps, vehicle UI, and other touch UIs on a range of surfaces. [...]
T(ether) – AR Interface from MIT
T(ether) is an experimental interface from the MIT Media Lab, which its creators call ‘a tool for spatial expression’. It basically allows users to create objects that exist in a virtual space, which can be interacted with by multiple users. There’s two things I like about this project, firstly the idea of creating and manipulating [...]
Shilo: Zazzle spot
Here’s a short spot for Zazzle by the talented guys at Shilo. We’re seeing a lot of GUIs featuring in mograph spots lately, mostly because digital interfaces have become such a big part of our lives. This is a really good example of making an interface look fun. It features some smooth transitions and the [...]
Holographic UI – Swedish House Mafia & Absolute (Greyhound)
Here’s a commercial/music video featuring Swedish House Mafia for Absolute Vodka. The video shows the three DJs using holographic UIs to control robotic greyhounds in a race. It hints early on, at how the UI captures movements and how the greyhounds respond accordingly, but that’s as deep as it goes. This video is more about [...]
Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision
Here is Microsoft’s latest future vision video focusing on productivity. Not quite as groundbreaking as the original installment but there’s still a lot of interesting ideas in here. The key theme in the video is connectivity and the communication between various devices. Unfortunately with a few of the examples the design is aesthetically pleasing but [...]
UI design in 007 – Quantum of Solace
The UI design in 007 – Quantum of Solace is beautiful and well worth highlighting. MK12 who were responsible for the UI design, created a wonderful graphic style but the magic is really in the animation. A lot of love has been put into the way the interface elements move with interaction, like how there’s [...]
UI design of The Island
Made in 2005, The Island features some interesting UI concepts, some of which have been realised today. One of these is the touch screen table top that’s controlled by a glass prism. Unlike regular touch screens that work with skin contact and multitouch, this one only allows the user holding the prism to control the [...]
Glass in the future – Corning’s Future Vision
Here’s a clip that has been doing the rounds lately, it’s a future vision short by Corning, who specializes in specialty glass and ceramics. This is very similar to the Microsoft Future Vision clip I posted about not long ago, and I’m a big fan of these types of videos. Overall I really enjoyed the [...]
Showcase 1 – Gestural interaction in commercials
This is the first of our ‘Showcase’ posts. Each edition will showcase a handful of references relating to a particular area of interface design inspiration. This Showcase features examples of gestural interaction in commercials. Most of these references are not interfaces as such, but explores the manipulation of graphics in a physical space. These examples [...]
Microsoft’s Future Vision
This is an oldie but a goodie. I thought this was worth posting, especially for those who haven’t seen this before. Produced by Oh, Hello and directed by Mason Nicoll, it presents Microsoft’s vision of the future. The project was developed through Microsoft Office Labs in 2009 and it’s interesting to see that some of [...]
The Design of Avatar
There’s a lot of good examples of design in films, and now more and more examples of good interface design. It’s very common to see seamless integration of interface design into the story of a film. Avatar is a movie that demonstrates this really well. Overall the elements that make up the interface design style [...]
Nike iDNation Spot
Gridplane and Instrument have created this lovely spot for Nike’s iD Nation. The spot is a walkthrough of the process offered on the website, but not a completely accurate one but more of a simplified and embellished version. The designers on this spot seem to have been given a lot of freedom to elaborate and [...]
Minority Report GUI
To me personally, Minority Report was a real game changer. It was an exciting look into the future with a tonne of great interfaces and imaginary technology. It turns out that Microsoft Research, MIT, and several design studios all worked on the interface designs found in the film. The visuals used in the interfaces were [...]