Thursday, 19 August 2010
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Online Creative Communities: Lego
Recently I've followed, with a fair amount of interest, the recent goings-on, chatter and hubbub of the online global (grown-up) Lego community.
If you've not experienced it yourself - it is, frankly, staggering. But there's a nice, concise TED talk by Hillel Cooperman that goes some way to explaining what it consists of (thanks @TomMoor for bringing it to my attention) and a good 'blocumentary' on Vimeo. As Hillel Explains, there are frequent conventions; a "grey-market" for bricks; niche, compatible, spin-off products; open-source third-party CAD programs; a programming language; networks; well-populated blogs... and beyond.
it goes without saying, such a community could never have grown-up without the medium of the internet.
But I'm particularly interested in the way people use the Flickr pools. Within thematic areas, large numbers of people of different levels of experience contribute photos of work on a regular basis. The strength of these groups is largely creditable to the careful structuring of Flickr, of course, but it's amazing to see people of all ages offer praise, comment and criticism with a level of maturity rarely seen in the anonymous, digital world (a point that @foe initially drew my attention to).
My favourite Flickr pool is undoubtedly Microspacetopia, in which the members design and build fictitious spaceships of varying scales (roughly analogous to the variations in naval craft - cruisers, destroyers, carriers, dreadnoughts etc.) using an absolute bare minimum of bricks. These conditions allow those with a modest collection of bricks (such as myself) to make sincere contributions, but let those with formidable imaginative clout and resources to stretch their greebly muscles. There are frequent homages to films, games and TV shows (Star Wars being the most prominent, obviously), but surprisingly many of the designs are highly original. Some people like to write verbose descriptions and lore to go with their models; some create factions and armies; colour schemes are adopted - They're creating their own collaborative, fictional universe, and it might as well happily sit alongside the Sci-Fi galaxies we're already familiar with.
[pic: Heavy Missile Cruiser - 'Horizon', by [soren]]
One of the most satisfying exchanges to observe in the community is the the comment "NPU". This stands for Nice Piece Use, and is declared, with highlighted marquee, when a fellow contemporary appreciates the novel use of an innocuous or obscure piece to represent something (like a satellite array or greeb) or allow for a new connection method (such as a hinge, or SNOT technique). Other comments might include an appreciation of colour combinations or a criticism of whether an element "works" in context.
Lately, in an effort to engage, I made my first -admittedly crude in comparison - contribution to a mech/robot flickr group:
...I also have a couple of micro-ships in progress I hope to submit soon.
As a footnote, I should mention (but won't elaborate on, here) that Lego elicits a complex mix of stigma amongst the Design community (myself included). The fact that this little project felt like something of a guilty indulgence, throws up some interesting discussion points - for another time - on the perceived appropriateness of some areas, or routes, of creative enquiry.
If you've not experienced it yourself - it is, frankly, staggering. But there's a nice, concise TED talk by Hillel Cooperman that goes some way to explaining what it consists of (thanks @TomMoor for bringing it to my attention) and a good 'blocumentary' on Vimeo. As Hillel Explains, there are frequent conventions; a "grey-market" for bricks; niche, compatible, spin-off products; open-source third-party CAD programs; a programming language; networks; well-populated blogs... and beyond.
it goes without saying, such a community could never have grown-up without the medium of the internet.
But I'm particularly interested in the way people use the Flickr pools. Within thematic areas, large numbers of people of different levels of experience contribute photos of work on a regular basis. The strength of these groups is largely creditable to the careful structuring of Flickr, of course, but it's amazing to see people of all ages offer praise, comment and criticism with a level of maturity rarely seen in the anonymous, digital world (a point that @foe initially drew my attention to).
My favourite Flickr pool is undoubtedly Microspacetopia, in which the members design and build fictitious spaceships of varying scales (roughly analogous to the variations in naval craft - cruisers, destroyers, carriers, dreadnoughts etc.) using an absolute bare minimum of bricks. These conditions allow those with a modest collection of bricks (such as myself) to make sincere contributions, but let those with formidable imaginative clout and resources to stretch their greebly muscles. There are frequent homages to films, games and TV shows (Star Wars being the most prominent, obviously), but surprisingly many of the designs are highly original. Some people like to write verbose descriptions and lore to go with their models; some create factions and armies; colour schemes are adopted - They're creating their own collaborative, fictional universe, and it might as well happily sit alongside the Sci-Fi galaxies we're already familiar with.
[pic: Heavy Missile Cruiser - 'Horizon', by [soren]]
One of the most satisfying exchanges to observe in the community is the the comment "NPU". This stands for Nice Piece Use, and is declared, with highlighted marquee, when a fellow contemporary appreciates the novel use of an innocuous or obscure piece to represent something (like a satellite array or greeb) or allow for a new connection method (such as a hinge, or SNOT technique). Other comments might include an appreciation of colour combinations or a criticism of whether an element "works" in context.
Lately, in an effort to engage, I made my first -admittedly crude in comparison - contribution to a mech/robot flickr group:
...I also have a couple of micro-ships in progress I hope to submit soon.
As a footnote, I should mention (but won't elaborate on, here) that Lego elicits a complex mix of stigma amongst the Design community (myself included). The fact that this little project felt like something of a guilty indulgence, throws up some interesting discussion points - for another time - on the perceived appropriateness of some areas, or routes, of creative enquiry.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Incidental
We were really pleased to find out recently that The Incidental had been nominated in the interaction category for Brit Insurance Designs Of The Year 2010, an exhibition of which is being hosted at the Design Museum until June 6th. The winners will be announced in March (but with category entries including the BBC iplayer and the Amazon Kindle 2, we're just happy to have been nominated).
Saturday, 23 January 2010
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