This App is Your App: This App Was Made for You and Me

Among the typical postings about pet walking, housekeeping and space rental, I spotted this flyer about a mobile app. It was a delight to see, simply because someone made something. Maybe the app’s idea stemmed from personal experience. Maybe it stemmed from something that was gleaned from the media. Maybe it stemmed from a conversation. Whatever the source, the creator believed in the idea for an app and got it real.

Apple’s ubiquitous “There’s an app for that” campaign sounds cliché nowadays because people are taking advantage of it. The marketplace for apps is feverish. According to Juniper Research, “while 2.6 billion applications were downloaded in 2009, the figure is expected to rise to more than 25 billion in 2015, driven partly by networks and vendors setting up their own stores.”

Journalist Virginia Heffernan’s article “The Death of the Open Web” may leave a reader deflated. Instead of viewing the empowering effect of mobile apps—from both sides of the screen, for user and maker alike—her position appears to call for a stopgap on the release of apps. In essence, she calls for a hiatus on finding and seizing creativity in a medium and network made to feed concepts and their execution. Reader Dana Curtis Kincaid countered Heffernan’s buzzkill with an enthusiastic question: “What’s so wrong with wanting a good tool… ?”

The reality of making apps is also the reality of creativity. Whether found in the App Store or Android Marketplace, the relative openness of these platforms compels not only developers but everyone to take creativity to task. A task as functional as note taking, as purposeful as looking for local seasonal food, or as whimsical as doodling.

The long-simmering excitement of the “app phenomenon” makes it feel overblown. But it’s excitement about making something fun, something useful, something appealing—something creative. A lot of people (and I’m one of them) are actively visualizing how people can interact with tools, especially mobile ones, to do things. If this is the kind of excitement that motivates people, I want an app for that.

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A version of this piece was published at the blog of custom software developer Pathfinder Development.

Creative Roles: The Blender

Rushing to judge the past as bygone is premature. Past technology, and the past methods that accompany it, endure with the present’s hammering of “optimization.” How can creative approaches and production of yester-generations age well in today’s “remediated” setting? One example comes from Ilse Crawford, founder of Studio Elise, who more than demonstrates the past’s usefulness in her creative work. Her approach to craft is rooted in the lasting benefit of nurtured decisiveness that the past can bring:

“We chose a very interesting company called De La Espada. When we do partnerships, I’m very concerned that we work with companies that have real seriousness. It’s not just a question of getting things made for the right price. I think it’s about the people, and ultimately it’s a collaboration. In this case, it’s a man who has a company in Portugal. He’s rather young and he bought the company recently and he employed many older craftsmen. He’s kept, at certain points in the process, the skills of the older men who have developed such an extraordinary eye because they make wood furniture. Wood furniture is a particular thing to make because it’s a living material. One plank is not like another. So for example, halfway through the process, it might be cutting out the various components of a chair. Normally that’s done by computers because, that way, you optimize the number of pieces you get from a plank. He has that done by a man because the man will pick up pieces that would look beautiful together and that adds value. So it makes sense in the end. He’s created a really interesting model of how you can combine expertise and the necessary conditions of today.”

Studio Elise blends the present with the past because enduring ways of thinking and making command respect. The “old school” can make a perfect union with modern modes of creating.

Tap into your inner blender.

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This is the third piece of a series focused on the lively cast of characters whose roles make the play of Creativity. In case you missed the second, meet the Like-Minder.

Typographic illustration, tailormade for this series, was done by Shawn Hazen. Read his Designer’s Quest(ionnaire).

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Designer and Illustrator Wendy Marchbanks

Wendy Marchbanks’ work celebrates “childhood imagination.” It was from her poster “Balance” for art and charity initiative The Working Proof that I first discovered Marchbanks and her Illustrative wallpapers, Fabrics and Ceramics. In her interview about this poster, she explained her process: “I love sifting through the strange assortment of objects and books, looking for something unusual to spark off an idea.” Clearly, Marchbanks cherishes nostalgia, reminiscing—childhood. Read her delightful and insightful take on design and designing.

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The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative that describes and captures a designer’s perspective in a succinct format. Read the previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) with Web Designers Elizabeth Joy Gershenzon and Travis Kochel of Scribble Tone.