The Staufenberger Repository

Designing for invisibility

While we were in the Netherlands, we took the train when we needed to get out of Amsterdam. Anyone who's wrestled with the touch screen ticket machines at London's Waterloo, will understand why we found the machines in Amsterdam Centraal so amazing. For those unfamiliar with Dutch Railways ticket machines, this is how they work:

NS (Dutch Railways) ticket machine from Team Staufenberger on Vimeo.

Everything sorted in just one screen. How good is that?

They've kindly put the software online so that you can practise buying tickets. How thoughtful. Though I wonder if people actually use it, other than people interested in interaction design and usability issues.

The NS website is also refreshingly easy to use. When looking up a train time, it even gives you the departure (and arrival) platform. A really tiny, but hugely useful detail.

We're clearly not the only people to be impressed by these ticket machines, there have been a few comments at design and usability blogs. One of these suggested that the design was a bit boring in a good way (meaning it's simple and efficient), which is an interesting way of looking at. Although I suspect that rather than boredom, we should be designing for invisibility: the point where usability becomes transparent and draws no attention to itself, either positively or negatively. 

Amsterdam highlights

It wasn't all work, work, work in Amsterdam. We did a bit of cruising round on the Sparta, pretending to be locals. Here are three retail establishments that we visited along the way.

1. Nijhof and Lee is a lovely bookshop that specialises in design, typography, architecture, advertising, new media, that sort of thing. They stock out of print titles as well as new.

And, for fans of graphic design from the Netherlands, they have a well stocked line of posters by dutch masters such as Wim Crouwel. Here's one of his earliest efforts for the Stedelijk Museum from 1964.

If you fancy getting your hands on one of these posters, it's well worth making a detour to their shop next time you're in Amsterdam as only a fraction of their stock is online.

2. Suit Supply have just opened in London, but we thought we'd take the opportunity to see the dutch chain in its native habitat.

It's an interesting and energetic brand: you can get an off the peg suit for £200-£250 and made to measure for a bit more, depending on fabric.

And to underline their tailoring credentials, each shop has a chap doing alterations on the spot.

If your alteration isn't completed within 30 minutes, it's free. Not bad.

3. Star Bikes is where we hired our bikes. It's where our visit began and ended. Except for the train trip to and from the airport, but that doesn't really count. It doesn't look like they sell bikes, it's just rental all the way.

They'll also do you a picnic to pack on your bike if you want to make an excursion somewhere. The staff are super nice and super chilled. Very Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam

We're in Amsterdam for a few days to do some research.

Obviously, there had to be bikes.

BMW paper cars

We like this.

BMW Thailand have a site where you can download cutout paper models of various cars.

Above is my attempt at the iconic Isetta from the mid 1950s. It's a bit scrappy and a bit pixely but that's the point really, isn't it? The brand might be about super-efficient, super-engineered precision but that doesn't mean everything the brand does has to be super-efficient and super-engineered. This provides something tangible, something that you might like to stick on your desk or shelf, something other than an overproduced glossy brochure or gewgaw.

Of course, as a healthy brand that illicits strong reactions (both positive and negative), there is inevitably some fan mods knocking around, such as this one here, and this somewhat ironic take on it.

My new brainstorming technique is unstoppable

A while back we invested in a few Dover Publications Clip-Art books in order to pep up the occasional presentation. Despite our preference for things non-Powerpoint, there are occasions when there's no avoiding it. But that's no reason not to make an effort, is it?

Our favourites are the more 80s feeling business titles, like this:

...and this:

...which includes this splendid pipe-smoking chap:

But we've a soft spot for these two, too:

Lot's of outdated home and office gadgets in the former, lots of ladies with big hair, hats and cats in the latter:

Plenty in there to bring a certain something to your next Powerpoint meisterwerk.

Of course, David Rees has used many of these to mirthful effect in his comic strips.

We've been trying to do a plannery equivalent for months, but couldn't think of anything nearly as amusing as Mr Rees' efforts. So this is as far as we've got. (Feel free to have a go yourselves. We might even find a prize for the best submission.)

Looking at it now, I think the blank bubbles do give it different kind of meaning.

From the days when cut and paste meant using something sharp and something sticky, all these images are printed one-sided so that nothing shows through from the reverse when you cut them out to construct your composition. And to help you do that, each book comes with handy instructions inside the back cover:

I think I want an X-Acto knife. It sounds like something from The Incredibles.

Playing with Gawker

For a year or so now we've been playing with Gawker. That's Gawker the Mac OS timelapse application, not the gossip site.

Although it's lots of fun for just, well, messing around with, we've been struggling to find something useful to do with it. In fairness, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be useful. Timelapse can be a beautiful, mesmeric effect. Just check the stoner's favourite, Koyannisqatsi, if you're in any doubt.

After a year of playing, this is the closest we've got to useful: analysing body language when presenting. Don't laugh, now, it's an important part of presenting, what with 80% of communication being non-verbal. Or something. 

(Disclosure: this particular movie wasn't made with Gawker, as we discovered that our camcorder has a handy timelapse function. But you should check the site and support the app: it works with web cams and has a kind of social capability where you can access others' timelapse feeds.)

Notebook winners

It's time to announce the two lucky recipients of the prototype Staufenberger notebooks. 

John has been touched by the many kind emails sent to him. So much so that it proved impossible to judge on merit, so his nurse put all the names in an envelope and he picked out two at random: congratulations to Gemma and Katie.  Your notebooks will be wending their ways to you just as soon as we find the time to go to the post office.

Staufenberger Tweed

So things are progressing on the Staufenberger Suit.

With its moisture resistance and durability, tweed was always going to be our fabric of choice. But which tweed? We spent hours flicking through endless swatch books...

...debating the merits of Harris vs. Donegal, check or herringbone...oh, the choices.

In the end, there was nothing for it than for us to commission our own tweed. And who better to work with than John G Hardy, who hold a couple of Royal Warrants (apparently, they supply Balmoral tweed to the royal household).

To be honest, we could have picked one the thousands of tweeds already in existence but we wanted ours to reflect cycle culture in some way (even if very subtly). So we set ourselves the task of incorporating the colours of the rainbow jersey into our design.

For the few readers of the Repository who are not bike nuts, the rainbow jersey is the top that the reigning world champion (across the numerous cycle racing disciplines) gets to wear during his/her year at the top of the pile. It looks like this:

So from here the process began.

First, the search to find the yarns that best matched the red, blue, yellow and green of the world champion stripes (we'd already decided the black stripe would be represented by the ground colour).

Once the yarns were selected, a few tests swatches were woven, featuring the colours as flecks:

These we rejected. Not enough colour. Too recessive.

Then we switched to stripes, rather than flecks, for the colours. We ran a few more tests. And then we got it...The Staufenberger Tweed:

We've pushed the button on production and are expecting a delivery of about 60 metres of the stuff in January.

Note to self

Alongside developing the Staufenberger suit we've been exploring other potential products, one of which is a line of notebooks. The first run of 20 prototypes is now in. Each has been lovingly handcrafted here in London EC1, using techniques that haven't changed much in 500 odd years.

We've got two of these to give away, just mail your address and a friendly greeting to John. He'll pick the nicest two emails received.

No business like show business

Staufenberger hangers-on Shuffle have just released their new single,
Listen Love.

It's brilliant. They should be huge. Go buy it.