My Design Essentials

My Design Essentials

I’ve recently renovated my studio (more information and images to come) with a studio zen vibe and an aim to declutter so as to become more agile and lean. It’s been a long and arduous task but dividends are just starting to pay off.

I went paperless just over 12 months ago, moving a lot of my paper and processes into the cloud, which definitely made my business and systems more efficient, so naturally with all of this freed space it was time to add a bit of style and a working reward to these changes.

In doing this a lot of re-prioritisation was required to determine what I actually used on a day to day basis and what I could throw out or pack away. Surprisingly I do not use that many things and it all boiled down to a special little shelf that I can easily access.

In essence these things are what I’d like to call my psyborg design essentials. These come down to;

1. my iPhone or what I refer to as my psyPhone
2. my mouse and therefore my iMac workstation
3. my Apple watch
4. my specs
5. my sunnies
6. and my wallet
7. and a homage to my skateboarding days

In doing this it got me wondering which one of these is going to merge first and which will be lost in time as most of our desktop has, so I put on my futurist hat with these thoughts about these emerging technologies which could become our design essentials.

Smart phones are getting bigger with massive resolutions, and with more and more cloud based design apps on the rise, think Adobe mobile apps, Canva etc so it could possibly replace my iMac one day, this could especially be the case if our visual communication medium stays on the phone so it’s kinda natural to design from the phone.

I do know for sure though that my phone will definitely replace my wallet soon. When Apple Pay hits Aussie shores and other payment apps merge with Australian retail systems as it is doing in the U.S, as the Apple Watch is also replacing the wallet.

Then again could my specs and glasses replace my iPhone & watch? Google Glass seems to have flopped, but could Oculus take this space, it is owned by facebook? Oculus or whom ever wins the VR game will definitely replace my skateboard.

I have also been using Apple Watch for a few months and it seems to be changing some of my behaviours. The most notably being a greater awareness of my behaviour throughout the day, for one thing it reminds me every hour to stand up at my stand-up desk and time is definitely saved with glances of new emails, events and various notifications saving time on the phone. It’s a subtle way but I think it is starting the journey for humans to merge with our technologies, which are only going to become more apparent with the next iteration of smart textiles and the internet of things.

So maybe all of this could be replaced with a T-Shirt and I may need to replace my shelf with a clothes rack as no one wants to see a naked psyborg, all jokes aside it will be interesting to see what my shelf or clothes rack will look like in the next 5-10 years time.

I really do enjoy getting feedback so please let me know your thoughts on this or any of my articles in the comments field or on social media below.

Cheers Daniel