Mood Board + AR · My PhD

The funky-design-spaces is a vision for a new holistic design studio, a comfortable environment that facilitates creative thinking in designers. The funky-design-spaces consist of interconnected tools that encourage breaking the rhythm and stimulate designers to perform activities away from their desks.

The funky-design-spaces are set in natural surroundings where designers can disconnect from the world and come back with a fresh mind. For example, designers can go into the deep woods or walk along the canal during work hours to re-energize. The dome-like shape of the environment is an open invitation to leave behind current conceptions of what a design studio is and think of new inspiring buildings that house the funky-design-spaces. Within this larger context, a houseboat on the canal or a greenhouse in the forest could become good examples of design studios that house the funky-design-spaces. Large windows provide a direct view on the natural surroundings and allow natural light to energize designers.

Once inside, the funky-design-spaces create a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere where designers can engage in individual activities as well as creative collaboration. Designers feel that they belong to a larger team but they can also have a moment for themselves when needed. Adjustable multi-purpose surfaces can be used to easily display and share information. These surfaces can be assigned for different uses.

Storing and moving information between these different tools or spaces should also be made in a simple way to avoid breaking the creative process. Designers have a ball that they can bounce on a surface (e.g. wall) to collect information that is being displayed there. Then, designers can move to any other surface (e.g. table) and then roll the ball on the surface to display the contained information (e.g. images, audio, text, etc.).

Method: Mood Boards

Mood boards are an idea development tool used by designers and their clients to communicate, think, and share their different views that emerge from the design brief while defining future products or trends. Mood boards mostly consist of visually stimulating images, but can also include color and material swatches, textures, drawings, and physical objects that are affixed to A0, A1, A2 or A3 foam boards. Images from magazines and books are used to tell a story about the company, product, or audience. There is no right or unique interpretation of a mood board.

Mood boards play five main roles in the early stages of the design process were identified. First, mood boards play a framing role by defining the limits of the design task, which includes both problem setting and problem solving. Second, mood boards assist in the transmission of a mindset or vision by aligning the different stakeholders and getting them on the same wavelength. Third, mood boards support designers in visually researching apparently conflicting or contradicting ideas or paradoxing. Fourth, mood boards play an abstracting role by allowing designers to juxtapose both concrete and abstract imagery depending on the project and client. Finally, mood boards play a directing role by setting a trajectory for future design efforts.

Set of two mood boards. Senses (above), explores the use of five senses (i.e., sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) instead of just sight for a surface computing tool that supports professional users in their work. Essence (below), summarizes and communicates the roles that mood boards play at the start of the design process.

Prototype: Funky Coffee Table

The Funky Coffee Table is an interactive tabletop tool that supports image browsing in the context of creating mood boards. The interaction is set around a coffee table to support image searching in a relaxed setting. The tool encourages designers to work using hand movements to pre-select images. To reduce the desk clutter that results from cutting out dozens of pictures from magazines, the space above the work surface has been extended for interaction and divided into multiple interaction layers. Piles of images can be created in two layers above the table, which can be promptly consulted for an updated overview of the selection process.

Prototype: Funky Wall

The Funky Wall is a wall-mounted display tool that supports presenting mood boards. The Funky Wall uses four ranges of interaction depending on the designer’s proximity to the wall display: showing, contemplating, replaying, and exploring. Different tool functionalities are available in each range. The designer records their presentation by gesturing and explaining in front of the screen, using their hands to point or outline specific areas of the mood board. The tool automatically records three essential aspects of the mood board presentation (i.e., gestures, speech, and visuals, which are used to split the presentation into a number of meaningful segments by looking into hand location, gesture acceleration, and speech pauses. The tool supports two-way communication between designer and client by allowing them both to provide input by creating a presentation, and to share their thoughts by providing feedback.

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