Archive for the ‘Creative culture’ Category
Interested in joining our team? Method is hiring across all our studios! We’re looking for talented visual and interaction designers and developers, as well as individuals to fill roles in client services and business development. We’re hiring at all levels, from intern to lead positions.
Check out all of our open positions and apply here. Or email us your portfolio and resume at apply [at] method [dot] com as well.
Oh, summertime in San Francisco. It may be California and yes, it’s absolutely lovely, but thanks to the constant fog and bone-chilling winds, our winter jackets don’t collect much dust.
Lucky for Method SF, sunshine is only a short bridge ride away, which we’re happy to take advantage of when we get out of the city for our annual picnic. Last week, we loaded up the party bus and set out for Paradise Beach County Park in Tiburon, CA. It was a full day of field sports, bounce house combat, and serious lounging.
Remarkably, no one was injured on any of our bounce games.
Although, there were some spirited match ups.
The pacifists of the group enjoyed themselves as well.
It was a truly beautiful day.
Happy summer everyone! More picnic pics below!
What motivates the Method team out of their beds on a Saturday morning?
The opportunity to talk tech and free waffles, of course. Luckily, CascadeSF‘s Innovators of the Web conference provided both.
On Saturday, July 21st, over 250 developers, designers, and web industry professionals attended the conference, which was held at Adobe‘s San Francisco office and offered a full day of keynotes and panels focused on the best practices for designing an optimal user experience.
Method was there to lead the panel, “How Does Interaction Design Work with Technology?” moderated by our Interactive Production Design Lead, Ryan Gates, and featuring Sumeet Saxena (Principal of Engineering, GlobalLogic), Jacob Surber (Sr. Product Manager HTML Design, Adobe), and Melissa Martin (Sr. Interaction Designer, Method).
The panelist highlighted the value of collaboration between interaction designers and technologists in bringing digital products and services to life. Workflow, prototyping, product development, and innovation were all major themes of the hour, with a focus on the various types of collaborative exploration that can make an impact early on in the development cycle.
Afterward, our panelists hung out in the Method booth answering questions and meeting other conference attendees. Overall, not a bad way to spend a Saturday!
Were you there? What was your favorite part of the CascadeSF conference?
The Method Drawbot.
More details to come!
Back in April, we posted some entertaining pictures from our Lon...
Back in April, we posted some entertaining pictures from our London studio warming party. You might remember seeing a very interesting tetrahedron light sculpture that was also a photobooth. Ever wonder how the uber-creative minds in London created this strange little beauty? Your questions are about to be answered!
Watch the video below and see how Method London made their party photobooth with just some cardboard tetrahedrons, a projector, and an iMac.
Photobooth from Tim Diacon on Vimeo.
Last week, Method San Francisco opened its doors as part of AIGA’s Design Week Open Studio Tours. We had quite the turnout! Over 300 people showed up to get a glimpse into our culture and interact with Method employees. We had drinks, snacks, and the fantastic DJ David Siska and VJ Nina Mehta entertaining the crowd.
The interactive wall was a big hit!
Our Method-branded totes and prints were a hot commodity! Did you get one?
Want to see more photos? Check out our Facebook album.
Were you there? What was your favorite part of seeing the Method studio? Post any photos or videos you have from the night on Twitter or Facebook and let us know!
Update: ImproveSF is a project launched by Mayor Ed Lee’s Office of Innovation for the City and County of San Francisco, dedicated to solving civic challenges by enabling input and solutions from the community’s own designers and thought-leaders themselves. Built around the idea that the best solutions for the community come from within the community itself, ImproveSF opens up the city’s problems to passionate individuals who want to see their own city grow and develop. With this directive, Method’s San Francisco Creative Director, Paul Miller, proposed a logo redesign for SFMTA to see if he could in turn potentially make a direct impact within his community and work further with SFMTA to refine their brand and identity.
Read more about ImproveSF and their mission.
Congrats to Paul, whose logo concept was selected as the new, official SFMTA mark! The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency unveiled its new logo last Wednesday, hoping that the new mark will help rebrand the agency as it moves into its second century. The tag line: “Moving Forward Together.”
Paul’s design was selected over 45 others in a contest put on by ImproveSF.
“This identity leverages the concept of paths,” Paul said. “Whether they are via foot, bike, car, or train, these paths are connected or woven. The presented mark represents a part or crop of a larger pattern which can be connected for various multi-use applications. The connection of these pattern tiles represents growth and community.”
Read more about the design here.
Last week, we headed to San Mateo for Maker Faire, an annual event put on by the folks at Maker Magazine, where technology, DIY, and steam punk meets robots, corn dogs, and fire arts!
We saw our favorites who show up every year, like the Mentos/ Diet Coke guys, and discovered new favorites, too, like the soldering classes, pedal cars, a robot petting zoo, an area on education and robotics, Tesla coils, drivable cupcake cars, the world record holder of paper airplane flights, and amateur chemistry. Last but not least were the turkey legs and the omnipresent display of meat vs. man.
We began the day with an exciting presentation by Chris Anderson, the Editor of Wired Magazine and his company, DIY Drones. Chris started making remote control drones by wanting to build one with his kids. After realizing that this wasn’t an amateur task, he went down the path of creating an easier, more accessible way for all of us to build these amazing, easy to fly quad, hex or octo-copters. These remote-controlled copters use an Arduino-based flight controller to self stabilize.
From the ground, the pilot is able to see a live video stream along with an artificial horizon and other flight gauges to man the mission. The DIY Drone controller allows the drone to know if it is being hit by a gust of wind or an engine fails and recover itself automatically. The quad version is strong enough to carry a Gopro camera for capturing HD video and stills and the octo-copter is strong enough to carry a DSLR camera. We also caught a glimpse at a remote-controlled compartment that could release toy parachutes or …um… eggs.
Although letting the drone leave your line of sight or fly in populated areas breaks FAA regulations, the drone has a 1.5 mile range and some configurations can go up to 35 mph. Chris explained a scenario for using the drone for recording yourself doing sports like windsurfing. Since the drone can be connected to a GPS unit you could signal the drone to take off from the shore while you are windsurfing. The drone could be programed to follow and video you and then return to shore on your command. The drone is even smart enough to know to return itself safely when it is running out of power.
We’re already planning to make one, so keep an eye out for the Method Drone!
Our new love of drones could have satisfied us for the rest of the day, but we had to keep exploring. We headed into an educational lecture, put on by Oracle, about two Java products: Alice and project Greenfoot.
Alice is a java/visual based software that allows drag and drop interaction to build 3d environments. Alice 3.0 is underwritten by Electronic Arts and uses characters from their SIMS game. Greenfoot, an interactive java based platform, allows students to easily learn to make 2D animations and games. It uses a visual based or traditional written code to create animations. The rest of the lecture pointed towards other applications of Java, some known, like Minecraft, and some not so known.
Once we left the lecture hall, we stuffed our faces with funnel cake and gyros, and then honed our lock picking skills thanks to the folks at the College of Lock Picking. We hesitantly agreed to the first rule of lock picking (“Never pick a lock that doesn’t belong to you”), and proceeded to learn this fine art. As you can see, locking picking is now fun for the whole family. A family that lock picks together, stays together.
After that, we entered the massive exhibition floor and began a dizzying roam through the creative booths. The projects and products for sale spanned the gamut, but this year’s hot items were 3D printers. If you haven’t seen or heard of these devices, think of a two-foot square box that allows you to “print” dimensional plastic toys, parts, or pieces of anything you can dream up. For $500+ you can buy a Printerbot kit that you assemble. This printer uses ABS plastic and an additive process to create toys, parts, or any sort of physical prototype you design.
In our opinion, the Thing-o-Matic by Maker produced the best quality printing. The examples we saw were smooth and solid. Our overall pick for the day (Nancy’s is on order) was by Zen Tool Works. For around $1200 you can build a CNC and 3D printer in one device. By simply swapping out a couple of parts you go from 3D additive printing to CNC reductive cutting. Ooh lala.
Also on the floor was one of Method’s newest and loved clients, TechShop. These guys came in full force with their booth, showing off some of their member-made projects, including bamboo bicycles and custom-built electric motorcycles. There are no limits to what you can do at TechShop. The designers in our San Francisco office are all pretty excited about getting some time in the SF Techshop.
Last but not least, on our way out we ran into Gerard who is the proud owner and builder of a remote controlled R2D2. Method has no short on Star Wars fans, so we were quick to drill him with questions. Gerard gave us an amazing 1-on-1 demo of his R2 unit. This remote controlled robot is machined mostly out of aluminum and plastics. It plays a dozen different mp3 sounds and is also runs an Arduino board to control some of R2′s lights. Gerald even gave us a look under the hood.
It was a fun day. We left full of food and inspiration.
Method <3s Maker,
Mark Roudebush & Nancy Chui are IxD Designers in Method’s San Francisco Office.
At Method, we encounter several accidental “twin” outfit days. Twin-ness has revealed itself through colors, clothing combinations, fabrics, and even tattoos (see our Twins photo collection).
Given our interest in understanding people and their behaviors and motivations, it is only natural that we should try to understand twin-ness. We’re starting to unravel the mystery: in today’s accidental twin episode, we discovered a correlation between shirt greyness and employee height. More detailed findings illustrated below.
Where would we be without Arduino? The user-friendly, open-source prototyping platform has made a lot possible for us at Method. We’ve created memory bracelets that remind you to perform a certain task, built a screen-based “exquisite corpse” to reflect who we are, and even brought our office plant to digital life, allowing it to tweet when it needs to be watered. All with Arduino!
Imagine our thrill when the co-founder of the Arduino project, Massimo Banzi, dropped by Method SF to lead a private workshop. As an interaction designer, educator, and Open Source Hardware advocate, Massimo has worked as a consultant for clients such as Prada, Whirlpool, and Adidas. He authored the book, “Getting Started with Arduino,” and his articles regularly pop up in the Italian edition of Wired Magazine and Che Futuro, an online magazine about innovation.
Massimo also happens to be a very funny, engaging, and patient instructor, which came in handy during our workshop. Despite our group’s varying degree of knowledge with the Ardunio platform, under Massimo’s excellent guidance, we had our code written and little lights blinking in no time. Soon after, we were on to experimenting with pressure sensors, switches, and push buttons. The fantastic workshop taught us that there’s nothing quite like getting schooled by the master himself.
