Designer Toolkit: Ergi App

How high should I hang this picture?  How wide should I design this worktable?  How tall should I make that bookshelf?  These are the questions that an app called Ergi helps you answer.

Ergi makes use of official government standards to create a simple, attractive interface that allows designers to either reference common benchmarks, or to enter specific criteria about the age, gender, and relative height (short, tall, average) of the clients they are creating things for.

Ergi does one thing and does it well.  The app is an excellent tool for designers to use while actually designing or to share with clients while moving through the design process.

Ergi is a bit pricey relative to other apps, but you only have to use it once to resolve a design issue with a client (or to avoid an embarrassing error!) and Ergi will have already paid for itself.

You can find out more on the Ergi website.  Ergi is currently available for iOS only.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Museum Design Inspiration: Olafur Eliasson's "Your exhibition guide"

Artist Olafur Eliasson has developed a free app  called "Your exhibition guide" to accompany the exhibition "The Infinite White Abyss" focusing on the complex subject of the white surface in the works of Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian.

If, like me, you are not steeped in art history, or expecting to be in Dusseldorf anytime soon, you could skip directly to downloading the app (on iOS or Android) or checking out the "Welcome" video by Olafur Eliasson (at the top of this post or here on YouTube.)

The app itself is a series of short "exercises" that gets you to think about experiencing an art exhibition (and art museums!) in different ways.  Eliasson asks you to consider such approaches as "non-art", "abstraction" and even experiencing your visit as an asteroid, among other possibilities.  Inside the app, under each video, are additional thoughts and references related to each of the experiential exercises.

The cool, and inspiring, thing to me about what Olafur Eliasson has done here is to create a toolbox for anyone, inside any art museum, to be rewarded for careful observation.  In fact, I'd go as far to say that these exercises could be used outside of art museums as well.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Design Inspiration: Foldify

Foldify is a super-fun iPad app that helps users create their own papercraft projects.  What's nice is that Foldify is an app that neatly stradles the digital and physical worlds in a crafty way.

As you can see by the video at the top of this post, Foldify lets you create and customize a "flattened" version of a papercraft project that you can then print out, cut out, and assemble yourself.

Foldify eases you into the process with a tutorial and templates, but from there you can create custom papercraft toys of your own design or plug into the burgeoning Foldify community to sample other people's designs or share your own.

So check out Foldify and get your fold on!  It's available at the App Store.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)