A take on simple, satisfying interaction designs made out of that most humble of all materials – paper – is my most trafficked blog post ever, so I’ve gone out and found 10 more examples for you. To begin with part one, go here. Otherwise, continue after the jump.
1.Micro-fluidic Diagnostic Sheets , by George Whitesides Lab @ Harvard University
Simple paper sheets that use advanced chemistry to cheaply diagnose a range of diseases. A small drop of liquid, such as blood or urine, wicks in through the corner or back of the paper and passes through channels to special testing zones. Not only are they small, simple, and inexpensive – they are beautiful.
2.Teabag Coasters , by Yuree S Lim and Jleun Yang
These may not help to cure world diseases, but these delightful teabag covers also embrace the science of micro-fluidics. Placing a soaked bag on top of the empty package it came in reveals artwork. I love the way they embrace a common user behavioral “externality” (e.g. resting the wet teabag on the package it came in) and turn it into beautiful, interactive fun.
3. Universal Packing System by Patrick Sung
If Buckminister Fuller worked for a while in the Amazon.com shipping and distribution center, maybe he would have come up with something like this – a single sheet of triangularly scored cardboard that can be folded to fit nearly anything. The material is designed to save wasted space in those UPS trucks, although I’d think that packages wrapped in this stuff would be about as easy to stack as wet cats.
4. “View Source” Business Cards by Spot of Color
This business card peels away to reveal its HTML source code.
5. The Dream Ball Project by Unplug Design
This is packaging for aid relief which is cleverly designed to be re-lifed into a football for poor children. In the world of extemporaneous sporting equipment, this beats a plastic bag full of coconut palm leaves, hands down.
6. Polyhedral “Fractal Pack” by Laurence Gregoire
This proposal for chocolate packaging features a triangular package that unwinds into a string of 10 connected prism-shaped boxes.
7. Obamitas from Neosbrand
Lift up the lid from this cute looking cookie package, and the four walls spill out like the pedals of a flower to reveal messages of hope from President Obama.
8. Wolven Lenticular Book Cover
Some interactive paper technologies that have been around since the 1940’s are those based on 3D holographic and lenticular printing, which display different images depending on which angle the images are viewed. Such covers are making a huge comeback this year in publishing, with Random House’s major new release “The Passage” by Justin Cronin leading the way. I like this one the best – the two images are bold, hi-res, and strikingly differentiated.
9. Brown Tedstrom Holiday Card by EBD
Concertina folds are an interactive paper standby. I love the micro-macro pattern displayed here, as the birds in the opening image are used to punctuate and add lift to the words within the card. Classic and subtle, but satisfying.
10. Miss June 3D Centerfold by Playboy
With the movie Avatar and 3D television all the rage, it’s not surprising that people in the paper-pushing business want to get in on the act. What’s more delightful than the airbrushed, gauzy lensed goodness of playmate Hope Dworacyzk jumping out of the page at you. A cheap gimmick if you wear your interaction designers’ hat, but a brilliant one if you put your marketing one on – and really, what’s the difference?
Other Resources
Box Bottle Bag : the world’s best packaging design
by The Dieline
#1 by Ivor Tillier on July 6th, 2010
On a similar line of cutting and paper, I like the interaction between the message and the object as applied to the ‘Out of the box – book’, the Samsung phone setup and instructions – see:
http://vimeo.com/11784148