Another clock

Thinking of Gene Z's chess set, this clock bought a few years ago from Habitat has a nice diagramming reference too. It's clever in a recursive kind of way, but not instructional in the way his chess set is.

Gene Zelazny's diagrammatic chess set

Each piece on this chess set, designed by Gene Zelazny, is a diagram of how it moves.

Gene Zelazny is Director of Visual Communications for McKinsey & Company, and I corresponded with him for a while when they were a client a few years back in the mid-90s. He's been there for many years (he started in 1961 and I think he's still there), and has trained generations of management consultants to do those diagrams they all love - I saw a great collection he compiled of visual metaphors used in management communications, but I don't think he's published it anywhere (he has several books out on the design of charts and presentations).

As a sideline he designs wonderful chess sets - I mentioned to him Ken Garland's interest in board game design, and he sent me one of his diagrammatic sets to pass on to Ken (which I reluctantly did). Here's a link to his chess set gallery.

Visual Voltage

Visual Voltage is an inspiring exhibition by a group of Swedish designers and engineers, of technology that helps people visualise their energy use in the home. We've just installed a meter that tells us how much energy we're using - you can switch the washing machine on and see the hourly cost shoot up. But it's not very compelling, and you forget about it quite quickly. These devices are more visceral - some of them actually work on an emotional level (such as the energy flower than blooms when you use less electricity). The powercord (below) looks like it's wasting energy, and you can't wait to switch it off. The energy clock maps your households usage, and shows you the times when you might need to change your habits.

The exhibition is touring at the moment, but there don't seem to be any UK dates.