From 9,000 ft, Squaw Valley’s Granite Chief is a stunning place to snap into bindings and give gravity a run for its money. Every time I visit Lake Tahoe’s winter summits, I am overwhelmed by the power of White - all colors of the spectrum coating an otherwise rugged terrain, dotted with evergreens that boldly survive the cold winter months. Though I’ll readily admit the emotional associations with color are subjective, the feelings of cleanliness, freshness, and purity associated with first powder to me are a powerful reminder of the emotional impact of color. If not for the abrupt contrast of a cluster of trees, a protruding rock, or a human silhouette, the power of white takes on a more whispered statement, a shroud of harmless mystery on a foggy morning.
In a design era where “clean design” is center stage, the cold chill of the Sierra Nevadas remind me that clean does not need to mean boring. Clean can also make the heart beat faster.
alt.soundtrack: “Ghost” featuring 50 Cent, Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore
One of the things that thrills me as someone that makes music is the power of music to completely change our emotional reactions to a visual story. Over brunch one day, I was having a conversation about “alternative soundtracks” - what would happen to iconic moments of cinema with a musical intervention. It amazes me how the power of a soundtrack - any soundtrack - can command the emotional tone of visual moment. Thanks to the late Patrick Swayze, Demi, Fiddy, and especially the Righteous Brothers, who even though absent from the video, kind of made this opportunity possible.
7 seconds: How Battlestar Galactica gets pulses pounding
Every time you tune in to a TV show, whether it’s your first episode or you’re coming back for more, title designers typically have less than a minute to set the tone, establish the context, and get your heart racing.
The title sequence of Battlestar Galactica begins with serene chanting juxtaposed with violent images that define the central conflict. Then something interesting happens.
At 33 seconds, a flash. The soothing voices fade away, replaced by pounding drums, and you’re exposed to a 7-second peek into the future as major events from the episode you are about to see flash before your eyes. This tiny glimpse into the future is enough to turn what would otherwise be a canned title sequence into a jolt to the imagination.
If you’re designing an experience that calls for setting a tone, establishing a context, how can you give your audience a peek ahead to get their hearts racing without giving too much away?
I gave a talk about emotional design at a Microsoft-sponsored event themed “Designing for a Sustainable World” in November 2009.
One of my many stops on NYE 2010 was at GAFFTA, a brand-new media gallery in downtown San Francisco. The organization transformed one of the studio spaces into a “picnic area”, complete with real grass, checkered blankets, and a multimedia installation projected onto fabric spanning the whole ceiling. My friends Eric and Gloriane and I looked up at the abstract digital “stars”, breathing in the earthy smell of dirt and crushed grass blades, and I was considering why all living rooms don’t feel more like this.
The palette of human emotions are like your kitchen spices. You can name them and try them by themselves but they’re best as a mash up, at times a subtle, delicate concoction that’s hard to pin down, and other times as subtle as a smack upside the head.
Wikipedia has a pretty remarkable list of emotions. I’m sure we can all come up with a few that aren’t covered here, some of which you probably can’t say around children or on the radio.
