This video is a beautiful, mesmerizing piece of work.  Objectively, it is little more than some candid, street footage (admittedly taken in Manhattan) spliced together and laced with a nice soundtrack. Tthose words technically do describe the video — which could easily instead have formed something banal and pedantic — but instead of a snore, the video is a work of art. The magic ingredient — the alchemy which transforms slo-mo candids of people walking down the street into a lush painting of a city in motion –  is the convergence of talent, determination, and vision. And the result is a work of art instead of 3rd-rate documentary filler.

The video is impressive not only as a piece of art, but as a vivid example of how an artist (or designer, or artisan) with vision can make great things with even a minimal amount of tools. Sahuc wasn’t using fancy, high-end equipment. He didn’t have a lighting crew or a budget. He took what he had and made it work.

In other words, as designers our work is not limited by our lack of a new G5 Mac, or CS4, or even our programmers’ (un)willingness to build AJAX interfaces with rounded corners. No. If we can mine our instincts and skills to hone a clear vision, even the crudest of tools can be used to create elegant, enchanting results.

You can debate whether Poster Boy is defacing property or committing a crime, but you cannot argue that his work is creative, funny, and thought provoking. The fact that his only tool is a razor blade makes it all the more remarkable.

I guarantee that you will love this video. For a high-def, albeit briefer, version, visit Capacity’s site.

Although it is tons of fun and entertaining to watch, what is most compelling is the huge leap forward displayed here in the notion of what a logo and a brand can mean. Conventional ideas of brand identity, shaped by decades of emblems and tag lines, still seem to confine it to a word mark or a glyph. This campaign demonstrates how much more fertile ground there is (for the right brand, of course) to define and display the vibrancy of their identity.

The idea is that Cartoon Network is a palette of characters (the Noods) who interact – and not just a cable chanel with an animated bug in the corner of the screen. It is brought vividly to life by first showing us cute but featureless dolls who are then injected with personality by pops and bursts of color and motion. The brand is alive. It is interactive, fun, and playful. (Of course the phenomenal soundtrack plays a key role). Try and get that message across with a logo and a tag line.

For more background and analysis, a good write up from CartoonNothing:

The latest jewel in [LA-based Capacity's] crown is a massive rebrand for Cartoon Network built around Noods, blank Dunny-esque figures created by the crew at Kidrobot. Props to CN for dreaming up such a clever, collaborative concept.

Capacitys CN montage starts off in a minimal white space but builds in complexity and vibrancy as more characters, environments and seasons are introduced. [...] Yoda reducing General Grievous to a puddle of paint [is] a clever way to deconstruct the underlying concept of the rebrand.

The frenetic soundtrack (also created by Capacity) tinges the entire montage with a playful 8-bit tone and moves things forward with a cheery optimism befitting such a grand undertaking.

I might have to rip that soundtrack into an MP3.

Here we have a conceptual version of Ford’s second generation Sync system, to debut next week at the Detroit auto show.

Beyond the flawless voice recognition capaciy, there are two striking things about this video.

First, the natural language the model uses to control the SYNC system. The ability to use voice commands without necessarily utilizing specific code words is a vast leap forward that really can move this technology from the hyper-focused capacity it now occupies, to a vast frontier of mobile applications. Delivery drivers and iPhone tools are two that pop to mind.

Second, the example shown in this video exemplifies how new cars are transforming from transportation tools to a pseudo-office, with all the comforts, tools, and connectivity we once associated with a luxurious office space. It seems that in this new age driving is, uhh, taking a back seat.

The fact that they tie into your Facebook and Flickr accounts, and use built in geo-tagging to support these functions, is icing on the cake. But for a designer, these features are case studies in the profound impact of user-oriented information architecture (or Domain Language, as Paul describes it in his fantastic post over at 37signals). From the post:

A domain language is the set of words that reflect the way you cut up a domain. It consists of the pieces you sliced and the names you chose to give them. This language defines an application and makes it special.

Rather than stick with the old, tried and true – but ultimately dysfunctional – means of organizing pictures (roll and album) the new iPhoto app uses location, face recognition, and of course Events to cull together these artifacts in ways that are meaningful to people, rather than databases.

Each chance we have to examine and perhaps create IA (or domain language) for a new website or other app, we have the same chance to truly examine the way people think of the products or tools they’ll be using, and to ensure – or at least try – to make our language fit the way they think of things, and not the other way around.

Mozilla labs blows minds with this mold-breaking, innovative, and nearly genius addition to the browser kingdom: Ubiquity. As they describe it,

Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone (not just Web developers) to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)

This is an alpha 0.1 release, so I am sure we can expect a few bugs, and sure the interface is less than perfect, but the ability to simply and intuitively do things like: add a map to email; map a selection of housing listings from craigslist; or insert selected items into an email, is so powerful and so useful, that Ubiquity is already, even in this 0.1 alpha stage, remarkable.

Download it or read more from Aza here.

Some of the features shown, such as browser-integrated text/IM capability, shared desktop functions, and the nifty wheel menu, seem like they could be added to a standard browser in the near term.

Other features, like the chart-remixing, and history clouds with smart grouping, probably would require some signifigant planning for a common coding framework, plus massive processor power. But they are far from science fiction.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Overall, a ton of great ideas brought to bear in this video. Major kudos to Adaptive Path for their work on Aurora. Wow, wouldn’t it be fun to work on wild conceptual projects like this? A man can dream….

Those were interesting times. Here I was, head full of the great (and lame) things that I experienced with my old job at Wells Fargo, now tapped into the pulse of Bank of America’s user experience design group. My eyes were fresh, my hopes and expectations not yet re-formatted (crushed?) by the new ‘realities’.

The upside of this temporary naivety? Fresh eyes. That is, having not yet been indoctrinated into the new environment and culture, and having still-vibrant recollection of life in my old organization, I brought new ways of looking at things, a temporary condition that comes to an apex maybe 6-12 months into such an experience. That moment one has learned enough about the new reality, yet still have strong memories of past experiences that ideas of new, better ways to do things still flow freely.

But the window of opportunity does not last forever. Eventually, soon, the organizational structure, politics, brow beatings and red tape of the new reality become routine. Aspirations of change, improvement, or flat-out new ways of looking at people, products, or problems begin to dissipate, overtaken by numbness and apathy. The once-fresh eyes grow stale, the voice of change grows muted, and the great velvet tomb begins to encase you, as you grow comfortable with the ‘way things are done around here’.

The iPhone is a great example of this phenomenon, on an industrial scale. A year and a half ago, before anyone had seen Apple’s seminal new device, blogs, newspapers, and magazines were full of naysaying cellphone industry executives and pundits proclaiming that their business was tough and complicated. That some newcomer (Apple) was going to face some hard knocks climbing the handset mountain.

Oh really? Apple, with a fresh perspective on the industry, and of course bringing their own sense of independence, innovation, and the crucial lack of indoctrination into the old ways, changed the game.

Carrier-dictated feature set? No. Traditional retailing and activation model? Gone. Mini plastic keyboard? Never. More of the same? Haha. Instead, Apple has created a revolution in “phones,” transforming a lumbering industry into a sexy, dynamic, and culturally important sector.

Yes, a huge amount of that is due to Apple’s unique talents. But as a reference to my overarching point, it is clear that only Apple could have done it, not only because of their skills, but just as importantly because of their fresh eyes. I have no doubt that Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and others are full of technically brilliant engineers and artistically gifted designers. And possibly even executives capable of great vision, willing to take massive risk.

But none of that matters, because all of them bought into the cellphone industry orthodoxy: carriers dictate features, smartphones must have Qwerty keyboards, it’s ok if mobile browsers completely suck.

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This model can apply in any aspect of life: Political campaigns (people-powered vs. top-down), industry, socializing (the new kid at school), family matters, and especially, most commonly, within corporate work environments, which are made up of a constantly shifting blend of employees, managers, and organizational charts.

What can be done?

Tapping that vein of inspiration, during the time of optimal value is crucial. Once the window closes, the opportunity is lost. Moreover, an organization that values and acts upon the visions of the Fresh Eye is likely to foster a more dynamic culture which can evolve into a self-sustaining environment of innovation, and thus stave off the seemingly always-inevitable descent into the ruts of routine.

Give the Fresh Eyes a voice! New employees ought to be seen as the trove of ideating treasure that they are. Round tables, process improvement teams, associate satisfaction surveys: new employees deserve a place in any effort such as these. And best of all, heeding their ideas will help build an employee with more investment in your business, and foster great morale to boot.

Don’t let those fresh eyes go stale.