Recently in Art Category

Two high-order qualities of compelling user experiences revolve around the principles of harmony and balance. People feel at ease experiencing these. Unfortunately, high-order principles aren't discussed in the user experience domain extensively.

Reading this article by Jennifer Farley (Sitepoint) on balance as a design principle and finding this blogpost on Washoku cooking and design by Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen) inspired me to learn more on how principles of Japanese cooking can improve my designs for experiences.

In Japanese cuisine, the Power of Five rules. Five principles outline the ideal components of every meal. Each principle is a list of five items which should all be present for a nutritionally, visually, spiritually balanced meal, with no single component overpowering the others.

• Harmony in color. Washoku meals include foods that are red, yellow, green, black and white. This is not only visually pleasing, but a great way to be sure you are getting a good nutritional balance with your meal.
• Harmony in palate. By having a balance of salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy foods, a washoku-style meal is thoroughly satisfying to the entire palate.
• Harmony in cooking method. Washoku-style meals use several different methods of cooking in each meal: simmering, searing, steaming, raw, and sauteeing or frying.
• Harmony in the senses. Each meal should please the five senses: taste, sight, sound, smell and touch (texture).
• Harmony in the outlook. This is a philisophical idea that when eating we should attempt, first to respect the efforts of all those who contributed their toil to cultivating and preparing our food; second, to do good deeds worthy of receiving such nourishment; third, to come to the table without ire; fourth, to eat for spiritual as well as temporal well-being; and fifth, to be serious in our struggle to attain enlightenment.

Elisabeth Andoh (author of Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen) says: "Selecting ingredients at their peak of seasonal flavor, choosing locally available foods from both the land and the sea, appealing to and engaging all the senses, using a collage of color, employing a variety of food preparations, and assembling an assortment of flavors – a Washoku approach to cooking gives the creative and contemplative cook an opportunity to satisfy his or her own aesthetic hunger while providing sustenance and sensory pleasure to others."

I immediately ordered her book.

The combination of design and food can be very fruitful for people and companies. They get a lot of inspiration from it and take it as metaphor, domain or just for the fun of it.

Armin Hofmann from the art blog 'today and tomorrow' reports on one example, the Food Design Probes from consumer electronics company Royal Philips.

"Food Design Probes is a research project by Philips. They developed ideas how we will eat and source our food in the future, like in 15 to 20 years. There are 3 products we might have in our homes by then:

• The Nutrition Monitor. It basically has 3 parts, a sensor which you have to swallow, a scanner which can measure the nutritional value of food and a display device. So you'll exactly know what your body needs and what kind of effect your food will have on it.
• The Food Printer. Remember the 3D sugar printer? Well, this is the next generation. The machine brings molecular gastronomy to your kitchen. 'Feed' is with some ingredients, pick a shape, let it print … and voilà your amazing 3D dish is ready. I can't wait to see all the opensource 3D recipes that will be available!
• The Biosphere Home Farm. It's a 21st century aquarium crossed with stylish shelving unit, it contains fish, plants and other mini ecosystems."

Let's see if this consumer electronics company can deliver some great designs from this far-future research and food inspiration.

I've always wondered how food visualizations effect our senses. Some people make it into their daily work to give food the best presentation. In 2007, they had their International Conference on Food Styling and Photography: A World View of Business, Techniques, and Design. Loved to have been there.

Carl Warner paints still lives with light, food and his expensive camera. His catalogue (screaming Flash requirements) contains very cute pictures.

Food as material - "Food Design makes possible to think in food as an edible designed product, an object that negates any reference to cooking, tradition and gastronomy. Guixé as a Food Designer builds edible products that are ergonomic, functional, communicative, interactive, visionary but radically contemporary and timeless."

It's like creating art with code but never execute the code and see what happens.

The 'user' is the centre figure for user experience designers. Tradition, a sense of place and simplicity are the 'leitmotives' of great meals and diners. How they play a crucial role for food addicts is the topic of this magazine.

Dutch food designer Marije Vogelzang describes on her blog 'Proef ('Taste') Amsterdam' how she integrates food, design and art. For her, food is a material to design with and less to eat. Including to make it fun for children. And ... she's does not cook, but designs.