3. Go to unusual shops.
Shops can be like museums if you are in the right frame of mind. You need to feel comfortable looking round when you probably have little intention to buy, but you get used to this. I find hardware shops really interesting and try to visit them in whatever country I’m in. You find weird little tools for very particular tasks and often find pretty old stock too. These small items can be a real inspiration whether they make you think of other possible designs or bring to mind situations and possible user needs.
You can of course do this online but I’ll reiterate my view on the web: “It can’t beat real exploration and experience.” Holding an object in your hand is much better. So try doing both, depending on the time you have.
Specialised shops can be great too, I love pet shops and fishing/hunting shops too. Specialised clothing can be a real inspiration as it really gives a feeling of tasks and role you might not have experienced.
4. There’s something about travel.
I’ve always felt inspired on buses and trains (not planes). They let you see the world outside in a strange objective way and offer few distractions. I’m writing this on a train, and the words are coming much more easily, than being at home writing. I fantasise about having an office on a train that I board each morning and it takes me to different locations. In this fantasy I sometimes look out of the window to see interesting power stations, industrial estates, castles, back gardens (I love other peoples back gardens), and allotments. Sometimes I observe other passengers. At lunchtime I would be at my destination and go for a sandwich in somewhere new every day. Maybe I would visit a local shop or museum, then back onto my train/office for the afternoon’s work trip back. I wonder whether I would want wi-fi as they have in some trains? Would I want to use my mobile phone? Maybe, but I’d like to choose not to have these links some days. Maybe one day whole trains can be made up of homeworkers not at home. Looking out of the windows as their train passes over a brightly lit shopping centre on a dusky evening, observing shoppers in action (they seem so exotic from this viewpoint) and getting sudden inspiration for new services, products and stories.
Rory Hamilton 2006
Greek Alphabet soup. Notice the actual noodles are not Greek, only Latin. Sad, really. But exotic.
5. Go abroad.
Foreign travel is kind of cheating as it’s not really our everyday but is genuinely exotic. But what I’m getting at is when you travel abroad don’t just look at the things you are meant to: castles, painting, lovely landscapes, but look for the everyday world. Go to the shops that everyone shops in, not Gap but little odd, dusty, shops. Look out for people doing everyday tasks like street cleaning, cooking. Look at modes of transport, traditions, manners, everything. Don’t be scared to ask questions.
I had a fun moment with three of my students recently. One Chinese, one Korean and the third Japanese. I asked then what chopsticks were made of (I new what the answers would be). The Chinese student said plastic, the Korean said metal, the Japanese said wood. There was then much laughing over why these countries fairly close to each other used the same utensil in a different material and none of them could really explain why. It’s about tradition I guess but made us all think about finding the exotic in the everyday. All we have to do is look for it.
