What first attracted me to this story produced by Digital Trends was the fact that FashionBuddha, a design boutique in Portland Oregon, has built their own multi-touch table for about $600.00. Now that's affordable!While Fashion Buddha's DYI multitouch table looks great and seems very responsive, its their sense of aesthetics that won me over. Most multitouch applications are aesthetically dark (if that makes sense) something you are more likely to see in Blade Runner than anywhere else.
FashionBuddha's creations are just the opposite. Bright with vivid colors and a real sense of beauty they raise the bar for other multitouch designers to move out of the stiff, dull, us-too design and into new territory (I know that sounds ridiculously obscure but I can't express it better than that).
The photos and video provide some insight to what FashionBuddha is doing with their multitouch table, but only a hint. Judging by their other works FashionBuddha is going make a real splash in the multitouch design industry.
There is a frustrating audio interview (frustrating because you end up really wanting to see what they are demonstrating but can't), which tells about a gallery show for artist Yellena James that they are working on. In the show their multitouch table will be front and center featuring Yellena James' many sea creatures. The mulitouch application will allow attendies to generate sea creatures on the fly. I would love to see that.
FashionBudda is injecting a breath of fresh air into multi-touch design that I believe is desperately needed. I'm grateful for what little I've seen of their work. In multitouch, utility, design and aesthetics is everything. You can create a really useful application but if its not visually beautiful its not making the most of large multitouch medium. What we want is both utility and beauty. FashionBudda is the first design firm I've seen to really deliver on the beauty aspects of multitouch.
Update June 19, 2009
FashionBuddha has posted a couple more videos of their Aquarium and Orchestra applications, which are still in development. Nice work guys!
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