Yawns Are Yellow

A children's book on synaesthesia has been brewing in my head for a few months now, ever since my daughter asked me, "Mom, what if yawns were yellow?" After a twelve mile bike ride, I managed to write it in three hours. Looking for illustrators now. Here's an excerpt:

"And yawns, oh yawns, they were yellow. She loved to see someone yawn. Can you yawn right now? Her father’s yawn was the deep golden color of marigold flowers. Her mother’s was the light yellow of lemon drops. Her teacher, Ms. Nuttenbutter, had the lightest yellow of all – like squinting into the bright sun and seeing just the rays. Sometimes, Charlotte would try to yawn just to see the yellow mist it made."

Pecha Kucha Presentation Posted (finally)

I've added in a layer of speaker notes, ready for consumption!

Synesign: Pecha Kucha 2009 (.pdf)

Secret Sounds of Bone Conduction

My research into synaesthesia and the idea of individual, unseen experiences, which can be leveraged for design thinking, led me to a German memorial in Dresden, called TouchedEcho. According to its creator, "visitors...are taken back in time to the night of the terrible air raid on 13th February 1945. While leaning on the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through their arm directly into into the inner ear (bone conduction).

How could this be applied to design, you wonder? This led to a concept for the future retail experience in which stores could leverage "silent signage." Imagine a fashion designer being able to convey the story behind a dress with an electronic tag that through touch could be conveyed personally to you. You, and you alone, would hear the designer's voice describe the color, lines and symmetry through this highly personal encounter. Instead of the cacophany of digital signage noise today, it would be more like an easter egg hunt, full of discovery. Highly contextual, highly personal.

Synaesthetic Address File?

I found this tidbit in a Better Homes and Gardens 2010 Organization issue. While I organize my closet entirely in color, here is a designer who organizes her entire home in color and as she remarks in the article, "I make associations in color." Hence, her widely acclaimed color organized address file. I'm now the proud owner of one of these handcrafted originals.

http://www.lovelydesign.com/lovely_products_address.html

I have also emailed the artist asking for a custom version with months of the year, in which i can write quick memories in color.

Smell Arithmetic

I always come across synaesthesia association references in the most unlikely places. Consider the book, "The Scent of Desire," (insightful book with a horrible title all on our sense of scent.) In it, the author had a sidebar that further demonstrates the belief that we can enhance our understanding and transform our thinking by considering our world from a synaesthetic perspective.

She writes, "The British intellectual Sir Francis Galton, known for many eminent distinctions, including being the half cousin of Charles Darwin, decided to do a little experiment and taught himself "smell arithmetic." Galton associated specific smells with specific numbers; - for example two whiffs of peppermint = 1 whiff of camphor - and claimed that he could add and subtract quite well with imaginary scents, but that multiplication was too difficult."