Happytowns
Media Sandbox 2008 enabled Plot and Burrell Durrant Hifle to explore the links between happiness and developments in technology. The result was Happytowns, a range of prototype wearable accessories to celebrate the relationship between people and remind us of the things we do together that makes us happy.
Feb - Apr 2008
Burrell Durrant Hifle is a multi-disciplinary media agency and Plot is an innovation agency working with a diverse range of new media, NGO’s and traditional mobile businesses looking to develop new ways of creative strategy. Thanks to Media Sandbox 2008 they came together to develop simple responsive wearable objects that react to the proximity of others.
Both companies were interested in linking happiness to developments in technology and especially in their etiquette and appropriateness of pervasive media. The facts are that some countries are happier than others and this happiness level does not have anything to do with money or wealth. Crucially the question they were posing was as technology gets more intimate and surrounds us everywhere, how do we want it to behave? The team set themselves the challenge of working out where the overlap between pervasive media and happiness might be; and to prototype it as a potential commercial proposition.
Following a period of research and development they produced Happytowns, a set of prototype bracelets that talk to each other, using radio technology to map spatial distances and respond to different kinds of ‘closeness’. Read their project journal to find out more about their process and thinking.
Related Links
www.bdh.net
www.plotsite.net
