Play/Pause — Dominant Design and the Shapes of Control | Online

About this event

Play, Pause, Stop, Fast Forward, Rewind are the unsung design heroes of the past 50 years.

Our current design research traces the origins of these modern media controls from other notation systems — musical and transportation signage. These codified control symbols embody dominant design. They have become immutable and default.

As designers we face the challenge of balancing affordance and familiarity with emerging types of augmented and virtual media and multi-sense inputs — like touch and sound. How do we embody an ethos of ‘designing with heart’ — balancing a passion for betterment and challenging norms with an empathy for utility, while contending with the inertia of the past?

Join as the Head of Design at Wolff Olins, Forest Young, explores these questions and more.