Autor: Nils Tornow

Electronic ink technology by E Ink.

It needs no backlighting, because it uses different coloured layers and ambient light to create differently coloured pixels. When laminated into a plastic film and adhered to electronics it creates an Electronic Paper Display (EDP).

So far E Ink created three different systems each serving a different need.

Two Pigment Ink System

That makes the surface appear either white or black.

Three Pigment Ink System

This technology was specifically developed for Electronic Shelf Labels – ESL.

Advanced Colour ePaper (ACeP)

By combining all eight primary colours this ePaper achieves a full colour gamut without needing a colour filter array.

The E Ink Triton displays offer 16 levels of grayscale and are capable of displaying 4096 colours.

E Ink Triton

By charging the different pigments – structurally quite similar printer ink – they change their position and create a picture on the display. As soon as the pigments are charged and showing a steady page they stay in place and the screen needs no more energy until it has to change the displayed screen again. Which makes it an incredible low-energy alternative to commonly used displays.

Once these e Ink microcapsules are created and laminated onto a roll of plastic they can be cut into any shape and used for different purposes. Furthermore E Ink plastic films are highly flexible and can be applied onto pretty much any surface allowing almost anything to become a display.

E Ink film roll running down from a window.

Even though their screens can’t display high quality pictures like LCD displays etc. their energy saving ability makes them perfect for different use cases. Such as price tags, eReaders, presentational tablets, etc.

Also their non reflective screen makes it the perfect digital alternative to paper.

Use case:

http://www.yotamobile.com/

The yotaphone actually combines the advantages of both screens and introduces users to the e-ink screen in a very innovative way. The e-ink screen can be used for almost everything the LCD display is, but also allows users to creatively decorate or customise their phones by just changing the phone covers design.

Sources:

https://www.eink.com/electronic-ink.html

http://www.yotamobile.com/

https://www.eink.com/e-ink-film.html

https://www.eink.com/color-technology.html

Nature is a given source to go to for inspiration and new ideas on problem solving especially concerning design challenges or -problems.

“You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products, and all of those have benefited from a 3.8 billion year research and development period. And given that level of investment, it makes sense to use it.”
-Michael Pawlyn

A very interesting and by far not fully understood topic in biomimicry is the phenomenon of colour through structure. This can be observed in the wings of a colourful butterfly or the chitin in the shell of a beetle.

They are not coloured in the way we understand it, but have microscopic irregularities that reflect light in different angles and therefore change its frequencies, so when the light is received by the eye it appears as if the surface was coloured in many different colours when it’s actually not coloured at all.

„I like looking at what organisms do that’s completely different from the way we do the same thing. For instance, take a peacock feather. If we were to make it, we would use chemicals and pigments. But actually, the only pigment is brown. It’s done with structural color and transparent layers. When light reflects back to us through the layers, it creates the color blue or green or gold to your eye.“ – Janine Benyus

Biomimicry – Innovation inspired by nature.

Not for nothing people turn to nature for inspiration when approaching problems in a design project, but we mainly think of physical products when the term biomimicry and design are mentioned in the same sentence.

We think of examples like the velcro fastener, DaVinci’s flying apparatus or Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet Train which was drastically improved after shaping it’s nose like the beak of a kingfisher – thus the train was finally able to enter and leave a tunnel without breaking the sound barrier.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/60/2e/36602e604a97698831cb9686a24b63c5.jpg

Biomimicry is the use of methods in economy which mimic natural processes. Thus to reduce waste of and avoid impact on the environment.The Biomimicry Institute defines it like this:

“Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.”

http://www.designatlarge.it/biomimicry-design-and-innovation/?lang=en

Nature consists of proven concepts that developed over millions of years. Beginning with the most simple single cell organisms to the massive static solution of the enormous Redwood tree nature presents us with the best solutions – as well in economical as in ecological terms.

The concept of biomimicry is long know, but not often enough in use.

In our consume driven society we don’t think about our waste management and about what happens with our products after we used them. Most products are composed of many different materials that are hard to separate after combining them and composite like plastics, etc. are hardly degradable at all.

A natural result of our wasteful uneconomic lifestyle are more and more frequently occurring climate phenomena, that are supposed to be seen as a signal to change our way of living. Climate change and lack of resources will finally force us to rethink our ways of living and consumption, and eventually change our habits.

For a solutions to our problems we ought to look around us and seek guidance by the greatest prototyper we have, nature. Well proven concepts are all around us we only have to observe and adapt our ways of designing and manufacturing to natural principles.

“When we look at what is truly sustainable, the only real model that has worked over long periods of time is the natural world.”
-Janine Benyus

 

Sources:

https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/

http://www.designatlarge.it/biomimicry-design-and-innovation/?lang=en

In my research I’m focusing on biomimicry and how it is approached in the field of communication and interaction design.

I want to focus on the functional aspect of mimicking naturally occurring phenomena, but also investigate the aspect of beauty that visually appeal to us – like the colour shifting ability of cephalopods – squids, octopuses and cuttlefish.

https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/208995238928079159/

For that I want to take a closer look an find out what’s already done in this field and what turned out to be a good approach and what not.

Also I want to investigate new technologies, technical solutions and modern – smart – materials that are used in this context.

One of the materials I want to focus on in the beginning is E Ink and its improvements over the last years. The concept is quite appealing to me, because it’s a form of display that requires very little energy -sustainable – and has an almost organic feeling, both haptic and visual. Furthermore I will check alternative technologies which compete in this market.