Design addict and Co-Founder of the network of NOTCOT sites, Jean Aw is our Cool Geek of this week. It’s amazing to see how Jean constantly immerse her users in the world of ‘visually stunning, creative, innovative, inspirational, and compelling designs’ through NOTCOT, NotCouture and TasteSpotting - of course, food too is the highest degree of art, isn’t it?
This week she’s here to answer your questions with the same aesthetic knack. So dive into Jean Aw(esome)’s world with an inquiring mind and check out how deeply she’s obsessed with her passion for almost everything cool in life.
Here is Jean’s slightly less informal bio:
Jean Aw is a 24 year old designer, trendspotter, and entrepreneur. She holds a Masters Degree in User Experience Design where she focused on both conceptual and visual design and usability research.
She has since channeled her education and design into NOTCOT Inc, a network of informative and collaborative websites that doubles as a design consultancy. By keeping her readers (and her readers keeping her) on the cutting edge of design, this network demonstrates, inspires, and promotes smart, simple user experiences while stimulating a visual, aesthetic and textual dialogue between users and designers.
While currently based in her hometown of Los Angeles, CA, she is very mobile, hopping around the country and across the globe, entrenching herself in international culture and their respective design hotspots. She often finds the most incredible things in the most unlikely of places and loves bringing them to her readers, often leaving them wondering whether the treasure was in their existence or in their discovery.
Some of Jean’s more recent favorite posts:
Gino the Dog - The Gino the Dog collection was exciting to see in person while at NY Design Week, particularly because having CCA students under the direction of design genius Yves Behar to design luxury dog products, and then have them actually manufactured by Gaia & Gino is incredibly inspiring (not to mention, the products are just breath taking and playful)
Canon TX1 - I’m currently obsessed with what this tiny Canon TX1 can do. 7.1 mgp with 10x optical AND HD video capabilities while still fitting in a tiny purse?
Cow In A Box: Dissected - Designer inspiration can be found in the most unexpected of places, including a $4 cow in a box toy that i deconstructed. There’s something about the joy of finding out how things work (and it was a great excuse to play with the TX1’s video feature)
Jean, what’s the scope of more innovative changes in Human-Computer Interaction and how you’re looking forward to incorporate that in the projects you’re currently handling?
Jean, I’ve to say, designs of all your blogs are fabulous. However, I’d like to know, do you endeavor to design experiences or mere occasions, leaving the rest on the users to perceive.
As said about the products displayed on your blog, you often leave your readers ‘wondering whether the treasure was in their existence or in their discovery’, what else you want your users to experience apart from that sense of awe and are you always successful?
Hiiii Jean, a hell lot of people might have told you this thing but I must tell you again that you are beautiful.
Well, your designs are no doubt simple yet captivating but why you came up with the idea of same sort of design (Squared boxes) for all the three — NOTCOT, NotCouture and TasteSpotting? Do you think giving them some sort of weekly magazine-looks is that much impressive?
One thing more, where do you find all those lip smacking recipes?
