How good graphics can change everything…

Since living in France, I have become accustomed to home rental services, or “gites” as they are called in French and there is a wide internet network that catalogues these homes and creates a connection with the host and the renter (to name a few: www.gites-de-france.com and www.homelidays.com). I would argue that in general, Europeans are more accustomed to the idea of staying in a home / furnished apartment rather than booking a room in an inauthentic hotel chain.  This type of exchange has, I am sure, been going on for decades, starting surely with word of mouth.  An ongoing struggle that my partner and I have had with my somewhat conservative parents is that we cannot manage to convince them that staying in a 19th century French farm house would somehow be a more memorable / valuable experience than staying at the local Ibis.  In any case, I’d argue that Europeans are more accustomed to bed and breakfast-like experiences since corporate monotony has, in many ways, taken over authenticity on the American cultural landscape.  A Holiday Inn in Salt Lake City, Utah will have the same feel as a Holiday Inn in Fort Lauderdale, Florida… it may even have the same carpeting.    Hotels are convienent: you check in, you check out, and you’re very unlikely to engage with anyone else beyond the Spanish speaking maid who is waiting to clean your room while you’re just waking up.  Americans love convenience.

We caught on a few years ago to an underground movement known as “couchsurfing” ignited by the site www.couchsurfing.com which is not 100% as far as design and functionality are concerned but it has none the less made its mark based on the sheer hospitality of its users and the sincerity of its concept, a concept that draws a certain “peace and love” crowd from all over the world.  We have pictures of our apartment on the couchsurfing site, we’ve hosted a few travelers of our own / made some friends / had some nice culturally infused discussions.   Couchsurfing remains somewhat of a secret and it is rarely mentioned in travel guides…I think again, it thrives on a sort of philanthropy or  faith in the human condition and a sort of rejection of all things material.  I wouldn’t expect the couchsurfing site to be streamline and powerful…a shoddy site is just part of the experience.

Then enters this straight-laced kid that was in my Freshman classes at RISD named Joe Gebbia who had unearthly drive and ambition…insofar that I’d like to know what his parents fed him when he was an infant.  He was class president, he had two majors, he did his liberal arts at Brown and at the same time, I am pretty sure that he patented a machine that turns salt water into drinking water.  Regardless, I don’t know how I stumbled upon him during one of my Google nostalgia trips but well, I found out that he has become quite the successful entrepreneur, notably with a site called “airbnb.”  Airbnb follows the current web 2.0 minimalist recipe for success as far as design is concerned (see my previous article) which facilitates the experience: there is large text, empty space and the site content is really narrowed down to the essentials.  But let’s face it, what makes the huge difference is $money$.  An airbnb listing comes with a price.  The target audience of airbnb falls in a higher economic bracket than that of “couchsurfing” and you’ll note that you’ll find some savvy designer hosts with pretty chic and luxurious lofts / apartments in the listings (that are still a little beyond my price range but no matter).  A lot of the press surrounding Joe’s site mention that his business is profitting from the financial crisis yet I’d argue that its users are in a quasi-crisis because those that are really in a crisis are probably drawn to couchsurfing.com (if they know about it).  In any case, the site is practically flawless as far as the ergonomy is concerned and the concept is a commercial hit: it provides a no-effort business solution to a lot of folks who would probably like to make some money on the side.

So, kudos to Joe and to his flawless DNA / neurological matter.
PS.  Their logo is BLUE !

RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design), is composed entirely of creative types and I’d argue that within the student population, there is a division of materialists / non-materialists.  How should I say…people who wanted money and people who were completely irreverent about the prospect of having a J-O-B.  There were hippy artist-types who rarely took showers and then there were straight-cut designer types that only wore Armani and Versace.  There was a clear division of attitude and I know that the two populations scoffed at one another.  I’d say that Joe fell more into the haircut and makeup crowd although his ideas were very quirky where the others were probably too concerned that quirkiness would tarnish their no-nonsense veneer.  In any case, I fell somewhere in between in the two spectrums although I found the hippy crowd more interesting and at that time, I avoided the graphic design department because it, for many, seemingly lacked a social consciousness (I would have liked to see more Barbara Krueger type work) and it seemed very cold.  Even within the film department (where I found myself), there was an everpresent freud between the “Hollywood” types and the “Independent” types.  I think what we all neglected was what brought us there in the first place : lots and lots of money.  I did not end up graduating from RISD not for poor grades but after two years, it felt already like a little pond.  Regardless, in retrospect, it was probably the best two years of education that I ever had.

Here is some Barbara Krueger (a RISD grad) to end this post :