Icon magazine asked us to contribute to their monthly “Rethink” feature, where current and commonplace objects are re-imagined.
We continued some of the thinking from our “Media Surfaces” work with Dentsu, around how retail receipts could make the most of the information systems that modern point-of-sales machines are plugged into…
A little quote from our piece:
We’ve added semi-useful info-visualisation of the foods ordered based on “what the till knows” – sparklines, trends – and low-tech personalisation of information that might be useful to regulars. Customers can select events or news stories they are interested in by ticking a check box.
We think the humble receipt could be something like a paper “app” and be valuable in small and playful ways.
Read all about it in this month’s Icon #97, available at all good newsagents!
23 Comments and Trackbacks
1. Tim said on 6 June 2011...
Love the Google Calendar bit.
2. atm paper rolls said on 6 June 2011...
really creative and well-designed!! i don’t know how practical it is, but man, i’m all for beautiful innovation.
3. ben linford said on 8 June 2011...
This looks great.
I think the receipt is a great medium for follow-up business (or action at least).
Businesses, just aren’t taking this on board enough.
4. bed said on 30 June 2011...
Oh yes, let’s keep up the deforestation in the name of “beautiful useful information”. I sure would love to get a meter-long receipt with lots of black ink every time I buy a bagel.
Actually, no, just let me pay by showing my phone to some scanning device and send an electronic receipt to it, please.
5. Derek said on 1 July 2011...
Perhaps as we work to minimize consumption, this concept is counter-productive.
6. Matt Webb said on 1 July 2011...
I know what you mean, and we should push towards a zero waste society – There Is No Away – but I also think that the stuff that surrounds us right now shouldn’t be joyless, like regular receipts are.
Have you read the Last Viridian Note, by Bruce Sterling?
http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/451-500/the_last_viridian_note.html
It puts forward a form of environmentalism which is also about making your personal spacetime awesome. Check it out.
I’m not saying that this design concept meets any of Sterling’s criteria but, you know, he’s an influence.
7. Miguel Ramalhão said on 1 July 2011...
What an amazing Idea!!!!!! comes to show that the best ideas are quite simple… Congrats…
8. bethany said on 1 July 2011...
it’s a design exercise, dummies. and a beautifully, thoughtfully crafted one.
jesus take the trendy green-police lenses off every now and then and have a look around at art and culture and creative ideas without clamoring incessantly for the al gore bandwagon.
9. Sam Hutchings said on 12 July 2011...
If anything this design makes receipts more efficient, as it takes the important information and puts it in a much smaller place (by placing it horizontally as well as vertically).
And with receipt printers being thermal, not ink, it makes sense to use more of the paper, to cause less waste.
10. Sahadev Chincholikar said on 25 August 2011...
Pure Brilliance!
11. Steffen said on 25 August 2011...
Love it! Fab design
Stores should just have a QR display that I can scan and get the recipt info that way. Print saved!
12. Logicalnot said on 10 September 2011...
This is a pioneer idea. I hope your heart is full of joy and pride.
13. Simon said on 15 December 2011...
Little Printer?
14. Productora Audiovisual Starporcasa said on 18 February 2012...
From our production company Starporcasa, we “Rethink” in our invoices, marketing has not stopped at the time of sale, but must continue in the time of billing.
15. Video corporativo said on 1 March 2013...
Hummm… too much info for a single receipt. Who reads that kind of papers?
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