Our friend Massimo, of Arduino board fame, has just opened shop with Tinker.it! “providing technology consulting to the design/art/architecture community”.

At some point in our work we realised that the way creative people get to know about technology and how to use it was very “casual”, there was no company (that we knew of) that was completely dedicated to this.

We have been doing this for years but in a very “casual” way ourselves. Now, please welcome Tinker.it!

Tinker.it! makes products and platforms to help designers and artists make the best use of digital technologies. We cover the whole design and artistic process by providing early consultancy during the concept phase down to the implementation stage. Being part of the Arduino project means we are on the forefront of this business.

We work on three main areas of expertise:

Disseminating knowledge by teaching workshops and classes in various institutions and companies around the world.
“Experiences” are the new materials for designers and artists. We transform raw technologies into materials for creative people throught our interactive prototyping toolkit. We provide a catalogue of “experiences” that a designer or and artist can use in their projects.
Consulting designers, artists and architect on how to use digital technologies in their projects. We start at the beginning of the creative process by helping you brainstorm and continue down to the production of small series, all with Italian quality.
One area I’m particuarly fond of is this concept that for the modern designer using technology , especially sensor technology, is becoming part their everyday life. This technologies are always presented in a very “nerdy” way that has nothing to do with the “experience” they provide to whoever uses them.

Starting from this point we have been building a toolkit and a “library” that allows creative people to experience these technologies and make the “experience” the material not the chip or the piece of technology.

At the moment there is very little out there about it.. we are testing it with our “beta” users and will start revealing more and more in the next few weeks…

Next stop the tinker.it! party in milan in march… See you there.

Massimo

http://www.tinker.it/