product • design • marketing • engineering • business development
Konfabulator
I conceptualized Konfabulator in 1999 when a previous project was nearing the end of its life. In 2002 I collaborated with an engineer to finally build it.
Having a strong history in building communities around customizable user experiences, I wanted to find a way to present information, any information, on a user’s desktop as a compact and beautiful object. The objects, called widgets, would be simple enough to construct that anyone could create them.
Konfabulator was the realization of that. You could download, or build, a desktop widget that did just about anything you wanted. Display time, fetch the weather, give you stock quotes, tell you your CPU usage, manipulate files, manage your calendar... you name it, it could do it.
Konfabulator’s core value was providing useful bits of information for a user to see and interact with using a highly tactile appearance.
As the product grew, so did the functionality of the widgets. We integrated with online services like Flickr, Yahoo, and Google address books and calendars, and others to display and interact with specific online content.
With every major release of Konfabulator, a themed countdown would take place.
The following images are from a series of illustrations created for a countdown to the release of the 2.0 product. Every day the countdown page was updated to reflect a teaser for an upcoming feature. I made these images in the style of a back-alley wall getting covered with bills and graffiti.
I created every piece by hand, minus the design of some stickers that appeared and some iconic Banksy graffiti. I created each one daily rather than as a whole. I wanted to be in the mindset of someone who had to tag a wall and run.
In 2005 Konfabulator was acquired by Yahoo.