Welcome to visitors from 9rules and We Make Money Not Art. With a diverse set of new readers, and the start of a new year, I should probably try to explain, succinctly, what this blog’s about.

Most of the posts look at ‘architectures of control‘ designed into products, systems and environments, which seek to force the user to behave in a certain way. It’s something of a broad concept, embodying aspects of computer science, interaction design, architecture, psychology, politics, marketing, economics and counterculture alongside product design and engineering; pretty soon I hope to have a ‘Top 10′ post which might make some of this clear through stand-out examples, but for the moment, please do take a look through the archives or some of the tags in the sidebar to get a flavour of the subject. Your involvement, suggestions, comments, and so on are very welcome and a big part of how I get ideas for posts.

There are also a few posts about other aspects of design, technology, the internet, society and the environment – not many so far, but I’ll be doing a lot more of these in 2007.

About me – my name’s Dan Lockton, and I’m a freelance designer / engineer / maker / writer / researcher from England. Many of the projects I work on relate to mobility and lightweight transport, but I’m interested in the relationships between technology (of all kinds) and society generally, and hoping to develop my work in this field. (My main website and portfolio need a bit of updating, at time of writing.)

This’ll probably be my last post of 2006, so I’d like to thank everyone who’s read the blog (and commented, or suggested stories) over the year. 2006 has seen this blog, and the awareness of the ‘architectures of control’ concept, grow substantially – it’s pleasing to have so many regular readers and contributors, if a little more daunting. My apologies to everyone who’s been in touch to whom I still haven’t replied or whom I haven’t acknowledged on the blog. I will endeavour to do so soon.

Personally, the year has also been interesting and productive: I’ve gradually established myself as a freelance designer/engineer, worked for some fascinating clients on great projects, won an award, filed a patent application, met (and corresponded with) some fantastic people, and start 2007 with an especially intriguing design project in hand and more on the horizon.

I’ve also learned a lot about working on your own, and the discipline needed to be productive when you have no boss looking over your shoulder all day. A few years ago I told myself that “two projects at once” is the limit of what I can realistically handle (concentrate on one, and when you reach an impasse, you can switch to the other, and vice versa), but I tried to break that rule too often this year, hence the slow progress of projects such as British Petrol Stations and The Unquiet Survivor. (There will be progress in 2007, but no amount of Getting Things Done will actually increase the number of productive hours in the day.)

Going back to the ‘architectures of control’ research, I’ve spoken twice at Speakers’ Corner about the subject (at Copyfighters’ events – see photo below), and have just submitted a detailed book proposal to a major technology publisher. And, to top off a great year of progress with the blog, it has just been accepted into the 9rules network, a vibrant community of blogs on many subjects. As this blog’s coverage and diversity expands, I hope I can live up to readers’ expectations.

Finally I should thank my girlfriend Harriet, flatmate Adam and my family for supporting and helping me progress in 2006.

Best wishes for 2007

Dan Lockton

I don’t always look like this! Image from the “London Copyfighters” group on Flickr.