Déjà Vu

Smart Cover for iPad2, 2011.

Funny, a couple of days ago, Apple released iPad2 with all the digital pomp and ceremony apportioned to the company’s new gadgets. A major selling point was something called a "Smart Cover." This polyurethane surface rolls back on itself to create a triangular stand to support the tablet for angled use. Available in a choice of 10 colors, it will run you an additional $39; $69 for a leather one.

Scratching my head, I went to the attic and dusted off my MA degree project from 1981, which was specifically aimed at designing and organizing information data sheets to enable doctors and prescribers to make optimal use of drugs/medicines.


Chaz Maviyane-Davies, 100 Essential Drugs List Book prototype, 1981.

In those days, smart was ascribed to a bright kid or a snappy dresser. My prototype interactive and updatable World Health Organization (WHO) 100 Essential Drugs List Book was created in recycleable card to fit in a doctor's lab coat and be used on a desk. To borrow the words of Henry Ford, it was intended to be "available in any color, so long as it's black." While the completed project received the nod from all the right people, it got bogged down in WHO bureaucracy and dissipated into obscurity like many other initiatives. Oh well... another time, another place, another way of viewing the world.