With a week’s worth of home and contextual visits under our belts and an ongoing exploration of the local ecosystem we’ve reached that point of turning design insights into something a little more tangible. Or maybe visual – our hardware wizards are still in LA thanks to a normally swiftly issued visa applied for in trying times (state Olympic paranoia) and the general tardiness of DHL. Team members are sorely missed.

It takes time to become sufficiently comfortable with data to be able to meld it into something useful, a mental process that needs to cross references previous studies, a wealth of analyst data and the task at hand. Working on a design task takes and creates a new kind of energy and our days start earlier and end much later. Just need enough energy to make it to the plane, two more days in the Tokyo office then off on an extended summer break. Sleep is underrated.