When I travel outside of my backyard (Europe/North America), I am excessively sensitive to my surrounding, simply because I feel disorientated. Naturally, I try to spot/hang on familiar objects, colours, textures, tastes, music, etc. As a Frenchman, it is fairly easy thanks to France cultural and commercial exports -brands like Chanel, Vuitton, L’Oreal, Air France; objects designed by Starck, Bouroullec, Tse-Tse; food like wine, bread, chocolate, music like Gainsbourg, French Touch techno/house; etc. Instantly these things reassure me and kinda make me feel at “home”. I am not quite sure why, but it is in my guts.

When I stumbled on these two La Marie chairs this afternoon in a bookstore in Meguro station (Tokyo, Japan), it got me thinking about the other world. What elements in a user interface/product instantly bring similar emotions, familiarity and comfort?

Looking at this map, I realised a few things:
a) I have only discovered one place in 2005, although I have traveled to fifteen different cities in nine different countries. Appalling.
b) This map is not visualising accurately my travels. In reality, I am traveling from nod to nod (cities to cities or even districts to districts), and not country-to-country. It is a fine difference but I have always had a hard time to telling I have been to Russia when I’ve only been to St Petersburg and Novgorod. What do you actually learn, experience, and understand when you have such a limited exposure to a city, country, and culture? e.g. tour bus trip and tour bus ethnography.
c) I visit over and over the same cities, and I’m drawn back to the places I have lived no matter what I do.
Conclusion, these three behaviours are a pattern that appears consistently in the things I currently do and/or use.