Engine Service Design

Engine Service Design is based in London, boasting a phenomenal portfolio of projects.

Their website is a great insight into the world of service design and innovation consultancy.

.eco

Dot Eco LLC is dedicated to promoting the acceptance and implementation of the .eco top level domain, and is backed by leading ecological and philanthropic groups, environmentally conscious high-profile individuals, and leading scientific voices.

Click on the link to show your support...

Ask Nature

Imagine 3.8 billion years of design brilliance available for free, at the moment of creation, to any sustainability innovator in the world.

Imagine nature's most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter "filter salt from water" and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels.

Now imagine you can meet the people who have studied these organisms, and together you can create the next great bio-inspired solution.

That's the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. Think of it as your home habitat—whether you're a biologist who wants to share what you know about an amazing organism, or a designer, architect, engineer, or chemist looking for planet-friendly solutions. AskNature is where biology and design cross-pollinate, so bio-inspired breakthroughs can be born.

Charles Leadbeater

Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

One in 8 Million (NYC)

This is a wonderful set of stories, allowing glimpses into characters of New York!

RED

RED is a 'do tank' that develops new thinking and practice on social and economic problems through design-led innovation.

Design Council Answers "What is Design?"

This is a great educational vid from the DC!

Going to the Dogs by Katherine Green

This set of images holds great emotional value for me being the place i was raised, but that aside Green's work is a wonderful glimpse into the now sadly departed world of dog racing in Walthamstow.

'Going to the Dogs' is currently exhibited at Vestry House Museum unitl 27 November.

Making Do and Getting By + Thoughtless Acts (Mapping the quotidian from two perspectives)

"What was of particular interest to me was the motivation behind the photographs, and the ways an artist's perspective might differ from a designer's."

Monocle's design watch...

Unsurprisingly Tyler Brûlé's Monocle magazine have their well manicured finger on the pulse of design. After the success of Wallpaper, Monocle can't help but be about style but none the less has its own take on business led style design!
Sarah Balmond is the design editor.

Thinking Design Thinking...

Harvard Business Review and Business Week have published writings on Design Thinking, not all positive notions of designs ownership and parentage but a valuable look into an otherwise much positively publicised design attribute.
Tim Brown
Business Week
Peter Merholz

The London Design Festival 2009.

We are all being consumed in volume of conversation rapt by the credit crunching, bailout, bonuses, job cuts… in, around, over, under, pre and projected, but things have hit a crude, Gladwellian Tipping Point. For the London Design Festival it has indeed been no exception. I say with utter confidence that no trade or cultural event (of which we can put the festival in both) is or will be the same again, at least not in the coming years.

100% design was predictably limp… I can’t help myself to summing it up with a crass re-brand “40% design-ish”, however an interesting transformation was presented in an effort, clearly clawing to full the space.

The 100% design product has been injured by this year, it was a tragedy not have been able to experience the kind of great seminars and installations by 100% sustainability and its siblings (bits and bobs of little ‘100% something’ children is not the same) all-in-all it was thin, too thin… unless you are in the market for glass shower screens and enjoy getting “charmed” by a sales rep from Warrington, it was not worth getting on a plane for and as Ryan Frank (whose show was at 93ft east) put it to me “neither the tube from East London”.



Designersblock, housed within Earls Court for the first time, had a great opportunity to catch an audience that perhaps wouldn’t usually get to Bishops Gate and wouldn’t put their life at risk walking round a dark abandoned builders merchant, I have to say I missed that experience. Designersblock did have their usual provocative design exhibitionists. The likes of Thomas Thwaites’ “The Toaster Project” was a wonderful addition to Earls Court in September.

This is it then… a marriage of the mustard cutting, sharp suites, and mini showrooms of 100% design with the dirty Converse, and challenging conceptualising of Designersblock… this is where its going, and I can’t help but think its a good thing!



Norway showed off its oil reserves, whilst most nations went modest (I must thank the nation and Wallpaper for all the vast amount Gin and Bubbly at their party). Three exhibitions… the daddy 100% Norway (I am not going to type 100% again) was very nicely positioned and sheltered under a comfortingly Norse Fiskehesje structure (cod not included). The show was more focused on in-production products and was a positive move forward. Taking up new work by Norway’s design crowd (mostly in exile here in the UK) was Norwegian Prototypes, curetted by Kim Thome. The show was a great success and demonstrated a positive group of designers. Tent was home to Made in Bergen, a more polished and mature collective who when at home are mostly housed from the west coast rain in USF Verftet, a cultural hub on the waters edge, unsurprisingly of an industrial aesthetic. Petter Knudsen’s Hublesswall Clock, a working prototype, subtle and excellently presented, was the piece from Bergen that really stood out.

Tent has grown up and was superb when compared to previous years of September shows in the Truman Brewery. It was a mix from designer makers, hell-bent on imposing their overkill-aesthetic and new ventures with established companies and design entrepreneurs.

In both reflection and comparison to the festival’s big shows, a radical difference, which seemed intended from Tent but reactionary from 100% (dam I typed it again) is apparent. The creative industries (sweeping comment) historically suffer greatly in economic downturns, yet the quick and innovation skills possessed by the “generators of IP” (thank you DCMS) should lead the way upwards. Perhaps this is an example of positive-ness and leadership from those working in the London Design Festival. It has changed, this is down to the recession, and I feel more comfortable with its new developing form. With a greater amount of investment next year and on this track I am optimistic of the outcome.

I will develop this post further into what I see as the other main focus and projections for the LDF but to wrap up this post for now with a bit of fun… two companies I loved this year was Laikingland, from Huddersfield and Interactive Arts from Miami.

A difference greater than previous years have been apparent at the LDF events and were of course to be expected. There has always been a healthy chatter behind the shows by organized clusters of likeminded individuals but from the listings one can see that these events immersed in discourses, in and around the many areas of design, to be growing.

A festival that sells design activity in much of its facets is vital and whilst using this gathering for development of ideas is nothing new, the opportunity for collective and organized discourse is growing. Turbulent periods in time require heads being put together to rethink the norm.

As design is becoming a stronger strategy player in organizational structures, events that are wide ranging from economics, ecology, sociology, management, etc. are being run during the festival.

"Starck's reality TV design show doesn't quite hit it off" says Lynda Relph-Knight (DW Editor)

The Design Week editor Lynda Relph-Knight has commented on the BBC's take up of design-reality-knockout-comp...
I think it follows on from my post last week rather well.

Tyler Brûlé interviews Lego CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp

Glopear - Image retouching...

Design For Life BBC2 (AKA The Design Apprentice)

Stephen Bayley has noted Phillipe Stark's new BBC show as a garlic smelling version of Sir Alan's 'The Apprentice'... a little harsh perhaps and very Anglo of him (well done Stephen, keep up the good work with the stereotyping), I'm reserving judgement.

It's just a shame he is a Parisian, after all it is the BBC what's wrong with Dixon, Morrison, Arad, Lovegrove. This is the same as Gordon Brown's wonderful idea of offering a post to Carla Bruni as style advisor to the UK government last year. What the hell is it with us Brits asking the French?

This program will highlight the design process with elements vital to design and that has to be a bonus in creating a more design-literate populace, however when will British designers opinions hold stronger value with British organisations and governance?

London Design Festival has just opened, anyone going to Paris?

The program is at 9pm BBC2 (every Monday) or watch it on iPlayer

The poster for the previously posted Norwegian Prototypes!

Its going to be great... even the poster is steaming in typographic fashion!

Revolution in the Living Room: Conversation With a Furniture Designer

Larosa, a native of Milan, is chair of the SCAD furniture department and the kind of designer who makes you want to join the revolution. "American furniture design has been hibernating for fifty years," he said to me earlier this week. "I want to wake it up!"

BY PAULA WALLACEThu Sep 3, 2009

Product Design @ UCA Rochester

Undoubtedly continuing Will Smith's research into cold rotational molding,

students at my old design school have created a very impressive production machine!

Alice Rawsthorn’s piece in the NYT illustrates a very sad point that unfortunately I haft to say I agree with… British design: not what it used to be.

Perhaps an over used expression in the UK “not what it used to be” but when looking at the evidence it is all there.

The British skills and talents are as vibrant as ever, smashing boldly and defiantly into the stylized lives of the world’s populace.

However where is the ‘state design’ the institutional security of over engineered big red objects that can withstand a blitzkrieg, 320 days of drizzle and generations of use?

I think the reason is quite simple… little in the twenty first century is designed to last beyond the 'trend' its created in!

Celebrities are crowned with ‘best before dates’, governments are consumed with popular policy making for the next term, not the next generation and the masses are consumed with fast trend McPrimark living.

Jonathan Glancey in the Guardian continues in this vein following up Rawsthorn’s article.

As we are entering times of ecological, economical and social trepidation we require confident design not just consumed with time bombed fashion trends but designing to stand the test of time.

Investment in the future with the world beating talents of British Designers… it’s worked before!

The Guardian Newspaper's 10:10 campaign to cut emissions.

"The world's response to global warming is a classic case of all mouth and no trousers. This new initiative aims to show that we can all act now - and achieve something significant."

Norwegian Prototypes

My old design sidekick Kim Thome is curating and showing at Norwegian Prototypes exhibition; an honest show of fresh work from our North Sea chums.

This will be one of the great, fresh shows at this years London Design Fest!

Continuing on from my post in June "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"...

BBC. Future of Food

In the new set of programs from the BBC “George Alagiah travels the world to reveal a growing global food crisis that could affect the planet in the years ahead”.

The management of the world’s agricultural production is an area I am confident that design must take a larger responsibility in bringing about and managing change.

However I came across this (image below), which I have grabbed from the screen, the program at this point is filming in a Kenyan shantytown…

From water bottle to pet dog!

As a 150-year-old classic seat is relaunched, Stephen Bayley asks what present-day designers could learn from its longevity.

Designers want to do chairs the way writers want to do novels. There's always a lonely drawing or an unread manuscript lurking somewhere. But why bother? The greatest chair ever designed already exists and it's more than 150 years old.

This is the Thonet No 14 of 1855. At the London exhibition of 1862, the jury said it was "an excellent application of a happy thought ... not works of show, but practical furniture for daily use ... simple, graceful, light and strong". And now, in an interesting collaboration between the Japanese no-brand hyperbrand Muji and Gebrüder Thonet, it's ready for a global relaunch.

by Stephen Bayley

The Observer, Sunday 23rd August 2009

The Evolution of Logo's

Introduced to me by a colleague, this blog is a collection of graphics illustrating the evolution of the corporate logo.

Some hard work by a dedicated design historian.

Textile design for tfl's Piccadilly line

From graphics to roundels, tube stations to textiles, Transport for London is steeped in a history of innovative design. As part of the gradual refurbishment of London’s transport system, Transport for London and London Underground are pleased to announce an open competition to design a new seating moquette for use on the Underground system. The winning design, which will initially launch on the Piccadilly line, will then be adopted across the London Underground system. This is your chance to become part of the fabric of London design and transport history and for your work to be seen by over 3 million tube users every day.

Entrants are invited to submit up to two repeat pattern textile designs using the colours specified in the design brief remembering that your design will be used for public seating so will need to be commercially viable and take into consideration wear and tear and soiling.

The winner will receive a design fee of £5,000 which includes copyright purchase.

CLOSING DATE 14th September before 5.00pm GMT.

Interdisciplinary Discovery Through Design Workshop

28th September 2009

10.30 - 16.00

@ DESIGN COUNCIL

34 Bow Street London WC2E 7DL

RSVP by 28^th August to: design21@dundee.ac.uk

Dear God...

Is God cool?

Well he is now according to the press and he has made it via a re-brand from coolhunter.

There's a lot to be said about reading peoples prayers!

We can't seem to shake religion off... it goes deep and is always apparent.

This is a great project and an interesting look at prayer.

Radical Nature @ The Barbican

Radical Nature–Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet

1969–2009

19 Jun–18 Oct/09

The beauty and wonder of nature have provided inspiration for artists and architects for centuries. Since the 1960s, the increasingly evident degradation of the natural world and the effects of climate change have brought a new urgency to their responses. Radical Nature is the first exhibition to bring together key figures across different generations who have created utopian works and inspiring solutions for our ever-changing planet.

Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys , Agnes Denes , Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n) , Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.

This is a worthy exhibition showing "radicals" work in an area that will no doubt become more of an extreme influence on our designed development. The show of work is broad and the time span of the collection demonstrates there is a lot to learn from the radicals of the past as well as the present. This exhibition communicates to the voyeur in differing effects, I have no doubt that ten people will all have different experiences to the exposer of some of the film and installations. There is a lot to digest in the work and so all of what is on show requires time. The irony is the point of this exhibition is how much time do we have?

Core77's Core-Toons!

Julian Bleecker - Near Future Lab

Julian Bleecker is a designer, technologist and researcher at the Design Strategic Projects studio at Nokia Design in Los Angeles and the Near Future Laboratory where he investigates emerging social practices around new networked interaction rituals. His focus is on hands-on design and prototyping as a way to raise questions about commonly held assumptions about digital media and digital devices so as to explore possibilities for innovation.

Design Fiction: A short slideshow on design, science, fact and fiction

View more documents from bleeckerj.

For more of Julian's presentations visit the below link...

http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/presentations/

Liftfrance09: John Thackara

John Thackara, who is director of Doors of Perception, gives a provocative talk about the role of design in finding solutions to the ecological crisis. After inviting us to avoid terms such as "future" or "sustainable" as they maintain a certain distance to the problem we face, he shows a rich set of projects he participated in. He makes the important point that the resources to be put in place already exist and that they might not necessitates complex technological developments.

Liftfrance09: John Thackara from Lift Conference on Vimeo.

Date: 20/06/2009, english Distributed by Tubemogul.

lift

is a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn changes into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them.

How to Become a Better Manager … By Thinking Like a Designer

Interview by Jimmy Guterman

Presentation experts Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds help world-renowned executives, politicians and thought leaders deliver stronger presentations. Here they reveal how to influence and persuade in a different way, regardless of whether you ever have to communicate via PowerPoint.

smallFISH

Bringing design students and small local business together, resulting in affordable design and real world experience for students.

Smallfish Presentation

View more presentations from jase.coop.

By Design (NYT)

Allison Arieff is editor at large for Sunset, and the former editor in chief of Dwell magazine. She is co-author of the books “Prefab” and "Trailer Travel," and the editor of many books on design and popular culture, including “Airstream: The History of the Land Yacht” and “Cheap Hotels.” Ms. Arieff lives in San Francisco.

Ty Unnos (house in a night)

Partly coming from the foothills of Snowdonia myself this project is close to my heart. The Ty Unnos has a fantastic cultural legacy for the Welsh but it also is a fantastic potential in the sustainable development of Welsh housing and woodland/ecological management.

Local grown materials put to use in a local cultural context!

The assembly/construction of the buildings makes for very interesting development into the research on DIY design; the unskilled part design/production of commodities, from products to buildings. This is the designer/architect developing the service and structure from where the end-user develops or creates.

I hope the Ty Unnos project develops and receives the support and accolade a project of this sort requires.

Sustainable Development (local people, local materials, local design)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8004692.stm

nef

Continuing on from the Design Connexity conference (EAD 2009) with Rachel Cooper’s paper on Wellbeing and the key note speech by Phillips’ Josephine Green introducing ISEW (Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) here is nef, an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being.

LooWatt by Virginia Gardiner

Alice Rawsthorn

Alice Rawsthorn is a valuable critic who is an essential journalist to read. In her weekly design column Alice explores new directions in every area of design and its impact on our lives.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences.

"We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.

It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.

"Ken's vision and expertise is sought by public and commercial organizations throughout the world." BBC Radio 4

www.sirkenrobinson.com

Learning from How Designers Think and Work

"...there is much discussion in the business world about design's evolution from producing of objects to producing a broad framework for ideas and solutions..."

Milton Glaser

Peter Phillips - Creating the Perfect Design Brief

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid296290901?bclid=296378576&bctid=295387143

Scribemedia.org’s interview with Peter Phillips in October 2006, the design guru and author of Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. The background noise is a little distracting but an interesting talk supporting a very good book!

How and why this is still a dark art to some is amazing!

BBC Radio 4 - In Business, Grand Design

Peter Day argues that it is high time that designers are given a far larger role in all sorts of organisations.


"Designers are getting tired of being pigeon-holed into the role of making products look better and work better. Peter Day argues that it is high time that designers are given a far larger role in all sorts of organisations. He hears from some influential people who are convinced that something called Design Thinking can help companies cope with a wide variety of great big business uncertainties, not just the shape of the box they come in."

Tim Brown, President and CEO, Ideo
Joe Ferry, Head of Design, Virgin Atlantic
David Kester, Chief Executive, Design Council
Graham Burchell, Director, Challs International
Graham Sim, Marketing Director, HMV
Tony Fleming, Technical Director, JS Humidifiers

Objectified. A film by Gary Hustwit

An admirable docu-film and hopefully the start of more serious critique about the reasons for being of the products we consume.

Hustwit was around after the screening at the Barbican, London, and a member of the audience asked him why he made this film. His answer was the same as it had been for Helvetica… “Because I wanted to see a movie about this stuff and there wasn’t one, so I made it!” Hustwit and the audience followed off onto another subject, but it struck me that Jonathan Ive just gave the same response in the film, to the same question, why he is a designer.

This affirms the creative drive and motive that is so often seen as unique by differing professionals but is so often the same and yet overlooked. It is these common spaces were culture thrives.

Hustwit also guaranteed a third film out in two years, to make and conclude a trilogy on the subject of design. My money is on Architecture (no-brainer)!

European Academy of Design 8th international conference: Design Connexity (April ’09, Aberdeen, UK)

An illustrious conference with some great papers and inaugural talks from Toby Scott, Fiona Raby, Josephine Green… check out the site as videos will be on soon.  I presented with two colleagues (Dr Noemi Sadowska and Selena Griffith), our paper Mind The Gap, collaboration in design teaching and learning between RBS London and the School of Design Studies, COFA, UNSW, Sydney.

 

We are bridging the gap between the business student and design student.  Effecting positive change in communication between two disciplines pre-industry exposure.  The students meet online and collaborate on projects, communicate on subjects varied and self directed.  We are always looking for more guys to jump in…

 

The conference was a success and with some very interesting themes becoming veins of the conference.  Rachel Cooper’s paper on Wellbeing and Design discussing her work undertaken for the UK government and design affecting a model for an inclusive world, Professor Klaus Krippendorff on principals of human-centered design and Josephine Green of Philips supporting a new economic model to take over from GDP, ISEW (Index Sustainable Economic Welfare).  A great deal of focus was given to wellbeing, sustainable futures and design thinking as a future principal in bringing about a package for survival.

 

Toby Scott “demystified innovation” discussing his work in Ireland.  Highlighting design as a threatening word to non-designers, and therefore designers are to be change managers.  Designer’s user-centered skill base along with the ability of making things visual and tangible was illustrated to be the strongest stings to the designer’s bow.

 

Service design was also a topic that has gathered momentum and demonstrated its importance at the conference.  This area is a must for the current design and/or business students and all industry dogs that are yet to acknowledge the principals of the discipline.

 

For more info on the conference and on my coauthored paper Mind The Gap contact me or visit the link to Design Connexity.

 

Hello...

Welcome to the new home of my work…

This blog is a quick jump on point for me to let you know what I am currently working on and for prospective clients and collaborators to contact me.  I am running several product development projects currently and continuing my teaching and development of the design management program at RBSL.  There are a few research projects that are about to start and I will be developing them on the blog as they go.  I hope that this work online (lazy but quick and fun webpage) will be of help as a resource to my students, colleagues, and future friends, clients and collaborators.