DesignOrientation

?What if! (Skinny Innovation)

2010-10-07T13:23:00.000+01:00

?What if!

2010-10-07T13:20:00.001+01:00

2010-09-24T13:13:00.001+01:00

icon Design Trail

2010-09-21T13:13:00.001+01:00

The London Design Festival Guide

2010-09-14T20:19:00.002+01:00

2010-09-14T20:16:00.004+01:00

2010-09-14T20:16:00.003+01:00

2010-09-14T20:16:00.001+01:00

2010-09-14T20:12:00.000+01:00

Cooper-Hewitt: Bill Moggridge- What is Design?

2010-08-08T21:57:00.000+01:00

Illustrating (300 of them) Dante's Inferno

2010-07-26T18:23:00.000+01:00

Making of Dante's Inferno from Fabrica on Vimeo.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU

2010-07-07T18:35:00.000+01:00

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Calling all creatives: design the future we need!

2010-06-28T17:24:00.003+01:00

Forum for the Future:

The creative industries are in danger of being caught “napping” on sustainability, according to Lord Puttnam. They risk waking up too late to find the world "has changed out of all recognition".

The filmmaker and politician was speaking at our Creative Industries Sustainability Beacon event, last week - the launch of a challenging project to bring together leaders from the world of fashion, performing arts, film, architecture, design and all the other creative industries, to examine the future of their businesses in a rapidly changing and uncertain world.

Photographer Chris Jordan, using shocking images to make his point.

Malcolm Gladwell: 'Speaking is not an act of extroversion'

2010-06-21T19:31:00.002+01:00

Journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell tells Sarfraz Manzoor about the rise of the real and live over the recorded experience and being an introverted public speaker...

2010-06-11T14:36:00.012+01:00

Where lie the opportunities to build equity and resilience in joining the issues of the aging population in post-industrial nations and our fractured relationship with food?

LA Times: Koh Byoung Ok @ Solway Jones Gallery

2010-06-11T13:57:00.001+01:00

In 1962, Andy Warhol used a stamp technique to reproduce 210 bottles of Coca-Cola on canvas as they might appear in a big supermarket cooler, 30 bottles across and seven rows high. Some were pictured full, others empty and still others only partially filled.

In "Naked Coke," sculptor Koh Byoung Ok ups the numerical ante while adding a considerable degree of mystery. Eleven rows high, his aluminum shelves feature 264 unprinted, silver cans, polished to a high reflection, in regimented rows of 24. Their tops have not been popped. Whether the mute, light-reflective array of stripped commercial goods is full or empty is a question inducing an unexpected state of meditative stillness and tranquility.

Follow the link to Christopher Knight's article...

iPhone 4...

2010-06-11T09:37:00.004+01:00

The product designer in me cant help but love the way Johnny Ive talks about the materials in Apple's new iPhone...
Slick production once again but get a new T-shirt!

Design Management from Business Week

2010-06-11T09:06:00.001+01:00

Design management is an approach whereby organizations make design-relevant decisions in a market and customer-oriented way as well as optimizing design-relevant (enterprise-)processes. It is a long-continuous comprehensive activity on all levels of business performance that effect design, from the fuzzy front-end to the design execution. Design management acts in the interface of management and design and functions as link between the platforms of technology, design, design thinking, corporate management, brand management and marketing management at internal and external interfaces of the enterprise.

Design Management is part of Business Exchange, suggested by Itamar Medeiros. This topic contains 83 news and 116 blog items. Read updated news, blogs, and resources about Design Management. Find user-submitted articles and reactions on Design Management from like-minded professionals.

2010-06-10T16:08:00.002+01:00

"But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses."
— Robert Ardrey

2010-06-10T14:44:00.001+01:00

Inner Circle - Article 2010

2010-06-09T10:15:00.001+01:00

Design as a profession has no one point of origin, growing from different industries, along the way developing a rich mix of thinking in craft, politics, mathematics, engineering, science, writing and salesmanship.

I was formally educated as a product designer with a background in small business; now teaching management and researching design thinking, metadesign, and design management. I find a natural discomfort in the idea of focusing on one thing and like to challenge this status quo.

The pre-conception of design just as a marketing tool is naive. Design is a tool for business in its departmental role as a function, a managerial concept in its own right, and beyond the paradigms of business.

Design is the relationship between the ‘manmade’ and people, humanly focused and experientially driven. This is a very important concept. Design is an evolutionary trait to control one’s environment. The made environment is a phenomenally complex system, which we humans, have imagined and constructed. I believe, therefore, we have the ability to act on it; we made it so we can make it better.

Generally speaking we struggle to comprehend and react progressively to issues of magnitude such as social injustice, environmental damage, and economic flux, however as a designer I am paid for changing things, mostly for me, as an educator, it is the way people think and act on decisions. Designers are in their very nature ‘agents of change’ and the great thing for designers is that the world radically needs change. This is the new paradigm of design; not making better things but making things better!

A very important understanding in change is the complexity of the systems we all operate in. We can no longer afford to ignore the effects of our actions and this means the understanding of our doing.

To understand what we do, and what happens when we do it, we must appreciate the diversity of the world. It is this diversity that gives us resilience against losses (economic and ecological). It is seemingly apparent that diversity in ecology and economics is becoming less and thus our resilience too. The idea of building resilience is a fundamental point in the future of the designed world and this resilience must come about via change, managed by design thinking. We are emerging from a recession illustrating very clearly what happens when we have little ability for resilience. Design thinking, a now common concept with business leaders and academics, requires an open-minded approach in problem solving and a great empathy for specialist knowledge.

Designers are specialists in using specialists. I believe that the idea of the ‘specialist’ or the ‘professional’ is a dangerous focus that can neglect to see opportunities beyond a problem; designers however are by their nature not navel gazers. There are many parts to a problem (or as a designer sees it ‘an opportunity’) and this requires a holistic approach in understanding. I don’t teach design management students to understand in great depth all areas of a system but rather appreciate the breadth of the subject and join up the dots. With this way, of what I like to call ‘knowledge grazing’, you can start to make associations and begin to understand the complexity and opportunities for change.

The great minds of the past where not marked in their time by a single profession. Da Vinci, Galileo and Newton held academic rank and specialism in different fields giving great wisdom. Buckminster Fuller, a great multi-faceted mind of the last century, stated that birds are specialists in flight and fish in swimming, humans however have built the airplane and the submarine. These are extreme characters of human ability and thought, but the appreciation of wisdom via connective knowledge and the ability to see the world holistically is what I prize as the key to designing the future.

The ability to see complex relations and build perspective from different sides is the offering of design, however this is reliant on specialism, highlighting the importance of design thinking with areas of specialist knowledge. Serendipity in design comes from curiosity and systemic thinking, making associations within our complex world.

An important part of our student’s education is the skill set in natural-collaboration, multidirectional research, perception, empathy, ideation and presentation. I say with absolute confidence that in the current ‘paradigm’ of being productive, thinking is not thought about enough.

Design thinking requires a nonhierarchical structure in collaboration, and the education of design management is around progressive positive relations. The pancake structure is an example of how companies like Pixar, Apple, Google and Phillips innovate with such success. I see the future of business as a collaborative process, enhanced by open source information, made possible by technology, made accessible by design.

Design instills an upbeat attitude, working on constructive and reflective criticism, seeking constraints as positive commodities. We have all experienced the difference in our productivity when working with and without constraints; Charles Eames described design as being mostly of constraints. The great design thinker Tim Brown of IDEO outlines these as desirability, viability and feasibility. If you are a business leader, teacher, scientist, or politician you have understanding of these factors. Designers find ways around issues using creativity as a tool for navigation.

The lifestyle of a designer is wonderful, with flexibility and variations from one day to the next. It does come at a price and that is a constant desirer to improve the world (also taking yourself a little too seriously sometimes). Designing is a never-ending quest and a life in education.

Language often fails design leading to the creation of new words, in effect designing design (adding change to the changer) adapting with, and for, resilience. I’m confident that there is an unspoken element in the act of designing that is innate in all of us. What is vital is that the progressive character of design, in acting for positive change and thinking open-minded, is appreciated and embraced by all.

Our undergraduate students, on the Global Business and Design Management pathway, are gaining design thinking power within a business school, which is almost totally unique across the world. We have brought design to BA business education, eradicating preconceived discipline barriers, developing power thinkers and future makers. The design management pathway is now influencing beyond its origins at Regent’s Business School with a new element within the MA program in Global Business Management, and partnering in a directing role in the successful validation of the new MA at EBS in Luxury Brand Management.

Our graduates are entrepreneurs in the truest sense, acquiring skills in systemic comprehension, switching from big to the small parts of the same issues, finding opportunities in making things better and ultimately generating resilience to loss. We are working in exciting times at Regent’s, and I am confident that we are pioneering areas in business education and beyond, shifting the paradigms of what is a business school and dexterity in thinkers.

We face ecological and economic uncertainty, generating great social and commercial strain. I am confident that the way forward is in the appreciation of wisdom for change; building resilience… the design thinker offers exactly that!

Inner Circle

2010-06-08T15:12:00.003+01:00

In this article I have outlined our vision of Design Management at Regent's College and the future orientation of design in the world of management.

The Story of Co-Design by thinkpublic

2010-06-02T17:06:00.001+01:00

MINDMADE

2010-05-17T22:15:00.004+01:00

MINDMADE - consciously shaping the future

design Orientation @ MINDMADE

This website is a space to introduce our ideas and future research proposals to our readers and others interested. By sharing them with you and welcoming you to question/challenge us during next month, we hope to bring our ideas to another level. In the end of May we will have an event where we will get the chance to share our ideas in person. After this you will be able to follow our progress further on this website.

Labour's castles in the air

2010-04-22T12:08:00.001+01:00

Rowan Moore
The Observer
Sunday 18 April 2010

As Britain prepares for possible political change, we ask whether New Labour delivered on its promises of a bright new dawn for architecture

Gimme five good reasons to go green

2010-04-13T15:25:00.003+01:00

Follow the link...

2010-04-11T16:39:00.002+01:00

The UK election is finally presented to the public and politicians are now in full rhetorical whirlwinds. This is a great opportunity to see rolling branding at work…

Some parties with organizational heritage or baggage, others with hard-line policy, younger than the established… individual charters slipping under the media strangle, not toeing the party line… damage control, spin and reactive shifts in style to appease critics.

There is a complex dimension of individual politician, constituent, party, ideology, ethics, nation, economics, environment, social health, media, business, security…

How will they present and change their delivery?

As designers we have a key interest in this election…
On the outside…
How will they present and communicate to the electorate?
On the inside…
Where will the political attention focus for future tenders; economic reform, environmental strategy, health and social cohesion plans?
Even bigger are the issues we designers discuss being brought to the forum?

Do politicians design democratic responses to governance of our environments or do they design their careers?

Will design be used well or defectively?

Will the victorious party of this rhetorical scrap design itself or a better future?

Does design really go beyond branding in contemporary politics; are politicians and civil servants on par with the organizational design brains of industry?

Design Thinking in Politics…???

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/
http://www.conservatives.com/
http://www2.labour.org.uk/
http://bnp.org.uk/
http://www.snp.org/
http://www.libdems.org.uk/
http://www.plaidcymru.org/
http://www.ukip.org/

From Tokyo to Hyde Park: seven years of Sanaa architecture

2010-03-30T16:02:00.001+01:00

One of architecture's top honours, the Pritzker prize, has been awarded to Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, otherwise known as Sanaa. Jonathan Glancey looks back at some of the duo's greatest designs, celebrated for their 'experiential richness'

2010-03-16T14:39:00.002Z

London fashion week's best shows

2010-02-23T15:25:00.002Z

E A D 09 Keynote Videos...

2010-02-18T15:58:00.004Z

To see the keynote speeches from last year's EAD Design Connexity conference, follow the link...

2010-02-16T15:10:00.000Z

Why Design Matters

2010-02-11T12:59:00.001Z

By Diego Rodriguez

Good business outcomes treat design as a holistic process that pulls in savvy marketing and research, as well as smart ideas, says IDEO's Diego Rodriguez

Good design does not always equal good business. But good business outcomes—especially when the goal is to create new sources of value in the world—are most often achieved through a well-structured design process that is more holistic and inclusive than the notion of good design.

All of the energy fed into the debate about the value of good design to the world of commerce would be better spent building ways to make holistic design a routine activity in business—and society. Here are three ways to get us there:

Follow the link to Business Week!

The MP on the estate...

2010-02-08T21:40:00.003Z

Channel Four show the clear divide between what people on the bread-line know about politics and what politics knows about them.

Eastman Innovation Lab - Design Insights - Steve Kelsey Video - The Rule of Three

2010-02-04T21:43:00.000Z

Eastman Innovation Lab - Design Insights - Steve Kelsey Video - The Rule of Three

North faces: John Bulmer's photographs of life in northern England

2010-02-04T10:07:00.001Z

2010-02-01T22:44:00.000Z

Albert Exergian's modernist TV posters

2010-01-29T19:23:00.001Z

Television imagery and artwork is rarely of a quality worth hanging on your walls. Welcome, then, Austrian designer Albert Exergian, who's created a series of modernist images inspired by TV shows that echo recent online reinterpretations of Saul Bass and Pelican Books. Go to art store blanka.co.uk, where there's also a selection of natty film posters by other graphic artists.

What are your top green books?

2010-01-27T22:30:00.003Z

Cambridge academics have compiled a list of their top 50 books on sustainability. Which books would make your own list?

Chipping away at graffiti!

2010-01-26T19:53:00.003Z

I took this behind the Truman Brewery in East London...
... property developers take note!

Prime location - office space to let!

2010-01-26T19:50:00.003Z

The No Money Man

2010-01-25T22:41:00.002Z

Jon Henley spends the day in Bath with Mark Boyle, who last year decided to stop spending money … on anything … at all … ever. And guess what? He's doing rather well for himself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money

Animation Africa!

2010-01-23T18:01:00.002Z

Tinga Tinga Tales is a animation coming out of Nairobi, Kenya. The art work is sensitive to the local style and 'illustrates' a future industry for Africa. This BBC report highlights the amazing fact that animation from overseas is cheaper and restricts local production from being aired. We often overlook Africa, much to our shame, and this story shows off the great wealth of talent and creativity in continent often being reported for different reasons. Lets keep an eye on the creative industries in Africa and with proactive support from overseas this could be a rewarding economic stimulus to the region!

Breaking the mould: Brit Insurance Design awards shortlist

2010-01-20T19:53:00.001Z

20 January 2010: From Beth Ditto to an army of pandas – check out the highlights of the third annual Brit Insurance Design awards at London's Design Museum, which features 'the world's most compelling and progressive designs' across architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics and transport. Antony Gormley will chair the jury, which will reveal the overall winner on 16 March 2010

2010-01-18T19:40:00.001Z

2010-01-18T19:32:00.004Z

The BBC and the British Museum have joined their expertise for an exciting project in an anthropological study, and collection, of objects across history. Looks like a great insight, with participatory eliminates, of our history and social developments through design and culture.

design Orientation expands...

2010-01-17T17:20:00.002Z

Making Green Work

2010-01-07T11:11:00.001Z

A Strategic Approach to Climate
by Michael E. Porter and Forest L. Reinhardt

Leaders need to understand both the impact of their firm's activities on the climate, and the impact of the changing climate on the business environment in which the firm competes.

Sustainability — The Only Strategy
Adam Werbach, Global CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S, former Sierra Club President, and the author of Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto.

(To listen to the "ideacast" follow the link...)

Analysis catalysis

2010-01-07T11:10:00.000Z

Designers think they can teach MBAs and philanthropists a thing or two

Dec 8th 2009
From Economist.com

TIM BROWN, the boss of IDEO, a consultancy that helped shape Apple’s first mouse, does not have solutions to daunting global problems such as climate change, epidemics and persistent poverty. But he believes he knows how to find them: with “design thinking”.

By design thinking, Mr Brown means the open-minded, no-holds-barred approach that designers bring to their work, rather than the narrow, technical view of innovation traditionally taught at many business and engineering schools. Firms that think like designers, he claims in a new book, “Change by Design”, stand to win huge new markets and profits. The concept may sound pat and woolly, encompassing everything from savvier marketing to radical technological leaps. Yet design thinking is winning many converts in both industry and philanthropy.

Follow the link for the full article...

How to change the system

2010-01-07T11:07:00.000Z

In praise of the ideas of Russ Ackoff

Nov 3rd 2009
From Economist.com

IT IS hard to imagine a less enticing title for a book than “Introduction to Operations Research”. Yet Russ Ackoff, one of the authors of this tome of 1959, who died on October 29th aged 90, did not just help to define a nascent branch of industrial engineering. He wrote 30 other books, becoming one of the most influential management gurus of the 20th century in the process. His ideas about systemic thinking are vitally important today if the world is to come out of the current economic crisis in better shape than it went into it.

Follow the link for the full article...

Engine Service Design

2009-12-30T14:56:00.001Z

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

2009-11-20T12:57:00.001Z

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

2009-11-19T14:47:00.002Z

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

2009-11-18T11:19:00.001Z

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)

2009-11-13T12:49:00.003Z

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

RED

2009-11-10T17:21:00.001Z

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?"

2009-10-31T14:02:00.002Z

This is a great educational vid from the DC!

Going to the Dogs by Katherine Green

2009-10-25T21:33:00.002Z

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)

2009-10-19T20:00:00.002+01:00

"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...

2009-10-13T10:54:00.003+01:00

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...

2009-10-12T23:01:00.002+01:00

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.

2009-10-02T18:21:00.012+01:00

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)

2009-09-21T11:25:00.007+01:00

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

2009-09-17T23:27:00.000+01:00

Glopear - Image retouching...

2009-09-17T23:23:00.001+01:00

Design For Life BBC2 (AKA The Design Apprentice)

2009-09-14T12:14:00.004+01:00

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

2009-09-11T18:04:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-04T18:06:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-04T17:26:00.002+01:00

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

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

2009-09-04T17:25:00.000+01:00

2009-09-02T12:17:00.004+01:00

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.

2009-09-02T10:54:00.003+01:00

"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

2009-08-25T20:03:00.004+01:00

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!

2009-08-25T19:56:00.002+01:00

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

BBC. Future of Food

2009-08-25T19:20:00.001+01:00

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!

2009-08-24T13:20:00.000+01:00

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

2009-08-24T10:20:00.001+01:00

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

2009-08-21T16:46:00.002+01:00

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

2009-08-19T11:48:00.002+01:00

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.

2009-08-18T15:22:00.001+01:00

Interdisciplinary Discovery Through Design Workshop

2009-08-18T15:05:00.004+01:00

28thSeptember 2009

10.30 - 16.00

@ DESIGN COUNCIL

34 Bow Street London WC2E 7DL

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

Dear God...

2009-08-10T14:43:00.002+01:00

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

2009-08-07T11:02:00.003+01:00

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!

2009-08-05T13:34:00.000+01:00

Julian Bleecker - Near Future Lab

2009-07-30T12:51:00.004+01:00

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

2009-07-27T12:47:00.002+01:00

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

2009-07-27T12:43:00.003+01:00

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

2009-07-23T14:03:00.002+01:00

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

2009-07-22T15:03:00.002+01:00

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)

2009-07-22T13:06:00.002+01:00

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)

2009-07-16T14:41:00.004+01:00

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

2009-07-16T13:45:00.002+01:00

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

2009-07-03T12:24:00.002+01:00

Alice Rawsthorn

2009-06-25T15:26:00.003+01:00

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

2009-06-23T16:25:00.003+01:00

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

2009-06-23T16:13:00.000+01:00

"...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

2009-05-14T10:09:00.000+01:00

Peter Phillips - Creating the Perfect Design Brief

2009-05-01T11:17:00.004+01:00

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

2009-04-28T14:23:00.006+01:00

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

2009-04-23T21:23:00.003+01:00

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)!