Design is a commodity

A few years back I attended a design management seminar in San Francisco. The seminar was held on a refurbished ferry-boat docked at Pier 3 and featured a notable design speaker. The view of the bay was fantastic, and the information presented at the session was compelling. But as I look back, the most remarkable thing about that seminar was lunch.

I had the good fortune to be seated at the same table as the speaker. Others at the table included business owners and designers from a wide variety of areas, all looking to harness the power of design. Our conversation ran the gamut from design leadership, research, ethnography and our own personal design war stories. I tried to think of an insightful question to ask the speaker, but the best I could come up with was, “So, do you have any designers on your staff?” Jeez, could I have asked a more banal question? But his answer left me speechless. “No.” he responded off-handedly, “Design is a commodity.” (more…)

John Bielenberg specializes in ‘thinking wrong”. This basically means thinking differently. And thinking in plural. Bielenberg believes that bringing a lot of like and unlike minds together to spout out irrepressible thoughts opens the possibilities for revolutionary ideas. “I find the traditional design studio approach - where you only discuss a project in-house with whoever happens to work there and then claim to have come up with the best possible solution- somewhat arrogant,” he says. (more…)

The following post is the third part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

ANDY: Rick, your thoughts about design education and its relevance (or lack of) to the contemporary world of design practice is spot on, though I feel this isn’t limited to design, but to the whole notion of what we consider successful higher education institutions. This is an issue that goes right back to schooling and I feel there’s a real resonance here in the way we think about the social, cultural and environmental issues that face us. (more…)

The Beijing Olympics have elicited several very creative protests in the Western design community. One of the most biting is the web site Behind Beijing Olympic , which mimics the design and logo of the official Olympic site. However, the symbols and contents have been altered to convey images of political oppression. For example, the famous Olympian circles have been turned into handcuffs and the little stick figures that symbolize each sport have been altered to resemble policemen beating up monks and kicking babies. (more…)

If video games and personality tests (i.e. “What Kind of Friend are You: An Underminer or A Nurturer?”) belong to your guilty pleasures you’re in luck. Our sister site Notes on Game Dev features a fun test for gamers (developed by researchers at Ghent University) that determines whether you belong to one of four personality categories based on player motivation. (That means that it has nothing to do with how often you play or how good you are). So if you want to get to now yourself better and to find out if you’re a Fanboy, Competer, Escapist and Time-killer go to Notes on Game Dev and get ready to reveal your inner player.

I sometimes wonder if my daughter, who is currently one years old, will read books when she grows up (and goes beyond her current favorites “Baby’s Animal Friends” and “Bear Goes To Town”). Maybe reading paper books will be a habit reserved for old people by then. Or perhaps they won’t exist at all. Whatever happens, one thing is for sure, there will be major changes in the way we perceive and consume literature. On AIGA’s web site there’s an interesting article that offers some insight to how book publishers are trying to appeal to a younger generation that is more likely to spend every waking hour on their computer than pick up Dostoyevsky. (more…)

Few so called best-dressed society women elicit such adoration among lesser dressed women as Iris Barrel Apfel. I know several otherwise very sensible ladies who start to swoon at the very mention of her name. One friend even harbors a secret fantasy of becoming the glamorous octogenarian’s adult adoptee. Barrel Apfel is an interior and textile designer who attracted a die-hard following of fans when The Met exhibited her wardrobe in the surprise hit exhibition Rara Avis in 2005. The show drew record numbers of designers, students and regular museum goers who came back again and again to get their fix of Iris’ mad cap mix of colors, shapes and Tibetan jewelry. You don’t have to be particularly interested in clothes to be impressed and inspired by her creativity. Barrel Apfel dresses like a living sculpture, creating a perfect balance between strong, graphic shapes and vivid colors. Even though she wears top couture labels like Balenciaga and Lanvin, her clothes are not fashion statements but more like canvases for her self-expression.

If you’re in the New York area within the next few weeks and would like to get to know Iris, you should take a trip to the Nassau Museum on Long Island where the Rara Avis exhibit is on show until September 7. And if you can’t do that there’s always her book.

The following post is the second part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

ANDY: Rick, I hope my mocking hasn’t wounded you too deeply! I think you probably underestimate how au fait you are with new technologies and I think this brings us onto a couple of points that refer back to what you asked me about in your final questions. (more…)

It seems like Obama’s supporters are determined to make him go down in history as the candidate with the hippest signage ever. (Or perhaps the recent decline in enthusiasm among young voters is making them nervous.) Design and graffiti legend Shepard Fairey has teamed up with artist-designed t-shirt peddlers Upper Playground and Move On to host the “Manifest Hope Art Gallery” at the Democratic National Convention. The gallery, open from Sunday, August 24 through Thursday, August 28 2008, will feature both known and new artists all supporting Barack Obama for President. Moreover, should you feel so inclined, your work can be a part of this project. The groups also launched a related contest today, calling for entries of visual art from grassroots supporters of Senator Obama. (more…)

The following post is the first part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

In 1998, on a grey autumn afternoon in London’s Soho, Omnium’s founder, Rick Bennett, came to visit me at Antirom’s studios to tell me about a project he was developing called Omnium - The Virtual Design Studio. Antirom was a new media collective that I co-founded along with several other designers, developers and artists and was based on the collaborative, non-hierarchical structure used by the über-creative collective Tomato, our friends and landlords. (more…)