If this is an Automatic Door, Why do I need to Press to Open?

Why indeed?

Design Thinking in Manufacturing, A Workshop Series

I’m really excited to finally be able to announce an exciting project that we have been passionately working on since August last year (2011)! Design Sojourn was commissioned by Design Singapore, the national agency leading the initiative to establish Singapore as a global city for design in Asia, to develop a curriculum for an intensive 9-day design thinking workshop (starting from 6 February 2012) for their Design Thinking and Innovation Academy.

8 New Year Resolutions All Designers Should Have

We are two weeks deep into the New Year and I am sure all of you have already hit the ground running. If you are anything like me, then you probably either forgotten to make a New Year’s resolution or could not think of one. Therefore I’ve decided to save everyone the trouble and compiled a quick list of 8 New Year resolutions I think designers should have.

Just pick one after the jump and enjoy!

Frog Design’s Tech Trends of 2012

January is often abuzz with 3 things: New Year resolutions, trends and forecasts for the year, and CES.

I’ll leave CES to the CES PR engines, because as designers, if you just focus on CES you will be a year too late.

So if you want to consider something more interesting and forward looking, check out this compilation of technology trends for 2012 from the global team at Frog Design. It looks like a number of interesting predictions from some familiar names.

Check it out after the jump.

We Will Have to Deal with Defining Design, yet Again!

Click for a larger image.

IA Collaborative, has tried to do the impossible, and that is to define the meaning of Design. Or rather, they have taken the effort to gather the different definitions of design from our favorite industry luminaries and arranged them in a rather symbolic (and cool) infographic.

Look to the Past for Metaphors to Design for Simplicity

Is this a Blackjack table? Image from TiPb.

Cliff Kuang, in his Fast Co Design article on The 6 Pillars of Steve Jobs’ Design Philosophy, talks about Jobs “finding simplicity for the future in metaphors from the past”.

Implementing Design Thinking 2: Have the Guts to Say it Sucks

I’ve found that one of the big reasons why Design Thinking fails in organizations, is that no one has the guts to stand up and say that an idea/concept/proposition sucks.

This point is an extension of our last article where we encouraged you to focus on the outcome rather than the process. In this article we encourage you to make sure that there is a good filtering system in place and a team of highly engaged people.