Our industrialized economy, founded on mass manufacturing and economies of scale spurred by consumerism, is the greatest enemy of remarkable products.

Of course many products will come close, in fact many will be hailed as fantastic or even great, but the truly remarkable will be few and far between.

People striving to create awesomely remarkable products can do so because it is actually quite straightforward. Unfortunately it rarely happens, as making remarkable products is a constant uphill battle against the basic machinery that makes it all happens.

Lets take a look and see why.

1) Manufacturing bland
The whole objective of mass manufacturing is to get economies of scale when you manufacture large volumes of product. So what does this means?

You build standardized products with as many common parts as possible. Or take this to the next level by making products with as many off the shelf components as possible. Take a look at the computer industry and you can see this glaring problem. Pretty much everything looks the same and differentiation ends up being very superficial.

2) Race to the bottom
One of the big advantages of economics of scale is a product made as cheap as possible by a repetitious and standardized process. Why is this important?

It is a big race to the bottom in terms of price. Contract manufacturers are pressured to reduce their cost by ensuring pricing efficiency and sufficiency. Products are built to a level of specification that most consumers are willing to pay. This is then balanced off with the cost and margin a brand is willing to accept.

This is to avoid situations, for example, where groups of people will not be interested to pay more for, say, a mobile phone with camera when all they need is a straight forward phone.

So in a product creation process like this, why then anyone go the extra mile for an awesome function or spec when it will be just considered a nice to have or not appeal to the market majority?

3) Products that do too much
On the other end of scale from the previous point, designers often get sucked into creating products, designs, forms, or shapes etc. that try to appeal to as many people as possible.

In essence, we end up with products that try to be everything and the kitchen sink. This is also often comes as a response to unfocused marketing stories that try to unsuccessfully satisfy as many consumers’ needs as possible.

4) We threw out the baby with the bath water

Gordan Ramsey said (via Contrast):

“It doesn’t matter how amazing the steak is, if it’s served on a cold plate it’s crap. If it’s served with a dull knife it’s crap. If the gravy isn’t piping hot, it’s crap. If you’re eating it on an uncomfortable chair, it’s crap. If it’s served by an ugly waiter who just came in from a smoke break, it’s crap. Because I care about the steak, I have to care about everything around it. “

These days it is getting extremely difficult for designers to manage the entire design development process because organizations decided (about 10+ years ago) not be vertically integrated and outsourced much of their (lower value) down stream development processes. This helped organizations reduce overheads, costs and increase efficiency, especially if the process moved outhouse was manufacturing.

The net effect of contract manufacturing or contract “everything” for that matter, is the loss of control. It is hard, not impossible, to regain this control and ensure the integrity of a design solution through out the development process, but you need extremely passionate, dedicated and persistent team that don’t come a dime a dozen

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So I hope we can now see that the environment we design products in, leans towards encouraging the creation of watered down products with little innovation and poor differentiation.

What do we do now?

I’m not asking you to go against industrialization or the contract manufacturing process as it has many benefits, what we need to change is our mindsets and decide if we are happy with acceptable products that just meets everyone’s requirements, or strive to create remarkable products that go beyond what people expect and accept that it will appeal to fewer people.

If you ever had a doubt about designing fewer, focused, but exceptional products. Check out this quote by Apple’s COO Tim Cook (via Seth Godin):

“This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of… We say no to good ideas every day.” Cook then pointed out to analysts that every single product the company makes would fit on the single conference table in front of him. “And we had revenue last year of $40 billion.”

Ahh…is it not great how design can do so much more when design is doing less?

3) Spaces for Ideas: The Brand

iPhone and 15cm Ruler for sizing!

So here it is, the final prototype for my Spaces for Ideas expandable sketchbook. Actually this prototype has been in my care for the last 2-3 weeks, however I had delayed releasing it to all of you as I wanted to finalize the brand and get the design protection registration going. As both are finally in place, I like to now introduce this sketchbook to all of you!

I would say this prototype is about 95% there. The only difference between this prototype and the final product are two things. Firstly the spine will be in the same material as the pages and secondly the Spaces for Ideas logo will be quietly debossed on to the front cover. The rest of it, i.e. the size and how it unfolds is accurately depicted in the images after the jump.

I plan to produce two versions. One is an A6 sized book (on the top) that expands into an A3 page. The other is an A5 sized book that expands into a good-sized A2 page. I will eventually produce both versions, but due to budget constraints I can only start with one. That’s where I need your help; I need to know which size resonates with you the most?

Let’s take a look in detail with the A6 version that expands into an A3 page. The A6 version sits nice and tight in my hand. Both A6 and A5 versions has 5 pages folded into a form fitting package.

I did not like the inside texture of the cover, so I’ve asked the supplier to line the inside in the same material as the page. Due to the construction, the inside lining extends and becomes part of the spine’s material as well.

There you go, expanded into its full A3 glory!

As you can see from the first page, the hump that was a problem in the previous prototype is now resolved, by reducing the total number of folded pages from 20 to 5. This also allows me to product a cheaper solution that you can buy in bulk. This creates a situation where you can dedicate each expandable sketchbook to a project.

The 2nd page expanded and unfolded, between the 1st and 3rd folded pages.

As you can see the A5 version is a little bigger, but it is still a tight 5 page (folded) package.

Here it is unfolded into its full A2 glory. This is great for creative people looking to do large mind maps, brainstorming in groups, and generally not afraid of big ideas!

So lets look at how the both sizes compare? The A5 to A2 version sits above the A6 to A3 version. I’ve brought back my iPhone and 15 cm ruler to give this comparison exercise a sense of scale.

Just in case you are interested, each sketchbook will be shipped in a sturdy and bubble padded envelope.

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Right, so what do you guys think? Which one will you likely go for? I await your feedback and comments with baited breath!

The next step after this is I will finalize the production volume, costing numbers and hopefully start taking pre-orders! I hope you are as excited as I am to bring this “baby” into the world.

2) Spaces for Ideas: The First Prototype

It is time for a long overdue update on my Spaces for Ideas Project. This time I like to share with you the brand that I am building for this product. I have always been a strong supporter of branding and this time around it is no different. Understanding the value of branding, motivated me to create a log that could communicate instantly what Spaces for Ideas was all about.

I started out speaking to a few graphic designers and branding houses, but due to cost issues and not having full clarity what I wanted, I decided to put the money into my product and carved out some time to really thinking about this brand. If I did not know what I wanted, budget was likely going to be wasted. However as I got deeper into it, I realized I was enjoying the process, and decided to take it all the way to the end.

So without further adieu please have a look at my brand development process after the jump. (Warning picture heavy, but image size managed). Oh by the way, I’m no typographer, so I would love to hear your feedback and ways I can improve the final design.

I started out with an objective of creating both a brand name and a brand icon. I saw naming and logo creation, as a combined activity as there was a chance that the name itself could become a logo. As with all of my design development activities, I often approach it from a commercial angle by establishing a marketing tagline or elevator pitch as part of my design brief. This gives me a good idea of what this logo or product has to stand for. (Top right)

I also like to anchor some basic descriptor keywords in my brief to further flesh out the design direction for the brand. I wanted Spaces for Ideas to be simple, clean, minimal (reflecting the product’s industrial design) and not look like the typical web 2.0 “chicklet”. I also wanted it to have, what I like to call, the “Fedex Arrow Effect”. This logo had to represent what the product stood for in a clever and but almost cheeky way. Before I forget, I also had to consider my functional constraints. This logo also has to be able to be de-bossed as well as fit the usual range marketing collaterals like name cards, with compliments slips etc.

After settling with “Spaces for Ideas” as a brand name I started to look at how the logo icon can succinctly represent that brand name. As you can see, some of my initial ideas stylizing how the sketchbook worked.

I took the most obvious route with this logo design. I needed to somehow represent a “space” with an icon. Easier said than done. A space is essentially that, a void filled with air. Taking up the challenge, I explored some ideas, where I cut up some font lines and used a human’s ability of “closure” to fill in the blanks. I soon settled on a concept that uses the interplay between positive and negative space.

I quickly mocked up the concept in Illustrator to see how it would look like in a controlled manner. I did like the paint lines very much, but this is not a design that is going to work de-bossed.

I realize, after playing around in Illustrator for a bit, I was stuck at a dead end. Also illustrator was not a program for me to design easily in, so back to the drawing board or sketchbook for that matter.

I continued to explore the meaning of “Space” with known representations like mountains and hills. Unfortunately all the concepts still lack the impact I desired.

Hey an empty box is a “space” to put stuff in right? I seriously considered using perspective lines to mark out a “space” before an object is drawn into it.

More box inspired concepts, this time with the words to represent lines. Ugly.

Even more boxes. I’m really struggling here!

I even experimented to cutting words horizontally in half. People only read the top half of the words anyway. Still this concept did not give me that Fedex effect I wanted.

I need to break out of this box thing. So I started to brainstorm other representations. A good one that I liked was how empty space was created between a bookshelf. (Bottom left) So Space is created between things. However, if I articulated a bookshelf as my logo would be just amateur work as it has little relation to my product. However liking the bookshelf concept very much, I parked the idea in the back of my mind and continued to explore.

As you can see, I’m still struggling to break away from boxes. I thought these box hole concepts might do the trick, but a box icon was a pretty common thing to find in logos. (I did some online research on the number of logos that had a box in it, and it was a lot!) Overall it’s still not good enough.

I finally realize that it might be near impossible to create a logo icon to represent “space”. So I went back to the tried and proven: Typography logos. That is when it hit me; the Bookshelf concept combined with typography produced a word with each letters representing a book.

I knew I finally got it. As with most solutions in design, you just know when you got it.

I wrapped up the concept phase by creating a definitive sketch of the design. This is something I also always do, as it catalogues one clear sketch to represent the concept or idea. Always as a precaution, it is also always a good idea to list the keywords from your design brief to make sure that the final logo matches your design objectives.

Time to select some fonts with the help of my keywords in my design brief. Also, I like to quickly thank a number of you who recommended font sites to visit on my Twitter stream.

I continued the refinement by picking a font and explored some placements. Slotting text in between other text has potential readability issues. So I really need to make sure I refine this direction well.

I selected the best potential arrangements and applied them 3 fonts that I short-listed.

So late one night, at 2.55am, I jumped out of bed with a solution to what I think is the best arrangement. This final layout (above) naturally aligns to how people read. “Spaces” is read left to right, and then “for ideas” read from top to bottom. If you notice, I went with a much cleaner font, even though I like to the first one I used that had “spaces” on each character. I felt that made the font look too busy and complicated.

All in all, I really enjoyed this brand creation process, and I hope you did to. I find it interesting, how much I could apply some of my Industrial Design methodologies, such as looking for insights to the natural behavior and expectations of people, to this logo exercise. I think understanding your process and the application of methodologies are key to success of any design, not just a logo design. Finally, as mentioned in the beginning of this post, look forward to hearing your comments and feedback.

Edit 2: Check out the final installment of this project, Spaces for Ideas: The Final Prototype.

It is with a hard heart that I write this post today. The Pocket Light by Hyun Jin Yoon and Eun Hak Lee (Ryan Harc), was stolen, produced and sold, unlicensed, under another brand. I do not condone such activities and urge all readers to boycott any fake Pocket Lights you may encounter.

Original Pocket Light

Fake Pocket Light

Moving forward, we could speculate 101 ways how and why Ryan Harc’s design was stolen, but ultimately it does not matter. What really matters is the fallout of such a situation, the impact of it on the designers and the design industry.

In many ways the Internet is a new medium when it comes to the management of intellectual property. Many designers are still struggling to reconcile its power of reach versus the need to control information flow. Here are some of my thoughts on how you can manage your creative content on the Internet.

1) Managing Expectations

Whenever a design is shown to the public there is a chance it could get ripped off. Design awards, graduation shows, public critiques, discussions with model makers, even obtaining costing for prototypes are all possible avenues where a design could get stolen.

The Internet is no different. In fact, because of the power of the Internet’s reach, the chance could be higher. However I do find it interesting that designers take more precautions showing work at graduation shows or manufacturers than on the Internet.

This being said, I have to say that the case of the copied Pocket Light happens rarely, especially if the stolen design was just a concept. The reason because the additional work required in taking a concept to an actual product requires far more effort than just coming up with an idea. In many cases it is very difficult to do if the designer that came up with the idea is not part of the development team.

That’s why people often tend to rip off finished products like LV bags or Vertu phones. All the hard work has already been done, all you need to do is just reverse engineer it. Oh, and there is that brand element as well.

So how or why did the Pocket Light get stolen? My guess is that it was “The Perfect Storm”. So happens that a manufacturer or a brand had access to all the right ingredients and be in a position to take up that idea and convert it quickly and easily into a product. In my opinion it was just sheer bad luck on the part of Ryan Harc.

2) So then why would anyone want to post his or her designs on the Internet?

There are actually a number of reasons, but the trick here is making sure you figure out “why?” before you do so.

The first and most common reason is credibility. Budding designers or design studios looking to make a name for themselves often share online self initiated design projects with the aim of getting their talent discovered.

If this were your objective, then getting a design copied would then fall in the realm of “imitation is the best form of flattery.” It is unfortunate, but consider milking it for all its worth.

The next reason designers publish designs online is that they are looking for a job. Most of the time these designs are portfolio work that have already been introduced in the market. However there are designers that would include personal design projects or submissions to design competitions hoping to show potential employers the breath of their talent.

The final last two reasons are closely link. That is, designers intending to sell a product or the rights to a design for production. If this is indeed your objective, you should ensure that you have taken the relevant intellectual property protection like patents or design registrations.

An important thing to note is that these 4 points are mutually exclusive. You cannot hope to “gain credibility” and also aim to “sell your design”. Both require different mindsets, and to combine the two is a recipe for disappointment.

3) So what can we do to protect ourselves?

I’m no expert on intellectual property, but by understand the gist of what it can do for you widens your options. Do research the details of Utility Patents, Design Registrations and Trademarks at your nearest Intellectual Property Office as soon as you can.

But for the purpose of this discussion, let us look at IP more from a strategic angle; is IP really needed for what you want to do?

An old employer of mine has this policy on patents. If an idea or invention could be licensed to another party for royalties, then it is worth taking the effort to get a patent. Why is this so? It makes perfect sense when you look at patents from a business point of view.

In certain cases the cost for a patent could come in at USD $30,000-50,000(for a worldwide coverage) or more. This does not include things like patent searches, legal fees and other incidentals. So if you look at it from an ROI (Return on Investment) perspective it just doesn’t not make sense. More so when you consider that most patents are applied on inventions before they are even launched or market proven.

I’m not saying don’t patent your idea. If you think you have a killer idea or invention, then you should really consider investing in a patent. The hard part is figuring out if the idea is really worth it.

Now this comes to the next part of the patent equation. Lets say you managed to pull together $30,000 and got yourself a patent. You now have peace of mind. You launch your product and it becomes a small success. The success is small enough that you don’t rest on your laurels but big enough for the rest of the world to take notice that it is now market proven. Soon cheap imitations start to flood the market while you are struggling to grow your business. The question now is do you have the financial muscle or just simply the willpower to enforce your patent?

Many inventors I have spoken to shared with me that patents are really just for a peace of mind. In certain cases they are useful, in other times, too much of a good thing. At the end of the day the decision is really yours but be aware of what it can do for you, and weigh the pros and cons of that hefty investment.

4) So what shall we do now?

Let me now share with you 4 suggestions on what I think designers can do, considering the landscape I have outlined above.

a) Share it, Get famous and Move on.
Most designers would fall under this category. So when you share designs, you do it to share and celebrate the cleverness of the idea. You may also do it for karma, and in the hope that by sharing, karma comes back to you as fame and maybe even fortune. But at the end of the day you are realistic, you expect nothing in return and quickly move on to the next big idea you come up with.

b) Make it, Share it, Sell it, and Get Out!
One thing about patents they never talk about is that it can be circumvented. There is no guarantee that someone will not takes your idea, modify it and sell it as a better alternative. So one way to play it is that if you think you have a good idea and want to capitalize on it; then a way to do it is to make your money and get out.

I planned my iPoor T-Shirt project with this strategy in mind. I knew the idea had merit, but with the product being a T-Shirt with a simple silkscreen graphic, I knew anyone could easily copy it. So I hatched a plan to make the iPoor T-Shirt in limited quantities and once it sold out, I’m out of the game. This strategy also forces you to ensure costs, margins and return on investment all work they way you want it.

c) Share it to Stake your Claim to the World.
I’m sure you can relate to my situation. I’m an employed designer, struggling to make ends meet, but I have ideas and some savings to invest in it. So how can I leverage on the power of the Internet to help me? I know I can’t afford a patent, so what do I do? I share it and stake my claim to the world, and if the design gets ripped off people will hopefully “do the right thing”.

My Spaces for Ideas Sketchbook is one such project, where by engaging my readers for feedback and getting them to be part of the development process, I hope to build a following of people that have a strong relationship with the product. Furthermore, by showing my process and prototype, there is no doubt as who came up with the idea first and when.

As a side note, the final design has not been revealed as it is in the process of getting a Design Registration. This is an alternative to a patent and not as expensive. Did I mention to Google Design Registrations?

d) Go under the Radar
My last suggestion does depend on the nature of your product, design or invention. Akin to much of the things you will find on Etsy, going “under the radar” means you build a design so niche, unusual to make, or not inline to existing standard processes that it becomes difficult to copy.

My Un-p3 Mp3 project was an experimental project aimed at exploring unusual manufacturing or creation processes with consumer electronics. A prominent design magazine in China was interested in showcasing this project, particularly on how I came up with the idea and built it. Needless to say I was not too keen.

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I’m sure there are many more strategies or things you can think of or do, for example creating a unique brand, but I think many of them are out of the reach of the small organizations or partnerships. Regardless I look forward to hearing your feedback and also any of your own ideas and suggestions you may have.

I like to leave you with a few closing words. Despite your best plans, and perhaps even a Patent, your designs or inventions are never 100% safe. It could get ripped off anywhere, even in your own design studio. But take heart with something someone once told me: People can copy our ideas, but they can never copy how we came up with them.

1) Spaces for Ideas: The Beginning

Here we are finally, pictures of my first prototype for the Spaces for Ideas sketchbook! But before I get ahead of myself, let me pick up from where I left of in the last post Spaces for Ideas: The Beginning.

If I know you clever reader, you would have realized 2 things about the first post. First, the post was fairly generic and second I did not really set out a concept direction I wanted to go for at the end of the post. The reason was because I wanted to build up a background story around my thought process.

So as a recap here are some of the key elements I think the ideal sketchbook should have.

1. A sketchbook that highlights the work and not itself
2. Well constructed and affordable
3. No spines getting in the way of cross page sketching
4. Just the right size but with enough space or room to play with
5. “Boundary-less” pages
6. Flexible enough to do what you will
7. Decent quality paper that takes all non-wet mediums like ink, pencil or markers.
8. Appeals to everyone, not just designers

Unfortunately, I’ve learnt very early in my career that if you threw everything you wanted into a product you just end up with a mess. Thus my quiet objective in our discussion in the first post was to really prioritize which elements were important and in what combinations should they be built in.

I decided that the first of my 7 sketchbook solutions (yes 7!) would focus on creating a sketchbook around point 4-6. After a lot of thinking, sketching, and working in an iterative manner, the “expandable” sketchbook concept was born. What really amazed me about my process was this concept eventually inspired the name for the entire brand collection: Spaces for Ideas.

So now, lets take a look at my first prototype, which was incidentally an EPIC FAIL! Heh-heh. Hmm maybe I should have built a better quick mockup? Make many mistakes, but make them early!

This A6 sized book is ah…way too thick. It contains 20 pages of good quality 100gsm bright white, lightly textured paper that is quite nice to write on. Furthermore the book’s A6 size in proportion to the thickness makes it feel more like a pocket dictionary or bible. Grab your nearest one and you will know what I mean. It is a beast!

Here is the trick of this concept; the A6 sketchbook unfolds out into a generous A3 page. The sketchbook’s binding solution was a bitch to work out, as the folded A3 sheet becomes a thick wad that is about 6-7 times thicker than a single sheet. So the 20 folded pages inflates itself into something like a 120 page sketchbook. While my Binder is not much of an origami expert (the page unfolded upside down), he managed to figure out how to stuff those thick wads of paper into a book!

Here is where the biggest problem lies. The 20 sheets of folded A3 paper creates a large “hump” under the first unfolded sheet. This really spoils the drawing/writing experience.

Well that’s all from me for this update on Spaces for Ideas. I think you can easily see from this prototype that there are a lot of obvious problems that needs to be solved. Therefore almost immediately after studying it, I went ahead to brief the Binder on what to refine. Luckily, they will happy to make me another prototype.

Just as a teaser, I actually have the final prototype right here in front of me and it is looking great. There is still a lot to do, so please bear with me? I will share the next update after I work out a few more issues like branding and logistics. As usual I look forward to your comments and please do keep in touch?

Edit 2: Check out the next installment of this project, Spaces for Ideas: The Brand.