You would probably have caught wind of Sir Jony Ive’s rare interview with the London Evening Standard by now. I was not planning to blog about this as I figured that this would just become a pointless re-post. Except something dawned on me as I read the post. My suspicions that Apple’s Design Process is nothing special was confirmed!

While I would encourage you to read the entire interview (which is pretty cool), please let me summarize what Jony shared:

1) The Design Process at Apple is very much about “designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those…the final result suffers.”

2) Designing something new leaves you with little reference, this required focus.

3) Designers need to be “…to be light on your feet, inquisitive and interested in being wrong.”

4) Design’s goal is “…to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.”

5) Most of Apple’s competitors are only interested in doing something different or new, not necessary better. For Design to make something better, there needs to be discipline, and a sincere and genuine dedication to do so. “Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different – they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product.”

6) When an opportunity arises, designers need to ask the “stupid” questions. “…What if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem.”

7) Not surprising, here is Jony on focus groups: “We don’t do focus groups – that is the job of the designer. It’s unfair to ask people who don’t have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.”

8) The design team works in a collaborative environment with people from different disciplines and different “areas of expertise.”

9) When you are focused on a design problem, you need drive, confidence, and experience to push on.

10) Constant innovation is difficult, and you will never know it is done until you get there.

11) Sometimes an innovation can come from “the smallest shift” that “suddenly transforms the object, without any contrivance.”

12) Consumer are not stupid, they are incredibly discerning, and can “…sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.” Consumers are aware of the values of the people who made the product.

Most of you who have been around the block a few times would probably be able to check off 95% of the ways of working highlighted above. The reality is that Apple’s Design process is no different from what the rest of the world uses.

Then why is Apple so successful?

It’s all about the people. This is the key reason why good design fails in any organization.

People who care, people with discipline, people with passion, people that advocate and value design, people who want to do the best, people who can work together, and people who want to make a difference. Sadly the majority of organizations are short of such people, most of which are probably working at Apple.

Our Facebook fans had a little treat last week, when they caught wind of Design Sojourn’s new look. Developed together with my friends from Black Design, this rebranding initiative was targeted to coincide with our first massive Workshop Project.

Since our consulting work has taken up most of the time required for articles here at Design Sojourn (Sorry!), I thought it would be nice to share some of what we have done with all of you.

A logo design has to work in both black and white.

In our effort to redesign our brand we looked at Design Sojourn from both sides of the lens, i.e. the customer and the organization. From the organization’s point of view, we wanted the logo to reflect Design Sojourn’s core belief that every Design activity or process is a unique journey, and that we are here as your guide in this journey. In other words, we help brands, businesses and organizations to connect the dots or find their way, so to speak.

On the other side of the lens, we wanted the design language to not only communicate this journey but also communicate a sense of authority, trust, and precision. Our old logo, while great for a blog, did not accurately portray what we wanted for our company. The old logo gave a more relaxed vibe, when what we wanted was to come across a little more formal. We are also all about the spread of Design knowledge and know-how.

We kicked off the project looking at a number of concepts on how to represent a “journey” graphically. We explored maps, train tracks and even how stations were represented by a row of connected dots. This row of connected dots eventually formed the inspiration of our new logo design. We liked it as it was simple and universal.

I was however unsatisfied. I wanted more edge to the design, as I was uncomfortable with the minimal (perhaps too minimal) feel. I pushed the team to consider not just a train journey but also a visualization of the design process. This was a reflection of where the original Design Sojourn logo came from, and how it was inspired by a design process.

As a result of this prodding, the design team devised a very cool branding concept that has now been reflected across all my corporate collaterals. I think I’ll shut up now and let the rest of the images below tell you the story.

Exploring the branding concept. Connecting the dots, but not always in a straight line.

We even played around with geographical grids etc.

The branding concept applied to the templates of our PowerPoint slides.

This has to be my favorite of all my collaterals. I felt that connecting the dots or path finding in a design journey was like finding your way through a maze. The design team then created this “With Compliments” slip for my clients to have a little fun and hopefully leave a lasting impression when we say goodbye.

Every touch-point was designed, including all our communication graphics. The new Design Sojourn brand has to be consistent across all collaterals.

Well I hope you enjoyed this design story and also this small insight into what I have been up to in the last 6 months. The brand development activities will not stop here. Black Design and I have planned a whole range of marketing and PR activities (including updating this website) to leverage and take advantage of this new brand concept. So do stay tuned for more goodies to come!

Bonus Image: As we ran out of budget, I took the social media icon they developed for me and turned it into a company chop for official documents.

As the wave of SOPA and PIPA protests die down, it’s time to take stock of the implications such legislatures can have on the design community.

Please do take my thoughts with a pinch of salt as I do not live in the US, and very likely not have the same cultural background or government system. But I do think that such a Bill could find traction in many other countries should it be passed. So indirectly, I could be affected.

The importance of protecting Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights cannot be stressed enough. That is very clear. As designers, this protects the lifeblood of our profession, which is all about the creation of IP for economic or social benefit.

We have often seen designs stolen and used by others in the name of “inspiration” with little or no modification. Therefore I believe that the spirit behind the creation of the Bill can be a huge boon to our design profession.

But where do you draw the line? Not only that, when do we consider an IP infringed? Will it be so cut and dry that it is all about: “My chair has 4 legs so yours cannot have 4”? It cannot be. This is because there is no such thing as an original design. At least not since the paperclip, toothbrush or doorknob was invented.

We won’t go into the differences between a design and an invention, but you know what I mean!

As you know, I always encourage designers to have an online presence with their own name.com or by using sites like Behance or Coroflot to share their portfolio or ideas with the world. If you think about it, with Bills like PIPA and SOPA in place what could happen is that your inspiration images, mood boards, material textures, competitor product images etc. can be reported as copyright violations. “Casual” use of such images will likely be stamped out completely inside and outside of the studio.

The bill was also designed to actually stop the piracy of movies and music from non-US based websites by freezing payments via Paypal etc or by US Based Ads. This blanket act unfortunately also included creative content for blogs and user-based submissions to sites like Youtube and Vimeo. Even sites like Tumblr or Posterous, where the users usually crop and share interesting finds on the Internet, will be banned.

As you know creativity often stems from the leveraging on other ideas. So should a legislation like this be passed, we might see a new Internet that will be as bland as a dictionary. It will have tons of information, sure, but it will be soulless. As a side note, I think Creative Commons could find a new renaissance should a bill of such a nature be passed, but that system needs work as well.

From someone who creates Intellectual Property as part of his livelihood, I’m all for legislation that protect my intellectual property. I would love to ban/block that website that stole my blog theme! But “god is in the details” and therefore that defaulting line needs to be very clear. I’m not so sure how this is going to be done. If we consider how challenging it is to determine patent infringement, it looks like there is no clear and easy answer.

I love to hear your thoughts on this issue, especially if you reside in the US. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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 and enjoy!

Network More
Make your online and off-line presence felt. Plan to meet more people in the real world, go to that party you keep pushing off, or even attend that design forum. Going online, dabble in social media, start a blog or a website, and do everything you can to get noticed!

Take a Non-Design Colleague for Lunch
Had enough of designers? Aim to take a different non-design colleague out for lunch at least once a month. This will not only stimulate your creativity but will also open you up to different ideas and radically different perspectives. Not to mention that the connections you make, will be a boon for your career!

Update your Portfolio more Frequently
Most of us always wait to the very end, especially when we change jobs. And when that happens, we are scrambling! So do try to find some time at the end of every project to document that project. Then target to update your portfolio every 6 months, or try to do so at least once this year. What I do is mark it into my calendar and you should too!

Practice Design More
Get back to the basics and try to sketch, CAD, present, pitch, model make etc. a whole lot more. In a broader spectrum I think we can add “read more and look at less picture books” to this list.

2012 Will be the Year of Your Passion Project
If you have not already done so, perhaps this year will be the year to get your passion project going! There is no time like today, particularly with great services like Kickstarter, Shapeways, Etsy, and the plethora of e-commerce and social media marketing engines. Don’t worry if the project fails, the learning experience is priceless.

Focus on One Thing
In today’s digital environment, is this even possible? Sure thing. If we just cut down on our multitasking with email, social media or online games, and just focus on one task at a time, I can guarantee that you will get so much more done. I make sure that I find time everyday to batch process everything. You will not miss that last Tweet as much as you think you will.

Spend More Time Away From The Computer
This is my favorite call to action for all designers and I’ve included it here again. I always say designing solely on the computer is inefficient as it causes you to lose a sense of proportion. Going back to the basics of design (i.e. pen on paper) will bring you back to the core of things, not to mention sketching outside inspires you to no end.

Learn To Be More Organized
They say that when we clutter our workspace, we also clutter up the energy of the place. The most obvious way to combat this is to regularly de-clutter your workspace. This workspace should include your desk, computer desktop and even your thoughts (via a to-do list). Try it out and immediately feel good with a neatly organized desk.

I hope this list of 8 ideas helps you get going. I am sure you have your own resolutions and I would love to hear them below? And before I forget, Happy 2012 dear reader and thank you for all your support!

Here is something slightly off the beaten track today. Technology is one of the key drivers of change today, in particular, it changes the way we live and work. Designers, being mostly early adopters of technology, are always very quick to jump into the next big thing. When the iPad was launched every fan boy designer, rightly or wrongly, saw that product as the digital sketchbook of their dreams. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro cleverly read the market trend and cornered the tablet sketching market by quickly making their iPhone Sketchbook Pro app, iPad usable.

In the coming weeks, (probably weekly?) we will be running a new series of articles here at Design Sojourn, called Sketching with LunPlus. LunPlus (aka Lun Cheak) is a full time Industrial Designer and part-time illustrator. Being a hands on sketching kind of guy, he will share with you tips and techniques in getting the best design workflows from the latest technology available to designers, such as designing on your iPad. This way we can judge on our own if the technology is right for us or not.

By the way, you might already be familiar with Lun Cheak’s work. He created that very cool sketch illustration that really emphasized how far our Expandable Sketchbook could expand!

So anyways for this week we will start with something basic to get you all in the mood. No actual designing, but just a straight out concept art workflow that is very similar to the process that entertainment designers use. So grab a cuppa, sit back and enjoy: The Puppet Story Booth concept art workflow. All images and text below are by Lun Cheak.

1/5: Sketch

Click for a bigger image.

It always starts with an idea in the head, before I start doodling on my iPad, using Sketchbook pro and my trusted Griffen stylus pen. I keep the sketch really loose, focusing on the composition and getting the idea across on a page. I like the edginess and unfinished look of it. I think that’s where my personality as the artist is best captured. I know if I proceed to tweak it further at this level, I tend to lose the original intent of the idea and the fun, free-spirited energy in the drawing.

2/5: Background

Click for a bigger image.

Once I’m relatively happy with the sketch, I’ll move on by choosing a texture and color I would under-lay the line drawing. Depending on my mood and how I’d like the drawing to turn out, the background sets the overall tone for the rest of the colors that’s going to be laid onto it.

At this point, I opted for a dark grey stone marble texture I found on the Internet. I wanted the outcome to be somewhat dark. I like how the texture gives the drawing an edgy, weathered and worn-out look. This artwork was inspired by the story of the Little Riding Hood, so the dark weathered look works.

3/5: Base colors

Click for a bigger image.

Other than the line sketch, I think this is the second most important part of the drawing process. Getting the colors and tone right makes the difference between a successful drawing and a bad one. I don’t get it right all the time. It really depends on how are feel and the coffee I’m drinking! ;)

Starting with the colors that I’m familiar with, I work fast and go with my gut. For example applying Red on the hood. After that, everything else becomes my interpretation of what works with red vs. the background color.

4/5: Light + Shadow = Depth

Click for a bigger image.

Once the base colors are applied, the drawing is 80% complete. The rest of the work is all about popping things to the foreground and pushing objects into the background. I do this by applying highlights and shadows.

At this stage I’ve also included additional texture details to give more depth to the overall drawing.

5/5: Finishing touches – Focus

Click for a bigger image.

I always think that when we first encounter an image of a humanize form or an animal, it’s instinctive that we our attention is drawn to their eyes. The eyes are where the soul is. Therefore, I’ve decided for the Wolf to carry the soul of the drawing. Though this addition is just a small highlight, it gives life to the character and the drawing on the whole.

I’ve also included other details like blood and text to spice up the overall concept/ drawing, but making sure it doesn’t take attention away from the subject.

Equipment:

Tool: iPad2 + Griffen Stylus Pen
Software/App: Autodesk Sketchbook Pro

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I hope you enjoyed this little workflow tutorial, and now it is time to have your say. If you have any thoughts, questions of comments about this article or for Lun Cheak, please leave them in the comments section below. For more artwork by Lun Cheak, check out his LunPlus Facebook Page.

It is actually a perfect time to update your portfolio!

Not only are we somewhere in the middle of the year, we are right smack in the middle of summer and it’s blistering out there! Lazing on the beach is not going to get you a job, so why not stay indoors in the air conditioning and take this opportunity to update your portfolio?

I have therefore compiled a list essential and useful tips (I hope!) that can help you churn out that killer portfolio. As a side note, this list was generated while I was teaching students, at the local polytechnic, techniques on how to improve their portfolios.

1) A portfolio is a story about you.

A lot people say a portfolio is a selling tool. I fully agree. But a portfolio is more than that. If you think of your portfolio as a sales tool, you tend to just focus on execution skills or how many pieces of software you can use. A portfolio should instead tell an engaging story about you. It should show, through your projects, where you are in design, your passions, your goals, and your strengths. A good way to start your portfolio story is to have a 2-sentence summary about who and what you are all about.

2) Have an intro page.

This might be a no brainer, but a well-designed introduction page sets the tonality of your portfolio presentation. Many designers just have a title page at the start that says: “Jack’s portfolio.” That’s not good enough. Expanding from the first point you need to share a little about your background to give your portfolio story more depth. Keep it light though; you are summarizing your design career not writing a biography.

3) Keep the number of projects in your portfolio to between 8-10.

As time goes by, you are bound to build a drawer or a hard drive full of design projects that you have played a part in. The trick is to pick 8-10 of your very best projects for your portfolio. Any more than 10, it gets too many and most people cannot remember what they have seen. Run with less than 8 projects, and your portfolio content feels a little light.

There is one caveat to this number, and that is the number of pages per project. If your portfolio tends to have more pages for each project, you should cut the total number of projects down. If you have fewer pages per project, then you may need to bump the total number of projects up.

4) Ensure that projects in your portfolio are no older than 3 years.

To help make your selection process easier, consider removing projects that are older than 3. A big and extensive design project, could sit in your portfolio for up to 5 years as it probably took more than 2 years to complete, but try to avoid anything pass that timeframe as the work could start to look a little dated. When in doubt, prioritize commercial work over concept or schoolwork.

5) Know the purpose of each project in your portfolio.

Every project in your portfolio should have a purpose, a reason for it to exist in your portfolio. That purpose should be somehow related to highlighting your strengths and ability as a designer. Does this project show your potential employer you can deliver award-winning designs? Is this project all about your 3D rendering skills? Or does this project share a little about your design process? In many cases designers tend to double up projects, for example show a lot of 3D work and as a result unknowingly make their portfolio very 3D heavy. Try to avoid repeating skills and be ruthless in your selection criteria.

6) Who did what?

Always be crystal clear when a project you show was group work, and especially highlight your role in that project. Managers are always very happy to hear how designers can work as a team and produce great work. Not only that, as the design industry is small, many designers tend to vie for the same jobs which could put you into an awkward situation.

7) Create customized portfolios.

Selecting and deciding on projects for your portfolio can be hard. On the flip side, having a lot of projects allows you the flexibility of customizing a portfolio suitable to the type of employer or client you will be showing your work to. Are you meeting a marketing guy, or a head of R&D, or perhaps even a CEO? Having a variety of projects and presentation styles helps make your portfolio more relevant to that individual.

8) Know what you want to do as a designer.

Knowing what type of design you want to do can help you build a more engaging portfolio. Do you want to work in a consultancy? What about in an in-house design team, or even in a cross disciplinary role that reports to the CEO?
Knowing what you want in your design career can also help you shape the projects you yet to do. If you want to work in a consultancy, and you find you are weak in 3D rendering skills, this may prompt you to seek out more 3D rendering projects to shore up your portfolio content.

9) A portfolio is a living document.

A portfolio should always be evolving and living in beta. My advice is to update your portfolio every 6 months, or at the very least, update it yearly. Waiting longer tends to allow for work or documentation to go missing. Not only that, a juicy job opportunity might just pop up that could leave you scrambling to get things organize before the submission dateline is over. The Scout’s motto applies here: “Be prepared.”

10) A killer portfolio is well designed.

It is logical that as a designer, you should take every step to make sure that your portfolio is well designed and not just a bunch of images sitting in a plastic folder. Unfortunately, there are a lot of portfolios out there that are poorly designed, even though the content might be acceptable.

Not only it is advisable to have a consistent portfolio layout, the flow and organization of the content should be designed to work in your favor. Do all of your projects start with a beauty shot of the design? What about ensuring a consistent landscape or portrait format? The industrial designers reading this may be forgiven for a poor layout, but the graphic designers will need to be extra careful to ensure their portfolio reflects their capabilities.

A good way to get started is to create a template by using the grid technique (popular with graphic designers) and populate your design work from there. It is always tempting to over style your portfolio, especially if you have a high octane personal brand, but at the end of the day, the best thing to do is keep your layout design simple. You don’t want the background or portfolio layout to overshadow your design work.

11) Bonus tip: Digital vs. Printed portfolio?

With the Internet becoming a standard means of communication, most portfolios are now sent through email. Not only that, more and more designers are presenting their portfolio work on their laptops, iPads and projectors. Don’t discount the paper portfolio though; the honesty and tangibility of the medium could be the winning factor that gets you your next design job.
My point is that it is important to design for the medium. In many cases, a layout for a printed portfolio will not work on a laptop screen or projector. There is a lot more real estate on paper than on a laptop/iPad screen. Paper also tends to be a more forgiving medium as well. A laptop screen’s allows for bright and vibrant images, but a computer screen is limited to so many pixels and zooming breaks the flow of the presentation.

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I hope you enjoyed these tips and suggestions. They are by no means a complete list, so please do not hesitate to share your own proven portfolio tips in the comments below. I look forward to reading them.

In the last few months most of you would have read the endless press about Apple’s multiple lawsuits filed against their competitors claiming that they are stealing their intellectual property. Not only that, countless of other websites/blogs etc. have been jumping into the fray by putting up comparison images of how competitors like Samsung or LG have been blatantly copying Apple’s design language.

But are Apple’s worries justified and are mobile phone brands really copying iPhones? My short answer to this question is actually no.

Before we go on, lets take a look at the evolutionary history of the iPhone? I have taken the liberty to compile the iPhone’s design history into a convenient graphic below.

Click on the graphic for a larger view.

As you can see the iPhone was launched on 29 June 2007, with a new design or iteration almost every year. (By the way, from this graphic you can almost guess that the iPhone 5 will be announced within the next month or year.) However the main take away from this graphic is that it has been almost 4 years since the original iPhone was launched. (Edit: Another thing to note is that the UI/UX is more or less the same over 4 generations.)

Now lets take a look at the latest smart phones the other mobile phone brands are launching.

Click on the graphic for a larger view.

Check out Nokia’s N9 developed with Intel. This product is touted as an interim gap filler before their first Windows 7 phones come out. Hmm that interface looks familiar…

Sony Ericsson new Xperia Active targeted at the Sporty and designed to reflect those typical consumer requirements.

Finally we have Samsung’s second incarnation of the Galaxy range and one of the targets of Apple’s lawsuits.

I’m sure there are a few more that I have missed, but these 3 will do for now. So, after looking at the above suspects, are we now saying that the entire mobile industry is copying the iPhone’s industrial design as well as the user interface design?

To answer this question, lets go back 4.5 years ago and take a snap shot of the mobile phone industry before the iPhone was launched.

If you recall, the smart phone archetype was at its infancy, and the mobile phone industry was filled with many different configurations. There was Blackberry’s screen and tick tack keyboard, Nokia’s clam shell/hot dog bun communicator, HTC’s sliding cosmetic compact, and Motorola’s Razr biscuit. (Well the latter is not really what we would define a smart phone, but I just threw it in the mix for variety!)

Then the iPhone was revealed and the world was divided. The faithful call it the “Jesus Phone” and the other half of the world ridiculed its lack of buttons, last generation mobile technology, crappy battery/camera/reception and most struggled with fat fingers getting in the way.

Fast-forward 4 years later to today, the immense success of the iPhone has not only transformed the mobile industry, it has cemented the archetype of the smart phone. The now ubiquitous iPhone means that the consumer is very familiar and comfortable with a device that is essentially a screen and a few buttons (for home, volume and perhaps a camera etc.). We are as used to and comfortable with the iPhone, as much as we are used to cars with 4 wheels and wristwatches with straps.

Edit: As one of Design Sojourn’s readers rightly pointed out, the user interface and the experience on the iPhone was nothing short of unique and spectacular. It redefined how people engaged with their products. In the past, all people wanted was the precision of styluses, but Apple made touching, multi-touching, gesturing, and sliding etc. all common place. This is something by which people have come to expect or even demand from a device which is predominantly made up of a screen.

And that’s why I hate mobile phone design. Given the constraints you have to work with, the business requirements and what people are familiar with, most of the design work tends to produce very similar looking phones. Though some brands (who will not be named here) could choose to use less Apple inspired design details. (Edit: To clarify, when I say design here I mean both industrial design and user interface design.)

There is another angle to this discussion.

From the look of things, it would make more sense for Apple to drop their lawsuits and channel the legal costs into product development. The reality is that Apple’s success has been due to its ability to create new market leading and innovative propositions unlike any other. What we are seeing now though, is that it has been 4 years since the iPhone bandwagon as started rolling and the rest of the world has caught up.

That being said, I hope the iPhone 5 will really be something special, but I’m not holding my breath. Just like going from 3G to 3GS, the iPhone 5 may only be an evolution, which means the iPhone 6 should be the revolution. As my iPhone 4 is looking mighty tired next to my friend’s HTC Inspire, waiting for iPhone 6 might just be too late.

Image via Smart Phone Envy

Sometime in 2006, I decided that if I were going to be designing commercially successful products and strategies, I would need to know what it is really like to run a business, a business that would rely on the type of products and strategies that I would come up with.

Not only that, if I was going to run a business, I knew I would have to bootstrap it. By investing my own hard earned savings into my business, I could better understand the pain my clients felt whenever they spent their money on my ideas or on me.

So why am I writing this?

Firstly, I strongly believe in learning by doing. Therefore I do encourage those that would like to be similarly enlightened to take that step into design entrepreneurship. However design entrepreneurship is hard, so I though it might be a good idea to share some of my (painful!) learning experiences here on Design Sojourn.

Secondly, the feedback I got after running an informal poll on whether I should start a site on design entrepreneurship, made me realize that many of you are interested in design entrepreneurship.

Thirdly, with the large number micro financing or crowd-funding sites on the Internet such as CKIE etc, the financial barriers of entry for product development have never been lower. It is now all about hard work, good design, and great ideas.

So here are some of my thoughts on life as a design entrepreneur. Oh, do consider getting a cup of coffee before you read my article, as it came out longer then I expected!

1) Expect a Huge Learning Curve

One key skill that a design entrepreneur needs to have is the ability to work with or leverage on partners to get the job done. Fortunately, most designers are actually well equipped to be design entrepreneurs as they have the ability to empathize with non-designers and also wear many hats.

The difference here (and this is where the learning curve bit in) is between owning the process and working within a process. Design is only approximately 20% (or less) of the entire product development process. And when suddenly you have to make the calls for the other 80% of the process, things get hard very fast. Once that happens, many other factors such as confidence, initiative, and knowledge come into play.

The good news is that starting out in design entrepreneurship can be done relatively risk free. You can easily work on your personal design projects in your spare time, rather that quitting your day job to do so. Once you have brought your design into the market, stabilized your development and process issues, you can then decide if you want to be a design entrepreneur full time.

2) Designing for the Retail Shelf

Unless you sell your product exclusively online, your will probably need to consider making sure you design works in a retail space. Many designers forget that designing for retail is almost as crucial as designing for the product itself. Designing for retail can be a whole different ball game, and often what is good for retail may not be necessary be good for the product or customer. The best designers will need to make sure they can find a good balance between the two.

Here are a few tips to get you going. Is your design good enough to stand out after you apply the 3-second rule? Is your design easy to understand or use when the customer engages your product superficially? Is your design durable enough to withstand the wear and tear of retail? Does your design radiate the value of the product or communicate it clearly enough?

3) Be a Quality Hound

Rightly or wrongly, I was completely obsessed with perfection and in making sure every product was as close to my ideal specifications as possible. Needless to say my behavior drove my suppliers and manufacturers crazy, even though it was necessary to ensure that every product was up to standard. My activities included 100% inspection runs on all production pieces. This was a very tedious affair especially when having to check the quality of thousands of products.

Every piece you throw away is a waste of money, and as I’m self-funding this project, the money could have been used for other things like lunch with the family. Just make sure you are upfront with your manufacturer on your target percentage of waste per production run, so that they would know the quality levels you expect.

This is something that many designers may not be used to, as many never have to worry about the details of their product’s quality requirements. Much of it is institutionalized and designers often just need to give the once over and then defer to quality engineers to resolve problems. This is logical as many quality issues stem from production problems. So design entrepreneurs will need to be prepared to take over the work of quality engineers, and to also be prepared to pay the price for constant vigilance.

When dealing with quality issues, there is something I like to call “perception bias” that needs to be managed. Perception of what is good quality differs from designer, manufacturer and consumer. Designers often stand at the end of the strict quality scale, with the manufacturer at the other end of the relaxed quality scale. Disagreements happen when both the designer and supplier have different views on what they consider as good quality. The best way to align quality perceptions is to look at the consumer and determine what they view as good or good enough.

4) Love your suppliers

I have found that your suppliers or vendors are key to your success. Despite recognizing this, companies still treat suppliers as…well…suppliers, by squeezing them for better profits and shorter time frames while often forgetting that they have a business to run as well. On the contrary, by creating a win/win relationship with your suppliers, you will gain a longer-term advantage instead of shorter-term profit gain.

However, don’t make the same mistake I made by liking your supplier too much. I found myself trying to find ways to work with a particular supplier that I liked and had built a long-term relationship with. I was even willing to compromise my design because they could not achieve what I wanted! At the end of the day, this is all about business, and if it does not make business sense, perhaps it is time to look outside of the box.

5) Budget, Budget and Budget!

The one big things I learnt about self-funding my projects, is that success is all about how you manage budget and control cash flow. On the flip side, designers love to tell the business that the extra cost you put into a design can justify its selling price. Sometimes this is true, but if you don’t put on your pragmatic hat, it will spiral out of control and so will your profits. I always remind myself that having limited resources forces me to make very hard decisions on what is important to the end consumer.

Once you have set your budget, you have to stick to it. If not, it will be a moving target that will make running a business difficult. For example, I put my Spaces for Ideas: Collection 2 on hold as I was not able to meet my budget and cost targets. Pushing the project forward would have put my company in great financial risk.

All that being said, don’t forget that it is also very important for you to figure out what your ROI or return on investment is going to be. Or at the very least how many pieces you would need to sell to recover your cost.

6) Pricing is a Science and an Art

It would be a good time now to touch on one of the hardest thing to figure out as a design entrepreneur, how to price your product.

There are a lot of things to consider when you are working out your pricing strategy. They include: Will your customer be able to afford your price point? Is the selling price high enough to make you enough profit? Is the pricing flexible enough for you to give discounts during a sale? What about wholesale pricing? What about standardizing your pricing across your various distribution channels? Then how does everything reflect back to recovering your initial investment? (See previous point.)

Here is another tip on pricing; you make money when you sell your product. While this sounds rather painfully obvious, it is a subtle change in mindset. If it’s anything I’ve learnt from the best Marketing minds I’ve worked with, we need to adopt a market-in approach to find the price points where consumers will bite. Despite this many people still make the mistake on focusing on cost plus pricing strategies, rather than working backwards to the cost after achieving the right price vs. product offering.

7) Having Inventory can be Bad

I quickly learnt that excess inventory is the enemy of profit. A lot of designers don’t actually get much of a chance to experience the actual physical space volumes of completed product take up. Trust me, I have sketchbooks in every nook and cranny in my home!
If you are not selling your products fast enough, not only have you locked down your investment into a product, you would likely be paying extra for storage space. I’m lucky to have a good friend with a spare room to house the rest of the sketchbooks I can’t fit in my home.

If managing inventory is not easy, stock take is even harder. Throw in being a quality hound; you have a nightmare in the making. Just imagine having to unpack, check, and repack every product you ordered, 100% of the time! At the end of the day, if you can get your inventory under control, you can achieve good cash flow management. And the best way to do this will be explained in our next point.

8) Strive for Creative Manufacturing

The whole concept of manufacturing is all about economies of scale (volumes) and repeatability. When that happens, the process we have to adopt is one that requires structure and standardization. So with that in mind, the term creative manufacturing is a rather obvious oxymoron, as it is all about allowing flexibility, such as color or materials options, during the process of manufacturing. These days as designers push the boundaries more and more to create exceptional work, creative manufacturing will become a vital enabling factor in allowing designers to do what they do.

The other thing about manufacturing is that big is not always better. While the big boys often have the right machines, quality processes and speed, they often have their hands tied up in terms of overheads, flexibility and costs. Therefore, depending on your design, working with a smaller manufacturer could be a better option for you. Smaller outfits have the flexibility and perhaps are more willing to try something different. However smaller manufacturers may not be as up to date with the latest skills and equipment or lack organization and a strong process. This could impact response time and consistent quality.

9) Don’t take no for an answer

At the end of the day, success is all about finding the right balance of all the points we have discussed and also a never say die attitude to keep pushing and finding for the most ideal circumstances for your business.

After painfully deciding to put Spaces for Idea’s second collection on hold, I took time away from the project and regrouped. By taking the project off my development cycle, I actually gave the project some space to breath and time for more ideas to mature.
After a break of a few months, I quietly started talking to people about the project again. I also had some time to really reflect on what the problems were and how I could find a solution around the problems I had. I realized that to make the second collection a reality, I had to slaughter some sacred cows such as moving on from a well-loved supplier and reconfiguring some long held notions of manufacturing processes. Sometimes we can be our own roadblock. Just don’t take no or impossible for an answer and find creatives ways around the problem!

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With that being said, I’m very happy to re-launch the Spaces for Ideas Collection 2. It has been a tough and bumpy road with many challenges, some of which inspired this article. This collection consists of a new look Story Book that has been redesigned from the ground up, and an Elastic Bookmark made from new materials. Check out the photos of rough prototypes below! The Iteration Book, introduced last time, is on hold and may be launched as part of Collection 3.

Click for a larger image of the prototypes!

The Story Book and its matching Elastic Bookmarks are made from 3 different 280 gsm colored (Yellow Cream, Chocolate Brown and Deep Blue) material. The 20-panel accordion fold is available with black (120 gsm) and white (140 gsm) paper. The paper in each book is intentionally heavier to create more structure in the accordion fold. It is also lovely to draw on. This new design has a modified hand made manufacturing process that allows flexibility by having a range of different cover colors and paper.

As production has already started, I’ll try to have pictures of the first production prototypes as soon as I can get my hands on them sometime at the end of this week.

Click for a larger detailed image of the prototypes.

So what to you think of this article as well as the newly revamped Spaces of Ideas Collection 2? I would love to hear your feedback and thank you in advance.

Good sketching skills are important in any design process, and something truly needed in the design industry today. While working in the design industry, I have seen many young designers give up on sketching because they think they cannot do it.

The truth is sketching is an activity that requires constant practice to perfect. Therefore the will to practice is essential in helping you succeed, hopefully to the point where sketching becomes second nature to you. Or at the very least, you would get to the point where it would be easy to visualize a design in your mind.

One good way to improve your drawing is to use good sketches and sketch techniques to inspire and motivate you. So here are some design sketch references and sources that I have found both helpful and meaningful.

1. Design Sketching by Erik Olofsson and Klara Sjolen.

The excellent collection of design sketch explorations makes this book worth buying. It features 24 of the best designs from the Umea Institute of Design (Sweden), one of Europe’s best design schools. Well-known for their good design sketching skills, this book features many strong designs that have been done in various mediums (pens, pencils, markers) and computer programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.

The Design Sketching website provides sneak previews of the some of the chapters in this book. Their 2D rendering skills are so amazing that you will be tempted to order it!

2. Learning Curves by Klara Sjolen and Allan Macdonald

From the same publisher that brought you Design Sketching, Learning Curves is a follow-up book targeted to take design sketchers to the next level by helping them to really learn how to sketch.

The book includes samples of sketching work of over 60 professional (product, industrial and transportation) designers from around the world. Structured more like a comprehensive list of hints and tips, designers can quickly find help in improving specific areas of their sketching abilities. You can find great tips such as sketching reflections, playing with line weights, constructing sketch scenes, creating exciting viewpoints and even workflow improvements such as generating more ideas via sketching etc.

The authors hope that this new approach is more meaningful and refreshing than the more usual tutorial route. However for people like me, I’ll just be reading it from cover to cover, and you know what? You should too.

3. Carl Liu’s Design Book

Possibly one of the best design sketchbook for industrial designers, Carl Liu’s book is a collection of his many design sketches from his career in design. Working with reputable design companies like Astro Studios and Disney, book show cases ideation sketches, presentations, exploded views and storyboards done with his signature quick sketch and rendering style.

If you can’t get your hands on his book, visiting his portfolio on his website, will definitely inspire you to practice your drawing further.

4. Concept Design Books by Scott Robertson

Known for his strong futuristic product, transportation and city concepts, Scott Robertson creates great design work that exists far beyond anyone’s imagination. On his Drawthrough website, there are design sketching DVDs available, which shows vivid demonstrations of Scott Robertson sketching skills and covers topics such as perspective and proportion.
However if you want something to hold in your hand, his concept design books are a good alternative. Here are a few of his more popular ones.

DRIVE: vehicle sketches and renderings by Scott Robertson.

Start Your Engines: Surface Vehicle Sketches & Renderings from the Drawthrough Collection.

Lift Off: Air Vehicle Sketches & Renderings from the Drawthrough Collection.

5. Presentation Techniques by Dick Powell.

Yep, it’s that Dick Powell. I believe this became an instant classic, as it was probably the first of its kind in the sketching or presentation skills category. This all-rounder book covers all presentation techniques starting from sketch, to marker rendering, and finally to presentation renderings. I actually got a chance to speak to Dick about his iconic book, and after his long embarrassed groan, he told me that after “hello”, every Industrial Designers he has met has told him they have read it. You should too.

6. Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers by Koos Eissen and Roselien Steur.

Now into its 5th reprinting, this successful reference tome houses a great collection of sketches and drawings contributed by Industrial Design professionals from all over the world. Not only that, there is a great collection of drawing tutorials like varying the line widths, vanishing points, and shading etc. at the beginning of the book.

7. Analog Dreams by Michale DiTullo

Michael DiTullo, famed Core 77 sketch guru, former Nike Design Director and currently Frog’s creative director, has self-published a collection of 120 design sketches from a decade of work as an Industrial Designer. In addition to his vast range of footwear sketches (something he is known for), he shares his thoughts on how to get better at sketch visualization and creating strong visual (design) languages. Buy his book at Blurb.

If you are interested to see more of his design process, check out his design visualization sketch he did exclusively for us at our sister site >think>draw>make>. Thanks for doing what you do Michael.

8. Sketching Videos from Feng Zhu’s FZD Design School

While technically not a design book, Feng Zhu sketch tutorials should not be missed for any aspiring design sketcher. He has a great range of inspirational concept sketches that has driven the environmental or character designs of movies and games such as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Transformers, Command and Conquer 3, Sims 3 etc.

Check out their Youtube Channel as well: FZDSCHOOL

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In today’s design industry, designing in sketch or in 2D is still a very powerful tool of communication. It is never easy to master it, but with constant practice and a library of good references, you can achieve it. So do enjoy the process!

For more great books on design, check out our awesome article: 30 Essential Books for Industrial Designers.

This article was originally co written with guest author Sharon Goh and published on 23rd July 2007. As it has become outdated, I’ve decided to rewrite and keep updating this post with the latest and greatest design sketching resources!

Sharon Goh graduated in 2002 from TU Delft with a Masters Degree in Strategic Product Design. She is currently in charge of the sales and marketing of Dutch designed products in the Asia Pacific. She has worked in Japan, Netherlands and Singapore, in the competences of industrial design, design management and product marketing.

I’m sure most of you have heard the news about the Nokia and Microsoft alliance. Nokia announced that it has decided to use the Windows Phone 7 as their primary Smartphone platform. Their existing platform Symbian, will be franchised and milked to the very end.

I was pretty excited and positive when I heard about this, but was quickly surprised to find out that I was actually in the minority. Even industry heavy weights like Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini and Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt both disagreed with the decision.

Schmidt regretted the decision but kept the Android door open for Nokia. Otellini bets that the future is open source rather than a closed ecosystem. I’ll take their comments with a pinch of salt as both are likely biased. With Schmidt the losing party to this alliance and the other, well, I’ll believe him only when I see him release his CPU reference designs to the open source community.

But I digress.

I believe this is indeed the right decision for one very simple reason, the bigger you are the harder it is to change the corporate culture and the way you do things.

Nokia always had it roots in developing mobile hardware. It built its fortune on exactly that. I can only imagine the extensive infrastructure put in place at Nokia to develop the most wild and wonderful handsets ever conceived.

Unfortunately, products have evolved into an experience and we all know experiences ask for a joint proposition of both hardware and software. Many companies understand this, including Nokia, but few have made the transition comfortably (most notably Apple).

Nokia, already struggling with waning handset sales, cannot financially afford to make this transition. This is probably why the Android platform was so attractive to traditional hardware manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Dell and Motorola etc. It allowed them an “in” without the hefty investments. This sounds great but it is really not that rosy, I’ll discuss this more later.

Now, lets go back to corporate culture.

Having worked for a number of hardware base companies, I can tell you it requires a huge change in mindset to develop a software solution that is not perceived as an afterthought or a slave to the hardware. I know Nokia has tried, but I belief it is just too big to make both hardware and software and equal part of its DNA.

Running a large corporate behemoth is not an easy task. You need to take the good and the bad together. A quick culture change is possible, but you have to fire everyone. Something most companies will not do. Going forward, the only way is for Nokia to leverage on its strengths and find help to cover its weaknesses.

The huge ship (Titanic?) analogy works here. Once it starts heading in one direction, it is going to be very difficult to change route quickly. Essentially, the mobile industry, lead by Apple, bypassed Nokia and headed in a different direction. Apple redefined the mobile phone industry by starting out with a niche premium phone that soon became the mainstream industry standard. If we consider how Android phones filled up the mid to bottom end nicely, you pretty much have the Smartphone market lock down tight.

So I ask you, if you were Nokia and wanted to survive what would you do?

One way is creating your own ecosystem and this is where Nokia needs Microsoft’s help. This sounds rather crazy, but not so when you consider this; companies, the size of Nokia, don’t play to get by, they play to win. If they can’t win or come in a credible second they are good as dead anyway. Their overheads will just flatten them.

At the other end of the alliance, Microsoft also suffers from similar issues. As mobility is seen as the future of computing, Microsoft has faced much criticism for not being able to create a credible mobile OS platform, hardware included. With notable failures such as the Kin behind them, Microsoft can now focus on their software platform. As it is, they are already having so much trouble keeping up with the competition. I’m sure Microsoft is probably not perfect for Nokia, but under the circumstances, they are the best option.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Android. In fact I think it is a great platform. Android did not want to compete with the Apples and Blackberrys of the world, and instead cleverly crafted an open sourced strategy that has made them the second largest Smartphone operating system in the world. How they did it was by essentially “sleeping” with everyone. Call it promiscuous if you like. However, if you actually adjust the Android OS numbers with Smartphone Brands instead, you will get a far different picture.

This discussion here is really not about which platform, but about a brand.

If you take a step back and think about this objectively, there is actually very little differentiation between Android Smartphones. Furthermore, new features such as the recently announced Movie Studio will be made available to everyone.

Again ask yourself, if you were Nokia and you wanted to play to win, how are you going to beat the competition running an OS that is essentially the same as the rest of the market?

A smart friend, who is a tech analyst at a bank, pointed out that with Android it has all come back to the hardware. In other words product differentiation comes in the form of a bigger camera, longer battery life, nicer design, sexier brand etc.

Android as it is now, will likely not have revolutionary changes unless Google takes it in another direction. The smart hardware brands should be very concerned, because if Google does so (and they might), they could lose their entire product range (and millions of dollars in tooling investments) just like that. However as alluded to earlier, with all the software development risk borne by Google, the Android is still the perferred platform for the fast follower or me-too hardware makers who have a hard time developing their own software.

So here is the clincher that many might have missed.

The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft is not just any old handshake, but rather a strategic alliance. As Nokia shares on their blog:

Nokia wouldn’t be just be another Windows Phone OEM. Nokia plans to help drive and define the future of the platform. That could include contributing expertise on hardware optimization, language support, customization of the software and helping bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

This is a huge breakthrough in negotiation, something I bet Google stood firm against. What you may not realize is that there are no favorites on the Android (or even OEM Windows 7 for that matter) platforms. Google releases their software versions to all brands at the same time, so that everyone has an equal chance in implementing the new OS platform.

If you think about it, if anyone wants to beat Apple’s closed ecosystem, Android is not going to be the choice to partner up with. Nokia’s agreement with Microsoft essentially allows Nokia to have a very important strategic competitive advantage against their competition. It will allow them to have mobile phone experiences no one else would have in the market. Android could have been an option 2 years ago when it first came out, but the ship has long since sailed with other brands whom are now enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Of course this alliance is fraught with its own perils. Rather than forcing a large ship to change it’s course, it is now as if two large ships are trying to travel side by side at the same pace. I immediately see challenges in aligning development cycles, business strategy and even go to market activities.

If not for catching wind of the strategic agreement between both brands, I would never bet good money on two big companies trying to work together as equal partners. However if they can work their issues out, I foresee a strong and credible competitor to Apple and their iOS. I wish them both all the best, with a big pat on their backs.

As an endnote to this article, do check out Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s rumored internal email sent to all Nokia employees before the announcement of this alliance. I take my hat off to Stephen; the man has guts.

Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times – his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I’ve shared with you what I’ve heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I’m going to share what I’ve learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion – we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple’s market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.

Let’s not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally – taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we’re not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we’ve lost market share, we’ve lost mind share and we’ve lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody’s took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It’s also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally.

Nokia, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward — a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

Memo via: Mashable.