Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

First of all, I like to apologize for the lack of my usual “insanely useful” design articles lately. I have been in the last couple of months really busy resettling back in Singapore. Not only that, work has been really busy as we have kicked off a good year of product development. Lastly as the title of this post alludes to, I have been working on something that I would like to give back to the Design Industry that I love so much.

>Think>Draw>Make> (at www.thinkdrawmake.com) was something that I have been thinking about for quite a bit. This was really born out of my frustration seeing designers both young and old:

• Think & Draw but don’t Make
• Draw & Make but don’t Think
• Think & Make but don’t Draw

Perhaps it is about the failure of educators to teach design in such a manner, or maybe students just forget that 3D does not tell you everything. I don’t really know. However what I do know is this basic principle is vital for creating any form of good design as the reality is this process naturally weeds out the crap from good.

As a result I decided to create this Design Sojourn Mini-Site as a living reminder for everyone of this basic design process, and for the betterment of our Design Industry. A call for designers to be more self-critical and have “Zero Tolerance for Poor Design”.

No only that, as I am also a big fan of design visualizations, I have open this site to anyone interested in submitting their interpretation of what their favorite design process is. It does not necessary have to be about Think/Draw/Make per say, but about what they think it could be. This then opens the many design processes to dialogs and debate. Hopefully we can all learn something from this. Regardless it would make a great repository of process visualizations for your next design presentation!

So I like to encourage all design sojourn readers, designers and non-designers, in fact anyone who uses design and creative principles at work to submit their version of their Design process. Not to worry, there will be full kudos to the designer, and the site will be 100% Ad free. It is a public service announcement after all.

If you are interested in submitting your interpretation, do email me a 550 x 450 pixle Jpeg to: dt [at] designsojourn.com

I look forward to hearing from all of you soon! Please keep in touch.

Personally as Head of Industrial Design for an in-house design department I find this quote particularly interesting and quite an accurate reflection of creativity in most corporate environments.

In a recent survey by our company, eight out of 10 in-house designers said it’s difficult to convince senior management to accept ideas that deviate from the prevailing corporate style. And more than a quarter of respondents cited their company’s unwillingness to take risks as the most frequent obstacle to creativity. ~The Creative Group

After this quote, The Creative Group provides 7 suggestions on how to overcome barriers to creativity in the corporate world. Much of it is a no brainer, but a good reminder for all of us. My comments are listed after each point.

1) Design is not just ‘window dressing.’ ~ It is a strategic competitive advantage that covers the organization’s needs and future goals.

2) Work on your soft skills. ~ Watercooler talk is vital for getting the buy in.

3) Educate and enlighten. ~ Designers need to take the creative lead and help educate and drive product innovation strategies.

4) Build your case. ~ Designers need to wear different hats and understand who they are speaking to.

5) Give examples. ~ Case studies help in reducing risk and the unknown.

6) Avoid jargon. ~ Design talk in a language people can understand. So read Design Sojourn!

7) Show you’re a winner. ~ Winning design awards inspires and encourages trust in the designer’s ability to do it right.

Check out the rest of the details in the full article at Designophy

However if you are hungry for more information on this is issue, I’ve written quite a few articles focusing on this same point here at Design Sojourn. Here are my tips in the form of links to articles.
1) The Corporate Designer’s Survival Guide

2) Why do I always get rejected? 10 tips on how to get the “buy in”. This article comes in 2 parts: Part 1 and Part 2

3) Six Tips for Managing Design or Specification “Creep”

4) Intrapreneurship in an Asian context. Possibility or Myth?

Enjoy!

Image by: Jane

Fellow designer blogger KK has uncovered a great representation on the value of ideas in relation to a success of a business. Derek Sivers, in his post for O’Reilly, conceptualises an idea vs. execution formula, which I have reproduced here. Sivers writes:

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
I’m not interested until I see their execution.

I have always believed that this is the big difference between a designer and non-designer, or an artist and a non-artist. Perhaps even an amateur versus a professional, you see it all comes down to execution.

People always point out a piece of modern art to me and say “well even I could do this”. I would then politely point out, “no you can’t, you don’t have the means or the know how to do it”.

The same with products. “God why can’t everyone be like Apple?” and my answer is “well we can’t because we either don’t have the means or the know how to do it”. Most of the time it is really the lack of the “means” or the unwillingness to put in the “means”.

Being in the design business for quite a few years now, I am surprised how many people (designers and non-designers alike) are so afraid to share their ideas. The point here is that ideas are dime a dozen, and like T-shirts, most of the people in world have them. What you do with them is the key.

The rest is all talk and talk is cheap.

For designers don’t let yourself fall into this same trap as great ideas are the name of our game. Look at it this way, having lots of ideas are like planting saplings. It is the bouncing, sharing and interaction of these ideas that turn them into strong trees.

So what have you shared today?

We designers have got it tough.

We seem to get blamed for almost everything these days. From seemingly lack of sustainable efforts to poor packaging or just lousy product experiences, we seem to cop it all. However the reality is we cannot and should not feel as we are entirely to blame.

As Bill Buxton lamented in his recent keynote speech “The Design Ecosystem” during the Interaction 08 Interaction Design conference:

He (Buxton) started off by emphasizing that designers alone cannot take credit for any great business solution; everyone in an organization has equal value – and he noted the tripod of design, engineering and sales. He spoke about Apple’s success and the industry’s tendency to credit its principal designer Jonathan Ive. While Apple certainly turned itself around through industrial design, admits Buxton who is a principal scientist at Microsoft Research, credit is as much due to the Apple lawyers who managed to convince the major record labels to let them sell their songs for 99 cents each, and to the advertising team who came up with the unmistakable silhouette commercials. Via: Pleasure and Pain

The flip side of this can be also true. If something goes wrong, it is therefore not always the designer’s fault, though he is always the first scapegoat. So we should not be too hard on ourselves nor take ourselves too seriously all the time.

Often there are forces that move around us that are way beyond our control. Thus when a project is running away from the design intent or component creep is causing a design to spiral into the depths of fatness, I have found the best thing to do at anyone one time is to use the power of a recommendation. While we can’t be blamed entirely, we still have a duty as designers to say something especially if it impacts the environment.

A recommendation is a powerful form of a suggestion. The great thing is that it steps on no one’s toes, as is not a commandment or a must do. Also it highlights the fact that you are making a point, while not bruising other egos as it still defers the ultimate responsibility to the decision maker. Also when you make a recommendation, it is also processed in the other person’s memory as an option and thus a powerful influencer on making a decision that you might want.

So the next time, when you need a client to accept a proposal, or a design direction, try making a recommendation instead!

Oh do check out Bills hard hitting keynote as well as he does do a good job laying it on us!

Image: Thumbs Down by CraigPJ

About time I got to this one and I though it makes a great post to face the year end with!

I also hope to keep this as a living document that gets constantly updated (with additional input from all my readers), and a good reference guide for industrial designers that want to learn to rule the world!

1) Looking at other products for inspiration.

2) Not creating or studying the design brief.

3) Not checking if the concept fulfils the design brief.

4) Spending too much time on the computer.

5) Not improving their sketch communication skills.

6) Not improving their verbal communication skills.

7) Not making a concept model because they were lazy or not wanting to get dirty.

8) Coming to work late.

9) Not understanding that a design is not theirs but the company’s.

10) Getting too emotionally involved in their designs.

11) Not being friends with Engineering.

12) Forgetting to compromise.

13) Not being friends with Marketing.

14) Mistaking arrogance for confidence.

15) Forgetting Industrial Design requires multi-disciplinary skills.

16) Being disorganized in mind and/or space.

17) Poor Time management.

18) Not planning a 3D construction process before doing 3D modelling.

19) Designing in a 3D program.

20) Forgetting to document their work.

21) Forgetting that there are costs impacts to design decisions.

22) Not including draft angles and part lines in 3D models or design files.

23) Forgetting to save work or worst deleting it by accident.

24) Not thinking through a design to the very end and it gets ripped to shreds.

25) Forgetting that a presentation board is also a design element.

Edit: User submitted content!

26) Over satisfied with the first design. (by Design Monkey)

27) Sketching the same design over and over again. (by Design Monkey)

28) Making things that can be produced instead of creating “insanely” great products. (by Idris Mootee)

29) Forgetting the goal of design is to improve not just make something different. (by Dave Pinter)

30) Being apathetic to sustainable and green design. (by Dave Pinter)

I have always felt and encouraged designers to update their trusty (probably rusty) portfolios at least every 6 months. While many designers feel that they should only update their portfolios when they are looking for new work or job hunting, I find there are another few reasons why it should be done more frequently.

The period you stay in a job can last anywhere from 1 year to 5 years or more. If you were like me in a busy consultancy, you could be working on new projects every 3 to 6 weeks. At the end of 1 year you could have accumulated upwards of 20 design projects! This would be a major investment in time and effort if you needed to update your portfolio right away. Furthermore there could be instances that you can’t find the right images and data for your portfolio because it was lost in that data pile of mess you call a server, or some errant intern could have deleted it. (Has happened!)

Often times, a portfolio crunch comes when you need to update your portfolio for a potential job opportunity, and like most good job opportunities, they do not wait. I had interviewed designers that kept on saying they have better and newer work, as well as gave up waiting on designers to submit their portfolios. Needless to say they did not even get considered for the job. Having a constantly updated portfolio, means you are ready to grab that fantastic job opportunity that rarely comes by in our all too competitive world.

Finally and most importantly, frequently updating your portfolio means you get to take stock of what you have accomplished. In our daily grind of spinning 3D models, managing vendors, and sanding foam etc. we tend to forget that whatever we do is an extra notch in our belt or that it is a foundation stone that builds our career as designers. So by regularly updating your portfolio work, you might find that you feel a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment of what you have done so far. It also allows you to access areas in design that you might or want to improve on. Hopefully this will allow you to rise above that daily grind many designers gripe about and from my experience, its only when you do rise above it that you will achieve greatness.

So do try updating that dusty portfolio and let me know how it feels?

On the side note for my non-designer readers, the same effect can be felt by updating your resume or CV frequently.

Our budding young Industrial Designer David is back this week with a new question on his education and training in Industrial Design. He asks:

If I were to take up a course such as Engineering/Industrial Design double degree or take something up like Product Design Engineering, would it give me a better edge in the competitive world of jobs?

Or would taking up a Bachelor of Industrial Design be sufficient to get jobs?

Right now I’m tossing up between the two. Problem is that my maths is average and my chemistry is no better. (They are subjects required to get into the engineering courses)

Oh, also, sorry to be intrusive, but what course did you do and where? Like did you just do a Bachelor of ID or did you take a double degree as well?

First off David, not to worry my design background is not a big secret so I don’t mind sharing it with you. I graduated with a Bachelor of Industrial Design (Hons) from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. I was one of their first few graduates. Currently I believe the course is doing well with a few notable award winning graduates with big name brands or employed in the design consultancies in Australia. If you like more information do check out their course website here.

Types of Industrial Education

There are essentially 2 types of Industrial Design courses or degrees. One is an art based approached and the other is a multi-disciplinary approach.

The Art School or Art based approach focuses on the styling and form creation and the nuances that come with such creative approach to design. They are also very craft base with lots of exploration with materials and different manufacturing processes. Often such degree courses require you, as an admission criteria, to have a portfolio of strong varied work done while you were in high school or during your past time.

Some of the art school advantages are that graduates are very strong in their understanding of form and in form development. However these students may need a lot of tutoring when it comes to making their designs more commercially viable or fiesable in manufacturing. These days though the art school graduates have become a lot better those aspects, but purely technical design work, such as case part design, will not be their strong point.

The other type of Industrial Design course focuses on a more multi-disciplinary approach, and is the approach that I studied at UNSW. This course structure finds it roots from a more European approach toward Industrial Design which believes that a successful product needs to consider all aspects of its success including marketing, ergonomics, engineering, manufacturing and design constraints. The students often take, in addition to design subjects, classes in the schools of Business and Engineering. This often results in design graduates that are well suited for commercial environments. Entry into such courses often don’t require a portfolio, but may require some ability in maths.

The advantage of a multi-disciplinary approach is that graduates get a strong understanding in what it takes to create a successful product as well as strong research and analytical skills. The down side is such graduates may not always be sensitive when it comes to form or design languages.

Choices?

At the end of the day, David, you need to look at this from a stand point of what sort of design career you want to have of the type of products you want to design. If you like to do boutique design work, the likes of Marc Newson or Karim Rashid, then an art school approach is for you. If you prefer are more commercial approach like working for brands like Nokia or Philips then a more multi-disciplinary approach will give you the skills you need.

Engineering work is also a good entry point, and creative engineers are in very high demand. But the scope of engineering often focuses on detailed work that considers manufacturing and materials processes. The reason for high math is the amount of calculations required to do those work.

I like to close this post to say that you might like to study the product development process in detail and identify which level you might like to “play” at. In fact there is one other degree you might like to consider which is a business degree in Marketing. At the end of the day though, I personally picked a multi-disciplinary approach simple because I wanted exposure and skills in both marketing and engineering as if I had failed as a designer, at least I would have the skills to move in those other directions!

This week’s question is from David, and avid 11 grader looking to get into a career in design. Wow they start young these days don’t they?

He writes:

I stumbled upon this blog by accident. I was actually typing in Google: “Sketching Tips” and found your article on the 11 tips. I’m still trying to work on my sketching skills.

Sorry before I continue, I should tell you a little a bit about myself. I’m a year 11 student, recently an Industrial Designer came into our Visual Communication class and introduced us to ID techniques. He basically taught us how to render with markers, ink wash and using Adobe Illustrator. I got a feel for it and I am loving it.

I have loved drawing since I was a kid. I’m good at copying a drawing really well. Yet this is going to sound contradictory, but sometimes I make up details without sticking to what is there. Haha.

Sorry I’m am getting side tracked, the reason I wanted to contact you was to get some advice. Right now, I am trying to develop my sketching skills AS WELL AS my design skills. Unfortunately, I have not been able to tap into the thinking outside the box bit.

I have tried some of your tips. Like Drawing with pen and such. I am making progress, but my drawings tend to look really flat and well, doesn’t have any punch when you look at it. Guess you will understand if I send you some of them. I hope to hear from you if possible. It would be great to learn from someone as great at design as you.

First of all, thanks for the great compliments.

You have now touched on an amazing point and one of the reasons why someone that can draw does not necessary make a good designer. Drawing is a technical skill that essentially reproduces on paper what the eye sees. It is to a certain extent sort of a biological photocopier if you would like. Of cause there is that interpretation element, but at the end of the day if you focus too much on drawing what will result is that you will have the ability to draw what you see, but not what you think.

To switch into designer mode, what you should be doing is now thinking of a shape or form and then using your technical skill of drawing to visualise it on paper. Have I lost you so far? Thus with this in mind, I continue to argue that you don’t have to have amazing drawing skills to be a great designer. Your drawing skills needs to be good enough to communicate what you have though up in your mind.

From your comments, the fact you are finishing up your sketches by making up details is a great start. This means you are starting to put in your own design thought into the drawing. Going forward what you now need to do is to improve your design sense or what elements make up a good design. This can be done in concurrent with your drawing ability.

1) Look for some books that describe design fundamentals or basic elements of design. It will talk about how a point, line, shape, volume, composition, proportion etc. all work together to make a great design.

2) After that take a conscious effort to not just look at objects around you, but to see it in its elements. Ask yourself when you see a beautiful object what sort of elements (line, shape, composition etc.) makes it a beautiful object. When you look at an ugly object, you ask yourself the opposite, what elements don’t work on this design.

3) Practice what you have observed by taking these objects you find that have poor design, and improve on it by drawing or sketching your designs on paper. Consider if you had to design a similar product, how would you do it.

4) Continue to read, look and see constantly. Design books and magazines as well as the internet all make great sources to inspire you as well as fill up that “design memory bank” in you head. I assume, as you read blogs, you would be computer savvy. So what you should now do is start a photo collection that can contain objects, architecture, environments, textures etc. that will make great source of inspiration in your future designs.

I hope these tips do help, and like anything, keep practising as you bound to get better in time. Also don’t be too hard on yourself, you still have another year to go in high school. But if you keep this up, by the time you get into design school you will be far ahead or any first year designer I have ever seen. Good Luck!

Update: Here are some great links to resources and books that were mentioned in this post.

1) Good books on Design Sketching

2) Do I have to be able to draw well to be a good designer?

3) Tips on how to improve your drawing ability.

You can look at this in another way, as one of my friends like to call it “Don’t Bull Sh*t yourself”, if a work is bad it is bad. That leads to and another oldie but goodie or as what most call it “You Cant Polish Sh*t”.

I think one of the interesting characteristics of good designers is that they have this internal filtering system that consistently allows them to do good work. They intuitively know which of their designs are good, as well as they know how to keep going if their work is not quite there. Not only that, their standards of their own deliverables are very high and can somehow consistently deliver designs that not only hit the mark but also surprise the viewers.

You might argue that to a certain extent good design is subjective, but often the acid test is the general consensus so get as much feedback as you can. However a design genius would bucks this trend as he often walks the lonely path, but honestly if you are one, you properly don’t have this problem anyway!

So how do you know know if you are still treading in the BS zone, so that you can then take the right steps to cross that line into designing success? Here are 8 tips to for you to consider:

1) You can’t explain the objective of your concept in 30 seconds or in a few sentences.

2) You find that you are changing your idea behind your design as a response to critique, as you struggle to justify it to your team.

3) You are still working on the same concept after 20 minutes, and can’t decide if its working or not.

4) You insist you can make your design work and it is really only about just rounding a few edges or working on proportions.

5) You don’t feel happy about your work but complain about the lack of time to do so due to many reasons.

6) You wonder when it is time to stop the designing part and do something else.

7) You stop designing the product or looking for the solution.

8) You let pride cloud your judgement, and continue to insists your design works even when everyone tells you otherwise. (Edit: This is in context of a designer working with other designers or in a design team.)

I always say, I rather designers shortlist their own work, than to get someone else to do it for them. In the end of the day, you will know when your design has hit the mark and justifying it will be easy. In the end, my answer to designers who always lament that they are not happy with their work is “why did you not take the effort to get it right?”

My former lecturer in design used to say that designers need to get into a state of readiness before they can become productive in design work or concept sketching. Some designers require more time, some require less. Some require going through fifty sketches, some require five sketches. Therefore the time required for each designer to get into that productive state is different. The trick is to know what is yours.

The young designers and the designers fresh out of school often require longer times to get into Design Readiness. The problem is most give up before they get there. Fortunately, like wine, it does get better with age. This is one of the reasons also why experienced designers are highly sort after, their ability to come up with ideas quick.

It gets better; you can train your self to be in a state of Design Readiness. There are many different techniques and you have to find what works best for you. However in general, the way to do it is like memorising the times table, every time you discuss design try to visualise how it would look like as a complete product. For example, if you are in a concept review, and some one suggests making your concept longer, sketch that suggestion in your mind. Or if you are flipping through a magazine of surfing the myriad of design aggregators out there and you discover a wonderful material or detail, visualise how it would look like as a product.

Now, it does not have to be 100% perfect visualisation. In fact it would be better to keep it as a sketch visualisation. The next step, though not always necessary, is to get it on to paper to solidify the idea. The thing you really want to do, as my lecturer used to say, is to warm up your creativity or in my example to keep your mind running warm. Just like a warm car engine, it always moves to peak efficiency a lot quicker.

Now here is a challenge, if you really want to stretch your mental engine, think of 3 or more variations of the idea when you get that mental trigger!