Design Sojourn

Friend and ex-colleague Pernilla Johansson, Design Director at Electrolux, shares her story about her career in design and how she got into it. You might remember Pernilla in my interview with her during the 2009 ICSID congress on the Future of Food Preparation. Here are some selected excerpts.

6. I keep my creative juices alive by…

Sharing and discussing ideas with open minded and open hearted people, keeping my eyes open to observe the small details that makes a difference and by listening to other people. It’s about opening up the sense of intuition, by combining the impressions and process them creatively. There is no end to creative ideas, the challenge is to make ideas come to life in a successful way.

11. Tell us an insider secret about the home appliances industry that the general public doesn’t know about

It’s actually a very interesting and exciting category to work in. The old term “white goods” is still often used as a description, but the market has shifted light years away. Today it’s all about lifestyle and interior. Appliances are reliable tools that needs to integrate and serve. I think we will see great shifts in the future as we are entering deeper into the Digital Age.

Some interesting thoughts and advice for budding designers. Check out the full interview at The Little White Book.

Edit: Broken link fixed!

Sorry friends I had almost forgot this week’s discussion post until Duane Harrison triggered me with a question on twitter. I had little time for blogging this week as I have been pushing to close a lot of issues before a business trip to Hong Kong next week.

So what defines a “professional” designer? Join the conversation here and on twitter!

Here is my reply to get the ball rolling.

And some other replies from friends of Design Sojourn:

Let’s do something different this Friday, shall we? Maybe we can turn this into a regular Friday discussion forum?

Last night on Twitter, I mentioned that I discussed over drinks that “Design is a Lifestyle.”. The following morning I got some very interesting replies. So I thought it might be fun to turn this twitter discussion into a blog discussion that is much easier for everyone to track.

I hope that this would be easier for you to be part of the conversation by getting an opportunity to have your say or share your thoughts in a back and forth manner. You can leave your thoughts in the comments below, or via Twitter. I’ll try to keep track of all your replies and post them here in a chronological order as best as I can.

Please do pass the word along or retweet this post so that we can invite as many people to the party as we can?

———-

Here are some of replies I got this morning:

I’m looking forward to reading all of your comments and being part of this conversation. And if you are interested, these Twitter updates was created by the very cool Blackbird Pie.

Edit: Here they are!

Peter Bregman shares why he returned his iPad:

The brilliance of the iPad is that it’s the anytime-anywhere computer. On the subway. In the hall waiting for the elevator. In a car on the way to the airport. Any free moment becomes a potential iPad moment.

The iPhone can do roughly the same thing, but not exactly. Who wants to watch a movie in bed on an iPhone?

So why is this a problem? It sounds like I was super-productive. Every extra minute, I was either producing or consuming.

But something — more than just sleep, though that’s critical too — is lost in the busyness. Something too valuable to lose.

Boredom.

Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that’s where creativity arises.

My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These “wasted” moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital.

They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They’re the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen.

To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What’s worse is that we don’t just lose them. We actively throw them away.

I don’t totally agree with Peter, but I do get his point. Perhaps it is his use of the word “boredom” that does not sit right with me, as I associate boredom with a negative frame of mind or an idle/lazy mindset. But his point is clear; it is when our minds are going through a downtime that the ideas hit.

This reminds me of another recent post on the New York Times blog, Your Brain on Computers: Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price, that flows along these same lines. The Internet’s easy access of information encourages online addiction and fosters multitasking behavior that leads to lower productivity, and in Peter’s case, creativity.

It seems that the iPad is, or going to become, the ultimate consumption device and we will pay the price for its eventual ubiquity. The reality is that there is a consequence for every choice we make.

So the next time you want to get creative, get off the computer, stop surfing the Internet, quit browsing design magazines, and turn off the iPad. Take a break (or a walk) and do something that does not require information processing of any kind.

Quote via Harvard Business Review.

While researching standard A paper sizes for my latest Spaces for Ideas designs, I stumbled upon this great little site that contains this really clear and awesome diagram of how all the A paper sizes (A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7 etc.) relate to each other and how they came to be.

A Series Paper Sizes Defined

The A series paper sizes are defined in ISO 216 by the following requirements:

* The length divided by the width is 1.4142

* The A0 size has an area of 1 square meter.

* Each subsequent size A(n) is defined as A(n-1) cut in half parallel to its shorter sides.

* The standard length and width of each size is rounded to the nearest millimeter.

Not really industrial design related, but useful information nonetheless as I can’t remember the number of times I had figure out the paper sizes when setting up or sending drawings to the plotter. Don’t forget to copy the image or print it out and stick it somewhere convenient.

Via: Papersizes.org.

Ariane Prin, a Masters student at RCA, shares her thinking and conceptual process behind her Air Hair Project: hair dryer for hairdressers.

As part of my survey, I visited many hairdressers and I was able to observe that they use the hairdryer for approximately 4.5 hours a day but that this was not very well adapted. They taught me that this object has to be smaller, lighter, wireless, that they often use the same nozzle, and that the switch allowing distinct levels of power is useless because they habitually use the maximum mode.

The most impressive thing is the fact that a majority of hairdressers do not use the handle because they cannot be precise, then efficient, then rapid, then have a lot of clients, and earn a lot of money. They hold it by the body of the object even if this is the hottest part. Moreover, at the end of their career, 70% of the hairdressers have wrist and shoulder articulation problems.

This is for all those reasons that I started to work on the ergonomics of the hairdryer. I have made research on different shapes in blue foam and I came back to the hairdressers to decide together what could be the three most adapted shapes.

The fascinating part of her process is what I like to call “design by making”. Ariane jumps head on into making sketch models from her sketches to test out her form. As you can see, her meaningful design solutions was because she got real quick. Sadly, this sort of “design by making” methodology is almost hardly done these days.

Designers are getting lazy due to the easy access to CAD (yes you!), as CAD is a much “cleaner” way of doing design. I myself am also guilty of this. Unfortunately by going from sketch straight to CAD, you lose the opportunity to get in touch with the “feel” of an object, its proportions, its weight, and the ergonomics.

You may say that this should be limited to products like hair dryers of mobile phones. However if the car industry still sculpts and refines the lines of a concept car in clay, I don’t see why we should give up this crucial step in our design process?

When was the last time you got “real” quick? How early in your design process did you get “real”? You might also be surprised to know that by getting “real” quick you could speed up your design process, as you can get to your design solution quicker and make less mistakes or iterations. So why not give it a try in your next design project?

Via: Core77.

Bill Buxton reflects:

As a person who tries to be creative and have new ideas, it’s interesting to be reminded of how few ideas I actually have. Could it be that the two main skills and acts of creativity are (a) forget what you said before, and (b) have sufficient creativity to say that same thing repeatedly and dress it up in a sufficiently different way that even I think it’s a different idea?

As someone who has written a ton of stuff on design and creativity, and deals daily with intellectual currency, I have to say that I agree with Bill’s introspective. The challenge is how do you break out of this looping cycle, or risk becoming like the many people/blogs/websites that I have stopped listening or subscribing to.

After you recycle creativity, you should reinvent it.

Via: Mix Online

Entertainment designer Feng Zhu writes:

There are two parts to drawing. One is the technical execution of drawing itself – a pure mechanical skill. This is the hand-eye-brain coordination which can be trained and perfected over time. For example, by drawing something everyday in a sketchbook for 1 year straight, you will definitely draw better at the end of the 365 days. Therefore, it’s no wonder young students who drew “all their life” tends to accelerate quickly and learn much faster in school. They’ve had 10+ years of training their eyes, hands and brain to work together as one.

The second part has to do with understanding and building of the visual libraries in your brain. A designer’s job is to solve problems. But to solve a problem, you first have to understand the subject matter. By analyzing what you are drawing, you fill your brain with potential solutions and visual ideas. Some of these elements include the understanding of forms, perspective, materials, lighting, and composition. On the visual library side, by sketching subjects such as birds, plants, airplanes, cars, insects, people, etc. you slowly introduce your brain to the shapes and proportions which make up these subjects.

The second part is actually much more important than the first. It is the building of these “visual libraries” that allows someone to move from drawing to designing and beyond…

Draw Forest, Draw!

Check out the full article at FZD School of Design.

Edit: Due to unforeseen circumstances this presentation has been postponed to 23 April 2010.

Click for a larger image!

Most long time followers of Design Sojourn will remember I use to blog a lot about hints and tips on “How to be a Better Designer”. Even though these days I blog more about Strategic Design, I still do blog about self-improvement here occasionally, but mainly over at Yanko Design. You can still find much of it here categorized under “Designing Designers“.

Fortunately, I was recently asked by Feng Zhu School of Design to be part of their monthly design forum where they host a local designer to present a topic of interest. They asked me if I would be interested to share my thoughts on how designers can better themselves.

This was when “Designing Designers” was reborn, this time as a presentation!

Here is the synopsis of my presentation I submitted to FZD Design School:

Title of the event:
Designing Designers

General outline of the presentation:
What can designers do to survive in today’s hyper competitive design industry? Designers can and should take the time to design themselves as much as they do their products. Come and listen to tips and tricks, hits and misses, tall tales and short stories from a designer that lived and worked for almost 13 years in the trenches.

Apt event name don’t you think? I aim for the content of this presentation to be in the same spirit as the content here on this blog. So if you are in Singapore on 9th April 2010, you are invited to come listen, discuss, debate, laugh and cry (tears of joy I hope!). Check out the flyer graphic above for more information?

By the way, the presentation will be angled and be made as generic as possible so that designers of all disciplines will find the information relevant and interesting. I look forward to seeing you all!

Edit: Due to unforeseen circumstances this presentation has been postponed to 23 April 2010.

The last time we mentioned A Fine Line was when we took a look a Hartmut Esslinger’s interview by Guy Kawasaki.

This time I have a little treat to share with you. The founder of Frog Design himself sharing a few words of wisdom probably extracted from his book: A Fine Line (there it is again!).

I like his opening line:

Business must understand what they will achieve with designers. And Designers have to understand they have to deliver substantial change, going to the root to deliver something else. (edited!)

The next one is also a keeper:

Design is not a democracy, design is about quality.

Check out the rest of Hartmut’s thoughts in the video after the jump.

A few wonderful points at the end on managing designers, and how organizations need to adjust to designers not the other way around, especially if you are serious in treating talents like talents.

Via: swissmiss