Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

Wow a burst of link love and pointers from all my friends today seem to revolve around this theme. So I thought to compile it all right here in one place!

1) Managing Successful Client and Designer Relationships: Adaptive Path Blog.

2) Managing a Product’s Experience seems to be the key these days: Core77 Blog.

Transcendent product design is a matter of philosophy and approach. The reason product development has gone wrong is that people stop at the worst time—when the solutions are most convoluted. What Eastman knew, what Jobs knows, is that you have to go beyond; you have to think about the experience people are having.

3) Managing a Creative Environment, perhaps in your studio?

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4) Managing Creativity De Bono Style.

5) Managing the Future of Design!
Martin Konrad’s recent master thesis in industrial design explored the areas of design democracy, personalization, and mass customization. A great read.

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So csven and I were doing our usual “ping-pong” discussion on Twitter. This time we were talking about The Death of Industrial Design. Csven laments that there is a confusion on what an Industrial Designer does, as the world sees it as styling and making beautiful things. Basically it looks like we just do shallow stuff. (Check out the post for more background information.)

Perhaps in my view, has the definition of Industrial Design changed? Perhaps we should not be called Industrial Designers? If so what should we be called?

Here is our Twitter conversation:

designsojourn: LOL The Death of Industrial Design. (I’m not mocking here.)

csven: I still like “Product Designer”, “Product Engineer”, and “Product Stylist” (in comments of post)

designsojourn: I call myself a Design Producer. Don’t you think that is more apt? We can produce anything. Tangible and intangible!

csven: Confusing I think; “design” as a noun. To me it’s an activity.

csven: When I hand off a “design”, I’m really handing over a solution (drawing, 3D file, model). Product also tangible/intangible.

designsojourn: I’m looking at it as a means to an end. Solution is the end. Means? The process and as a producer we are masters of the process.

csven: so you “produce” a process (e.g. “walk producer”). Fine. But does that not further confuse the definition of “design”?

designsojourn: Perhaps. But it implies a means to an end. Design is less emphasized. Though I do use design strategy, thinking, n problem solving.

What do you guys think? Are we Producers of solutions, ideas and beautiful things? Should we call ourselves Design Producers, and are our roles just like the Producers in film and media?

Check out some of my other thoughts on this issue as well:
1) The future of the Industrial Design Discipline
2) Starck says Design is Dead, yet Again?

In honor of Earth Day, Adam Richardson, Director of Product Strategy at Frog Design has shared a presentation he gave to introduce Frog Design during the “Design Green Now” panel discussions.

As Adam mentions, comes across a little light little without his supporting talk, but it does give you an idea of what Frog is doing to save the earth. Thanks for sharing it Adam.

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I would suggest that you actually view it in full screen size, so that you can make out some of the more interesting details in the presentation. Check it out at Slideshare.

One of my big interests as a Strategic Designer, is in the field of marketing, advertising and branding. In particular this whole buzz about new media and its impact on today’s consumers. This is also one of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. I always believe, the best way to find out about something is to do it.

From my stand point as a designer, I have always found the consumer behavior part of marketing most intriguing and a very important aspect of the profession of Industrial Design. It is unfortunate that it is not stressed enough in schools in favor of the more engineering requirements. (Which is also equally important.)

Daily, I lament on how it is now getting harder to design products that consumers want. The Internet has influenced how we buy things, and as a result, consumers as we know it have change. Consumers are no fools, and we cannot treat them as such, for example by selling them inferior products tempered by price. Armed with the knowledge derived from the Internet such Uber-consumers (or Pro-sumers as Joseph calls them) have not only the know-how, but the voice to influence how people will see you, your product, and your brand. Times, they are a changing for world of marketing, as we are heading into a word of “new consumerism”

Logically, if Marketing and Advertising has to change, how we study and research our consumers and their behavior has to change as well. Otherwise how are we as designers able to gain critical insight and develop successful products?

Thus late last year when a New Media Marketing blog by Joseph Jaffe that I follow, conducted an experiment called “Use New Marketing to Prove New Marketing (or UNM2PNM in short)” I was very interested. Simply because as a designer I would be now able to better understand this new consumer phenomenon that the consumer electronics business have been struggling to design for in this last couple of years. This phenomenon is basically consumers who are tired of advertising, weary of marketing copy, immune to design eye candy, cynical to product promises and suffering from information overload.

Thus eagerly I signed up and became part of this experiment. The conditions of this experiment was that Joseph would send me and other participants a copy of his Join the Conversation book, and together with his website and the books’ website, we will be able to see and feel first hand the flow and ebb of how consumer see this book. UNM2PNM in its full glory. Very Nice.

However that is just the mechanics, the real “meat and potatoes” of things is actually in the Join the Conversation book. The book itself is an amazing summary of what you might have missed if you have been “living under a rock” since the advent of Social Media and Web 2.0.

While a lot of the terms are not entirely new, especially if you are a serious blogger or a participant in new media, Joseph explains them in a easy to understand and insightful way. To me it even clarified some terms that I had a cursory knowledge of.

More importantly Joseph brings this issue of New Media and how it can be tied back with Marketing. He does this by first describing the Marketing strategies of the past, its mistakes and why it is not working today. Being Marketing trained, I particularly like his description of the “Shot gun approach” to advertising, and the problems with Word-of-mouth marketing. Alot of it had me nodding in agreement.

He also then goes on to describe why the New era of Marketing is all about a conversation with your consumers, and hence the book’s title Join the Conversation. Best of all the second part of the book are Joseph’s strategies and ideas for companies to start having conversations with their customers, and how to take advantage of it.

Unfortunately I am a slow reader, and am about less than half way through the book. This is because I like to read and digest the written work at the same time. But strangely at this time, I sense a great urgency within the book, and that Marketing, Sales, PR and Advertising will need it more that I. As a result the book is instead doing the rounds with various people I know in that industry. (Hi SIL!)

As such, if you are in the above mentioned industry, I urge you to pick this book up ASAP, particularly if you still hold on to your bastion of traditional media. Your job and eventually mine will depend on our understanding of this New Media. My best guess is we have about 6-8 months or less before we go the way of dinosaurs. Yes, it is moving that fast.

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.

There must be a gazillion websites out there on the internet, and subsequently thousands that aggregating or collecting the best stuff from it. The problem is, “product” offerings like Technorati, Plaxo life-streams, FriendFeeds, Digg, PopUrls, Design-Feeds, Design Float etc., all run information through you in a “river of news“. And like anything floating on a river, most of the time it just flows by you unnoticed, unless you have plenty of time to keep your eyes peeled on it.

Thus, when I discovered Alltop, it felt like a breath of fresh air or what I like to call a breath of fresh “online oxygen“.

What I like about Alltop was that it avoids getting into this “river of news” problem. While it essentially does nothing really different from the other sites mentioned above, i.e. it aggregates information, Alltop decided to step outside of the box and innovate by providing a product offering had different way in delivering the information. It is one of the few web products that is focused more on the reader than the person sharing or publishing the information.

This is sort of what the iPod and iTunes did for the Mp3 industry. In terms of components, the iPod is not much different from any other Mp3 player, but together with iTunes, it created a delivery experience others find hard to beat.

A good metaphor is that Alltop is an “online magazine rack” that displays the news from the top publications and blogs. Our goal is to satisfy the information needs of the 99% of Internet users who will never use an RSS feed reader or create a custom page. Think of it as “aggregation without the aggravation.”

When I first saw the site I liked it right away. But it was not until I read Guy’s announcement explaining that the site was supposed to be an “online magazine rack”, that I truly understood what it really aimed to do. What’s even better is that I use a RSS feed reader! So I believe, if they can even convert the RSS feed readers you have something good going on here.

We can draw many interesting parallels with this ideology to the product development situation we have today. We are surrounded by a “sea” of products, many of which are variations of the same thing. Similarly, the internet environment contains much of the same; blogs, social networks and aggregators that are more or less the same but only differentiated with superficial eye candy. And like physical products, all are trying to outdo each other for a consumer’s limited mental or monetary resources. It is the sites (or products) that really focus on the usability, innovation, and becoming “insanely useful” that makes difference.

Ultimately though, what I really appreciate is Guy’s use of a metaphor, or what he also calls a “Mantra”. This is just a simple strategic statement or plan that describes what this “thing” aims to do. Just like a any good business plan, great products also need good and clear Mantras or strategies to cut through the clutter and help keep us all on track. Try it and see how much quicker and faster getting to your design solutions will become. Remember only use one sentence and be as succinct as possible. This is not about creating a boring mission statement.

By the way, I’m also proud to be a citizen of Alltop, check me out in the design section:

The image speaks for itself. Thanks David.

Edit: Check out the full slide from David’s slide share.

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?

Image collage from Modu

Recently we covered Bug Lab’s modular mobile phone, where it was essentially a CPU “brain” that you can attach modules that you would purchased as you require it. Modu’s modular mobile phones takes this same concept but looks at it from another point of view. They start with a fully functional “brain” unit, and you then buy sleeves or what Modu calls “Jackets” which you slide the modular phone brain into it.

These “Jackets” allow frequent changes when ever you need it, and no doubt will be styled and sold as fashion accessories. Therefore with a flick of your wrist, you can have increased and customised functionality based on your requirements. These “Mated” devices could be digital content players, digital cameras, gaming consoles, business machines, Teen chat boxes and even desktop radios probably with News or Blog RSS feeds.

Honestly I am undecided on which strategy and approach is better, though I am leaning towards Bug Lab’s approach. The Bug Lab’s product strategy is more on a Lego building block level which is more efficient but could be slightly more technical and difficult to use. On the other hand, Modu’s feels higher up the food chain and is more like a Hub that can jump in-between products. My guess is Modu would be easier to use, though the product cost would be significantly higher (eg. doubling up of displays on both the “Brain” and “Jacket”). Regardless it looks pretty promising, even though the Modu seems to be in the concept phase. I look forward to the product launch, which is expected to be in Q4 2008.

Alec Saunders has written a great article on Nokia’s mobile phone product strategy. While the article just touches on Industrial Design, he gives good examples on how product strategies, combined with a good understanding of the consumer, is used to drive innovative designs for Nokia.

Nokia’s Juha Kokonnen, product director for the “Explore devices” explains:

Nokia products are divided into five categories for five separate markets:

The Explore line is the technical leadership product line. These are the N-series phones which push the boundaries of what a phone is.

The Live and Classic lines are the broad appeal products. These can be inspirational in nature, supporting one particular feature very well, or style oriented.

The Achieve line is focused on the enterprise. These are the E-series phones and smart phones.

The Entry line is focused on low end phones and emerging markets.

What I found particularly interesting was how Nokia follows a strategy similar to that of Sony. Called the “Sunrise/Sunset” strategy, what happens here is new, perhaps premium, features are introduced in top end models. If proved successful and well received by the market, the technology is, what I like to call, “trickled” down to the more mainstream models. This often happens, when the technology becomes more mature and hence cheaper. Also by this time, the market would have caught up and competition would have increased, resulting in Nokia making such features standard in their products with wider appeal. This is also quite similar to what is happening in the Digital Camera or any technology product market.

Saunders does the work for us by listing examples of when these new technologies and features were introduced by Nokia, and when they became standard:

From a time line perspective, the features introduced have consistently debuted in one or two devices one year, and then migrated to the entire product line within 12 months. And what we can see is that the Nokia product line is being optimized around music, the internet, photos and video, and now navigation.

2005
- camera phones with 2 megapixels introduced.

2006
- 2 megapixels standard across N series product line
- 3.2 megapixel cameras, navigation, WiFi and music introduced

2007
- 3.2 megapixels, music, navigation and WiFi standard across N Series product line
- 5 megapixel cameras introduced, with 8M solid state storage

2008
- 3.2 megapixels, navigation and music migrate to 6200 series broad appeal phones

Saunders concludes with a fantastic observation of Nokia’s phone strategy in comparison to Blackberry or iPhone. He rightly concludes that Nokia’s competitors create phones designed for content consumption, while Nokia’s aim is to create phones that are for content consumption AND creation. Great observation! This has been floating in the back of my mind for awhile now and he has summed it up beautifully.

I encourage you to read his entire article fully, as he goes into great depth explaining how Nokia’s strategy has been realised in the current range of phones. A great read and justification of why Nokia is still the best mobile phone company today.