Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog » Strategy and Management

Is Industrial Design Dead?

DT — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:37:38 +0000

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?

Frog Design’s Earth Day Presentation

DT — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:01:49 +0000

In honor of Earth Day, Adam Richardson, Director of Product Strategy at Frog Design has shared a presentation on "Design Green Now". As Adam, mentions it does miss a little without the supporting talk, but it does give you an idea of what Frog is doing to save the earth.

| View | Upload your own

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.

New Era Marketing is all about Joining the Conversation

DT — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:26:38 +0000

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?

An Exercise Born Out of Frustration

DT — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:09:40 +0000

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.

The Best “Products” Have Really Simple Strategies

DT — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:46:52 +0000

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".

The Future of Creativity and Design

DT — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:33:06 +0000

The image speaks for itself. Thanks David.

Everyone has Ideas, How You Execute them is What Matters

DT — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:01:24 +0000

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.

Modu’s Modular Mobile Phones

DT — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:00:58 +0000

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.

Nokia’s Mobile Phone Strategy

DT — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:24 +0000

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.

Awesome new Motion Controller may just kill the Nintendo Wii

DT — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:32:23 +0000

Motus Games, a subsidiary of Motus Corporation, has developed the Darwin Controller of which they tout is the future of Motion Based Entertainment, and the natural evolution of the Wii Controller. Using their R&D experience in developing motion sensing gear used in Golf and Medial applications, the Darwin Controller is apparently a lot more refined in the sensing of your motion thus giving you true 6 degrees of freedom.

How we give birth to a Gadget?

DT — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:04:59 +0000

Image: Courtesy of Seagate Wired Magazine has done a case study on the Industrial Design creation of the Free Agent portable hard drive between Seagate and Frog Design. While I had high hopes in getting a closer look at Frog Design's Industrial Design process, the article does not quite hit the mark.

8 Important Consumer Trends to Look Out for in 2008

DT — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:53:14 +0000

Early this year I wrote about the Top 5 consumer trends to watch for 2007 and how it relates to Industrial Design. Following tradition, here we go again for 2008, and this time it is a little earlier and hopefully will help all of us be a better prepared in our never ending push to identify, synthesize and create a product that could become the next big thing. Once again I am tapping in and responding to the large body of research by Trendwatching.com who graciously shares it with the world in their annual report for 2008. The consumer trends that were identified are very wide ranging and have applications in many areas, but the astute designer will realise a lot of it can be applied in your design programs. In particular if you start your design programs with a scenario base strategy as most of what was discussed is about our culture and habits of tomorrow. Even if you don't, its just great information to keep for your lateral thoughts. Here are my thoughts and comments, from an industrial design or product design stand point:

Bill Gates says Good Bye

DT — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:43:13 +0000

This year's 2008 CES Keynote speech is Bill Gates' twelfth and his last as a Microsoft Employee (he is still the Chairman though). He says:

"This will be my last keynote. As of July, I will no longer be a full-time Microsoft employee. Since I was 17 I've had a full-time Microsoft job."

Not sure how well this bodes for the future of Microsoft, but his conceptualised this last day at Microsoft with this video that took me a while to find.

The Biggest Hinderance to Innovation in an Organization is…

DT — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:01:10 +0000

The CEO! Bruce Nussbaum, the person that I see playing an important role in bridging the gap between design/innovation and business, offers up his "Top Ten Innovation Mistakes". While a good read in general, I find his first point is by far the most important and salient.

Is the Amazon Kindle Product 2.0?

DT — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:30:28 +0000

Image Source: Newsweek via engadget The latest buzz on the Internet comes in the form of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. I had first initially dismissed it as another e-book reader, but with time it has come to interestingly reminds me of the good old "Internet Appliance" product that was all the rage in the late 1990's. Launched about 2 weeks ago, it was, according to Engadget, sold out in 5.5 hours!

There is no such thing as a Gphone

DT — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:12:22 +0000

Introducing the Android Open Platform for Mobile Devices

The future relationship of IP and Industrial Design

DT — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:43:33 +0000

Image: Colador 2 by Josep Altarriba Fellow designer blogger csven has written a great article on his observations on the state of Intellectual property and its future impact on Design and of cause Industrial Design as well. Here is an excerpt:

At some point, p2p networks won’t have just mp3 files, they’ll have CAD files. When they do, the first thing that will happen is factories in distant corners of the manufacturing world will start churning out bootleg product at a pace that will make current infringement look like pre-Napster music “sharing”. After that people will start using locally-based fabbing services to rapid manufacture parts the way people used to photocopy stuff at the local copy shop. Eventually, home-based 3D printers (or, possibly in the more distant future, nano-factories) will allow people to fab something as easily as they currently print their digital photos. That’s the future. It’s all up for grabs. Creatives can either try to fight it or they can figure out new business models.

This is a multi-fold discussions with many considerations.

England beating Australia in Rugby World Cup and Creativity

DT — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:09:50 +0000

Last night I, like many people in Australia and around the world, switched off my TV in sadness. England beat my beloved Australian Wallabies 12-10. While I sympathised with the Australia team, I can't help admire the English team's game strategy. The English played the game with 'nads of steel and lots of courage, managing to keep their opponent off balanced using great team work and playing to their strengths. As a result they managed to shut the Australian offence down while still keeping to their own game plan.

Make many Mistakes but make them Early

DT — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:37:53 +0000

Oh Christmas is fast approaching and I am getting fat. I'm currently stressed and when I'm stressed I eat, and so I get fat, all before Christmas comes. I should exercise instead but I don't and I digress. Christmas traditionally is the best time for any company trying to sell products, and at the company I work for it is no different. It it this time that a multitude of different elements all come together so that we can deliver our product to our customer. Marketing materials, quality controls, product buyout, logistical issues, and Industrial Design support to manufacturing, it all comes down to this fourth quarter, and every year its the same.

Question of the week: How do I Hire the Right Designer for me?

DT — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:11:34 +0000

Another fantastic Design Sojourn Reader Question! This week its by Fred from Switzerland. He writes: Hello, I am an avid reader of your blog. I like it’s broad scope and honest opinions. I also like beautiful well-designed products. Which brings me to my question about industrial design. You see, we’re a group of friend with a clever idea [...]