Design Sojourn

First off I like to say a big HELLO to all visitors coming from Yanko Design!

Secondly I like to announce to all Design Sojourn readers that I have accepted an invitation by Takashi Yamada (The Publisher) to join the Yanko Design team an industry consultant.

I know some of you may be wondering “Why?”, so I thought I would share with you some of the background of this partnership.

Takashi had contacted me sometime in the middle of 2008. After a few rounds of getting to know each other better and sharing our views on design, he asked if I would like to join the YD team. However at that time I was going through a transition phase (who’s life isn’t eh?) and was too busy to take our discussion any further.

Earlier this year, I had blogged about this transition and celebrated it with a new look Design Sojourn 4.0. After getting settled in my new role, I got back in touch with Takashi.

One of our key discussion points was how to differentiate the content here at Design Sojourn and at YD. Takashi had originally asked me to carry on what I did here at YD. At first I could not figure out how to differentiate my content between Design Sojourn and YD. However as this blog has now evolved, it is now a lot clearer what I will write at YD.

Design Sojourn will continue to be about “How to master the business of strategic industrial design.” The content will focus on explorations in strategic design management, navigating the different aspects of the entire design process, and getting to the finish line. In short a “helicopter’s” view of Design. This blog will also have snippets or snacks that will help paint a better picture of the multidisciplinary influences to my design strategies. It is a personal design blog after all!

YD articles, on the other hand, will perhaps be more “tactical” in nature. In other words looking back at my original focus of “How to do good design and create clever products.” Even though this blog will focus less on this aspect, it is still very much apart of my daily work and I have decided to continue writing about this at YD.

I like to close this post with some of my thoughts on YD. Many people have criticized YD’s focus on on “Vapor Wear” or Concept Ideas that do not have a shred of realty and thus not representing the realities of Design.

I agree.

However, I see YD as really just about “celebrating the beauty and cleverness of an idea”. Of course, all of us know that coming up with an idea is only 2% of the work required for a successful product. However the idea is the starting point of everything and I notice that we, that are so abused in the design trenches, often forget this. I know I did. A crap idea, well implemented, is still crap. So I hope my time at YD will be a fruitful one as I will have an opportunity to help designers fill in that other 98% by sharing how to take those next steps!

See you around, there or here and please keep in touch?

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