Posted by frogs on the road - December 23, 2008
Design seems to behave in a reactionary manner; a trend towards minimalism will find a reaction in emotive expression, while a push toward digital might be met with a return to analog. This makes sense, as design – as a human phenomenon – is as dialectic as politics or economics. I’m aware of trends that are happening right now, because I’m helping push those trends with my day to day work.
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Posted by frogs on the road - December 5, 2008
Those of us who work at design consultancies often attend conferences, like the IDSA conference or the IxDA conference, in an effort to learn new methods and techniques and to catch a hint of the "buzz" - the various themes that are occurring within our field. I've spent the last two days in a conference room in Boston getting an intimate view of how these conferences come to life.
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Posted by frogs on the road - November 13, 2008
Associate Creative Director Dave Hoffer has coined a new term: Disruptive Realism. After discussing some examples in this video, he was inspired to elaborate.
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Posted by frogs on the road - October 16, 2008
Holy hoodwink Batman! Who IS behind that mask? In this clip from the classic 1966-68 series, Batman, Penguin is trying every transparent trick in the book to deceive voters, and make them see the "real" man (a terrorist!) behind the mask of the caped crusader as they debate on television. Are you having déjà vu too?
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Posted by frogs on the road - October 14, 2008
Mobile phones and cigarettes both make big spikes in mass-adoption trends in developing nations. But do the two affect each other? In a paper entitled, "So you want to quit smoking: have you tried a mobile phone?" published on The World Bank website, the author argues that cigarettes and cell phones are indeed bedfellows.
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Posted by frogs on the road - September 21, 2008
I’m sitting on the ground in Chicago O’hare, on my way back from the IIT Design Research conference. The conference couldn’t have posed a more contrary point of view, or elicited a more contrary reaction than the Industrial Design Society of America conference that I posted about last week.
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Posted by frogs on the road - September 16, 2008
The Industrial Design Society of America held its 2008 national conference in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve always been critical of the content at the conference, usually finding value in the networking and casual discourse but not learning a great deal from the actual conference sessions. This year’s event had a slightly different feel to it; while there was certainly a great deal of chaff, I was able to find a strong amount of wheat in the specific breakout sessions.
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Posted by frogs on the road - June 4, 2008
Eric Wilmot (Principal Strategist) and myself, Sara Louise Todd (Senior Design Analyst) are currently in Monterey, CA at the Sustainable Brands ’08 Conference. Monday was a pre-conference series of workshops where we engaged participants in a fun hands-on afternoon looking at a holistic systems approach to sustainable design.
Our session hit upon three big themes, that we are seeing many others speaking to as the week continues.
1. Responsible design
2. Fundamental tenants of design still apply
3. Change must happen internally and externally
Responsible design is expanding beyond company goals and user needs. It's also about understanding and designing for the relationships to social and natural systems. So, the criteria we all currently use to measure our strategies, processes and concepts still apply, but we add new criteria into the thinking which helps us measure our impact to the environment. We used this model in the workshop to measure the success of the concepts generated.
One of the main goals of the workshop was to remind everyone that the fundamental tenants of design still apply. The exercise took participants through a re-branding exercise using a systems approach to business strategy. The system we looked at speaks to the need to expand our thinking and our processes both internally and externally. The final concepts generated went well beyond the obvious solutions. This is a technique that has always been embedded in frog's approach to design.
A message we delivered at the workshop is one we should all keep in mind:
Is it complicated? Yes
Is there a silver bullet? No
It took all of us on this planet a long time to create our current situation, and the solution is not simple. The power of Design and small steps will help us get there.
- Sara & Eric
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Posted by frogs on the road - March 13, 2008
Since the SXSW conference buzzword was convergence, here’s a look back at convergent themes of three panels in three synthesizing steps, and a little bonus at the end.
Blood Sweat and Tears: Great Design Hurts
John Gruber (Daring Fireball) and Michael Lopp (Apple), made the case for cultivating discomfort as a designer: “Are you willing to be an asshole?." We took a trip back through the iconic designs (like IBM) of Paul Rand and examined the allure of the Apple logo (whether rainbow-striped or white, what makes it sexy is the bite. It’s original sin.). What stood out to me here however, was discussion of emotion as a physical thing; just a limbic response, a bunch of bouncing chemicals. Because that leads to. . .
From Frustration to Elation: Getting Emotional by Design
Dan Rubin (Black Seagull/Sidebar Creative), Eris Stassi (Interaction Designer, Apple) and Didier Hilhorst (Interaction Designer, IDEO) shared a saccharine PowerPoint full of hearts and talk about how good design should elicit a response like good sex. Bad design (like ATM machines) can be like a bad, abusive relationship. Essentially: Emotion is essential to good design. (Just keep the limbic system from above in mind).
Does Tomorrow's World Need Designers?
frog’s Creative Director David Merkoski took the stage with Alonzo Canada (Jump Associates), and Helen Walters (Editor of Innovation & Design, BusinessWeek.com) for a panel moderated by Johanna Blakley (Deputy Director, The Norman Lear Center). Here we fast-forwarded to a debatably near future—into the realm of the new singularity—because it’s not a matter of when it will happen, it’s a matter of thinking about it now; and that doesn’t just mean watching The Matrix again.
The panel posited that all the caring and emotion we put into design could lead to the negation of emotion when we create machines that are smart enough to design themselves. But will machines be good designers (and who decides what good means)? Is emotion smart? And then there’s the nurture or nourishment question: Will our relationship to the machines/systems be that of pets or food? While this might all be uncomfortable to think about, humor was still alive and well. As Merkoski put it, “There had to be a beeper before there was a cell phone. . . We might just be the beeper.” So since we’re getting sci-fi, here’s to the pseudo-scientific:
A General Theory of Creative Relativity
The captivating Jim Coudal (“Big Cheese”, Coudal Partners), launched into his theory (which essentially serves as a window into the Coudal Partners process), whereby e=mc2 means e (your energy/effort) is equivalent to m (the mass of information available to you) times c (the flash of inspiration), squared (the power of enthusiasm/belief). Or something approximate to that. Coudal showed this video from Steve Delahoyde’s (Coudal) series called “Regrets." Essentially, it’s a highly creative video about the ability to balance e, m and c, and a desire to hold on to the power of enthusiasm.
Enjoy.
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