Design Rules

Susan Kare

Founding partner
Susan Kare LLP
San Francisco, California

Since I spend a lot of time creating symbols -- and trying to wrestle big concepts into small spaces -- I'm a great admirer of images that convey clear meaning at a glance. The ups logo, created by Paul Rand in 1961, is a good example of that.

The logo is economical and succinct, simple yet distinctive, businesslike yet warm. It communicates the company's essential mission, without needing a tag line to explain it -- a package with a bow, just enough detail to be jaunty but spare enough to be timeless.

The name of the company is reinforced because it's integrated into the logo, and the classic shape -- a shield -- makes it look official. The emblem signifies trustworthiness and inspires customer confidence. And Rand chose the colors brown and gold because they aren't the standard blue and green that are usually found on corporate logos. Those colors make the company memorable to consumers.

The overall effect is that people get the message without being barraged with excess information. At one point, some years ago, it seemed as if all the logos that had any personality -- such as the winged horse of Mobil gas stations -- were being replaced by death-star shapes that supposedly looked high-tech. ups didn't need to make that kind of update. And although the shipping business has no doubt changed since Rand created that design 38 years ago, the ups logo remains timeless and effective.

Susan Kare (susan@kare.com) is a user-interface graphic designer. She has designed the iconography for Microsoft's Windows 3.0 as well as screen icons for Apple Macintosh, including the smiling Mac and MacPaint's pouring paint can and pencil. Kare formerly was creative director for both Apple Computer and NeXT Inc. Her clients currently include Infoseek, Intel, and PeopleSoft Inc.

Donald A. Norman

Cofounder
Nielsen Norman Group
Mountain View, California

The best kind of design isn't necessarily an object, space, or structure: It's a process. The Container Store and all of its clones -- Hold Everything and Crate & Barrel, for instance -- are great examples of design as process. You can go into any of those stores and choose from a range of objects for reconfiguring your home, according to the way you live. When design is a process, it's dynamic and adaptable.

We've all seen a desk made by placing a piece of wood on top of a couple of filing cabinets. Similarly, at the Container Store, I can find hundreds of different styles and sizes of boxes that I can make into chairs or bookcases or objects of art.

The best designs are always the ones that I create for myself -- and that's true for everyone. We're all designers. When we place furniture in our homes and when we organize space on our desks, we're designing. And that's the most appropriate kind of design -- functional and aesthetic. It's design that's in harmony with our individual lifestyles. Manufactured design, on the other hand, often misses the mark: Objects are configured and made according to particular specifications that are usually meaningless to the user. As a result, I'm often unhappy with almost everything I buy. I always want it to do something different, because my needs are changing. In fact, the more I use an object, the more my needs change around it.

Donald A. Norman (norman@nngroup.com), called the "guru of workable technology" and a "cantankerous visionary," cofounded Nielsen Norman Group with Jakob Nielsen. The company helps other companies produce human-centered products and services. Norman is also Professor Emeritus in Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego and author of "The Design of Everyday Things" (Currency/Doubleday, 1990) and "The Invisible Computer" (MIT Press, 1998).

Alex Krieger

Principal, Chan Krieger & Associates
Chairman, Department of Urban Planning and Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Cambridge, Massachusetts

When it comes to the quality of everyday life, the most important designs are our public spaces. Boston's Post Office Square is a great example. It's got a park that's nearly two acres of greenery and open space in one of the densest parts of the city -- the financial district. The juxtaposition of the mammoth buildings with this little oasis is marvelous -- a piece of quiet civility in the middle of Boston.

My favorite public spaces are like stage sets, where the various aspects that create a scene are invisible. For instance, you'd never know that beneath Post Office Square is a seven-level garage that accommodates 1,400 vehicles -- and that the park replaced a two-level garage that sat above ground for years.