Elastic Kool-Aid Acid Test

Linda Tischler — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:17:36 -0500

Given the amount of pushing, shoving, and line-jumping going on at last week’s opening of Design and the Elastic Mind, you’d have thought MOMA had just gotten a shipment of Wii’s. Hundreds of the city’s design-obsessed jockeyed to get into the event, decked out in customary black, many puckishly accessorized with zany hats and goofy shoes.

Fast 50 2008: Target

Linda Tischler — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:54:14 -0500

Target's strategy of rolling out capsule collections by well-known designers -- Loeffler Randall shoes and handbags, Erin Fetherston sweaters, Alice Temperley sportswear, Jovovich Hawk dresses -- has been a tried-and-true strategy for keeping the store's fashion merchandise always on the cutting edge. Add to that a continuing array of new deals, such as the upcoming collaboration with Converse to launch One Star, a vintage-inspired sports apparel and footwear line, and Target "guests" know they're likely to discover something fresh and new each time they walk in the door.

Fast 50 2008: IDEO

Linda Tischler — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:02:49 -0500

Design Thursday: When is a corset like a coffin?

Linda Tischler — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:53:03 -0500

Design Thursday: What would a Mayan branding guru do?

Linda Tischler — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:22:16 -0500

Design Thursday: Don't Get Mad, Design Products

Linda Tischler — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:15:23 -0500

Simply the Best: Maeda’s the Man at RISD

Linda Tischler — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:18:35 -0500

Client Side of Design

Linda Tischler — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:23:39 -0500

FC: In your book, Make it Bigger, you devote a substantial amount of text -- not to mention diagrams of org charts -- to the Byzantine process you had to go through back in the 1970s at CBS Records trying to get various designs approved. Why was it important to spend so much time on that?

How Pottery Barn Wins with Style

Linda Tischler — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:23:29 -0500

Shortly after Hadley MacLean got married in the fall of 2001, she and her husband, Doug, agreed that their old bed had to go. It was a mattress and box spring on a cheap metal frame, a relic of Doug's Harvard days. But Hadley never anticipated how tough it would be to find a "grown-up" bed, one that would be able to accommodate her lawyer husband's lanky six-foot-six-inch frame.

Andy Spade on Branding

Linda Tischler — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:19:47 -0500

The bigger you get, the smaller you should act.
Never, ever start thinking like a big company. Otherwise you become corporate, and there's no interest in that.

Never believe anything you've done is successful.
Challenge it every second, every day.

Brand consistency is overrated.
The brand doesn't have to look the same, but it has to feel the same. An element of newness and surprise is important for any brand.