There they were again. In the “tactics” section of the strategic brief for my client's new project were two headings I'd seen many times before. User-friendly and intuitive. They're common enough goals. No one could blame the ...READ»
Imagine it’s 1997 and you’re sitting in a small room in Los Gatos, California. You’ve decided that you are going to get into the movie rental business. That’s right, you want to dethrone a huge entrenched competitor that has ...READ»
Today, many lament that the United States used to make great things but seldom does any longer, believing it’s no longer a major source of manufacturing and creation. One need only open the October issue of Fast Company, titled ...READ»
Whether they’re dealing in cars or cookies or computers, companies typically struggle with how to effectively and reliably create innovative products and services. Often, they discover that the greatest challenges aren’t in coming ...READ»
[This is the first in a series of posts drawn from a sprawling survey we conducted about the state of American design.—Ed.]
This question has been troubling me for some time. Have we lost our edge at a particularly dynamic (and ...READ»
Earlier this year, Co.Design published a provocative, sometimes comical, and overall insightful infographic by Jessica Hische, “Designers, Should You Work for Free?” The dizzyingly intricate flowchart immediately went viral among ...READ»
I’ve lived about a mile from Apple campus in Silicon Valley for over 20 years. In my early design life, I even helped design some Apple products and advanced concepts. From that time until now, whether it was via my neighbors or ...READ»
[This is the fourth post in a series by Smart Design. Click here to read the introduction. -- Ed.]
Last week, I wrote about how to evoke personality through design to help satisfy the contradictory, natural preferences in each ...READ»
My colleague and I are from Denmark. We, along with much of the world, admire the United States’ relentless pursuit of the Next Big Thing, its inherent optimism, and its go-getter attitude. Other parts of the world should learn to ...READ»
[This is the second post in a series by Smart Design. Click here to read the introduction and here to read the first post. -- Ed.]
To connect with women, companies often create separate “women only” products. This can have ...READ»
[This is the first post in a series by Smart Design. Click here to read the introduction. -- Ed.]
The tagline of a Dos Equis ad reads, “Approach women like you do wild animals, with caution and a soothing voice.” I have to ...READ»
[This is the introduction to a new series by Smart Design. For the first post, click here. -- Ed.]
“Girls like dolls and pink. Boys like fire trucks and blue.” The differences were obvious to the five-year-old who recently ...READ»
As an industrial designer and the CEO of a design agency with experience across many fields, I am struck by how difficult it has been for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry to successfully innovate to meet the needs of the ...READ»
Fail early and fail often. I use that phrase over and over again in teaching the design process. Borrowed from the world of computer programming, it expresses the urgency of getting iterations out into the world early in the process ...READ»
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and forgotten the gift.” -- Albert Einstein
In human-centered design observing how users modify ...READ»
Let’s call 2011 the year of the tablet. In the last several months, virtually every major electronics manufacturer has introduced a hopeful competitor to Apple’s iPad, and the aisles at January’s International Consumer ...READ»
With the closing of last week's Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the world’s largest design fair, and the coming prospect of seeing yet another chair, another lamp, and another collection of intentionally mismatched glassware make ...READ»
There is a moment during every branding presentation I give when I offer something enormously valuable--for free. I tell clients to write down what is essentially the formula for successful branding employed by the best brands in ...READ»
An interview with John Kao, CEO of Kao & Company, is an excellent way to kick off the start of FastCompany.tv and ScobleizerTV. Why? Well, he taught business at Harvard University for 14 years. Is widely recognized as one of the ...READ»
