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»
As cinema goes, watching designers talk about their work is boring enough. But watching designers talk about how they think? Suffice it to say, it’s no Die Hard. Nevertheless, a handful of filmmakers wants to mount a documentary on ...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»
[This is the second post in a series by Smart Design. Click here to read the introduction, here to read the first post, and here to read the second. -- Ed.]
Why not try to please all the people all the time? By and large, we should ...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»
I think Gen Y is awesome because they are dramatically shaping how we all think about design. But, I am a little biased -- I was born in 1981, which makes me Gen Y, too. In April, one of my colleagues at Smart Design and I were asked ...READ»
While the politicians, insurance companies, and health care providers debate the social and economic problems of health care, ripe opportunities for improvement are going unnoticed. What’s lacking in this process is a strong shot of ...READ»
It's not easy to design a home-energy monitoring device that people actually want to use--and pay for. Enter EnergyHub, a consumer-facing energy management company. READ»
Today, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum announced the winners of the 2010 National Design Awards. Just over a decade old, the awards are the closed thing the country has to a Nobel Prize in design; the nominees were drawn ...READ»
What is a sustainable innovation? I had the pleasure of representing Fast Company among judges from Nike and IDEO at the Sustainable Brands Conference's second annual Innovation Open in Monterey, CA this week, and we had a lively ...READ»
Smart Design was paired with IBM's SmarterCity initiatives to find a better way to monitor water consumption on a personal, community, and societal level. READ»
Deadline to submit is March 17! We've picked three teams from leading design firms who will be working with biologists. Now all we need is your company's real-world design problem.READ»
A medical devices manufacturer might spend millions of dollars over several years improving an old hospital standby--a bedside monitor, say, which measures blood pressure, heart rate, or blood-oxygen levels, and which sounds an ...READ»
Designers often talk about the moment they realized their destiny lay in design. For Tucker Viemeister, it was pretty much the moment he was conceived. Tucker was born to Read Viemeister, a famous industrial designer (and an activist ...READ»
At our Masters of Design event Wednesday night at the Chelsea Art Museum, we caught up with some of our expert design bloggers to find out how some of the most creative minds in the business start their day. Video by Anne ...READ»
