Smart Design

Introducing Guest Blogger Tucker Viemeister: Industrial Design Is in His Blood

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. Yes, Tucker was born to Read Viemeister, a famous industrial designer (and an ...READ»

• Tucker Viemeister's blog What's Cookin'?

Masters of Design - What's Your Morning Routine?

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»

Design in Action

The Femme Den points to an array of products that smartly and subtly consider women in their design.READ»

• Separate. And Equal: Femme Den
• Femme Den's Five Tenets of Designing for Women

Femme Den's Five Tenets of Designing for Women

1. EMPHASIZE BENEFITS OVER FEATURES: Rather than touting feature sets and specs (how fast or big or slick something is), make the product's benefits clear. Who can it connect her to? How does it make her life easier? How will it save ...READ»

• Separate. And Equal: Femme Den
• Femme Den's Five Tenets of Designing for Women

Forget "Shrink It and Pink It": the Femme Den Unleashed

Boobs. The Femme Den talks about them easily and often -- and about the challenges they present to designers. Backpack makers don't seem to have a clue what to do about boobs. Ditto designers of unisex hospital scrubs, famous for their gaping V-necks. "One surgeon told me there wasn't a woman at the hospital whose boobs he hadn't seen," says Femme Den member Whitney Hopkins.READ»

• Femme Den's Five Tenets of Designing for Women
• Design in Action

Examining Design Values: Warm, Cold, or Just Right

How products can hit a sweet spot between traditionally female (Warm) and male (Cold) values.READ»

• The Femme Den blog

Designing for Gender, When One Or Both Parties Reap the Rewards

The most successful products are designed for one sex but embraced by both.READ»

• The Femme Den blog

How Companies Can Woo Women With Design

When shopping, men tend to go linear and deep, researching a product in detail and then going in for the kill. Women go wide, gathering information that goes beyond herself and her personal needs.
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• The Femme Den blog

Hunter vs. Gatherer: Gender Differences on the Mind

Most of us are only aware of obvious physical or behavioral attributes that differ between genders. But our differences run deeper--to the way we think, the way we act, and to our primitive desires.READ»

• The Femme Den blog

Why Designers Need to Talk About Sex

It's about time the design industry got serious about gender differences.READ»

• The Femme Den blog

Introducing the Femme Den: Going Beyond "Shrink it and Pink it"

If you have to moderate a panel discussion about sex, Las Vegas is probably the best place on the planet to do it. So last January, I splashed on a little Shalimar, hiked up my fishnets, and headed over to a back hall at the ...READ»

• The Femme Den blog

Design Studios vs. Large Design Agencies: The Changing Landscape of the Design Industry

The design world is no longer dominated by large design agencies of 100, 200, or even 500 employees. We are now witnessing studios with 10, 20, or 30 people consistently delivering top quality design and in a very different way. READ»

• Gadi Amit's blog: The New Deal

What I Didn’t Get to Say to Michelle Obama (But Maybe My Message Still Got Through)

The National Design Award honoree took your statements about design and the U.S. all the way to the White House. Did he get his moment with Michelle?READ»

• Tom Dair's Smart Design blog

What Should I Tell Michelle Obama About Design?

The First Lady will host the National Design Award honorees at a White House reception this Friday.READ»

• Tom Dair's Smart Design blog

A Design Parable: The Toaster and the Toast

A few years ago, we were working on the design for new toaster. The client was looking for something that would make a statement on the countertop landscape. Aesthetics were important, but we also spent considerable time discussing ...READ»

• Redesigning Rock-Paper-Scissors
• The Oven's Sick Joke: Bad Design = Burnt Pizza
• Creative Collisions: How to Spark a New Idea

Redesigning Rock-Paper-Scissors

For me, managing Smart Design's San Francisco office is a fantastic job: working on exciting projects, meeting with industry leaders, collaborating with creative types, and traveling the globe. But let's face it; there are also ...READ»

• The Oven's Sick Joke: Bad Design = Burnt Pizza
• Creative Collisions: How to Spark a New Idea
• Form Follows Function, Right? Not So Fast.

The Oven's Sick Joke: Bad Design = Burnt Pizza

Did you ever stay with a friend or relative and, while there, need to use their microwave or oven? How did it go? Was it easy, confusing, frustrating, enraging? Did you figure it out for yourself or did you have to ask for ...READ»

• Creative Collisions: How to Spark a New Idea
• Form Follows Function, Right? Not So Fast.

Creative Collisions: How to Spark a New Idea

A few years back, I was invited by a design professor to be a guest critic for a student presentation. It's fairly common for design educators to bring in professionals from the outside. It allows for different points of view and ...READ»

• Form Follows Function, Right? Not So Fast.

Form Follows Function, Right? Not So Fast.

In my first week of studying industrial design in college one of my professors turned to the class, and while holding and pointing to a hammer, he said "form follows function." That was the first time I heard the phrase ...READ»

Welcoming Guest Blogger Tom Dair: To Design Smart, Keep It Simple

Smart Design is, well, one of the smartest design shops we know. You may not know the firm by name, but you certainly know its products: OXO Good Grips kitchen tools, Hewlett Packard Photo Printers, Ford's "Smart Gauge" for hybrid ...READ»

At Last: OXO's First Line of Office Products

This week, OXO Good Grips unveiled its new line of office products, and all of them have the polished ergonomics and clever functionality that are the company's calling card. For now, they're available exclusively ...READ»

2009 National Design Award Winners: A Whirlwind Tour

The National Design Awards, adminstered by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, are the most prestigious in the U.S. The 2009 winners were just announced. Some of them you may have heard of, others you probably haven't ...READ»

Objectified: The New Design Film That Sickens, Inspires

"Your movie made me physically sick," one audience member told Gary Hustwit (left), the director of Objectified, the eagerly anticipated film about industrial design, last night at a screening in New York. Far from ...READ»

Smart Design's Dan Formosa on the Power of People, Simplicity and Gossip

He was on the design team that developed the first IBM computer. He worked on design for the OXO Good Grips kitchen tools and Ford's SmartGauge we wrote about here last week, but Smart Design founder Dan Formosa has actually ...READ»

Ford's SmartGauge Improves Fuel Efficiency Through Better Instrument Design

In December, Ford announced its new Fusion hybrid, which was rated an impressive 41 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. But then something interesting happened. In one of the earliest reviews, Pulitzer Prize-winning auto ...READ»