Oxo Good Grips Designers Take on Tablet Magazines Smart looks at how traditional print media such as newspapers and magazines might be repurposed to play out in the iPad domain.
Tue Apr 13, 2010
Smart Design's iPad ... Circa 1989 As we wait to get our hands on the iPad, Tom Dair remembers the challenges of designing an Apple tablet--20 years ago.
Fri Mar 26, 2010
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?
Posted Tue Jul 28, 2009
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.
Posted Mon Jul 20, 2009
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 the size of the toaster slots and how wide or narrow to make them for the variety of items that someone might want to toast.
Posted Thu May 21, 2009
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 aspects of the job that are less glamorous--managing budgets, no time for lunch, collaborating with prickly creative types, and battling the never-ending office mess.
Posted Wed May 20, 2009
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 instructions? What about their bathroom? Did you happen to use that, too? How'd that go? Did you figure it out or did you have to ask for instructions?
Posted Wed May 20, 2009
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 opinions of the work to surface, and also saves the teacher from having to say something constructive and relevant about every student's project within a few hours' time frame... a challenge in itself.
Posted Mon May 18, 2009
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 but certainly not the last. Form follows function is one of the first rules or "laws" of design that all design and architect students learn and they pretty much carry it with them through their professional careers. It's difficult to argue that this is not a true statement.
Posted Fri May 15, 2009
