Never mind that Pontiac is a dead and a defunct company. Designer Dejan Hristov has his vision for the next Solstice and I’m wondering if it could have been enough to save them. Sure, Pontiac’s problems had more to do with GM’s legacy policies but nevertheless I like this car. I always felt Pontiac went out on a good note. The Solstice was a looker (cough – Saturn) but Hristov’s vision is much sharper and far more aggressive. What do you think?
This video can be tough to get through because it sounds like it was recorded in a bus depot, but it's interesting in that HP executive Randall Martin breaks down their design process. Unsurprisingly they've gone with the focus-group-based design approach rather than Apple's Henry-Ford-faster-horse methodology, but it's a step in the right direction, and I'm still tickled when I hear PC manufacturers say the words "industrial design" with something like respect in their tone.
The object in question is HP's new Touchsmart desktop, which seeks to get around the arm fatigue problem by providing a variable-position surface. In the demo they finally get around to showing the physical object around 4:40:
via venture beat
Miles of style
Cavalier Essentials is a line of vintage men's products described thusly: "If Steve McQueen carried a beat-up leather duffle bag on the back of his motorcycle, what would be in it and how would the products look?"
The resultant campaign, masterminded by art director Taylor Pembertonand shot by Collin Hughes, is pretty drool-worthy:
(Only one I don't get is the compass. Steve like drawing circles a lot?)
See more here.
We've highlighted the Damsels of Design before, that group of nine female designers hired by Harley Earl, GM's Design Veep, starting in the '40s and running into the '50s. But there's a new article up--commissioned by a Michigan-based Chevrolet dealership, of all things--providing more information on the women, all of whom were trained in ID and seven of whom were Pratt graduates. As the article reveals, Earl gave them free reign to engage in actual design, not just the frilly chick stuff your average 1950s male would consign them to:
The women started by designing color, texture and trim of interior fabrics shaping seats, door handles, armrests and steering wheels but soon were given the opportunity to take on more ambitious projects. Some of these more complicated design features included such items as a removable cosmetic case, a dictating machine that swung out from the glove compartment, plush floor carpeting, a removable transistor radio, custom leather straps in the trunk to keep groceries secure and a pre-cell era telephone.Some of the more bold suggestions the team came up included a series of four slip covers to match the colors of the seasons, a three piece set of fiberglass luggage to complement the cars upholstery, toys magnetized to the back of the front seat to keep the kids entertained and a compartment for picnic supplies including a thermos to correspond to the cars color scheme.
Unsurprisingly, chauvinism won out in the end: Earl's successor axed all of them, citing some rather misogynistic principles. A shame, but at least from 1943 to 1959, nine women got to design some truly innovative concepts that would have improved the automobile, had the powers that be taken a better look.
Designer and artist Michael Stolworthy puts the "industrial" in industrial design, and when it comes to being a multicreative, he's got one of the more interesting backgrounds we've seen:
[Stolworthy] has studied advanced organic modeling techniques, dynamically driven surfaces, 3-d animation, media arts, arboriculture & horticultural science. He interned with a stereolithography lab catering to the medical industry that specializes in growing 3-d models of human skeletal structures with rapid prototyping technology for pre-surgical diagnosis.
Stolworthy's also got a Bachelor of Science degree and a certificate in "Ornamental Horticulture." It is the only explanation for the beautiful steel objects he produces, ranging from flatware to speakers to bar furniture to retail systems. Hit the jump to see larger shots, or check him out here.
Design discourse often strikes me as analogous to a family get together. It sets out well enough; optimistic with an undercurrent of reconciliation, but it can turn sour. A casual remark or offhanded comment cuts quick, unearthing volumes of unresolved conflict and lingering baggage. It can be disquieting and, at times, maddening. But generally speaking, it's okay because after dessert is served and the plates are cleared, we get to leave the family table, and return to the business of doing design.
When I leave the 'table' my thoughts turn quickly toward incorporation: How do I filter through the chatter and weave the good stuff into a viable practice of design; one that bridges the here and now with a hopefully grand tomorrow? Where do we place our bets? Where do we invest? How do we incorporate the disparate soundings offered up by design into a practical set of tools that can empower a team's results, elevate its relevance, and if we're lucky, safeguard its future?
With this in mind, I'd like to share some thoughts that have kept me occupied lately. Consider them field notes; observations culled from the murky intersection of 'practice' and 'theory.' I invite the Core community to have at them. Tear them down or build on them -- but please comment as you see fit:
OBSERVATION 1: Enough about DIY, let's track DIWO
'Do-It-Yourself' was misunderstood by the mainstream design community. In articles and lectures DIY was presented in terms that framed it as a threat, a curiosity or at best as some sort of marginal activity removed from the 'serious' practice of design. This depiction was faulted and, in my opinion, informed by professional bias and no small amount of elitism. The discussion surrounding DIY in design circles should never have been centered on amateur culture replacing the professional offering. The conversation isn't about the merits of Amateur vs. Pro -- it's about both.
Amateur fabrication, like indie films -- doesn't replace professional big-budget, high-capital 'making' -- it co-exists right along side it. The rise of independents and the flourishing of short run and alternative production as evidenced by sites like Ponoko, Threadless and Quirky is something industrial design and manufacturers should embrace. It opens up options, lengthens the design playbook and, if nothing else, delivers a new model of consumption -- one that is infinitely more engaging than the passive and environmentally insupportable one of a generation ago.
If your design offering is threatened by amateur culture, perhaps your offering hasn't evolved fast enough. Alternatively, if you persist in believing that DIY culture holds no lessons for your business, I'd suggest you expand your frame of reference from the domain of craft-centric activities to include the growing ranks of user and community driven sites that offer a range of alternative products and services.
But enough about DIY -- 'Do-It-With-Others' is what design should be paying attention to now. A marriage of organization, social networking and, increasingly, micro-capital (witness the recent successes of Kickstarterand IndieGOGO ) -- DIWO is the next evolutionary step in the author/producer relationship. By incorporating 'community' and an implicit social component, DIWO draws making, solving and producing into territory much more relevant to today's problems than the relatively solitary behavior of DIY. DIWO snuggles up against a whole range of issues all of us in design are either just beginning to comprehend or are already struggling to make sense of. Social entrepreneurship, behavioral dynamics, choice architecture -- take your pick, DIWO is DIY on steroids; ushering in exponential levels of complexity and forcing us to contemplate the increasingly 'social' component of making.
OBSERVATION 2: Organization for pennies on the dollar
I'm not entirely sure RSO (Real Simple Organization) really exists as a term yet. It's a derivation I coined to riff off RSS (Real Simple Syndication). I believe RSO holds the potential to be a massively disruptive concept. Clay Shirky has stated, "When we change the way we communicate, we change society." If Shirky's tone strikes you as a bit melodramatic, consider how far social media has brought us over the past seven years. Communicating with and organizing people has never been easier or cheaper. What once took considerable institutional focus and capital can now be done, as Shirky explains, for pennies on the dollar if not for free. In many ways organization costs seem to be taking a page from Moore's law, permitting us to contemplate the types of social, cultural and economic disruption that cheap organization of human capital makes possible.
Why is RSO potentially so disruptive? Because when combined with maker culture (the inclination to do), collective action (the team to do) and micro-financing (the capital to do) -- easy organization radically scales the possibilities and scope of crowd enabled solutions. Will there be failures? Absolutely. But there will be successes as well. In a market place punch-drunk from the conflicting dynamics of a reduced workforce and a sustained drive toward profit, real simple organization offers a path forward for solutions and services that don't easily reconcile themselves with mainstream models of profitability.
I tried to sketch this idea out in a not so popular post I wrote a while back:Coordinating disaffection: A Design Challenge Worth Considering -- but I got it wrong, or at least partially wrong. Under the influence of so many recent institutional failings (BP had just screwed the Gulf) I focused on the possibility of simple organization to effect social change. I should have done a better job speaking to my intended audience -- designers. If I were to rewrite that piece today I'd focus more on what RSO means for product development.
Enter Scott Wilson. To my mind the biggest design story of the year isScott Wilson's collaboration with Kickstarter. This alliance has taken the promise of RSO (not to mention DIWO), put it into practice and scaled it. InTikTok + LunaTik we see the first solid example at scale of an independent designer tapping community desire and funds to deliver a product that has all the formal appeal of a commercial offering. The delivery of that solution through 'outsider' means and a radically decentralized process make TikTok + LunaTik all the more significant. The fact that Wilson can reach out directly to the manufacturing base in Asia or that his product ultimately leverages the product offering of a major player (Apple) demonstrates that there is a significant opportunity space for independents right alongside the majors.
It's parasitic and it's populist, but the Kickstarter/Wilson collaboration may well be the formalization of something truly new in industrial design: crowd sourced product development. Critics will say this has been played with before -- and it has. Back in the late '90s Japan's Elephant Design played with this concept, developing production ready designs and soliciting orders to evaluate market size (think Groupon for product development). What limited the success in it's early days was communication -- the market place was too small. With social media, blogging and some smart attachment to a successful product -- TikTok + LunaTik proves the model can work in a big way.
OBSERVATION 3: Socialized Making -- is this what's ahead?
This last observation is one I've only recently started tracking and, by admission, is only tentatively worked out. Reflecting broadly on recent themes in design criticism, one thing strikes me as clear: you can't do it alone -- nor should you. Why does design criticism assume any one-person needs to posses the laundry list of talents and competencies contemporary problems require? Deep design, by which I mean the activity of professional design, is and always will be a group process. I know that's not as sexy as the lone genius model but it's true. Design easily accommodates collaboration with the range of partners needed to tackle today's complex problems. Truth is, we debate mastering all these activities because we're stuck in a mental model of design that assumes a centralized notion of creativity; one where individuals, or at best co-located teams, are expected to posses the requisite tools to solve 'the' problem.
This model of creativity is disingenuous and limits the solutions we can envision. In my first two observations the common threads are groups and communities which, when compared with emerging themes of 'social-behavior' and 'group-dynamics,' lead me to ask: is social a new component in the design process? In an era of explosive communication, prolific connectivity and a vastly more mature consumer culture -- is the next frontier deep incorporation of consumers in the design development process? Inviting them to participate in the mechanics of design as well as the narrative itself?
It seems plausible. In recent years, as manufacturers have had to dig deeper to discover new opportunity spaces, once elective activities like co-creation and 'in-home' interviews have become standard practice. Extending this thread, social media inspired tools like EverydayLives'ethnographic iPhone app, are emerging that offer new ways for collecting insights by tapping consumers' increasing comfort with self-documentation. Coupled with the tentative steps of sites like Quirky and Kickstarter, how long will it be before a major player decides to 'go-public' with their product development process? Sound improbable? Why should it? Companies like Google and Apple have already made a habit of using 'leaks' and other 'previews' to engage consumers in the narrative of their forthcoming products and services. The preliminary success of TikTok + LunaTik demonstrate users are willing to participate in this process IF you can find them and speak to them in terms they understand and trust.
Make no mistake. I'm not advocating design by jury, there's enough of that in design already. What I am advocating is letting users into the conversation -- for real this time. Let go of the focus group and forget the hollow voice-of-the-consumer shtick, let's dare to envision something less passive and less controlled. Let's democratize the process and let consumers participate in the process itself -- from start to finish. Along the way we might actually learn what they want with a subtlety and nuance that invigorates the design process rather than neutering it. If, in the end, our work is to be juried anyway, I can't imagine a better group of judges then the users themselves.
Most able-bodied folks probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about how people with disabilities navigate the world, particularly in developing countries. However, Amos Winter did, and still does. Winter, a recent PhD graduate from the MIT department of Mechanical Engineering, went to Tanzania as part of his work in 2005. He wanted to understand how people who needed wheelchairs got around and how well current wheelchair technology met peoples' mobility needs. Winter's work was part of an internship with Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a group that designs wheelchairs in developing countries. He learned that people in wheelchairs often just didn't get where they needed to go.
In fact, according to the Wheelchair Foundation, it is estimated that the number of people who need wheelchairs will increase by 22 percent over the next 10 years, with the greatest need existing in developing countries. And USAID estimates that 20 million people in the developing world need a wheelchair.
For instance, wheelchair-accessible buildings and roads are rare in countries like Tanzania. Beyond that, individuals must overcome narrow doorways, steep hills, bumpy, muddy roads and long distances to destinations like school -- often upwards of two to three miles. All of these issues combined make it virtually impossible to get anywhere with a conventional wheelchair. Beyond that, they were too expensive for individuals who often can't work due to their disability, or make about $1/day if they do work.
Hand-powered tricycles were the other existing option in developing countries. But they're too large for indoor use and too heavy to maneuver over rough terrain.
Winter came up with the idea of a lever-powered mobility aid, which could provide freedom to the disabled in developing countries. Like a mountain bike, this new wheelchair had to have a large range of mechanical advantage: with a low range for hills and mud and a high range to cruise on the street. Winter realized that a lever grasped at different positions changes the effective lever length and creates the type of mechanical advantage he needed; and so the idea of the Leveraged Freedom Chair(LFC) was born.
For rougher or off-road terrain, the individual grips the levers up higher (similar to putting a bicycle into a lower gear) for greater torque. For smoother terrain, where long-distance speed is possible, the rider grips the levers down lower to get the wheels turning more swiftly and move at a higher velocity.
To help reach his goal, Winter created the Mobility Lab at MIT in 2007 comprised students who would work with him to bring his idea to fruition. The LFC has been in development since 2008, when it won first place at the MIT IDEAS competition. In the summer of 2008, first generation prototypes were constructed in Nairobi, Kenya and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with Mobility Lab community partners who are local wheelchair producers.
After collecting feedback from wheelchair users and manufactures, the team spent a year refining the LFC design and then developed eight second-generation wheelchairs in Nairobi and tested six of them across East Africa.
After four months of testing, biomechanical performance data was collected from the LFC riders. It illustrated that the chair was superior to existing mobility aids as far as rider efficiency and off-road performance, but still required refinement to be a viable product. The trial subjects identified that the LFC had to be narrower to fit indoors, lighter for transportation and more stable when climbing hills. Through the next year, Mobility Lab worked with community partners and stakeholders, principally with the Transitions Foundation of Guatemala and Antigua, to improve the design and prepare it for another user trial.
In the spring of 2010, Winter and his team then went to Continuum, global design and innovation consultancy, to help him with the look of the wheelchair. Harry West, CEO of Continuum, is an MIT graduate and still very active in the MIT community. Though the project was a pro-bono project for Continuum, the company went well beyond the scope of what Winter had originally asked for when they presented him with ideas.
While Winter and his team were focused on a "bottom up" approach to solve the immediate problem of mobility in developing countries, Continuum looked at it from a "top down" perspective. This made the collaboration a very powerful one, and helped take the project take on a very exciting new element.
Not only did the team recommend that Winter consider developing a first-world chair, they also recommended that first-world chairs pay for chairs in developing countries. This was similar to the model for the One Laptop per Child program, which Continuum helped develop. The concept struck a chord with Winter, who was grappling with the challenge of how to keep the costs down in developing countries.
Winter and his team had considered the idea of a first-world version of the LFC after the response they got from media coverage of the project. People in the United States and Canada said they would like a product like the LFC. It wasn't until the team started working with Continuum that the first-world LFC became a reality. Continuum produced the renderings of a high-end chair, which brought the possibility to life and spurred the team to focus on this facet of the project.
Continuum then walked Winter through what a first-world version of the chair could be, including how it would be different from the developing country version but maintain all of the things that make it special. While the "big idea" for the first-world version (aka LFC Sport) was light-weight performance, the third-world version continued to focus on utility. The LFC Sport would be constructed using sophisticated manufacturing techniques. It would include a bent aluminum spine with a custom profile. In addition to molded ports and a carbon fiber seatback frame, the LFC Sport seatback would have the feeling of an office chair created with a light-weight stretch fabric. In contrast, the LFC for developing countries would be developed from bent and welded stock tubing and bicycle parts that can be sourced locally and inexpensively. The goal for these wheelchairs is easy and inexpensive construction.
Continuum's primary contribution was envisioning what the first world wheelchair could be by creating a unique look and construction. Tapping into the core of Continuum's design philosophy, the team strove to create an emotionally compelling object that simultaneously communicated its story. The end result is a wheelchair that's comprised of two defining design elements: The arching spine and the closed loop. These elements determined its look and how it would be constructed.
Using the unique single front wheel design of Winter's wheelchair as the defining element and point of departure for the LFC Sport, Continuum suggested a concept that was built off of a central, arching spine. This would become the defining gesture. Metaphorically, the wheelchair's spine is an extension of the user's spine enabling him/her to have a new level of mobility. Everything else is attached to this spine moving from the front wheel up to the footrest, the seat and drive train assembly, and finally, the seat back.
Another defining element is the closed loop. The entire chair is comprised of closed loops: where the user places her feet on the foot rest; how the foot rest attaches to the spine; the carbon fiber seat back frame loops underneath the seat and around the back of the user (an embrace); the back rest is a closed loop with a hollow center. The closed loop is indicative of the wheel. The wheel signifies movement.
Most conventional wheelchairs in the United States range in price from $1,000-$2,500. At a pricepoint of about $3,000 on the LFC Sport, they could purchase three more for developing countries. The team decided tentatively on a "buy one, give three" approach, wherein one first-world wheelchair would pay for three in developing countries.
Since then, Winter has been working with developing countries on production. The goal is to develop the chairs from bicycle parts, so that anybody who can fix a bike can fix a LFC.
The LFC is currently on two tracks. The LFC for developing countries is slated to go into production soon in Guatemala and Fall 2011 in India, with the goal of producing 1,000 a month. India is an excellent example of where bicycles are the prevalent mode of transportation. Winter's goal is that the wheelchairs be produced in the countries in which they're used, providing jobs for local citizens.
As for the second track, the LFC Sport, is currently in the prototyping stage. The Mobility Lab is already going out to wheelchair users in the Boston region to determine the interest in the idea. At this point the LFC Sport will be available for purchase in late 2013.
Last night the Lizard Lounge in Portland played host to the Oregon Manifest launch party along with organizers Shannon Holt and Jocelyn Sycip. The event was a festive start for the project - featuring free beers, a full-on thicket of bike industry peeps and a dramatic unveiling of jurors and creative collaborators.
Check out Bike Portland for more pics of the evening.
Thanks for the shots Jonathan!
In our last review of a Jon Kolko book, Thoughts on Interaction DesignDonald Norman wrote in the comments, "OK, you convinced me. I've ordered the book." We can't be sure that our review influenced his newest book Living with Complexity, but since Norman's work centered on frustrating objects, the extrapolation into systems was bound to happen. Kolko's new book Exposing the Magic of Design might seem superficially similar to Norman's to those of us in the industrial design field, but Kolko has profoundly different content.
Kolko's book is subtitled "A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis," and this reviewer joked that it sounded like an undergraduate film or semiotics course. Kolko himself states that "the ability to 'be playful' is critical to achieve deep and meaningful synthesis," but the tenor of the tome is far from the giant grin the author wears while using carrots as a "phone" on the cover of his previous work. Exposing the Magic of Design is blunt, direct, serious and self-assured. At less than 200 pages and full of diagrams, processes and methods, Kolko certainly didn't have time for any hand-holding. In this era of easy distraction, Exposing the Magic's interaction design requires complete attention. Perhaps that's the way the author meant it.
In our last review, Core77 mentioned that Kolko referenced all of the right bibles. In this case, he once again pulls knowledge from many disparate fields. His citations range from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flowto doctor Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats. Jonah Lehrer, Nathan Shedroff, and Herbert Simon all receive shout outs, and those are just the ones we've heard of.
The book is predominantly Kolko's voice, but includes contribution sections from designers from the likes of frog, Continuum and Nokia. Each contributed section is titled "For Example: ..." and uses real world content to illustrate Kolko's concepts. Seeing real world sticky walls or the extraordinarily complex maps used to analyze Sun's Java platform (53 numbered variations of maps) helps to illustrate not only the complexity of the problems faced by the consumer, but just how difficult it is for interaction (and industrial) designers to orchestrate a human interaction.
The "synthesis" of which Kolko speaks is the ability to create "normalcy out of chaos," and the predominant tool for doing so is mapping. One amazing set of maps include what Kolko calls "Semantic Zoom" and "Temporal Zoom," which borrow the Eames' famous Powers of Tenmetaphor and applys it to the scope of the interaction. Level 10 to the 0 is the product, but as we move towards 10 to the -2 we're zooming out toward the marketplace, and as we move into the positive power range, we're seeing features, then elements, then details. It's a wonderful metaphor and leads to some fascinating maps. The "magic" to which Kolko refers is the gulf between data (Chapter 6: Making Meaning out of Data) to insight (Chapter 8: Methods for Creating Empathy and Insight). At some point, every designer is going to be asked by a client to create the next iPod or the next Facebook. While it is easy to presume that some sort of magic took place in the act of creation, the walls of sticky notes in Kolko's book attest otherwise. It takes work. That said, starting into the multi-year trek toward the mastery that others perceive as as magic (drawing, surfing, actual slight of hand), it's nice to see that some others have taken the journey first. Kolko's book takes work to synthesize (we definitely had our fair share of notes) but once the deluge of information is sifted through, it should be a valuable resource for designers of all stripes.