The Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices organization is is recruiting for a Senior Industrial Designer who is passionate about improving the quality of people's lives through compelling design experiences. This position will be located within our Medical Devices campus in Raynham, MA. With worldwide sales of over $27 billion, Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices is one of the world’s largest, most innovative surgical companies.
View the full design job hereKaleidoscope introduces flo, a tDCS wearable design concept that perks you up at low energy times of the day as an alternative to caffeine. flo is a wearable design concept that provides focus during low-energy times of the day. It also provides daily activity monitoring to identify trends and will alert you when you may want a non-caffeinated bump.
View the full content hereThis past weekend over 700 people gathered in Providence, Rhode Island for Better World by Design. In it's ninth year, the conference held between adjacent college campuses Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, brings creators, innovators and professionals of all types together for a three day long gathering to examine and promote the importance of critical design thinking. Based on the theme of Interplay, the conference was broken into three categories: Micro, Meso and Macro. Each day examined the social and physical scale at which interplay is occurring. Through thirty-five presentations, conference attendees critically analyzed design's interdisciplinary power and gained greater understanding of how to truly strive towards creating a better world.
While the official themes were Micro, Meso and Macro, presentations also seemed to fall into one of three categories: biological design, design's role in policy and envisioning technological futures. From learning about cybernetics in an inflatable pavilion to hearing a woman talk about how she grew cheese from foot bacteria, envisioning design applications to urban infrastructure and healthcare, the workshops and lectures were as entertaining and engaging as they were informative and thought provoking. Thanks for an amazing conference Better World, see you next year for conference number ten.
With upwards of hundreds of events and exhibitions during any given design week or festival, companies and organizations often err on the side of spectacle — most recently, in the case of London Design Festival 2016. When Instagrammability is the order of the day, “immersive” “dynamic,” or otherwise “experiential” installations compete for footfall and eyeballs.
Not that there's anything wrong with that: Well-executed installations often stand out as highlights among the seemingly endless tables and chairs that fill expo centers, showrooms, and other venues. Even if reality doesn't always live up to the shimmering, mirage-like renderings, installations are often worth seeing in the flesh — FOMO and selfies notwithstanding — as site-specific design-week attractions.
That said, we've got a roundup of roughly half a dozen installations from LDF2016... for those of you who couldn't attend in person, of course.
This is hilarious, and a prime example of how Japan is able to perfectly blend old and new things to create unique experiences: They've got a virtual reality videogame called "Fear of Heights" where your sole mission is to rescue a cat that has crawled onto the edge of a plank protruding from a skyscraper. Here's what the player sees:
Here's what they're actually doing:
If it's not clear from the photo, the board isn't quite fixed, but is laid atop unsteady supports that provide wobble. Coupled with the VR, it's as low-tech and as hi-tech as you can get.
Now imagine you're the designer of a virtual reality videogame with more action, like a first-person zombie shooter set in a hospital. The issue is that players can get so wrapped up in the action that they can lose their balance, get nauseous, fall and possibly injure themselves. How do you solve this?
In this case, the designers' brilliant solution was to safely relegate the players to a wheelchair that they self-control with a joystick. For the able-bodied person unaccustomed to such limitations, this increases the terror factor of the zombie setting. And it means that wheelchair users that have the use of their hands get to play the game, too.
These are just a couple of the innovations enjoyed by attendees of videogame arcades in Japan. In the following video, George Weldman of the Super Bunnyhop channel runs through a bunch of them and explains some of the cool interfaces. He also puts on his sociologist hat and puts forth a theory for why arcades in Japan enjoy a popularity not seen elsewhere, based on the existence of both a comprehensive train system and a cash economy:
Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.
Asia Week San Francisco brings together the world's leading Asian art dealers, auction houses, museums, cultural institutions, and the academia, for a week of festivities celebrating Asian art and culture.
San Francisco, CA. Festival runs through October 8, 2016.
FAVORITES II features works from various levels of artists and designers, ranging from important protagonists of their time to young designers that expand on past concepts to create their own artistic position. The exhibit highlights the tension between old and new designs and underlines the challenge of continuously questioning the interaction between art and design.
Germany. On view through October 8, 2016.
ICFF Miami brings luxury global designers, architects, developers, high end showrooms and retail influencers to Miami, a leading market for residential development and investment. The show will showcase what's next and best in interior design, but with an energy and style all its own.
Miami, Florida. Trade show runs from October 5, 2016 to October 6, 2016.
Eat The River is a two-month long, site-specific intervention into the LA River's history and landscape. Artist Frédérick Gautier spent two months in Los Angeles interacting with the site and producing a series of 100 three-dimensional ceramic objects derived from the traces, cracks, holes, and imprints cast and drawn from the remnants of the site's physical history.
Los Angeles, CA. On view through October 20, 2016.
Sharpen your sense of smell and discover the mystery of fragrances during this workshop with scent specialist, Sandy Blandin. During the workshop, Blandin will demonstrate methods to help you connect smell with emotions, memory and imagery.
Singapore. October 7, 2016 at 2:00 PM.
Design Days is a festival focused on the design and innovation of digital technology. During the day, the festival will host a series of discussions, exhibits and workshops focused on a variety of topics, including smart cities, hybridization, visual scenarios and interaction design. At night, you can look forward to live dj-sets and a bar.
Milan, Italy. Festival runs through October 9, 2016.
When we last spoke to the Gravity Sketch team in March of 2014, they had just unveiled their prototype for a 3D sketchpad.
At the time, Oluwaseyi Sosanya, Guillaume Couche, Pierre-Yves Paslier and Daniela Paredes Fuentes were all students at the Royal College of Art and Gravity Sketch was their vision for the next evolution of sketching. Looking at the rise of augmented and virtual reality, the students saw an opportunity to create a tool for designers by designers, that allowed users to sketch in 3D.
The team's initial idea for Gravity Sketch had users wear virtual reality glasses to draw objects in space above a handheld glass platform. By moving the platform, users could manipulate and develop their drawing, much like one might build out a sculpture.
Two years later, the team is ready to bring Gravity Sketch to the masses—with a few changes.
For one, there's no hardware. Zilch.
After presenting their prototype, the team joined the school's incubator, Innovation RCA, where they were urged to abandon their physical prototype in lieu of a digital solution. "We came up with some promising directions in terms of hardware, but soon we had to accept the fact that software would be our strongest play, as many AR and VR devices were not yet commercially available," says Sosanya.
Shifting their focus to software inadvertently made the product more accessible to many who might not be able to cough up the dinero necessary for a translucent glass platform interface. It also forced the team to really define what made their program different from any other 3D modeling program: its capacity for touch and gesture input.
The team prioritized developing the software in such a way that it could use a touchscreen as input, using touch and gesture to shape designs. The team launched Gravity Sketch iOS, an iPad application, in March of this year, as a way to gather user feedback and further hone in on what they were looking for in terms of tools and features.
"We took a lot of time to craft a really natural user experience for the iPad with the aim to get users with little to no CAD knowledge to download and get involved," Sosanya says. Not ones to forget their RCA education, the team emphasized a user-centric approach to the design, including ample field testing and user research at every step of the process.
"We would go to cafes (or on the tube), sit next to people and start sketching on the iPad in 3D. As soon as we would catch their attention or they would lean over ever so slightly we would catch them and start to introduce the tool, if they could create something reasonable in three minutes or less we knew we had designed a tool or feature properly. If they would smile while using the software sketching some strange shapes we knew we were on the right track," Sosanya says.
Those tests helped inform what certain gestures would mean and how users could naturally interact with the software. "Users often find it hard to answer questions around the usability, as they have little to no benchmark of what certain AR and VR experiences should feel like," Sosanya says. "To mitigate this confusion, we like to have more analog engagements with our users. We do things like play charades with fellow artists and designers to get them to explain how they may scale something up or make a copy of something. We then take these gestures and interactions into the digital space, and from there we start testing the technology and gathering feedback."
From those tests, the team also heard resounding feedback asking when the product would be available on desktop. "We were a bit hesitant to release something on the desktop, as we felt that the user experience wouldn't be the same if you were using a mouse, however if the user had a Wacom tablet we could produce a killer experience," Sosanya says.
The team reached out to Wacom earlier this year and have been working on a version of the software that would use their technology. Simultaneously, the HTC Vive was officially released in April 2016, pushing the team to complete the VR component of the experience, which will be supported on both HTC and Oculus controllers.
"We began working on these devices in parallel and have developed to a point where we feel that more hands on deck would really push this software to the next level," Sosanya says. "We decided that a Kickstarter campaign would be that perfect way to present our most aspirational development yet and get the funding to take it to the market." Sosanya, Paredes and new collaborator Daniel Thomas are part of the team of designers and engineers that are now bringing Gravity Sketch to Kickstarter, as they look to raise the funds to complete the project.
Folks who back Gravity Sketch on Kickstarter at around £25 (roughly $32) can be among the first to get a license with full access to Gravity Sketch desktop and VR, £20 less than the retail rate post-launch. With just shy of $5,000 raised at press time, the team still has a long way to go over the next month to reach their £50,000 ($64,887) goal.
As for that initial gleaming plank of glass, maybe all hope isn't lost. "We are holding back on the hardware element for now, but we have a lot of prototypes and tests that may show their face in due time," Sosanya says.
With the evolution of mobile devices and power needs, our home environments have become increasingly cluttered. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the bedroom, however modern furniture solutions have stayed stagnant. Canopy table by Ink Studios was designed with a layered storage approach that separates essential devices from general storage. A single hollow post provides essential-item structure while also facilitating power needs. The Canopy table provides iconic style while complimenting a modern lifestyle.
View the full content hereWhat's lunch without a little design challenge? Last week 250 of us gathered in sunny downtown Los Angeles for the 2016 Core77 Conference. After hearing a morning of talks on storytelling and human-centered design in the age of technology, we gathered for a lunch break in the Vibiana courtyard for a little head-to-head design competition.
Each attendee was presented with a notecard outlining one of three design challenges. Each person was encouraged to sketch, sculpt or explain an awesome product concept solution in under an hour. Not only did everyone rise up to the challenge, they went above and beyond!
We gave the conference three different prompts to tackle of their choosing. Out of all of the submissions, we chose ten of our favorites, handing out a Core77 Designing Here/Now book featuring Core77 Design Awards winners. Here are a few of our favorite responses to the three design prompts:
The Edi-Pak by Ben Anik, Olivia Lee and Dipti Sonawane
This clever solution to edible ramen packaging really caught our eye with its thorough model and descriptive instructions. The concept includes conventional outside packaging that incorporates your silverware. The outer sheath protects a compressed shell made of a mix of different herbs and spices. Inside this shell rests the noodles, which can be dropped into a boiling pot of water—shell included—making for a completely edible package concept.
Locking Coconut Husk by Liam Gee
This interesting solution inspired by the shape of baseballs combined both the organic with the technical by utilizing coconut fibres treated with honey and egg that can encase a complementary snack inside.
The Jesterbot by IBM Design's @whereismeersman + the Emotional IQ Robot by Peter B
A common concept we saw in the work robot categories were bots that helped extend one's own consciousness, one being the "Jesterbot"—this little guy would hypothetically absorb many different cues from you and your environment to help you decide what needs to get done for the day. Another winner was a robot that learned to acquire emotional intelligence over time in order to help you with complex human-to-human problems you may be challenged with on a daily basis.
Uni-Courier by Jeff Brummer
We couldn't help but notice this concept was probably inspired by the audience anticipation of the upcoming Hyperloop presentation that followed our lunch break—the "Uni-Courier" is a great concept for a robot that could help deliver packages to different recipients quickly and easily using the power of propulsion technology.
Mystique by Frog Design
Frog Design really went all out with their submission, providing us with both a detailed explanation as well as some exploratory models. Their shoe concept incorporates different 'modes' for one pair of shoes with different terrains (looks like there's an everyday, hiking and even an ice skating mode!)
Shoe Platform by Joel Fariss and Sabrina Dorsainvil
We were thrilled to see participating designers in this lunch challenge throwing out ideas that felt truly radical and thoughtful. The designers behind this shoe concept really turned the prompt proposal on its head by ideating a digital solution that allowed consumers to have full control over the final form of their shoe, including customized arch support as well as a large number of stylistic choices for a hyper-personalized product.
Join in on the fun: do you have a good solution to one of these prompts? Share your idea with us in the comment feed below!
There was nary an Arduino in sight at Electro Craft, a dense London Design Festival exhibition in the heart of Shoreditch Design Triangle. A showcase of design at various points where arts and crafts meet technology, the jam-packed show gives a first impression of overstimulation, with nearly 30 projects — often characterized by lights, sounds, movement — into the modest gallery space.
Of course, the sense of creative and sensory surfeit may well have been initiator Tord Boontje's goal. Liberated from client briefs and manufacturing constraints, the designers in Electro Craft are largely lucky ones who take a hyphenated designation; designer-makers, -authors, -artists and -craftspeople abound. Technological though they may be, the projects have less to do with products by Apple and Google — in an introductory essay, Professor Gareth Williams cites Peter Behrens and AEG as the progenitor of packaging innovation for mass-production — and more to do with applying craft processes and the DIY spirit to the inescapable sense of connectivity in contemporary life.
Inasmuch as each and every project demanded a modicum of attention from the viewer, Electro Craft succeeded in Boontje's mission statement to "give a flavor of wonderful work in the area of electronics." If the specular backdrop — crinkled sheets of mylar — unfortunately felt less like a futuristic funhouse than being inside a bag of potato chips (er, crisps), it was worth spending some time to savor the exhibition as food for thought.
Here is a selection of projects in Electro Craft, all of which are catalogued on the exhibition website. Those of you in London can also check it out in person at 23 Charlotte Road, London, EC2A 3PB, where it is on view until October 15, 2016.
Halloween is this month, and for those of you who like to render your houses haunted, cobwebs are great visual shorthand. It would be handy to have a way to quickly apply them, and to be able to easily remove them come November 1st. Well, help is here in the form of the Webcaster Gun:
In all the countless hours of manipulating a hot glue gun in ID school, I never once thought of blowing compressed air through it nor what the resultant discharge would resemble. And that is why I am a design blogger instead of a successful entrepreneur who sells $38 "Webcaster Gun Cobwebbing Systems."
That $38 is for the compressed-air version. The version that runs off of a shop-vac—which I can't see providing the same oomph—goes for $29.
I'm thinking these could be made relatively easy with a 3D-printer and parts from an existing glue gun; you print up the two halves to include a channel for the air, then pick up a valve at the big-box. But admittedly I don't know what the heating mechanism looks like inside these things; nor how it has to be supported; nor how to incorporate the pressure-modulating dial. Ah, where's our tear-down guy when we need him?
The 2016 Core77 Conference took place last week in downtown LA. The two-day conference brought together industry leaders to cover a wide range of topics ranging from how design can make a difference in the refugee crisis to how to fail well in a startup environment. A day of interactive workshops and guided insider tours taught attendees practical lessons in everything from sketching with Sketch-a- Day's Spencer Nugent to future-proofing our ideas with LPK.
Having a serious case of FOMO? No worries! While our attendees were engaged in two days of talks and workshops, we were busy sending out live updates on social media. Lucky for you, it's not too late to catch up on what you missed last week. Here's how:
After their captivating presentations, we sat down with our speakers for more intimate interviews centered around lessons for life, work and design practice.
30 Weeks Creative Director, Shana Dressler explains why she lives in New York instead of Silicon Valley, how business models need to evolve to prepare for future needs and how designers can use design thinking to benefit their businesses.
Dana Cho from IDEO discusses the sensitivity that comes with designing for end of life experiences, the surprising lessons she's learned in the process and how technology can play a role in dealing with the subject of death.
See our Facebook Live feed for more behind-the-scenes interviews with Core77 Community Manager Allison Fonder!
Take a look at our Instagram feed for images and short videos from the conference.
Adam Sadowsky from Syyn Labs drives home the lessons around co-creation with an interactive laser challenge. It took awhile, but we eventually rallied and made the perfect pitch.
We love how attendees used the future-proofing workshop to flex their creative muscles—even when they went rogue like Michael DiTullo! We agree—plan your coffee supply in advance to avoid a loss in productivity.
Even though it's too late to watch our Instagram Stories feed—the posts only stay up for 24 hours—here's a couple of our favorite in-the-moment captures from the conference.
We asked our speakers to answer the question, "what industry will design have the greatest impact on within the next five years?" Here, Refugee Crisis roundtable panelist, Amro Sallam, gives his thoughtful answer. Hint: co-creation is a key part of design's future.
We took advantage of our location at the Vibiana by asking our attendees to confess their worst design sins—answers ranged from designing a wacky finger-tip massager really meant for ladies to misunderstanding project assignments. Mistakes happen, and it's important to laugh about them later on!
Make sure to watch our future Instagram Stories for behind-the-scenes looks at events, workshops and our New York headquarters.
We live tweeted from the symposium floor and encouraged attendees to share their experiences too. Follow the hashtag #Core77Con on Twitter for a 360-degree view of what mattered most.
In an effort to advance their design reputation, Renault has engaged in a bold design exercise in their Trezor concept car unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. The all-electric, autonomous-driving-capable two-seater is as wildly impractical as any concept car, though some of the styling cues are expected to pop up in their future production lineup.
There is one interesting aspect to the design that no one seems to be discussing, and we'd like to get your feedback on it. Take a look at the video and see what jumps out at you:
No, we're not talking about the crazy canopy. What interests us is the bit about how the exterior lighting changes when the car is being used in autonomous mode, to signal to other drivers that there is no human at the wheel.
The feature is of interest because currently, the only design element of current cars that are intended to communicate with other drivers are the turn signals. So our first question is, why is Renault proposing the Autonomous lighting scheme? To signal to surrounding drivers that extra care ought be taken as the human driver is otherwise engaged?
The second question is how this design language will be worked out. What pattern of lighting would signify "Autonomous," and how would other drivers understand that that's what it stood for? Would there be an industry-wide standard and some type of awareness campaign to educate the masses?
Bottom line: How useful would you find such a feature?
If autonomous cars become statistically safer than human drivers, which all parties working on such technology believe, then it seems the lighting alert would be unnecessary. However, it has jarred an idea: What I'd like to see on current, non-autonomous cars is an easily-discernible exterior light that illuminates when the driver is texting or otherwise engaged with his phone. Then I would know to steer well clear.
What makes a good mattresses is pretty subjective, and pillows might be even more divisive. Despite the nitpicky nature of the industry, the mattress startup Purple has launched a follow-up to their wildly successful first Kickstarter and this time they're aiming for the head.
Purple didn't just break out thanks to its hip one-word name and promise to "disrupt" bad sleep experiences. Its colorful brand is based around the new honeycomb-looking material Hyper-Elastic Polymer™, which provides a decidedly different butt-feel than more familiar foams. In this new Kickstarter they're putting their firm-yet-forgiving HEP to work as "the heaviest pillow ever." The aggressively wacky campaign video spells out their tech promises.
The material's key claim to fame is a lack of over- or under-compressing that is unlike foam or down. Regularity of consistency goes a long way in providing reliable all-night pillow comfort, though ideal consistency is a subjective window to aim for. It also boasts that people of all weights and shapes get equally satisfying support, which is a pretty bold claim.
This pillow specs greater compression in the middle and stiffer structure around the outside, for dome-pressure relief without losing neck support. The design sounds a bit like popular double-lump foam pillows, but Purple claims the improvement lies in the lack of a predetermined radius, which they note can make the curvy pillows feel worse than normal if they don't fit your angles right. And if you crave big fat spongy pillows? Add on their slablike air cushion that works like a booster seat.
The porous material additionally works as a cooling agent, pulling heat away from your sweaty meaty head through its polymer channels, instead of storing heat in compressed foam.
As a fidgety sleeper (the "undecided" example in the video hit a little close to home), I do wonder whether a heavy pillow is always a boon. If it keeps me from readjusting in the first place, great, but if it doesn't I doubt it would be able to keep up with my cross-bed rambling like I'd want it to. I also wonder how the HEP holds up over time, if it can be cleaned, and whether the incorporated polyester pillowcase is enough to mask what might be a creepy crinkly air mattress lurking under your head. How does this tech really differ from buying a well made, you-fitting traditional pillow? They don't really break it down that far.
Overall I'm intrigued by the new material possibilities and the team's engineering chops, but it's still a little outside my comfort zone.
The already funded campaign runs through October 22, 2016. What would it take for you to try a new type of pillow?
Modo designs and builds products that make healthcare more affordable, more effective, and more human. Our customers include Intuitive Surgical, Medtronic, Philips and GE Healthcare. We hold the same design awards as Apple, NIKE and BMW. Our designers work closely with senior managers around the world. There is no better place to learn about research, business, design and how to make a difference. Everything we do makes lives better around the world every day.
View the full design job hereA pregnant acquaintance of mine related the following story, about how "Grandmas of Harlem continue to come to my rescue." As she boarded a bus, the following happened:
This grandmother, sitting in an interior seat of the bus, saw me and flagged me over. The young man sitting next to her got ready to stand to let her out and asked her, "Are you getting up?" The grandmother said "No, baby, you are."
It's fair to say that no one knows what a pregnant woman goes through better than a woman that has been pregnant. In addition to the baby's weight, women pack on supportive pounds during pregnancy which, coupled with the new shape on the front of their body, turns previously trivial tasks like pulling socks on or getting into a car into outright ordeals.
In an effort to build awareness, a government initiative in Japan had three governors wear pregnancy-simulating rigs, then asked them to conduct daily tasks, both of their own office and of what a pregnant housewife might do on a daily basis. While there are no subtitles, the visuals are easy enough to understand:
Japan is a nation where traditional gender roles are still mostly adhered to. The initiative, which is part of Japan's Work Life Promotion Campaign, is intended to educate Japanese men on what their pregnant wives go through, in an effort to encourage them to do more housework themselves. The "96.7%" number shown towards the end of the video reflects the percentage of men who, after viewing the footage, agreed that they need to do more to pitch in.
That pregnancy rig, by the way, would make a great tool for male designers who are designing products or environments for pregnant women. But the better solution, of course, would be to have pregnant women design them themselves.
Design researcher Dr. Sam Waller points out an interesting conundrum: Most designers have good vision. Or at least, access to corrective measures that enable good vision. Because you can't earn a living manipulating CAD drawings if you can't see them in the first place. What this means is that most designers are automatically designing things that have good visibility only to those with their level of vision and above. This leaves a wide swath of the population behind.
While one can always focus-group things amongst folks of different abilities, firsthand experience is always better. That's why Waller and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge's Engineering Design Centre have developed an Inclusive Design Toolkit, which consists of Simulation Glasses and Simulation Gloves that designers can wear to test their own products.
The gloves simulate arthritis, limiting the range of motion and strength of the wearer's digits, while the glasses reduce vision by degrees; stacking on more pairs of glasses reduces visibility further.
The team sells the gloves to designers for £155 (about USD $200) a pair. Five pairs of glasses go for £30 (about USD $40). You can learn more here.
The Q system is a wearable captioning device that displays text and graphed emotions in addition to allowing people with hearing loss to feel the sounds that they are missing. The system is comprised of a band that is worn on the user's hand, an array microphone clip that is worn on the user's clothing, a charging unit, and an app that can be used with smart phones or tablets.
When a person is speaking to someone who is wearing Q, their voice is captured by the array microphone, transported to the band via Bluetooth, and translated into text using voice recognition software. The text appears on an OLED screen embedded in the palm of the band. If the person wearing Q chooses, they can activate 4 features using finger commands: (1) Transcript Recording, which allows the user to begin recording a transcript of a conversation, (2) Emoticaptioning, which displays the speaker’s volume, frequency, and duration of sound in one fluid graph, (3) Touch Speech, which uses combinations of four pressure points to represent sounds that a person with hearing loss might be missing, and (4) Bookmarking, which allows the user to mark a moment in the conversation for future reference. Transcripts, bookmarks, and a calendar can be accessed through the accompanying app.
Q Allows Users to:
• Saves money—no more hiring interpreters and paying them hourly
• Gives user more independence (not having to schedule interpreters 24 hours in advance/not being followed around by interpreters)
• Allows users to understand a more complete conversation with added emotion.
• Allows users to have more eye contact when they use the Touch Speech feature.
Of all of the nods to utopia at London Design Festival this year, one exhibition captured the spirit of egalitarian optimism, forgoing the allusion to the 500th anniversary of Sir Thomas More's book altogether.
You wouldn't know it by looking at the results of Martino Gamper's modest experiment, displayed in the window of Kensington's new-ish SEE••DS gallery. Collectively and individually oozing wabi-sabi charm, the 100-or-so ceramics on view at the SEE• (Special Event Exhibition; more on •DS below) storefront space were the result of a weekend workshop at the Camden Arts Centre. The Italian designer rallied a dozen of his designer friends — a tight-knit community, albeit one that had never operated as collective — for the project at the heart of No Ordinary Love: Tiago Almeida, Fabien Cappello, Lars Frideen, Max Frommeld, Faudet Harrison, Gemma Holt, Jochen Holz, Max Lamb, Will Shannon, Silo Studio, Harry Thaler, and Bethan Laura Wood.
Between the New York Times T Magazine’s glowing reportage and the gallery's expository statement about No Ordinary Love, the collaborative effort (which had the working title “Getting Your Hands Dirty”) is described in obliquely utopian terms as an “anthropological laboratory”:
How do people collaborate? What prevails in the dynamics of cooperation? What are the necessary adjustments compared to an individual creative act? Above all, with a collectively signed project, what happens to the authorship of designers who are already renowned and promoted by the market?
In other words, No Ordinary Love knowingly raises the possibility of losing oneself in the collective — of subsuming one's identity in service of something greater — in the context of a high-end gallery, with its attendant economic engine: The market marks the limit of utopia . Hence, the premise of “Daze or Double”: Each of the ceramic pieces is attributed to the collective (as denoted by a sun-shaped stamp) and may be purchased as such, with the option to pay double to discover, in signed certificate form, exactly whose hand shaped the clay.
It's a provocative — if somewhat heavy-handed — critique of the gallery system and the perceived value of authorship. Insofar as SEE••DS positions itself as “midway between art and design” (a characterization loosely echoed in the “Daze or Double” concept), it goes without saying that the merchandise within its walls are luxury goods, their ostensible functionality far overshadowed by their status as collectibles. “Anonymous” or not, the pieces are objets d'art, produced, exhibited, bought, and sold in the context of a system. (It's telling that SEE••DS is located in one of London's poshest neighborhoods, in a retail space formerly occupied by a butcher and subsequently a florist; original details, such as the green tiles in the SEE• space, remain intact.)
If the collection in the SEE• space poses a pointed question about value, the second “half” of No Ordinary Love, in the •DS (Design Store) space, responds with aplomb. Spanning two smaller back rooms and the entirety of the basement, the substantially larger Design Store galleries offer a straightforward presentation of mostly one-off pieces by the 13 workshop participants. The relationship between the two sections is billed as a “subtle and irreverent dialogue,” yet the primary presentation — the egalitarian weekend workshop — is ultimately validated by its more conventional counterpart.
Thus, the measured critique is not directed at the gallery system (much less the market writ large) but rather the putative risk that a collector is willing to take — a simple gamble, the stakes largely born in the secondary market. The rest of us can admire the goods — there is no denying the beauty and craftsmanship of many of the works, which will be on view until January 20, 2017 — but need not enquire about the prices.
All told, the “Daze or Double” mechanism is merely a gesture, something like a mime feigning imprisonment in a glass box but not daring to step outside of it. At risk of mixing the metaphor, it is the proverbial invisible hand that shapes the container; in the end, Gamper cannot but stop short of biting the hand that feeds. Both the designer and his benefactor, SEE••DS founder Nathalie Assi, know as much: One hand, as the saying goes, washes the other.
As helpful as school can be, there are many topics design programs fail to breach—particularly in the realm of operating within the professional sectors of the design world.
On our discussion boards, Core77 moderator Mr-914 recently brought up an apt point about a subject no design student would predict they need to know in their future. Mr-914 writes:
"Louis Sullivan said, "Great architecture requires great clients" or something close to that. This weekend, I was thinking about this in a moment of design rage and it dawned on me. I've never had a class, seen a lecture or read an article on how to get or even recognize great clients. I was hoping the collective C77 board intelligence could help me out. Any clues?
One example I have is an architect once told me about when his office got successful enough to start turning clients away. He had a client that just kept insisting for bad design in their million dollar house project and after 2-3 meetings the architect told them he wasn't their man.
The problem with that is that it depends on judgement based on hundreds of client meetings. Even then, he had to burn 8-12 hours on preparation and meetings just to turn the job down. Are their signs we can depend on earlier?"
Here are some words of advice from our fellow discussion board members that may be helpful to any freelancers or agencies in this predicament:
"The clarity of [the potential client's] brief can be taken under consideration. The more vague, the more I'd stay away. But I have never seen a design firm at 100% capacity. And instead of turning away customers, they will add capacity before they hit critical mass. Maybe it's different for the architecture folks, but those guys take themselves way too seriously."- iab
"The greater the instance on an NDA, the greater likelihood the idea is crap and not worth it. I've had billion dollar brands work with me with no NDA (obv. they have big lawyers) and 'inventors' want a 10 page NDA and more signed." - rkuchinsky
"Sometimes your gut reaction is the best indicator. I took a lot of jobs and would argue that most of them were with terrible clients. 'Inventor' types who watched shark tank too much and insisted because they had already spent money on patents that their ideas would be worth millions, and were not open to any changes or improvements. Just wanted somebody to 'CAD it up' or 'make it look prettier'...Ultimately you will need to spend some time with them to get a sense of their level of arrogance and demands, and even then until you actually start negotiating a real statement of work the craziness might not come out. The best thing you can do is plan deliverables and payments in a way that minimizes your risk, and gives you an exit strategy if you need to jump ship." - Cyberdemon
"You either know the NPD [New Product Development] process or you don't. Bad clients will tend to be the ones who don't know and will say 'I need to launch.' Good clients will know the process and be specific about where they are in the process and what they need at that time. 'We see this opportunity and need to to run some ideas by our customers.'"- iab
"Gut feel has a lot to do with it. I actually work a lot with startups, new brands and people not experienced in the process. It's given me a different attitude to client and process management. They hire me because I do what I do, and they can see the value in it." — rkuchinsky
"I don't take projects where I think I can do great design, but will ultimately sit on shelf because the client has no money for development or getting to market.
I don't take projects where I know I will be not seeing eye to eye on the process or design.
I don't take projects where my value is not recognized by the client, regardless of if they pay me what I'm looking for.
I don't take projects where I think the idea is stupid and even if they can get to market.
I don't take projects if they don't need me, or need so much more than me that I wouldn't make a difference to the end result.
I don't take projects if I can't get paid.
I don't take projects only for the money no matter how much, if that's the only thing going for it.
.....
I do take projects I think I can do good work on.
I do take projects that I think are a good idea by a good person I can work with.
I do take projects that challenge me and provide me with an opportunity to do something new or get involved in a different area or skill." — rkuchinsky
Share your thoughts—do you agree with these tips? Have any advice of your own? Client horror stories? Contribute to the discussion in the comment feed below, or chime in on our original discussion board post!
