Images and Reporting by Ciara Taylor

Last Wednesday, at the Design Research Conference held at the Spertus Institute in Chicago, a number of presentations centered on the theme of executing design research in different kinds of organizations: corporations, startups, and consultancies. The following presentations gave insight into the practices, methods, and challenges of designers and design researchers at each of these kinds of organizations.

Ken Kellogg and Gina Villavicencio, Senior Directors of User Research at Marriott ecommerce, delivered a talk, "Finding Balance: Making Research Driven Decisions in a Corporate Environment." A key point of the presentation was that, in using research results to drive decisions made in a large organization, it is important to be mindful that different people need different things. Creative professionals are traditionally well-versed in qualitative data. Business-minded decision makers at an organization are likely to be influenced by quantitative analyses. A balance of both is essential for fruitful collaboration between different disciplines in a corporate environment.

Charles Adler, Co-founder and Creative Director of the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, gave a talk titled "Designing and Managing with Trust in Mind." Kickstarter has thirty employees, which creates more flexibility with research methodologies and business decisions. Throughout his talk, Adler emphasizes the trust he has in his employees and the decisions they make. He also touches on the company's research methods, which have a personal focus, and merge both qualitative and quantitative methods. They employ interviews and field research, meetups with the community, chat, analytics and usability studies. Adler reflected that an advantage of being a smaller organization was the opportunity to build personal relationships with their users, and from that comes feedback they can apply to future decisions.

As a toy designer who focuses on high-quality and often hand-carved toys (for his company Kiko+), Toshitsugu Fujiwara was inspired to create the modular "BLOCTOOL" units, when he decided to experiment with different ways to bring the joy and creativity of experimenting with toy block designs to modular furniture.

The "BLOCTOOL" set consists of large meter-high interlocking pieces that seem to have borrowed inspiration from Tetris, Space Invaders and Jenga blocks. The unit sizes are of convenient height to make the various formations friendly to form either a reading chair, table, stool, staircase or booktable. When combined, multiple units can be combined to even form a large table or benches.

When operating—or should I say, playing with the unit—the pieces had a convenient size, and despite the heft to the wood, they're easy enough to rearrange and restyle in various patterns. They come in three large, interlocking shapes: a small black rectangular block, a blue cubic-donut with two jutting-out elements, and a red cubic-donut that looks like a three pronged European electrical plug.

The Famo (standing for FAther and MOther) website aptly describes the BLOCTOOLS as "sophisticated and playful furniture for adults," who are intended to "enjoy playing with blocks freely to enrich their own private space." The units are designed to be able to reconfigure quickly and simply to meet various scenarios around the household.

Initial designs for the prototype were displayed at the "MaisonD'objet" exhibition in Paris in 2010. Fujiwara's toys are self-designed, manufactured and carved in China and Vietnam, and then sold across Europe, via a distributor based in the Netherlands.

What could all of these people possibly be staring at?

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's—

Manoteca is a line of one-off furniture from a Bologna, Italy-based designer known only as Elisa. Her collection of repurposed found objects, left in their original conditions as closely as possible, is both artful and sturdy-looking.

Indoor is made from exterior doors. In the closed position it's a dining table for eight; with one side open it provides storage for a temporary office desk.

Creative Director
MTV Networks US
New York, New York

The Creative Director at MTV Networks, US, is responsible for developing original creative design concepts and approaches, overseeing multiple projects through execution, and collaborating with a team of designers to build customized campaigns for Viacom's advertising clients. These include Fortune 500 Companies looking to create customized campaigns across all of Viacom's properties (both TV and Digital).

The Creative Director will contribute to the development of digital and TV marketing strategies, drive the collaborative efforts of the project's creative, user experience and technology teams, and inspire teammates on all levels to exceed expectations.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

This is the first post in a 7-part series from Panthea Lee of service design consultancy, Reboot. Lee will explore the role of design in international development, The Messy Art of Saving the World

International development and governance projects have a notorious track record. Every day, it seems, we hear another report of foreign aid siphoned off by corrupt officials and projects losing money to bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Take this story, published last year in The New York Times: The Egyptian government, hoping to increase internet access, had established over 2,000 telecenters across the country. But an independent researcher found that almost none of the centers were functioning; in one city, just four out of 23 were active. The telecenters weren't being used in large part because they weren't even necessary—the rise of internet cafes in Egypt had made them redundant.

"The failure, in other words, was in not understanding the ecosystem in which the telecenters would be operating," said the Times.

Too often, projects like these are born and developed by corporations, foundations, governments, and other institutions without a day-to-day understanding of the lives of the people they're meant to help. There's no shortage of good intentions, hard work, and committed individuals. Where the field of development falls short, however, is in process.

This is where the discipline of design can help; its tools and principles can help address the flaws in strategy and process that plague the field, and help develop programs that impact people's lives in concrete ways.

Right now, many disparate voices—both from development and governance and from the field of design—are working to articulate how design can improve societies all over the world. It's thrilling to see so many talented designers excited about the possibilities. But this movement is still new, and while a lot of people are talking, too few are putting the practice into action.

One challenge lies in the gap between the discipline of design and the fields of development and governance. The latter two, like any other field, are fraught with history, political complexity, and operational challenges that a newcomer cannot fully grasp. Colleagues in the development sector and from other public institutions have complained that they are being bombarded by enthusiastic designers who have little understanding of the fields they're so set on revolutionizing.

Just as the Egyptian government needed to look closely at a city before throwing in a telecenter, designers need to build an understanding of these fields before jumping in to innovate.

From the invention of paper cups to Kleenex, hygiene has had a long love affair with disposability. But in this age of choking sea turtles and overflowing landfills, environmental considerations have turned the relationship between clean and green into something of a bad romance.

But 10 years ago, roommates Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan founded method, a cleaning products company that has continually innovated sustainable practices. You are probably already acquainted with their super concentrated laundry detergent, which uses 36% less plastic than the average detergent bottle. Awesome news: method has recently redesigned the packaging for their detergent refill pouch, making it easier than ever to reuse the compact pump.

The company has also continued to increase their use of the shrink-wrapped labels that first appeared on the detergent bottle. Shrink-wrapping enables graphic flexibility while keeping the plastic eminently recyclable. Method "Product Czar" Don Frey told us that coloring the plastic bottle itself would mean downcycling when it reached a recycling facility: it would become a lower grade plastic bench instead of being reconverted into a higher use plastic bottle. But if the graphic treatment is shrink-wrapped rather than integrated into the form, the bottle's plastic can be recycled at a higher grade and the materials used longer.
shrink-wrap = longer circulation of materials = less use of new materials + less plastic in landfills = WIN

Using the shrink-wrap tactic also means that method can visually differentiate clear liquid soaps without resorting to the use of artificial dyes.

But in spite of all this awesomeness, method isn't getting lazy or relying on greenwashing, either. On their website, co-founder Adam Lowry writes:

At method, we want to be a sustainable business, but we recognize that no business is sustainable yet. That's why we've geared our company to be the best at getting better. Our sustainability philosophy starts with our mission to Inspire a Happy, Healthy Home Revolution, and centers around using innovation to create positive change. But mere sustainability is not our goal. We want to go much farther than that. We want to become restorative and enriching in everything we do so that the bigger we get, the more good we create. We are striving for sustainable abundance.

Amen. Lookout for method's new packaging for their toilet bowl cleaner set to come out this Spring!

First, Helvetica. Then, Objectified. Now, Urbanized. You might think Gary Hustwit, director of the recently completed trilogy of films on design had a deep involvement with the design world prior to making Helvetica. He didn't. He worked in the music industry, made a few music films (including the acclaimed Wilco doc I am Trying to Break Your Heart), and tried his hand at designing a few typefaces. But, the trilogy simply grew out of a somewhat obsessive curiosity about design and how it happens, and a desire to reveal how it impacts our everyday.

Hustwit's status as a (former) design outsider is precisely what is so great about his films. He views the processes behind things like the creation of the New York City Subway Map and the detailed decisions made in designing the iPod, as novel and exciting. He asks questions a designer wouldn't, and tells the stories of design in a (somewhat) objective, journalistic way. His films reveal the processes and decisions made by designers, but most essentially, they show the impact that these decisions have on us.

While all three of his last films may seem very specific at first glance, Hustwit takes a democratic spin on design with all, remaining very cognizant of telling the story simply and to the largest audience that may be interested. He wanted to talk to designers about design, but he has no desire to make films that just speak to designers. Urbanized, the final film in his trilogy, focuses on the design of cities. Hustwit's approach, emphasizing how design affects us all, comes across most clearly in this film. More importantly, he reveals how ordinary people can affect design.

Illuminating this is Hustwit's response to the notion that a trilogy on design, starting with graphic and moving to industrial, would naturally move to architecture. In response, Hustwit explains, "I've always been interested in architecture, but there have been a lot of documentaries about architects and about architecture. But mostly I wanted to explore architecture in the context of the city rather than just looking at buildings. I was more interested in the public realm than the private realm of just buildings; and also, how those two interact."

Hustwit continued, "I like the idea of showing how design affects our lives and then showing the people that are responsible for that design. In this case, that happens to be as much ordinary citizens as trained professionals."

Detroit

Helvetica and Objectified are both composed of tons of great footage in design studios, showing sketching, modeling and manufacturing, interwoven with designers talking about their craft. The footage in Urbanized, shot beautifully again by Director of Photography Luke Geissbühler, is of public space—streets, sidewalks, parks, public transportation. The talking heads are architects and urban planners, yes, and also developers, politicians, activists, artists and typical citizens.

Urbanized, like Helvetica and Objectified, gives a brief history on the subject, touching on Jane Jacobs, and also talking to Oscar Niemeyer about the failed ideal of Brasília. The capital of Brazil, planned and developed in the 1950's with Lucio Costa as principal planner and Niemeyer as principal architect, Brasília was designed from plan-view. Its buildings are solitary structures, with beautiful looping roads connecting them, but trying to walk anywhere takes hours.

"You can design whatever you want, whatever building or development or piece of the city that you wanted to do as a professional or a developer or city government; but, if people don't use it and don't adopt it and take ownership of it, it's a failure. So, from that standpoint, ordinary citizens are a huge factor," Hustwit said.

What could be better than Google Maps? C3 Technologies' stunning 3D city displays, which let you rotate, zoom and pan through the city as if you'd modeled it all on your computer. The technology, which uses footage captured from airplanes and processed through a formerly proprietary military missile-guidance system, absolutely must be seen to be believed. Check out San Francisco, starting around 2:00:

Things that earn the (coveted?) "Things That Look Like Other Things" designation are nearly always designed expressly to look like the aforementioned "other thing," and Floris Wubben's "Eyrie" Chair is no exception. (If anything, the appellation speaks largely to how much the thing looks like the other thing.)

The nest of a bird is an inventive piece of natural architecture. As a designer, who works a lot with natural material, I was always fascinated by these natural structures. The Eyrie Chair is an ode to these natural constructions.

During my search for branches I was specifically interested in... the specific forms of these wooden branches, [which] inspired this design.

In order to achieve the naturalistic effect of curved wood, Wubben used steam-bent ash slats, joined with ash pins and wood glue.

I'm curious as to whether or not the chair is comfortable for long stretches—the best sign of a good lounge or armchair is whether or not it's suited for napping. Perhaps the tangle of wood slats gradually "warps" to the shape of a sitter's body, over the course of hours, days, weeks...

I love seeing the various jigs, fixtures and contraptions that craftspeople invent to speed their creative tasks, and one great thing about the internet is people aren't shy about sharing them. But nothing drives me more nuts than when they show you the jig, show you part of the operation, then skip ahead to the end product without showing you what the heck happened in between.

Case in point: Up top is Artist Ellen Nielsen's Big Pom. That's the end product. Below is the video showing the contraption she uses to make it, but the video ends without showing the crucial final steps. Do you have any idea what those steps are? (You'll want to scan through the video, to see the intermediate steps, as it's six minutes long.)

While no answer exists on Nielsen's website, I noodled around on the web a bit and believe I've figured it out. If you want to be a hero, see if you can guess what she did without hitting the jump. All others, click on through to see a video that may provide the answer.

What do you do if you come across a great piece of furniture when traveling? What do you do if the piece of furniture can be brought home on an airplane?

Design Soil is a group project formed within the design department of Kobe Design University, which aims to explore experimental themes in the design educational context today. The concept for the works they exhibited at Design Tide Tokyo revolve around is that of a "souvenir."

The idea is that the reduction of distribution costs is one of the most important matters to be considered in the furniture industry today. Along with finding ways to reduce package size, the practice of assembling furniture at home has become more common. With "Souvenir," they have attempted to design furniture that could be dismantled and stored in a package within the hand-luggage size limit allowed by major airlines.

Designer: Akinori Tagashira
Product name: Corker
Product type: stool
Size: w.380 x d.390 x h.360
Material: cork, birch

Akinori Tagashira took on the challenge of creating a comfortable stool from soft and warm, natural materials. Cork not only has soft and warm properties, it also has a natural elasticity that Tagashira applied towards his design.

When disassembled, the piece consists of three legs, a ring and the cork core. The total weight of the pieces is around 5kg, well within the 8kg~10kg limit of carry-on baggage allowance of airlines. Indentations on each leg allow them to hook onto the ring, and then fixed once pressure from the core top is applied. Thanks to the natural elasticity of the cork, the elements become more tightly attached when a load is applied, and thus the act of sitting down itself becomes a design element as well.

The cork and birch are complementary materials, imparting an earthy, organic aesthetic to Tagashira's design. The cork was custom molded by a cork maker, and although the ring and legs were cut with a machine, the grooves for mounting the legs on the ring were cut by hand. (See also: designer Daniel Michalik on cork, Part 1 & 2, and the "How Cork Is Made" photo gallery.)

More on Nobu Miake's "CATHEDRAL" (above) after the jump...

Senior Industrial Designer
BMW Group Designworks USA
Munich, Germany

BMW Group DesignworksUSA is a global design consultancy that specializes in design strategy and research, design development and creative consulting. They're currently seeking a new team member for their industrial design team in Munich, Germany, whose responsibilities will include concept and design development through all phases of the design process for a broad bandwidth of industries and clients. He or she will closely collaborate with internal cross-discipline teams and external clients, suppliers and creative partners across global locations, guiding project teams under the lead of creative directors.

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South Carolina-based Mac accessory company Twelve South recently unveiled their latest design, the "Plugbug," an iPad/iPhone travel charger that piggybacks on a MacBook Power Adapter. The design is about as intuitive as it gets, at least as far as Mac users are concerned: The ingenious PlugBug connects to all MacBook Power Adapters. Simply snap PlugBug onto a MacBook Power Adapter, in place of the adapter's AC plug, and you now have one handy device that charges MacBook and iPad or iPhone at the same time, using only one wall outlet. This can be a real lifesaver when you need to charge both before a meeting or—even more stressful—between connecting flights with only one outlet available.

Perhaps the most salient aspect of the design is its crimson hue, the only colorway offered by Twelve South.

So why is PlugBug red? Noted author and original Mac Evangelist Guy Kawasaki gets credit for the color. When shown an early prototype, Kawasaki insisted PlugBug should carry a show-stopping hue viewable from across the room—or airport. The "Kawasaki Red" PlugBug was born.

I, for one, find the color appropriate, if a bit loud: while the form factor is identical to that of a MacBook charger, the color is a nice twist on the grayscale palette we've come to expect from minimalist peripherals.

The namesake of the color stars in their promo spot:

Surf gear company Rip Curl and Time-Slice Films, the visual effects house behind the "bullet time" visuals first seen in The Matrix, have partnered up to take digital camera arrays where they've never gone before: In the water to capture surfers in action.

As you can imagine the technical challenges were immense, and their first foray was in the more controlled environment of the wave pool at Malaysia's Sunway Lagoon Hotel. There they could erect an in-water scaffolding to mount 52 full-sized DSLR cameras, and the results were stunning (I highly recommend you watch them full-screen):

Over the past few months, Core77 and Knoll have asked you to share the Secret to Your Success—ideas on how you get the most out of your workday and how you measure success in your business and in your life. We've been educated and encouraged. We've heard some unique tips about coffee, exercise, pets, sleep and sleep deprivation. And, we've considered failure and envisioned goals.

And, like the design ideas behind the Generation chair by Knoll, we've discovered that, when they think about the big picture, or even the small picture, creative professionals focus on the basics—building relationships, pushing creative boundaries, sustaining balance, seeking originality and uncovering authenticity.

@LifeGivenAShape Success is a natural side effect of persistence and passion.

@jonwinebrenner Be authentic to yourself.

@elipsdesign Being optimistic, smile and working hard.

@KristinWastney Hardworking but balanced. Creative but calculated. Inspired but not distracted. Caffeinated but still hydrated.

@AmpedStyle You think up a great idea? Push your boundaries and make it a breakthrough one.

@JohnnyGetIt Bouncing ideas is great, but, trusting your gut leads to a clearly defined path and extra time for revision!

And, our winner this week—

@kemcelroy Listen to your gut reactions & instincts. They are usually right and help lead you to new solutions & adventures.

Kathryn McElroy is a graphic designer and artist living near Indianapolis, IN with her husband and corgi. Whether it's through digital art, paper engineering, laser cutting, painting and photography or cooking and baking, Kathryn embraces creativity. As a freelance designer, she works on design identity, print and web projects, including anything from custom Wordpress themes and logos to oversized newspaper inserts and eighteen-month, full-color calendars.

Thanks for your insight, Kathryn. We hope you'll enjoy your new Generation chair from Knoll so you can continue to create and sit how you want!

And, thanks to everyone for participating in this fun project. You can find out more about the Generation by Knoll family of work chairs at www.sithowyouwant.com and follow @Knoll_Inc on Twitter.

Last week, Artek Design Director Ville Kokkonen was in town to introduce the new White collection, Artek's first lighting collection since Alvar Aalto's classic forms were put into production in the '40s and '50s. Two years in the making, the White collection moves Artek's current lighting offering into the present by considering the possibilities of using fluorescent instead of incandescent lightbulbs—the collection rethinks the typology of the lamp and includes a medically-certified bright light therapy solution.

Using 15th and 16th century architecture as a starting point, each piece in the collection is designed to reflect light. "We studied ancient architecture—when there was no artificial light and walls were thicker—and examined the parameters of the windows and where they were located to bring light into a particular space," Kokkonen explains. "We looked at that from several different perspectives and that partly influenced the formal language of the superbright rectangular surface."

The Bright White 1, a rectangular table lamp that has been medically certified for bright light therapy, was created as a solution for the notorious winter blues. It can also serve as a functioning tabletop work lamp. In the research process, Kokkonen realized that many users of bright light therapy lamps tend to store their lamps after each use. The Bright White 1, "shifts [these lamps] from technical device to permanent fixture." Fluorescent bulbs are mounted to the back of a deep plywood casing to create a more narrow light cone. The front surface diffuses the light, allowing 97%-98% of light to pass through. A dimmer allows for users to adjust the lamp according to usage and needs.

Bright White 1

"There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear" ...or so the saying goes. Bike Snob NYC recently brought my attention to a new-ish cycling accessory that is perhaps more an example of the latter than a measure against the former. The ambitiously-named "Uberhood"—BSNYC notes that some might mistake it for "the new name for Williamsburg, Brooklyn"—is a handlebar-mounted umbrella for the semper paratus cyclist, purportedly equally useful in rain or shine. Either way, Uberhood has you covered:

Rain: When skies are grey, the Uberhood always provides a silver lining. Elongated design and aerodynamic shape means rain is repelled; wind resistance is low; and you STAY DRY.

Sun: Think of it as SPF 20,000. With the Uberhood special silver lining reflecting the sun, you won't just look cool, you'll BE COOL anywhere and everywhere you ride.

Well, in terms of staying dry in rainy conditions, fenders—conspicuously absent in the majority of their product photography—should be the first order of business. (A helmet could also be considered a necessity when traversing slick streets with reduced braking power; the fact that it covers one's head is just a bonus.)

Metacommentary aside, I find that I literally face a substantial amount of, um, frontal drenching when riding in the rain... though perhaps the Uberhood provides sufficient drag to preclude this problem.

For what it's worth, the quasi-aero form factor loosely resembles another (handheld) umbrella design we've seen before, though I'm skeptical as to how it would hold up in the gusty conditions that characterize moderate to heavy storms here on the East Coast. (Curiously enough, none of the product photography shows riders in any sort of downpour...)

One of my colleagues (who shall remain unnamed) pointed out that the assembly video features quite a bit of suggestively-positioned thigh:

Germany-based designer Sarah Bottger keeps it modular with her nifty Juuri series of glassware. By taking one basic bottle shape, making dozens of them and making cuts at eight different locations, Bottger cleverly yields a myriad of containers, from jars to glasses to decanters and everything in between.

Mint Foundry, a research team at the London office of Mint Digital, have been making a stink (in a manner of speaking) about a new peripheral called "Olly." Given the brief to "make something connected to the Internet that doesn't live on a screen," the fruit of their efforts is a USB device that converts web notifications into smells:

Olly takes services on the Internet and delivers their pings as smell. Whether it's tweets, a like on Instagram, or just your train running late, Olly will be sure to let your nose know about it. The best part? The services Olly connects to can be added to by developers, making the possibilities endless.

Your push notifications just got a lot more visceral: whether it's a redolent waft of espresso to accompany the unread e-mail deluge in the morning or a puff of potpourri for each ping, Olly marks the next evolution of the Glade plug-in.

As for Olly's features: the scent—"essential oils, a slice of fruit, your partner's perfume or even a drop of gin," etc.—originates from a small dish, which slides out of a drawer in Olly's back. His face (it's a 'he' according to Mint Foundry) consists of a customizable dot-grid; in fact, he is completely open source: "All the parts, code and instructions to Olly are fully accessible and open. Tinker about and see what is possible. Olly is what you make him."