Hasta La Ideas

On Monday, IDEO Chicago‘s team filled the room with goodness. We kicked off the Make-a-Thon exercise by posting inspiration from the Six Themes Tumblr site and discussing some of the most prominent themes. The next thing we knew, Elaine Fong had filled the room with sounds from the nineties-—R&B style. Designers began sketching, cutting, filming and testing out ideas. Together we explored, we inspired, we got creative and we forgot about lunch (well, almost). All in all, it wasn’t unlike an average day at IDEO.

Joe Graceffa (top image) experiments with replacing the four letters that make up the word IDEO with words that represent our culture, as well as the types of emotion that we hope to inspire in others. Here, Joe experiments with how to capture and share his concept.

Here, Josh Sin sketches sine waves to represent the discipline, background, and energies of the individuals in the room and the articulation toward various streams of work. The sine waves and their permutations informed Josh’s design concept “IDEO Signatures.”

Murphy MacDonald and Nick Inzucchi help Mary Foyder animate her concept “Alive & In Shadow,” which plays with light, shadow and movement to bring the IDEO logo to life.

Mary Foyder, Murphy MacDonald, Josh Sin, Dave Vondle, Ryan Sievert, Burton Rast and Joe Graceffa review early concepts and devise the best way to divide and conquer in time to meet the deadline.

Check out Chicago’s concepts on our Six Themes Tumblr site.

Brand New IDEO centers on a 24-hour global Make-a-Thon taking place on Monday, March 25th in IDEO’s eleven offices around the world, starting in Tokyo and ending in San Francisco.

Brand New IDEO:
» Preview with Michael Hendrix and Paul Bennett in Conversation
» Opening Remarks by Michael Hendrix
» Tokyo: Robots, Cherry Blossoms & Bento Boxes
» Singapore: Origami & Experiments with 3D
» Mumbai: Minimum Viable Logo & Windows on the World
» Shanghai: Morning Exercise, Jump Rope and Calligraphy
» Munich: Personalize, Simply and Move
» London: The Grid Grows
» Boston: Crafting and Prototyping with Wood, Dye & Cornstarch
» New York: Exploring Music, Verbs and Cubes
» Chicago: Sketching Sine Waves to R&B
» San Francisco Bay: Build to Think, Dive Into Abstraction, and Embrace the Infinite Grid
» What We Learned and What’s Next

(more…)

On Monday at 7 a.m., the Global Make-a-Thon baton passed to IDEO Boston. The making commenced with materials ranging from sharpies to cornstarch, dye to wood, and pencils to laptops.

Using only natural materials to create physical pixels, Ryan Habbyshaw, Brad Crane and Greg Wolos used the contrast of various side grain and end grain wood blocks to recreate the IDEO logo.

Rolling with the idea of creating intent over presence, we decided to create an experiment that we’ve been running simultaneously with two current clients. One client operates in the music industry; the other is focused on quantified self and is responsible for a mind monitoring device which is worn as a headband.

We mixed up a batch of non-Newtonian fluid (cornstarch and water) and laid it on a plastic sheet over a speaker. We then used the mind monitoring software to create sound based on our level of focus. The video explains it best.

The thinking behind the idea was to take the inherent structural nature of the existing IDEO logo, and dematerialize it into something more organic. The experiment became a physical metaphor of intent over presence and an illustration of how, when we combine learning resources from two completely different projects, we can create new and interesting solutions.

Fran Barros deconstructed the letters that make up the IDEO logo into the unique symbols that represent each one. Meanwhile, José explored how light would interact with those symbols in a three dimensional space.

Check out Boston’s concepts on our Six Themes Tumblr site.

Brand New IDEO centers on a 24-hour global Make-a-Thon taking place on Monday, March 25th in IDEO’s eleven offices around the world, starting in Tokyo and ending in San Francisco.

Brand New IDEO:
» Preview with Michael Hendrix and Paul Bennett in Conversation
» Opening Remarks by Michael Hendrix
» Tokyo: Robots, Cherry Blossoms & Bento Boxes
» Singapore: Origami & Experiments with 3D
» Mumbai: Minimum Viable Logo & Windows on the World
» Shanghai: Morning Exercise, Jump Rope and Calligraphy
» Munich: Personalize, Simply and Move
» London: The Grid Grows
» Boston: Crafting and Prototyping with Wood, Dye & Cornstarch
» New York: Exploring Music, Verbs and Cubes
» Chicago: Sketching Sine Waves to R&B
» San Francisco Bay: Build to Think, Dive Into Abstraction, and Embrace the Infinite Grid

(more…)

On Monday, IDEO Munich took the Global Make-a-Thon baton and made a video to convey several early concepts.

Three early concept themes in Munich:

1.) Simplification: How might we reduce the IDEO brand to its essence? What would our logo look like in one of these iPhone logo quizzes? This concept concentrates not on the squares but on the spaces between them, the “glue” between the elements, the “in-between” or the “plus” of IDEO. Because this is what IDEO is about: the multitude of disciplines united under one roof, the T-shapedness of our people, and the positive “plus” our work delivers to clients.

2.) Moving Cube: This idea is based on the logo being a solid block of cubes, moving up and down or rotating like a Rubik’s cube. It constantly changes and adapts. The moving boxes that only slide in one direction cast shadows of different lengths… these very characteristic 45 degree blocks can be used as key visual throughout the brand design.

3.) Personalize Before Giving: The grid system and the interplay of parts build a strong commonality with the use of Type and its spacing. Using natural unfinished papers with a subtle texture, the IDEO logo can be either stamped with a black foil or left blank to remove the texture of the paper and leave a perfectly smooth finish.

Check out Munich’s concepts on our Six Themes Tumblr site.

Brand New IDEO centers on a 24-hour global Make-a-Thon taking place on Monday, March 25th in IDEO’s eleven offices around the world, starting in Tokyo and ending in San Francisco.

Brand New IDEO:
» Preview with Michael Hendrix and Paul Bennett in Conversation
» Opening Remarks by Michael Hendrix
» Tokyo: Robots, Cherry Blossoms & Bento Boxes
» Singapore: Origami & Experiments with 3D
» Mumbai: Minimum Viable Logo & Windows on the World
» Shanghai: Morning Exercise, Jump Rope and Calligraphy
» Munich: Personalize, Simply and Move
» London: The Grid Grows
» Boston: Crafting and Prototyping with Wood, Dye & Cornstarch
» New York: Exploring Music, Verbs and Cubes
» Chicago: Sketching Sine Waves to R&B
» San Francisco Bay: Build to Think, Dive Into Abstraction, and Embrace the Infinite Grid

(more…)

On Monday, IDEO Mumbai started the day with a video Global Make-a-Thon baton handoff from Singapore (pictured above), in which the latter team shared the work that happened in both the Singapore and Tokyo studios while we were asleep. Their sessions resonated with our own initial thinking and we were able to continue working on themes around physicalizing the logo and understanding what local means.

We were very interested in the idea of a “minimal viable IDEO logo”—is it the four boxes or the typographical treatment or the placement that gives the IDEO logo strength? We considered how we might use the logo as a framework for showcasing Mumbai. We also thought about ways to showcase the connections we have to colleagues in other locations around the world and how we learn from each other. Our early concepts included:

1.) Alternate History: We wanted to celebrate all the local languages in India—and our studio—by replacing the “I” with individuals speaking their mother tongue and welcoming everyone to IDEO. We took a page from the Smothers Brothers and the IDEO Toy Lab by prototyping a life-size IDEO logo with the “I” cut out, showing people and local examples of design. Our video features Divya Viswanathan (Hindi), Riddhima Gupta (Punjabi), Lacquer toys from Chennapatna, Tarun Rawat (Hindi), George Joseph (English), Goutam Pal (Bengali) and Presswallah’s coal iron.

2.) Windows on the World: Building on the Singapore studio’s notion of “Windows on the World,” George Joseph and Priti Rao used the “O” in IDEO as a window to photos from Mumbai and other IDEO locations. George prototyped with a print out of the logo, taped it to his screen, and used Keynote to animate photos from Mumbai, Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai.

3.) IDEO CUBE: Gaurav Raut has been working on a three-dimensional IDEO cube driven by Servos and Arduino. He used the analogy of the shifting faces of a Rubik’s cube to communicate how diversity can coexist within the same space. He did this by distorting the IDEO logo and helping it interact with other elements of the cube before returning back to its original position.

4.) Geographic Inspiration Boxes – Divya Viswanathan and Randy Plemel explored how to show all of the IDEO locations at the same time through local photos, portraits, and our logo. Using the horizontal version of the logo, we created multiple boxes that cycle through different permutations of the logo, map locations and local photos at each office.

Tarun Rawat summed up IDEO Mumbai’s role in the Global Make-a-Thon: “Much of what we explored illustrated the connections between different IDEO locations through places, images, and people.” Randy Plemel concurred, noting, “While there is a shared concept of IDEO which spans geographies, we are always on the lookout for what is unique to IDEO Mumbai. We are always looking for what India can teach us, and then what India can teach IDEO.”

Check out Mumbai’s concepts on our Six Themes Tumblr site and their video summary above.

Brand New IDEO centers on a 24-hour global Make-a-Thon taking place on Monday, March 25th in IDEO’s eleven offices around the world, starting in Tokyo and ending in San Francisco.

Brand New IDEO:
» Preview with Michael Hendrix and Paul Bennett in Conversation
» Opening Remarks by Michael Hendrix
» Tokyo: Robots, Cherry Blossoms & Bento Boxes
» Singapore: Origami & Experiments with 3D
» Mumbai: Minimum Viable Logo & Windows on the World
» Shanghai: Morning Exercise, Jump Rope and Calligraphy
» Munich: Personalize, Simply and Move
» London: The Grid Grows
» Boston: Crafting and Prototyping with Wood, Dye & Cornstarch
» New York: Exploring Music, Verbs and Cubes
» Chicago: Sketching Sine Waves to R&B
» San Francisco Bay: Build to Think, Dive Into Abstraction, and Embrace the Infinite Grid

(more…)

UPDATE: Check out the video after the jump!

Times are local to location.

7:35 a.m. – The IDEO Tokyo Team (Sungene Ryang, Davide Agnelli, Mike Peng, Kenichi Nonomura, Seisho Sumida, Evin Dempsey, Mai Yamada, Yoo Kyoung Noh) begins to slowly trickle into the office. Physically present, but mentally still waking up, the team is greeted with a selection of breads and a jug of coffee to stimulate the brain.

8:02 a.m. – The Global Make-a-Thon officially begins! The design teams are split into two groups of four, each balanced with members from different design disciplines and backgrounds. Mike begins the session with a short introduction of our collective challenge and reviews the six themes that the rest of IDEO has been thinking about.

8:10 a.m. – The brainstorming begins! Lots of chatter from all corners of the office. A big emerging theme seems to be about making the IDEO identity culturally relevant to the geographical location of the office. Lots of ideas around bringing in Japanese inspiration: Robots. Cherry blossoms. Seasons. Bento boxes. Zen. More ideas are drafted on Post-It notes. Sharpie sketches begin flying off desks and onto foam core boards.

8:26 a.m. – Crossing over to digital: Computers begin to open. People are bringing up inspirational videos to share with the larger group. One around Windows of NYC. Another one around beautiful clock and weather apps. Others look back to the Tumblr site to see what else has been submitted. Big ideas begin to form and passion is heating up.

8:45 a.m. – With brainstorming time winding down, the team begins to gravitate across a few ideas. Should we keep these ideas apart? Or should we combine them? Which ideas feel scalable across different offices? Which ones are we just excited and passionate about? The infamous IDEO “voting dots” are passed around the table. Each person gets a couple of stickers and places them on the ideas they want to take forward.

(more…)