It took a bit longer than he planned, but Dave finally escaped from Los Angeles and made it to San Francisco in time to speak with the designers behind the future of cool. Keep up-to-date with all of the adventures on Route 77 by following @DaveSeliger on Twitter!
Day 17
With so much amazing design and technology happening in San Francisco, it was extremely hard to choose whom I wanted to visit in the area. I eventually settled on two design consultancies who moonlight as entrepreneurs, but who combine design with cutting-edge technology to bring extremely innovative and disruptive products to market. First up I sat down with Charlie Stabb from the new Bay Area branch of Artefact, with Adriana Gil Miner and Robert Murdock (the new studio lead for the San Francisco office, formerly of Method) video-conferencing-in from Seattle.
Artefact’s Robert Murdock, Adriana Gil Miner, and Charlie Stabb
When I first heard about Artefact, the firm’s name struck me right away as something different. Although many design firms improve on poor products while trying to create better user experiences, I still believe any firm making products is, in the end, adding to the giant pool of stuff that our world is made up of. Choosing a play on the word “artifact” as the firm’s name suggests creating products that embody longevity and are not simply meant to be replaced a few years down the road. What happened to heirlooms or products that have such value that they are passed down from generation to generation?
Artefact defines their firm’s mission as the Principles of 21st Century Design. These include some rather unexpected values, like dignity, liberty, and well-being. Yet the most surprising value, and one I was pleased to see, was timelessness. “It’s not about designing a new version of a car each year,” said Gil Miner, “but establishing a new model of interaction that changes the market entirely.” Gil Miner went on to elaborate that timelessness in modern design could mean developing a robust technology platform and hardware that could support future iterations of software; for example, a single iPhone that supports multiple future versions of iOS. In this way, Artefact can create timeless products that stay up-to-date with revisions. “That’s the beauty of matching software and hardware,” said Gil Miner.
Although Artefact has a vast portfolio of great product consultancy work, it is their growing entrepreneurial side that really defines the firm. “Consultancy allows you to work very closely with a company,” said Gil Miner. “Incubation allows you to take these experiences and learn from them, but then also feed your entrepreneurial experiences back into consultancy.” Artefact has a range of concepts in various stages of development. Ideas like Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lense (WVIL) and See What You Print (SWYP) take technology and design to the next level, but are currently in the proof-of-concept stage.
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